The subject is a quote from a letter of April 2, 1869, from Isham Gibson to Abraham Harley Cassel. I thought some of you might be interested in the context of this alleged "cut off" by giving you a little more quotation from this long letter. Apparently Cassel was trying to learn from Isham Gibson what happened in Kentucky in the 1820s. Bear in mind that Gibson was an old man when he wrote the letter. ".....a disturbance arose in Kentucky on the subject of slavery. A call was then made on our Eastern Brethren to assist them. Accordingly the following Brethren met at Brother Benjamin Coffman's in Muhlenberg Co. Kentucky in the year 1820. Samuel Arnold, Daniel Garver, John Brower, Joseph Roland, George Wolfe, James Hendricks, Jacob Garver, Henry Thornberry, Daniel Crouse, Joseph Kingery, Samuel Danner, Jacob Wolfe, all these Brethren went into Council. Propositions were discussed, the seventy and last was whether it was right to wash feet, before or after supper..... The western Brethren claimed that feet should be washed between supper and Bread of Communion and they, the western Brethren, claimed the victory over the Virginia Brethren. Then Brother Arnold asked the Brethren if he produced evidence that feet were washed before supper would they not comply, to which they agreed. Accordingly on their return home they sent testimony which settled the question. This confirms your [Cassel's] History of the Brethren. In the year 1823 I was baptized in Tennessee by Brother John Dick and was ordained May 14, 1826 [by Joseph Roland]. Somewhere between 1820 and 1826 there was cut off about 1,500 Brethren and sisters in Kentucky. This left only a small remnant of Far western Brethren, the old ones having died. George Wolfe in Union County, ILL, myself in Rutherford Co., Middle Tennessee, having never seen each other, met in Morgan County, Illinois in 1834......" Immediately after Joseph Roland ordained Isham Gibson in 1826, he appointed Gibson as elder in charge of the Long Creek congregation in southwestern Muhlenberg County. Gibson was the first and only elder as the Long Creek congregation was constituted in 1826, and then soon after disbanded, with Joseph Roland, John Dick, and Isham Gibson leading the Far Western Brethren from Long Creek and Drakes Creek (in Simpson County) to Sugar Creek in Sangamon County, Illinois, where a new congregation was constituted in 1830. The Long Creek Brethren existed many years before they were "constituted" by Joseph Roland, but by then, it was too late. I sort of doubt that my gggrandfather Gibson was correct when he came up with the number of 1,500 cut off, but the solution to the cut off was the same in 1826 as it was in 1799. When, in 1799, the North Carolina Brethren were cut off for believing in Universal Restoration, they moved to Kentucky. When, in 1826, the Kentucky Brethren were cut off for how they conducted Communion, those associated with Elders Roland, Dick, and Gibson moved to Illinois. Dwayne Wrightsman