West Providence Baptist Church.

The following information was provided by James D. Maddox, a Frankfort, KY resident. James is a Rockport, KY native. He attends all of the Rockport Reunions and strives to see that the rich history of the little river town of Rockport is never forgotten. Thanks James.

Maddox organizes Western Kentucky Church.

Son of Kentucky immigrant John Maddox III, John Jackson Maddox (5th generation) was a man of great religious fervor and with the courage of his convictions. A licentiate and great revivalist in the Baptist Church, he was widely known. The West Providence Baptist Church, of Ohio County, was organized in his home, he being a charter member and donor of the ground on which the church later was built. He also organized a temperance league.

John Jackson Maddox owned a large tract of land near Rockport, Kentucky, and was a prosperous farmer. His slaves received religious training and six were freed as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation. He was a great hunter, and his old deer rifle was owned by a descendant in 1950. This story is told of him and his horse: He was hunting by a creek when Old Roebuck, his hunting horse, was bitten by a venomous snake. John dismounted, chewed up some "snake weed" and with a piece of shirt tail bound it to Roebuck's leg. The horse became weak and was unable to go on. The rider walked home, thinking surely the horse would die, but, to his great surprise, Roebuck was standing at the barnyard gate next morning waiting to be turned in.

One interesting provision of his will reads: 'It is my will.....that (my body) be decently interred beside the grave where rest the remains of my dear wife Amelia Maddox whose spirit has gone to its home in heaven and it is my will and desire that evergreens be planted by our graves instead of tombstones.' The graves and the old gnarled cedar trees are there today. They were buried in the family cemetery near the church at the south end of the old farm property. From: Renders and Their Relatives, by Pearl O. Smith, Weeks Pubs, Arlington, VA, 1985.

John Jackson Maddox was born in Woodford, Kentucky in 1797 and died in 1876. He married Amelia Basford Render in 1819 and the couple had ten children.