Articles & Stories
Uncle
Dave And Uncle Ira:
Mighty Preachers Of The Gospel
Two Old
Warriors Of The Cross Were Familiar
To Every Community In The Mountains Of Eastern Kentucky
Uncle Dave
Maggard and Uncle Ira Combs, pictured front center, were two
Old Regular Baptist preachers from Eastern Kentucky. With a combined
total of 114 years of preaching, the two never received one penny
for that work.
(Photo courtesy of Steve Gross.)
The Hazard-Herald - 1927
Fighting
the Devil and his ways for a total of 114 years, Uncle Dave Maggard
and Uncle Ira Combs, whose combined ages total 164 years, continue
in their old age to preach steadily and with as much fervor and
result as in their younger days.
Uncle Dave is a native of Letcher County, but is as well-known
in Perry County as his co-partner, Uncle Ira, who was born and
reared at Jeff, just a few miles south of Hazard.
These two old warriors of the Cross are familiar to every community
in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, in Tennessee, Virginia,
and even in Missouri. In their day, long before the coming of
the railroad, they covered thousands of miles on horseback or
in oxen carts. They baptized so many people in their time that
the count has been lost.
While preaching all their lives, they have never received one
penny for that work. During their spare time they worked out
their own living. Uncle Ira ran a store at Jeff, and was as good
a businessman as a preacher, with the result that he is well-to-do
today, and is the oldest merchant in Perry County.
Uncle
Dave enjoyed the outdoors, and all his spare time was spent in
trapping and hunting, from which he derived not only pleasure
but a lucrative living.
To have offered these gentlemen pay for preaching would have
been but to hurt them. They preached for the love of it, and
because they were fired with a zeal which through a half-century
has been unquenchable.
Today, Uncle Dave, 88, and Uncle Ira, 84, are hale and hearty,
with a twinkle in their eyes, and when they preach, the crowds
come from miles around. It is nothing on a Sunday afternoon for
these two patriarchs to tell their message to a crowd of four
or five thousand people, as many as attend all the churches in
Hazard on a Sunday morning.
Elijah Maggard, a son of "Uncle Preacher Dave" Maggard, with his wife, Martha Lewis Maggard, and their children. Front, l-r: Nancy, Martha and Elijah, and Abby. Standing, l-r (not in order): Rena, Hattie, Sarah, Tinsel, Maude, Robert, Hiriam, James, Kermit, and Charlie. (Photo courtesy of Steve Gross.)
They are of the Old Regular Baptist Church. Their preachments
are simple and straight from the shoulder, and they preach the
same gospel they did 50 years ago, and it is just as effective.
Their knowledge of the Scripture is perfect, their philosophy
is clear, and their language is of the purest English. On Carr
Creek and its fork there is not a hole in which they have not
baptized someone. The same may be said of the forks of the Kentucky
and the Cumberland and all their tributaries.
Uncle Dave, after 62 years of preaching, is still the active
pastor of four churches: Big Cowan in Letcher, Indian Bottom
at Blackey, Clover Fork in Harlan, and Oven Fork on the Cumberland.
He is also moderator of the Indian Bottom Association of the
Regular Baptist Church. He was born in Letcher County near Partridge
on the Cumberland.
Uncle Ira was born at Jeff in 1843. He also is still an active
pastor of Big Leatherwood Church, Little Dove Church in Knott
County, and Little Zion Church in Perry County. Uncle Ira is
the father of 16 children and has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Steve
Gross, 6449 Decker Road, Franklin, OH 45005, a great-grandson
of Uncle Dave, shares this article with our readers.
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