USA > Ohio > Circuit-rider days along the Ohio; being the journals of the Ohio Conference from its organization in 1812 to 1826 > Part 2
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CIRCUIT-RIDER DAYS ALONG THE OHIO
New England movement westward.19 The first year saw the organization of a Congregational Church in the fron- tier village with thirty-one members, and eleven years after the first settlers arrived on the Muskingum an academy was established. General Rufus Putnam, the leader of the enterprise, identified himself with every good work; became one of the first trustees of Ohio Uni- versity; was active in forming a Bible Society; was always a supporter of schools and served as a member of Ohio's constitutional convention.
While one group of New Englanders were occupied in forming a settlement on the Muskingum another group were finding their way into northeastern Ohio, along the shores of Lake Erie. This was the region which Con- necticut had retained when she had ceded her western lands to the general government in 1781. The first set- tlement, in this region, was at Conneaut formed in 1796,20 and from this year forward a steady stream of immi- grants from New England spread over the Connecticut Reserve. By 1800 thirty-five of the one hundred and three townships of the Western Reserve, east of the Cu- yahoga, had been occupied and a thousand souls had settled there.21 The census of 1800 gave the population of Ohio Territory at 45,365, located in five centers : Mari- etta,' Cincinnati, Chillicothe, and Western Reserve, and in the seven ranges bordering on Pennsylvania and Vir- ginia.22
The occupation of territory north of the Ohio by white settlers was furthered by the victory of Wayne over the Miami Confederacy at the battle of Fallen Timbers August 20, 1794, and the treaty of Greenville, signed the year following, opened up not only more than half of Ohio but also a narrow strip of triangular shape in
19 Mathews, Expansion of New England, p. 176.
20 Hinsdale, Old Northwest, p. 362.
21 Mathews, Expansion of New England, p. 178.
22 Burnet, in his Notes states that the population of Ohio territory in 1798 was five thousand (p. 288).
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THE PEOPLING OF THE OHIO VALLEY
southeastern Indiana to settlement. Besides this terri- tory in southeastern Indiana, which had been opened for settlement, Virginia had granted George Rogers Clark and his men 150,000 acres in southern Indiana, which grant had been confirmed by the United States in 1784. With the close of the Indian wars settlers began to move into these grants and the census of 1800 shows that there was a population in what is now Indiana of nearly three thousand.23 The northwest territory was rapidly filling up with a restless population, and between 1800 and 1810 it became necessary to divide and redivide it. In 1800 the Ohio territory was organized, the western part of the old northwest territory receiving the name "Indiana." Another division was made in 1805, when Michigan ter- ritory was detached from the Indiana territory, while a still further division was made in 1809, when Illinois was raised to the position of a separate territory.
The returns of the third census, that of 1810, showed that immigration from Massachusetts and Connecticut had gone steadily on, and the same was also true of Penn- sylvania, New York, Virginia, and the Carolinas, but migration had almost ceased from Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. The stream of popula- tion pushing down the Ohio Valley had peopled all south- ern Ohio, raised Indiana to a territory of the second grade, had overrun Kentucky and Tennessee to the In- dian boundary, and had pushed southward into northern Alabama.24 The New England element had pushed west- ward along the south shore of Lake Erie, had filled half the Western Reserve, had extended their Marietta settle- ments, and were found, here and there scattered through central and southern Ohio.25
President Jefferson's pet policy in dealing with Eng- land and France during the Napoleonic Wars was to
28 Esarey, History of Indiana, pp. 123, 124, 127. Ind anapolis, 1916.
24 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, vol. iii, pp. 466-461.
25 Mathews, The Expansion of New England, p. 182.
24 CIRCUIT-RIDER DAYS ALONG THE OHIO
force them to come to terms by laying an embargo on our shipping. Accordingly, in December, 1807, Congress passed the embargo act, which prohibited the departure for any foreign port of any merchant vessel. This imme- diately brought disaster to the shipping and commercial interests of the eastern States. Deprived suddenly of all means of support, "in debt, and liable at any moment to be imprisoned for being in debt, farmers, artisans, mechanics, tradesmen, who had long been held on the seaboard by flush times, now sold their possessions for whatever they could get, and quitting the Atlantic States forever, hurried away to find new homes along the shores of the Great Lakes or the eastern slope of the Mississippi valley."26 This new movement of population, begun with the passage of the embargo, continued with little inter- ruption, throughout the War of 1812 and until the return of good times in the East, which did not come until about 1820.
