On the way north, Rankin stopped to preach at Lexington and Paris, Kentucky, and learned about the need for a minister at Concord Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, Kentucky. The congregation had been involved in anti-slavery activities as far back as 1807, when they and twelve other churches formed the Kentucky Abolition Society, and Rankin's deepening anti-slavery views were nurtured there by his listeners. He remained for four years and started a school for slaves; within a year, however, they were driven first from a schoolhouse to an empty house, and then to his friend's kitchen by club-carrying mobs, and the students finally stopped coming. Spurred by a financial crisis in the area, Rankin decided to complete his family's journey to Ripley. On the night of December 31, 1821 – January 1, 1822, he rowed his family across the icy river. In Ripley he founded a Presbyterian academy for boys, where in 1838 the young Ulysses S. Grant once attended.