USA > Indiana > Circuit-rider days in Indiana > Part 2
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preached to vast crowds for three hours, and I verily believe God helped me. The very foundation of every Shaker present was shaken from under him. They then besought me to go to the Shaker meeting that night. I went, and when I got there we had a great crowd. I proposed to them that we have a debate and they dared not refuse. The terms were these; a local preacher I had with me was to open the debate, then one or all of their preachers, if they chose, were to fol- low, and I was to bring up the rear." To this agree- ment the Shakers, however, failed to comply, for after the debate was under way, one of the Shaker priests, as Peter Cartwright calls them, called all the shakers present to disperse, but the sturdy circuit preacher then arose and called upon the crowd to remain, and succeeded in holdign a considerable number of them. He says, "When I arose to reply I felt a sense of the approbation of God, and that he would give me success. I addressed the multiude about three hours, and when I closed the argument, I opened the doors of the church and invited all that would renounce Shakerism to come and give me their hand. Forty-seven came forward and then and there renounced the dreadful delusion. The next day I followed those that fled; and I went from cabin to cabin, taking the names of those that re- turned to the solid foundation of truth, and my num- ber rose to eighty-seven. I then organized them into a regular society and then next fall had a preacher sent them; and perhaps this victory may be considered among the first fruits of Methodism in that part of the new country."24
24 Peter Cartwright's Autobiography, 53-55. The Shakers were a communistic sect officially known as "The United Society of Be- lievers in Christ's Second Coming." The Shakers did not recog- nize marriage as a Christian institution and considered it less perfect than the celibate state. They were very active in Ken- tucky, Ohio and Indiana for a number of years after 1800. Shaker communities were founded in Southern Indiana, among
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Much of the preaching of the circuit riders was of a controversial character, largely due to the fact that Methodism was misunderstood and preached against by other denominattions, and the Methodist itinerant felt called upon to defend his teaching. A Baptist who overhearing a conversation concerning the Arminian magazine said he had always understood the word Arminian to mean one who trusted in the arm of flesh for salvation, and he stated that he did not know that Methodism believed and taught "free grace." Many thought that Arminian meant the same as Arianism,25 which misconception led to bitter attacks upon Method- ism. But undoubtedly the controversial character of the preaching was one of the things which attracted people to the Methodist meetings, because most people enjoy denunciations.
In the fall of 1810 the Whitewater circuit was divided, the lower part receiving the name of Enon cir- cuit, which was a Scriptural name meaning abundance of waters, and this new circuit was well described by this name, for there were twelve creeks to be crossed .by the preacher in his rounds of the circuit, and many times he was compelled to travel many miles out of his way, over high and steep hills, and at this time there were no roads and few paths to guide him on his way. This name Enon was rather too vague, however, for it meant nothing to the average person, and the next year the circuit name was changed to Lawrenceburg.26 The first circuit preacher on the Enon circuit was Walter Griffith, who was a young man, in the prime of life, and full of zeal. And indeed all of the pioneer preachers in Indiana were young men. Griffith found an excellent helper on the circuit, in the person of Elijah Sparks, a
them this community at Busroe on the Wabash. The Methodist circuit riders were deadly foes to this delusion.
25 Western Christian Advocate. December 19, 1845.
26 Western Christian Advocate, December 19. 1845.
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lawyer living near Lawrenceburg, who had formerly been a traveling preacher, but on his marriage, had located, for in those days, to marry was equivalent to ceasing from traveling. Sparks had moved to Indiana from Kentucky in 1806 and until his death in 1815 he was one of the most popular preachers in Indiana, espe- cially at camp-meetings. In those days there was great prejudice against lawyers and many thought a lawyer could not be a christian, but Sparks succeeded in over- coming this prejudice, although he continued to prac- tice law and preach at the same time. In 1814 he was appointed Judge for the third circuit of Indiana terri- tory, which he held until his death, the following year.27
In 1811 there was a division of the Vincennes cir- cuit, the Patoka circuit being created in the southwest corner of the territory. The territory of this new cir- cuit mostly lay along the Patoka river.28 The year 1811 was a notable one in the history of the territory of Indiana, and also in the history of Indiana Method- ism, for it was in the fall of this year that the battle of Tippecanoe was fought and won by General Harri- son, and it was also the year of the great earthquake. These quakes were of the most severe kind and con- tinued during most of the winter of 1811 and 1812. The effect of these shocks upon Indiana Methodism and religion in general is thus described by an eyewitness : "As a result of the continued quakes the whole country became alarmed and the most vile and hardened sin- ners began to tremble and quake, and go to meeting, and weep and pray. Now every preacher traveling and local, with the exhorters began to hold meetings with more earnestness than ever, in almost all directions, and Baptist ministers did the same, and it seemed as if almost everybody would become religious that winter
