USA > Ohio > History of the Central Ohio conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, 1856-1913 > Part 2
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Yet this was the handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains, the fruit whereof should shake like Lebanon, and they of the city should flourish like grass of the earth. Like their Master, despised and rejected, their name cast out as evil, mocked, mobbed, driven from city to city, yet they turned the world upside down; compelled first attention, then respect; their mission flour- ishing in the uttermost parts of the earth; their sons honored in Parliament, entrusted with governmental responsibilities, enrolled among scholars, jurists, and statesmen ; and but yesterday, in Lon- don itself, dedicating a cathedral whose inspiring architecture is not dwarfed by its nearness to the hoary magnificence of West- minster Abbey. Not less striking is its growth in America. Twenty-eight years after its birth in England, and ten before the Declaration of Independence, pollen blown from the windswept Moorfields fertilized the dying faith of Embury in New York. He preached the first Methodist sermon in America, in the basement of his humble Barrack Street lodgings, to Barbara and Paul Heck, John Lawrence, a hired man, and Betty, a colored servant. Not only was it thus contemptible in its initial weakness and poverty, but New York and the Colonies were pre-empted by strong, dom- inating and domineering Church organizations. In the little city
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Growth of Methodism.
of New York, with barely eighteen thousand inhabitants, there were fourteen churches, representing nine different denominations. The Congregationalists had been here one hundred and forty-seven years, and had five hundred pastors and six hundred churches; the Lutherans one hundred and seven years, and had sixty ministers and twenty-five churches; the Dutch one hundred and fifty-seven
BISHOP DAVID H. MOORE, D. D., LL. D.
years, and had three hundred and sixty-four ministers and three hundred and sixty-four churches: the Presbyterians eighty-one years and had one hundred ministers and three hundred churches; all in all, fifteen hundred ministers and two thousand churches. Thus overshadowed. and. in addition. handicapped by poverty, calumny, and persecution. the prospect for Methodism was poor indeed.1
Besides, all that Paul suffered for the gospel's sake was vir- tually duplicated by the Methodists in England and reduplicated in America: Lashes, beatings, stonings, journeyings, perils of waters, perils of robbers, perils in the city and in the wilderness, weari-
1 Statistical History, First Century Am. Meth .- Goss.
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
ness, painfulness, watchings, hunger, thirst, and nakedness. Taylor was drummed out of town, Willard's eye permanently injured, Door's nose publicly wrung, Hedding cursed on the highway, Washburn hooted through the village, Wood horsewhipped, Sabin knocked down with the butt of a gun, Kibby stoned.2 Add the unmeasured dangers of the trackless wilderness, swollen streams, jaws of wild beasts, and more deadly tomahawk of blood-thirsty savages. And yet, despite them all, Embury's Barrack Street base- ment congregation of three humble laborers and one poor colored servant has grown until it has left behind all its predecessors and rivals, and fills the earth with its increase. Totally disregarding the Eastern Section, with its 7,194 ministers, its 59,046 local preachers, its 1,358,880 members, and its 2,211,674 Sunday school scholars, the Western Section alone, the legitimate outcome of Philip Embury's congregation of just four souls, presents the astonishing summary of 48,614 ministers, 39,075 local preachers, 7,409,736 members, 6,685,281 Sunday school scholars, officers, and teachers, $282,263,015 in church property. Or, since this is the centennial of the organization of the Ohio and Tennessee Confer- ences out of the old Western Conference, confine the survey to the growth of our Church on the territory covered by that old Conference or naturally included in its possible development, and we are still more amazed to find 94 Conferences, 12,834 ministers, 1,999,054 members, and churches and parsonages valued at $114,- 390,230! And we have said nothing of Methodism's great agencies, publishing, missionary, Sunday school, educational, hospital, or- phanages, old people's homes, deaconess institutions, and all the long list in which we reverently rejoice and make our boast in the Lord.
Nor have we spoken of the enveloping atmosphere of religious and social development, worthy a whole period of our consideration. Denominations which once apologized for having anything to do with our organic life now apologize if they are not in evangelical alliance with us. They have improved their doctrines and methods by studying ours. They are fishing in our clerical waters for our finest trout, baiting their hooks with fine churches and large sal- aries, and justifiably proud of their success. Socially and polit-
: Stevens' History.
