USA > Nebraska > A history of Nebraska Methodism, first half-century, 1854-1904 > Part 23
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These places of high trust and great responsibility to which his brethren have called him are a fair index to the high esteem in which Dr. Johnson is justly held by those who know him best.
It is a matter worthy of special remark that Dr. Lemon not only attracted men in large numbers, but also many of high qualities, of cultured mind and character, as the foregoing sketches make manifest.
As to the number, many were needed, and this saga- cious leader found ways of securing them. It will be noticed in the Minutes of 1877 the number admitted on trial was five, and in 1878, four. But at the end of Dr. Lemon's second year, in 1879, the number ran up to nine- teen, and in 1880 it was twelve, or thirty-one recruits in two years. A further scrutiny of the Minutes explains the mystery of the sudden increase. Twelve of them are the young men who have rallied around this great leader.
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Of the twelve coming up for admission in 1880, five are from this district.
In 1880, the close of the period we are treating, we find that the little band that A. G. White led out into the wilderness had grown under his leadership and that of T. B. Lemon, to a sufficient number of men and charges to lead the General Conference, at its session in May, 1880, to organize the West Nebraska Mission, with twen- ty-two members, and there were still enough left to con- stitute the Hastings District with nineteen appointments.
Thus closes the brief story of this marvelous Third Period of our History. How much of all that is highest in human character, greatest in human achievement, have been crowded into these ten years! Almost an entire State has been wrested from the dominion of Nature, populated, and put to the uses of Christian civilization. In all this Methodism has been true to her mission.
CHAPTER XIX. FOURTH PERIOD. (1880-1904.)
ORGANIZATION OF THE CONFERENCES.
IF the retrospect of the achievements of the Third Period tend to make Nebraska Methodists grateful to the Great Head of the Church, these very achievements will keep us busy during the Fourth and last Period. This conquest of a State will make possible, and even necessary, further expansion along many lines, as we shall see.
The first of these will be the speedy organization of two new Conferences. The very large growth of the past has made this a necessity. In the carrying out of that feature of our polity, known as the itinerancy, the Annual Conference becomes the unit of administration. In it are centered the interests, both of the local Churches and of the pastor. Though this is not strictly a function of the Conference proper, but of the appointing power, it is there the Bishop and his cabinet determines the mo- mentous question for each charge as to who is to be their pastor, and for each preacher, what is to be his field of labor to which he and his family are expected to go. It is here the pastor makes his report for the year past and receives his marching orders for the year to follow. It is here that the Annual Conference examines every one of its members, and the bishop asks in open Conference whether there is anything against him. Till this is an- swered in the negative, the Conference will not pass his
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character. Any preacher, or the humblest lay member of the Church may be there, and if they know any reason why his character should not be approved, they may, in due form, say so, and the challenge will be respected and they will be heard. It is there the undergraduates are examined in their studies, and to them the Annual Con- ference is a theological school, with its four years' course of study, and the usual requirement is that they attain to a grading of seventy out of a possible rating of one hun- dred. They must pass their examination before com- mittees appointed for that purpose.
Besides these and other legal aspects of the annual gathering, which makes it the imperative duty of each preacher to be there, if possible, it is a most happy reunion of the soldiers in the field, and their wives. Then there is very sure to be the bishop, and a bishop is a very large personage in the eyes of the young preacher. Besides the bishop, some of the strongest men of the Church will be there to represent some of the connectional interests.
For these reasons, every preacher ought to be, and wants to be, and usually is, at the Conference session. But the work having extended over so large an area, to attend Conference will mean for some hundreds of miles of travel and an expenditure of money out of all propor- tion to the amount received. Hence new Conferences have become a necessity, and will follow in due course.
The first move in this direction is the organization of the West Nebraska Mission, embracing substantially the same territory as that comprised in the West and North- west Conferences, except that the line came a little fur- ther east, taking in Hall and Merrick Counties along the Platte, and Holt County along the Elkhorn.
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SOME OF THE FIRST MEMBERS OF THE NORTH NEBRASKA CON- FERENCE.
