Manuscript Deposition Concerning the Financial Ruin of Rev. John Barnett, an Early Organizer of Cumberland College, with Questions about His Ownership and Sale of Enslaved People

John Barnett was a farmer and one of the early Cumberland Presbyterian ministers of western Kentucky, ordained in 1815 and closely associated with the Bethlehem and Piney Fork congregations. His biographer remembered him working in the fields all day, then riding several miles to preach in a neighbor's house late into the evening. His involvement with Cumberland College would eventually cost him his prosperity.[1] The present deposition looks back to his circumstances around 1839, asking whether he still owned enslaved people or had sold them before leaving Caldwell County. Cumberland College opened at Princeton in 1826 as the denomination's first college, initially receiving six students in a large log building. It was an ambitious experiment in inexpensive education: students combined their studies with work on the college farm, helping support the institution while preparing themselves for the physical demands of frontier ministry. The scheme depended on modest fees, agricultural income, and promised donations, but the farm, equipment, and buildings had been acquired on credit, and much of the pledged support never arrived. Barnett had helped establish the college and initially supervised its farm and boardinghouse. In 1831, with the institution heavily indebted, he and fellow minister Aaron Shelby undertook to keep it operating, assuming responsibility for its expenses and debts. The arrangement proved disastrous. Shelby withdrew, his replacement died, and recurring epidemics disrupted the school. Promised financial assistance went unpaid, while complaints mounted over the students' food and labor requirements. By 1836 Barnett declared himself unable to fulfill his commitments; the following year he surrendered his interest to a newly formed association. Barnett died in February 1853, several months before this testimony was collected. Asked to recall the minister's circumstances near the end of the 1830s, the deponent Dr. McNary was questioned specifically about the relationship between his impoverishment and the possible sale of enslaved people: "Please state whether you was acquainted with Rev'd John Burnett about the year 1839; if so, what was his pecuniary circumstances, did he own in the latter part of that year any Slaves, had he or not disposed of all his slaves before that time, was he or not regarded as wholly insolvent about the time he moved from Caldwell County. State about the time he moved from Caldwell." McNary's answer is brief, confirming Barnett's financial reputation but leaving the questions about slave ownership and sales unanswered: "I knew him well but can't state precisely the time he left this county, nor do I know about his having slaves when he left or his having sold them before he left. He was regarded as entirely insolvent, and further he says not." The deposition was certified by Caldwell County examiner J. R. McGoodwin and sent from Princeton to the Henderson Circuit Court, where it was filed on October 31. Its assessment of Barnett's circumstances accords with the recollections of Richard Beard, who had known him during the college's troubled early years. Defending Barnett against accusations of dishonesty, Beard recalled that he had entered the undertaking a prosperous man, but left the college destitute and never recovered.[1] [1] Richard Beard, Brief Biographical Sketches of Some of the Early Ministers of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (Cumberland Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1874), 186-197. . Old folds, toning, and scattered staining. Manuscript in ink, with examiner?s certification, address panel, and filing endorsements. Blue Princeton postmark dated October 20 and manuscript postal markings. 2 pp., 7 x 11 ½ inches.…