USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 10
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35
This visit was made in 1803. Tobias Gibson and Moses Black, both of whom had travelled in the South Carolina Conference, were in the Natchez settlement, and after Dow had visited this country, they came from the West, and preached in it; but it was not until 1808 that Asbury resolved to send the frontiersmen of Alabama a preacher. At the conference at Bush's, in Greene County, Matthew P. Sturtevant was selected for the work. Sturtevant was a Virginian of moderate gifts, and without the capacity to organize and build up a work requiring as much heroism and skill as this new field demanded. He, however, went into the wil- derness and began his work ; his health soon failed, and when Col. Joe Foster, the father-in-law of Dr. Pierce, went on an expedition to the Tombigbee, he found the lone missionary sick and discouraged, and he brought him back to Georgia with him. t Michael Burge had gone to his aid, and he continued the work until Jno. W. Kennon came, and at the Conference of 1811, Jno. S. Ford was sent to the mission. The labors of Burge and Kennon we are reluctant to pass over without more than mention, but what else can we do? We get a glimpse, and only a glimpse, of the good men ; see them in the wilds, pursuing their lonely work of love, and see the results of it ; but of the laborers, and where and how the work was done, we know and can know nothing. Since Dow was at Tombigbee, until Ford
* Dow's Life.
t Dr. Pierce.
145
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
came, we know nothing definite; but in his old age Ford wrote an account of his stay at Tombigbee, which we have been fortunately able to secure.
IIe had travelled his first circuit as third man on Apalachee, and had gone to see his mother in North Carolina. IIe did not go to conference, and was wait- ing for his appointment. It came at last. The Tom- bigbee. It was 500 miles away-300 miles through the Indian Nation. There were trails instead of roads ; there were rivers to cross, without bridges; there were no houses to shelter the traveller ; the swamps they had to cross were only inhabited by the alligator, the panther, and the bear ; and the young preacher sent to the work was only twenty years old. He, however, did not delay, but bade farewell to his mother and to his affianced ; for, young as he was, he had for two years been engaged to be married to a sweet mountain girl, whose hand, five years after, he came to claim, and then turned his face to the far West.
Despite the sober dignity which the pages of a history like this may justly demand, the poetic beauty of this scene must for a moment arrest us. The humble North Carolina home, the simple-hearted Christian mother, the weeping, shrinking, timid girl, to whom the young preacher was all in all; the short, ruddy-faced, determined boy ; the wild woods, the deep rivers, the rude frontiersmen ; the unpaid toil ; the intrepidity ; the Christ-like love-all these pass before us as we see Jno. S. Ford leaving his mother's home for the Tom- bigbee. "Every Christian," says Vinet, "is a hero ; every Christian minister a leader of heroes." But such heroism as this is rare, because rarely demanded. He shall tell his own story :
7
146
HISTORY OF METHODISM
" Our conference was held in Columbia. News then travelled slow, and it was some time before I found out where I was to go; when it came I was surprised some- what.
"I was appointed a missionary to Tombigbee Mis- sion, in the Mississippi Territory. But I had deter- mined to go where I was sent. I therefore delayed not, but fixed up, and bade farewell to my dear afflicted mother, brothers, and sisters, and to her who was now dearer to me than all others, and started to my distant field of labor. It was a long way. Between 400 and 500 miles of it had to be performed on horseback, and 300 of it through an uncultivated wilderness, inhabited only by the Indians.
"I had to pass through the circuit I had travelled the previous year. Brother Osborn Rogers was on that circuit, and the first Sabbath after I left I spent with him at one of his appointments. There were two other preachers appointed to the Mississippi field besides mny- self, but I found when I got to Georgia that they had gone on and left me behind, and it seemed I would have to go alone through the wilderness ; but this looked like an almost impossible thing, as it was winter and the streams almost full. But I found a young man in Athens, a student in the college, who wanted to go through to visit his parents in Natchez. We concluded to join and go through together. We got a wallet of provisions, a hatchet, and some cooking utensils, two blankets apiece, and took the wilderness. There were then no white inhabitants from the Ocmulgee in Georgia to the settlement on Tombigbee. We had to lie out ten nights and travel eleven days before we got through. During our journey we had a great deal of
147
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1863.