Nothing like it had ever been seen before. The roads west swarmed with wagons, cattle, sheep, and horses. Through one Pennsylvania village lying on the road to Pittsburgh, toward the end of 1811, two hundred and thirty-six wagons and six hundred Merino sheep had passed, on the way to Ohio in one day. Old settlers in central New York declared they had never seen "so many teams and sleighs loaded with women, children, and household goods" on their way to Ohio as in the winter of 1814. In one day in the month of July, 1814, six wagons with seventy persons, all from Massachusetts, passed through Newburgh bound for Ohio.27 From Lan- caster, Pennsylvania, came the report that a hundred families had passed through that town in one week; at Zanesville, Ohio, fifty wagons crossed the Muskingum in
26 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, vol. iv, pp. 382, 383.
27 Ibsd., 283. The most recent and an especially illuminating account of the Western movement of population following the War of 1812 is found in Channing, History of the United States, vol. v, chap. ii, pp. 37-69.
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THE PEOPLING OF THE OHIO VALLEY
one day, and this steadily moving stream of population was not sporadic, but continued with little intermission through 1814, 1815, and 1816.
Such a vast movement could not but help change con- ditions in both East and West. North Carolina became alarmed at the number of people leaving her borders, and the Assembly of that State at the session in 1815 ap- pointed a committee to investigate the matter. Virginia did likewise, while all the Eastern States were greatly concerned with the loss of population. Meanwhile west- ern towns and villages were springing up with amazing rapidity. Mount Pleasant, Jefferson County, Ohio, in 1810 had seven families living in log cabins. Five years later there were ninety families, seven stores, three taverns, a meetinghouse, a schoolhouse, a market house, a spinning factory, and five hundred people.28 It is esti- mated that 42,000 settlers came to Indiana in 1816 alone. Vevay, Indiana, laid out in 1813, by 1816 was a county seat, with courthouse, schoolhouse, public library, stores, taverns, and seventy-five dwellings. It was receiving three mails a week and supported a weekly newspaper.
In 1816 Indiana was admitted to the Union with a population of 63,897, with 12,112 voters.29 In 1818 a census was taken in Illinois and it was ascertained that there was a population of 40,258. For the first time in the history of western migration even winter did not stop the stream of settlers moving westward. Families passed through Easton, Pennsylvania, and Bridgeport, Connec- ticut, drawing their small belongings on carts, while their families trudged along behind. Five hundred and eleven wagons with three thousand and sixty-six persons passed through Easton within the space of one month. A train of sixty wagons from Durham, Maine, carrying one hundred and twenty souls-men, women, and children-
28 Ibid., pp. 284, 285.
29 Esarey, History of Indiana, vol. i, p. 215.
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CIRCUIT-RIDER DAYS ALONG THE OHIO
journeyed to Indiana in the winter of 1817, where they were intending to buy a township, and they carried their minister with them.30 These are but examples of thou- sands who set their faces westward during the years be- tween 1812 and 1820.
The census of 1820 was startling to many in the East- ern States. In Delaware there were but seventy-five more people in 1820 than there had been in 1810. New York had become the most populous State, crowding out Vir- ginia from that distinction, and had added 413,000 peo- ple, Ohio ranked next to New York in the extent of her increase, with an addition of 351,000, which placed Ohio in fifth place among the States. Kentucky was sixth with 158,000 more people than in 1810, while Tennessee had added 11,000. These two States, however, had con- tributed largely to the populations of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.31
While the Ohio valley was receiving this moving and restless population ; while cabins were being built along the streams and villages were coming into life, an ever- growing body of circuit-riders were striving to bring the gospel into every nook and corner of these new States and territories. No other church was so well equipped for this particular task as was the church of John Wes- ley and Francis Asbury. It is the purpose of the follow- ing introductory chapters to tell the story of these men who carried on the work of the church throughout the Ohio valley in these restless years.32
30 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, vol. iv, pp. 386, 387. 31 Ibid., vol. iv, pp. 522, 523.
32 The earliest beginnings of Methodism in the region west of the mountains I described in an earlier volume, entitled The Rise of Methodism in the West. In the first volume the story ends with the division of the old Western Conference into the Ohio and Tennessee Conferences in 1812.
