Born in 1820 in the little town of Ivanhoe in far southwestern Virginia, which today has a population of about 550, Robert Sheffey was known as an odd preacher. His contemporaries were in agreement that he “couldn’t preach a lick” but his influence and spiritual power were known far and wide.
Born to people of relative upper class his parents encouraged him, like his siblings, to enter a professional career but his salvation experience at age nineteen revectored his life and he sought God’s will for his life. At age 24 he married a young woman named Elizabeth. He tried his hand at farming, clerking at a local store, and even teaching children, but God directed his heart into the proclamation of His Word through preaching as a Methodist circuit-rider.
Widowed after ten years of marriage, Robert Sheffey developed some eccentricities. Many stories speak of his concern over animals. He regularly righted turned-over beetles or turtles and even halted funeral processions to gently move insects out of the road to keep them from being crushed by wagon wheels. One story has him stopping by a puddle and collecting all the tadpoles, transferring them to a creek where they would have a better chance at survival. He took special care of his horse, often dismounting and walking beside the horse when going up a grade.
His concern for the lostness of people was even more prevalent. He often gave his socks those in need, many times pulling them off of his own feet. He gave his coat to those shivering on cold days. He even once gave his own horse to a stranger whose horse had died while pulling a heavily loaded wagon.
As noted before his rhetorical skills were somewhat lacking, but nobody could dispute the work of God as he preached. Sometimes, he would step up to the pulpit and prostrate himself on the floor in prayer, leaving the congregation in awkward silence. Despite the oddities, his altar was usually full of the penitent and many lives were changed.
His powerful prayers, however, evoked the most awe. He publicly prayed against liquor stills and those who ran them. One local minister recounted his prayers against three stills on a creek near to where they were meeting. The owner of the first, a man of good health, suddenly dropped dead. The second caught fire. The third was obliterated when a large tree fell on it. Men were said to have left the area rather than become the subject of his prayers.
Sheffey held several weeks of meetings in his hometown of Ivanhoe. When the citizens rejected his message, preferring the life of sin that was characteristic of many prosperous mining towns, Sheffey publicly shook the dust off his feet and left the town. One resident later remarked, “Whether you believe in it or not, after that happened, we lost everything.” The fortunes of the town took a sharp downturn. Entire buildings and houses disappeared into sinkholes. The town was never the same.
Robert Sheffey died in 1902. His stories were collected and placed into a book that was published in 1974. A movie was made about his life entitled ‘Sheffey’, which was re-released in 2020, the 200th year after his birth.
Christian History e-mail, 04 July 2021
https://today.bju.edu/perspective/rescuing-bugs-cursing-towns-eccentricities-robert-sheffey/
https://iblp.org/robert-sheffey-the-power-of-prayer/
