A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the state into the union, Volume III, Part 26

Author: Louis Houck
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: R. R. Donnelley & sons company
Number of Pages: 405


USA > Missouri > A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the state into the union, Volume III > Part 26


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" 10 Presbyterian Quarterly, p. 101. He had two brothers, James and Eli Donnel, who settled on Plattin creek in Jefferson county.


" Life of Peck, p. 117.


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he organized a number of Presbyterian churches served by Presby- terian ministers, formed three Bible societies and founded Sunday schools. But according to Peck, Rev. Charles S. Robinson, a Pres- byterian missionary from an eastern state, who is not at all mentioned by Flint (although he at one time refers to an associate from Con- necticut) built the meeting house at St. Charles in 1819. He also says that in this work Robinson received occasional aid from another missionary Rev. T., undoubtedly referring to Rev. Timothy Flint. Peck in this wise gives us his idea of Flint as a preacher, viz., "I heard Mr. T. preach several times. His sermons were good, some- times eloquent; but, as the laborer said to the prophet (2 Kings vi), 'Alas! Master, it is borrowed.' One from Luke xiv, 18, was from Burder's Village Sermons. At the monthly concert for prayer in St. Louis he gave us a lecture from Daniel ix, 1-3. This discourse was chiefly made up from one then recently preached before the first East Tennessee Bible Society; a portion I recognized as having been preached and published in the Eastern states." 48


Rev. Charles S. Robinson was a native of Massachusetts, born in Granville; a graduate of Williams and Andover, who came to St. Charles December 7, 1818. He led a life of privation and hardship; and was a man of piety and great zeal. In one of his reports to the Home Missionary Society he gives us this pen picture of the religious condition and his labors at St. Charles: "Last month five who were the heads of families were admitted to the church on profession of their faith. Some of them were from a family that had resided in this state before it was ceded to the American government. Not having been favored with a common school education before they came here, and there being no school at that period, the oldest children were not taught to read. But in consequence of their becoming pious several who were between 35 and 40 years of age commenced learning and appear to be exceedingly happy that they can now read the Word of God. A few years since this whole family connection knew not the Sabbath but to profane it; the voice of prayer was not heard in their dwelling; now the mother and ten children, including sons and daughters-in-law, are, I trust, singing the songs of redeem- ing love."" In September, 1819, Rev. Robinson organized the Dardenne church with seven members.


In 1818 a young gentleman who had been trained to the ministry


" Life of Peck, p. 160.


" 10 Presbyterian Quarterly, p. 103.


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TIMOTHY FLINT


under the Rev. Gideon Blackburn, was inducted into the ministry at a presbytery at Potosi, the Rev. Timothy Flint and Rev. Mathews performing the ordination and preaching the sermon on that occa- sion. Rev. Mathews was from Erie, Pennsylvania, an Irishman by birth, and "a gentleman of great strictness of principle and char- acter." He organized the Presbyterian church on Buffalo creek, with 14 members, in 1817, and taught the first school in Pike county. In order to reach Potosi on that occasion Mathews and Flint made a journey of eighty miles on horseback from St. Louis through the "high hills and flint knobs and valleys of the Maramec, cutting short the way with anecdotes." But on the second day they missed their way and wandered around lost in the woods until midnight, when, finally by the barking of dogs, they were directed to a cabin where they were received and entertained " most hospitably."