rain, some snow, and one heavy sleet. The water- courses were all full, and few of them bridged, and but few ferries. We had to carry over our things on logs, and swim our horses through. On the eleventh day we ate our last cake for dinner, expecting we should have to do without bread that night, but fortunately we got into the Basset's Creek settlement, and to the house of Brother John Dean, who received us cordially and sup- plied everything needed to make us comfortable. I felt very grateful to iny Heavenly Father that He had brought us all through safely the dangers and difficul- ties of the way, and directed us to such a kind friend and brother, in that distant and strange country. I was now in my mission, and this was one of my pleasant homes during my stay in that mission. Brother John W. Kennon was already on the mission, and had been during the past year, but he was not able to be in that neighborhood for some days. My travelling companion, after resting a day or two, went on towards Natchez. There was a pretty good society in this neighborhood, and the Friday after my arrival was fast-day. I attended meeting and preached for them, and they seemed rejoiced and thankful for my safe arrival. I felt encouraged and hoped to see good times among thein, and in this I was not disappointed, for we had a revi- val and many were added to the Church during the year. Brother Kennon came on in a few days, and I went around the mission with him. It extended from the neighborhood on Tombigbee to the upper settle- ments, including the Basset Creek, fifteen miles from its mouth on Bigbee; thence to the upper settlements on Buckatuna, down that to Chickasawhai, and down that sixty or seventy miles; then to Leaf River, and
148
HISTORY OF METHODISM
thence back to Chickasawhai; then to St. Stephen's, then down Bigbee to the neighborhood of Wakefield.
"Our appointments, few and far between, were scat- tered over a large extent of country. We had long rides, hard fare, too much water in winter, and but little in summer, but we found many kind, affectionate friends. They were mostly new-comers, and not prepared to ex- tend accommodations to us as well as they wished ; but when they did as well as they could, we felt satisfied and grateful. I shall ever remember them kindly, especially Brother John Dean and his family. They treated me as a son-may God bless them ! So, also, I may say of Brothers John McRay, Boykin, Godfrey, and many others. I found Brother Kennon to be a pions man and a good preacher, a kind and affectionate brother in Christ. We labored in harmony, and with some success. We formed new societies, and had some churches built. " This was the year of the 'earthquakes,' as it was called, from the shaking of the earth in 1812. This pro- duced general alarm, and many who had been skeptical and entirely indifferent about their future welfare were waked up. Our congregations increased. They began to think the Bible was true and our preaching of im- portance. I was asked if the Bible said the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunken man. I told them it did, got the place and read it to them ; and when they felt the earth in motion again their fears were alarmed, and they cried to God for mercy, and through the influence of the Holy Spirit many were led to exercise faith in Christ, and obtained forgiveness and a change of heart, and were made new creatures in Christ Jesus. We had a gracious revival, and added many to the Church."
The next year the Tombigbee Mission and the naine
149
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
of Ford are not found on the minutes of the South Carolina Conference, but on those of the Western, where he appears as sent to the Attapakias. This was still farther to the west, beyond the Mississippi, on the borders of Texas. Four preachers had volunteered to come from Georgia to his aid. They were Lewis Hobbs, Richmond Nolley, Thomas Griffin, and Drury Powell. Saml. Dunwoody was to come with them, but, being a delegate to the general conference, which met in May, lie could not come then, and never came. Ford left Nolley and Drury Powell on the Tombigbee Circuit, and in company with Hobbs and Griffin went on to the Natchez Country. They found some old Methodists on Pearl River, then reached the Red Lick settlement, now Vicksburg, where they left Lewis Hobbs. Then the two young preachers, Ford and Griffin, crossed the Missis- sippi and were in Louisiana. It had for not quite ten years been in the possession of the United States, and was only thinly peopled by any class of settlers, and by very few Americans. Griffin went north towards the Arkansas line, and Ford towards the south. As they travelled together before they reached the point from which they were to take different ways, they came to a small log-church. It had been built by James Axley, and was one of the first Methodist churches in Louisiana, and one of the first west of the Mississippi. Axley had travelled in these prairies a few years before, and having been literally starved out, unable to get food for his horse, and unable to travel without him, he had started for his home in Tennessee. He had to stop & few weeks for his horse to recruit, and while he was resting, with his own hands he built a church. This was the only church Ford found. Methodism had now been
.
