USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 3
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 3
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The preachers pursued their labors with great zeal. A wonderful success attended them, and at the end of the year there were over 1,100 members in the society. The church had tripled its membership in one year.
The next conference was held at Charleston. Dr. Coke was present with Asbury. Coke records his joy at the success of the work in Georgia as well as in South Carolina.
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This success was great, but not to be wondered at. The colliers of Kingswood were not more destitute of the Gospel than the pioneers of Georgia. Ivy, Major, and. Humphries were no common men. They belonged to a peculiar and hitherto unknown sect, and men heard for the first time the doctrines of a universal atonement and the Spirit's witness. They came in crowds to hear the preachers; and Humphries with fiery appeals, and Major with tender entreaty, pre- sented the broad invitations of the Gospel. Then, too, the preachers went everywhere. Wherever there was a settlement, and a private house could be secured as a preaching-place, there they were.
During this year Humphries must have preached in Augusta, and perhaps in Savannah, but all that was accomplished was in the rural settlements. The Washington Circuit was much the largest. It included all that section of north-eastern and eastern Georgia above Augusta. It was peopled by a sterling class of settlers, and among them there were some Virginia Methodists. The Baptists were already there, and so perhaps were a few Presbyterians. In the lower part of the work, Jefferson, Scriven, and Burke, the people were older settlers and were possessed of larger es- tates. The prominent families were either adherents to the Episcopal Church and were without any pas- toral care, or were Presbyterians. In the east of the country were some Baptists, but among them there were many who had no religious privileges, and Method- ism was not without her blessing to them and to all.
The interest was now sufficient to call for the visits of a Bishop, and in April of 1788 Francis Asbury visited Georgia for the first time.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 175-145.
Francis Asbury, to whom the Methodi-te of Georgia are more indebted than any man living or doad for what they are, was an Englishman. He was born in Birmingham, England, in April of 1745. He was con verted when a boy, and began to preach before he was seventeen years old. He was a travelling preacher in the English connection before he was twenty two; In: travelled for three years in England, and in 1771 vol- unteered to come as missionary to Amerien. For five years before the Revolution began he spent his time an preacher in charge and as superintendent in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The English preachers, although they deployed the course of the inother country as well as that of the colonies, were loyalists, and as soon as the war was fully upon the country returned to England, all but Mr. Asbury. 11c: would not leave his post, and endeavored to avoid con- sure by preserving a strict neutrality. He became an object of suspicion to the patriots in Maryland, and retired to Delaware, where, with Judge White, he re- mained in such retirement as was needful, working, however, all he could, and before the war ended he was as far south as North Carolina.
We have already marked the fact that Mr. Wesley appointed him superintendent of the American wojetion, and sent Dr. Coke to ordain him. Mr. Asbury, whones views of church government were not entirely at one with Mr. Wesley's, refused to be ordained unless he was elected by his peers. This was done unanimously, and he was made a superintending Bishop by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery. He now began his episcopal work. Thirty years afterwards he ceased from it to die. He had been a Bishop but little over three
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
Francis Asbury, to whom the Methodists of Georgia are more indebted than any man living or dead for what they are, was an Englishman. He was born in Birmingham, England, in April of 1745. He was con. verted when a boy, and began to preach before he was seventeen years old. He was a travelling preacher in the English connection before he was twenty-two; he travelled for three years in England, and in 1771 vol- unteered to come as missionary to America. For five years before the Revolution began he spent his time as preacher in charge and as superintendent in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The English preachers, although they deplored the course of the inother country as well as that of the colonies, were loyalists, and as soon as the war was fully upon the country returned to England, all but Mr. Asbury. Hc would not leave his post, and endeavored to avoid cen- sure by preserving a strict neutrality. He became an object of suspicion to the patriots in Maryland, and retired to Delaware, where, with Judge White, he re- mained in such retirement as was needful, working, however, all he could, and before the war ended he was as far south as North Carolina.
We have already marked the fact that Mr. Wesley appointed him superintendent of the American societies, and sent Dr. Coke to ordain him. Mr. Asbury, whose views of church government were not entirely at one with Mr. Wesley's, refused to be ordained unless he was elected by his peers. This was done unanimously, and he was made a superintending Bishop by the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery. He now began his episcopal work. Thirty years afterwards he ceased from it to die. He had been a Bishop but little over three
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years when he came to Georgia to hold the first Georgia Conference.
