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Jefferson Davis Tant
Biographical Sketch On The Life Of J.D. Tant Jefferson Davis Tant was born June 28, 1861, at
Cartersville, Georgia. His parents were William and Mattie (Lloyd) Tant. At the age of 14, Tant joined the Methodist Church.
At the age of 15 he moved with his parents from Georgia to Texas. About this
time, he became interested in an education and, fortunately, he lived near a
high school. Unfortunately, he had only one dollar to supply all of his earthly needs. He invested his dollar in three yards of cloth from which his mother made him a pair of pants. He started to school without a single school book and one pair of pants. At school, he would dodge around the children and study his lessons on their books with them, until one day a schoolmate cursed him and told him if his old daddy could not get him some books that he had better quit. Discouraged, he told his troubles to his teacher, who agreed that he would leave one window unfastened each night so his pupil could come and get the books for his lesson the next day, learn his lessons, and put the books back next morning before school. This he did for two years, and many times three o'clock in the morning found him after his lessons with a little brass lamp to study by. Jefferson
Davis Tant was in the school room each day but never looked at a book, yet at
time for recitation he seldom failed to answer all the questions. The children
begged him to tell them how he knew his lessons without studying. This he kept
as a profound secret. The news spread that he was an "idiot" and
people often visited the school to see "Old man Tant's 'idiot' son that
learned his lessons without studying." After two years, a lady learned of
his desire for an education and loaned him $20 to buy his books. The last two
years he was in school, he was in a class alone. He had passed all the other
students, not because he had more ability but because he used what he had. The
Reverend Jefferson Davis Tant, duly ordained in the Methodist ministry, became a
circuit-rider in North Texas in the year 1880. His work as a Methodist minister
was destined to be a short one. In 1881, he moved to Buda, Texas, where in
August of that year, he heard W. H. D. Carrington, a minister of the Church of
Christ, preach the gospel. He liked what he learned. In those days, the church
was often referred to as "Campbellites." The meeting ran from two
weeks to a month. Tant decided to go back and hear what the "Campbellite"
preacher had to say further. Carrington took the Bible, read the passages and
explained them clearly, especially the verses that told what one must do to be a
Christian or to be saved. On
August 14, 1881, Tant came forward in Carrington's meeting and gave the preacher
his hand. He was openly weeping as he did so, weeping from fear, from gratitude.
Since he had been immersed, he was received into the fellowship of the Buda
church on his statement that he was "satisfied" with his baptism. It
was only one week later that young Jefferson Davis Tant received a written
statement from the Buda Church of Christ, commending him to the brotherhood to
preach the gospel of Christ and baptize any that he was instrumental in
converting to Christ. The statement was signed by two elders 1883
was a milestone in Tant's life. It was then that he received his very first
compensation as a preacher of God's word. He checked his records and found that
he received $9.75 for the year. $5.00 of this amount came from performing a
wedding ceremony. J.
D. Tant married Laura Warren on March 26, 1890, at Georgetown, Texas. E.
Hansborough performed the ceremony. To this union, two children were born: Ira,
a son who lived to be 10 years old, and Davis, a daughter. The
Tants lived at Hamilton, Texas. On January 4, 1894, after a hard fight with
pneumonia, Laura died. Her body was laid to rest in the old Hamilton Cemetery. Hamilton
was the home of J. D. Tant for nearly 15 years, his longest residence in any one
place during the 80 years of his life.
Tant
preached all over the nation. Gospel preachers were few and far between. He was
in great demand, ordinarily receiving more than 200 invitations per year for
gospel meetings. His record was 269 invitations in a single year. Obviously, he
could not hold more than 20 or 25 of these, since most of them were of two
weeks' duration. After
living in Hamilton, Texas, for 15 years, Tant moved to Victoria, Texas, and then
to Quanah, Texas. He moved to Macon, Tennessee, in 1904. (Yater Tant was born
there in 1908.) Then the Tants moved to Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1912, to
Cleburne, Texas in 1916, then to Menard, Texas, Rogers, Arkansas, Greenville,
Mississippi, DeQueen, Arkansas, Brownsville, Texas, and then to Los Fresnos,
Texas, where he spent his remaining days. One
day, sitting quietly in his chair, he said, "There remaineth therefore a
rest to the people of God . . . and I long for that rest! " This was the
last scripture that he was heard to quote. He wanted to see his children once
more and sister Tant wrote to all of them requesting that they come as soon as
possible.
