History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 151

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

USA > Missouri > St Louis County > St Louis City > History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men > Part 151

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Joseph Boyle was born in Baltimore on the 12th of May, 1812. The field of his first ministerial labors was Pittsburgh, but in 1842, at his request, he was transferred to St. Louis, and became pastor of the First Church. He was a delegate to the Louisville General Conference of 1844, at which the Methodist Church was divided into two bodies, the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and labored earnestly for reconciliation. Until his death, which occurred on the 3d of May, 1872, Dr. Boyle continued in the active discharge of his ministerial duties. In 1870 he was placed upon the retired list as a supernumerary at the First

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Methodist Church, on Eighth Street. He did not, however, relax his ministerial labors, but continued to preach and work for the cause to which he had de- voted his energies. He preached his last sermon at Lexington, Mo., on the Sunday preceding his death.

Dr. Boyle was distinguished by his learning and eloquence, as well as by the elevated tone of his char- acter and the simplicity of his life. He was ex- tremely popular with the citizens of St. Louis, and for a number of years was one of the most promi- nent and useful members of the community.

Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church .- This church, situated at the southwest corner of Tenth and North Market Streets, Rev. R. R. Pierce, pastor, had its origin in Simpson Chapel, which was organ- ized about 1857. Simpson Chapel was the only Northern Methodist Church that continued to hold services in St. Louis during the stormy period at the beginning of the war, when all the kindred Methodist congregations in Missouri became disorganized. When, however, toward the close of the year 1861, the Northern Methodist Church in Missouri began to rc- vive, Simpson Chapel shared in its prosperity and in- creased rapidly in numbers and influence. Its pastors were J. L. Conklin, appointed in 1858; Thomas H. Mudge, 1859; J. C. Smith, 1860; Wm. C. Stewart, 1861; (the church was "supplied" by different ministers in 1862) L. M. Vernon, 1863; sup- ply, 1864-65 ; T. J. Williams, 1866; R. R. Pierce, 1867-68; J. N. Pierce, 1869. In 1870 it became Trinity Church, whose pastors have been J. N. Pierce, 1870-71; J. L. Walker, 1872-73-74; O. M. Stewart, 1875-76-77; H. R. Miller, 1878; G. W. Hughey, 1879-81; R. R. Pierce, 1882. Simp- son Chapel reported fifty-seven members in 1858, and Trinity Church had in the first year of its organ- ization one hundred and sixty members. Connected with the Sunday-school were twenty-five teachers and one hundred and eighty scholars. In March, 1882, it had a membership, including probationers, of two hundred and eighty-eight, and there were thirty-eight teachers and four hundred scholars in the Sunday- school.

Union Church (southwest corner of Garrison and Lucas Avenues, Rev. C. E. Felton, D.D., pastor) was the first fruits of the reorganization of the Northern Methodist Church, after its dispersion on the break- ing out of the war in 1861. Prior to that time the Methodists (North) had had three congregations in St. Louis, known as Hedding, Ebenezer, and Simp- son Chapels. Ebenezer Chapel had been organized in 1852, and was served by Rev. L. B. Bemis, ap- pointed 1852; Rev. T. I. R. Davis, 1853 ; Rev.

