Occasionally we find something in the collection that doesn’t seem to belong. A case in point is the cabinet card of the Rev. Sam P. Jones which was found in a collection of unidentified photographs. A cabinet card is the main form of photograph reproduction used from the 1870s through 1900. Luckily for the Society, the card has a printed name on the front. This led to a search and the mystery deepened.
The Rev. Sam P. Jones was born October 16, 1847, in Oak Bowery, Alabama. He later moved to Georgia where he studied law and was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1868. It was during this time he developed a drinking problem which ruined his practice and threatened to ruin his family life as well. When his father died in 1872, Jones made a deathbed promise he would stop drinking. This led to a religious experience that ended up leading him to the ministry.
Jones was accepted into the Methodist Episcopal Church and by the late 1870s he was traveling amongst the churches of his district, spreading the gospel. In 1885, he entered the national spotlight for his oratorical skills during a three-week series of meetings that attracted thousands. One of these converts to the Church was Tom Ryman who helped construct a Church in Nashville for Jones, the Ryman’s Union Gospel Tabernacle. This building would later become the home of the Grand Ole Opry. In the late 1880s, Jones was estimated to have preached across the region to more than three million people. By then, he had moved on to touring the country to carry his sermons to as many as he could reach, from Virginia to California.
According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, he was described as “humorous and crude, high-strung and theatrical – not at all what many people expected from a preacher. ‘Just plain Sam Jones’, as he liked to be known, was unpretentious, aiming at (or often below) his audiences’ educational and social level.” He once stated “We have been clamoring for fifty years for an educated ministry and we have got it today, and the church is deader than it ever has been in its history. Half of the literary preachers in this town are A.B’s, Ph.D.’s, D.D.’s, LL.D.’s, and A.S.S.’s.” As could be expected, a lot of the ministry did not like his message, but the people did and showed up in the thousands.
This country-wide schedule of appearances might explain the reason his cabinet card came into the Society’s collection. Jones was known to send out advance agents to drum up interest in his sermons. Part of this was the sale of souvenirs such as cabinet cards. He appeared all over Virginia and came to Richmond quite often. In 1890, he stayed at Ford’s Hotel in Richmond and made a surprise appearance at the Broad Street Methodist Church. Thousands showed for his meetings that followed. In December of 1894, Jones appeared at the Mozart Academy of Music in Richmond for two nights of sermons. At either of these events, the cabinet card could have been purchased to take home as a souvenir of someone touched by his message. Perhaps a long ago Goochlander was taken up with religious fervor and decided to not only see the lecture but take home a treasured memento of the night, a photograph of “Just plain Sam Jones.”