26 CIRCUIT-RIDER DAYS ALONG THE OHIO
journeyed to Indiana in the winter of 1817, where they were intending to buy a township, and they carried their minister with them.30 These are but examples of thou- sands who set their faces westward during the years be- tween 1812 and 1820.
The census of 1820 was startling to many in the East- ern States. In Delaware there were but seventy-five more people in 1820 than there had been in 1810. New York had become the most populous State, crowding out Vir- ginia from that distinction, and had added 413,000 peo- ple, Ohio ranked next to New York in the extent of her increase, with an addition of 351,000, which placed Ohio in fifth place among the States. Kentucky was sixth with 158,000 more people than in 1810, while Tennessee had added 11,000. These two States, however, had con- tributed largely to the populations of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.31
While the Ohio valley was receiving this moving and restless population ; while cabins were being built along the streams and villages were coming into life, an ever- growing body of circuit-riders were striving to bring the gospel into every nook and corner of these new States and territories. No other church was so well equipped for this particular task as was the church of John Wes- ley and Francis Asbury. It is the purpose of the follow- ing introductory chapters to tell the story of these men who carried on the work of the church throughout the Ohio valley in these restless years.32
30 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, vol. iv, pp. 386, 387.
31 Ibid., vol. iv, pp. 522, 523.
32 The earliest beginnings of Methodism in the region west of the mountains I described in an earlier volume, entitled The Rise of Methodism in the West. In the first volume the story ends with the division of the old Western Conference into the Ohio and Tennessee Conferences in 1812.
CITIES OVER 8,000 INHABITANTS = .
INHABITANTS TO THE SQUARE MILE
UNDER 2
2-6
6-18
18-45
45-90
90 AND OVER
POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES - 1820
CHAPTER II
WESTERN METHODISM AND THE WAR OF 1812
BY the year 1812 Methodism had achieved a firm and dominant grip upon all the settled territory west of the mountains. During the twelve years of the life of the old Western Conference the membership in the west had in- creased from less than 3,000 in 1800 to over 30,000 in 1811. The number of circuits had grown from nine to sixty-nine, while the circuit-riders had likewise increased from fourteen to one hundred. The Western Conference in its last year had been divided into twelve districts. Three of these districts had been largely in Tennessee; two lay largely in Kentucky ; another took in western Kentucky and southwestern Indiana; the Mississippi District lay along that river south of Tennessee; the Miami District included the western half of Ohio and southwestern Indi- ana; the Muskingum covered eastern Ohio and western Virginia, while the Illinois, the newest district, embraced all the settled country west of Indiana.
The General Conference at its session in 1812 wisely divided this vast territory into two Conferences;1 the Ohio Conference was to include the Ohio,2 Muskingum, Miami, Kentucky, and Salt River Districts, while the Tennessee Conference was to include the Holston, Nash- ville, Cumberland, Wabash, Illinois, and Mississippi Dis- tricts. Geographically the newly formed Ohio Confer- ence covered western Pennsylvania, and the southwest corner of New York, all of Ohio, southeastern Indiana,
1 Emory, History of the Discipline, p. 213. New York, 1844.
2 The territory included in the Ohio district had belonged to the Baltimore Confer- ence, but the General Conference of 1812 transferred the district to the Ohio Con- ference.
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28 CIRCUIT-RIDER DAYS ALONG THE OHIO
western Virginia, half of Kentucky, and ultimately all of the territory of Michigan.
The valley of the Ohio was well settled by 1812, the bulk of the population being found along the Ohio River or its tributaries. Every one of the five original districts of the Ohio Conference received its name from the streams along which they were located, while many of the circuits likewise took their names from rivers and creeks. The more important tributaries of the Ohio from the north are the Miami, the Scioto, and the Muskingum in the State of Ohio, while the Whitewater is in south- eastern Indiana. The Little and Great Kanawha with the Guanadott were western Virginia rivers, forming highways for settlers in this section of the old Dominion. The Big Sandy was the boundary between Kentucky and Virginia, while other tributaries of the Ohio on the Ken- tucky side were the Salt River, the Green, the Licking and the Kentucky. It was along the banks of these beau- tiful streams that the original Ohio Conference lay.