27 Ibid., October 24, 1845.
28 Minutes. Vol. I, 211.
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and spring. Some men were converted and became preachers, whose conversion I had been in the habit of regarding as almost as hopeless as the conversion of the devil himself. There was one man by the name of William Ramsey, whom I had regarded as the most pro- fane and wicked man I ever knew, who became as tame and timid as a lamb. A few months afterward he was soundly converted, he became a useful preacher and continued so for years, while he remained in our part of the country."29
The success of this year, largely due to the earth- quake, was very great, and there was a large ingather- ing of members. The Whitewater circuit increased from 567 to 843, an increase of 276; the Lawrenceburg circuit increased from 306 to 480, an increase of 174; the increase in the Silver Creek circuit was from 375 to 555; while the Vincennes circuit was divided, prob- ably as the result of the great increase in members and preaching places. This great increase throughout the circuits of Indiana, however, proved to be an unhealthy growth, and the next year there was a reaction, result- ing in a considerable loss both of members and zeal, and we are told that it was some years before the Church was as healthy and vigorous as it was formerly.30
Another cause of the decrease in membership fol- lowing the year 1811, was the breaking out of the War of 1812. The alarm of war drove many of the settlers to the block houses, because of the growing hostility of the Indians; while a considerable number of the frontiersmen entered the service of their country as volunteers, and the work of the circuit riders was hindered materially.
In 1812 the Whitewater circuit was again divided, the part east of the present town of Brookville was
29 Western Christian Advocate, January 9, 1846.
30 Minutes, Vol. I. 209, 211, 227.
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called the Oxford circuit, part of which lay within the state of Ohio. The circuit embraced much of the pres- ent Franklin county, the whole of Union county, the settled parts of Wayne county and perhaps a part of Fayette county.31 The first preacher on this new cir- cuit was Moses Crume, one of the most useful of all the early Indiana preachers.32 Like so many of the other early Indiana preachers, Crume was a native of Vir- ginia, moved to Kentucky and from there came to Ohio, and later to Indiana territory. In the course of his career as a Methodist itinerant he travelled from Madison, Indiana, to Urbana, Ohio, and from the Miami to the western line of Indiana. He has been described as resembling Washington in appearance. He was never a popular preacher, due to his lack of voice and energy in the pulpit but his sermons were always sound and good, and was a thorough student for those days, and was familiar with all the current theological discussion. He always carried Canno's marginal Bible with him and it was filled with marks from Genesis to Revelation. He was thoroughly familiar also with the doctrine, usages and discipline of the Methodist Church, and was a most firm and just administrator.
The preacher on the Whitewater circuit during the first year of the war of 1812 was John Strange, who was an extremely popular and talented itinerant. Dur- ing this year he traveled from block-house to block- house with his gun on his shoulder, to defend himself from the Indians, and on one occasion while on his rounds, on reaching one of the block-houses and learn- ing that all its occupants were unharmed since his last visit, he started up the hymn :
