ALEXANDRIA, La. (KTAL/KMSS) - A more than two-hundred-year-old tale about a circuit-riding preacher named John Shrock proves that some Americans in the Red River Valley during the early 1800s had the nasty habit of terrorizing Protestant preachers. And though this tale doesn't end well for anyone involved, the story of John Shrock's response to bullying does give modern Americans the opportunity to understand a little more about Northwest Louisiana's Protestant history. This is the controversial story of John Shrock, a Protestant preacher who basically became the Billy Jack of circuit-riders in rural NWLA after the Louisiana Purchase. Protestant circuit-riders and the Louisiana Purchase It's important to understand that the lower Red River Valley (below the Red River's sharp bend at Fulton, Arkansas) was settled thousands of years ago by Native Americans, more than 400 years ago by (Spanish and French) Catholics, and a little more than 200 years ago by Protestants who were allowed to settle in Louisiana after the land became a part of the United States. John Shrock was a South Carolinian who came to Louisiana's Red River Valley to help spread the Methodist faith in the area. He was not the first circuit-riding preacher in Louisiana, but he was undoubtedly one of the firsts. But to understand Shrock's story, we must first understand a little bit about circuit-riders. What was a circuit-rider? Baptist and Methodist circuit-riding preachers are a part of history and lore across much of America's southern coast. Circuit-riding preachers typically entered old Spanish territories just after American flags were planted. Individual circuit-riders established or tended to multiple congregations across large, rural areas. Circuit riders often pastored one congregation one Sunday and rode on horseback throughout the week until they reached another congregation just in time to preach on the following Sunday. Some early circuit riders had such widespread flocks that they spent most of their days on the saddle, not in the pulpit. Some of these horse-riding preachers traveled between two congregations, while others tended to congregations in three or more locations. Circuit-riding preachers could easily bite off more than they could chew, so to speak, when they took to Southern swamps to teach morality to settlers who had intentionally left behind society to carve out a place in the wilderness. And thus was the case with John Shrock, a former blacksmith quickly taught himself how to preach with his fists. John Shrock: Circuit-rider In the decades after the Louisiana Purchase, much of Northwest Louisiana was still swamp land, and much of those swamplands were part of the Methodist church's newly established Rapide Circuit. "Rapide" was the French term for rapids, and there were rapids in the Red River at that time. In fact, Rapides Parish in Louisiana is named after those Red River rapids, though modern locks and dams raised water levels on the river and covered the rapids in the mid-twentieth century. John Shrock was a blacksmith striker before he became a circuit rider. He didn't pick his new life path, though. His friends decided he should become a preacher. They recommended he be admitted to the South Carolina Conference, and from there, he was assigned to be a circuit rider preacher. Shrock was already a circuit rider before stepping foot in the Red River Valley. He was first admitted to the South Carolina Conference in 1811 and began traveling the Lincoln Circuit. He was transferred to the Mississippi District of the Tennessee Conference's Tombeckbee circuit in 1813. He was riding that circuit during the Chicksaw and Creek war, and he actually asked the commandant at a nearby fort to give him a gun so he could fight. Thankfully, Shrock did not have an opportunity to fight while riding the Tombeckbee Circuit--but he would have that chance soon enough. Shrock left for the newly established Rapide Circuit in the Red River Valley in 1814, where he became a circuit-riding Methodist minister. He was said to have spent much time in prayer, asking God to guide him. He also read the Bible a lot. People loved him because his prayers were warm-hearted. He was a sensitive man who was sometimes hurt when others criticized his preaching. He was worried he would never become a great pastor. Within a couple of years of riding the Rapides Circuit, his charismatic preaching had captured the attention of a group of ruffians in Alexandria. Shrock was preaching in an area of the Red River Valley where many people loathed religion. "The preachers were not only subjected to the most trying hardships in the way of long rides, ferryless and bridgeless streams, bottomless mud, and bad accommodations generally, but they were constantly exposed to the insults of rude and wicked men," wrote the Rev. John G. Jones in 1866. After Shrock arrived in the lower Red River Valley in 1814, he was told the story of Drury Powell, the pioneer preacher who had come before him and was "beset by a company of lewd fellows, who gave evidence of an intention to mob him, but who quailed away when Powell presented a bold front and said to them that 'if they were indeed a set of ruffians, and would give him a ruffian's change by attacking him one at a time, he would whip the whole of them.'" In other words, Powell was almost robbed by dudes who backed off when the preacher unexpectedly bowed up to them. Shrock took the story quite seriously, as he should have. He understood that any situation that causes a preacher to quail away a set of ruffians is far from ideal. But Drury Powell wasn't the only preacher tormented by the locals. Down near St. Martinsville, a group of men were drowning a preacher named Richmond Nolley when a woman of color