N. Shumate, 1855 ; Rev. Thomas Williams, 1858; Rev. William Hanley, 1860; Rev. Joseph Brooks, 1861. During Dr. Brooks' pastorate the church was closed on account of a debt due for rent, and was never reopened. In 1852 there were one hundred and thirty-five members, but at the close of 1861 not more than thirty members of the congregation re- mained in the city. On the 2d of January, 1862, a meeting was held at the office of Rev. Dr. Charles D. Elliott, editor of the Central Christian Advocate, by a few Methodists whom business had brought to St. Louis, and they, uniting with the remnants of Eben- ezer Church, organized a new society and invited Rev. Dr. Henry Cox, of Chicago, to become their pastor. Dr. Cox was a man of great zeal and energy, and the congregation prospered under his carc. The Union Presbyterian Church (an independent organization) had built the church (now occupied by the Young Men's Christian Association) at Eleventh and Locust Streets ; and this building was purchased by the Union congregation for thirty-seven thousand three hundred dollars on the 14th of March, 1862. Before that date, however, Dr. Cox had succeeded in raising six thousand dollars, by the payment of which, on the first install- ment of the purchase-money, the Missouri Conference was cnabled to hold its session in the building, begin- ning Feb. 26, 1862. In the following summer Dr. Cox visited the East and obtained six thousand dol- lars towards reducing the church debt. In 1865 the indebtedness was entirely canceled. In 1863 the membership had grown to two hundred and seventy- five persons, and at the beginning of 1865 it was re- ported at four hundred, together with an attendance of four hundred in the Sunday-school. Dr. Cox was an uncompromising advocate of Northern principles, and made it a condition of church membership that candidates should take the oath of allegiance to the United States, swearing them in with the Stars and Stripes floating over them and an open Bible before them. The church was dedicated by Bishop Simp- son, March 16, 1862. It was at that time one of the most capacious churches in the city, and seated about sixteen hundred persons,-a substantial brick building one hundred and four feet long, sixty-eight feet wide, and seventy-five feet high to the centre of the nave.

The succession of pastors, with the dates of their appointment, has been as follows : Henry Cox, 1862- 63; supply, 1864; A. C. George, 1865-67 ; J. W. Langley, 1868-69 ; B. St. J. Fry, 1870 ; C. E. Fclton, 1871-73, and again in 1880-82; C. A. Van Anda, 1874-76 ; R. C. Houghton, 1877-79. On the 14th of May, 1880, the church on Eleventh Street was sold to the Young Men's Christian Association, and in the

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following June the present lot, ninety-five by one hun- dred and thirty-four fect, was purchased. Ground was broken July 12, 1880, and the corner-stone was laid Oct. 26, 1880. The Sunday-school room was first occupied Oct. 30, 1881, and the church was dedicated May 18, 1882, by Bishop Simpson. It is of modified Gothic architecture, and cruciform in shape, and is built of rubble-stone and brick. Its dimensions are eighty by one hundred and one feet. In the basement are a kitchen and dining-rooms, and on the ground- floor are the office of the church, parlor, and Sunday- school rooms, the latter with a seating capacity of six hundred. The main auditorium contains seats for one thousand persons, and is amphitheatrical in shape. In the rear of the auditorium are the pastor's study and the music-room. The total cost of the church was $75,527.16, of which $11,685 was paid for the lot and $63,842.16 for building and furnishing. This sum was realized from the following sources : Sale of old church, $37,500 ; subscriptions and interest, $35,898.66 ; Ladies' Aid Society, $2069.51; Young Men's Union, $466.85,-a total of $75,935.02, or $407.86 more than the property cost. August Beincke was the architect. The Young People's Lyceum of the Union Methodist Episcopal Church, organized by the pastor in 1871 for purposes of liter- ary and social intercourse, was the first society of its kind established in St. Louis. The membership of the church numbers four hundred and forty persons, and there are thirty-one teachers and three hundred and fifty-four scholars connected with the Sunday- school.

Central Church .- In the minutes of the Missouri Conference for 1865 appears for the first time the name of the Second Union Church, with Rev. Henry Cox, D.D. (the organizer of Union Church), as pastor. In 1866 it reported one hundred and thirteen mem- bers, and forty teachers and five hundred pupils in the Sunday-school. Dr. Cox was reappointed in 1866, and N. P. Heath succceded him in 1867, in which year its name was changed to that of Sixth Street Mission. This mission occupied the publishing-house at 913 North Sixth Street, and reported, in 1868, one hundred and eighteen members, and five hundred and forty children in the Sunday-school. Rev. A. C. George was pastor in 1868, and Rev. J. W. Johnson in 1869-70, after which date the name of the organi- zation disappeared from the minutes, Central Church (which was organized in 1869, in a hall on Eighteenth and Wash Streets) having grown out of and absorbed it. The new organization reported in the spring of 1870 a membership of seventy persons, and an at- tendance at the Sunday-school of twenty teachers and

