USA > Florida > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 32
USA > Georgia > The History of Methodism in Georgia and Florida: From 1785 to 1865 > Part 32
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Wm. Arnold was still presiding elder, and Jeremiah Norman succeeded as pastor. Norman we have spoken of. His beauty had not increased, though his intellect had improved, by the time he came to Athens. We have already allnded to him as a most excellent preacher ; his looks, however, did not indicate it. A crowd once came out in Eatonton to hear John Howard preach. Jere. Norman had unexpectedly reached the village, and made himself known to the preacher, who never having heard him in the pulpit, was rather shy of inviting him to preach, but courtesy required it, and he did so with some hesitancy. The preacher used the same text Howard had intended to use, and his sermon was so far beyond what Howard thought he could have preached, that he never failed to speak of his agrecable astonishment. He was returned the second year, not so common a thing then as now.
W. J. Parks returned to the Athens District after
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two years of hard work in Southern Georgia. The next year Whiteford Smith, a young South Carolinian in the fifth year of his ministry, was sent to Athens. He came from Augusta, where he had spent two useful and successful years. He was very popular as a preacher, and the spiritual interests of the church began to revive. Among the most prominent citizens of Athens was Judge Augustine S. Clayton. He had been a member of Congress, a Judge of the Superior Court and a most decided skeptic. His wife was an earnest Christian, a member of the Methodist Church. While the revival which had begun was going on, he was struck with paralysis. He was visited at once by the young pastor. Through the kindness of Dr. Smith, now Professor of Wofford College, we are able to give in his own words an account of this interview : " When first approached on the subject, he said he was entirely satisfied with his condition, that he had always tried to be an honest man and do all kindness to his fellow men-as he recovered, however, his mind under- went a great change. He felt himself to be a sinner, unworthy of any blessing, and threw himself without reserve on the merits of Christ. As soon as he was able to go out of the house to church, he expressed a desire to join the church in the most public manner, that he might, if possible, counteract any evil which his former opinions had wrought. On the Sunday when he made this public profession, the church was crowded to the very doors. I think Dr. Means preached for me. At the close of the sermon an invitation was given to those who wished to unite with the Church . The Judge arose and came forward, and was soon fol. lowed by one of his daughters, and many others.
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Among those who presented themselves was Alban Chase, between whom and the Judge there had long existed a strong political hostility. As soon as Judge Clayton saw him approach the pulpit from the other side of the house, he beckoned to him to come to him, and extending his hand, he grasped him warmly. The effect was overpowering. The whole congregation was bathed in tears. The Spirit of God scemed to rest upon the assembly, and a new impulse was given to the gracious work. The subsequent lives of these two excellent men gave satisfactory proof of the genuine- ness of the work wrought in their hearts."
The revival went on, and over sixty members were added to the church. At the conference, he was re- turned a second time.
The next year James E. Evans, who had been in Charleston, returned to Georgia, and Whiteford Smith returned to Charleston.
James E. Evans was always successful in winning souls, and his labors were blessed with a great revival in Athens, and during the year of his pastorate, the minutes report an increase of over one hundred per- sons.
In 1841, Daniel Curry, and in 1842, W. R. Bran- ham and Daniel Curry were sent to Athens, which was united with Lexington. Alfred T. Mann came in 1843, and W. J. Parks came in 1844-45. The Church moved smoothly on during this period; there was no great re- vival, but Athens was on the eve of the most wonderful revival she had ever known, one of which we wish we could do more than tell the bare story which the figures give us. G. J. Pearce was in charge. He was a stir- ring evangelist, and great success had attended him
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elsewhere. He was this year to be a great blessing to the people of Athens. Dr. Hull, who has kept a care- ful record of the Church in Athens for nearly forty years, reports that 163 white members and 97 colored joined the church during this year, and this when Athens was a small country town. The revival influence was felt by all in the city, and all who came to it. The church was now a strong one, and the colored charge itself de- manded a pastor ; so the next year John M. Bonnell was sent with G. J. Pearce. Jno. M. Bonnell was a Penn- sylvanian by birth. He came to Georgia, when a skep- tical boy, to teach school, was thrown among the Metho- dists in Greenville, Merriwether County, was converted, and entered upon his ministerial work. His almost matchless capacity as an educator, and his wide and ac- curate scholarship called him from the pastorate into the school-room, and he was either a professor or presi- dent the larger part of his life. Had his health per- mitted, he would have chosen the pastoral office, but it did not, and he accepted the call of Providence as an instructor.
