USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 20
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 20
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The size of the circuits, the fact that the preacher came only once a month, and that there was so many members, led many to withhold even the small amount needed, since it was. so small it could not be missed.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
Then the preacher did not live among his people. Had he done so they would have willingly supplied his table, for they had abundance of provisions; but they must pay all they paid in money, and money was what they had the least of. The missionary and conference collec- tions from these sections was on a par with their contri- butions for the support of the ministry. Although these remarks with reference to finances are made here, they belong rather to this period than to this year, and to this class of circuits rather than to the Grove alone. It was, indeed, almost a universal thing. John Howard, Lovick Pierce, William J. Parks, John W. Glenn, James Bellah, Morgan Bellah, and many others, could not have continued in the work, but for their own private re- sources. The salaries of Morgan Bellah for several successive years were as follows: Decatur Circuit, in- cluding DeKalb, Fulton, Gwinnett, and Campbell, twenty-two appointments, $180.
Newnan Circuit, with Coweta, half of Fayette, Camp- bell, and Heard Counties, twenty-two appointments, between $150 and $200.
The preacher accidentally overheard the stewards on a circuit discussing the question of salary. One of thein remarked and the other assented to it, that they ought to give him at least as much as an ordinary field-hand was worth, say $15 per month. This they did, and paid him for a year's work, about $180.
Fayette and Campbell paid $136 for the support of a man and his wife and seven children.
The Monroe (Walton Circuit) paid him for an entire year's work, $86.
The Forsyth Circuit alone gave him a support and paid him $500.
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We have given these figures as a simple evidence of the devotion of the preachers and of the trials they were forced to undergo. With the Baptist denomination it was even worse, for their preachers received literally nothing in the way of salary in many of these same sections, but then their preachers were not required to be from home twenty-eight days in the month, and travel over wide areas of country, not being able to be with their families more than one-tenth of the time.
The gracious and wonderful revival, which for almost two years had blessed the State, seems to have now to some extent declined. There was but little increase in any of the circuits and really but little decrease. In- deed, from 1823 to the present time, the Church has known no retrogression. For a short time there may have been a halt in its onward progress, but it was only for a little while; with increased power it had then moved forward. There was an increase even this year of nearly 300 white members. Much of the work now was in securing the permanent results of the great re- vival of the ten years gone by.
The conference for 1834 met in Washington. Bishop Emory presided, and Bishop Andrew came with him. It was the first and only time that this gifted and excellent man presided at a Georgia conference. Ile was a man of broad cultivation, a writer of unusual elegance and power. He had led the progressives, and contributed largely to their victory in 1820, when the question of whether presiding elders should be elected, was settled affirmatively. When, however, the malcon- tents left the Church to found the Methodist Protestant, Emory was the strongest defender of Episcopal Metho- dism, and in his defence of the fathers and his Ilistory
4
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
of the Discipline, he did work for the Church of lasting value. He had been elevated to this high office of Bishop at the same time at which Bishop Andrew was elected, and of his early and sudden death we have already told.
At this conference the great question discussed con- cerned the educational interests of the Church.
Olin, now the President of Randolph Macon, was present in the interest of that institution, and soliciting an agent and an endowment. Few, who was a foeman worthy of his steel, was in favor of a Georgia Institution ; and they crossed swords. It was finally, however, de- cided to give Randolph Macon an agent, and in consider- ation of seven free scholarships, to endow a professorship with $10,000. Elijah Sinclair was made the agent. The full endowment was never secured. We have noted the offer of the Culloden School to the conference, and the conference action on the subject. It came up again at this session in a proposition to establish a manual labor school at Culloden. The school was decided upon but not the place, and John Howard was appointed agent. Of the after history of this school our readers are referred to the succeeding chapter on " Education in the Georgia Conference."
At this conference sixteen were admitted on trial, of whom only two remain, both of them effective. Joshua Knowles was admitted at that time, and after remaining in the Methodist Episcopal Church for many years as a travelling and local preacher, he united with the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which communion he is now a Presbyter. At our request he has given us the following account of his introduction into the Metho- dist ministry, and the first conference which he travelled.