The War of 1812 began in June, immediately following the formation of the Ohio Conference, and Methodist preachers were instructed to preach to the soldiers wherever opportunity offered. On his way through west- ern Pennsylvania, as he journeyed to the first session of the Ohio Conference, Bishop Asbury stopped at a camp meeting in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and while there preached to a company of soldiers, who came to the camp ground to hear him. In his prayer the Bishop prayed devoutly for the President of the United States, the Cab- inet, the Senate and the lower House, after which he preached an appropriate sermon for the occasion. One who heard the sermon described it as admirable, and when the good Bishop had finished his discourse he sta- tioned himself so as to shake hands with the soldiers as they filed out. He began his sermon by deploring the evils of war and stated that if Christian nations went to war
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METHODISM AND THE WAR OF 1812
at all, it ought to be on the defensive. He urged the necessity of good discipline in the army as well as ade- quate food and clothing for the soldiers, and advised the commanding officer to be a father to his soldiers, and the soldiers to avoid discontent and murmuring.3
During the year 1812-1813 the preachers on the fron- tier began to feel the effect of the war, especially in the high prices for provisions. Flour in some parts of the Ohio District was sixteen dollars a barrel and other pro- visions in proportion, and, as the presiding elder states, "the more money people gained, the less disposed they felt to pay quarterage." The people living along the Lake shore and toward Pittsburgh were very uneasy, especially after Hull's surrender of Detroit. Jacob Young thus describes the effect of the news of the surrender of Detroit upon the people living about Ashtabula. "While I was preaching the congregation began leaving the house-sometimes as many as nine or ten at a time. I could not tell what was the matter, but closed services as soon as I could conveniently. When I went to the door, I met one gentleman dressed in uniform, another beating a drum, another playing the fife, one holding a banner-the stars and stripes flying. I asked what all that meant. They told me that Hull had surrendered Detroit to the British, and that nine hundred British and Indians were on their way down the lake toward that country and that they had no time to lose; they must try to raise force enough to hold them in check till we could organize the militia." Young stayed all night at the place, in order to comfort and advise the people, but next day he crossed over into Pennsylvania taking the news with him. Some became very angry on hearing of the surrender and one man swore most profanely, "loud and long." When the preacher tried to reprove and reason with him the man defended himself, stating
3 Jacob Young, Autobiography of a Pioneer, pp. 293, 294. Cincinnati, 1857.
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CIRCUIT-RIDER DAYS ALONG THE OHIO
that it was right to swear, claiming that if Hull had sworn more he would not have lost Detroit. The winter of 1813-1814 was extremely severe, and added to the fear and panic caused by the war, a plague swept over the northwest section which was known among the people as the cold plague, which was described as "worse than either the British or Indians." The plague broke out in Trumbull County, Ohio, and spread rapidly in every direction, reaching Youngstown, Wheeling, and Mead- ville, Pennsylvania.4 The high prices likewise continued through the second winter of the war.
The preachers complained that the war spirit was par- ticularly harmful to their work. The preacher on the West Wheeling Circuit during the year 1812-1813 was James B. Finley and he states "this year the war spirit unfortunately entered into many professors of religion, and as soon as they caught it they began to lose their re- ligion. . . . Several who had been saved from drunken- ness by the church returned to their evil habits."5 The presiding elder of the Ohio District complained that the people were "so much taken up with politics and war that they lost their zeal in the cause of God."6
During the course of the war the preachers had to pay as much as fifty cents a peck for oats, to feed their weary horses, while four dollars was the price for shoeing horses. Jacob Young states that he was "often entirely out of mony, but some one always took compassion" on him and supplied his wants. The people were in great need of food, and there was a great deal of profiteering, at the expense of the poor. One day Jacob Young preached at the house of a local preacher, where he took occasion to bear down upon extortioners, especially on
" Jacob Young, Autobiography of a Pioneer, pp. 286-287, 299, 308.
5 James B. Finley, Autobiography, p. 258.
6 Jacob Young, Autobiography of a Pioneer, p. 309. Cartwright states in his Auto- biography: "This year [1812-1813] there was a considerable decrease in membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, owing chiefly to the war with England; we felt the sad effects of war throughout the west" (p. 133).
