USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 2
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 2
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HISTORY OF METHODISM.
able man, who had been so attached to John Wesley and his brother at Oxford, and had sooner found the light, was the first Methodist preacher who ever preached in Savannah. Methodism was a sentiment before it be- came an ecclesiasticism. Its central idea was justification by faith, and a consciousness of it. The experimental, rather than doctrinal, was its mark ; and though George Whitefield differed with John Wesley with reference to predestination, and was not connected with his societies, yet he was truly a Methodist Episcopalian .*
IIis fervid eloquence, his evangelical preaching was more pleasing to the colonists than the frigid High Churchism of Mr. Wesley, and soon all the villagers- for Savannah had in it but 500 people-attended his ministry. After spending a year in his parish he decided to return to England for priest's orders, and to raise funds for an orphan house to be founded at Bethesda, near the city.
For nearly thirty years he was a frequent visitor at Savannah, and was always gladly welcomed, and his influence for good remains to this day. In 1769 he brought with him from England a protege, Cornelius Winter,t who was the first missionary to the negroes. Winter had been a wild boy belonging to the lower order of Englishmen. He was converted under Mr. Whitefield's preaching, and after laboring with him as a kind of assistant, he was induced to come to America by his patron as a teacher of the Africans, who were being now introduced in numbers as slaves, to cultivate rice and cotton on the seaboard. Winter found a friend in James Habersham, who had come a year be-
* Life of Whitefield.
t Jay's Life of Cornelins Winter.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
fore as Mr. Whitefield's teacher, but who was now a merchant, and was installed as catechist on the planta- tion of a retired Episcopal clergyman. IIe met with such poor success in his work, and found the planters so bitterly opposed to his preaching to the slaves, that after the death of Mr. Whitefield in 1770, a year after he had reached Savannah, he resolved to return to England to secure ordination. This he failed to do on account of his Methodism, and so he fell into the ranks of the Nonconformists, among whom he was a leading inan till his death. Georgia in her infancy had thus the ministry of John and Charles Wesley, Benj. Ingham, Delamotte, Whitefield, and Winter-men whose names are familiar to all students of church history as instruments in the now historic Methodist reformation.
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HISTORY OF METHODISM
CHAPTER II.
RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF GEORGIA TO THE INTRODUCTION OF METHOD- ISM-THE COLONISTS-THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH-THE LUTHERANS- THE PRESBYTERIANS-THE BAPTISTS.
THE Trustees for Georgia were many of them wealthy dissenters, and for over twenty years after the settle- ment of the colony there was no religious establishment. Perfect religious freedom was guaranteed, save to the Catholics. Jews, Presbyterians, and Lutherans were side by side with the Church of England men. With the first body of colonists came an Episcopal clergyman, who became rector of the first parish. This was Dr. IIenry Herbert, who remained in Georgia only three months ;* he died on his passage home, and was suc- ceeded by Samuel Quincy, a native of Massachusetts, who came to Savannah in May, 1733. IIe held service in a hut made of split boards. He met with much opposition and hard usage, and only left the colony after John Wesley came. Of Wesley's history while here we have already spoken. Charles Wesley and Benj. Ingham, the spiritual father of the Countess of Huntington, came over with John Wesley, and labored at Frederica ; by 1737 they had all returned to England. Mr. Whitefield came, as we have seen, just after Mr. Wesley left ; ho remained two years. The church at Frederica did not prosper, nor did the one at Savannah. In 1755 the Trustees surrendered the colony to the Crown, and the
* Bishop Stevens' Mem. Sermon, p. 9.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
Church of England became the established church. Parishes were formed; in three of these there were churches : one in Savannah, one in Burke County, and one in Augusta. The churches outside of Savannah were served by missionaries sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. There seems to have been no prosperity in this church, and there were perhaps not fifty communicants in all the colony. Although the Parish of St. George in Burke had a church where is now Old Church, and a glebe attached, they could not provide for a rector, nor retain one. At the Revolution the field was entirely abandoned, and for near twenty years after its close we have been able to find no footprint of an Episcopal clergyman. Methodism had over 12,000 members in her fold before an Episcopal bishop ever visited Georgia.