At this time he was forty-three years old. He was of medium stature, rather low, of delicate frame. His eye was bright and clear ; his hair lay smoothly on his forehead, and was even then sprinkled with gray. In manner he was grave and dignified. His voice was firm and commanding. He was gentle as a woman at the fireside or with his brethren, but he was as inflexible as granite where principle was involved.
Censure reached his very quick, for he was peculiarly sensitive; but he never allowed it to change his course. Hle never spared himself nor those he loved. The work- the Master's work-was all to him. He led ; he said fol- low, not go; and the foremost soldier found his brave general at his side. His story is the story of a hero. In no annals is there to be found the tale of greater devotion to Christ and humanity, than in the story of Francis Asbury's life and labors.
The conference which he had appointed was to be held in the forks of Broad River, then in Wilkes, now Elbert County, probably at the home of David Merri- wether, who lived there, and who joined the church during the year. Leaving Charleston on the fourteenth of March, in company with Isaac Smith, he made his way up the Saluda and to the Broad River Quarterly Meeting in South Carolina. Ilere he met Mason ; and here too was Major, who had come to meet him. Con- sumption was wearing this saintly man into his grave; but he was well enough to speak after Asbury had preached. After being benighted and lost the next night, they crossed the Savannah, and in the forks of Broad River, near where old Petersburg was, the next day the
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
conference assembled. There were ten members pres- ent-six members of the conference and four probation- ers. The good Major was not able to meet with his brethren ; on his way to conference he sank, and near the time it ended its session he went to rest.
Who were the members of this conference ? Richard Ivy, Thomas Humphries, Moses Park, IIope Hull, James Connor, Bennett Maxey, Isaac Smith, and Reu- ben Ellis were certainly of them. Who was the tenth ? Probably Mason from the adjoining circuit in South Carolina. Of these only six were to remain in Georgia. Three or four of them were but boys ; the rest unmarried men of mature years. They had a prospect before them at which any heart save the Christian's might well quail. They were to travel through the wilds of a frontier, to swim creeks and rivers, to sleep in smoky cabins, to preach every day to many or few. They had no hope of receiving more than £24 Continental money for support, and it would have been a wild hope to have expected that. They had the prospect of saving sonls, and what were rags and penury in comparison to that ?
They received their appointments, and the Bishop and visiting preachers bade farewell to the picket- guards, who were to hold the frontier, and they were left alone. One among them, however, we shall see often in the course of this history. A man he is who is to make his mark in Georgia, who is to exert an influence in Church and State such as few men have exerted. This was Hope Hull-if not the father of Georgia Methodism, yet the man who was to be second to no other in fostering it.
He was born in Worcester County, Md., in 1763,
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and at the first conference held after the organization of the Church, he was admitted. He was at that time a young house carpenter of Baltimore.
He was a man of large frame, with a broad forehead, a clear blue eye, heavy overhanging eyebrows, and one whose expression of face indicated a decided character. Of the large class admitted, he was destined to the highest distinction and the greatest usefulness. From that conference he went forth as assistant to Joshua Hartley on Salisbury Circuit, in North Carolina. The Salisbury Circuit was a large and important one, which had been travelled the year before by Jesse Lee and Isaac Smith. The next year he was placed in charge on the Amelia Circuit, Virginia; but before the end of the year, perhaps in its beginning, he was sent to the Pedee Circuit, South Carolina, where, in con- nection with Jeremiah Mastin, he was engaged in a most wonderful revival, and gathered into the societies 823 meinbers, and had twenty-two preach- ing-houses built .* Ilis great ability and his remark- able success made him the valned aid of the Bishop; and now that his old presiding elder, Richard Ivy, was in Georgia, he came with Asbury, and was appointed to the Washington Circuit. He was called the Broad Axe Preacher, because of the power of his ministry. Ilis style was awakening and inviting. IIe dealt in no broad generalities, but portrayed the heart with a precision that astonished his hearers. He told them what they thought, how they felt, and what they did, with such wonderful exactness, that many thought he had learned of them from those who knew them. IIe
* Dr. Coke.
