A Sesquicentennial History of the Green River Missionary Baptist Church
1836 - 1986, Written and Compiled by Wendell Holmes Rone, Sr., For the One
Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the Church, 1987. By
permission of author. Ohio County.

BENJAMIN FULTON JENKINS was the sixth Pastor of Green River Baptist Church,
serving three times in that capacity.  He was also converted under her
ministry, baptized into her fellowship, licensed to preach the Gospel of
Christ by her, and ordained as a Baptist Minister by her through a
Presbytery of Baptist Ministers.
    He was born of humble and godly parentage in Meade County, Kentucky, on
March 22, 1842; being the son of and youngest child of B. S. Jenkins and
Elizabeth (Humphreys) Jenkins.  His paternal grandfather was John J.
Jenkins, who migrated to Glasgow, Barren County, Kentucky, about 1790,
where he remained but a short time before removing to Ohio (now Daviess)
County); and from there to Meade County, where he reared a large family of
nine children, with B. S. Jenkins, the father of our subject, being the
youngest.
    Brother Jenkins received a good common school education, to which, later
in life, he added a knowledge of many of the higher branches of learning,
including sufficient Latin and Greek to enable him to read and translate
the New Testament in the original.  Although not a regular graduate of the
schools, yet, by diligent reading and study, together with a strong
physical development, and a well-balanced mind he became an accurate
reasoner, a clear and forceful speakr, and an eminently successful Pastor.
    At the outbreak of the Civil War, Brother Jenkins enlisted in the Union
Army, serving in Company D, Seventeenth Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, where
he followed the fortunes of the Army of the Cumberland through all its
important campaigns in Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia, including the
famous battles of Missionary Ridge, Chickamauga and Atlanta, doing his duty
bravely for three years and four months.
    Having made a profession of faith in Christ as Saviour, Brother Jenkins
was baptized into the Church's fellowship by Pastor James F. Austin on
February 19, 1860.  Having returned home after serving in the Union Army,
as noted above, and making known his call to the ministry; he was licensed
to preach the Gospel of Christ on March 11, 1865, by the Church.  It was
during his services in the army that he had felt the call of God to preach.
Also, one of the gifts he took with him to the war was a small Bible,
which he kept with him at all times, and from which he read, when occasion
permitted.
    His ordination to the Baptist Ministry took place at the Green River
Church, on April 16, 1865, only one week after the Civil War officially
closed.  Baptist Ministers John F. James, J. S. Coleman and James F. Austin
(his Pastor) served as the Ordination Presbytery.  Thus began an active
ministry which was to last for fifty-eight years.  In that time he served a
total of forty-four Churches, most of them being on a quarter-time basis
and in the lower Green River Country.  He also held a total of 298
evangelistic meetings; and, as one of the tangible results of those
meetings, over 8,000 persons were converted to Christ and baptized into the
fellowship of Baptist Churhes.  Many of those he baptized with his own
hands, while others were baptized by Pastors whom he helped in those
meetings.  Of these converts, forty-four men became Ministers of the
Gospel, twenty-six of whom he baptized himself.  Among them were such men
as M. H. Whitson, J. N. Jarnagin and Granville Dockery.
    Brother Jenkins was the author of three out-standing Tracts during his
ministry - "Meat and Milk of the Gospel," "What Causes Panics," and
"Baptist Axioms".  The last-mentioned tract had a circulation of over
14,000, and was commented on favorably by many brethren in the Baptist
Press.  It was so outstanding, that the writer included it in the "History
of the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association In Kentucky," which he wrote and
which was published in 1943.
    On July 5, 1868, Brother Jenkins was united in marriage to Elizabeth I.
Arnold of Daviess County, Kentucky, the daughter of John H. and Altha Jane
Arnold.  They had six children:  Susa E. (b. May 26, 1869); John A. (b.
Setpember 4, 1871); Altha C. (b. December 4, 1873); Laura D. (b. August 7,
1876); Benjamin F. (b. October 24, 1878); and Bradus Smith (b. October
16th, 1882).  The day after her youngest son was born Mrs. Jenkins Died
[sic] on October 17, 1882.  On December 24, 1884, Brother Jenkins married
the second time to Miss Emma Miller, second daughter of J. C. and Frances
Miller, who was born in Ohio County, March 14, 1857.  Four children were
born to the second marriage, but only one survived in 1943.  The second
Mrs. Jenkins died in 1920.
    Brother Jenkins began his ministry within the bounds of Gasper River
Association.  He served as a Missionary of the Association in 1867 - 1868,
and as an Evangelist in 1869-1870, with much success.  Several Churches
were greatly revived.  In November, 1866, he and A. Coy, after a meeting of
days in the old Zion Community, organized a Church of 17 members called New
Zion.  He pastored it from the beginning through at least 1876, or later. 
It was in Butler County, near the northern Ohio County line.  He pastored
two other Churches in Butler County: Rochester, in 1869-18970; and
Barnett's Lick, in 1869-1876 or later.  He also pastored in the 1880's the
Cane Run, Mt. Pleasant (Fordsville), Zion and Pleasant Grove Churches in
Ohio County, as they were like a circuit.  He served the Mt. Zion Church,
Ohio County, in 1875; and was his home Church from 1860 to 1885.  Those
times were: 1877 through December, 1879; and, January, 1881 through June,
1884.  He also delivered the Annual Sermon before the Association in 1878
and 1884.  He served as a Messenger to the Association from Green River
Church from 1866 through 1879 and again in 1881 through 1885.
    In addition to laboring in the ministry, Brother Jenkins owned a 113 acre
farm which he managed, located about three and one-half miles north of
Cromwell.  After the death of his first wife and his remarriage, he moved
to Daviess County near Habit and Bethaara Baptist Church.
    Therefore, his ministry thereafter was continued in the Counties of
Daviess, Hancock, McLean, and Muhlenberg.  He served Buck Creek, Island,
Livermore, Calhoun, Bethel, Richland and Mt. Liberty Churches, in McLean
County; New Hope and Bethlehem in Muhlenberg County; Bell's Run, Mt.
Carmel, and Concord in Ohio County; Glenville, Stanley, Red Hill and
Hopewell, in Daviess County.  He pastored Beaver Dam Church, Ohio County,
in 1898-1900; and his last pastorate was at Hall Street Church, in
Owensboro, in 1917-1918.  He was installed there as Pastor on his
seventy-fifty birthday.
    For years, Brother Jenkins lived on Lewis Street, in Owensboro, and held
membership in the Third Baptist Church.  Near the year 1923 he left
Kentucky to live with his son, Smith Jenkins, in Joplin, Missouri.  But his
heart was still in Kentucky.  He later moved, with his son and family, to
Springfield, Missouri.  There he died, on May 5, 1932, in his nintieth
year.  His remains were brought back to his native State and laid to rest
in the Elmwood Cemetery, Owensboro, Kentucky.  His long and useful ministry
honored the Lord who called him into it, and more than repaid the Green
River Church for its confidence in licensing and ordaining him to the
ministry.

Jenkins Humphreys Austin James Coleman Whitson Jarnagin Dockery Arnold Coy
=
Meade-KY Glasgow-Barren-KY Daviess-KY TN GA Hancock-KY McLean-KY
Muhlenberg-KY MO

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/ohio/jenkins.bf2.txt