John Dunlavy (1769–1826) was, with Barton W. Stone, Richard McNemar, and two other Presbyterian ministers, a founder of the Springfield Presbytery in September 1803 and, nine months later, of the Christian Church in the West.
He is remembered chiefly for leaving. The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement is frank that Dunlavy "has not been noted for any distinctive contribution to the Springfield Presbytery or the Christian Church"; his distinctive work came on the other side of his defection. In July 1805 he united with the Shakers, and his Manifesto (1818) became the first systematic theology the Shakers produced.
Dunlavy belongs in the story as evidence of how genuinely unsettled the first years were. Of the five ministers who signed the Springfield withdrawal, two went to the Shakers and one returned to the Presbyterians. Stone was left nearly alone with a movement whose founding act had been to abolish its own governing body.
Relationships
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Withdrew and later joined the Shakers with: Richard McNemar
Both were founders of the Springfield Presbytery in 1803 and both united with the Shakers in 1805.