T. J. L. ST. CLAIR. 2. J. R. GEARHART. 3. J. Q. A. FLEHARTY. 4. C. F. HEYWOOD. 5. C. W. WELLS. 6. W. H. CARTER. 7. JABEZ CHARLES. .
8. JOHN P. ROE. 9. J. M. ADAIR.
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At the session of the Nebraska Conference at York, in 1881, it was decided by vote to make two Conferences of the territory lying east of the West Nebraska Mission, making the Platte River the dividing line running east and west, and the next year the North Nebraska Confer- ence met for the first time on September 14, 1882, at Fremont, and its organization was completed by Bishop Merrill.
We will want to know something more about some of these than their mere names, especially those who have become prominent, and those who have rendered long years of service. There are some with whom we have already become familiar; they have already been men- tioned ; and some have been characterized.
There is J. B. Maxfield, who has been in the forefront of the battle for the past twenty years, and is destined to be the recognized leader for the next twenty years; then there is Jacob Adriance, whom we have seen laying the foundations of our Zion in two Territories; there is Wil- liam Worley, whom we have met on the frontier plant- ing Methodism in York County, still hearty and strong for another twenty years ; there is S. P. Van Doozer, who led the hosts to victory on the North Nebraska District twenty years before, and is ready for any service to which the Church may call him; there is Daniel S. Davis, whom we saw ten years before unfurl the banner of the cross and set up the standard in Saunders County; there is Jabez Charles, who ten years before laid the foundations of our Zion in Madison and Boone Counties; there is John P. Roe, who, though a supernumerary, by his faith- ful and efficient labors and generous giving, did more than any other one man to make the present South Tenth
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Street Church, Omaha, a possibility ; there is E. G. Fow- ler, with his still frail body, but still eager soul.
Besides these, of whom we have already made more or less mention, there are others who deserve much more than it will be possible to give. But there are some of these who have given so many years, and have occupied places of trust and responsibility, filling them creditably, that they must receive something more than a passing notice. Nor will the fact that some of them are still liv- ing and will read with some surprise what is said of then, deter us from more extensive mention of their work. If they be words of censure, may they profit by the same and be thankful for the "wounds of a friend." If they be words of commendation, there will be no impropriety in saying them before they die.
J. B. Leedom is a name known and honored through- out the North Nebraska Conference, where for twenty- eight years he has lived a holy life of entire devotion to the Master, and usefulness to the Church, on circuit, station, and district. He was born in Middlesex, Arm- strong County, Pennsylvania, June 1, 1840, and was reared on a farm in a godly home, presided over by a Baptist father and a Methodist mother. He was edu- cated in the common schools, which continued three months in the year. The balance of the time young Lee- dom worked on the farm till twenty-one. Patriotismn led him to enlist in the army, in Company G, Eighty-third Pennsylvania Regiment Volunteer Infantry, and as a part of the army of the Potomac, he helped fight the fol- lowing battles: Hanover Court-house, Gaines Mill, Mal- vern Hill. Second Bull Run, and Rappahannock Station. Then in Grant's campaign, from May Ist to September,
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1864, in the Wilderness, Petersburg, Virginia, and South Side Road. When the term of enlistment expired, the fag end of the regiment returned to Harrisburg, Pennsyl- vania, where the enlistment roll was made out, and he was returned to civil life.
Surely the above record is an expression of patriotism and heroism that any one might be proud of.
At Pittsburg, in April, 1866, he was united in mar- riage with Miss Evaline Reynolds, who has been at his side in all his subsequent career as a Methodist itinerant, sharing with him the varying experience of joy and sor- row. Besides being a loyal, helpful wife and wise, de- voted mother, Sister Leedom has been a prominent leader along different lines of Church work, but especially in the Woman's Home Missionary Society.
It was two years after their marriage on the 14th of February, 1868, that they gave themselves in covenant relation to God and the Methodist Church.
Brother Leedom was licensed to preach November, 1868, and was received on trial in the Erie Conference in September, 1870. A few years are given to the ministry in that Conference, when, as a result of some correspond- ence with S. P. Van Doozer, he was transferred to this Conference and began on the St. James Circuit a career of great usefulness, which continues to this day.
