Barton W. Stone

Who was Barton W. Stone?

Barton Warren Stone was an important American preacher during the early 19th-century Second Great Awakening in the United States. First ordained a Presbyterian minister, he and four other ministers of the Washington Presbytery resigned after arguments about doctrine and enforcement of policy by the Kentucky Synod. This was in 1803, after Stone had helped lead the mammoth Cane Ridge, Kentucky revival of 1801, a several-day "communion season" attended by nearly 20,000 persons.

Stone and the others briefly founded the Springfield Presbytery, which they dissolved the following year, resigning from the Presbyterian Church altogether. They formed what they called the Christian church, based on scripture rather than a creed representing the opinion of man. He later became allied with Alexander Campbell, a former Presbyterian minister who was also creating an independent path, sometimes allied with Baptists, and formed the Restoration Movement. Stone's followers were first called "New Lights" and "Stoneites". Later he and Campbell tried to bring groups together that relied solely on the Scriptures. The Stone Christian Churches and Campbell Disciples of Christ developed from this movement.