Joyner.--The Rev. Thomas Joyner was born November 12, 1802, in Sumner county, Tenn. He was married in the same State and county to Lucy Walters, and a short time after he married he removed to Illinois, settling within a short distance of where Norris City now stands. He professed conversion at a camp-meeting at Village camp-ground in 1830, and was soon after taken under the care of Illinois Presbytery as a candidate for the ministry. Illinois Presbytery then embraced the territory now comprised in Ewing Presbytery. After the formation of Ewing Presbytery it held its first session with Village congregation on March 29, 1845. On that day Brother Joyner was received under the care of Ewing Presbytery as a licentiate, having been licensed by Illinois Presbytery. In the spring of 1849, Ewing Presbytery being in session at Hopewell (now Enfield), on March 31, as the records show, Thomas Joyner, James L. Riley, Elbert Pearce, and R. M. Davis were ordained to the ministry. The Rev. John Crawford preached the ordination sermon. The Rev. Jesse Pearce presided, and the Rev. Benjamin Bruce delivered the charge. From the time Ewing Presbytery began to exist until his death a period more than half a century, the subject of this sketch was one of its ministers, and always faithful. His fidelity to his ordination vows was evinced by his regular attendance at presbytery and his willingness to labor when and where he was needed, or where his presbytery assigned him a field, and in this he was faithful even though, as was often the case, his poverty compelled him to travel on foot to his appointments, often a dozen miles or more. Faithful, though, through all his ministry, while dispensing the bread of life to the people with one hand, with the other he must fight the wolf of hunger from the door of his home. As an earnest Christian man his life shone with a stead light. Returning from the camp-meeting the evening following his conversion, he began his home Christian life by instituting family worship, which, it is needless to say, was never afterward neglected. In the early struggles of the temperance cause in this country this noble soldier stood in the front rank. Throughout his whole Christian life he was a total abstainer from intoxicants, and when at the age of fifty years he was led to believe that using tobacco was not in harmony with the Christian profession he abandoned its use at once and forever. Nor did this worthy man want in those traits which characterize the true citizen and patriot. Placed more than once in positions of public trust by his fellow-citizens of his community, he discharged ever duty with the strictest fidelity. The interest he manifested in politics was only an index of his love for his country, which love he manifested in a substantial way in his early manhood by serving as a soldier in the Black Hawk war. It remains for us to speak of Brother Joyner's theology. This was clear and practical. Searching for and loving the truth, he grasped the sacred doctrines of the Christian religion as they loomed up before his soul clear and distinct from the sacred page. He believed in the fall of man, the unlimited atonement, salvation by grace through faith, the new birth, the perseverance of the saints, and future rewards and punishment. These and kindred doctrines plain to be read were enough to stir his heart to love and faith and zeal. On these his mind was clear; of these his heart was full, so full that even in severe affliction and in the feebleness of eighty four years his soul's journey was a triumphal march. "I'm only waiting." said this dear old father two weeks before God took him. "My soul's happy," he would often say when friends would speak to him of Jesus. And he is gone, leaving such a record of faith and zeal and charity as we may all well wish to leave. On July 26, 1887, he laid down the cross, and went to his reward.

J. B. Green
Wm. Walters, Com.
[Source: The Cumberland Presbyterian, January 19, 1888, page 8]