USA > West Virginia > Myers' history of West Virginia (1915) Volume II > Part 37
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A century ago there was no body of people whose mission it was
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to plead for Christian union. With many it was regarded as heresy to say that divisions and sects were sinful. "He must be blind indeed who does not see that the movement for Christian unity has become the character- istic movement of modern Christians. This is the one question that moves the whole church evangelical in both hemispheres. There is no corner of the Christian world, no outpost of Christian missions, to which it has not penetrated, and no grade of the ministry from the Pope himself down to the humblest evengelist, who has not voiced its claims."
It is believed now that if union could be effected on the mission fields. the effect would be as great as if the force were doubled. If union were effected at home, two-thirds of the men now filling pulpits could be re- leased for mission service, and the buildings in which they are preaching could be sold to defray the expense of their support and equipment.
In the year 1811 the Disciples of Christ numbered thirty. Today they number 1,375,000. They have missions on all the continents and on the islands of the sea; institutions of learning that are doing good work : a respectable literature : benevolent institutions of growing power ; a church extension fund of a million dollars: and evangelism and Sun- school School work of marvelous dimensions and efficiency.
In West Virginia there are about one hundred and thirty-one Disci- ples of Christ churches, seventy-seven ministers, and 20,000 members.
Methodists. -
Perhaps the first Methodist sermon ever delivered in Virginia was made from the court house steps at Norfolk by an Irishman named Robert Williams, about 1769.
Two years later, Bishop Francis Asbury came over from England and at once entered the missionary field. He traveled on horse back from Maine to Georgia, east of the Appalachian Mountains, and made long journeys westward and through the Indian-infested country west of the mountains, covering more ground than any other missionary the Metho- dist Church ever produced.
There were but few Methodists in America until some time after the Declaration of Independence. The few that were here previous to that time kept on neutral ground for the reason that they had but recently arrived as loyal subjects of England, while. on the other hand, they were not willing to take up arms against their newly adopted country.
On Monday, June 11, 1781, Bishop Asbury entered what is now West Virginia, passing Hanging Rock. On the evening of that day he preached to a gathering of about 300 people, at a point about four miles below Romney, in Hampshire county ; "but," says the Bishop in his diary. "there were so many whiskey drinkers, who brought with them so much of the power of the devil, that I had but little satisfaction in preaching."
On the following day he arose at five o'clock, crossed the South Branch, and proceeded to the Dutch settlement at Patterson's Creek, where he was hospitably entertained. From there he passed south into what is now Grant County, and preached to an assembly of about ninety Dutch people, with whom he was very favorably impressed.
It seems that several other persons accompanied the Bishop on a part of this trip, for, writing at a place supposed to have been in Hardy County, he said :
"We set out through the mountains. It was a very warm day and part of our company stopped after thirty miles, but William Partridge and myself kept on until night overtook us in the mountains among rocks
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and woods, and dangers on all sides surrounding us. We thought it most safe to secure our horses and quietly awant the return of day; so we lay down and slept among the rocks, although much annoyed by the gnats."
We next hear of the Bishop on Cheat River the fourth of the fol- lowing September, where, says he: "We had a mixed congregation of sinners, Presbyterians, Baptists, and it may be, of saints."
We do not hear anything more of Bishop Asbury until his return to West Virginia in July, 1%, when, on the 7th of that month, he wrote: "Our trouble began, it being the day we set out for Clarksburg. Thirty miles brought us to the Great Levels" (Greenbrier County ).
On the 9th of July he wrote: "We rode to the Clover Lick, a very remote and exposed house. Here we found good lodging, for the place. The former tenant had made a small estate by keeping cattle and horses on the range, which is fertile and extensive."