one hundred and twenty children. It continued to meet in the hall at Eighteenthi and Wash Streets until February, 1871, when its present church building, situated at the northeast corner of Twenty-fourth and Morgan Streets, was dedicated. The foundation stone of this edifice was laid on the 2d of September, 1869, and the exercises were witnessed by a large as- semblage. Hon. Nathan Cole, mayor of the city, pre- sided. On the 1st of February, 1871, the edifice was used by the congregation for the first time. It has a front of fifty-seven feet on Morgan Street, and a depth of ninety-threc feet on Twenty-fourth Street, and is a substantial brick building, with lecture-room, class- rooms, and pastor's study on the first floor, and on the second floor the main audience-room, with a seat- ing capacity of six hundred. The church lot meas- ures sixty-five by one hundred and ten fcet, and the property is valued at thirty-five thousand dollars. The pastors have been Revs. A. C. George (who or- ganized it), 1869-71; J. J. Bentley, 1872; A. C. Williams, 1873-75; J. W. Bushong, 1876-78; W. K. Marshall, 1879-81; F. S. Beggs, 1881-82. The church reports a membership of two hundred and twenty persons, with twenty-eight teachers and two hundred and seventy-five pupils in the Sunday-school.

St. Luke's Church grew out of a mission Sunday- school which was organized by Rev. R. S. Stubbs at the residence of Mrs. Dr. Brock, May 20, 1874, and which then numbered fifteen scholars. The church was organized with twelve members, Jan. 17, 1875, in the chapel of the mission, a frame building on Jef- ferson Avenue, between Chippewa and Keokuk Streets, which was purchased by the congregation. This building was twenty-five by forty fcet in size, and seated one hundred and seventy-five persons. Rev. R. S. Stubbs, Rev. B. St. James Fry, Rev. C. A. Van Anda, and other ministers participated in the organization. The building was sold in November, 1881, and was converted into a shoe-store. The present building stands upon a lot one hundred and one by one hundred and eighteen feet, at the north- east corner of Potomac Street and Texas Avenue. Its corner-stone was laid Sept. 15, 1881, and the completed structure was dedicated by Rev. C. E. Fel- ton, D.D., on the 5th of March, 1882. It is built of brick, with stone trimmings, and its dimensions are forty by sixty feet, its seating capacity being thrce hundred and fifty persons. The architecture is semi- Gothic. The church has had four pastors, Rev. R. S. Stubbs, 1874-76; Rev. L. Hallock, 1876-79; Rev. J. F. Corrington, 1879-82; and Rev. A. Jump, 1882. Connected with the congregation are a Ladies' Aid Society, organized in 1875, and a Woman's For-

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eign Missionary Society, organized in 1881. Each of them has about twelve members. There are now forty-one families (about two hundred persons) con- nected with the church, and of these, thirty-four per- sons are communicants. The Sunday-school has twelve teachers and one hundred and twenty pupils.