They reached their charge in due time and moved their family of six into the small, but neat parsonage, twelve by twenty feet. But if the parsonage was small, he found a large circuit to give him plenty of hard work, something which Jacob B. Leedom always seemed to en- joy, and on which he seemed to thrive. In such laymen as the German Henry Ferber, and the English Henry
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Morton and his father; Adam Snyder and his wife, and saintly W. H. Carter, who will himself soon be in the ranks, and that irrepressible local preacher, A. C. Butler, he found a large-hearted welcome and hearty co-opera- tion. Souls were saved during the first year, and his work so acceptable that he is returned. This was a year of great spiritual prosperity, with revivals and conver- sions, but also of great hardship, on account of the grass- hoppers.
Brother Leedom's next pastorate was West Point Cir- cuit, where three years' patient, efficient toil results in strengthening the charge along all lines, and he is re- warded at the Conference of 1879 by his being appointed as the successor of J. B. Maxfield as presiding elder of the North Nebraska District. This appointment was a complete surprise to himself, but later proved a benedic- tion to many others. He served the full term, and dur- ing his administration churches were built at a number of places, and the number of charges on his district had so increased that a large portion of the New Albion Dis- trict was taken from the western end, and still there was left for the writer, who succeeded him, seventeen charges on the Norfolk District, the district having been given that name.
He has since, with a few intervals as supernumerary, on account of broken health, served different important pastorates, among them Eighteenth Street, Omaha, and Central City. He is now the successful pastor at Silver Creek.
Alfred Hodgetts is another name well known in North Nebraska Conference, and indeed throughout Nebraska Methodism and in the Church at large, having filled some
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of the most important places. He was a native of Brook- lyn, New York, and received his first lessons in religious work in that city, in Talmage's school for lay workers. But he soon found his way to Nebraska with his family in 1878, his first charge being Blair, which he supplied under Dr. Maxfield, then presiding elder.
He is received on trial at the next Conference and ap- pointed to Wisner Circuit, which extended up the Elk- horn, and included Stanton, where he organized the first class. This class did not continue, however. We next find him on the Decatur Circuit, which then included Lyons, where Brother Hodgetts resided, and where he built a comfortable parsonage. Here he remained two years, and was then appointed to Papillion Circuit. We have now reached a turning point in the ministerial ca- reer of this young man.
In the Conference at Blair, in 1884, Bishop Mallalieu, recognizing the need of two new districts to take the place of the Albion District, which we have seen was served for a while by the lamented Van Doozer, one to lie along the Platte Valley and be called the Grand Island District, and one to lie along the valley of the Elkhorn and be called the Elkhorn Valley District, and include the contiguous counties on either side of the river and west of Norfolk as far as the eastern half of Holt County. For this new district he selected Alfred Hodgetts.
If ever a presiding elder was sent to a district well nigh empty-handed, it was Alfred Hodgetts. Maxfield had been sent to the new Beatrice District in 1871, with but five men appointed by the bishop. S. P. Van Doozer took with him four when he went on the Covington Dis- trict in 1871. A. G. White had five given him when he
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took the Kearney District in 1873, though only two men- bers of the Conference and one probationer stay with him through the year. But this young man goes to his district of nineteen appointments, and finds that the bishop has appointed but two, one, D. C. Winship, who has just been received into full connection, and J. R. Gortner, who still remains on trial in the Conference. Happily, both these are excellent workers. But this leaves this inexperienced presiding elder seventeen charges for which he must find supplies. True, there are five most excellent men ready to his hand, and ap- pear in the Minutes as if they had been appointed by the bishop. There is that stanch old Methodist preacher, Bartley Blain, who is a supernumerary member of the Minnesota Conference. He has already done some work in Holt County. He is now superintendent of public schools in that county, but will supply Star Circuit. There is Oscar Eggleston, who has just received license to preach, and is ready to enter on his long career as a useful, faithful itinerant, and he will serve Clear Water. Then there is that zealous local preacher, W. H. Burt, who has already done excellent work up in that country, on the Plainview and other circuits, and who will return to Plainview, where he has already done one year of ex- cellent service. Then there is the irrepressible R. Kinne, who has just carried forward to completion a church at Neligh. He will supply the Willowdale Circuit, but will remain but a few months. That faithful, reliable local preacher, Charles G. Rouse, will supply Emerick. Then he will find at Knoxville another local preacher, J. W. Bell, but will soon wish he had not found him and must get rid of him. John Wright will supply Neligh.