.
150
HISTORY OF METHODISM
six years in Louisiana, but had accomplished but little. Ford soon found himself in the prairies to which he had been sent. They were wild and untracked, filled with deep bayous, dangerous streams, and wild swamps. Now and then he found a body of settlers of many nationalities-negroes, mulattoes, quadroons, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Creoles, and Canadians, alike in neither language nor costume, in nothing but godlessness. IIere the young preacher pursued his arduous work. He re- mained for two years on the west of the Mississippi, then two more years in Mississippi, and after five years' ab- sence from North Carolina, was appointed to the Nola- chucky Circuit in Tennessee. IIe returned home before he began his work. His sweetheart, faithful all the time, was waiting for him, and as he had fairly won his bride, he was married as soon as he returned, and then went to his work .* IIe travelled a few years, and reluc- tantly located ; then returned to Georgia and labored as a local preacher, re-entered the conference, was driven to location again by insufficient support, and again re- entered the work, and in it died. IIe was for a long time superannuated. IIe was a dignified, meek, gentle old man, who, although almost stone deaf himself, used to preach to others a Gospel he could not hear himself. Ile was much beloved by all who knew him. The dear wife who had been the joy of his heart in youth and manhood and age, died a few years before him, and the deaf old man, now doubly lonely, waited for the Mas- ter's call, which came in 1867, when he went home.
Asbury visited Georgia again this year, having been nearly three years absent. Ile entered the State below
* Ford's MSS.
151
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
Augusta, and preached at Old Church, the first time in over twenty years, and thence to Lovett's, in Scriven. These Lovetts were the parent stock of those who are doing the Church service now. He passed through Effingham, and went to Savannah, where the good Dr. Kollock had several kind interviews with him. He was accompanied on this visit by Henry Boehm, who preached in German for the Saltzburghers. He found that Lewis Myers, then presiding elder, had secured a lot for a new church in Savannah. He returned to South Carolina, and thence to Camden, where the conference met, Dec. 31, 1811. The session seems to have been one of great harmony, and the reports indi . cate that the year in the entire conference had been one of great prosperity. During its progress there had been a net gain of 3,380 members. There were now eighty- five effective preachers on the roll. The districts in Geor- gia remained as they were. The Milledgeville Circuit disappeared, and the Cedar Creek took its place. Cedar Creek runs through Jasper and Jones, and the Cedar Creek Circuit included Jasper, Jones, Baldwin, and a part of Putnam. It included a fine country, which had been settled for eight years with a good people, who had means and energy. The number of members re- ported in it was 845. The most important circuit as to numbers was the Broad River, which had 1,427 members. The Apalachee had 1,034, and the Little River, 742. The Sparta had 742. Then came the cir- cuits in the more thinly settled country: the Washing- ton, which had only 298, and the Ohoopee and Santilla only 100 each. The Alcovi had 986. The Louisville, 517. There were three small stations, Milledgeville, Augusta, Savannah. Milledgeville was the most pros-
152
HISTORY OF METHODISM
perous station, and in Savannah there was still only three members.
During this year the war with England was declared, Savannah was threatened by the English fleets, and troops from Georgia were called for. Up to this epoch the Methodists and their preachers had been denounced by their enemies as Tories; but they now came 80 bravely to the call of the country, that from this day the accusation ceased.