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Growth of Methodism.
ically Methodism is everywhere reckoned with. Reform move- ments find in her a strong ally, benevolence an unfailing support. Her sons rank with the foremost in letters and science and com- merce. They are to be found in State and National councils; they preside over Commonwealths and Nations, and lead our navies and armies.
Surely it is God's work; it is marvelous in our eyes.
[The following extract from an address by Dr. Arbuckle at the Centennial Session of Ohio Con- ference, 1912, is of value and interest because the territory of the Central Ohio Conference was formerly included in the Ohio Conference .- EDITOR.]
III.
The First Century of the Ohio Conference.
REV. J. C. ARBUCKLE, D. D.
THE Methodist Episcopal Church entered upon her mission in the Western World contemporaneously with the beginning of the strug- gle of the American Colonies for independence and liberty. The birth throes of the American Republic were on when Methodism began her work on the soil of the Western World. The Declaration of Independence and the battle of Bunker Hill were but ten years distant.
The life of the Methodist Episcopal Church practically runs parallel with the life of the Republic of the United States of America. From the beginning Methodism identified herself with the American idea and heartily espoused the principles of popular government and democratic ideals. From the beginning until now it has never been necessary for any persons or party to keep an eye on Methodism to see whether or not she would be loyal and true to democratic and American institutions. Methodism has never had any other allegiance save to American ideals; she is indigenous, American, and democratic to her very heart's core.
Methodism has stood and stands for a distinct and definite movement in the name of religion, and that religion is a spiritual power to be personally realized in the life of men and to be prac- tically applied to the whole life of the world.
Methodism could not rest satisfied with the mere forms and formalities of religion; with the officialism of ecclesiasticism, or the articulation of merely precise and accepted doctrinal formula. Methodism with wide-open eyes looked out upon the great, broad field of a world's moral and spiritual need. She saw that men were not living right; that they were under the power of greed, lust, avarice, hate, and selfishness. She saw that it would require
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The First Century of the Ohio Conference.
greatly more than the application of observed forms, ordinances, doctrinal assumptions, and ecclesiastical pretensions to get a remedy and cure for an ailment whose roots struck down into the very heart-life of humanity. Methodism knew full well that the white- wash of ceremonial forms, of priestly pretensions and ecclesiastical assumptions were by no means adequate to the cure. Something more than surface treatment and outward applications were re- quired; nothing short of repentance for sin, and of faith toward God through Jesus Christ, giving to men a new heart and a new life, would put them and the world right before God. We do well to eulogize our great statesmen and men of public life, the Putnams, Washingtons, Lincolns, and Grants, the brave, patriotic men of Lexington, Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Atlanta, and the Wilderness, and to build monuments to their memory ; but we may never forget the Methodist itinerant preachers who, amidst hardships, sacrifice, and peril, helped to lay the foundations of the Republic by keeping the high spiritual standards of the Christian religion at the very front of our advancing and developing National life. These were the men who placed their shoulders beneath the whole moral sky to hold it up; who endured perils by day and perils by night; perils in the deep, untrodden forests ; perils in the prairies, perils among savages, perils on every hand and of every kind, yet went forth preaching the way of the Lord, finding the last cabin and the outmost settlements, preaching the everlasting gospel, and making sure and secure our glorious heritage of independence and freedom. We do not forget the great and noble work done by other Churches in those pioneer days; but I am persuaded we shall never know the full measure of obligation and debt of gratitude to the Methodist itinerant preacher who kept pace with our advancing civilization in the early days of our Re- public.