The Saltzburghers were a band of pious Austrians, who adhered to the doctrines of Luther, and who were driven from their native hills by Catholic persecution. Frederick William of Prussia gave thein a shelter in Friesland, and his relative, George II., offered them a home in Georgia. A colony of them came in the first shipload of emigrants, and found a home in what is now Effingham County, some twenty miles from Savannah. They afterwards removed their village to a healthier location, and called their new town Ebenezer. They were a pious people, industrious and frugal, and their pastors men of fine intellectual culture. They spoke, however, only the German tongue and preserved their German usages, and were not aggressive. No growth was to be expected save from within and from emigra- tion. The German emigration, however, chose the rich valleys of Pennsylvania in preference to the pine woods 2
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HISTORY OF METHODISM
of Georgia, and the Lutherans in Georgia had grown but little to the period we are now reaching. They had one church at Ebenezer, one in Savannah, and one at Goshen, in 1786. The first colony of Presbyterians came in in 1735, and fixed their settlement at the mouth of the Altamaha, at a place they called New Inverness, which is now Darien. This colony had Pastor McLeod as their spiritual guide. How long they remained there, or whether they ever built a church, we cannot discover. It is probable the colony was soon broken up and the colonists scattered. There are a large number of High- land names in Lower Georgia-McLeods, MacPhersons, McIntoshes, and the like, which probably owe their origin to these emigrants. A second body of Presbyterians were induced by George Galphin, a Scotch-Irishman and an Indian trader, to come over aud settle in Jeffer- son County, then St. George Parish. They were dis- senters from the Scotch Church, were Scotch-Irish peo- ple, who followed Mr. Erskine. The first Presbyterian church of which we have any authentic account was in Savannah, and was established in 1760. A few years before that, however, a colony of English Congrega- tionalists came over to this country, and after spending a short time in New England, came south to Dorchester, S. C., and thence to Liberty County, in Georgia, where they built Old Medway Church. They were people of some means, and had a ministry of genuine piety and great intelligence. Counting these with the Presby- terians, there were in all three Presbyterian congrega- tions in the State prior to 1786. In 1773 Sir James Wright made a new purchase from the Indians, and that fine country north and west of Augusta was bought. It was settled by emigrants from Virginia and North
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
and South Carolina. Abraham Marshall, who had been a Congregationalist and then a Baptist, came near that time, and a little before him, Edmund Bottsford, another Baptist, from South Carolina, crossed the river into Burke County to preach. He founded Bottsford Bap- tist Church near the same epoch that Abraham Mar- shall founded that of Kiokee .* Silas Mercer came soon after. These three were good men and great men, and worked with great zeal, itinerating through the country. Some of them were arrested by the Episcopal magis- trates and fined, but they went on in their work. In 1784 the first association was organized, which consisted of six churches, three of which were in South Carolina. . There was then in 1786 in Georgia, as far as we can get the facts, three Episcopal churches without rectors, three Lutheran churches, three Presbyterian, and three Baptist. We may safely say there were not 500 Chris- tian people in all.
The colony now numbered 80,000 inhabitants, white and black. The social features of the country were those of all frontier settlements. In another chapter we have endeavored to represent them. The field was indeed a wide one, a hard one, and yet an inviting one. What Methodism had to do in changing this wild into a garden, we are now to see. In December, 1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church of America was organ- ized, and in the spring of 1785, the first Methodist preacher was sent to Georgia.
* Campbell's Baptista.
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HISTORY OF METHODISM
CHAPTER III. 1786-1794.
METHODISM IN AMERICA BEFORE 1785-BEVERLEY ALLEN-JAMES FOS- TER - THOMAS HUMPHRIES - JOHN MAJOR - CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE-HENRY PARKS-RICHARD IVY-FRANCIS ASBURY IN GEOR- GIA-FIRST CONFERENCE-HOPE HULL FIRST CHURCH-THOMAS HAYNES - CONFERENCE AT GRANT'S-JAMES CONNER -THOMAS GRANT-DAVID MERRIWETHER-THOMAS COKE-ELBERT CIRCUIT- JAMES JENKINS REUBEN ELLIS-UNION OF THE GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA CONFERENCES.