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We can but regret that we have been unable to secure from others accounts so full and satisfactory as Mr. Knowles has furnished us, but no urgency of entreaty has been sufficient to induce the actors in the scenes through which we are passing to tell the story of their early ministry, and our pages suffer from this neglect.
THE EARLY MINISTRY OF THE REV. J. KNOWLES.
In 1833, whilst a resident of Athens, Ga., and under the faithful and loving pastorate of the Rev. B. Pope, at the fourth quarterly meeting conference for that year, I was licensed to preach by the Rev. William Arnold, of saintly memory, and recommended to the succeeding annual conference as a candidate for mem- bership in that body. Its session was held in Washing- ton, which I was privileged to attend. It was pre- sided over by the accomplished Emory,* and was a me- morable occasion, as well on account of the distinguish- ed clergymen present, as the important measures pre- sented for its deliberations and action. Though many years have passed away, I have a distinct recollection of both. There were present, and in their prime, the Revs. Lovick Pierce, Andrew Hammill, Ignatius Few, Sam'l Capers, William Arnold, Lewis Myers, John Howard, S. K. Hodges, Stephen Olin, Thos. Samford, G. B. Chap- pell, Elijah Sinclair, Benj. Pope, John Collingsworth, Jeremiah Norman, and other great leaders in Israel. I well remember the masterly debate which arose on the educational question and the ponderous blows given on either side of the Emory College proposition ; and how, finally, Olin's resistless logic and eloquence carried the
* I do not think Bishop Andrew was present.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
day. But a single one of those great and good men re- main to bless by precept and example the Church.
My first appointment was to Liberty Circuit, as junior preacher. The Rev. Andrew Hammill being my pre- siding elder, and Rev. Jas. T. Johnson, preacher in charge. This was a four weeks' circuit and no pent up parish. It comprised the whole of Liberty and Tat- nall Counties, with parts of Telfair, Montgomery, Mc- Intosh and Bryan. It abounded with rivers and creeks which in winter overflowed their banks but never pre- vented the punctual fulfillment of my appointments. Sometimes these were swam on the back of my faithful " Darby," at other times crossed in a dng-out. Women and children would walk for miles with shoes and stock- ings in hands in very wet weather, putting them on be- fore arriving at church. Having lived mostly in the cities, the habits of my parish in the wire-grass region were rather novel to me. The whole family was often quartered in one room, but a more kind and courteous people I never saw. Some of my congregations were made up of the most wealthy and cultivated people in the State. My work included twenty-eight appoint- ments ; so that I had but little time or opportunity for pastoral visiting and rest. My health, not very robust in early life, by horseback exercise, eating sngar-cane and sleeping in well-ventilated houses, lighted and warmed with pine-knots, astonishingly improved under my ardnous labors.
During the year we had some very pleasant meetings and accessions to the Church, and I went to conference at its close, which met in Savannah, with a thankful and hopeful spirit.
In 1835 I was appointed preacher in charge of Bul- 13*
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lock Circuit. This comprised the whole of Bullock County, and parts of Bryan and Emanuel Counties. My recording steward and most efficient co-laborer on this work, was Mr. Eli Kennedy, who, by a pleasant co- incidence, I found to be the brother of Rev. W. M. Ken- nedy, the. Presiding Elder of Columbia District, S. C., at the time I joined the Methodist Church in that place, and from whom I bore a letter of introduction to the Rev. Thomas Stanley (whom he married) when I came to Athens, Ga. Here I also found a worthy and effi- cient adviser and co-laborer in the sainted Mrs. Lydia Anciaux, the accomplished and venerable mother-in- law of the Hon. J. M. Berrien. Her house was truly the preacher's home. Though threescore and more she was active as a Sunday-school teacher, and in minister- ing to the poor and afflicted in her neighborhood.