"And are we yet alive and see each others face ?"33
31 Western Christian Advocate, February 20, 1846.
32 Ibid., January 30, 1846.
33 Ibid., February 20, 1846.
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In 1812 the Western conference was divided into the Ohio and Tennessee conferences and the Indiana circuits were divided between them; the circuits in the southeastern corner of the territory were included in the Ohio conference, while those in the southwest sec- tion were in the Tennessee conference. The circuits were divided among three districts, the Miami and Salt River districts of the Ohio conference and the Wabash district of the Tennessee conference. There were very frequent changes made in the circuits and districts, and for that reason it is difficult to follow them, through several years. For instance, the Wabash dis- trict appears only in the reports for 1812 and 1813, and never appears again; Patoka circuit, started in 1811, disappears the two following years and again ap- pears in 1814.34
Among the early Indiana Presiding Elders, were John Sale, Samuel Parker, Soloman Langdon, Learner Blackman, William Burke, James Axley, James Ward, Peter Cartwright, Charles Holliday and Jesse Walk- er.35 Altogether they were a remarkable group of men, and every one of them is worthy of a permanent place in the history of the great state of Indiana. The Jesuit Fathers, in the days of exploration on this continent, undertook no greater task than the task which was undertaken by these rude, but earnest and upright frontier preachers. The circuit riders were no less de- voted and many times as well qualified to preach, as were the Presiding Elders. In fact there was very little distinction made between the Elder and the traveling preacher, and many of the early preachers in Indiana became presiding elders.
John Sale was the Presiding Elder of the Ohio dis- trict at the time of the formation of the Whitewater circuit, and he and William McKindree were therefore
34 General Minutes, Vol. I. 216-287.
35 Ibid.
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the first Indiana Presiding Elders. Sale was a Virgin- ian by birth, was received on trial into the ministry of the Methodist Church in 1796, and traveled his first circuits in Virginia and North Carolina. In the year 1800 he was sent to the Kentucky circuit, in 1802 he traveled the Scioto circuit in Ohio; in 1803 he was ap- pointed to the Miami circuit, also in Ohio; in 1804 he again served a circuit in Kentucky, and was made Pre- siding Elder of the Ohio district in 1805. At that time the Ohio district was probably the largest district in Methodism. It embraced a part of Virginia, all the settled parts of Ohio, and after the spring of 1806 the southeastern part of Indiana. He traveled this district three years, when in 1808 the district was divided, the western part being called the Miami district, which he served two years. The next four years he traveled the Kentucky district, then two more years he was on the Miami district and from 1816 to his death, in 1826, he served circuits in Ohio.
John Sale married while on the Ohio district and was one of the first two married traveling preachers in the western country. The other of the earliest mar- ried preachers was William Burke, who was Presiding Elder of the Green River district in 1810 when it in- cluded the Silver Creek circuit. Bishop Asbury dis- couraged marriage among the preachers, knowing the increased hardships marriage would bring to the preachers themselves, but especially to the preachers' wives. For this reason many of the pioneer preachers ceased to travel, as the active ministry was termed, while they were still young men, simply because they married, and were advised to locate; that is, they set- tled down on a farm, generally, or entered some other profession though they did not cease to be preachers or members of the conference. At this early time sixty- four dollars was the amount allowed a traveling preach- er, and he must provide in most cases his own horse
(2)
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and equipment, such as saddle and saddle-bags, and in few cases did he receive all he was allowed. William Burke says, that after his marriage, "I met with every discouragement that could be thrown in my way. Peo- ple and preachers said, 'You had better locate.' I shared equally with the single men when they were on the circuit with me, in order to keep peace. * * * One winter I had to use a borrowed blanket instead of a cloak or overcoat." By 1810, however, it became much more common for preachers to marry, though all were not as successful as they might have been in selecting wives suitable for a circuit rider. In 1811 a junior preacher by the name of Homes was sent to aid Moses Crume on the Whitewater circuit. Homes was mar- ried and his wife traveled, for the most part, with him on the circuit. She was an incessant smoker, and her husband would be compelled to stop frequently at the cabins to light her pipe. Naturally this particular preacher's wife soon became most unpopular on the circuit, not only because of her smoking, but because of her sharp and cutting comments, concerning the food and lodging at the various cabins where they were entertained.