THE first Methodist society in America was probably organized by Robert Strawbridge, in Maryland, before 1766 .* During that year, in a sail-loft in New York, at the instance of a good woman, who had been a Methodist, Philip Embury certainly organized a society.t Robert Williams, in Virginia, was at work soon after, and then Mr. Wesley sent Mr. Rankin and Mr. Rodda from England to take charge of the societies. More laborers were needed, and when Mr. Wesley made a call for volunteers to come to America, Francis Asbury offered himself, and in the autumn of that year sailed from Bristol to Philadelphia.
The war of the revolution began and ended. All the English preachers, at its beginning, returned to Eng- land, save Francis Asbury, whose love for the American Methodists was stronger than his love for England.
There were no sacraments, and there were ho or-
* Letter in Pacific Methodist. t Stevens' History.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
dained preachers. Mr. Wesley saw something must be done for America, and acting in accordance with his views of church polity, he decided to ordain a bishop for these churches, and so ordained Dr. Thomas Coke, who was to come to America, and set apart Mr. Francis Asbury for the superintendency of them. The preachers were summoned from their circuits, and they assembled in Baltimore, in December, 1784, and met at the Lovely Lane Meeting House, to organize the Methodist Epis- copal Church of America. Mr. Asbury and Thomas Coke were elected to the Episcopal office, and then Mr. Asbury was ordained by Dr. Coke, assisted by Otterbien and other elders.
Dr. Coke was to be a joint bishop with Asbury, but he was little more than a bishop in name, and upon Asbury reposed the great burden of overseeing and directing the efforts of the evangelists. No man could have been chosen better suited to the place.
There were now 10,000 Methodists in America, much the largest part of them in Maryland and Vir- ginia.
Asbury realized the importance of the frontier, and at once sought to occupy it. The Western frontier was the county of Translyvania, in Virginia, now the State of Kentucky. The southern was the State of Georgia.
The first conference, after the Christmas Conference of 1784, was held in North Carolina, at the house of Green Hill, who was a local preacher. Here Beverly Allen, who had been a travelling preacher for several years, was ordained an elder, and appointed to Georgia.
The conference at which he was appointed included in it all the preachers of Virginia and North and South Carolina who could be present ; yet they were accom-
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HISTORY OF METHODISM
modated in one country house. Dr. Coke, with his fiery impetuosity, had excited great hostility to himself and the societies, as he passed through Virginia, by his vehement attack upon domestic slavery. When he reached North Carolina, finding that the laws of the State, even then, forbade emancipation, he exercised a prudence unusual with him, and preached simply the Gospel ; but the Conference, through his influence, pass- ed the most decided resolutions against slavery, and in- sisted that the Church should take earnest measures to secure immediate emancipation. These resolutions ac- complished nothing except to throw more serious ob- stacles in the way of the already embarrassed preachers.
When Paul and Barnabas went forth on their mis- sionary tour through slaveholding Greece, they went from the Primitive Church unhampered with instruc- tions about slavery ; but the children were wiser than the fathers, and it required the experience of a few sad years to teach Asbury and his associates that both master and slave would perish if they persisted in their course.
The first herald of Methodism to Georgia had a sad and tragic history. IIe began to travel in 1782 in Vir- ginia, and for a while travelled with Asbury,* preaching with great zeal and success. There was quite an emi- gration from Virginia to Wilkes County, in upper Georgia, after the revolution, and as his brother was living in that section after Allen's location, it is proba- ble that he had already removed there when Allen was appointed to the State, and that he had, besides, acquain- tances and friends. Allen was at this time a man of
* Asbury's Journal.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
fine personal appearance, and an interesting and zealous preacher, and large crowds attended his ministry. What was the boundary of his circuit, or where his labors were chiefly expended, we have no means of finding out, but they were probably confined to Wilkes County, then embracing all upper Georgia .* He certainly accom- plished but little, since only seventy members were reported at the next Conference. He was then made a presiding elder for the upper part of South Carolina, and the next year was on the Edisto work in the lower part of the State. Here he married into one of the best families of the section.t He then returned to Georgia, and was an assistant presiding elder to Richard Ivy, and the next year was sent to South Carolina again, and sta- tioned on Edisto Island. Here he committed a flagrant crime, # and in 1792 was expelled from the connection. He seems now to have returned to Georgia and gone into mercantile business with his brother, Billy Allen. He became embarrassed financially, and while in Augusta was threatened with arrest for debt by the United States Marshall, Major Forsyth. He refused to submit to arrest, and when Major Forsyth attempted to take him forcibly, he killed him. He fled to Elbert, was captured and imprisoned. He was released by a mob of the citi- zens, § and fled to the wilds of Kentucky. Here he practised medicine, and in his house Peter Cartwright boarded when a boy at school. | We have no further authentic tidings of this gifted, but, alas ! wicked man. He was, as far as we can find from the minutes, the first apostate Methodist preacher in America. For some
* White. t Mood.