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METHODISM AND THE WAR OF 1812
those who took advantage of the poor in supplying them food. After the meeting the man at whose house the service had been held came to the preacher and com- plained that he had greatly injured him by his sermon, and proceeded to explain that he had been selling corn for two dollars a bushel and the people already were cursing him, and now they would curse him worse than ever. Another example of Methodist extortion took place in the Western Reserve and is thus described. "A Method- ist brother had some flour for sale, which he disposed of to certain persons and took their notes, to be paid in rye, after harvest-twenty-six bushels of rye for a barrel of flour. When he received the rye, after the harvest, he turned it into whisky, at three gallons per bushel, took that whisky to the army, and sold it for three dollars per gallon, getting in the neighborhood of two hundred dollars for a barrel of flour."7
The war in the West was carried on largely by volun- teers from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky, with the exception of a few thousand regular troops. Among the volunteers to enter the war from Ohio was Alfred Brunson, who had recently come to the Western Reserve from New York and settled in Trumbull County.8 He was a Methodist and had been licensed as an exhor- ter. The regiment in which Brunson enlisted was the Twenty-seventh United States Infantry and was re- cruited largely from Trumbull County, Ohio. The men in the regiment were rough, and young Brunson found little to encourage his religious life.
Brunson was made an orderly sergeant, and one day he was asked by the quarter-master sergeant if he was not a Methodist. On Brunson answering in the affirma- tive, the quarter-master then gave his reasons for his conjecture : "You mind your own business, perform your
7 Young, Autobiography, pp. 309, 310.
& Alfred Brunson, Western Pioneer, vol. i, pp. 107-115.
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duty punctually, but never join in the amusements of the men, nor use any of their bad language. But," con- tinued he, "you will not remain that long." To this Brunson replied : "Are we not engaged in a lawful and honorable war? And why cannot a man enjoy religion in the army in such a case as anywhere else?" "That is all true," answered the sergeant, "but as none or very few have done so, I conclude that you will do as the rest have done."
Throughout the winter, Brunson states, he kept up the habit of daily prayer, availing himself of the quiet period after taps, since it was one of his duties to see that the men retired promptly to their quarters at nine. He also conversed with those soldiers who had professed the Methodist faith and had backslidden."9
The first session of the Ohio Conference convened in Chillicothe, the first capital of the State of Ohio, on October 1, 1812, with thirty-four preachers present. Bishops Asbury and McKendree were both present, though Bishop McKendree presided at all the sessions. The aged Asbury, however, ordained the elders and dea- cons and read out the stations, and during the session preached three times.10
Bishop Asbury's account of his visit to Ohio to attend the first session of the Ohio Conference is especially full. His journey westward lay through Pennsylvania and Maryland. On August 30 he preached at Cumberland to "an attentive people." He notes the "very distressing rumors abroad" regarding the approach of war with England. Of the inconveniences experienced, he says, "After losing so much rest, I could have wished to sleep without annoyance from fleas and bedbugs." He notes two innkeepers on the route who "declare against keep-
9 Alfred Brunson, Western Pioneer, vol. i, pp. 113, 114. Brunson gives a very inter- esting account of the campaigns around the Lakes, under General William Henry Harrison, culminating in the battle of the Thames (vol. i, pp. 106-150).
10 Asbury's Journal, vol. iii, pp. 332, 333.
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METHODISM AND THE WAR OF 1812
ing or selling liquid fire," and he remarks "this is great." "The ministry," he says, are "instructed to preach to the soldiers wherever opportunity offers," and he preaches to the "Union volunteers" from the text Jer. 2. 13. He enters Ohio on Saturday, September 11, and goes at once to the Indian Short-Creek Camp Meeting, where he preaches to three thousand people. On the campground are eighty-four tents with four hundred and fifty com- municants, while forty persons have joined. Of his labors for the past eight months he remarks, "I have traveled six thousand miles in eight months, and met in nine Con- ferences, and have been present at ten camp meetings." On the seventeenth he arrives at Zanesville, the journey passing through "logs, stumps, ruts, bushes." On the 18th he attends Rush-Creek Camp Meeting where he notes many Germans "deeply serious." Preaching as he comes, in the little log churches, at camp meetings, or wherever people are gathered to hear him, he finally arrives at the seat of Conference-Chillicothe-much fatigued, "fever- ish and with the jaw ache."
Of the session of the first Ohio Conference he says : "The Ohio Conference sat from Thursday, October 1st to Wednesday the 7th; we had great order. The writer of this journal labored diligently, and was much assisted by the eldership in the business of the stations. He preached three times, was called upon to ordain twelve deacons, and also to ordain elders; upon the last day his strength failed. I want sleep, sleep, sleep; for three hours I lay undisturbed in bed to which I had stolen on Wednesday; but they called me up to read off the stations. I have considerable fever; but we must move."
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