The Redemption of Riverton (1912)

• 82%
• 1912
• Harry Solter

Riverton was the average wicked little town, given over to drunkenness, gossip and hypocrisy. Then the new minister, the Rev. John Gibson, arrives, and soon becomes aware of the condition of affairs. On the day of his arrival, he meets June Martin, and is told that she is the granddaughter of Billy Martin, the principal saloon keeper of the town. The Rev. Gibson, having had an athletic training, proceeds to extreme measures to reform the village drunkards. On one occasion he carries home, bodily, from a saloon, the town drunkard. Then the liquor clique, headed by the deacon in Gibson's church, start a counter movement against Gibson and endeavor to discredit him before the community, by making it appear that Gibson is a whiskey drinker himself. This is where June Martin comes to his rescue by proving Gibson's entire innocence before the church committee, and not satisfied with that she also makes public the fact that the deacon, who is Gibson's principal accuser, is the owner of her grandfather's saloon. The end of Gibson's crusade shows the entire town converted to sobriety and true religion, with the exception of the wicked deacon who is left friendless and alone upon the doorstep of his saloon, which bears the sign, "To Let" upon its front door. June and her husband, the Rev. Gibson, are the most popular people in the town.