With the close of the War of the Revolution and the establish- ment of American independence there devolved upon the people the responsibility of setting up the institutions and forms of pop- ular government. The attention of the people was turned toward the pursuits of peace and of material prosperity. Naturally the movement of population was towards the unoccupied regions of the West and South, seeking homes, opening up the forests, and estab- lishing new Commonwealths. As westward the star of the Re-
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
public took its course, new settlements were formed in the Terri- tories of Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky, coming north to the banks of the beautiful Ohio River. These restless frontiersmen soon began to push out into the wilds north of the Ohio River ; hence to meet the demands of this advancing tide of immigration what was known as the Northwestern Territory was formed, em- bracing the area of a vast empire, the territory now included in the Commonwealths of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wis- consin. With a view to opening this great Northwest Territory to settlers and giving the people guarantees of safety, Congress drew up and adopted that memorable and historic document, known as the Ordinance of 1787, and designated as the Ordinance of Freedom-second only in importance to the Magna Charta and the Declaration of Independence. This instrument gave to all the necessary guarantees of civil and religious liberty, and provided forever against the institution of human slavery and involuntary servitude. At once settlements began to form north of the Ohio River, the first of which were at the junction of the Muskingum and the Ohio Rivers, now Marietta, then at Gallipolis, Chillicothe, and the junction of the Miami and Ohio Rivers, now Cincinnati. The most noted of these settlements was at the mouth of the Mus- kingum, now Marietta. These settlers were almost as memorable as were the Pilgrim Fathers. They set out from a point on the Ohio River near the present site of the city of Pittsburgh in a magnificent flotilla consisting of three log canoes, one forty-five-ton galley called the Mayflower, and a three-ton ferry called the Adolphus. The landing of this famous flotilla at Fort Harmar, now Marietta, with its forty-eight men as against forty-one in the original Mayflower, and men of equally as good stuff, was the opening. in 1787, of the great Northwest Territory to settlers. The most distinguished member of this group of settlers was Gen- eral Rufus Putnam, through whose influence chiefly the passage of the great Ordinance of 1787 was secured.
With the formation of these frontier settlements came the call for the Christian ministry and the Christian Church. Among the first to answer the call was the Methodist itinerant. Upon these itinerants rested the responsibilty both of delivering a message and performing a work. Sounding in their ears were the words of John Wesley to George Shadford when he thus addressed him.
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The First Century of the Ohio Conference.
"George, I turn you loose on the great continent of America. Pub- lish your commission in the face of the sun." And also the echo of the words of Mr. Wesley when, finding himself without recog- nition or privilege or place, without a parish or a pulpit, he had said: "Well, so be it. Henceforth the world is my parish." Such, I take it, were some of the inspirations in the valley of the Ohio. During these years of immigration Westward and of the opening up of our great Western domain to civilization, the growth of Methodism was almost phenomenal. With the organization of the Western Conference, in 1796, six great Conferences had been formed in the Republic within the space of about twenty years. This great Western Conference has been described as being bounded on the east by the Alleghenies, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the north by the aurora borealis, and on the west by the setting sun. At all events, this new Conference extended west and north to the limits of civilization.
The first Methodist preaching north and west of the Ohio River in the Northwest Territory was probably at Warrentown, Jefferson County, Ohio, in 1787, by the Rev. George Callahan. In the southwest portion the first Methodist preacher north of the Ohio River was the Rev. Francis Clark, a local preacher from Ken- tucky, who visited Fort Washington, at the mouth of the Miami River, now Cincinnati, in 1793. In 1795 the Rev. James Smith. from Virginia, crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati and preached in the cabin of a Mr. Talbert. But it was not until 1798 that any Methodist societies were organized north of the Ohio River. The first class organized was by the Rev. John Kobler, of Kentucky, who crossed the Ohio River at Columbia, now Cincinnati, preach- ing and organizing a class of twenty-one persons in the home of Francis McCormick, a local preacher. The second class organized north of the Ohio River was at Marietta, in 1799, by the Rev. Robert Manley, in the home of William McCabe, consisting of six persons. With the organization of these classes Methodism began rapidly to push north and west in the Northwest Territory, form- ing in the space of a very few years in these frontier settlements a number of circuits, the first and most important of which were the Muskingum, the Miami, and Scioto Circuits. All the preaching places to begin with were in the cabins of the settlers. The first house of worship built north of the Ohio River was a log meeting
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
house on Scioto Brush Creek, Scioto Circuit, called Moore's Chapel, built by the Rev. Henry Smith in 1800. The General Conference, held in the city of New York, May, 1812, made an end of the Western Conference by dividing it into two Conferences, the Ten- nessee and the Ohio. The Ohio Conference included the whole of the State of Ohio, part of the States of New York, Pennsyl- vania, Virginia, Kentucky, and all of the Northwest Territory. It consisted of five presiding elders' districts-the Ohio, Mus- kingum, Miami, Kentucky, and Salt River. The presiding elders were the Reverends James Quinn, Jacob Young, John Sale, Solo- mon Langdon, and David Young.
