Letter writing has gone the way of cursive penmanship, declining slowly at first but now relegated to the drawer labeled “I remember when”. Extra thoughtfulness these days amounts to a real birthday card with a personal note enclosed, rather than an e-card generated by Jacquie Lawson, etc.
And so I continue to collect postcards and letters written by turn-of-the-century Danvillians, in order to peek into the lives and concerns of those who once walked the streets of our city and county.
The letter that sparked my interest in the Tabernacle was written by Pauline (no last name), on Sept. 5, 1917. It was addressed from R.F.D. 2 (Danville) to Miss Josephine Baird, 1809 2nd Avenue, Highland Park, Richmond, VA.
“Say Josie, you just ought to be up here and go with us over to the tabernacle to hear a little boy preacher,” Pauline wrote. “He is just fine. He preaches better than anybody I have heard and he is only 9 years old. I cut his picture out of the paper and [am] sending it to you.”
Sadly, the newspaper clipping of the boy preacher was missing from the envelope. Perhaps it ended up scotch-taped to Josie’s icebox. But knowing that the Danville Public Library still maintained its microfilm collection of past newspapers, I felt confident (armed with the letter’s date) that I could find the boy’s picture.
The Boy Evangelist Charles Turner
Although I located the photograph in the August 31, 1917 edition of the Danville Register on pg. 6, which Pauline mailed to Josie, the quality of the microfilm was very poor. What follows is an article that appeared in the Alexandria (VA) Gazette on Sept. 4, 1917, page 3.
“Virginia News- Charles R. Turner, the youngest evangelist who ever visited Danville, has secured the Sam Jones tabernacle and has started a 10-day revival. Although he is only nine years of age, the youthful minister has already been ordained. He was baptized in Georgia at the age of five and expressed a desire to preach, a wish which his father humored.
The boy has been preaching since that time in different towns throughout the South. Denied the privilege of preaching in a Danville church a few nights ago by the pastor, who said that he did not feel warranted in the experiment, the tabernacle was leased. Fifteen hundred persons heard him and several were converted.”
According to the Aiken (SC) Standard on June 6, 1917, the boy preached in that city on topics ranging from the “Second Coming of Christ” to “Lust, Sin and Death.”
Charles’ father tells the tale like this to the Anderson (SC) Intelligencer, June 18, 1916…
“In an evangelist meeting I was conducting, (5-year-old) Charles got up after a few minutes and was shouting and praising God. The next day, he said God had called him to preach. The next day at 3 o’clock, he preached “God is Love.” He could not read a word up to this time. He was ordained October 20th, 1914. He is a Baptist.”
Searching for the Tabernacle
Having identified the boy preacher, the question of the tabernacle still remained. Where had it been located? Who built it? Why is it no longer there? Here’s what I found.
In August of 1888, a committee of local churchmen decided to invite Rev. Sam P. Jones to Danville to hold services. A lawyer and businessman from Georgia, Jones quit drinking and became a preacher after his father died. By 1872, he was the South’s most famous evangelist, telling congregations to “quit your meanness”.
Jones couldn’t come to Danville in August, due to a full schedule. Instead, arrangements were made for him to appear on May 12, 1889 and to speak at Farmers Warehouse, 235 North Union Street.
In 1890, Rev. Jones was invited to return to Danville because of the success of his earlier visit. And in short order, it was decided to build a “tabernacle” to house the event. A consortium of seven churches (Main Street Methodist, Mount Vernon Methodist, Calvary Methodist, First Baptist, First Presbyterian, Epiphany and Shelton Memorial) financed the construction through public subscription. The churches were to operate the tabernacle through a board of trustees.
The Tabernacle goes up
Negotiations were soon completed and J.R. Pleasants was awarded the contract to build the tabernacle. In the summer of 1890, at a cost of $4,495 for the building itself and an additional $3,500 for the land and equipment, the tabernacle formally opened, bringing in a large congregation and a dedication by the Rev. T.B. Thames of First Baptist Church.
The building stood on a North Ridge lot, opposite Spring Street. As was to be discovered many years later, building the tabernacle over the creek that ran parallel to Main and Grove streets was a bad idea. It would later play a role in the structure’s decay.
For more than 40 years, ministers from across the world came to deliver messages at the tabernacle. In Sept. 1913, British evangelist Rodney “Gipsy” Smith held a two-week revival. The event, his first in Virginia, drew congregations from 18 local churches. In 1921, Rev. Mel Trotter claimed to have saved more than 1100 souls during a revival at the tabernacle. Even former Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan delivered a message at the building. The former politician spent his last 25 years in ministry, as the most popular speaker on the Chautauqua circuit.
Finally, there was Billy Sunday. The former outfielder, who played in the National League during the 1880s, became one of the most well known evangelists of the early 20th century. According to the Danville Bee, for Sunday’s Oct. 9, 1922 sermon, “an estimated 6,000 people jammed into the tabernacle, in violation of a city ordnance against filling the aisles.”
Finally seated, the audience, 90% of which were made up of women and school children who had entered as a group, listened to Sunday’s “vim and vigor.”
In 1925, Sunday returned, under the sponsorship of the Danville Kwanis. Their goal was to raise monies to remodel and endow the children’s ward at Hilltop Sanitorium. Sunday’s lecture-sermon, entitled “The Masque Torn Off”, was an exhortation to the people to “hold fast to what is good and combat the growing tendency to worldliness.”
The end of a landmark
But nothing lasts forever. By 1930, the tabernacle had a leaking roof, rotting timbers and some unsafe floorboards. The trustees offered to sell the building to Danville for $5,000 but city council members said no.
In 1931, the trustees altered their strategy and offered the building to the highest bidder. On Sept. 19, 1931, the tabernacle was sold to Dr. S.E. Hughes for $2,450. He planned to demolish the structure and move two other buildings he owned to the site. Why? His other two buildings sat on land the city had just purchased for the new post office.
The tabernacle was demolished sometime between Oct. 6 and Oct. 14, 1931.
This article was written by David Corp and originally showed up in the Dec. 2017 edition of the Historical Society newsletter.
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