From here he and his companion proceeded to the head of Tygart's Valley at Mingo Flats: from here they went to Clarksburg, and thence on to Fairmont and Morgantown. Concerning this trip the Bishop wrote as follows :
"Our course lay over mountains and through valleys, and the mud and mire were such as might scarcely be expected in December. We came to an old, forsaken habitation in Tygart's Valley. Here our horses grazed about while we boiled our meat. Midnight brought us up to Jones'. after riding forty or perhaps fifty miles. The old man, our host, was kind enough to wake us up at four in the morning. We journeyed on through devious, lonely wills, where no food might be found except what grew in the woods, or was carried with us. We met two women who were going to see their friends and to attend the quarterly meeting at Clarksburg. Near midnight we stopped at a house whose owner hissed his dogs at us; but the women were determined to get to the quarterly meeting, so we went in. Our supper was tea. Brothers Phoebus and Cook took to the woods, and the old man gave up his bed to the women. 1 lay along the floor on a few deerskin with fleas. That night our poor horses got no corn, and the next morning they had to swim the river (two miles below Philippi). After a ride of twenty miles we came to Clarksburg, and man and beast were so outdone that it took us ten hours to accomplish it. I lodged with Colonel Jackson. Our meeting was held in a long, close room belonging to the Baptists. Our use of the house. it seems, gave offense. There attended about 700 people to whom ] preached with freedom. After administering the sacrament. I was well satisfied to take my leave. We rode 30 miles to Father Haymond's (at Fairmont ) after three o'clock Sunday afternoon, and made it nealy eleven before we came in. About midnight we went to rest, and rose at five o'clock next morning. My mind has been severely tried under the great fatigue endured both by myself and my horse. O, how glad I should be of a plain, clean plank to lie on, as preferable to most of the beds: and where the beds are in a bad state, the floors are worse This country will require much work to make it tolerable. The people are, many of them, of the bokiest class of adventurers, and with some the decencies of civilized society are scarcely regarded, two instances of which 1 myself witnessed The great landlords who are industrious will soon show the effects of the aristocracy of wealth, by lording it over their poorer neighbors, and by securing to themselves all the offices of profit and honor. On the one hand, savage warfare teaches them to be cruel, and on the other, the preaching of the Antinomians poisons them with error in doctrine. Good
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moralists they are not, and good Christians they cannot be unless they are better taught."
The foregoing comments of the Bishop on the character of the citi- zens in Randolph, Barbour. Harrison, Marion, and Monongalia counties, with whom he came in contact in 1788, and his pessimistic prophecies. were anything but complimentary to the people of these counties. How- ever true his description of conditions then existing may have been, we can rejoice in the fact that the reverend gentleman proved to be a poor prophet, as present conditions in these same counties now amply testify.
From Fairmont Bishop Asbury proceeded down the Monongahela River to Morgantown, of which place, he says: "1 had a lifeless, dis- orderly people to hear me at Morgantown to whom I preached. It was a matter of grief to behold the excesses, particularly in drinking, which abound here."
We next hear from the Bishop in the Kanawha valley in May, 1792. where his efforts to convince the people of the error of their ways did not seem to meet with much success. From the Kanawha valley he crossed over into Greenbrier County : thence through Pocahontas, Ran- dolph. Barbour, Taylor, Marion and Monongalia Counties, to Uniontown, Pennsylvania.
His diary covering this trip consists mostly of bitter complaints of the rough country, rough treatment and rough people. Accepting his diary as authority. Bishop Asbury traveled more and accomplished less in West Virginia than any other Methodist missionary during the time of which we write.
Shortly following the first appearance of Bishop Asbury in the Shenandoah valley. Rev. John Hagerty. another Methodist, began work in the same field. He was more successful in missionary work in that field than Asbury had been, owing largely to the fact that he could speak both German and English-a qualification lacking in the Bishop. About the same time Rev. Henry Widener did some missionary work in Grant and Mineral Counties.