From the first until now, Ohio Methodism and all Methodism has stood for an aggressive evangelism, and such an evangelism has had no small part in the building and making of both our great Commonwealth and our Republic. These are the strong words of a distinguished English divine, who recently gave them utter- ance, "God will save America by the instrument of American Methodism." The Methodist Church has never been the ally of the liquor traffic or of corrupt public life. Ever and ever she has been the open and aggressive enemy of corrupt politics, and against the drink traffic and the open saloon she has stood with the strength of a mighty militant host.
There has been no lion's den of iniquity anywhere, from the days of slavery until now, that she has feared to beard and to storm and to help to take. Show us any institution that is a moral, social, or civic menace, and Methodism will join hands with any and with all to move against the same. Methodism has never assumed an attitude of aloofness to other Christian Churches. She has always carried with her the open heart and the open mind. Her hand and heart have ever been as the hand and heart of a big brother ready to co-operate and help for religious betterment and the public good.
Mr. Phelps said a strong thing when he declared that "Meth- odism has been to the whole of Christianity what new blood is to decaying dynasties and civilizations."
The pioneer fathers and mothers of our Methodism had no hesitation in proclaiming their faith and hope to the world. How fine it would be if the Methodism of the present would speak up for Christ and tell to the world the great things God has done for
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The First Century of the Ohio Conference.
them! It would almost be like the coming again of the day of miracles.
Times, methods, and customs may change. The old guard may pass; but still there remain in our Ithaca, Ulysses able to bend the bow and smite the hosts of evil. Still we have our Atlases, whose brave hearts, strong arms, and broad shoulders will hold up the moral sky of the world. We are to-day facing and pos- sessing a vastly wider field of Christian opportunity and effort than ever before. In the name of Jesus Christ we are laying hands upon the ends of the earth. The poor are having the gospel preached to them; the blind see; the deaf hear; the dead are being raised up, and the acceptable year of the Lord is being proclaimed. Wickedness in high places, in hidden places, in all places is being smitten in the name of the Lord God of hosts. Brotherliness and righteousness, in sweet and glad accord, are stretching forth hands of good-will across the face of the whole earth. Truly-
"He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat;
O, be swift my soul to answer Him; be jubilant my feet; Our God is marching on."
IV.
The Black Swamp.
"Should you ask me, Whence these stories ? Whence these legends and traditions, With the odors of the feast,
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetition,
And their wild reverberation,
As of thunder in the mountains ?
I should answer, I should tell you,
From the forest and the prairies,
From the Great Lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ottawas,
From the land of the Miamis."-LONGFELLOW.
"THE famous 'Black Swamp' reaches over an extent of country one hundred and twenty miles long and on an average of forty miles wide, and embraces eighteen counties in Northwestern Ohio- Allen, Auglaize, Crawford, Defiance, Fulton, Hancock, Henry, Lucas, Mercer, Ottawa, Paulding, Putnam, Sandusky, Seneca, Van Wert, Williams, Wood, and Wyandotte. The Black Swamp and the Maumee Valley de- scribe practically the same region; but only a part of the counties mentioned include properly the Black Swamp. No portion of PIONEER LAMP. the country embraced in these counties can really be called hilly, though several of them are slightly undulating, as Allen, Auglaize, and the northern part of Williams. Generally the region called the Black Swamp is a long expanse of monotonous surface. Portions of this region are marked by what is known as 'Sand Ridge,' 'Oak Ridge,' and 'Sugar Ridge,' along which lie broad acres of very rich and fertile land. This section of the State, especially certain portions of it, was
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The Black Swamp.