My health during the year was so impaired, that my presiding elder, the Rev. Dr. Pierce, kindly gave me a furlough for a few months during which I made a visit North. At the next conference I was ordained a deacon. My next appointment was to Tallahassee ; I arrived there the last Saturday of Dec., 1835, preached on Sunday, and married my first couple on Sunday night. I was very cordially received by the people. The Rev. John L. Jerry was my presiding elder. The Seminole war had just opened, and his districts comprised the whole Indian territory. He was a man of courage and zeal, and neither tomahawk nor scalping-knives drove him from his work.
As for myself, though living in the midst of frequent alarms I continned at my post, as I was the only resi- dent clergyman in the city that year; and as there were many sick persons belonging to the different churches
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
and congregations, including many soldiers, my duties were quite arduous. And yet the year passed away pleas- antly, and there were some accessions to the Church.
Mr. Chandler, the talented editor of the Florida In- telligencer, having died, the paper was temporarily sus- pended. At the urgent solicitation of influential citizens, I was induced to purchase the Intelligencer office, and publish a family newspaper in Tallahassee, under the name of the Florida Watchman. This led to my location. I resided in Florida until 1844, laboring as a local min- ister and journalist, for Church and State. In 1844, I rejoined the Georgia Conference, which met at Colum- bus, and was ordained an elder by Bishop Soule, and sent to Darien station. The following year to Milledge- ville, where I married Miss Mary Frances Barnett, daughter of the Hon. N. C. Barnett. During the suc- ceeding years of my itinerant life, I labored in Savan- nah, on Clinton and Cassville Circuits, and two years in Rome, where I was bereft of my beloved and sainted companion, and where I terminated my labors as a member of the Georgia Conference, and served the Church and State, to the best of my ability, as a local preacher and editor, at Rome, Milledgeville, and Macon. Whilst my life has been made up of versatile labors and vicissitudes, I have always endeavored to keep in view my high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and my para- mount obligations to him and to the Church. Anxious to retain a pastoral relation, but averse to an itinerant life, in 1866 I changed my ecclesiastical relations with- out, however, any modification of my religious princi- ples, or abatement of love towards those with whom I had been so long associated, and whom I feel it still a priv- ilege to call my brethren, at all times and all places.
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So ends Brother Knowles' account of his early years in the ministry, which we have published almost in full, in order to give a view of Methodism in its infancy in Florida and of the trials of the preachers in many of the rural districts.
Six located at the Conference, two of whom, Jno. S. Ford and Raleigh Greene, afterward returned to the itinerancy. Josiah Evans, who had done as much hard work as any man of his age in the ministry, located to return no more.
During this session, for the first time, we have an an- swer to the fourteenth question, " What amounts are necessary for the superannuated preachers, and the widows and orphans of preachers, and to make up the deficiencies of those who have not received their regu- lar allowance on the circuits?" The answer was $4,137.81. In answer to the question, what has been collected, we catch our first glimpse at the financial operations of those days.
For nearly fifty years the Church had been at work, and this is the first published evidence that she believed in the practical benevolence which was manifested in money-giving, save the report of the missionary collec- tious of Win. Capers, when he was establishing the mis- sion to the Creeks. That our Church, which has been so grandly heroic in her devotion to what she be- lieved to be right, had been sadly in the rear in her benevolent contributions, is a painful truth, one with which we are twitted in the published sermons of the amiable and gifted Bishop Elliot; but how it could be otherwise under the instruction, or rather want of in- struction of the fathers, it is difficult to conceive.
All our preachers were missionaries. The people,
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
when the ministers first began their work, were alike poor ; the demands of the home work, and the general poverty of the Methodists, and the evangelization of the Indians forbade any extra American work, but while this may be said in mitigation, it is very evident that the ministry had no true idea of the money power in the Church. Revolt from error often goes too far, and revolt from the teachings of Rome, in which money had such high place and promised so much, led the Methodists and Baptists to discard almost entirely the mammon of unrighteousness, and it became the enemy rather than the friend of the Church. This list of col- lections is the only true picture of the liberality of the times we have been able to secure. The largest amount reported is from the Alcovi Circuit, which sent up $144, Angusta sent $27, Savannah, $131, Athens and Madison, $9.41. The Yellow River, $2. There were but two applications for aid from the active workers, and the rest was divided among the superannuated preachers and the widows and orphans. The amount contributed for missions was $1,208.