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Dr. Jesse Boring followed him, but left the station as a missionary to California. In 1849-50, Dr. Eustace W. Speer took charge of the congregation. The old church did not meet the demands of the young city. It had been built when Athens was a village in the woods ; now it was a thriving commercial and manu- facturing town, and a handsome and commodious brick church was now erected. We need now do little more than give a list of the preachers who supplied the sta- tion :
1851-2. Alfred T. Mann.
1853-4. Joseph S. Key.
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1855. Alexander M. Wynn.
1856 -- 7. H. H. Parks.
During 1857 the daily prayer-meeting became an institution in many of our cities, and Gen. Thomas R. R. Cobb, who fell at the battle of Fredericksburg, and who added to great abilities as a lawyer and a statesman the beauty of pure Christian character, united with others of like devotion to Christ, and a union prayer-meeting began, which resulted in a gra- cious and long-continued revival, which swept through the year, and in 1858 there were many accessions to the church.
A second church, in proximity to the manufacturing establishment, on the river, was thought to be a neces- sity, and it was built.
Athens has always been a pleasant home for the preacher, and its appreciation of those who have served it is shown in the number of tiines the same preachers have occupied its pastorate. Dr. Lovick Pierce was stationed there three times; Alfred T. Mann, two; Joseph S. Key, three; H. H. Parks has spent six years in the charge.
No church in Georgia has had a body of laymen more worthy than the church at Athens. It has always been among the first in benevolent enterprises, and its reli- gious character has always been high. Of these laymen we can do but little more than make mention. Of Da- vid Merriwether we have spoken, and of Hope Hull. Asbury Hull, the son of Hope Hull, was one of the early members of the church. He was a lawyer of great ability. He was a statesman of the purest character. Honored by all of every party, his death was justly re- garded as a calamity.
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Albon Chase was for many years one of the leading business men of Athens. A Northern man by birth, he spent most of his years in the South. He led in all pub- lic enterprises, and was liberal in his views and liberal in his benefactions. He gave his only child to a Meth- odist preacher as a wife, and after a life of great prob- ity he passed to his reward.
Dr. Henry Hull, the last remaining son of Hope . Hull, still lives. He has been for over fifty years an official member of the church in Athens, and is as devo- ted to the church to-day as he was in the days of his early life.
Athens has always been noted for her saintly women. Mrs. Flournoy, the sister of Col. Cobb and the aunt of llowell and Thomas R. R. Cobb, and of Judge Jackson, was a woman of whose saintliness of character we have spoken. She lived in such holy communion with God, that, in the midst of most fearful affliction, her shouts of praise revealed the joy within. But our space for- bids a fuller story of Athens and her good people.
When the Creek lands were purchased in 1822, it was decided to locate a city at the head of navigation on the Ocmulgee River, opposite old Fort Hawkins, on the eastern side. This city was laid out in 1825, and was called Macon. It soon became a place of considerable trade, and cotton from all the new counties and many of the old sought a market there. It was nominally in the boundary of the Forsyth Circuit, and there was preaching occasionally in the town academy.