slow to be settled, the dense growth of forest trees with their branches and foliage almost impenetrable to the rays of the sun, and the low swaley condition of the ground, forbidding even the most resolute and dauntless pioneers to enter it. The top soil of the swamp is about a foot thick and composed of a black, decayed vegetable matter extremely fertile. Beneath this and extending several feet down is a rich yellow clay, having large quantities of excellent fertilizing material; and lower still is a stratum of black clay of great depth. The soil is excellent for grain and for almost all products, fruits included." In the not long ago allusions to the Black Swamp were sometimes attended with suspicion, and even a contemptuous smile. Persons were very wary of it and incredulous as to its possibility of conquest and development. In the days of the swamp's unexplored and "unnavigated" history, it was thought of as a stretch of unconquerable bogs and unruly swales and ugly ponds in which frogs croaked and tadpoles wiggled and reptiles reveled; and into which, if any one should chance to fall or by some unaccountable experience be lured, he was sure to sink into depths below, from which it would be quite impossible to extri- cate him.
The great forests with their tangled masses and meshes of rank weeds and thick undergrowth were supposed by the credulous imagination to be loud with strange sounds and noises of wild and ferocious beasts and untamed tribes of savage beings, while in chance abodes, crude and primitive, there could be found. if one possessed the boldness of undaunted adventure, half-clad creatures of the genus homo feeding on roots and herbs. This picture, drawn in all probability by persons reared on the sand among the hills, was forbidding in the extreme, save perhaps to him who might be going forth in search of prehistoric man. "The Black Swamp," dismal, dreary, and disenchanting, how could anything good or great ever emerge from such impossibilities? But what changes and transformations have been realized in this part of the Com- monwealth, where once there was nothing but bogs and frogs and horned animals! Prophecy has been wonderfully fulfilled, for the "desert has blossomed as the rose," and instead of the "brier there has come up the fig tree," and where the marsh and swale were to be seen, broad and beautiful plains invite the friends and captains of industry ; where primitive and untutored nature reigned.
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History of the Central Ohio Conference.
art and culture have been enthroned, and now distant tribes are longing to "possess the land."
The forests have been felled, the lands have been drained, the miasmas have been driven out, comfortable and beautiful homes have been established; great farms mark the landscape, on which fine barns and spacious have been built; good roads thread the country, modest chapels and imposing church edifices have been erected, prosperous communities have been organized, colleges have been founded, noble county seats and thriving towns relieve and beautify the situation, plenty abounds, and Methodism has her share of the heritage. Splendid rivers, among them the Auglaize and the Maumee, traverse the country, adding value to real estate and furnishing fine water power for great and important engineery ; while in the meantime all those strange hobgoblins and ghosts which once held man aloof have betaken themselves to plague for- ever those who in years gone by were wont to smile and nod incredulously whenever a brighter and better day was prophesied for the Black Swamp of Northwestern Ohio.
And very much of all this wonderful change and varied im- provement has been due to the intrepid and persistent faith and heroism of the Methodist itinerant, who, like an angel of religion and culture, fears not to penetrate any wilderness nor to cross any sea. Judging from some incidents in the early histories of the Black Swamp region, one might conclude that some of our twentieth century wide-awake and shrewd business men may be descendants of the early settlers of Northwestern Ohio, for that day was not without men who rested their eye on the main chance and who were given to "graft"-a term, however, then not known, it may be, in the vernacular of the people. Mr. Howe, in his admirable his- tory of Ohio, cites the instance in early times of what some one, perhaps Mr. Howe himself, has called the "Mud Hole Franchise:" "Among the cultivated industries of that region at one time was the furnishing of relief to travelers, chiefly immigrants, whose teams were found to be incompetent for the condition of the roads, the chief difficulty arising in their becoming stalled in the successive 'mud-holes.' So common had this become that some landlords pro- vided themselves with extra yokes of oxen with which to extend the needed relief. This business came to be so far systematized that rights of settlers to the mud-holes nearest them were mutually
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The Black Swamp.
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