At this conference delegates were elected to the gen- eral conference provided for in the session of 1808. The legislative bodies of Methodism have, like all other features of her economy, been the offspring of neces- sity-the children of Providence. First, there was the quarterly conferences of Mr. Wesley's societies in America, and then the annual meeting of all the preachers, and then the general conference, of which all the elders were members, and which met every four years. The first regular general conference was held in 1792 ; of this no minutes are preserved; the second in 1796, of which we have given account. There was a kind of legislative council, of which Richard Ivy, of Georgia, was one of the first members, and of which the histories of Methodism give a full account, but con- cerning which our history need do no more than make mention. The delegated general Conference was to meet in May, 1812, in New York, and at this session of the South Carolina Conference delegates were elected. They were Lewis Myers, Lovick Pierce, Jos. Tarpley, Daniel Asbury, W. M. Kennedy, Samuel Dunwoody, Jno. B. Glenn, Jos. Travis, and Hilliard Judge. Of these only Lovick Pierce now lives, and of all the body, that vene- rable man is the only one who remains.
153
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
We cannot get a proper view of Methodist history by the mere recital of current events and the mere por- traiture of the workers. We must pause now and then, and survey the ground over which we have passed, and mark the changes which have passed over church and state .*
Georgia had undergone great changes in the last ten years, and Georgia Methodists had passed through a very important period. It has now been nearly thirty years since the first Methodist came, and the children of those who were converted then, and some of those who began to preach, now enter into the work of the ministry themselves. Even the frontier counties of Georgia have largely lost the rudeness which always belongs to new settlements, and the older counties of the State have taken on many of the pleasant features of refinement and cultivation.
The early Methodist preachers were a peculiar peo- ple. This they knew themselves, and they were not disposed to deplore the fact. They believed Christians ought to be a peculiar people, and especially preachers, and not to be conformed to the world. The old disci- pline was the guide-book, and no army officer ever re- garded more strictly the army regulations than a faith- ful preacher his discipline.
Asbury had brought with him, from England, the dress and habits of an English Wesleyan, and as Wes- ley was Asbury's model, so he was in his turn the model of the American preachers. The dress of both preach- ers and people was as marked as that of the Quakers. A preacher who did not wear a straight-breasted coat was
* Travis.
154
HISTORY OF METHODISM
in sinful conformity to the world. It was not the coat he wore, but the motive which led him to wear any but a straight-breast, that made it an offence. The hair was to be cut short, and brushed neatly down on the fore- head. No preacher ever thought of wearing a beard. It would have been almost as offensive as a heresy. The good brethren would have lost all confidence in his piety if he had been so worldly. The pantaloons of the French had taken the place of knee-breeches, and there was some disposition to wear newly-invented suspenders, or galluses, as they were called. This was very objectionable, and the young preacher who used these convenient articles, had to account for it. Bishop Capers tells how an old brother said to him once: " Brother Capers, I do love you ; but oh, them galluses!" And there is a tradition that in one quarterly conference a young probationer was complained of for wearing them, and forty years afterwards another for not wear- ing them ; and so with the good women-they dressed with perfect plainness. These details are historical and are not simply amusing, for a great principle lay at the base of this to us apparently trivial matter. Dress was running the world wild. Extravagauce and im- purity were alike fostered by it, and Methodism, aiming to develop an inner life, did not do ill when she endeav- ored to train her children to use that which was out- ward, and not abuse it. The hour for rising was gen- erally four o'clock, winter and summer. From that time to six the preacher read and prayed. After prayers with the family, and breakfast, he mounted his faithful horse and was off to his appointments. Ile preached about twelve o'clock, and invariably held class with his flock, whom he had not seen in twenty-eight days,
155
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
and would not see again for twenty-eight days more. He went home with some good brother, and frequently preached again at night. This he did every day in the week except Monday. His colleague and himself met that day, and it was a rest day. If he had a wife, he tried toget to see her then ; but generally he was single, and spent the day with his colleague. There was a conscientious exactness in filling appointments, and to do that he braved all weathers and dared all dangers. The rides were long, the exposure great, the labor exhausting, for he was generally a boisterous man. All this required men of iron, and but few preachers were able to endure it long ; and health giving way, one by one they sank into their graves or retired from the work broken down in body. The salary allowed was eighty dollars per annum. Up to 1804 it had been sixty-four dollars ; before a federal currency it had been twenty-five pounds Continental money. A wife was allowed the same as her husband. This was paid out of quarterly collections, taken at first by the preachers, and then by the stewards. Each preacher reported everything he received to the conference, presents and all, until the law regarding presents was repealed. If there was a deficiency, the conference made it up, if it was able to do so. There was no provision made for family supplies. If a preacher married and had no property of his own, he had no alternative but to locate after his family grew too large to board around with him.