Andrew ITaminill was removed from the Columbus District and sent to the Savannah. The Augusta District ceases, and the territory hitherto included in it is divided between the Athens, Milledgeville, and Savannah. Wm. Arnold still remained on the Athens District, and Win. J. Parks was sent to the Milledgeville. He was living in Franklin County ; he could not move, and the near- est point on his district was 120 miles from him, the mnost remote perhaps 350. He shrank from the ap- pointment, but went to it, and did his work well.
A new district was laid out, called the Cherokee, and Isaac Boring was appointed to it. It swept entirel-
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across the northern part of the State, beginning at Clarksville, and ending at Vans Valley, all the way from the Savannah to the Coosa Rivers, and from Henry County to the Blue Ridge.
There were two new missions on the district, the Vans Valley, which included all that section in the western part of the State north of Carroll County, and reaching up to Chattooga. J. T. Talley was sent to it. The Indians were still there, but a few white settlers, drawn thither by the fertility of the lands, were scattered through the valleys. The Connesanga Mis- sion joined the Vans Valley on the north, and extended eastward. It included the counties of Murray, White- field, Gordon, and parts of Gilmer lying on the Cone- sanga River. The office of a presiding elder in a new territory like this is especially important, and the gifted and devoted Boring was admirably suited to the work of filling it. As yet the Cherokee Indians occupied a large part of this section ; reluctant to leave the homes of their fathers, and to remove to an unknown land, yet realizing the hopelessness of a resistance to the power that demands it, this really admirable race of Indians were taking their last view of the charming valleys and beautiful mountains, which in a few more years they were to see no more forever. To the Ches- tatie Mission, in the Cherokee country, which was established the year before, Jno. D. Chappell was sent. All the effort of the State to keep white men from settling in the nation, where, according to the glowing reports of the time, the very river sands sparkled with gold, had been in vain, and some villages had already sprung up in this section. Among these was Nuckles- ville, afterward Auraria, in Lumpkin County. IIere
Serre.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
the missionary had an appointment ; here crime held a daily carnival. Gambling, cock-fighting, drunkenness, debauchery of all kinds, did not condescend to seek a cover. One night the preacher, who preached at a private house, announced that the next night there would be religious service at another house. A gam- bler arose and said, "Oyez, Oyez, I give notice that to- morrow night I will open my faro-bank," at a place he named.
On the south of the Chestatee Mission, and reaching down till it joined the Decatur Circuit, was the Forsyth Mission, which was left to be supplied.
As of old, Methodisin strove to cover with her wings the whole land, to provide a ministry for all the people. Now she was able through her mission boards to supply a service to all, and numbers of gifted and devoted men arose at her bidding. They were her children ; she had raised now a family of sons who were able to do the work which duty so imperiously demanded. At the next conference this Cherokee Dis- trict reported a membership of 3,666 members.
Florida was now divided into two districts, the Tallahassee and St. Augustine. Geo. A. Chappell was sent on the St. Augustine and Jno. W. Talley on the Tallahassee. The St. Augustine district included a considerable part of lower Georgia. The preachers on this hard work were all of them single men. Jno. W. Yarbrough was on the Irwin mission. He was a young man just from the mountains, and his first appointment, Irwin County, was in Southern Georgia, in the wire grass country. It is still a very large county, but then was several times as large as now. The lands are very poor, the settlers few. In 1866 the writer of
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this volume rode seventeen miles in its borders, without seeing a single dwelling, or a living being, save a deer leaping through the pine woods, and this was thirty years after Yarbrough was sent there. There were not many Methodists in the section, but the church has striven to see to all the needs of these people, and with the opening of new lines of railway, and new industries beside cattle raising, there is hope of a new impetus both to the temporal and spiritual interests in that sec- tion.
Hawkinsville appears for the first time as a separate. charge, with James E. Evans as stationed preacher.
