An Unsung Hero: A Biographical Sketch of Francis Dunlevy, an Early Baptist Leader in Ohio

Not every godly man will be remembered. Of course this is true because many are simply average men who serve the Lord in their day-to-day lives and not anything even coming close to a Martin Luther or a Jonathan Edwards. Thankfully none of these men are ever to be forgotten by God, a great joy to those of us who are average and less than average. But there are some men from our history who should be recovered for what they can teach us. Particularly in Baptist life there has been a resurgence of interest, and many have been working hard to uncover our roots and key figures from our past. Most of these individuals come from the New England areas, or from the Southern states (or from our English Baptist forebears), but for the Ohioan too there is a Baptist hero. It is this great early Baptist leader in Southern Ohio that serves as the subject of this article.

The great Baptist preacher, and statesman, Francis Wayland was once asked why it was that the Baptists had such success in establishing churches on the American frontier. His answer: “Because they do not ask for permission.” Wayland was noting an important feature of Baptist polity. Baptists adhere to congregational rule, which means, among other things, that no bishop or pope, or institution must give us permission to establish churches and organize congregations. While the Presbyterians and Congregationalists were back east deciding on where and how to establish churches on the expanding western frontier, the Methodists and the Baptists forged ahead to meet the religious needs of those pioneering the trail. As Americans moved west they were matched in pace by Baptists.

The early colonialists had landed on the eastern coast, settling first in Virginia and then in Massachusetts and Connecticut, but it did not take long for mild expansion to begin. Early on these moves were the result of religious conflicts within the already existing communities. The first three colonies were led by strict Presbyterians and any divergence from that system of theology was considered illegal and subversive. It was not as though they were being legalists, or even unnecessarily dogmatic. I do not want to paint a picture of vicious Presbyterianism, though in any study of Baptist life there will be some degree of this. The colonists were Puritans who had come over to America from England, fleeing religious persecution, this fact most readily recognize (and it is what makes their dogmatism so ironic). Yet they were not simply coming to set up a community of free religion, but coming to set up a “City on a hill,” which they hoped would be a beacon light to their brothers in England as to what the true church was. To this end they could not tolerate deviation. So they imprisoned, fined, and even expelled both Baptists and Quakers from their communities. The latter of these two groups established a separate colony in Western New Jersey to practice their religion in peace; following in their footsteps was the Quaker covert from England, William Penn, who established the religiously free state of Pennsylvania.

By the time of Jonathan Edwards’ death in 1759 Baptists had already had a rich history in the U.S. They had been bold defenders of the “purest faith,” and had suffered for the faithful obedience to God’s word. Both Quakers and Baptists received harsh persecution from the rest of the colonialists, though not all. In 1651 Obadiah Holmes and John Clarke were arrested and severely beaten for simply being Baptists in Massachusetts. It was a rich history indeed. Baptist separatism in America life begins with a man by the name of Roger Williams. It was in the late 1630s when Williams, after enduring the hardships of persecution himself, left the Puritan colonies and moved North to establish the town of Providence, Rhode Island, so named because he believed God had providentially led him there. Historian Justo L. Gonzalez speaks plainly about Baptist growth in early America:

The Baptist movement spread throughout the colonies, even though its followers were persecuted in several of them. Entire congregations were expelled from Massachusetts. This did not suffice to stop the supposed contagion, which reached some of the most prestigious members of that society- including the president of Harvard. Slowly, as religious tolerance became more common, Baptist groups surfaced in every colony.[1]

As Baptists moved across the nation they eventually found their way to Ohio; in fact, Ohio was settled long before the major movement of expansion westward, in 1788 near Marietta. Two main groups furthered the Ohio settling: 1) The Welsh, and 2) the German. The former was owing most likely to the work of Baptist minister Morgan John Rhys. Rhys was a Welshman who in 1794, after establishing a “Beulah Land” in Ebensburgh in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, set up sister colonies in Central and Southwestern Ohio. It was led, in the late 18th century, by Ezekiel Hughes and Edward Bebb, and founded near the newly formed town of Cincinnati. Many of its members eventually continued the westward progression and settled in the fertile Miami Valley.[2] It was in this area of the Miami Valley that we come upon our subject.