In his letters Flint says he has "a very pleasing recollection of the inhabitants of this remote region." He seems to have known the value of recording his observations and impressions as well as Peck. He was a laborious and earnest man, but his ministerial path appears to have been hard and thorny, and far from strewn with roses. He was more of a wanderer than Peck and did not become attached to any particular locality or state. For a time we find him preaching at St. Charles, then at Jackson, then at New Madrid, then at Arkansas Post; and finally at Alexandria in Louisiana at the head of an academy. From there he returned to Massachusetts. He had the benefit of a better and more thorough education than Peck. He was born at Reading in Massachusetts in 1780; gradu- ated at Harvard college; died at Salem in 1840. He was the author of "A Life of Daniel Boone", of a "History and Geography of the Mis- sissippi Valley" in two volumes; and published in 1826 his " Recol- lections of the Last Ten Years in the Mississippi Valley," a series of letters which give us many sketches of the social, moral and religious life in the Missouri territory. This work is a distinct and valuable contribution to our early history, with its vivid pen pictures, not perhaps always reliable, and glimpses of things past, now almost faded into oblivion. He, however, was personally not without faults, and Hempstead writes in 1818 that it is regretted that he "is not more acceptable," and that he should have given occasion "for the people to speak reproachfully of him." 50


After leaving St. Charles, Flint spent the winter of 1819 at New " Hempstead's Letters, in Missouri Historical Society Archives.


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Madrid and preached to a congregation while there. He was de- lighted to find a few well informed families in that town, and that they attended "divine services on the Sabbath day with perseverance and attention." Mrs. Gray, who had been a resident of New Madrid for a long time, coming to the place from Kaskaskia with her husband during the Spanish government, was a devout member of his congre- gation and he resided with his family in a part of her house. The Gray family originally came from Massachusetts. Gray was an interpreter for the Spanish government. Mrs. Gray obtained a divorce from him and afterward married George M. Ragan, the largest slave owner of the New Madrid district, but she seems also to have separated from him, and reassumed the name of her first husband. When Flint was at New Madrid she kept a house of entertainment.


The presbytery of Missouri was formed by the synod of Ten- nessee in 1817, and held its first meeting at St. Louis, December 18, 1817. It consisted of Salmon Giddings, Timothy Flint and Thomas Donnel, and churches Bellevue, Bonhomme and St. Louis. Rev. C. S. Robinson and Rev. David Tenny joined the presbytery in 1819. Mr. Tenny died in that year. Rev. Edward Hollister united with it in 1821, but left the country the next year. Following Rev. Timothy Flint he came to Jackson June 25, 1820, and called a meeting at the house of Joseph Frizell to arrange to support a Presbyterian church. Flint claims that in the previous year he organized a Bible society · here, which he says was to his knowledge the first Bible society west of the Mississippi between there and the Gulf of Mexico. He also claims that he organized a Sunday school. On June 3, 1820, the Jackson "Herald" announced that Rev. Timothy Flint, a Presby- terian minister, would preach at the Courthouse, Sunday, June 4, 1820. The files of the same paper also show that in the previous year, 1819, Jason Chamberlain was President of the Columbian Bible Society at Jackson, Christopher G. Houts, Treasurer and A. Hayne, Secretary. Evidently Flint is taking too much credit to himself in his letters.51


Rev. Nicholas Patterson was the first Presbyterian minister who · visited the Boonslick country and western Missouri, arriving in 1818-19. He was much charmed with the "frank, free hospitality"


"1 Of an Auxiliary Bible Society organized at Jackson in 1824 by Rev. Thomas Horrell, an Episcopal minister, Isaac Sheperd, Captain Ebenezer Flinn, James Russell, T. P. Greene, Secretary, David Armour, William Wil- liams, Daniel Honser, Samuel B. McKnight, Daniel F. Steinback, Robert A McBride and John Horrell were members.


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EPISCOPAL CHURCH


with which he was received at Franklin and other early settlements on the Missouri, but was greatly concerned at the "frank exhibition of the native malignity of the carnal heart against God and the gospel." He says that he was plainly told by some men with whom he staid, "who had been drinking," he adds in parenthesis, that "when we had no doctors then we had no sickness, and when we had no preachers then there was no persecution for conscience' sake," a saying, he adds, which seemed to carry with it some force and authority. He states that while he was in this part of the territory, the Tebo Benevolent Society was organized and ten dollars col- lected and transmitted to Philadelphia for tracts and Sabbath school books, and that afterward another band of ladies collected an additional sum for the same purpose. From him we also learn that Rev. J. M. Peck made an unsuccessful attempt at missionary work in the Teetsaw settlement, and that this " worthy, zealous young brother has been branded with the appellation of impostor, by poor ignorant creatures" whom the mantle of charity was too small to cover. But Patterson himself did not remain, or organize a congregation. 52


