John Berry McFerrin

John Berry McFerrin (1807–1887) was an American Methodist preacher and editor. He served as a chaplain in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Early life John Berry McFerrin was born on July 15, 1807, in Rutherford County, Tennessee. His paternal great-grandfather, William McFerrin Sr., emigrated to York County, Pennsylvania, from Ireland in 1730. His mother, Jane Campbell Berry, was also born in Washington County, Virginia. Later, he preached in Huntsville, Alabama, Pulaski, Tennessee, and in Nashville, Tennessee. In the 1830s, he was one of the leaders of the temperance movement in Tennessee. When President James K. Polk (1795–1849) became ill, he converted him from Presbyterian to Methodist. He later conducted his funeral service. He also converted John Ross (1790–1866), who served as the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1866.

McFerrin was one of the early founders of La Grange College in Alabama, later known as the University of North Alabama in Florence, Alabama. Specifically, he served in the Second Corps of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, under General Joseph E. Johnston (1807–1891). Indeed, he was a proponent of the slavery of African-Americans in the United States. However, his religious service during the war was not without controversy. In a letter to Governor Andrew Johnson (1808–1875) on April 22, 1862, Presbyterian lawyer Adrian Van Sinderen Lindsley (1814–1885) blamed him for encouraging secessionist activities in Nashville, as opposed to more moderate Methodists like Reverend Holland Nimmons McTyeire (1824–1889), Reverend John B. Somers (1801–1876), Reverend James L. Houston (1806–1888) and Alexander Little Page Green (1806–1874). He was also accused of trying to kidnap freed slaves, in an attempt to retrieve his lost slaves.

In September 1881, McFerrin attended an Ecumenical Conference in London, England as a delegate of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was developed on the farmland formerly owned by him.

Secondary source Oscar Penn Fitzgerald, John B. McFerrin: A Biography (Nashville, Tennessee: Publishing House of the M.E. South, 1888). William McFerrin Stowe, John B. McFerrin, Editorial Contraversialist, 1840-1858 (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1935).