USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 27
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 27
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He was for a while professor in the Wesleyan Fe- inale College, but even for that his failing health un- fitted him. He published a journal, The Southern Pulpit, to which he contributed sermons of really very great merit ; then ceased from all his public work, and early in life, when only thirty-five years of age, he passed to his reward. He was the uncle of Dr. A. G. Haygood, of the North Georgia Conference.
J. T. Flanders, Robert N. Cotter, and James H. Reese, were three young men who had left their simple homes to preach the Gospel. They were young when they fell at their posts. Without advanced education, they had, better than learning, zeal and piety, and made full proof the ministry till they were called hence.
W. H. C. Cone was an older man. He was sensible, useful, and pious-genial and lovable. He went into the army as chaplain, and contracted a fatal disease, from the effects of which he died.
Columbus W. Howard came in the vigor of his man- hood to the work, and bade fair to reach a high place in the Church. Earnestly solicited by his old friends, he took a captain's commission in the army, and while bravely leading his company to battle, in the first Manassas fight, he was shot dead. He had pre- served his ministerial robe unsullied amid the tempta- tions of the camp, and possessed the full confidence of his brethren.
Robert F. Jones, the son of James Jones, joined the conference in 1851, and travelled consecutively for twenty-five years. His father was a laborious and devoted minister, and he was the worthy son of sr ' father. He travelled all kinds of circuits. mountains and in the lowland swamps, on
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where the salary was small and insufficient, he did the work he was called upon to do with patient diligence. He was a man of good education and of strong com- mon sense. He was not showy, nor aspiring, and was only known to those who came in close contact with him. His piety was deep and practical, and his last hours were those of uninterrupted peace. He died January 17, 1876. Jno. Howard Harris was his confer- ence classmate. After travelling for the same time in the same conference with him, he died just one month after him. He died very suddenly of disease of the heart, while stationed at Evans' Chapel, in Atlanta. He was a man of good parts-was very zealous and successful.
Jno. H. Mashburn, who died not long after, in June, 1876, was an older man by many years-he had passed his three score ; he had been a preacher from his twenty- fourth year, and had travelled in conference connection from 1851. Few men in the same length of time have done harder work than he did. He was born in the mountains, and loved to linger under their shadow, and nearly all his ministerial life he spent on mountain circuits. IIe continued in the ministry for near fifty years. When still an active man he was taken ill, in consequence of his endeavor to reach an appointment in excessively cold weather, and died in great peace.
Benj. J. Johnson, the son of a local preacher, began his ministerial work in Florida, in 1857, and in the vigor of his mature manhood, from a severe injury which he received, after lingering long in great suf- fering, he died in triumph during the year 1876. He went to his work with cheerfulness, and prosecuted it with vigor ; was a preacher of more than ordinary capacity, and was deeply devoted to his Master. His
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piety during the last days of his life was especially fer- vent, and although suffering much, his spiritual joy was exceedingly great. He died Dec. 22, 1875, at only forty-six years old.
These were some of those who came to the work and died in it. The sketches of their lives are necessarily short and imperfect, but they live in the memory of their brethren.
The period of which we now take a survey was a most prosperous one for the Church. The State was advancing, and with it the Church went on.
Large circuits and large districts were divided, and new stations were formed. In 1846 the new town of Marietta became a station. Ten years before, the first sermon had been preached in the log conrt-house, and not long after a small church had been built in the vil- lage. The completion of the railroad from Atlanta had led many to seek the almost matchless climate of this new village, which, lying under the shadow of the Kenesaw, is alike a good home for the consumptive in winter and the fever-stricken in summer. Jackson P. Turner was the first stationed preacher, then Lewis J. Davies, and in 1849, Charles R. Jewett. A new church was now a necessity, and it was built during that year. Among those who had removed to Marietta was the widow of Asaph Watterman, whose name is found in such high place in the early Augusta Church. There were others like unto her, and the church soon became a strong one, and has been, and is a most delightful charge.
The new town of Rome, folded as it is in the arms of the Etowah and the Oostenaula, had now become a young city, and had built a neat brick church, and
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CHAPTER XI.
