Methodist prayer services grew into camp meetings lasting several days. Thousands came to pray and sing from dawn 'til midnight. They pitched tents and filled tables with hams, biscuits, and apple pies. Organizers posted guards in a losing effort to keep out whiskey.

“A well-regulated camp meeting is one of the best institutions in the world to quicken and stir up believers and to get souls converted to God. Hallelujah, praise the Lord, I could live and die in such a place in such exercise.” —Daniel Hitt

By 1810, the population of Western Virginia approached 100,000. Increasingly, Methodist churches dotted a landscape of towns and villages. Yet much of the land remained wild and remote, its people fiercely independent.