The effects of a disease remain when the causes which gave it being have passed away. The limb once para- lized remains long useless, even after the clot of blood which effected the injury has been absorbed, and it is
156
HISTORY OF METHODISM
often years before the habit of use returns. So in the Church. When Humphries and Major began their ministry the members of the societies were few. The people were all poor, and in 1812 the same usages which obtained in 1788 were still existent. They had come down to children who believed their ancestors to have done just right ; and now, when Methodists were a well-to-do, and inany of them a rich people, the same old habit of giving a quarter of a dollar per quarter continued. The preachers, as we have seen, were liter- ally forced to retire from the work, or to remain single.
The first Methodists, for the support of the ministry, gave little and gave it reluctantly. Why was this? Was it the love of money-a criminal penuriousness ? We think not. The same Methodist who gave twenty- five cents per quarter to his self-denying preacher, kept an open house and entertained a whole quarterly conference ; he would go twenty miles to a camp-meeting and feed hundreds. He would oftentimes give the old preacher a home as long as he lived. He would stop every plow, and send every slave to meeting on a week day. No poor ever cried to him in vain for bread. No sophistry could induce him to take more than legal in- terest for his money ; yet he did not give liberally to support the preacher, and as yet there were no mission- ary societies among the Methodists.
There were no paid preachers in those days. There was a doubt whether they ought to be paid. The clergy of Virginia, from which State the fathers of these Geor- gians came, had been supported by a reluctantly paid tobacco tax, and the very thought of a hireling ministry was obnoxious to the mass of the people. The Baptists preached for nothing, and gloried in it. Humphries,
157
IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
Ivy, Major, had received comparatively nothing; why should their successors need so much. Then the preach- ers said nothing about money, except to discourage its accumulation. To get men to cease from drunkenness, horse-racing, gambling, and Sabbath-breaking, to secure their conversion, to induce the worldly girl to lay aside her rings, and ruffles, and the gay young man his worldly ways, and to go to class, and speak in love-feast, and pray in the family, and maybe preach-this was the object at which they aimed. They said but little, and that little always timidly, about the religious use of money, and thus our forefathers in the ministry prepared the way for their own banishment from the work they loved so well.
The people were generally plain, and generally with but little education, but they were men of sturdy character. There was now and then a home of ele- gance, but mostly the homes were simple. Industry and prudence were the chief virtues next to piety. There was no want in all the land.
The religious habits of the Methodists were as marked. When a man was converted in those days, he expected to shout ; he expected to get happy at every circuit-preach- ing day and at every class-meeting. He expected, when he joined the Church, to go to circuit-preaching and camp-meeting. He expected to pray whenever he was called on ; he expected to pray three times a day in private, and to abjure all the vanities of the world. This was what he believed the life of a good Methodist demanded. So, when the young girl, happy in her new experience, came home from the camp-meeting, where she had been converted, she took off every ruffle and frill from her dress, every flower from her bonnet, every ring from
158
HISTORY OF METHODISM
her fingers. She had made up her mind to live a life of consecration and simplicity, and to take up her cross, as she called it at all times. So she was ready to pray in the family, to pray in class-meeting, and to pray in church, and was an angel of mercy to those around. This was what the early Methodist calculated on, and this was what they did. They did not expect to sup- port a married preacher, and they did not do it until they were convinced it ought to be done.
The discipline of the Society, as the Church was called, was rigid and certain. Every man, high or low, knew he would be called to account for any violation of rule, and so directed his steps. The Iron Duke lived before himself in his kinsman, John Wesley, and the same spirit which ordered an unfaithful quarter- master to be shot, ordered an unfaithful member to be cut off, or an inefficient preacher to private life. The discipline of the English Methodists was introduced into the Methodist Episcopal Church in America.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.