# Mood.
§ White.
| Cartwright's Life.
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HISTORY OF METHODISM
reason Bishop Asbury always distrusted him, and so expressed himself to Dr. Coke .* He had done but little for Georgia his first year in it, and when the Virginia Conference met at Lanes, in North Carolina, Thomas IIumphries and John Major volunteered to come to the State, and were appointed to succeed him.t The States of South Carolina and Georgia were thrown into one district, and James Foster was made presiding elder. Ile was a Virginian, and had been a preacher since 1776. He had travelled first in Virginia for two years, but excessive fasting and excessive labor in the open air had destroyed his constitution, and he was forced to locate. IIe removed to South Carolina, where he found some emigrant Methodists, and formed a circuit among them. He then re-entered the conference, and took charge of the district of South Carolina and Georgia.# This toil was too great for him. His mental as well as his bodily strength gave way, and he retired finally, after one year on the district. He spent the rest of his life in visiting among Methodist families, conducting their family devotions with much propriety, though unable to preach to them. IIe was a good preacher, noted for his amenity, his fine personal appearance, and his usefulness.§
Thomas Humphries, who was placed in charge of the Georgia work, was a Virginian. IIe entered the con- ference at Ellis Meeting-house in Virginia, and after travelling three years in Virginia and North Carolina, was appointed to Georgia in connection with John Ma- jor ; after travelling a few years in Georgia he removed
* Asbury's Journal.
# Stevens' History M. E. Church.
t Lee's Life, p. 183. § Travis.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
to South Carolina, where he itinerated a short time. He then married a lady of wealth and position, and located in the bounds of the Pedee Circuit, South Carolina. Here he did good work as a local preacher." He was a fine- looking man, with an exceedingly bright eye, which sparkled and flashed when he was excited. He preached with great earnestness and power, and was remarkable for native wit and fearlessness.t
With him to Georgia came John Major, the weeping prophet. He too was a Virginian, who had entered the conference with Thomas Humphries, Philip Bruce, and John Easter. He was a man of unquestionable piety, and in the pulpit was remarkable for his pathos and power. He did hard work in Georgia, and en- deared himself to all the people. His constitution gave way under the tax he laid upon it, and when Francis Asbury came to Georgia, Major, wasted by disease and near his end, met him in South Carolina. The dying preacher was unable to get to the first conference, and died at the house of Bro. Herbert, the grandfather of Mrs. Dr. E. H. Myers. Asbury, on his visit to Georgia afterwards, visited his grave to drop the tear of loving remembrance upon it. He says of him in the minutes : "John Major, a simple-hearted man, a living, loving soul, who died as he lived, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, ten years in the work, useful and blameless." }
The two preachers started from conference for their work. They probably came at once to Wilkes County, where there were a few Virginia Methodists, and then began to explore and map out the country. They found the people everywhere destitute of the Word.
Travis.
2* t Dr. L. Pierce.
# Minutes.
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HISTORY OF METHODISM
Save one or two Baptist churches organized by Abra- ham Marshall and Silas Mercer, there was no church of any name north of Augusta. In a preceding chapter we have given a view of the church privileges of the people. The western boundary of the State was the Oconee river, the southern the Florida line; in all this area there were not more than seven Christian ministers. The settlements were upon the creeks and rivers, and the inhabitants were thinly settled all over the face of the country. The dwellings were pole-cabins in the country, and even in the cities were built largely of logs. There were no roads-only pathways and Indian trails. There were no houses of worship, and the mis- sionaries preached only in private dwellings. The work had all to be laid out, and for the first year it is proba- ble the two preachers visited together the settlements which were thickest, and organized societies when they could. From the minutes we conclude that they compassed the country from the Indian frontier on the north to the lower part of Burke County on the south. During this year 430 members were brought into the society, the larger number in Wilkes. Among them was Thomas IIaynes of Uchee Creek, and Henry Parks, of whom we shall have more to say.