It
was 4:30 P.M., Sunday, June 1, 1941. Two
funeral services were held. The first was at the Brownsville Church of Christ
with H. D. Jeffcoat and James W. Adams officiating. Tant had requested that the
service be conducted like any normal preaching service with congregational
singing. Jeffcoat read the scripture and led the prayer. Adams spoke on 1
Timothy 4:1-8 paying tribute to the great work of J. D. Tant. The
second funeral service was held at the Central Church of Christ, Cleburne,
Texas, Wednesday morning, June 4. The principal address was given by W. K. Rose
with whom Tant had held a long time agreement that whichever of them survived
would speak at the funeral of the other. Scripture
was read by G. H. P. Showalter, prayer was led by Cled E. Wallace, and a short
address preceding Rose's talk, was made by Foy E. Wallace, Jr. Many
gospel preachers came from their fields of labor to pay tribute to this great
gospel preacher who had fallen asleep in the Lord. Old time friends, companions
of his youth, were present to shed their tears with his wife, Nannie, the
children, and his only surviving brother, James Monroe Tant. John W. Akin, who
had given the suit in which he was to be buried, wept unashamedly as he looked
for the last time upon the still and bloodless face of his friend. The funeral caravan moved slowly to the old Cleburne Memorial Cemetery, where all that is mortal of "J. D. Tant, Texas Preacher" now sleeps beneath a simple stone bearing the legend: Jefferson
Davis Tant -In Memoriam, Gussie Lambert, Shreveport, LA, c.1988, pp.266-269
A
Voice from the Past About This is June 28th and I am seventy-two years old today. I have been thinking of the more than 8,000 people I have baptized during the past fifty years. Away over here in Arkansas, where I am preaching the gospel to many Baptists (by way of debate), who never heard it before, I am reminded of the old days in Arkansas, and of how their customs stack up with the present day practices. A few days ago an old brother, after hearing me preach three times in Houston, Texas, came to me and said, "Brother Tant, I am glad to have heard you preach. You are not the type of man that I had expected to meet. It has been told on you by certain of your preaching brethren that you are vulgar in the pulpit. They said that you are rough and abusive; unrefined and uneducated; that you are so plain in your preaching that refined people could not listen to you. Since hearing you, I have decided that such reports are preachers' lies, prompted by jealousy, and not by the love of God." As a further illustration, I recently received a letter from a good sister, saying, "We are dead here and doing no good. Many of us would like to have you hold a meeting, but our elders say that you are too tough on the brethren, too hard on the other churches, and that we must have a man the denominations like to hear." A letter from a Baptist preacher who wants to meet me in debate in a town where one of our leading Bible colleges is located says he has talked to several of our younger preachers there, and they say, "Brother Tant is too old to debate, and he doesn't have a college education." Well, I'll admit that I have not the good English that N. B. Hardeman has. Neither can I measure up to G. C. Brewer's law of culture and refinement, because I frequently go barefooted when I sleep. I preach in my shirtsleeves and put pencils in my outside coat pocket. Neither have I the refined disposition of brother Sam Pitman. I am just an old-fashioned, plain gospel preacher from the frontier. I have this month rounded out fifty-two years of plain gospel preaching. I have baptized approximately 8,000 men and women. More than one hundred of the boys I have baptized in by-gone years are now out preaching the gospel. I wonder if God will reject all these souls I have been instrumental in leading to him merely because I am not refined. One of the ablest preachers we have in Arkansas lost his located job, not because he was not preaching the gospel, but because one of the influential sisters in the church could not bear to listen to his old-fashioned language. She did not like Arkansas grammar, and thus could not invite her denominational friends to hear him. I doubt if the poor thing could tell whether Jesus Christ was crucified at Calvary or shot at Bunker Hill. I have tried to do the best I could to serve God in the backwoods and out-of-the-way places, where a college degree is not so important. When brethren condemn me on account of my rough manners and plain speech, I shall not be too upset about it, but shall speak kindly of them and pray for them. And after life's battles have been fought and we all come before God to be judged, I may not be able to produce much refinement and education, but I shall say, "Lord, I have done the best I could among the common people."
Autobiographical Sketch On The Life Of J.D. Tant
Directions To The Grave Of J.D. & Nannie Y. Tant Cleburne, Texas is a small town south of Ft. Worth, Texas. Take I-35 South out of Ft. Worth toward Alvarado. Take State Hwy. 67 West toward Keene. Go through Keene to Cleburne. As you near the main part of town you will turn left on South Kouns St. (If you go over a viaduct into town on Hwy. 67 you've gone too far). Continue south on S. Kouns and cross the R.R. Tracks. Once across you can see the Cleburne Memorial Cemetery to your left. You will enter the cemetery to the left and head toward the front of the office. Just before turning left into the office, Tant's grave is just to the left. GPS
Location
History Home History Index Page Note: When G. Dallas Smith died, he was originally buried in this cemetery. His body was exhumed and moved to San Angelo to be closer to family, back in the 1960s. |
and two preachers.
Tant
married Nannie Green Yater on Wednesday, December 30, 1896. It was a double
wedding with Nannie marrying J. D. and her sister, Fannie Mills (who was never
known by anything but her nickname "Kanna") marrying Albert Gebhart.
Felix C. Sowell performed the wedding ceremony.
The last two Lord's Days he was not able to attend
services. H. D. Jeffcoat, preacher for the Brownsville Church, brought the
Lord's Supper to him May 24. Those assembled sang, prayed, and broke bread
together. But on the last Lord's Day of his life, June 1, 1941, he did not
partake of the Supper. Knowing his weak condition, friends came to encourage
him. They visited, stood up to leave and Tant stood up with them and walked into
another room. He sat down in a chair, turned his eyes for a last long searching
look into Nannie's face, and without speaking a word, quietly died.
