Tennessee's Pioneer Baptist Preachers

Sketches Of

Tennessee's Pioneer Baptist Preachers

GORDON MYNATT

(pages 394 - 395)

Gordon Mynatt was born in Knox County, Tennessee, March 20, 1811. He was a son of John and Elizabeth Mynatt. He was a grandson of William and a great-grandson of Richard Mynatt, who came from England and settled in Virginia in early colonial times. Gordon Mynatt was ordained by the authority of Bethel Church, Anderson County, November 8, 1835. He had an older brother, William, who was a preacher of ability. The two brothers understood and supplemented each other so perfectly that they labored together a great deal, and most successfully, in protracted meetings, both in Tennessee and Alabama. They held a great meeting in Talladega, where their brother-in-law, Dr. Matt. Hillsman, the pastor, had prepared the way. Gordon Mynatt married Mary Hillsman, a daughter of John Hillsman, of near Knoxville. Matthew Hillsman evened up with Gordon by marrying his sister, Ann Eliza. The Mynatt brothers were both strong men, and fairly well educated for preachers of their day. They did quite a good deal of evangelistic work in Alabama as well as in Tennessee, both of them dying in Alabama - Gordon, on November 4, 1884 ;William in April, 1881. Gordon Mynatt was pastor (in Tennessee) of Beaver Dam, Third Creek, Bethel, and Clinton churches.

Matt. H. Mynatt, son of Elder Gordon Mynatt, and clerk of Beaver Dam Church, promised to procure for the writer the ordination papers and also a picture of his lamented father. But he has passed beyond the bounds of time; maybe some other member of the family will be able to confer this favor.

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

URL: http://www.knoxcotn.org/tnbaptists/index.html

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