In 1789, Rev. J. J. Jacobs, one of whose sons by the same name was afterwards twice elected governor of West Virginia, was licensed to preach in Hampshire County, his residence being three miles from the mouth of the South Branch. where the Greenspring railroad station is now located. He married the widow of Michael Cresap-the man whom the noted Indian Chief, Logan, accused of murdering his ( Logan's) fam- ily, at Yellow Creek, in 1774.
In 1784, Rev .. John Cooper and Rev. Samuel Breeze organized a church at Morgantown and another at Martin's Fort. The latter place was the scene of the massacre by the Indians five years before in which James Stewart, James Smally and Peter Crouse were killed, and John Shriver and his wife, two sons of Stewart, two sons of Smally and a son of Crouse were taken prisoners and carried into captivity. The fort was situated on the west side of the Monongahela River, in Cass District, Monongalia County and was erected about the year 1773. by Charles Martin, who came from Eastern Virginia. These were the first Metho- dlist churches erected in that region. A year later Cooper and Breeze were relieved by Rev. Peter Moriarty. Rev, John Robert Ayers, and Stephen Deakin.
A Methodist Church was organized at Fairmont: one on Hacker's Creek, in Lewis County ard another in Upshur County, about 1786; Rev. William Phoebus, who came on the Monongalia about that time, probably having charge of one or more of these churches. There was another con- gregation between Clarksburg and Fairmont : but it was many years after
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this time before the Methodists succeeded in establishing an effective and lasting organization at Clarksburg. The same was true in the Tygart's Valley.
The first permanent organization of the Methodists in the Kanawha Valley was effected in tsos, Rev. William Steel being the first preacher. His circuit extended from the present city of Parkersburg to the mouth of Guyandot, near Huntington, Cabell County. The circuit covered a distance of over 500 miles, and he made this trip on horseback every month. The following year, he was succeeded by Rev. Asa Shinn- afterwards the founder of the Methodist Protestant Church.
A-a Shinn was a son of Jonathan Shinn, who was formerly a Quaker. but later, in 1799, became a Methodist, as did .Asa at the same time. Their home was on a farm, about fifteen miles above Fairmont at or near the present town of Shinnston. In 1801 Asa was licensed to preach although at that time "he had never seen a church, a pulpit or a clock-and had not even heard that clocks existed," and his education was perforce of circumstances very limited.
A very typical case of the times may be found in the person of Rev. Gideon Martin, a Methodist preacher, who in 1535, rode his monthly cir- cuit of 300 miles horseback and preached at Philippi, Relington, Beverly. White Oak, St. George, Terra Alta, Va. (now W. Va.) and Oakland. Maryland.
The following, from the autobiography of Rev. Harry Smith, in re- lation to his ministerial duties in Monongalia, Marion, Harrison and Lewis Counties, about the year 1794, affords a very interesting account of the traits, habits and customs of the people in those counties at that time :
"During the summer I saw a man, said to be 113 years old, ride to meeting on a horse led by his son, himself an old man .. Hle was a Ger- man known by the name of Daddy Ice through all that country. Ile had been taken prisoner by the Indians and suffered incredible hardships. 1 visited him in his last sickness and found that his intellect had not failed as much as might be expected. I preached at his funeral, and it was a solemn time while I preached to his children, then old, gray-headed peo- ple. and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. From this place 1 pushed ahead through Clarksburg and met my first appointment at Jos- eph Bennett's house about fifteen miles above Clarksburg. The people came to this meeting from four or five miles around and among them Joseph Chiveront, quite a respectable local preacher. They were all back- woods people and came to the meeting in backwoods style, all on foot, a considerable congregation. I looked around and saw an old man who had shoes on his feet. The preacher wore Indian moccasins. Every man. woman, and child besides was barefooted. Two old women had on what we then called short gowns, and the rest had neither short nor long gowns, This was a novel sight for me for a Sunday congregation. Brother Chiveront, in his moccasins, could have preached all around me : but I was a stranger, and withal the circuit preacher, and must preach, of course, I did my best, and soon found if there were no shoes and fine dresses in the congregation, there were attentive hearers and feeling hearts. In meeting the class. I heard the same humble, loving re- ligious experience that I had often heard in the better dressed societies If this scene did not make a backwoodsman of me outright, it at least reconciled me to the people, and I felt happy among them. No doubt a great change has since taken place in that settlement; but that was Methodism and the state of society as I found them.