In appearance John Sale was a heavy, medium sized man, and very neat in his dress. He was possessed of a large share of good, strong common sense, and was particularly careful to regard the decencies of public worship, and would suffer nothing that was extrava- gant in religious assemblies, if he could hinder it. I have found, indeed, common sense to be one of the characteristics of the early Methodist pioneer preacher although it has been the popular conception that the Methodist circuit rider courted religious extravagances and thrived upon them. Sale was also a strict disciplin-
36 Western Christian Advocate, December 26, 1845.
37 Burke's Autobiography, 91.
38 Western Christian Advocate, December 26, 1845.
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arian, and was always careful to see that Methodist usages were enforced. From 1810 to 1820 there was a great controversy among Methodist preachers, con- cerning infant purity and innate depravity, and for a time it seemed that it would result in splitting Metho- dism on the frontier into two camps, but Sale, always a kind and zealous peace-maker, was largely instru- mental in healing the dispute. Allen Wiley says that "perhaps Methodism in much of Ohio and Indiana is more indebted to John Sale for its symmetry and beauty than to any one man on earth or in heaven."39
Soloman Langdon, who served a number of years as Presiding Elder of the Miami district, when that dis- trict included three of the southeastern Indiana cir- cuits, was a New Englander by birth, and began to preach in his native section in 1800. He came west in 1807, served several circuits in Ohio, and was appointed Presiding Elder of the Miami district in 1810. In ap- pearance he was a tall, noble man, and had great grav- ity and dignity "in all his ministrations." Wiley says, "He was a good successor to John Sale, not similar ex- cept in good sense and piety. They were both men well calculated to give stability and perpetuity to Meth- odism in a new country." Langdon was not an emo- tional preacher, but he was a "sound and talented man, and did much to disabuse the public mind of miscon- ceptions concerning Methodism."40
Peter Cartwright's connection with Indiana Meth- odism was limited to the year he served on the Salt River and Shelby circuit in Kentucky in 1805, when he crossed the Ohio River and preached in Indiana, to his visit to the Busroe settlement in 1808 when he put the Shakers to flight, and to the year 1812-1813, when he served as Presiding Elder of the Wabash district, which included within its bounds the Vincennes and the Pa-
39 Western Christian Adovcate, January 16, 1846.
40 Ibid., December 26, 1845.
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toka circuits. It is unnecessary to give an extended account here, of this perhaps the most famous of all Methodist frontier preachers. His Autobiography, which reads like a veritable fairy tale, is still sold and read by thousands, and through that medium his fame has gone far beyond the bounds of the Methodist church.
James Axley, who was the Presiding Elder on the Wabash district in 1811-1812, was one of the peculiar and interesting characters to be found among the early preachers in the western country. He was a man of little education, but was genuine, and tremendously effective in his work. He seemed to be afraid of noth- ing, except sin, and yet he was as teachable as a child. On one occasion when Peter Cartwright and he were dining at the home of the Governor of Kentucky, among other things on the table before them was fried chicken, and Axley, who had evidently had little experience with table etiquette, called the family dog to his chair and threw the chicken bones on the carpet for the dog to eat. When they went to their room Cartwright re- buked him for his bad manners, and so mortified was Axley because of his ignorance, that he actually wept.41 On another occasion Axley was preaching in a private house with a chair before him for a pulpit, when two young ladies came in and sat just in front of the preacher. The young ladies had on dresses with short sleeves and low necks, for such things were fashion- able then as now. Axley had a large bandanna hand- kerchief on the back of his chair, and he paused in the service and handed the handkerchief to the young ladies with the request that they would cover their bosoms.42
Axley was very strong in his opposition to slavery and whiskey, as indeed were most of the frontier
41 Cartwright's Autobiography.
42 Rev. Joseph Tarkington's Autobiography, 74.
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preachers, at this date. After he ceased preaching, and located, he made his living and supported his family by farming, and he was wont to testify on all proper oc- casions, that "his logs were rolled, his house raised, and his grain cut without whiskey; and though he had plentyful crops of corn, not the first track of a negro's foot was ever seen in one of his fields."43 On one oc- casion Axley was discoursing on the conformity to the world among Christians, particularly in fashionable dress and manners. In his address he held a sort of a colloquy with an imaginary apologist, seated at the other end of the congregation. The pleas and excuses of this imaginary person were given in an altered tone of voice, and then assuming his natural voice he would reply. "But sir," his imaginary man says, "some of your Methodist preachers themselves dress in fashion- able style, and in air and manner enact the dandy."