Francis Dunlevy had come to Ohio in 1792, around the same time as the Welsh settlers from Pennsylvania. He was not Welsh, however. His ancestors were Spanish Protestants who fled to France during the Catholic persecutions. His father, Anthony, was born in Ireland and from there would make his way to the New World, settling in Virginia around 1745. It was here, in Winchester, that young Francis was born, on a cool morning in 1761. He was the son of Anthony Dunlevy and Hannah White, and the eldest of four sons and four daughters to that couple. It seems that the couple had a strong spirituality in their home. Little may be discovered about the specifics of that god-centered home, but Anthony’s grandson tells us that he was a “zealous and rigid Presbyterian.”[3] The persecutions which his own family had suffered, just two generations prior to his birth, convicted him to be all the more serious about the faith for which his fathers had risked their lives. Hannah White was no the less zealous for the Christian faith, for she was descended from the Scottish Covenanters, a sorely oppressed protestant people throughout the 17th century, many of whom fled to North America. It was their desire that young Francis, being the fist born, should go to school and be trained for the ministry. This was their intention but in 1776 revolution broke out and the war took precedence over all other life in colonial America. At the age of fourteen, Francis joined in the fray.

Anthony had previously decided to move his family from Winchester to twest of the Allegheny Mountains, it was 1772 and at the time such a location was considered Western Virginia. The drawing of the Mason Dixon Line, however, placed the family in Pennsylvania and quite mortified the Dunleavys; they were not Pennsylvanians, they were Virginians! Their new home not only removed them from Virginia, the home of their hearts, but it placed them right on the frontier settlement throughout the Revolutionary War. Repeated invasions from Indians meant that every able-bodied man and boy was to serve in either longer or shorter campaigns. Francis was not old enough that he was yet required to serve in the military, but when his neighbor, who had a family to look after, was called to serve, Francis offered to go in his stead. It was a genuine act of kindness form so young a man. But Francis was not only kind; he was also a skilled soldier.

He had been raised in the backwoods and knew well how to fire a gun, and, according to reports, he handled hardships with steadfastness. Such skill earned him the privilege of serving in five other campaigns from the years 1776 to 1782. At Crawford’s Defeat in 1782 he and two other men found themselves on the far Western flank of the conflict. A.H. Dunlevy reports:
[He] was engaged in conflict with the Indians until dark, [and] when the army retreated, he was left with but one or two more, to make their way, as best they could, from Sandusky plains to Pittsburg, [sic] through an Indian country. As the Indians, in large numbers, pursued Crawford’s retreating army, it was impossible fore those separated to join the army, as the enemies’ forces intercepted them.[4]

Young Francis’ military record is impressive. He helped build Fort McIntosh, the first fort on the Northwest side of the Ohio River; and also assisted in erecting the first block-house at Mt. Pleasant. Far more impressive for the Christian, however, will be the record of Christian faithfulness that Francis Dunlevy left behind.

Finally peace came to rest upon the nation in 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Schools eventually opened back up and Francis finally pursued the education his parents had envisioned for him, joining Dickson College in that year to prepare for the ministry. He was an excellent student, and possessed an acute ability to learn. He made rapid progress as a student, specifically in the sciences, and was eligible for graduation earlier than the normal undergraduate program allowed, but he declined the diploma. “My term has been too short,” he said. His son tells us he had no desire for titles and so he remained at Dickson for possibly a whole second term.[5] Upon graduation he returned to Winchester to attend divinity school. His professor here would be not only his uncle, but one of the nation’s most highly esteemed theologians, James Hodge. Speaking before Congress, John Randolph is known to have said of Hodge that since his death he had never heard the gospel preached in its purity.[6]

