Tidence LANE Esther BIBBINS Mini tree diagram
Tidings LANE

Tidings LANE1,2,3

31st Aug 17241,2 - 30th Jan 18061,2

Life History

31st Aug 1724

Born in Baltimore County, Maryland.1,2

9th May 1743

Married Esther BIBBINS in Frederick, Frederick, Maryland.2,5,1

12th May 1763

Birth of son Tidence LANE in Randolph County, North Carolina.4,5

20th Jun 1805

Death of Esther BIBBINS in Jefferson City, Jefferson, Tennessee.6

30th Jan 1806

Died in Whitesburg, Hamblen, Tennessee.1,2

after 30th Jan 1806

Buried in Tidence Lane Cemetery, Whitesburg, Hamblen COunty, Tennessee

Notes

  • There are variances between difference sources reporting the marriage of Tidence Lane and Esther Bibbins.  The following reports they were married in Virginia, while one or more publications reporting on Tidence says they were married in North Carolina, where Esther was born and Tidence's family had moved from Virginia.  Others report they were married in Frederick, Maryland, which is north west of Baltimore, Maryland.

    In the following collection of marriage records, Esther's name is spelled oddly and the birth year for Esther is different here, reporting 1727, while the published source below reports 1724.

    U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900
    Tidence Lane
    Gender: Male
    Birth 1724 Baltimore
    Spouse Name: Esther Bibbles
    Spouse Birth Year: 1727
    Marriage 1743 Virginia

    Most sources, including public records reports they were married in Esther's home town of Frederick, Maryland, about 90 miles west of Baltimore.  Notre that one record reports Esther's name as Hester Bibber.  Other variations of her name are VanBibber and Bibben.  The last name appears in about 6 or more variations.

    Family Data Collection - Individual Records
    Tidence Lane
    Parents: Richard Lane, Sarah Fuller
    Birth 31 Aug 1724 Baltimore, MD
    Spouse: Hester Bibber
    Marriage 9 May 1743 Frederick, MD
    Death 30 Jan 1806 Jefferson, TN

    This collection reports his place of death as Jefferson County, Tennessee.  One source discussing his grave monument also gives the location as Jefferson County, Tennessee.  But other sources report with his memorial on Find a Grave reports that he died and is buried near what became the current Whitesburg, in Hamblen County, Tennessee.  Those sources that report the town in Jefferson County have it was Whitesboro.  This may be due to a confusion of the name Whitesboro with Whitesburg (which means the same thing) in Hamblen County.

    Tidings/Tidence's grave displays a monument erected to him in 1946 by the Baptists of Tennessee, honoring him with establishing the first church of any kind in what became the state of Tennessee.  The monument does not have the place of birth or death, but does have the full date of both.  Some sources even report this monument and the Tidence Lane Cemetery as located in Jefferson County, but it seems it is in Hamblen County, Tennessee, near Whitesburg.

    Some sources even report this monument and the Tidence Lane Cemetery as located in Jefferson County, but it seems it is in Hamblen County, Tennessee, near Whitesburg.  Whitesburg, in Hamblen County, is just a few miles down the road from Jefferson City, in Jefferson County, which probably accounts finally for the reference to Jefferson City as the place of death, and by some the place of burial.  I have found nothing definitive, however, to determine the place of death.  He likely died at home.  The cemetery is rural, but close to Whitesburg.  The address of the Lane Cemetery is Whitesburg.

    Gravestone of Tidence Lane, Tidence Lane Cemetery, Hamblen County, Tennessee
    August 31, 1724  --  January 30, 1806
    "A pioneer Baptist preacher Tidence Lane organized and became the first pastor of the Buffalo Ridge Baptist Church in 1779.  This church is in Washington County and is recognized as the first church of any denomination established in what is now the state of Tennessee.  He served faithfully many other Baptist Churches in East Tennessee.  This monument erected by Tennessee Baptist in 1946"

    The following short description of the Lane Cemetery reports Tidence and Esther married in Randolph County, North Carolina.

    "Only two to four graves in the cemetery surrounded by an iron fence and located in a pasture off Whitesburg Pike road (TN113). Nearby parking is limited as the road does not have a shoulder.  Tidence Lane, Sr. was born near Baltimore, MD on August 31st, 1724. He married Esther in May 1743 in Randolph County, NC, where had also been converted to the Baptist religion with the Sandy Creek Baptist Church Circuit. In 1779, Tidence founded Buffalo Ridge Church in Boone's Creek area of Washington County, TN, which is the oldest church in the state of Tennessee.  Aquilla Lane was a private in Colonel Israel Shelby's regiment and part of the Overmountain men who accompanied Col. John Sevier to the Battle of King's Mountain during the Revolutionary War."
    --  "Lane Cemetery - Whitesburg, TN," Worldwide Cemeteries, http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM7QTD_Lane_Cemetery_Whitesburg_TN

    J J Burnett's history prides a long summary of Rev Tidence Lane's life and work.

