Cane Ridge, Kentucky, USA was the site, in 1801, of a large camp meeting that drew thousands of people and had a lasting influence as one of the landmark events of the Second Great Awakening. Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians all participated, and many of the "spiritual exercises", such as glossolalia, were exhibited that later became more associated with the Pentecostal movement. Perhaps the most lasting legacy of Cane Ridge was a formalization of what would become known as the Restoration Movement, which was the origin of the Disciples of Christ, the Churches of Christ, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada,[1] and several other, smaller groups.
Cane Ridge is located in Bourbon County, Kentucky near Paris. The ridge was named by Daniel Boone when he went through the area and noticed a form of bamboo growing there. A Disciples congregation met on the site for many years afterward. For a time Barton W. Stone was its minister; the place was so dear to him that at his request, several years after his death, his remains were reinterred there. The Disciples used a log building as their meeting house; it was modernized many times. When the congregation ceased to meet there regularly in the 1920s, the building fell into disuse. Later, historically minded persons, predominantly from the Disciples, restored the building and further preserved it by building a stone shrine to surround and protect it.
The Cane Ridge building and grounds had many unusual aspects. The 1791 Cane Ridge Meeting House is the largest single-room log structure in North America (it seats 500). The burial ground contains an unmarked section that is among the largest in the country.
The restoration of the original slave gallery in the meetinghouse was the oldest documented such restoration in the United States. In the 1820s, the congregation had removed the slave gallery, because they supported abolition. When preservationists began restoration work in the 1930s, the original cherry-railed gallery was returned from a local barn where it had served as a hay loft for more than a century.
The meeting house continues to be used as a living church. A curator is available for guided tours by appointment.
The Barton Warren Stone Museum contains artifacts of the congregation, Barton Stone and his family, the Stone-Campbell movement, and antique farm and household equipment. The museum is open only in the summer. It also houses the office of the Cane Ridge Preservation Projects and a book shop.