Water-Tower Church .- Hedding Chapel, estab- lished in 1852 with twenty-five members, survived until 1861, when, owing to the political troubles of that period, the congregation became disorganized and finally extinct. The first regular pastor was the Rev. Daniel H. May, appointed in 1853, and his succes- sors were Rev. J. M. Chevington, 1854; Rev. J. L. Conkling, 1855; Rev. John Hageman, 1858; and Rev. A. C. McDonald, 1860-61. Different ministers officiated as supplies during the years not named. The church building was a small structure, situated in the northern part of the city. In 1879 some of the former members of the congregation, with other Methodists, organized a mission in the vicinity of the water-tower. At first the congregation worshiped in the German Presbyterian Church, Grand Avenue and Thirteenth Street, but it subsequently purchased a lot at the northwest corner of Fourteenth Street and Obear Avenue, one block north of and opposite the water- tower, from which the congregation takes its name, and erected a neat Gothic structure of brick, forty- eight by twenty-five feet, which will seat two hundred persons. The dimensions of the lot are fifty by one hundred and forty feet, and the property is valued at two thousand five hundred dollars. The congregation occupied the church for the first time in March, 1881, and the building was dedicated on the 27th of that month. The successive pastors have been Rev. L. Hallock, 1879; Rev. J. W. Newcomb, March, 1880 ; Rev. Cyrus Brough, assistant, March, 1880; pastor, March, 1881 ; Rev. J. F. Corrington, March, 1882. The church reports seventy-five members and proba- tioners and twenty teachers, and an average attendance of one hundred and seventy-five pupils in the Sunday- school. The usual devotional, missionary, and chari- table societies are maintained by the congregation.

Goode Avenue Church .- This church, situated at Goode Avenue and North Market Street, Rev. M. B. Wood, pastor, was organized by Rev. R. S. Stubbs in 1875, and the corner-stone of the church building was laid Oct. 1, 1875. The church, a small frame structure, with a scating capacity of one hundred and seventy, was dedicated Nov. 15, 1875. The lot is fifty by one hundred and thirty-five feet in size, and the property is valued at two thousand dollars. The pastors have been Revs. R. S. Stubbs, C. A. Van Anda, J. W. Bushong, A. H. Parker, J. W. New-

comb (1879-81), M. B. Wood, 1882. The church has a membership of fifty-six persons, and the Sun- day-school numbers sixty pupils.

Goode Avenue Mission first appears on the Confer- ence minutes in 1877, with Rev. A. H. Parker as supply. Mr. Parker was reappointed in 1878. Rev. J. W. Newcomb was appointed to this charge, in con- junction with that of Rock Spring, in 1879, and that of Tower Grove mission in 1880-81. Rev. M. B. Wood was appointed in 1882. The mission has a membership of forty-four persons, with eight teachers and sixty children in the Sunday-school.

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH.

In the General Conference of the Methodist Epis- copal Church of 1844, attention was called to the fact that Bishop James O. Andrew, of Georgia, had mar- ried a lady who was the owner of slaves. As no bishop in the Methodist Church had ever been connected with slavery, this fact produced great excitement. Accord- ing to a law of the church adopted in 1800, it was provided that when any traveling preacher became an owner of a slave or slaves by any means he should forfcit his ministerial character in the church, unless he executed, if it were practicable, a legal emancipa- tion of such slaves conformable with the laws of the State in which he lived. The committee of the Con- ference on episcopacy waited upon the bishop, who informed them that his wife had inherited slaves from her former husband, who had secured them to her by a deed of trust, and that she could not emancipate them if she desired to do so. The embarrassments of the case were deeply felt by all parties, but after a protracted discussion the General Conference, by a vote of one hundred and ten to sixty-eight, adopted the following resolution : " Resolved, That it is the sense of this General Conference that he desist from the exercise of his office so long as this impediment remains."

The prevailing opinion in the Conference was that it was possible for the bishop to remove from Georgia, where manumission was impracticable, to a State where emancipation might be made. Bishop An- drew would willingly, it was understood, have yielded to the opinions of the General Conference, but his brethren in the South thought it his duty to stand by them on a question which they considered to be one involving their rights, and he accordingly acqui- esced in their desire. Soon after this action of the Conference resolutions were framed proposing a sep- aration between the free and slave States, and were adopted by a vote of one hundred and forty-two to twenty-two. A conference of Southern delegates was