Rev. McFarland formed a church of 23 members at Franklin and this afterward grew into the Boonville church. He accomplished but little, the chronicler mournfully says, "except to show the extent of the field and point to the wide wastes they were unable to possess." 53


On October 24, 1819, the Rev. John Ward," of Lexington, Kentucky, an Episcopal clergyman, held the first Episcopal services in the Missouri territory, in St. Louis, in a one story frame house on the corner of Second and Walnut streets. In November of the same year the sum of $1,714 was subscribed for the support of an Episcopal church for one year, the list being headed by Thomas F. Riddick with a subscription of $100. Certainly a sub- scription of $1,714 at that time for the support of the church was most liberal, and points to the fact that the Episcopalians, at that early day, were among the most substantial citizens of the state. As


" Rev. Nicholas Patterson was a graduate of Princeton, N. J .; in 1818 was sent as an itinerant missionary from Philadelphia to the Missouri territory by the Board of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church, He was "a man of medium talents as a preacher, but possessed an amiable disposition, great simplicity of character, and was habitually devotional," says Peck, who traveled with him in the frontier settlements, "visiting every log cabin" they could find, and getting together the people to preach to them .- Life of Rev. J. M. Peck, p. 144.


" 10 Presbyterian Quarterly, p. 102.


" Rev. Mr. John Ward married Miss Sarah Clifford at Lexington, Ky.


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a result of this liberal subscription, Christ Church was organized and thus the Episcopal church became the third Protestant organi- zation of St. Louis, the Baptists and Presbyterians, as we have seen, having organized their churches only shortly before this period. Rev. John Ward remained rector of this church for about eighteen months, at a salary of $1,000 a year, and in the spring of 1821 returned to Lexington. After his departure and for several years the church seemed to lie dormant, the members all being discour-


McKENDREE CHAPEL -OLDEST PROTESTANT CHURCH WEST OF MISSISSIPPI


aged, but some time in 1825 the Rev. Thomas Horrell,56 came to St. Louis and awakened and restored the greatly dispirited congregation.50


The first Methodist church west of the Mississippi river was organized, in about 1806, at McKendree, about three miles from the present town of Jackson, in Cape Girardeau county. Among the first members were William Williams and wife, John Randall and wife, Thomas Blair, Simeon and Isaiah Poe, Charnel Glascock, and the Seeleys. Soon afterward a house of worship, McKendree chapel, was built out of great hewn poplar logs, and this with some alter-


" Born in Calvert county, Maryland, September 17, 1789; educated at Charlotte Hall; came to Jackson, Missouri, in 1818.


" The following persons were the subscribers for the establishment of an Episcopal church in St. Louis, November 1, 1819: Thomas F. Riddick, S. Ham- mond, John Hall, A. Nelson, D. B. Hoffman, J. Clemens, Jr., F. Dent, Edward March, J. Baber, R. Wash, Wilson P. Hunt, William Rector, Henry Von Phul,


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JESSE WALKER


ations is still occupied by a Methodist congregation. A never failing spring is located on the church lot embracing several acres and covered with grand old oaks, and so it came that here, too, the early Methodists held their camp-meetings and hence the name "the Old Camp-ground" by which this ancient religious locality is still known.


It appears that in 1806 Rev. John Travis was appointed preacher for the "Missouri circuit" at Ebenezer Meeting House in Greene county, Tennessee, by the Western conference which then embraced an indefinite territory north of the Ohio and west of the Mississippi.57 . But when he came to upper Louisiana he found two churches organ- ized, known as Cape Girardeau and Maramec circuits, though who organized these circuits can not now be ascertained. We may, however, conjecture that Jesse Walker, who was stationed in 1804 on the Livingston circuit at the mouth of the Cumberland, may have come to the American settlements in the Cape Girardeau district and on the Maramec, and organized this McKendree church and the church on the Maramec.


