Tennessee's Pioneer Baptist Preachers

Sketches Of

Tennessee's Pioneer Baptist Preachers

THOMAS HITER CROUCH

(page 134)

The subject of this sketch was born February 10, 1833, on the Watauga River, near the mouth of Boone's Creek, Washington County, Tenn. He was a son of John and Sarah (Epperson) Crouch. Young Crouch was converted in his early teens in a meeting held with Buffalo Ridge Church by Elders W. A. Keen and Asa Routh. He was ordained at the same time with John Davidson and George P. Faw by the authority of the above church, of which all three were members, Elders Keen, Routh and Eli Ratliff acting as a presbytery. March 20, 1861, he was married to Sophia Bowers, a daughter of Lawrence A. Bowers, of Boone's Creek, who lived to be 95 years old, and was a member of the County Court of Washington County for thirty or forty years, and many years its chairman. To this union were born ten children, seven sons and three daughters, a family of born teachers, it would seem; at least seven of them are, or have been, teachers of the youths of the country. There are twenty-one grandchildren, and four out of the number are teachers, while others perhaps are candidates for the office.

He was pastor of the following churches: Limestone, Philadelphia, Harmony, Antioch, Whitesburg, Johnson City, Sinking Creek, Fordtown, New Salem, Muddy Creek, Clear Fork, Double Springs, Boone's Creek, and perhaps others.
Elder Crouch had the true missionary spirit. He helped build church houses for the Baptists, and freely and liberally gave time and money to the Lord's work. He was a "modest and unassuming man, preached the gospel in a quiet but earnest manner, and was a sweet singer in Israel." His death occurred June 11, 1894. He died as he had lived, victorious through faith, and was buried in the Boone's Creek Cemetery, where the "mortal" waits to put on the "immortality" of the resurrection state.

Burnett, J .J. Sketches of Tennessee's Pioneer Baptist Preachers. Nashville, Tenn.: Press of Marshall & Bruce Company, 1919.

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