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called, and held in Louisville May 1, 1845. It was composed of one hundred and two delegates, who, with only three dissenting voices, voted for the pro- posed separation, and organized the General Conference South. The Missouri Conference sent as delcgates to the convention Andrew Munroe, Jesse Green, John Glanville, Wesley Browning, William Patton, John H. Linn, Joseph Boyle, and Thomas Johnson, and the Fourth Street (now the First) Church of St. Louis, by resolutions bearing date Jan. 12, 1845, gave emphatic utterance against the division. When the almost unanimous action of the Louisville Con- vention was learned, however, the Fourth Street Church, at a meeting held July 30, 1845, deter- mined to join the Southern Conference by a vote of one hundred and thirty-two, subsequently increased to two hundred and six, a majority of all the mem- bers, who then numbered three hundred and eighty- seven, thus determining the status of the Methodists in St. Louis, and therefore in Missouri, and leaving the Northern Methodists for several years without a Conference, and almost without a church. The Church South continued for fifteen years to prosper and increase. In 1858 the State was divided into two Conferences,-the Missouri, north of the Missouri River, and the St. Louis Conference, south of it. In 1861 the Southern proclivities of the church exposed its organization to the hostility of the Federal au- thorities, and its organ, the St. Louis Christian Advocate, was suppressed, and its editor, Dr. Mc- Anally, imprisoned. Outside of St. Louis, its mem- bers were dispersed and many of its ministers were compelled to leave the State. The work of the church in Missouri, in fact, was almost wholly suspended during the war.

The St. Louis Conference assembled at Arrow Rock, Mo., Sept. 25, 1861, and, there being no bishop pres- ent, called Rev. Daniel A. Leeper to the chair. It was forced to adjourn to Waverly, and there finished its session. No record of its proceedings was published, and no further attempt to hold a Con- ference in Missouri was made until after the war, when the Advocate was revived and the church re- organized. . In 1870, St. Louis Conference was sub- divided and made to consist of that part of the State which lies south of the Missouri River and east of the Gasconade and Big Piney Rivers and the eleventh meridian. It is divided into St. Louis, Charleston, Salem, and Poplar Bluffs Districts, and St. Louis District is sub-divided into twelve stations and circuits. The bishops presiding at the Missouri and St. Louis Conferences, so far as their names appear on the general minutes, have been Joshua Soule, 1845; H.

H. Kavanaugh, 1854, '60, '68; John Early, 1855 ; George F. Pierce, 1856, '58, 69, '72, '79, '81 ; James O. Andrew, 1857; Robert Paine, 1859; Enoch M. Marvin, 1867, '77 ; H. N. McTyeire, 1870, "76 ; D. S. Doggett, 1871, '78; W. M. Wightman, D.D., 1873; John C. Keener, 1874, '75, '80. The pre- siding elders of St. Louis District have been William W. Redman, 1845 ; Newton G. Berryman, 1846-48; James Mitchell, 1849-50; Wesley Browning, 1851- 54; Robert A. Young, 1855-56; John R. Bennett, 1857-59; Joseph Boyle, 1860, '68, '69; Thomas M. Finney, 1866-67; J. W. Lewis, 1870, '76, '77 ; William M. Leftwich, 1871-73; A. T. Scruggs, 1874-75; W. V. Tudor, 1878-79; J. G. Wilson, 1880-82.

The Woman's Missionary Society of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church South was organized in 1878, and its St. Louis local conference in 1879. It is now represented by 2 stations in China, 1 in Brazil, and 2 in Mexico, and maintains 5 boarding and 10 day schools. It has under its charge 31 conference so- cieties, 932 auxiliary societies, and 180 young people's and juvenile societies, with a total membership of 26,556. The total collections in the four years of its existence have amounted to $62,761.78. The St. Louis local conference has 15 auxiliary societies with 404 members, and 3 juvenile societies with 142 mem- bers. The officers of the society are Mrs. George Baker, president ; Mrs. Samuel Cupples, first vice- president ; Mrs. Dr. Walker, of Salem, Mo., second vice-president ; Mrs. John Garton, Longtown, Mo., third vice-president ; Mrs. John Robinson, fourth vice-president ; Mrs. Lanius, recording secretary ; Mrs. E. Avis, corresponding secretary ; and Mrs. J. W. Lewis, treasurer.