At the same conference which appointed Travis, Rev. Jesse Walker was appointed preacher for Illinois, but it is certain that Walker did not confine himself to Illinois, but crossed into upper Louisiana, now Missouri, in his missionary labors. In 1807 he was sent to the Missouri. At the conference held at Chillicothe, Ohio, in that year, Travis reported that the two circuits - Cape Girardeau and Maramec - of this territory had 106 members.58 Travis organized a Methodist society at Cold Water in 1807, in the St. Louis district. It is recorded that Presiding Elder William McKen- dree, who came to Illinois from Kentucky in the summer of that year, accompanied by Walker, crossed the Mississippi river, and held the first quarterly meeting, with Travis, on the Maramec at the place where Lewis' chapel is now located.5º It is also claimed that Mc- Kendree, after he was elected Bishop, together with James Ward,


William Stokes, J. V. Garnier, William Christy, M. Wherry, Risdon H. Price, Theodore Hunt, A. Rutgers, S. C. Boss, William Carr Lane, Abijah Hull, William S. Hamilton, Jonah Bright, J. W. Hoyt, Peter Ferguson, Rufus Petti- bone, James Kennerly, John Nicholson, William H. Ashley, A. McNair, Thomas H. Benton, J. G. Lindell, A. V. Vaughn, H. L. Hoffman, Nathaniel Sanborn, James Loper, Joseph M. Yard, I. Eckstein, Theodore L. McGill, D. V. Walker, William Clark, B. F. Farrar, John O'Fallon, Elias Rector and Peter Haldiman.


17 Methodism in Tennessee, vol. 2, p. 71.


" At this conference, held in September, 1807, a Rev. John Traverse (evidently Travis) was assigned to Bayou Sarah in lower Louisiana.


" This is highly probable, for according to the Rev. James Gwin, McKen-


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HISTORY OF MISSOURI


from Virginia, Presiding Elder of the Cumberland district, which then included Missouri, held a camp-meeting at the Zumwalt house in St. Charles county, and that thence they came to Cold Water and held a camp-meeting; but this statement is unsupported by any evidence. But we do know that Bishop McKendree was in Missouri in 1819, and attended conference at McKendree chapel in Cape Girardeau county. We also have the authority of Peck that he paid a passing visit to St. Louis in 1818, and preached at the Court- house there. In this year the Western conference was divided into the Ohio and Tennessee conferences and Missouri made a part of the latter. In 1808 the Western conference appointed, as preachers, Rev. Jesse Walker 60 for Cape Girardeau circuit, and Rev. Edmund Wilcox for Maramec. In 1809 Rev. Jesse Walker was re-appointed for the Cape Girardeau, and Rev. David Young &1 and Rev. Thomas dree met Walker at Scott's at Turkey Hill in St. Clair county, Ills., about 12 or 15 miles from the Mississippi river on an air line, and together they set out from there for this camp-meeting. When they crossed the Mississippi, unable to get their horses across, they sent them back to Scott's. Crossing probably in a canoe, then on foot with their baggage on their shoulders, they went to the camp-ground .- Methodism in Tennessee, vol. i, p. 453. McTyeire says that they walked about forty miles in getting to this meeting, and on the way met Rev. John Travis. At this camp-meeting forty persons were converted .- History of Methodism, p. 499.