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    TIDENCE LANE
    "FIRST MINISTER TO PREACH REGULARLY TO A TENNESSEE CONGREGATION"

    From Burnett, J .J.  Sketches of Tennessee's Pioneer Baptist Preachers.  Nashville, Tenn.:  Press of Marshall & Bruce Company, 1919.  (pages 318 - 322)

    Tidence Lane, son of Richard and Sarah Lane, was born in Maryland, near Baltimore, August 31, 1724. He was a grandson of Dutton Lane and Pretitia Tidings, and a great-grandson of Major Samuel Lane, an officer in the King's service in the Province of Maryland, in 1680.

    He was an older brother of Dutton Lane, a "pioneer" preacher in Virginia, whom both Semple and Taylor mention in their respective histories of Virginia Baptists and Baptist ministers as a minister of "prominence" and "influence."

    He was the honored father of Lieut. Isaac Lane, who, under Colonel Sevier, performed patriotic service at the battle of King's Mountain, October 7, 1780; who also, in 1802, "gave the land on which was built the meetinghouse of the first Baptist church organized," it is claimed, "in Claiborne County," Tenn., the church at Big Spring (now Springdale).

    The register of St. Paul's Parish shows that Tidence Lane was christened "Tidings," from which it would seem that it was his father's intention that his son should be the namesake of his paternal grandmother, whose maiden name was Pretitia Tidings. But later generations of the Lanes have thought Tidence the preferable name, and have adhered to this spelling and pronunciation.

    In early colonial times the parents of Tidence Lane moved from their native state of Maryland to Virginia and thence to North Carolina, where young Lane grew to manhood, and where he married Esther Bibbin (or Bibber), May 9, 1743. To this union were born nine children, seven sons and two daughters.

    About this time, perhaps a little earlier, young Lane was convicted and converted in a most remarkable way, under the ministry of Shubael Stearns, who had been "itinerating" extensively in Virginia and North Carolina, and preaching with wonderful success.

    Morgan Edwards describes him as a "marvelous preacher for moving the emotions and melting his audience to tears. Most exciting stories were told about the piercing glance of his eye and the melting tones of his voice, while his appearance was that of a patriarch."

    Young Lane had the most "hateful feelings toward the Baptists," as he confessed, but "curiosity" led him to make a horseback trip of some forty miles to see and hear the famous preacher, with the following result, in Elder Lane's own words, "When the fame of Mr. Stearns' preaching reached the Yadkin, where I lived, I felt a curiosity to go and hear him. Upon my arrival I saw a venerable old man sitting under a peach tree with a book in his hand and the people gathering about him.

    "He fixed his eyes upon me immediately, which made me feel in such a manner as I had never felt before. I turned to quit the place, but could not proceed far. I walked about, Sometimes catching his eyes as I walked. My uneasiness increased and became intolerable. I went up to him, thinking that a salutation and shaking of hands would relieve me, but it happened otherwise.

    "I began to think he had an evil eye and ought to be shunned, but shunning him I could no more effect than a bird can shun the rattlesnake when it fixes its eyes upon it. When he began to preach my perturbations increased, so that nature could no longer support them, and I sank to the ground." (Morgan Edwards' unpublished manuscript.)

    In regard to his call and ordination to the ministry I have no definite information. We find him, however, "among the first Baptists" to set foot on Tennessee soil.

    He has the distinction of being "the first pastor of the first permanent church organization" of any denomination in the state of Tennessee, Buffalo Ridge, in Washington County, constituted in 1779. Under this date Ramsay says.: "Tidence Lane, a Baptist preacher, organized a congregation this year. A house for public worship was erected on Buffalo Ridge." (Annals of Tennessee, p. 180.)

    The Nashville American (Sunday issue, May 16, 1897), among the one hundred "prize questions" submitted to its readers, had this: "Who was the first minister who preached regularly to a Tennessee congregation?" And the prize-taking answer was: "Tidence Lane, pastor Buffalo Ridge, 1779."

    The Presbyterians generously and frankly concede to the Baptists this priority of date in church building, claiming 1782 as the date of their first church organization, viz., that of New Bethel Church in the forks of the Holston and Watauga rivers. (Pioneer Presbyterianism in Tennessee.)

    Benedict (General History: Baptists) places the date of Baptist beginnings in the state "about the year 1780." Ramsay's date is 1779.

