wine, representing the body and blood of Christ. The often intense preparation and elements of exclusivity meant that only a fraction of those who attended these events were able to participate in the communion ritual. Non-participants included children and observers who were unsure of their status as among the converted, and many were curious bystanders and irreligious people who had come for social, rather than religious reasons. As in the later nineteenth-century revivals, the spectacle of the sacrament season, both inside and outside the meeting house, and the large influx of people coming for diverse reasons from considerable distances, sometimes produced a carnival-like atmosphere. It is clear that McGready saw a connection between the sacrament season and revival. In his written account of the events of 1800, sixteen of seventeen revival meetings were connected to sacrament observances. McGready also revealed his openness to innovations associated with distinctly American influences as well, and he promoted the introduction of the camp meeting into the sacrament tradition in pioneer Kentucky. Logan County in 1797 James McGready was granted a minister’s license in Logan County, Kentucky, in January 1797. As the area’s first resident Presbyterian minister, he led three small congregations: The largest was Red River, with about twenty-five members. The other two were at Gasper River, and Muddy River. The Red River congregation had been pioneered by Thomas Craighead, who, in 1785, was the first minister to serve the Kentucky frontier community from his base in the Nashville, Tennessee area. Craighead, a graduate of the College of New Jersey, (later Princeton University) provided a sharp contrast to the plain-spoken McGready, a graduate of a small “log college” in Pennsylvania led by John McMillan. The latter graduated from the College of New Jersey and was the first Presbyterian to establish a church west of the Alleghenies. The differences between Craighead and McGready were stark: “If Dr. Craighead was more graceful in his manner, polished in his style,” said one man who had heard both men preach, “Mr. McGready was more earnest…and solemn in his appeals to the conscience.” Not long after arriving in Logan County, McGready began trying to convince the people of his congregations of the need for a religion that was experiential and life altering. By May of his first year, some in his Gasper River congregation felt the first stirrings of revival when eight or nine people were converted. But the