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But Alfred Hodgetts will still find ten charges for which there are no men visible to serve as supplies. Any presiding elder, however experienced, that takes a dis- trict with ten places to be supplied, will be taxed to the utmost to find ten men suitable for this work. True, the appointments are published in all the Advocates, and ad- vertise the fact that he needs ten men. This will be some- what to his advantage, but will also be a source of great peril to his reputation for wisdom, and to the interests of the Lord's work. Many will at once apply for the places, and among them will be many excellent men. But he will find that almost every ecclesiastical dead-beat in the country is watching for this very opportunity, and will write him. How shall he separate this chaff from the wheat? It will not do to depend entirely on the recom- mendations sent him. He will find later that there are some of his brother presiding elders in the East and else- where, the strength of whose recommendations is in pro- portion to the worthlessness of the man, and is the meas- ure of said presiding elder's desire to get rid of him. He may, when writing it, have quieted his conscience by the vain imagination that "any one will do for the fron- tier." Under these circumstances the presiding elder will find himself the subject of opposite sentiments, over against his caution will be his desire to get these vacant places supplied as soon as possible. He will be urged to prompt and perhaps hasty and inconsiderate action by the clamor of the people for a pastor, and will doubtless in some cases be imposed on.
If he is to get good men for these ten vacant charges, it will not be because of the salaries he can promise them. The highest salary reported the year before was $368,
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but only one got that much and one reports but $176. Nor will he get much help from the missionary funds, the average per pastor being sixty-two dollars. How- ever great the difficulties, Alfred Hodgetts will soon have nearly all these charges supplied with most excellent men. Some of these he will find among the local and superan- nuated preachers and others will come from outside.
Though in the nature of the case Dr. Hodgetts must depend largely on supplies during his entire administra- tion, the district made progress under his leadership. At the close of the full term of six years he is appointed to South Tenth Street, Omaha, where he remains three years and has a successful pastorate. In 1893 Bishop Walden appointed him to the Norfolk District, where he served the full term. He is elected to the General Con- ference of 1896 and is there selected as the representa- tive of the Tenth District on the General Missionary Con- mittee, on which he serves during four years. There are few more responsible positions than this. Besides these positions of trust to which he was called, he was also a member of the Commission that adopted the "Unification Plan," and started Nebraska Wesleyan University out on its career of usefulness and power. He continued a member of the Board of Trustees continuously till his removal from the State, which occurred in 1900, at which time, at the close of a successful pastorate at Trinity Church, Grand Island, he was transferred to the New York East Conference, of which he is now a member. These various places of responsibility to which the Church called Dr. Hodgetts are a sufficient index of his stand- ing, and render unnecessary any further words of com- niendation.
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It will be seen that much of the space given to Dr. Hodgetts is devoted to incidental allusions to his work on his district, and the men who wrought with him. Elk- . horn Valley District presented the same phases and had much in common with the frontier districts of the earlier period. But it also presented some peculiar conditions that required some notice. The historian soon finds how difficult it is to treat men in the abstract separated from their surroundings of fellow-workers and events. In- deed, it is impossible. And these subordinate laborers that have received this brief notice are all worthy of much fuller treatment, and one of the unpleasant features of the remaining portion of this history will be the self- denial which the limited space of a single volume will impose on the historian in the treatment of the rapidly increasing number of workers; many of those who come later will not be more than mentioned, if even so much as that is accorded to them. They must wait the prepara- tion of a far more elaborate history of Nebraska Methi- odism, which the writer sincerely hopes some more con :- petent hand will write in the future.