    While Benedict was a painstaking and thoroughly reliable historian in matters of vital importance and while he visited in person (in 1810) the historic grounds of our Baptist people throughout the country, and had, therefore, opportunity to investigate their claims and traditions, nevertheless, Ramsay, in my opinion, would likely be more accurate in a matter of date, being in easy reach of all the sources of information, having access to all the records in the state, public and private, and having, as he did, a smaller field for study, less subject matter to investigate, more written documents to refer to, and a later date, with its better opportunities for historical research, than his predecessor had or could have at his early day.

    Under date as above (1780) Benedict mentions by came eight Baptist ministers, who moved thus early into "the Holston country," all of them Virginians, "except Mr. Lane, who was from North Carolina.

    They were accompanied by a considerable number of their brethren from the churches which they left. Among the other emigrants there was a small body, which went out in something like a church capacity.

    They removed from an old church at Sandy Creek in North Carolina, which was platted by Shubael Stearns, and as a branch of the mother church they emigrated to the wilderness and settled on Boone's Creek (then in North Carolina, now in Tennessee). The church is now called Buffalo Ridge."

    Tidence Lane, as above stated,was its first pastor. With respect to our tradition that Buffalo Ridge came out from Sandy Creek Church (North Carolina) in an organized capacity and established itself in its new home as an "arm" of the mother church, with Tidence Lane as pastor, it may be said that Benedict in 1810 visited both these churches, mother and daughter, and made the record above given.

    Whether the record was made on the evidence of written documents or of verbal tradition, it is impossible at this distance to say; if the latter, the age of the record and the matter-of-fact way in which it is made, stamps, it seems to me, the tradition as history.

    Tidence Lane has also the distinction of being "the first Moderator" of the first association of any denomination in the state, the old Holston, organized at "Cherokee meeting-house," in Washington County, on Saturday before the fourth Sunday in October, 1786, ten years before Tennessee was admitted into the Union.

    After a sojourn in 'the "Holston country" for some four or five years Elder Lane pushed on toward the west into what is now Hamblen County, making a location on Bent Creek, near the present town of Whitesburg. Here he and Elder William Murphy constituted the Bent Creek (now the Whitesburg) Church, "June, the second Sunday, 1785,"

    Elder Lane becoming pastor of the church and continuing pastor as long as he lived, some twenty-one years. At the organization of the Holston Association (1786) Bent Creek Church was represented by Tidence Lane, Isaac Barton and Francis Hamilton. Tidence Lane was chosen Moderator, and was elected to the same position in May and October of the following year.

    Tidence Lane was active in the ministry, had good organizing and good preaching ability. To use Benedict's language, he was a preacher "of reputation and success." He was much sought in counsel by the churches. He was not so hard in doctrine as some of his brethren, his doctrinal belief being a modified Calvanism.

    The writer has been searching for Tidence Lane's Bible, which he willed to his son Isaac, but it seems to have been lost or destroyed; its successor, however, to which has been transferred some of the entries, doubtless, of the old Bible, has been in the Lane family for more than. a hundred years.

    It gives the dates of the birth, marriage and death, of Tidence Lane, Sr., the subject of our sketch. The book is now in possession of Mrs. Crocket Williams, of Morristown, a descendant of Tidence Lane, Sr., about five generations removed, and has been handed down to the youngest child of each succeeding generation since 1812.

    According to this record Tidence Lane and Esther Bibbin (or Bibber, possibly a contraction of Van Gibber) were married May 9, 1743. To this union were born nine children, seven sons and two daughters. Elder T.J. Lane, for fifty-four years a member of the Bent Creek (Whitesburg) Church and forty years a Baptist minister, was a grandson of Elder Tidence Lane.

    Mrs. S. B. Allen, of Williamsburg, Va.; Mr. R. A. Atkinson, of Baltimore, Md., and Mr. H. E. Lane, of Whitesburg, Tenn., all of whom have been interested in furnishing materials for this sketch, are direct descendants of Tidence Lane, of the fifth and sixth generations.

    Beside these are many others of his kith and kin scattered throughout Tennessee and elsewhere, who are justly "proud of their ancestor."

    Having set his house in order and made his will, "the second day of July, 1805," Tidence Lane passed to his reward January 30, 1806.