suddenly appeared and attacked the villains with her hoe. She beat back them and saved the preacher's life. Shrock had ridden the Tombeckbee Circuit with Nolley. Incident at the Alexandria Courthouse Shrock was preaching in the Courthouse at Alexandria one Sunday when a group of troublemakers tried to distract him from preaching the sermon. Shrock stared directly at the men and said that if they didn't repent of their evil ways, "they would catch something hotter than boiling soap one of these days." Now there was a reason that Shrock said those particular words, but if you don't know that story then Shrock's comeback doesn't make much sense. See, Shrock's comment was related to a story that circulated in Alexandria for generations afterward. The story goes that a woman and her two daughters lived alone, and a rebel-rousing group of men who liked to pester preachers also enjoyed peeping through a little hole in the ladies' chimney to get glimpses of them. The ladies didn't much care for the peeping Toms, so they boldly threatened to throw a gourd full of hot soap into the face of the next peeper that peeped into the hole. About then, a fella wandered up. He didn't have a clue that the ladies were tired of dealing with shenanigans, so when he tried to peep through the hole, he unexpectedly got a faceful of scalding-hot soap. He was partially blinded for a while after the incident and became the laughingstock of the town, so when Shrock was preaching and said to his hecklers that "they would catch something hotter than boiling soap one of these days," he ticked off the entire group of peeping Toms. The men then "swore lustily that they would duck him in the Red River if he ever attempted to preach there again." In other words, they threatened to kill the minister if he preached in Alexandria again. The whole thing didn't sit well with Shrock, so the next time he rode up to the courthouse in Alexandria to preach a sermon, he took his horsewhip into the courthouse with him--just in case. As Shrock walked through the crowd on his way to preach, he invited the "gentlemen to come in, as it was near time for service to commence." They obliged. Shrock kept the whip near his hand, sang hymns, prayed with his eyes open, and told the congregation that "he had been informed of the threats made against him, and he was fully prepared to meet any attempt to execute them." The preacher then rolled up his sleeve and showed the congregants his arm, saying that he had been a blacksmith since he was a kid, and he knew the strength of his own arm. Shrock also pointed out that his short, thick neck "indicated a spinal column of corresponding strength." After the service ended, Shrock said he understood he probably wouldn't be allowed to preach in the courthouse anymore, but "that large cottonwood tree on the commons, near the bank of the (Red) river, would answer his purpose, and he would preach there." The congregation loved his toughness. They had witnessed preachers being bullied and were tired of it. Many congregation members became instant friends with the feisty preacher, assuring him their loyalty because of his iron-fisted actions. One man even told Shrock he could have free room and board in his home for as long as he'd like. But this isn't the end of the story. Shrock's reckoning Though it is easy to understand why Shrock would stand up for himself and others while under the threat of violence, church leaders at the next Conference in Mississippi asked Shrock to explain himself. The rumors of Shrock's toughness had made it all the way to the Bishop, and when Shrock justified his actions, Bishop Roberts looked at him and said, "Put up thy sword, Peter!" The Bishop was referring to one of Jesus' disciples, who cut off the high priest's ear when authorities came to arrest Jesus. Jesus healed the high priest's ear and told Peter to put his sword away--that those who live by the sword will die by the sword. Jesus taught his disciples to be kind to those who were cruel to them, to treat others as they wished to be treated and to love others as they loved themselves. In doing so, Jesus set the bar quite high for his followers. Summation After the Louisiana Purchase, the first Protestant minister in Louisiana was a man who was described as being Native American and Black. Protestant congregations in rural regions included people of different races. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus," states the Book of Galatians in the New Testament. But after the Civil War, segregation began to separate races that were uniting through Christianity. The economy failed. Freedmen and women began to understand that freedom is not easily defined. Violence raged across Northwest Louisiana as the horrors of the Reconstruction era broke the minds and backs of many. ‘Bloody Caddo’: Research uncovers post-Civil War racial violence Bloodshed and outrage gained control in NWLA after the Civil War. Christians of all races and denominations had to look deep within their hearts to make very personal decisions about faith. How does one turn the other cheek while being oppressed, despised, and disrespected? How do you love your enemy? Such questions lingered in the hearts and minds of many people living in Caddo Parish during Reconstruction. And that question was still lingering in the region when the Civil Rights Movement began in Northwest Louisiana. Sources: Frazier, Norma Goolsby (1995) "Circuit Riding Preachers: They Sowed the Seed," Sunland Tribune: Vol. 21, Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/sunlandtribune/vol21/iss1/6 A Concise History of the Introduction of Protestantism into Mississippi and the Southwest, by Rev. John G. Jones of the Mississippi Conference of the M. E. Church, South, 1866.