Accept Dow's Challenge

One of the oddest events in Georgia history arose from the ministry of a man who took scripture literally. It is the well-documented story of Lorenzo Dow and the town of Jacksonborough.

Jacksonborough was founded in 1797, taking its name from the then Governor of Georgia James Jackson. Jackson was a hard-fighting man who fought 23 duels in his lifetime and the town lived up to Jackson’s reputation. By 1820, the time of our story, Jacksonborough had a rough and rowdy reputation.

The book Statistics of the State of Georgia, published in 1849, described Jacksonborough as a place known for its hard drinking and hard fighting residents. The book says, “that in the morning after drunken frolics and fights you could see children picking up eyeballs with tea saucers.”

Lorenzo Dow was an itinerant Methodist preacher of some renowned. The 43-year old was a renowned minister who had preached to the Georgia General Assembly at their request. Elsewhere in the state, he gathered crowds as large as 5,000 people to hear the Gospel. Or perhaps they just came to see Dow himself. The tall, slightly humpbacked preacher had long hair and a beard that caused him to stand out. He often referred to himself as “Crazy Dow.” His chosen method of evangelism was to go into a town, hand out handbills, gather a crowd and preach for a night or two before moving on.

When the Methodist preacher showed up in Jacksonborough, the rowdies in the town were pretty sure they didn’t want his tea-totalin’ ways taking root in the town. The local Methodist Church offered Dow its pulpit for the night. While a crowd gathered at the church to hear Dow, a second crowd gathered at a whiskey store. Soon after Lorenzo Dow launched into his fire and brimstone sermon, a group stormed up to the church and broke up the meeting by pelting the preacher with rotten eggs.

The congregation dispersed in fear of the fight sure to follow. Though covered with the stink of rotten eggs, Dow was unbowed. The evangelist followed the angry mob back to the whiskey store where he took up a fireplace tool and broke open a barrel of whiskey, dumping its contents across the floor.

Anger flashed through the crowd, whose next item of business was to find an appropriate tree from which to hang Dow. That’s when Seaborn Goodall broke in through the crowd. The Methodist church goer persuaded the mob to hand Dow over for the night on the mob’s contention that Dow leave Jacksonborough in the morning.

The rowdies stayed up drinking through the night. By morning the unappeased and well-pickled mob gathered at the Goodall home with a supply of eggs and tomatoes. Dow walked out of town in a barrage of produce. When Lorenzo Dow got to the edge of town at the Beaver Dam Creek Bridge, he stopped. Taking the words of the Gospel quite literally, the preacher took of his shoes and shook the dust of Jacksonborough from his feet. The mob listened as Crazy Dow cursed all of Jacksonborough save the Seaborn Goodall home where he had been offered peace.

Jacksonborough was a thriving county seat town that wasn’t going anywhere. The men of the mob had a good hard laugh at the evangelist. However, it was Dow who got the last laugh. Within a generation, Jacksonborough was no more. The town got such a bad reputation that the county seat was moved to Sylvania.

Within 30 years of Dow’s visit, the only home left standing in Jacksonborough, Georgia was the Goodall home. I have seen the house for myself. The white clapboard house sits alone on a dirt road. The ruined foundations of Jacksonborough dot the woods around Seaborn Goodall’s house to this day.

What an amazing thought. Lorenzo Dow preached the Gospel with vigor and lived the story as if it were true. Dow shook off the dust of Jacksonborough and history was changed.

Dow followed Jesus’ advice on how to handle a place that does not accept the Gospel. Crazy Dow lived as if the stories in the Bible were more than stories.

Is the Bible just a book of stories to you? It takes a step of faith to give God a try, a real try. The story of Lorenzo Dow challenges each of us to take a step of faith and see if God is not as good as God’s word.

Dow was willing to stand on the edge of Jacksonborough and stake his reputation on shaking the dust of that town off his feet. Lorenzo Dow challenges us to shake the dust off our own complacency. We can hold back on our relationship with God with neat ideas about what God can and what God cannot do. But the living God is more than you can imagine.

Take up Lorenzo Dow’s challenge to live as if the Gospel were true. Shake the dust off your ideas about who God is and what God can do.

(The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.) 

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