It was quite a flourishing town ; as there was naviga- tion for boats to it the year round, it was an important commercial point. The productive plantations of Hous- ton, Pulaski and Dooly, as well as the country south of it, found a shipping point and market here. There was much wealth, and much dissipation and gayety. The church had been an appointment in the Houston Cir- cuit, and had only nine members in it. During the year there was a great revival, and at the next confer- ence one-hundred and fifty eight members were re- ported.
It continued a separate charge for a few years, but with the completion of the Central Railroad and with the growth of Macon, Hawkinsville lost its commer- cial position and fell back into a circuit again. But when the Macon and Brunswick Railroad was finished it began to revive again, and is now a flourishing city with a good church.
Irwinton, which had been before in the Ocmulgee Circuit, was made a separate charge, and Jas. B. Payne was sent to it. He reported 577 white members. The
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
Tallahassee district, under the presiding eldership of young Talley, included all the lower part of western Georgia. Capel Raiford was sent to the Lowndes Cir- cuit. This circuit embraced as much territory as a district does now. The larger part of its scattered in- habitants were engaged in stock raising. Their cattle ranges covered large areas of wire-grass lands, though now and then, in some fertile hammocks, there were the prosperous cotton planters who sought a market for their produce by sending cotton to St. Mark's, Fla., and shipping it thence to New York. This circuit, the boundaries of which we are unable exactly to define, included probably all that section of country stretching from the Okefonokee swamp, eastward to the Thomas county line. Thomas County, Georgia, was in the Monticello (Florida) Circuit, while Decatur County was supplied from the Gadsden (Fla.) Circuit. North of Decatur County was. the Fort Gaines Circuit. Fort Gaines was now a young city, which was shipping cot- ton to New York and Europe, and the country around was being settled with rapidity. The presiding elder of the Tallahassee district travelled on horseback from the Flint River to the Okefonokee swamp, and from the gulf coast for over one hundred miles northward into Georgia. The difficulties of travel were very great, and the privations demanded of the severest kind. There was probably not a bridge in the whole district. The streams, which in summer time were shallow brooks, in the winter would have floated a frigate, and as there were few ferries, the preacher crossed thein as he could.
His fare in the wire-grass section of his district, which included a large part of it, was musty corn bread
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and butter, milk, clabber, or Youpon tea, with now and then honey, sometimes venison or dried beef. The home in which he reposed his weary limbs we have not been out of sight of in this history, a pole cabin with a clap- board roof and a dirt floor; but in some of the richer hammocks of Thomas and Decatur Counties, even there he found comfort, and if not delicate refinement, yet warm hospitality. In Florida, however, he came in contact even then with the highest culture and elegance. The stationed preacher in Tallahassee was Archelaus II. Mitchell, and he had perhaps as intelligent and as god- less a congregation as any young city in America pre- sented.
The St. Augustine District presented even greater diffi- culties. Beginning at Telfair and Tattnall Counties the presiding elder made his way through the swamps of the Altamaha to Darien, thence down the coast into Florida, finding the terminus of his long journey at St. Augustine, and joining the Tallahassee District on the west.
Geo. F. Pierce was transferred to South Carolina and appointed to Charleston, and Win. Capers took his place at Savannah. This was an instance of the exchange of ministers between conferences, which is so often demanded in order to man the works, and yet so often denounced. Special transfers are not new fea- tures in. Methodism, but where there is correspondence between committees and preachers, and the mutual in- terests of preacher and the individual congregation are the moving influences, they are an unmixed evil and are new features in the Church. Not so when the appointing power selected by the Church for this work commands the transfer for general good. In the one
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case all selfish instincts are at work to secure a result, in the other oftentimes all are ad verse.
It will be a woful day-it is already a woful day- for the spirit of Methodism, when a pleasant place on the one hand and a brilliant preacher on the other are the objects sought for, and the man transfers himself rather than is transferred by the Bishop.
Windsor Graham, who was admitted on trial at this conference, had been for several years a useful exhorter in the Church. He continued a laborious and successful preacher for twenty years. He was noted for the holi- ness of his life, his fervor, zeal, and the fruitfulness of his labors. IIe was superannuated for ten years, and was as constant in labor as his health would allow. One of his sons is a laborious preacher in Georgia at the present time.
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