Thomas Darley was appointed to Macon and Clinton; but if he went, he makes no report of his labors to the conference. The next year Samuel K. Hodges, with Charles Hardy, was sent in charge. During that year
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Ilodges secured the assistance of John Howard and Lovick Pierce, and a four days' meeting was held in a warehouse where is now located Christ Church (Episcopal). The meeting went on for four days at least, and was productive of miich good, for during the year a church was built on a beautiful lot on Mulberry Street. The next year Ignatius A. Few, in the second year of his travelling ministry, was sent in charge of the station. Dr. Few gave dignity to every place he filled, and he soon gathered about him a large and appreciative congregation. Many substantial Methodists from the older parts of the State had already moved to the city, and he found lay members ready to help him in organ- izing the church for work. Among these were Win. Fort, Everard Hamilton, and Thomas Hardeman. During this year a Sunday-school was organized. The members in the church were 120. Dr. Few was re- turned the second year. The first Georgia Conference was held in Macon in 1831. John Howard had now moved to the city and was placed on the Milledgeville District, and Benj. Pope was the stationed preacher. Although the district claimed much of Howard's time, yet he gave as much as he could to the city, which was his home, and during the year there was a precious re- vival, and 100 additional members were added to the church. Among them were many of the solid men of .Macon. Pope, who had done a good year's work, was returned, and John Howard was retained on the dis- trict. The next year Archelaus II Mitchell, now Dr. Mitchell of Alabama, was in charge of the station, and in 1834 John Howard was made agent of the Mannal Labor School, and Wm. J. Parks was placed on the dis- trict, and Dr. Few and Thomas P. Lawrence were
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sent on the station. Lawrence was a young man of good parts, but somewhat erratic, and after remaining in the conference for a few years, withdrew.
Jno. W. Talley came in 1835. He appointed a meet- ing and secured the assistance of some of his brethren, Jno. Howard and Elijah Sinclair among them. They were both living in Macon, and were very popular men and men of great pulpit power. The pastor was young, earnest, and devoted. The good work at once began, and one hundred were added to the church. Among them was Geo. Jewett, the father of Chas. R. Jewett, whom we have mentioned elsewhere. Numbers of the leading men of the young and busy city were converted. After this meeting Elijah Sinclair proposed the building of a female college, and during this year it was begun. A. Speer followed Talley for two years. The member- ship of the church was now 303. They were scattered over a large area, and the work was so heavy that two preachers were sent to the charge, Willis D. Mathews and W. W. Robinson. The church had now increased in ten years from 120 to 303, and in few charges was there more wealth and influence. These were flush times in Macon. Cotton came pouring into it from all new country, to be shipped down the Ocmulgee. Banks were established; a new railroad from Savannah was being pushed towards Macon, while Macon herself was striving, with the help of the interior, to build one to the West. The new female college was being built ; all things seemed prosperous, but the church was not ; and not growth, but decline was the order in it. Elijah Sin- clair, busy with his college interests, was placed in charge of the station at the Conference of 1838, and there was still further decline reported.
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At the succeeding conference Wm. Arnold was placed on the district, and Jno. P. Duncan was sent to the station. Geo. F. Pierce left his district to take charge of the female college just now opened, so that Macon had the services of Wm. Arnold, who carried blessings wherever he went, Jno. P. Duncan, who was remarkable for his power of moving men, and Geo. F. Pierce. They united their forces, and the result was one of the most wonderful revivals Macon had ever known. On one Sunday in May, ninety persons pre- sented themselves, and there were 371 white members reported at the next conference.
During this year Bishop Pierce gave from the pulpit some most withering rebukes to public vices. Indeed, so frequent and so telling were his castigations, that they became famous. One day he received a letter from an anonymous correspondent in Putnam County, detailing a scandalous cotton transaction, of which there were not a few in those days. He prepared a sermon on " Balaam, the son of Besor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness." He gave an exposition of the text, and then gave as an illustration of loving the wages of unrighteousness the tricks of trade, and detailed the very transaction of which he had received knowledge, as a possible way of securing the wages. It was some- what ludicrous to mark the flutter the preacher ex- cited, and for him to hear from each cotton-buyer, the next week, emphatic declarations that it was some one else, not him. During this revival, many boys and young men were converted. One of these was Robert A. Smith. We have spoken of. the remarkable conver- sion of the wife of Major Smith, in Clinton, years before. Robert was her son. Ile was highly gifted,
-
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and born to wealth and position. He became a Christian. He passed through all the trying scenes of school and college life and preserved his Christian character, and when he entered his law office he entered it a Christian lawyer. He was an official mein- ber of the Church-steward, trustee, class leader, Bible- class teacher. Few men have worked so much or so well. The prisoner in his cell, the outcast, the friend- less child, the pauper-all had in him a friend. IIe married young and happily, but he was smitten by the saddest blow that can fall on a young heart, in the death of his young wife. He remained a single man till his death. When the war came on he entered the army, first as a captain and then as a colonel. Against the entreaty of his surgeon and of his friends, he went into the battle of Seven Pines, was wounded, and died. Lewis Lawshe, a thoughtless young tailor, was converted at the same meeting. IIe afterwards became a local preacher, was a long time superintendent of the Wesley Chapel Sunday-school in Atlanta, and after years of great usefulness there, died in peace.