1845-1866.
DEATH OF BLANTON AND FEW-JNO. M. BONNELL J. BLAKELY SMITH -S. C. QUILLIAN-CHAS. R. JEWELL-W. B. MCHAN-JOY F. STEAGALL-R. F. JONES-J. HOWARD HARRIS-JNO. H. MASH- BURN-BENJ. J. JOHNSON-JOSIAH ASKEN-FLAUDEW-COTTER- CONE-REESE-HOWARD-MARIETTA-FORSYTH-CEDAR TOWN- AMERICUS-GREAT REVIVALS-INCREASED LIBERALITY-FLORIDA WORK-GARDNER-COOPER-CONNOR-RAPID GROWTH-THE WAR -THE THREE GENERAL CONFERENCES BEFORE 1861-CAPERS -EARLY-DURING THE WAR-THE END-GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1866-DIVISION OF THE CONFERENCE.
Up to this time we have followed the Methodist preacher in Georgia, step by step, in his advance, and given an account of each yearly conference, entering as freely as possible into details.
Our space, if there were no other reason, does not permit our going forward with this minuteness ; but there are other reasons. The day is too recent, and the actors in it are many of them still living, and eulogy on living men is both dangerous and unpleasing. We shall try to condense into the limits of a short chapter what must be known to furnish a satisfactory account of Methodism in Georgia, until 1866, when the Georgia Conference was divided.
This period naturally divides itself into four parts. First, Georgia Methodism to the beginning of the war. Second, Florida Methodism to the same period. Third,
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Joshua Knowles was sent to it as a stationed preacher. Along the line of the newly completed Macon and Western Railway new villages were springing up, and Griffin, a considerable town, was separated from the Griffin Circuit and became a station. A very handsome brick church was erected, and the Church has continued to grow in importance to this day.
Talbotton became a station in 1846, and with its college and high-school, and its fine body of Methodist people, has continued a pleasant charge to the present time.
In 1859, Forsyth, which had been the centre of the important Forsyth Circuit, was made a separate station, · and the circuit, reduced in size, placed in a separate charge.
In 1859 the village of Cedar Town was separated from the Cave Spring Circuit and made a station. It is located in perhaps the most beautiful valley in Georgia. Cedar Creek, a considerable stream, clear as crystal, meanders through the valley, and along its banks are lands unsurpassed in fertility. The moun- tains are round about. Attracted by the beauty and fertility of the valley, many citizens of culture and wealth removed to it, and it became and has continued to this day a most delightful station. Here Elijah Bird, one of the early Methodist preachers, ended his days; and here a strong friend of the Church resided, Wm. Peek, one of the wealthiest planters of Upper Georgia. The wooden church first built has been given to the negroes, and a neat brick church now supplies the wor- shippers. The railroads moving towards the southwest opened up that very fertile section of Georgia, and Americus became a considerable town, and was made a
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section. The Georgia preachers were united in desiring it, and the body was perfectly homogeneous.
Year by year classes of gifted men applied for admis- sion to the travelling connection, and the number who located grew fewer. Every year some honored one died at his pest, but there was another to take his place. In 1846 two men who had been of great service to the Church and the State passed away, Benj. Blanton and Ignatius A. Few.
Benj. Blanton was at the time of his death the only one left of the old line who came from Virginia to Georgia, to aid in evangelizing a new State. He was a presiding elder as early as 1798, and that year located, and for many years remained local, then entered the conference again, that he might die in the harness. Of him we have spoken previously.
Ignatius A. Few, of whom we have had much to say, as he often prayed that he might, fell calmly asleep in Jesus.
