Samuel Porter Jones, best known as Sam P. Jones, (October 16, 1847 – October 15, 1906) was an American lawyer and businessman from Georgia who became a prominent Methodist Episcopal Church revivalist preacher across the Southern United States. In his sermons, he preached that alcohol and idleness were sinful. He was known for his admonition, "Quit Your Meanness."
Early life
Samuel Porter Jones was born on October 16, 1847, in Oak Bowery, Alabama. His father, John Jones, was a lawyer and real estate entrepreneur. tending the Van Wert circuit, a group of five churches spread over four counties. He aimed his messages especially at men, often regarded as the most difficult demographic group to reach. His evangelistic style was considered coarse, daring and even admirable, as in this contemporaneous description “Sam Jones is a remarkable man. Uneducated and in many respects absolutely ignorant, he has the faculty of striking that chord of nature that makes him one with the audience before him, which he sways with a wasteful hand. The terseness of his language is bold and biting, and in a vague sort of way calls to mind the exhortations and anathemas of the stern old Jewish prophets. How absurd yet striking was an expression made by this wild preacher in the course of a sermon on honesty! Said he: 'God will put his angels on half rations rather than see an honest man starve.' On another occasion he apostrophized the rich men of the community and reproached them for their grasping miserliness. 'Why,' said he,'you men could be tolled to hell by laying a nickel every ten feet along the path!' Such phrases, which in many cases are almost vulgar, give an air of sensation to his meetings…” In 1885, he headlined a revival in Nashville, Tennessee, where he converted Thomas Green Ryman, who, along with Jones built the Union Gospel Tabernacle, later named Ryman Auditorium (home to the Grand Ole Opry) after Ryman's death. In 1886, at his own expense, he had a large open-air structure called "The Tabernacle" built for interfaith meetings. Until his death in 1906, he held services there each September, bringing to his hometown the co-workers who assisted him in the great revivals he held throughout the country.
Meanwhile, Jones raised funds for the Methodist Orphan Home in Decatur, Georgia. As an example of his preaching, once in an evangelistic Campaign in San Antonio, Texas, Jones hollered that the only difference between San Antonio and hell was that there was a river running down the middle of it.
Personal life
Jones married Laura McElwain of Kentucky. By 1895, the two-story house had been lifted up with an enormous first floor added underneath. Also on the property were a schoolhouse, greenhouse, smokehouse, a large carriage house, tennis court and small houses for servants. After a unanimous vote, the congregation officially changed the name of the church to Sam Jones Memorial Methodist Church (now known as Sam Jones Memorial United Methodist Church), which is still in existence today.