    NOTE. Some years ago, on the farm of Brother George Smith, on Bent Creek, one mile from Whitesburg, the writer was shown a large elm tree, one hundred feet tall, perhaps, and with branches reaching full fifty feet in all directions, under whose shade, more than a century and a quarter ago, tradition says, "Tidence Lane and Isaac Barton preached to the people."
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    Will of Tidence Lane, b. 1724

    WAS CHRISTENED AS "TIDINGS” PARISH BOOK, St. Paul's Parish, Vol 59 Pg 39
    ESTABLISHED FIRST PERMANENT BAPTIST CH IN TENN AT BUFFALO RIDGE WASHINGTON CO IN 1779

    [Rev. Tidence LANE b 31 AUG 1724 in Baltimore, Maryland
    Wife: Esther BIBBIN b 1727 Died in Whitesboro, Jefferson, Tennessee, USA 01-30-1806]

    CONGRESS # 68-24685CO TENN

    CHILDREN--John, Sarah, Acquilla, Richard, Senea, Tidence, Dutton, Samuel,

    (As per will)

    [?] body, but sound in mind, thanks be to God: Calling to mind the uncertain  state of this transitory life and that flesh must yield to death when it shall please God to call, do make, constitute, ordain and declare this my last will and testament in manner and form following, revoking and disannulling by these presents all wills heretofore by me made and declared either by word or writing and this is to be taken only for my last will and testament and none other.

    And first, being sorry for my sins past, do most humbly desire forgiveness for the same. I give and commit my soul unto God my Saviour and Redeemer, in whom and by the merits of Christ Jesus I trust and hope to be saved and to have full remission of all my sins and that my soul with my body at a general day of the resurrection shall rise again with Joy and through the merits of Christ's death and passion, possess and inherit the kingdom of heaven prepared for his elect and chosen: and my body to be laid in such a place where it shall please my Executor hereafter name to appoint.

    And now for the settling of my temporal estate and such goods, chartels and debts as it hath pleased God far above my deserts to bestow on me. I do order, give and dispose the same in manner and form following, viz.,

    First I will that all my debts and dues I owe in right or conscience to any person whatever shall well and truly be paid, or ordered within convenient time after my decease by my Executor hereafter named.

    Item I give and bequeath to my son John one Book entitled Boston's Fourfold State.

    Item I give and bequeath to my daughter Sarah [Tidence Jr‘s twin, married Thomas Horner], one calico habit, a petticoat, apron, handkerchief and cap.

    Item I give and bequeath to my son Acquilla one cow, two sheep, two Books, one entitled, "every man his own lawyer" the other "the Baptist confession of faith."

    Item I give and bequest to my son Richard one cow, and calf, two sheep, my big plough and one hoe.

    Item I give and bequeath to my daughter Senea one striped habit, a skirt, apron, handkerchief, cap, necklace and hurssa.

    Item I give and bequeath to my son Tidence one spotted cow and one steer, two sheep, my old Bible and testament.

    Item I give and bequeath to my son Tidence's wife Mary (Cude), one feather bed, and two sheets.

    Item I give and bequeath to my son Dutton one black three-year-old steer and a Book, Willson on the Sacraments.

    Item I give and bequeath to my son Samuel all my land where on I now live and also my Negro Man Jack and my two horses and two featherbeds and furniture and my hogs, together with all the rest of my household furniture and utensils and all my iron tools of every kind not heretofore mentioned.

    See this my last will and testament executed. In Testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal.

    Tidence Lane
    [witnesses]
    Horner. [William Horner?]
    BURNETT

    [Appended by a genealogist who posted the will transcription]

    Tidence Lane Jr.
    Marriage Mary CUDE b 24 MAR 1766 in Randolph Co, North Carolina
    Married 23 OCT 1783 in Randolph Co, North Carolina
    Death 25 January 1841 Jefferson Co. Tenn
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    Rev Tidence Lane
    Birth Aug. 31, 1724 Saint Pauls, Baltimore County, Maryland
    Death Jan. 30, 1806 Whitesburg, Hamblen County, Tennessee

    Rev. Tidence Lane. Son of Richard and Sarah Lane. Born 1724 in Baltimore County Maryland. Died near Bent Creek (now Whitesburg) community in what is now Hamblen County, Tennessee, January 30, 1806. Moved from Maryland, to Virginia, to North Carolina, and then on to the Watauga settlements of Tennessee. Close friend and neighbor of William Bean. Served as the first pastor of the first congregation of any denomination organized in Tennessee (Buffalo Ridge Baptist Church in Washington County). Also Organized and served as first pastor of the Bent Creek (now Whitesburg) Baptist Church in Hamblen County, Tennessee. Served as chaplain for John Sevier's "Over Mountain Boys" and fought at Kings Mountain under Sevier's command, along with several of his sons. Married Hester (or Esther) Bibber/Bibbin (Van Bibber/Van Bibbin) in 1743.

    Spouse Hester Van Bibber Lane (1727 - 1805)
    Children:
    Acquilla Van Bibber Lane (1753 - 1819)
    Isaac Lane (1760 - 1851)
    Sarah Lane Horner (1763 - 1817)

    Burial Tidence Lane Cemetery, Whitesburg, Hamblen County, Tennessee

    Created by Sue and Doug Jan 08, 2009
    --  Find A Grave Memorial #32743064, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=32743064
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Sources

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