Obituary of Nathan Grantham, Sr., Henry, Alabama

http://files.usgwarchives.org/al/henry/obits/ngrantham.txt
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This file was contributed and copyrighted by:
Janice Buchanan
<grantttham@aol.com>
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March 1999


GRANTHAM, Nathan Sr. OBITUARY
His obituary was published in the Southern Christian Advocate, A Methodist
Publication.  Was a circuit Rider preacher.

Brief memoir of Rev Nathan Grantham

  Died at his residence in Henry County, Ala. on the 6th of May, 1839, the
Rev. Nathan Grantham, aged 87 years, 11 months, and 8 days.
   Father Grantham, (for so he was empahatically called by all who knew him)
was among the first of his countrymen who enliste under the banner of American
liberty, and he was amont the first of that class of Christian who "bore the
burden and heat of the day" which marked the early history of American
Methodism.  Shortly after the revolution, in which he acted the part of a
faithful soldier and for which he received the boon of  his country in his
declining years, he enlisted under the peaceful banner of the cross, and
thenceforth to the hour of his death, ""endured hardness as a good soldier of
the Lord Jesus Christ."
   North-Carolina (should be South-Carolina) gave him birth---there, under the
ministry of that dear departed man of God Henry Willis, he embraced religion,
and there he was licensed to preach the Gospel as a local preacher of the
Methidist E. Church.  His talents were not of a high order, but in patience,
meekness, zeal, and piety of the deepest grade, he was truly an example to the
most eminent of his fellow labourers.  His occupation through life was that of
a schoolmaster for which the happy temperament of his mind was peculiarly
adapted, few have taught so many children of the poor to read the Bible, and
few indeed have inspired so many youthful mind with a reverence for its Holy
precepts.  Nor did his labour of love cease with the weekly exercises of his
school.  For no eartly compensation whatever, his holy days were consecrated
to the services of the sanctuary, while the ardor of his zeal kept him moving
in the sphere of a pioneer of the cross, from his native state of South-
Carolina---thence to the frontiers of Georgia-- and ultimately to the wilds of
Alabama.  Thus more than 50 years of his life were spent in a manner not
conducive to his temporal prosperity: an object which he was every ready to
sacrifice for the good souls.
_______
Submitted by:
Janice Buchanan
grantttham@aol.com