60 " Rev. Jesse Walker," says Bishop McTyeire, "was a church extension society within himself."- History of Methodism, p. 496. He was to the Methodist church "what Daniel Boone was to the early settlers,-always first always ahead of everybody else, preceding all others long enough to be the pilot of the wilderness." His natural vigor was almost superhuman; he seemed to require no food or rest like other men; no day's journey was too long for him, or long enough to tire him; no fare too poor, no roads too bad; if his horse could not carry him he would walk; and passing nights alone in the wil- derness was with him no uncommon thing; looking up frontier settlements and settlers was his chief delight. He was the advance guard of the Methodist church in the West, and every time he was heard of he was still farther on .- A. L. P. Green's Biographical Sketches. Walker was admitted to the Western conference on trial in 1802, a member of the Red river circuit; in 1806 in Illinois; in 1807 sent to the Missouri circuit; in 1808 in the Illinois circuit; in 1809 to Cape Girardeau; in 1811 in Illinois; in 1816 in the Missouri con- ference; in 1821 missionary to St. Louis; in 1823 was particularly directed to look after the Indians in this conference; then went to northern Illinois and labored in that section in 1832 in the Chicago district; died October 5, 1835, in Clark county, Illinois. "His name will live as long as the history of Methodism shall live," says McFerrin in his "History of Methodism in Tennessee," vol. I, P. 429. Also see Reynolds' History of Illinois, p. 221. Matson says that Walker "was a short, heavy-set man, very dark skin, walked erect, with an independent pompous bearing, and possessed great energy and force of character. He was a bold undaunted missionary, bearing the standard of the cross triumphantly into the wilds of the west among the red men as well as the white." Matson's French and Indians of the Illinois River, p. 235. A strenuous laborer in the vineyard of the Lord, this Rev. Jesse Walker.


61 A delegate to the general conference which convened in New York, May, 1812, from the Western conference .- Methodism in Tennessee, vol. 2, p. 171.


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SAMUEL PARKER


Wright for the Maramec circuit. In 1810 Rev. Jesse Walker accom- panied by John Scripps went to New Madrid and organized the New Madrid circuit. This church was composed of 30 members at the end of the first year.


Rev. Samuel Parker was Presiding Elder in 1809,2 and in that year visited the town of Cape Girardeau and preached the first sermon ever heard there, at the house of William Scripps, whom he had known in Virginia. Scripps was an Englishman, a tanner by trade, who came to America in 1791 and to Cape Girardeau in 1808.63 He had two sons, John and George H. John Scripps early mani- fested a deep interest in religious matters, and was admitted by the New Chapel conference in 1814 as a preacher on trial; at this con- ference Bishops Asbury and McKendree were both present. In 1815 he was at the Patoka conference."4 In 1819 he was a merchant at Jackson, greatly opposed to the introduction of slavery into Mis- souri; afterward he emigrated to Illinois, where he became a prom- inent preacher.% In 1809 Rev. John Crane was stationed "in the fork of the Missouri and Mississippi, where he had the honor of doing the work of an apostle, in some sense, in planting the gospel and raising a church in the wilderness." In 1810 he rode Cold Water and Missouri circuits, and had "frequently to swim his horse across the Missouri river."" In 1819 Rev. E. McAllister stationed at St. Charles preached there and elsewhere in North Missouri.


To show the wonderful energy and enthusiasm of these early Methodist preachers it should be remembered that the Western conference then embraced the whole Mississippi Valley, and that a preacher, who in one year would travel in the mountains of East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, the next year might travel in


"2 In 1818 Presiding Elder of the Amite circuit in Louisiana; was admitted on trial by the Western conference October, 1803; says Bishop McTyeire a "sweet singer in Israel, and a fine specimen of 'nature's nobleman' improved by Divine grace."- History of Methodism, p. 496. He died in Mississippi.


" Where he died in 1825, and Rev. Thomas Wright delivered the funeral discourse at the house of David Hiler.


" Beggs Southern and Northwest History, p. 81.


" One of his nephews became the founder of the "Chicago Tribune."


" Methodism in Tennessee, vol. 2, pp. 121, 276. An interesting character was Rev. John Crane; born 1787 at Eaton's Station two miles below Nashville; died in 1813 at Old Goshen, Tennessee. When after death his pocketbook was examined "it contained twenty-five cents, and his parchment of ordination from Bishop Asbury." At the age of 12 years he frequently exhorted the people; admitted on trial at the age of 20 years, and in 1809 admitted into full connection and ordained deacon and stationed in what was then upper Louisiana.


