He was shot for obeying God
by Thomas Ray
John Tanner was no stranger to religious persecution. He was imprisoned and almost killed for preaching Baptist principles. Nothing is known of Tanner’s youth or when and how he became a Baptist. The first mention we find of John Tanner is when he established a Baptist church prior to 1773 in Halifax County, North Carolina. Like most of his contemporaries, he did not limit his ministry to the church he pastored. His itinerant ministry included North and South Carolina and Virginia.
In May 1773, John Tanner and John Weatherford were arrested for preaching in Chesterfield County, Virginia, approximately 100 miles from Tanner’s home in North Carolina. This gives us an idea of the distance these early Baptist preachers often traveled to preach the gospel. The old court records of Chesterfield County say, “John Tanner an itinerand person calling himself an Anabaptist preacher taken by my warrant…did on his examination confess that he has at divers times convended numbers of people in this county and more particular on this day did convene numbers and preach to them in this county, not being qualified by law so to do, which is contrary to law and tends to disturb the peace and good government of this colony.” Both John Tanner and John Weatherford were found guilty of disturbing the peace and were incarcerated in the Chesterfield jail. We do not know how long Tanner was a prisoner but John Weatherford was imprisoned for five months.
Tanner’s next ordeal occurred four years later in North Carolina. Elder Jeremiah Dargan, the pastor of the Baptist church in Windsor, North Carolina, had a Mrs. Dawson converted through his ministry. But her husband, a violent and wicked man and a bitter enemy of the Baptists, threatened to shoot any man who baptized his wife. It was decided that under the circumstances it would be best if Mrs. Dawson deferred her baptism and attempted to convince her husband to allow her to be baptized. Unfortunately, her pleas fell upon a hardened heart and deaf ears.
In 1777, John Tanner was on one of his itinerate tours of North Carolina. One of the places he was scheduled to preach was at Elder Dargan’s church in Windsor. It was at one of these services that Mrs. Dawson was determined to do her duty in spite of her husband’s threats. She presented herself to the church and related her salvation experience and requested baptism. The church approved her request. Elder Dargan, who was an aged and infirmed man, requested Elder Tanner to conduct the baptismal service. Tanner, in obedience to Christ’s command, joyfully baptized Mrs. Dawson. At the baptism, Mr. Dawson made no attempt to carry out his threat, but in June 1777 he heard that Elder Tanner was to preach at the Sandy Run Meeting House. Dawson traveled from Windsor to Norfeets Ferry on the Roanoke River, and concealed himself and when Elder Tanner ascended the River bank from the Ferry landing, Dawson shot him with a large horseman’s pistol. Seventeen shots went into Tanner’s thigh, one of which was a large piece of buckshot that went completely through his thigh. In his wounded condition and bleeding profusely, he was carried to a nearby house where a doctor removed as many of the shots as he could locate. Tanner’s condition worsened and for several weeks his friends despaired for his life. Dawson, upon hearing that Tanner was at the point of death, sent a doctor to treat him, realizing that if he died he would probably hang, especially since he shot him from ambush.
Thankfully, John Tanner did recover but he carried several buckshot pieces in his thigh as a reminder of his ordeal. Tanner made no attempt to seek revenge or financial recompense from Dawson, but counted this experience as persecution for Christ’s sake. Tanner moved about 1784 to Kentucky where he organized and pastored the Tate’s Creek Church. He eventually moved to Missouri near Cape Girardeau where he died in 1812.
Thank God for these early Baptist ministers who allowed no hardship to deter them from their God-called task.