For some years before his death, he had been com- pelled by feeble health to remain in retirement, driven by it from the work he loved. He had been converted in the maturity of his life, and was nearly forty years old when he began to preach. He had not then twenty years of life left, and his health was not good. He however, wasted no hour after that, and no man who ever worked in the Georgia Conference has left his impress upon the future more indelibly. In the annual and general conferences he was a power. He was a inan of the broadest culture and of the most enlarged and liberal views. Entering upon the work of the ministry at a time when he was needed, he had brought to it a consecration of energy which was entire. He
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began his career in a conference in which there was at the same time Lovick Pierce, James O. Andrew, and Stephen Olin. He did not pass away until he saw Augustus B. Longstreet, Geo. W. Lane, G. F. Pierce, and others like to them in the active work of the body, and until he saw the colleges and schools which had sprung into being, largely through his influence, in successful operation. It was meet, then, that one of the two socie- ties of Emory College should be called the Few, and that his portrait should hang on the walls of the Few Hall; and when the Masonic fraternity of which he was an honored member erected a monument to his memory, that it should be placed in the front of the college chapel.
While the old veteran and the gifted scholar passed away, others came forward to take their places. Many came ; some of them live and work still, many of them have entered into rest.
John M. Bonnell, a young Pennsylvanian, of whom we speak in the sketch of Methodism in Athens, began his work in 1846, to end it by a peaceful death twenty- seven years afterwards.
J. Blakeley Smith entered the conference in 1847, and died suddenly while Presiding Elder of the Ameri- cus District in 1870. For twenty-three years he had been a most efficient worker. IIe was a man of fine person, of fine business qualifications, of great common sense, and a man, if not of broad, yet of very correct culture. He was a moving and successful preacher. IIis fine qualifications for the office called him to the secretaryship of the conference. IIe retained this posi- tion for several years, up to the division of the confer- ence, and then was secretary of the South Georgia till
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his death. He was a decided Methodist in his convic- tions, and adhered, with a devotion almost unusual with so young a man, to the features of the first days of the Church. Gifted in the pulpit, he was more so in prayer and in exhortation. He was so well suited to the office of agent that he was selected as agent for the Tract Society and for the Wesleyan Female College, and did his work with great efficiency.
Smith C. Quillian, who entered the conference with him and died some years before him, was one of the large family of that name who, from the beginning of Methodisin in Georgia, have been devoted to it. He was not a brilliant man, but one of strong common sense and of great piety. He died in the early years of his ministry.
Charles R. Jewett had entered the conference four years before them. He was the son of a devotedly pious layman in Macon, George Jewett. This good man, during a protracted meeting in Macon, felt so im- pelled to search for his thoughtless son, that, leaving the church, he sought him till he found him ; the boy came to church and was converted ; soon afterwards he began to preach. He was not, nor did he claim to be, a man of great intellectual power; but he was a man of fine taste, of gentle manners, a most untiring pastor, and a most successful worker. No church went down when he was in charge of it, and no district was other than well served over which he presided. He was always frail, but he did his work for nearly twenty years, and then died of consumption in Thomasville, in which city he was the stationed preacher.
W. B. McHan, one of two brothers who entered the conference in 1846, was one of that class to whom the 17*
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remained there, and John Slade, who resided in Florida as a local preacher, returned to the work in which his early years had been spent; but the large majority were but young men. There were only thirty-four preachers in all, and the labor demanded was simply immense. That these few young men should even partially meet the demand made upon them was really wonderful. How well they did their work we shall see. The first who fell at his post was Alex. Martin, a Pennsylvanian, by birth a man of fine parts, but one whose ministry was a short one.
I. R. Connor, and Wm. C. Brady, two valuable young men, the one in the first, and the other in the second year of his ministry, followed him to the grave.
Then Wm. Choice, Jno. Slade and Jno. L. Jerry, three veterans, passed to their reward. We have already told the story of their lives. How much Florida owes to them, who can tell ?
Thomas Gardner, who had spent his early days in the ministry, and after a location of several years re-entered the work in Florida, and died in 1859.
Thos. W. Cooper, a young man whose soul blazed with a desire to save men, died at his post in Jackson- ville, and after ten years of hard labor, Wm. Edwards entered into rest. As the laborers fell out, others came and took up the work.