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HISTORY OF MISSOURI


what is now Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, or even in the territory west of the Mississippi. Such a case occurred in the conference of 1809 when Rev. Isaac Lindsey, who in 1808 was appointed to preach in the French Broad circuit in the Holston district, was sent the next year to the Cold Water circuit in the Missouri district, succeeding Crane in this year.67


On Good Friday in 1810 the first Methodist camp-meeting was held at the "Old Camp-ground" at McKendree chapel. Walker and Wright and the Presiding Elder Samuel Parker were present on that occasion. In that year Rev. John McFarland was assigned to the Maramec circuit, Jesse Walker re-assigned to the Cape Girardeau circuit, and Rev. George A. Colbert to Coldwater. In 1811 McFarland was placed in charge of the Cape Girardeau and New Madrid circuit, Thomas Wright 68 of the Maramec circuit, and Rev. Daniel Fraley of Coldwater.


Shortly after the earthquake of 1812 a camp-meeting was held in what is now Madison county, then in the Ste. Genevieve district. At the conference in that year, Rev. Benjamin Edge was assigned to the Cape Girardeau circuit, Rev. William Hart to the New Madrid circuit, Rev. Jesse Haile to Coldwater, and Rev. John McFarland to the Maramec circuit. Of Edge it is said that he was a very able man of great executive ability, but that he had extremely ugly features.ºº In 1813 Rev. Thomas Wright was in charge of the Cape Girardeau circuit, which then had 123 members. Rev. Thomas Nixon was appointed to the New Madrid circuit, numbering 136 members. In this year the Coldwater and Maramec circuits were united and Rev. Jno. McFarland and Rev. Richard Conn appointed for the circuit.


In 1814, by the New Chapel conference, John C. Harbison was received as a preacher on trial.70 Harbison, who came to the Cape Girardeau district in 1798, was of Scotch-Irish parentage, and taught school at Mount Tabor near Cape Girardeau. After the acquisition of the upper Louisiana territory he practised law for a time; he was long addicted to gambling and drunkenness, but


67 Methodism in Tennessee, vol. 2, p. 132.


68 Is this the same Thomas Wright who was expelled from Bethel church for holding Arminian views?


09 By the Western conference which met at Chillicothe, Ohio, in Sept., 1807, Rev. Benjamin Edge was assigned to the French Broad circuit in Ten- nessee .- Methodism in Tennessee, vol. 2, p. 97.


70 Methodism in Tennessee, vol. 2, P. 329.


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MISSOURI CONFERENCE OF 1816


finally reformed and became one of the ablest pioneer preachers of Methodism in the Missouri territory. It is said of him that after his conversion, while on the circuit, he met some of his old companions who challenged him to play a game of poker, to which he agreed provided they would after the game attend church and listen to his sermon. The game was played and then all attended church, and so powerful was the sermon Harbison preached on that occasion that it caused those who had sought to belittle his conver- sion to abandon their wicked course of life. Harbison died in 1826 in Cape Girardeau county. Rev. John Scripps was also admitted at this conference.


Thomas Wright was again assigned to the Cape Girardeau circuit in 1814, and the New Madrid circuit was placed in charge of Nace Overall.71 In this year a new circuit, the "Saline, " including all the country between the Maramec and Apple creek was formed. This included the Murphy settlement, the oldest and strongest Methodist community of the territory, where Oglesby, in 1804, preached the first Methodist sermon west of the Mississippi river. It also embraced the "New Tennessee settlement," now in the western part of Ste. Genevieve county, the Cook settlement in St. Francois county, and the Callaway settlement now in Madison county. All these settlements then were regular Methodist preach- ing stations, and they reported 115 members. Among the early Methodist preachers of this time laboring in Missouri - possibly in this locality - Rev. Jacob Whiteside should also be mentioned,72 although it is not stated where he was stationed.




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