James Garnett was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1792, but when he was a child the family moved to Kentucky. It was there he was born again, during his nineteenth year, and there he was baptized. When the Bullettsburg Baptist Church recognized God’s spiritual gifts in the young man, they called for his ordination on this day in 1816. Soon after this he married and returned to his birthplace in Virginia. There he began his fifty-five-year ministry, pastoring four Baptist churches (Cedar Run, Crooked Run, Gourdvine and Bethel). Interestingly, for many years, he pastored all four of those churches at the same time.

One of his biographers wrote of Brother Garnett: “He has erected a monument more imposing and durable than brass or marble. He has impressed himself on the loving remembrance of his people, and put into operation moral influences which will be perpetuated through all coming time; while many hundreds, brought to the Saviour by his instrumentality, will rise up to call him blessed. The history of his labors, in this extensive and important field, represents nothing more novel than the unexciting and monotonous routine of pastoral work among rural churches, varied by seasons of depression and revival, with perhaps an occasional case of discipline.”

– Source: This Day in Baptist History III, Cummins