Many other young men who still live were converted at that time. At the Conference of 1841, Alfred T. Mann was sent in charge, and in 1842 Bishop Pierce, who had resigned his place in the college, was sent again to the station. During the year there was an increase of over fifty members, and he reported nearly 400 members in the charge. Samuel Anthony was placed in charge of the station in 1843, and there was reported an increase of over 100 members ; 497 whites and 392 colored members were reported at the Conference of 1844. Macon had now the largest membership of any city in the State. Augusta had 303 members,
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Savannah 387, Columbus 375, Macon 447. At the Conference of 1844 James B. Payne was sent in charge of the station, and Jno. W. Talley was the presiding elder. The old story of the loss of members after a great revival was repeated, and Macon reported only 426 at the next conference. Isaac Boring was placed on the district, and Samuel Anthony was returned to the station.
In 1847 W. M. Crumley was sent to Macon, and Vine- ville, a suburban village, which had built a neat church, was made a separate station, and Wm. I. Sapwith was sent in charge of it. Of the Macon membership, 189 were in Vineville and its vicinity, and 317 in Macon, making a total of 506. G. J. Pearce came in 1848, and W. R. Branham in 1849. The church which had been built in 1827 was still the only place of Methodist wor- ship, and it was sadly out of keeping with the beautiful residences which crowned the hill-tops about Macon. But for the financial burdens the college had imposed, it had long since been replaced by a better one ; but the college was scarcely finished before a financial crash came which ruined a large number of the wealthiest and most liberal men of Macon, and for years the col- lege property seemed inevitably lost; but now it was safe, and during the pastorate of W. R. Branham a new church was decided upon. Architectural elegance in the early days of Methodismn has always given way to convenience, and the moderns have followed in the foot- steps of the ancients ; so that, while few buildings answer more perfectly the purposes of a church than the Mal- berry Street Church in Macon, few have less pretension to architectural beauty. The church was not completed till James E. Evans came in 1850. It was then most
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handsomely finished. It is somewhat remarkable that after the building of a good church a revival almost in- variably follows, and during this year there was a most gracious meeting, and the membership ran up to 417. Much of this sketch, as of each one of the city churches, is dry detail. We can do no more, and we have not thought it best to do less. The careless way in which all but the most general records are kept, and the fact that most of them are destroyed, renders access to them-if it can be had-almost useless; but the minutes tell that the religious contributions of the Macon Church, only reported in full since 1855, were large and generous. They have gone beyond those of any church in the State. The support accorded to the preacher in charge has always been ample, and no church has passed be- yond, and but few have equalled, this city in its liberal payment of those in charge of its churches. The annual conference has repeatedly held its sessions in Macon, and has always been hospitably entertained.
We need not pursue the current history beyond this point. The lists of preachers in Macon from 1850 are within reach of all. Gracious revivals have blessed the city frequently, and not a year has passed without some good work being done. The Vineville charge was merged in that of Macon after a few years, and two preachers were appointed to the station. A mis- sionary to the colored people was sent each year, and in 1856 a city missionary was appointed. In 1860 a neat brick chapel was built on Arch Street. It was burned the same year, and in 1862-3 a second church was begun. This charge became a separate one, known as the First Street Church, and has grown to be quite an important one. In 1859 a Sunday-school was estab-
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lished in East Macon, and out of it grew a church. There is now in that village a neat building and a sep- arate pastor. Jones' Chapel was built just out of the city limits, on the west of the city, and is served by a pastor supported mainly by the Mulberry Street Church. Services are held at the college on Sunday night, and, including the college chapel, there are now in Macon eight separate places of worship for the Methodists.