There was no more difficult part of the church work of the Florida Conference than that in Georgia. We have spoken of the general features of the country. South-western Georgia was rapidly becoming a great . cotton-field. The wealthy planters of Georgia, who could not risk their own lives along the banks of the Flint and its tributaries, found the climate not unsuited
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
to their negroes, and so vast plantations were opened. The planters made fortunes, but the weary itinerant who breathed in the malaria as he sought out the negroes, the superintendents of the plantations, and the scattered whites, who lived on the healthier and poorer lands, found his service difficult, and as far as this world's reward was concerned, very unprofitable. In the wide wire-grass area, south of the Altamaha, he met with even more difficulties. The country was poor, and had not improved since its settlement, and the difficul- ties which James Norton met with, forty years before, these Florida preachers met with now. To single men the work was hard, but when a man had a family it was almost impossible to do it.
The wide extent of the conference almost forbade the location of his family at any one place. He who · was at Albany this year, might be at Key West the next, and he who was on Decatur Circuit in Georgia, might be read out to Indian River in Florida, four-hun- dred miles away.
There were no railroads in the State then, and save on the St. John's and the Chattahoochee no steamboats. There were no parsonages, only a few regularly organ- ized boards of church officers, and outside of the small area of middle Florida, and the country immediately adjacent in Georgia, there was no hope of anything like a comfortable maintenance. This was in 1845. But what a change passed over this country before 1861. The savannahs and hammocks of East Florida attracted good settlers from South Carolina and Georgia. The tropical and fertile lands on the banks of Pease Creek and the Manatee River attracted men of wealth, cul- ture, and piety. The St. John's became the great high-
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way of a profitable trade. Fernandina, the first Metho- dist preaching-place in Florida, and save St. Augustine the only city on its eastern coast, became a delightful abode for the preacher. Jacksonville, Pilatka, Gaines- ville, and many other villages, sprang into existence, a railroad was built from Jacksonville to Quincy, and from Fernandina to Cedar Keys. The planters grew rich raising sugar, Sea Island cotton and cattle. The health of the country improved, and as it improved, both peo- ple and preachers were enabled to do better work. Young men of talent and culture, raised in Florida, entered the work, others came from abroad, and by the year 1861 there were 10,008 whites and 8,600 blacks on the church rolls, while in 1846 there had been only 4,827 whites and 2,345 blacks. The collections in 1861 were $1,286 for conference claimants, and $5,235 for missions. There were now five large districts, and eighty-six effective preachers.
Such was the state of the Georgia and Florida work at the respective conferences in 1860. Then came the war.
Not two months before the conferences met, a presi- dential election had been held, but who could have foreseen the result of the ballots cast that day. In less than six months afterward, there was the marshalling of troops and the booming of guns. Like a cyclone, suddenly had the storm burst, but not like a cyclone was it speedily to end.
Throughout all Georgia and all the South there was mad excitement. The leading men of the church left their homes, many of them to return no more. That the preachers sympathized with their people ; that many of them too went with the army, might have been ex-
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pected. Some of them as private soldiers, some of them as colonels and captains,, some of them as chaplains. That nothing was said, best left unsaid, that nothing was done, best left undone, who shall say ? Ere the next conference met the whole State was one vast camp.
Before this period three General Conferences had been held-one at Petersburg, Va., one at Nashville, Tenn., the other at Columbus in Georgia.
The one which mnet at Petersburg had but little to do save to adjust the machinery of Methodism to the new General Conference. Bishop Soule had adhered South, Bishop Andrew was already in the South, but two others were demanded ; one of those selected was Wm. Capers. He had entered the ministry nearly forty years before in Georgia, and was living in Georgia, when he was selected for his office. We have said much of him, but yet said too little. He began his episcopal work, he prosecuted it with zeal and ability ; although almost an old man, and certainly not a strong man when he entered upon it, he did not shrink from its toils. He settled his family in the pleasant village of Anderson, S. C., and was residing there when God called him to his final reward. Robert Paine was elected at the same time to the same office. He had been a preacher at that time for thirty years. He still lives, full of years and honors. He has been often at the Georgia Conference and has always impressed it agreeably. A fine parlia- mentarian-an elegant scholar-an earnest, eloquent preacher, and most judicious in his appointments of the preachers, he has filled his responsible office well.