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was very earnest and full of unction. His voice was clear as a clarion and of immense power, and he sang with great sweetness. The anathemas of the law were followed by him with the sweet comforts of the Gospel. * With James Connor to assist him, he was sent on the Washington Circuit. Petersburg, in Elbert, was the largest town north of Augusta, and was in his circuit. Washington was a small village in a very prosperous and growing country.
The country, embracing more than a half-dozen of the at present counties of Georgia, is still one of the most desirable in the State. At this time it was just being settled, and was one of great loveliness. The grand groves of oak and hickory had not been felled save in occasional spots. The annual fires of the Indian had kept down all undergrowth, and the demands of the stock-raiser had still called for those annual barn- ings ; so that grass and flowers and flowering shrubs covered the surface of the earth with a vesture equal to that of a regal park. Herds of deer and flocks of turkeys were still on hill-top and covert. The settlers had for only a few years peopled these delightful hills, and had only robbed them of their wildness. They were many of them from among the best people of North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. As yet, cotton-plant- ing was not engaged in extensively, and while there were a few slaves, none of the unpleasing features of slavery were in view. The slave lived in almost as good a house as his master, dressed in the same homespun garb, worked with him in the same field, went with him to the same meeting, sat with him in the same
* Dr. L. Pierce, in Sprague.
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class, and at communion knelt at the same board. There were a few families who occupied high positions in other States, who had come to Georgia, not because they were poor, but in order that their descendants might becoine rich. They identified themselves with Method- ism in many instances.
There were as yet no artificial distinctions in society. The aristocrats of the older States, Georgia did not have in her territory. There were no Patroons, Baronets, Caciques, or Landgraves. Among such a people there was promise of a rich harvest for Methodism, and it was won. David Merriwether, Thomas Grant, Henry Pope, John Crutchfield, Samuel Rembert, and others who would have blessed any church, were received in the societies in these early days. The Richmond Circuit was served this year by Matthew Harris, and included Richmond, Columbia, Lincoln and Warren, and probably the country as far west as Hancock. The Burke probably included all Burke, Jefferson, Wash- ington, Scriven, and Effingham Counties. This was the older section of the State, and Moses Park and Bennett Maxey did grand work in it. There was still growth, and the membership was largely increased during the year. There was reported at the conference 1,629 against 1,100 of the year before.
The second conference in Georgia was held in 1789, at Grant's ineeting-house, in Wilkes County. This was the first completed church building among the Metho. dists in Georgia. It was located not far from Wash- ington, in the neigborhood of Thomas Grant. Bishop Asbury left Charleston late in February, and crossing the Savannah River at Beech Island, reached Augusta on the third of March; and riding directly through, he
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
came to the home of Thomas Haynes, on Uchee Creek, in now Columbia County. Thomas Haynes was a Vir- ginian, who had been much annoyed by these stirring evangelists, who had set Mecklenburg and Brunswick Counties in a blaze. That he might get rid of these troublesome fellows was one of the inducements to move to the wilds of Georgia. He settled on the good lands of Uchee Creek. His cabin was soon built, and, away from churches and religious influence, he became, he said, a ringleader in wickedness. One day, not long after he was comfortably located, he saw a man in the unmistakable uniform of a Methodist preacher riding up to his gate. His wife was a Methodist. He called to her and said : "Well, wife, I left Virginny to get rid of these fellows-your preachers, but my cabin is scarcely built before here is one of them again." His old Virginia hospitality and fraternal feeling for one of the same heather was too much for his prejudice, and so Thomas Humphries found a welcome, and Thomas Haynes was soon converted. He was born for a leader, and he became the ruling spirit in his neighborhood. Here at his house Asbury made an annual halt on his rapid journeys. Coke, Lorenzo Dow, McKendree, made their homes with him. He had a church near by, and he was a true overseer of the flock. His word was generally law. His peculiarities were striking. Blunt, positive, determined, men knew what to do when he spoke ont. There was a good local preacher near by who preached an insufferable time. He could not stop. One day the circuit preacher was expected, and for some reason did not come. The preaching hour was twelve, and as it was long after time, the people made ready to go home. Brother A. suggested that they should have a sermon-
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he would preach ; the people demurred. It was too late; he would preach too long. Brother A. said no, he would only preach half an hour. Uncle Tommy, or the Squire, as men called him, said they must stay and hear him the half-hour. They consented, but, alas ! when Brother A. reached his limit of time, he had just begun to reach the first of his sermon.