While at divinity school Francis devoted himself to the faithful study of the scriptures. He poured over the words of the Bible for several hours a day and in so doing two important changes occurred in his life. Nothing is known of the time of his conversion, or even how old he was when he came to saving faith. But beyond that event the following two events were the most significant in his spiritual life. First, it was while studying the Bible that Francis was almost at once confronted by the absence of teaching on both paedobaptism and sprinkling. He had grown up as a Presbyterian and all through the years that he was under his father he was told that immersion was fully denied in the New Testament. He could not escape, however, what was right before his eyes. It seemed that the Acts of the Apostles never once commended the former, but in practice fully advocated the “dreaded Baptist view”. Dunlevy was the type of man who when confronted with the truth was resolved, no matter what, to take the right recourse. He was compelled, his son tells us, by his conscience to become a Baptist. This first change in theology horrified his parents and younger siblings, who, undoubtedly, tried to persuade him of the former position, but Dunlevy knew what he had read and could not be moved. The decision affected his relations for a short while but after time the wounds seemed to have healed and eventually Francis even joined his family as they left Virginia for Kentucky.

The second great theological shift in Dunlevy’s life came as he studied more closely the particulars of the pastoral office. The description of the office was so high and so serious that it somewhat scared Dunlevy. Like that young monk, Martin Luther, who had been so afraid to offer the cup at his first mass, for God was holy and just and he was nothing more than a pigmy, so Dunlevy felt himself quite unworthy for the pastorate. “He became convinced that unless called of God, as was Aaron, he ought not to officiate in holy things.”[7] Dunlevy, giving a second major blow to his parents, abandoned his plans for preaching, and took to becoming a teacher. He believed that he did not posses either the gifts or the calling to be a pastor and again felt compelled by right conscience that he could not do the ministry.

His classical school in Virginia became of some acclaim, producing several distinguished scholars and future lawyers. He remained a teacher there until in 1790 he moved with his father’s family to Washington, Kentucky. The land which his father bought there was sold to him falsely and after a short period the family was forced to return to Virginia, and for the first time in his life Dunlevy separated from them; he remained to find a new residence. His reasons for doing so were fully impacted by the issues of slavery, which were increasingly coming to the foreground of American life.

By 1776 the Quakers expunged their communities of all those who insisted on holding slaves. A few years later at the Christmas Conference of 1784 the American Methodist society was founded, making them officially distinct from the Anglican Methodists (who had originally planted the churches in America), and it maintained that no members were permitted to hold slaves. Joining the likes of these two groups were a number of Baptists. Dunlevy had for sometime felt strong convictions about the immorality of slavery, and when the ordinance of 1787 outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territory Dunlevy was resolved to settle within its bounds. In looking for a school Francis was driven towards Columbia near Cincinnati. Here, with the help of a fellow by the name of John Reily, Dunlevy opened the first good school in Butler County.

He had exceptional skills as a scholar. I have already mentioned with what rapid speed he was able to accomplish his undergraduate studies. Knowing this about him it seems only right that the people of Ohio would call on him to serve. He was twice a member of the legislature of Ohio, and even served on the committee to write the first constitution of that state when it was admitted to the union in 1803. Following this he was a member of the first state legislature and eventually became the presiding judge for the court of common pleas, an office he held for fourteen years. He took his job very seriously, and though he had to cross two major rivers, he never missed court, in all of fourteen years, more than once. In fact, so dedicated was he to his job, that he never hesitated to simply swim the rivers, even at major flood seasons. Records tell us that he was quite an exquisite swimmer and while others wouldn’t dare to cross the rivers in flood season, Dunlevy never hesitated to swim across.

