A very large proportion were religious, and many were members of the church.

There were some families, however, and amongst the most wealthy, that were extremely wild and dissipated in their habits.
"The first clergyman that came among them was the Rev.Charles Cummings, an Irishman by birth but educated in Pennsylvania.

This gentleman was one of the first settlers, defended his domicile for years with his rifle in hand, and built his first meeting house on the very spot where he and two or three neighbors and one of his servants had had a severe skirmish with the Indians, in which one of his party was killed and another wounded.

Here he preached to a very large and most respectable congregation for twenty or thirty years.

He was a zealous whig and contributed much to kindle the patriotic fire which blazed forth among these people in the revolutionary struggle." This is from a MS sketch of the Holston Pioneers by the Hon.