"Time's out, brother," said the old squire, and taking up his hat he left the house, and the congregation fol- lowed him .*
He raised a large family, and few families have been more distinguished for intelligence and piety. One of his sons was a member of Congress and preserved his Christian character in politics ; another was a distin- guished physician, and his grandchildren are now among the most respectable people in Georgia and Alabama.
At his house Mr. Asbury stopped for the first time this March day, in 1789, and rode thence to Thomas Grant. Here the second conference in Georgia held its session. Among other things before the conference, the question of establishing a school was the leading one. It was decided to buy 500 acres of land, which could be bought at that time for £1 Continental money per acre, and a subscription was to be raised for the buildings, to be paid in cattle, rice, indigo, or tobacco. We can see in this movement the far-seeing wisdom of the young Marylander, who had just entered fully into the Georgia work. The Bishop remained in Georgia only a week, and returned to Charleston. It was on his return from this weary journey that he received the famous letter from Mr. Wesley, so carefully preserved
* MSS. - From Miss Kate Thwent, his granddaughter.
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IN GEORGIA AND FLORIDA, 1785-1865.
and so frequently published by our Episcopal friends, in which the mistaken old man complains of his dear Franky for allowing himself to be called a Bishop, and for founding a college and not a school, in Maryland, and allowing it to be named for himself and Dr. Coke. Poor Asbury !- an exile from England, riding, sick and weary as he was, five thousand miles a year, poorly clad, worse paid, with a single eye for the glory of God, to be charged by his dearest friend with worldliness ! It was too painful, and he received it, as well he mnight, as a bitter pill. "No man," said Mr. Wesley, " should call him Bishop ;" but he had called himself a genuine Epis- copos, and had acted in character. It was indeed a cruel misjudgment of Asbury, and a harsh and uncalled-for rebuke.
Richard Ivy is again on the district, and as Beverly Allen has returned to Georgia, he is associated with him as an assistant elder, a kind of roving evangelist.
James Connor, who had been on the Washington Circuit, was sent to Augusta to organize a church there. If he went, he did not stay long, and six months after he was dead. He was from Virginia, had entered the conference in 1788, and had travelled only two years. He was a man of solid understanding, was industrious and improving. He promised great usefulness to the church, · but in the midst of his usefulness he died. He was blessed, say the minutes, with confidence in his last hour. Moses Park was on the Washington Circuit with Wyatt Andrews. Andrews travelled one year in Geor- gia, and went thence to South Carolina-and to heaven, for he died the next year, full of faith and the Holy Ghost, praising God to the last. Hull went this year to the Burke Circuit. There was a great revival in it,
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and it more than trebled its membership. Hull writes to John Andrew in November of this year : " Oh, the sweet views I have had lately ! Come on, my partners in distress ! Glory to God ! Amen! Let it go round, our Jesus is crowned ! All hail ! Glory ! Amen! All's well, my soul is happy ! If I had some happy Chris- tians, I could shout a mile high."
The Conference of 1790 convened at Grant's again, but the Bishop made a more extensive journey through the State. He crossed the Savannah, at Augusta, and rode to S. C. Church, in Richmond County. This, then, was the first church in Richmond-but where was it? From the route Asbury took, he passed through Brothersville, near which is a church built some twenty years ago, called Clark's Chapel, after old father Samuel Clark. The initials lead us to suppose that the church was named for an older Samuel Clark, and was located between Brothersville and Coke's Chapel, in Burke County. From here he went to Briar Creek. On a beautiful bluff, near the great Briar Creek Swamp, stood for many years a church. The lands around it were rich, and the population consider- able ; but, with the growth of the plantations and the exode of the white people, it gradually declined in im- portance, and was finally given up to the negroes. This was probably the first Methodist church in Burke . County. The first church in the county was the old St. George Episcopal Church, which, with its glebe of forty acres, was located six miles south of Waynesboro. After the Revolution it was abandoned by the Episco- palians, and, reverting to the Government, it became, finally, the property of the Methodists. These were, as far as we can discover, the only church buildings in
1 --
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Burke. The population of the county was considera- ble, since we find, in an old document protesting against the rebellion of the colony, the names of over 100 fam- ilies from Burke alone.