The people among whom they labored were none of them rich and none of them poor. The land was good and open to all. Cattle ranged over grass-cov- ered woods, and hogs fattened on the mast of the forest trees. There was no money, and but little need for it. Luxury was an impossibility to men so remote from cities and seaports. The people were without religion, but they were free from many of the temptations to which those in more thickly-settled communities aro
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
exposed. There was some infidelity among the upper classes, but perhaps none among the mass of the people.
They were free from licentiousness, dishonesty, and cowardice. They drank to excess; they fought on muster-days ; they gouged and bit each other; they spent the Sabbath in fishing, hunting, and seeing after cattle; and they were somewhat indolent, too content with their condition ; they had, however, the elements in them out of which to make good characters-strong sense and much nobility of soul. Humphries and Major found the harvest-field bending with the ripened grain, and they thrust in the sickle to reap abundantly. Among those converted we have mentioned Henry Parks. He was a strong, brave, energetic young man, who, from North Carolina, with his new wife and one child, came to Elbert County, where he was em- ployed to oversee a new plantation. His wife was Elizabeth Justice, who had been baptized in Eastern Virginia by that good man, Devereaux Jarratt ; she became early a Methodist, but her husband had never seen one of this sect so often spoken against. They lived together a little while on the banks of the Yadkin, in North Carolina, out of reach of her preachers, and then came to Georgia, in which there were few preachers of any kind, and no Methodists at all when they first reached the State. One day, the news was brought that two Methodist preachers would preach near them. She easily persuaded her husband to go and hear her minis- ters. He went, and for the first time heard the doctrine of universal atonement and possible salvation for all, preached by the sainted Major. He determined, if he could, to be saved. He was soon converted, joined the Methodist Church, made his house a preaching-place,
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HISTORY OF METHODISM
and afterwards, with the help of his friends, built a chapel. God prospered him as far as he wished to be prospered in worldly matters, and blessed him with a large family. Of these, Wm. J. Parks was the young- est son. Henry Parks was a very striking character. His life had been calculated to make him what he was. In the wilds of Kentucky and of south-western Vir- ginia he had spent some of his early years, combating the hardships of the frontier and confronting the savage tribes of the West. Then in the army, a brave and untir- ing soldier, and then in the new lands of Georgia, he was forced to bring into exercise every manly quality ; and after he became a member of a despised sect of Christians, his courage was well added to his faith. His descendants are among the leading Methodists of Georgia, and are very numerous. Though the old patriarch passed away in 1845, still his good works do follow him.
The preachers had done good work during the year, and at the conference they were reinforced. Georgia was made a separate district, and Richard Ivy was sent as presiding elder. Circuits were now laid out. The Burke Circuit, including all that section south and south-west of Augusta, was placed in charge of Major, with a young man, Matthew IIarris, to assist him. Thomas Humphries and Moses Park took charge of all the country north and north-west of Augusta.
Of Ivy, the presiding elder, the minutes say : " Ile was from Virginia, a little man of quick and solid parts. He was a holy, self-denying Christian that lived to be useful. Many of the eighteen years that he was in the work he acted as an elder in charge of a district." Ware tells the following anecdote of him :
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
"The conduct of the English preachers, who had been loyal to their king, had excited towards the Methodist preachers a general feeling of distrust on the part of the patriots. The native American preachers were all in full sympathy with the colonists, but often they had to encounter this to them painful and dangerous sus- picion. Some soldiers in New Jersey, where Ivy was preaching, had loudly threatened to arrest the next Methodist preacher that came along. Ivy's appoint- ment was near where the army in the Jerseys was in camp. He went to his appointment. The soldiers came, and the officers, walking to the table, crossed their swords upon it. The brave little man took for his text, 'Fear not, little flock.' As he preached he spoke of the folly of fearing the soldiers of freedom, and throw- ing open his bosoin, he said : 'Sirs, I would fain show you my heart ; if it beats not high for liberty, may it cease to beat.' The soldiers were conquered, and they left the house, huzzaing for the Methodist parson." After travelling in Virginia and North Carolina, he came to Georgia, where he was made presiding elder. After four years' service his health gave way, and the needs of an invalid mother called him back to Virginia, where, a year after his location, he passed to his final reward.
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