The first settlers in Missouri were Roman Catholic—the French prohibited other faiths. The Spanish somewhat relaxed this prohibition, and allowed some Protestants in the late 1790s.
Settlement by Protestants increased, and local groups of settlers tended to be of the same faith. An example is Murphy’s Settlement in St. Francois County. William Murphy, a Baptist minister, received a land concession at the site in 1798. His widow and children settled by 1804, and became staunch Methodists.
Another Methodist church organized in 1809, McKendree, was a center of camp meetings for a large area. Its chapel, built in 1819, still stands east of Jackson in Cape Girardeau County. Baptists, among the first Americans to settle in Spanish Louisiana, were another large percentage of settlers, but organized congregations were discouraged until after 1803. The first were at Tywappity in 1805 and at Bethel near Jackson in 1806. Scotch-Irish settlers brought the Presbyterian faith to Missouri—the first settlement of mainly Presbyterians was Caledonia in 1807.
The first trained minister, Salmon Giddings, arrived in 1816. Presbyterianism grew quickly after formation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1810. This denomination adopted revivalism and placed less emphasis on rigorous ministerial education, appealing to frontiersmen.
The year 1821 fell during the Second Great Awakening, which emphasized fervor in worship and a personal connection with God. Beginning in the 1790s, religious fervor and revival started to grow among Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians in the mid-South. Part of this was in response to challenges in social and political life, augmented in Missouri by the New Madrid Earthquake, viewed as a signal of the end times. The camp meeting was a primary way to promote this religious revival, and was also a social event. So, by statehood Missouri had the basis for a rich religious heritage.