All the colored church went from us during the war, except a faithful few, who form the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in the city. The African Metho- dists, who have a large number of the old members, have a handsome building. There is, then, in Macon three large brick Methodist churches, one neat church in East Macon, one mission chapel, and the Vineville Church. In no part of the State have the labors of the Methodist preacher been more fruitful, and nowhere has the liberal co-operation of the laymen been more cheerful.
The church in Macon has been well served by the ablest men in the Church, and it has always had ad- ditional advantage in the services of the preachers at the college. They have always been able men, and ready to work, and have held regular services in their own chapel during the week and on every Sunday night. It has not been a usual thing for a year to pase without a gracious revival among the college girls.
The Macon Church has always been noted for its good women. It would not be, perhaps, proper here to speak of the living, and among the faithful dead we are not to choose.
The laymen of the Church have been among the
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most conservative and liberal in any church. There has never been a schism or a rebellion in the history of the Church. They have received the appointee of the conference without complaint, and supported him cheerfully, whether they preferred him or not.
Among the good laymen who have served the Macon Church in days gone by, and gone to their reward, it is difficult to choose any for special mention. Wm. Fort was among the first and the most liberal. He was a merchant of the finest capacity, and being one of the great firm of Baxter, Fort & Wiley, who did the largest business in Macon, he was able to do much for the Church when it needed help. Everard Hamilton, who was connected with the firm of Hamilton & Harde- man, was an active and useful man, very liberal with his means, and very broad in his views. Thomas Har- deman, his partner, was one of the purest and best of men. Fond of the Church, fond especially of the good old songs of early time, he sang with fervor and sweet- ness, and prayed with the deepest pathos. He was a blameless man, honored and beloved by all ; one who passed through waves of deep affliction both in body and mind, who passed through great reverses, but pre- served his integrity in all his trials. W. A. Ross, one of the most active merchants, whose liberal means were always at the service of the Church, and whose elegant home was the resting-place of many a weary itinerant.
Robert P. McEvoy, the associate and friend of R. A. Smith, was one of the younger line of active Christian men. He was a most enterprising and successful busi- ness man. He made largely, and though not rich, was always among the first in his contributions to good ob- 21
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jects. His devotion to the Church was that of quiet, undemonstrative love. Business confinement at last was too much for a naturally feeble constitution, and he died from consumption early in life.
His friend and associate in church affairs was Basil A. Wise. Coming to Macon a handsome, energetic, but poor young man, he succeeded by dint of his own energy in accumulating a large fortune. He passed safely through all the perils of the army, and after its close entered with earnestness into business again, mar- ried happily, and was an active worker and a liberal contributor to the Church. When in the vigor of his life, and the midst of his usefulness, he died. There are many living now who from early manhood have stood by the Church in Macon, and who are still labor- ing to keep the Church there what it has been in the past. Had we space, we would be glad to tell of others, but we must forbear. .
COLUMBUS.
The city of Columbus was laid out in 1827. It is located at the head of navigation on the Chattahoochee River. The lands for a considerable distance around it in Georgia and Alabama are very fertile, and it early be- came a place of considerable commercial importance. James Stockdale, who was on the Columbus Mission, founded the church in the then village in 1828. The next year Andrew Hammill, who was presiding elder on the district, had the church in charge, and that year a plain wooden church was built. Cassell Harrison, who fol- lowed him, found a society already numbering fifty-four members. He added fifty to it, and Jesse Boring fol- lowed him. It was young Boring's first year of sta-
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tioned life. During this year there was a great revival. The town now numbered about 1,600 inhabitants, and there were three churches in it. The religious interest was so great that the congregations were too large for the church, and in the beautiful grove around it a stand was built, upon which the young preacher preached until conference. The old wooden church was torn down, and a small brick church was erected. This was the first brick church among the Methodists in Georgia, and when the young preacher went to conference he was not only able to report this fact, but an addition to the Church of over eighty members.
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