"O no, my friend, that can not be. Methodist preachers know their calling better. They are men of more sense than that, and would not stoop so low as to disgrace themselves and the sacred office they hold by such gross inconsistency of character."
"Well, sir, if you won't take my word for it, just look at those young preachers in the pulpit behind you."
Axley then in seeming surprise turned around and facing the two or three rather fashionably dressed junior preachers seated in the rear of the pulpit, sur- veyed them from head to foot for several minutes, while they quailed under his keen glance. Then turn- ing around to the congregation, and leaning a little forward with his arm extended and his eyes fixed on the supposed apologist at the back of the room, he said
43 Finley, "Sketches of Western Methodism," Chapter XVI. 231-246. Rev. J. B. Finley in this book gives sketches of a nun- ber of early Indiana preachers. Among them are short biographies of Benjamin Lakin, John Sale, Samuel Parker, Learner Black- man, James Axley, Joseph Oglesby, John Collins and John Strange.
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in a subdued voice. "If you please, sir, we'll drop the subject."
The Presiding Elder par excellence in early Indiana Methodism was Samuel Parker, especially from the standpoint of eloquence. He was the Presiding Elder appointed to take charge of the new Indiana district, at its formation in 1808, and served as the Presiding Elder of the Miami district in 1811. He was a native of New Jersey and began to preach in 1800, though he was not admitted to membership in the Western con- ference until 1805. His first circuit was the Hinkstone in Kentucky, and he served various circuits in Ken- tucky and Ohio until 1808, when he became Presiding Elder of the new Indiana district. Later he was ap- pointed to a similar office in the Miami district, and in 1815 he was made Presiding Elder of the Kentucky district, which he held four years. At the end of that time he was sent to Mississippi to take charge of the new work there, but his career was soon cut short by his untimely death in 1819. Samuel Parker is a good example of the itinerant who literally burned himself out in the service of the Church.43
Parker was a tall, slim, awkward man, with large blue eyes and an enormous Roman nose. He had a long chin which he used in the winter time to hold up the blanket which served in lieu of a great coat. A hole was cut in the center of the blanket, large enough to let his small head through, and when it was bitter cold, he would hang the forepart of the hole on his chin and bid defiance to wind and cold. And when his bed covering proved not sufficient, his blanket was made to serve for that purpose, and it was frequently brought into use, for bed covering was scant, especially at Quarterly meeting. There were few churches in those early days and quarterly meetings were held at private cabins, and on those occasions they would be crowded with strangers. When bed time came the "sisterhood"
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took the beds while the men would "pile down on the floor by the dozen," and with feet extended to the fire, would sleep soundly until the morning.
Let us picture this homely, awkward frontier preacher, clad in ill fitting, homespun preacher garb,- for there was a well recognized preacher garb then as now,-as he conducts the preaching in one of these rude cabins on a quarterly meeting occasion. He places his chair before him as his pulpit, and begins to read a hymn, in a soft and charming voice. After the singing of the hymn, comes the prayer, which is uttered with such eloquence and pathos "that heaven and earth seemed in juxtaposition." And then follows the sermon on the text, "The upright love thee." One who was present on such an occasion and heard this very ser- mon says, "I have since heard the most able divines in the country, but his description of the good man's love to God and God's love to man, I have not been priv- ileged to hear equaled since, and indeed I never expect to hear anything this side the throne of God which will surpass it."44
The camp-meeting, however, was the place where the early Methodist preacher had the best opportunity to display his powers in the pulpit. It was customary for a camp-meeting to be held on each circuit at some- time during the summer months, and at such meetings several preachers from adjoining circuits, and some- times preachers from a distance would be present. The first camp-meeting held in Indiana was probably the one conducted in the Robertson neighborhood, in the vicinity of Charlestown in the summer of 1807. In 1808 there was a camp-meeting conducted on the Whitewater circuit, and after this date we have records of many Indiana camp-meetings. In 1810 there were two camp-meetings conducted on the Whitewater cir-
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