First Methodist Episcopal Church South .- This church is the oldest Methodist organization in St. Louis, and was formerly known as the First Metho- dist Episcopal Church. In 1845, however, it with- drew from the General Conference and attached itself to the General Conference, then newly organized, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. The Mis- souri Conference, which met at Shiloh, St. Clair Co., Ill., Sept. 13, 1820, appointed Elder Jesse Walker Conference missionary, with liberty to select his own field for work. He chose St. Louis, and procecded thither at once, accompanied by two young ministers. Their reception was so discouraging that they set out almost immediately for different points, but Walker, after having ridden eighteen miles, determined that he would go back alone and " take the town." He accordingly returned and obtained a lodging in a cheap tavern, and afterwards preached once or twice

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in the Baptist mecting-house. He succeeded in rent- ing an unfinished house on Fourth Street for ten dollars a month, and having obtained some benches that had been removed from the court-house to make way for new ones, fitted up the largest room for meet- ings and resided in the others. He proceeded at once to organize a congregation, of which the original mem- bers were Amariah Burns and wife, John Finncy, John Armstrong, and Joseph Piggott.

Mr. Walker began preaching in December, 1820, and permanently established the church early in Jan- uary, 1821. He invited the children of the poor and servants to come on week-days and evenings to learn to read and spell, and by means of this and similar expedients, supplemented by his earnest and arduous labors, he succeeded in laying broad and deep the foundations of Methodism and of the First Meth- odist Church in St. Louis. The owner of the house in which the meetings had been held having died, Mr. Walker was forced to vacate the premises. Meet- ings were then held in the old court-house, situated on Third Street below Elm, and the early growth of the congregation appears to have been rapid. Mr. Walker sct to work at once to procure the erection of a house of worship. He was allowed to cut logs without paying for them on the eastern side of the river, and with the timber thus secured began the construction of a church near what is now the corner of Fourth and Myrtle Streets. The ladics of the congregation defrayed the cost of building the pulpit, and the Episcopalians, who had disbanded as a con- gregation, gave the church their Bible, cushions, and seats. As the result of his first year's work, Mr. Walker reported to the Conference that a chapel had been erected and paid for; that he was main- taining a flourishing school, and that the member- ship of the church numbered eighty-seven persons. The chapel is described as having been a neat frame structure, thirty-five by twenty-five feet, with side galleries, and capable of holding nearly five hundred persons. The Missouri Conference assembled in it on the 24th of October, 1822, and the congregation con- tinucd to occupy it until the 20th of September, 1830, when it removed to a new brick church which had been erected on a lot (given, together with five hundred dol- lars, by Col. John O'Fallon) on Fourth Street and Washington Avenue. The dimensions of this build- ing were fifty by sixty fect, with a basement story ten feet in the clear. The dedicatory scrmon was preached by the founder of the congregation, Rev. Jesse Walker.

At this time the pastor of the church was the Rev. Andrew Monroe. Mr. Monroe was appointed to the St. Louis District by the Missouri Conference in July,

1824. At first, owing to the poverty of the congre- gation, he was compelled to reside alone in a lodging, but subsequently a house was rented for him and he was joined by his family. It was known as the rec- tor's house, and the rent was five dollars per month. It contained but one room, about sixteen fcet square. Before the expiration of the first month of his occu- pancy, however, the congregation decided that this sum was more than it could afford to pay, and Mr. Monroe's wife determined to remove to Main Street and open there a boarding-house. At that time the membership comprised forty-three white and forty- four colored persons.

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 151

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358