In company with Hull, he went across the county to Jefferson County, where George Galphin, the great Indian trader, had a trading-place. This was near Louisville. He passed up the Ogeechee River, and preached near Fenn's Bridge, and still up the Ogeechee to its fork; here he examined some land for the school. He was at H's ; where was this? It is evi- dently in Warren County, and not many miles from the present home of Bishop Pierce, in Hancock. The pur- chase does not seem to have been made.
Asbury says there was an abundance of provisions, both for man and beast, but the houses were gener- ally pole cabins, and the rides were long and weari- some.
The conference met at Grant's again, and if all its members were present, there were ten in all. Among them was Bennett Maxey, a Virginian, who, after several years of hard service in Georgia, returned to Virginia, where he extended, says Bennett, his labors far into the present century. He was placed in charge of the Richmond Circuit. John Andrew, another present, was the father of James O. Andrew. IIe was originally from Liberty County, and lived in the famous Medway settlement. He received much kindness from Mr. Osgood, the good pastor of the church there, and after the birth of his son, he named him James Osgood, in his honor. He entered the conference in 1790, and was the first native Georgian ever admitted into the travel- ling connection. IIe was a man of more than usual 3
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education for those times. After his marriage, which was to Mary Cosby, of one of the best families in Wilkes, he located and engaged in mercantile busi- ness. He was unfortunate in trade, and became in- volved. Church discipline was stern, and often pitiless in those days, and the high-spirited old pioneer was wounded in the house of his friends, and withdrew from the church, only to return to it after his son's elevation to the highest office in its gift. ITis life was a pure one, and his death one of triumph. He died in Elbert County nearly forty years after this time.
The harvest truly was great and the laborers were few. Of all who travelled in Georgia, Hope Hull was the only elder. The strong men are nearly all gone. Major was dead. Humphries had removed finally to South Carolina. Beverly Allen had left the State to return to it a disgraced and ruined man.
The only workers were young men, inexperienced and uncultivated. The results of this sad condition of things will be seen in the future.
This conference was held at Grant's. This was in Wilkes County. The Grant here spoken of was the father of Thomas Grant, who was for so long a time a .prominent layman in Georgia.
In Hanover County, Virginia, in the middle of the last century, there was a sad state of religion. The only pastors were a set of parish priests whose profligate lives even went beyond that of the English clergy at that time. Among the leading citizens of that county was an Episcopalian named Morris. IIe became inter- ested about his soul, and was converted through the reading of an old copy of Luther's sermons. He invi- ted his neighbors to come and hear the sermons. They
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came in such numbers that a house for their accommo- dation was needful, and he built one. In other parts of the county there came requests for him to come and read sermons. The same result followed, and Morris's read- ing-houses were in several parts of Hanover. They met on Sunday, and, without singing or prayer, a sermon was read. A Mr. Robinson, of New Jersey, a Presbyterian, passing through Hanover, remained one Sunday at Morris's and observed the strange worship. He preached to the people. They insisted he should stay longer as he returned from Charleston. He did so; there was a revival, and he organized a Presbyterian church. When he prepared for his departure they insisted on giving him some money ; he refused to take it. They put the money in his saddle bags. He consented to take it for the use of a young man then at the Log College in New Jersey, and promised to send him, as soon as he was through college, to Virginia. This man was Samuel Davies, one of the most eloquent preachers America has ever produced. Grant was a member of his church, and Thomas Grant was baptized by him. The Grants removed to North Carolina, and the elder Grant was an elder in the Presbyterian church there. In 1784 they removed to Wilkes County. In the county there was no preaching save an occasional sermon from Silas Mercer, at a private house. At last John Major and Thomas Humphries came. Grant heard them and invi- ted them to take his house into the circuit. They did so, and he and his wife soon, as the phrase was, joined in society. Thomas was then a married man. He had been a revolutionary soldier and a surveyor of western lands. His father's teachings had not been lost, and he had preserved a pure life. He was an earnest seeker.
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