Allen Turner Duckett: Was he named for a Methodist circuit rider?

I am nearly positive that my grandfather’s paternal grandfather Lewellen Moore Childs (1851-1915) was named for a Primitive Baptist preacher. In a surprising twist, I now believe that Orval’s maternal grandfather Allen Turner Duckett (1846-1907) was also named for a preacher, a Methodist circuit rider.

Rev. Allen Turner (1791-about 1867) preached in South Carolina, North Georgia, and probably Florida. As a Methodist circuit rider, he covered a lot of territory. (To be more precise, we would want to work with the United Methodist Archives.) The map shows (in red) places that Rev. Turner was based over the course of his 40 years in the ministry, and (in blue) Habersham County, where the Ducketts lived for most of that time.

View Georgia: Ducketts and Rev. Allen Turner in a larger map

I found several very useful resources on Google Books that helped me to pin down where Rev. Turner served, including the Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church (1773-1828), printed in 1840, and the Minutes for the Annual Conferences for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Unfortunately, Georgia’s Methodist records seem to be spottier than those for South Carolina for the time period I’m curious about. (The Georgia Conference was created from the South Carolina Conference in 1831, according to a History of Annual Conferences. Rev. Turner may have already moved to Georgia before the Georgia Conference was formed.)

The table summarizes where Rev. Turner was (and points out that Allen Turner Duckett’s family was in Habersham County, Georgia for all that time).

 + I think that the Augusta District was in Georgia. There is an Augusta United Methodist District now located in north Georgia.

Allen Turner would have needed to be near Habersham County, Georgia to influence the naming patterns of Alfred Hammel/Hamilton Duckett and his wife Melenda Brock.  Habersham County is in northeastern Georgia, on the South Carolina border and quite near North Carolina as well. Thus far, I haven’t found detailed records of his charges in Georgia, but they were in at least the same general vicinity. Methodist circuit riders’ assignments might take 5-6 weeks to cover, preaching every day (whether or not it was Sunday) and visiting every church in a charge at least once a year.

Assuming that our Allen Turner Duckett was named for the Methodist preacher, that raises the question of Why? What about Rev. Turner would cause someone to name their child for him in 1846?

As detailed below, Rev. Turner was briefly the equivalent of a District Superintendent (a “presiding elder”) in 1822 and 1823 in South Carolina, before returning to circuit riding, and saw “signal displays of divine power.” He was a missionary to slaves in Georgia in 1831-32. He is credited with encouraging the founding of Emory University. He went to the 1832 General Conference as a delegate. His churches reported members in “Society” as whites and colored. He went with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South when it split from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1846, but tried to stop the formation of the Congregational Methodist Church. And, he was quite the character, stubbornly adhering to the ‘old’ ways when younger preachers would shave their beards.

In November 1824, he reported on how things were progressing on the Enoree Circuit, Broad River District, South Carolina:

1826:

1827: (The Little River Circuit, which he served in 1826, has grown from 386/151 to 655/220.)

In 1828, he had the Warren Circuit, Augusta District, South Carolina, one of the bigger circuits, with 828 whites and 331 coloreds in Society (up from 691 and 276, respectively, the previous year).

Two reports of his time as a missionary in 1831-1832. The first is from a book (commissioned by the Methodist Episcopal Church in June 1848, and published in 1855), History of the Great Secession From the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Year 1845, Resulting in the Organization of the New Church, entitled the Methodist Episcopal Church, South:

A later book (1879) reports:

In 1834, just a couple of years after the Georgia Methodist Conference was formed, he spoke in oppostion to sending funds to Randolph-Macon, a Methodist college in Virginia, asserting that the Conference should instead form its own college. Eventually, this gave rise to Emory University, which opened in 1838.


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The Methodist Episcopal South schism in 1848 was not the only split from the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Congregational Methodists split off from The Methodist Episcopal Church between 1850-52 and Allen Turner was there. (I think, from a hurried reading, the Congregational Methodists wanted: (a) more involvement of the laity in governing the church and (b) more attention paid to the Sabbath.)

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But, not all his fights were over potential schisms in the Methodist church or education. A memorable one was about shaving. From the 1895 book, Biographic Etchings of Ministers and Laymen of the Georgia Conferences (W. J. Scott 1895), we catch a cople of glimpses of Allen Turner’s personality, as remembered nearly thirty years after his death.

This excerpt from a 1912 book on Holston Methodism* shows he certainly had a long-lasting impact, forty-five years after his death:

*Holston Methodism, as I understand it, refers today to the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church – and I think that it comprises Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia.

His nephew, also a Methodist preacher (as were, I think, three of Allen Turner’s brothers), reports (in 1918) that Allen Turner founded the first college for women in the United States.

I suspect that this refers to Allen Turner’s well-documented involvement with the genesis of Emory University. However, Wesleyan College, Macon, Georgia, chartered in 1836 and opened in 1839, claims credit for being “the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women.” It started as the Georgia Female College, originally associated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and then with the Methodist Church in 1843, when it changed names to Wesleyan Female College. It is still affiliated with the United Methodists.

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I still don’t know why (or even whether) Allen Turner Duckett was named for the preacher, but Rev. Allen Turner seems to have been a memorable character, with strong beliefs, willing to tell others where they could improve, interested in witnessing to regenerating and sanctifying grace more than focusing on the form of baptism, apparently disinterested in administration, and willing to preach the Gospel to ears of any color — not a bad person to be named for. (Except I think it’s probably OK to wear a beard or even shave on the Sabbath.)