After his term as presiding judge came to a close Dunlevy continued in the legal realm as a lawyer. For more than ten years he made a name for himself as a lawyer, even taking cases in the surrounding areas of Columbia. All of these facts point to an honorable man, but none in particular warrant his recovery for Ohio Baptists. Why talk about Francis Dunlevy? The significance of Francis Dunlevy for Ohio Baptists is found in the last eight years of the man’s life. After retiring from the business of the courts Dunlevy spent his days mostly in the chair in his den reading, he had an “unconquerable love of books,” mostly religious in nature and, primarily, the Bible. The man’s knowledge of the scriptures was stellar. He had an astute memory and could, in any conversation, call to his mind a passage of scripture, which spoke to the issue being discussed. He studied and read from both an English translation and a Latin, which he was very fond of reading. The man’s knowledge of theology and, Scripture in particular, made it easy for him to detect the slightest inaccuracies in a man’s preaching or a Christian’s confession.

Upon his arrival to Ohio in 1792 he immediately joined up with the Baptist Church of Columbia and later moved his membership to the Baptist church in Lebanon. At the latter he stood as a gentle but firm defender for the missionary enterprise. As I have said, Dunlevy had a profundity in the Scriptures, and this helped him to identify certain theological movements. So in 1801-02 he assessed the “New Light” revivals of Kentucky as a form of Shakerism and warned his friends of it. In the anti-missionary movement, which was sweeping Baptist life on both sides of the Atlantic, Francis warned his congregation that it was nothing more than antinomianism.

Hyper-Calvinism, as it would later come to be called, was a major problem for churches during the 18th and early 19th centuries. C.H. Spurgeon faced it in England and vigorously opposed it from his pulpit and in his writings. Dunlevy was prepared to do the same from the pew of his local church. The particular nature of this brand of theology was to state that the sovereignty of God required no responsibility from man. It was the overemphasis of one doctrine to the exclusion of another. In acknowledging God’s electing love, and His overarching sovereignty, many Christians denied the need for evangelism and obedience on their part. If God predestined men for salvation then why should they share the gospel? As time progressed evangelism not only began to be questioned, but eventually began to be denied as a present day church duty. Anti-missionary hymns were written and a new theology of missions was raised up. This theology stated that Christ had told the disciples to spread the gospel, but now that they were gone that stage of Christian development was over. Dunlevy was not convinced. Not only was this going against the testimony of Scripture, but also this new theology of missions was against the very practice of historic Baptists.

Traditionally Baptist, both on the larger global scale and in the context of Ohio alone, were missionary minded Christians. Furthermore, it was not only historic Baptist who opposed the new anti-missionary movement, but just a few years prior to this occasion in Lebanon, Ohio, The Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen was founded (1792) in England. Thanks to the work of William Carey, Andrew Fuller, and Samuel Pearce, Baptist missionary work was begun. By 1814 the missionary enterprise had hit home even more dramatically. Adoniram Judson had set sail for Burma in 1812 as a Congregationalist, but along the way both he and his wife, Anne, had become Baptists. Judson, and his friend Luther Rice, appealed to American Baptists for support in missions. In 1814 it was a pressing issue for even Baptists in Ohio. Of course not being as famous as these men Dunlevy would be ignored in the birthing of Baptist missions, yet, for Ohioans, he was, as their contemporary, an early preserver of missions in the Baptist denomination.

The church at Lebanon, however, responded with division. There were members in the church who were strongly opposed to missions and refused to concede to it. In 1836 the church split. Francis Dunlevy made one final appeal to those splintered members, his son summarizes:
He warned the advocates of this anti-mission movement of the destructive consequences upon them as a Christian denomination. He told them that he had seen a similar stand taken by Baptist churches in Virginia, fifty years before that time, and the result was that in twenty years, or less, those churches had become almost extinct and that the same consequences would as surely befall those churches who adopted these anti-missionary sentiments.[8]
In 1818 the Miami Association, the organization of Baptist which Dunlevy was part of, revised their position of missions and promoted the propagation of the gospel on the foreign mission field. Dunlevy’s voice was heard in broader Ohio, if not in his own church. The Association, however, divided too in 1836 over the issue of missions, and became two groups: The Miami Association in favor of Missions, and the Anti-Mission Association. Dunlevy’s prediction, however, came true eventually, and the Anti-Mission Association dissolved and disappeared, along with most of its 10 churches.

