One of the social impacts of the early nineteenth century revival camp-meeting movement was to change the way Americans thought about childhood. Prior to 1800, according to Karen Calvert, “Childhood had no positive attributes of its own worthy of expression. A child was merely an adult in the making, and childhood, as a period of physical and spiritual vulnerability was a deficiency   to be overcome.” [1] By 1800, more than half (55.2%) of the people living on the Kentucky frontier were children under the age of 16. This compares to 49% for the rest of the new United States, according to Ted A. Smith. [2] So, many younger people would have been present at the camp meetings. When children began to respond spiritually, this was unprecedented and unusual. Children as young as five were recorded to have addressed adults at these camp meetings, standing on benches, tree branches and from the shoulders of adults. Their religious exhortations were taken seriously both by other children an