The Great Awakening P6

One man directly impacted by Whitefield was John Marrant. Born as a free black in New York in 1775, his father died while John was young. When he was 11, his mother sent him to Charleston, South Carolina, to live with an older sister and learn a trade, but after arriving, John had a change of heart reporting: I passed by a school and heard music and dancing, which took my fancy very much; and I felt a strong inclination to learn the music. I went home and informed my sister that I would rather learn to play upon music than to do a trade.

By the time John was 13, he had mastered the violin and the French horn and was hired to play events all over the city. He was so successful that, by his own account, “I was a stranger to want, being supplied with as much money as I had any occasion for.”

One evening, while he and a friend were on their way to play at an event, John noticed a large crowd at a meeting house with a “crazy man hallowing there.” The “Crazy Man” was the Rev. George Whitefield, preaching at one of his many meetings in the First Great Awakening.”

Content sourced from The American Story - The Beginnings By David Barton & Tim Barton