There is something so unique about this Elkhorn Val- ley District in the first years of its history, that it seems to demand that we tarry a moment before passing, and note its development and make brief mention of some of the men whom Hodgetts found and who wrought on this hard field the first two years of his administration.
Father C. W. Sackett, a retired preacher of saintly character, will supply Chambers, though he will only re- ceive $7.95 for his work. D. T. Olcott, still known as one of our most consecrated and holy men among our superannuates, whom everybody respects and loves, will
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successfully serve Creighton Charge, and will leave a memorial for himself in Olcott Chapel, built at one of the country appointments, and also in the church erected in Creighton.
He will find in Holt County, living on a claim, George P. Bennett, who has for years held high rank in the Des Moines Conference, serving one term as presiding elder. He is glad to do some preaching, and will supply Inman Circuit. He would gladly have relinquished his claim if he could have disposed of it, but jokingly re- marked that he was in the same fix as the traditional man who had hold of the bear's tail, and was anxiously wait- ing for some one to help him let go. Some years after- ward he did return to his old Conference.
E. S. Bargelt, a superannuated member of the Upper Iowa Conference, deeply spiritual and still full of faith and old-time Methodist zeal, served Pierce. For Neligh, Hodgetts secured N. H. Gale for the first part of the year. He had come to us from the Presbyterian Church, and was a pure man and an excellent, scholarly preacher. But the infirmity of deafness increased to such an extent that he was compelled to retire from the pastorate and was employed as financial agent of the new Nebraska Central College. His place at Neligh was soon filled by J. W. Phelps, a transfer from the Rock River Confer- ence. J. W. Phelps was a mixture of strange contradic- tions. He was possessed of a personal magnetism which gave him remarkable power in the pulpit. Few men could sway an audience more powerfully than could he. Vast crowds attended his ministry, and in a few months Ne- ligh Charge was marvelously advanced. This same mag- netic power gave him a strange influence over many in
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his personal intercourse. Such was his phenomenal suc- cess at Neligh, that when at the next Conference at Ponca, in 1885, a man was needed to succeed Dr. Max- field on the Omaha District, no one seemed so well fitted for the place as J. W. Phelps, and Bishop Andrews ap- pointed him. For two years he seemed to be carrying everything by storm. Never had such quarterly-nieet- ings been known in that part of the State, and the district was soon ablaze with enthusiasm. But alas! as is some- times the case with these strong men, a vein of weakness existed on the moral side of his nature. He was tempted to place his great personal influence, resulting from the prestige of his office, and also from his great personal magnetism, at the disposal of a mining stock corporation, and become agent for their fraudulent, worthless stock, inducing many preachers to invest. In two years his bril- liant career on the Omaha District closed in shame and disgrace, and he resigned and went to California.
The two men appointed by Bishop Mallalieu to cir- cuits on Dr. Hodgetts's District are well worthy of fur- ther notice.
Dugald C. Winship had chosen the honored and highly useful profession of a physician, and was succeed- ing admirably, having become skillful in his chosen life work. He had located in Bennett, and built up a prac- tice worth at least $1,000, or more, a year, with excel- lent prospects of even larger success and larger income in the future. He afterward resided a year in Oakdale, Nebraska, where he practiced his profession. But the call to preach had become so clear that it had reached the point where, with Paul, he was constrained to say "woe is me if I preach not the Gospel." But this could hardly
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be without a struggle. He already had a little family around him that looked to him for support. Could he afford to relinquish his income of $1,000 or more, as a physician, to accept less than $500 as a Methodist itiner- ant? Not a few of our most successful pastors have been confronted with just such a problem. John P. Yost, at North Bend, Nebraska, was serving as postmaster on a salary of $1,200 a year, and resigned and entered the min- istry, accepting a charge that paid $300. D. W. Crane, presiding elder of the Kearney District, was train dis- patcher on the Union Pacific Railroad, and was one of the best in their employ, receiving $1,700 with an almost certain prospect of speedy promotion with much larger pay. But when the conviction of duty became clear, he turned his back on these brilliant worldly prospects and cheerfully went to a charge that did not promise to pay more than $400.
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