The next General Conference met in St. Louis, Mo. Dr. H. B. Bascom, of Kentucky, was elected and or-
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dained bishop. He never presided at a conference, and only survived his election a few months. He visited Georgia not very long before his election, and made a very profound impression from the pulpit.
In 1854 another General Conference was held. It inet in Columbus. The great suit between the Churches had now been settled, and the location of the publishing house was the great question before the body ; after long debate it was decided to place it at Nashville. While the debate was pending three bishops were selected. One of these was Dr. George Foster Pierce. He was the second Georgian who had been elevated to this office. Of him we have spoken much, and the un- ceasing toils of the last twenty years in this laborions office have spoken more than we dare speak.
John Early, one of the fathers of Virginia Methodism, who had begun his ministry as early as 1808, was elected at the same time; and Hubbard H. Kavanaugh, of Kentucky, was the third chosen.
John Early was a Christian gentleman of the old Vir- ginia school. His parents were Baptists, and belonged to a family of position in the State of his birth. He began his ministry early in life, and prosecuted it for over sixty years. He was a man of inflexible will, of strong, clear head, and of undoubted piety.
In the early days of his life, and for many long years, he was a preacher of rare power. He was famous as a presiding officer, and iu the absence of the bishop always presided over the Virginia Conference. Upon his judg- ment his Conference relied with almost entire trust ; and, though he was an old man when elected, perhaps too old for the labor of his office, it was it was felt that the highest gift his Church could give was a return too
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small for faithful service such as his had been for nearly fifty years. He labored on until it was evident that, whether the old hero felt willing to rest or no, that duty to him demanded that he should; and at the General Conference of 1866, when Bishop Andrew voluntarily retired, his old friend and life-long colaborer retired with him from the active duties of the episcopate. Bishop Early was a chivalrous, grand old man, and he had been a true brave man all the days of his life. Those who knew him in private life, who had met him at his delightful home in Lyneburg, or who had him with them around their own firesides, loved him most ; and while many loved him, all honored himn.
Bishop Kavanaugh still lives. He was born, has lived and will probably die, a citizen of Kentucky. He has preached much in Georgia, and often presided at the Georgia Conference; and in few States is he heard with more pleasure, and regarded with truer affection.
The general conference met again in 1858, at Nash- ville, Tenn. There were no Bishops elected, and noth- ing transpired which demands our notice here. The next was to meet in New Orleans, in 1862, but ere the May came for its assembling, the city was in the hands of the federal army.
During the whole of the year 1861, only one subject engrossed the minds of the people-the war. It soon assumed dimensions of magnitude greater than any had conjectured, and family after family gave up its best loved. They went to the field of battle and many of them fell. There was but little religious prosperity at such a time as this, but the preachers held their places, and when one left his station or circuit for the field, others came in and supplied the vacated place.
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Georgia was not invaded nor threatened with invasion for some time, and church work went quietly on ; but the absence of so many official members, stewards and class-leaders especially, led to a sad derangement in the management of church affairs. Then there was the frequent battles, the many deaths, the darkness of sor- row, and the fearful anxiety wearing life away. The terrible years swept on. Provisions grew scarcer and scarcer. Georgia sent herds of cattle, and train load after train load of bread-stuffs and bacon to the army, until it was a question to those at home how they should get bread. The most of her arms-bearing men were gone ; first she sent the flower of her young men ; then all under forty-five ; then all between fifteen and sixty. Her schools were suspended, her churches and college- buildings used as hospitals, her very church bells cast into cannon ; and yet the war went on; at last, Geor- gia herself was invaded. Before Sherman's onward march, crowds of refugees fled into the heart of the State. The necessaries of life reached fabulous prices: Five dollars bought a pound of bacon ; one hundred and fifty dollars a hundred pounds of flour ; five dollars a pound of sugar; thirty dollars a yard of prints; yet, despite all this, the preachers held their ground. How they lived, we cannot tell ; but they did, not a man deserted his post; not a family starved. The confer- ences were regularly held, even after the invasion of the State; and after the fall of Atlanta, the last before the end of the war was held in Athens, in 1864.
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