Not only did Dunlevy protest the advance of antinomianism and Hyper-Calvinism, but he also opposed the advance of Arminianism. Arminianism was spreading across denominations and had its impact on American Evangelical Baptists. Of course it was not until years later that it came to dominate Baptist life in America, but still Dunlevy knew it when he saw it. In the church at Lebanon, he maintained a firm balance and attempted to help the church do the same. As a Calvinist, “firm and unyielding,”[9] he would not bend to any notion of man’s capability to save himself. He was willing to acknowledge the tension between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility, but never did he confess that salvation was ultimately or even finally up to man’s deciding. His work in the church at Lebanon is significant, not simply because he represents a faithful guardian of genuine Biblical Reformed theology, but more so because it proved him worthy to be a leader in Ohio Baptist life.

Owing to his vast knowledge of Scripture and theology, and his strict adherence to both the doctrines of grace and evangelism (two aspects of theology often thought to be incompatible today) Dunlevy was welcomed as a member of the conference for the establishment of the Miami Association of Baptists. When the Association was formed in 1797 Dunlevy had not yet been through the controversies at Lebanon, but it is significant to note that after arriving in only 1792 it did not take long for Dunlevy to establish himself as a leader. When called upon to help draft the articles of faith for the body in early 1805, Dunlevy was already an influential man in Ohio Baptist life. The History of this Association is important, though more than I can deal with in this article, but as the first organization of Baptist Churches in Ohio, composed of the first Baptist churches in Ohio, it set the standard for the future of Ohio Baptist Life. In this regard we should remember Francis Dunlevy, and thank God for him.

Where would Ohio Baptists be without this man? We wrestle today with the same issue that tore the Church at Lebanon apart. God is sovereign, we acknowledge this, and so we know that Ohio Baptists would have survived without Francis Dunlevy. Yet we acknowledge, like Dunlevy himself (and contra the anti-mission group) that God works through means. He predestines the end, yes, but He predestines the means to that end too. Francis Dunlevy was God’s chosen instrument to build a solid foundation for Baptist life in Ohio, for this reason we thank God for such a bold, Biblical, and astute man. Ohio Baptists need to remember Francis Dunlevy and his work, not because He is simply a good man, but because God has used Him in a profound way to lay the groundwork for our labors in Ohio. Remember Francis Dunlevy, friends.

To the end of his days Dunlevy retained his mental faculties. Even as death approached him he was aware of it and expressed his knowledge in a calm and godly demeanor.

For forty years I have never had any fears of death; and the day of judgment has long appeared to me as the most glorious feature in the moral government of God. Then and there all seeming mysteries in God’s providence will be made so plain that all will acknowledge the justice as well as mercy of his administration. Then the truth, about which men differ so much here, will be made clear. The innocent and oppressed, too, however calumny and abuse have been headed upon them here, shall be cleared from every unjust imputation, and the wrong-doer, of every grade, stand convicted in his own conscience, and in the eyes of an assembled world. [10]

His son states that he fell asleep “in Jesus as quietly as he had ever taken his natural rest.” This is a man indeed to be remembered.

[1] Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity. Vol. 2. (New York: Harper Collins, 1985). 226.
[2] Anne Kelly Knowles, Calvinists Incorporated: Welsh Immigration on Ohio’s Industrial Frontier. (Chicago: UP, 1997). 18.
[3] A.H. Dunlevy, History of the Miami Baptist Association. 1869. 147.
[4] Dulevy, 148.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid. 150.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid. 152.