Rev robert sheffey biography
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Sheffey, who loved chicken-and-dumplings, said, “Lord, we thank Thee for this good woman; we thank Thee for this good dinner—but it would have been better if the chicken had dumplings in it. On his tombstone it says:
Fully consecrated to God’s service, he preached the Gospel without money and without price and has entered upon his reward.
If it had not been for a rattlesnake they would never have called upon You. Send a rattlesnake to bite Bill, and one to bite John, and send a great big one to bite the old man.”
Even stranger to mountain folk was Sheffey’s insistence on cleanliness. He might even ask his hostess for a white counterpane. If you have the gift of helping others, do it with the strength that God supplies. (1 Peter 4:10-11)
Robert J.
Morgan, On This Day: 265 Amazing and Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs & Heroes, electronic ed. He even once gave away his horse to replace an animal that had died pulling a heavily loaded covered wagon. However, Edward died before any work was done. Preacher Sheffey joined them praying and exhorting others to come forward.
He specifically instructed hosts how to water and feed his horse, and he often dismounted rather than make the horse carry him up a steep grade. Some of his prayers concerned critical needs of agricultural communities, such as the need for rain in time of drought or the prevention of rain during harvest. One story claims that after having written “What shall I do to be saved?” on a large rock, he discovered that a patent medicine salesman had written underneath, “Use Hite’s Pain Cure.” Sheffey then added, “And prepare to meet thy God.” Sheffey’s peculiar sense of humor is also evident in a story about a child bitten by a rattlesnake.
Sheffey farmed, taught school, served as a clerk, and kept a store. According to an expert in the folklore of itinerant Methodist preachers, there are “at least twenty-five accounts of how Sheffey’s prayers led to the immediate destruction of whiskey stills and distilleries,” many apparently versions of the same episode.[29] (The owners were not moonshiners; at the time, distilling was perfectly legal.) According to one minister, Sheffey prayed for the destruction of three distilleries on a creek near where they had been preaching.
Yet eventually his circuit of Methodist churches spanned fourteen mountain counties in Virginia and West Virginia and included regular appearances at the popular Wabash Camp Meetings near Staffordsville, Giles County, Virginia.
In January 1864 Sheffey married Elizabeth “Eliza” Stafford, although her parents did not favor the marriage because of Sheffey’s constant circuit riding.
It is reported that on that very night many in the crowd report they heard the angels singing above them, although some doubted. As he rode up this time, things were different.
The couple had one son, Edward Fleming Sheffey, (1865–1933), who became a successful Lynchburg businessman. Robert Sheffey was unique.
Many stories about Sheffey related to his power in prayer.[26] Some of his prayers concerned critical needs of agricultural communities, such as the need for rain in time of drought or the prevention of rain during harvest.[27] Because Sheffey hated the liquor traffic,[28] his most remembered prayers were directed against stills and the people who ran them.
Called in to pray for the child, Sheffey is said to have petitioned, “O Lord, we do thank Thee for rattlesnakes. There, over Greenway’s Store, he was converted on January 9, 1839. He was 19. But many came to faith that night because of the praying parson.
https://drbrop.wordpress.com/2013/09/06/robert-sayers-sheffey-mountain-preacher-and-man-of-prayer/
There’s a great film available from Unusual Films on Robert Sheffey:
My wife and I were able to visit the grave of this fascinating servant of the LORD.
After being beaten by some young toughs after a meeting, Sheffey tried hard not to testify against them in court, and when they were convicted, with tears he pleaded with the judge to allow them to go unpunished because he had forgiven them.
Sheffey enjoyed singing and shouting and would often draw pictures of birds and fish or write snatches of hymns on the walls of his hosts’ homes or on rock outcroppings, sometimes in artistic lettering.
Sheffey regularly stopped to right beetles and dropped out of funeral processions to lift insects out of the way of wagon wheels. He is buried in Wesley Chapel Cemetery (off Sheffey Memorial Road) in Trigg.