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"When I left Bennett's I went 25 or 30 miles higher up the Monon- gahela and preached at the house of Brother Stortze. Within a short dis- tance of this house the Indians took a young woman prisoner and mur- dered and scalped her. A messenger came and injudiciously announced that her remains had been found, and threw the whole congregation into consternation. Here I saw the men coming to meeting with their rifles on their shoulders, guarding their families, then setting their guns in a corner of the house till after the meeting, and returning in the same order. In this settlement I met with a young man who had escaped from the Indians a few months before. He had been a prisoner for some time. He traveled eighteen nights through the wilderness. for he would lie concealed all day and travel by night.
"From Stortze's we went to Edward West's, where we had a society and preached regularly, The house was enclosed by strong and high pieces of timber set deep in the ground and close together. They had built a new house outside the enclosure ; the doors and windows were cut out, and the lower floor laid with loose plank : but before I got to sleep the dogs raved at a terrible rate. I did not know that I was in any dan- ger ; but the Indians having but a little while before been through the country and done mischief, and this being a frontier house, I did not feel myself secure in my exposed situation.
"From West's we went to John Hacker's on Hacker's Creek, I be- lieve this man could read, but not write ; and yet he was a magistrate and a patriarch in the settlement, and gave name to the creek, having lived here more than twenty years. He raised a large family and lost but one by the Indians, and one scalped and left for dead: and every year when the Indians were troublesome, they were in danger. He was a man of good common sense, and I think an honest man, and a good Christian, and among the first that took in the Methodist preachers. Ilis house had long been a preaching house and the preachers' home, and also a place of refuge in time of danger."
On his next trip in that country, Rev. Smith wrote :
"They were all glad to see me, but I was rather sorry, and somewhat alarmed to find the women alone, for there was not a man or even a gun about the place. The men were all in the woods, some hunting, others digging ginseng and snake-root, and did not come home that night: so I had to guard and comfort the poor women and children. The house was crowded. Toward sunset we all went into the house and barred the doors as well as we could. The next day the men came home before preaching. In this place we had a pretty large society, and some very pious people. They lived, in the true sense of the word, in backwoods style. Their sugar they made out of the water of the sugar tree, Their tea they got out of the woods, or from their gardens. For coffee they had a substitute, namely, rye or chestnuts. Money they had but little. They traded at Winchester and other places, with ginseng, snake-root, and skins, for salt, rifles, powder, lead, ete All their produce was carried to market on packhorses. Their wearing apparel and bedding were mostly of their own manufacture. Religion certainly did exert a happy influence on the morals of this uncultivated people, and I was often delighted with their artless simplicity. In their way they appeared to be as happy and con- tented as it falls to the lot of most people to be. Taking all things into consideration, our congregations were good: for people made going to meeting a business, and trifles did not stop them. In the lower part of the circuit the people were more refined in their manners.
"1 was in Morgantown on Christmas eve, when I saw the first In- dians, but they were prisoners. Captain Morgan had collected a small
History of West Virginia
company i daring spirit- like himself and had gone on an Indian hunt. Hle crossed the Ohio and came across an Indian camp, where there were two Indians, three squaw., and two children. They shot the men and brought in the women and children prisoners. I saw them when they came and sent to the house the next day to see them My heart yearned wer them, when I looked upon an okl mother and two daughters, and two interest- ing grand-children, a boy and a girl. The old woman appeared to be cheerful and talkative One of the company spoke Inchan quite fluently. having been with the Indians. She said that she had been through all that country when it was quite a wilderness. The young women were sad and reserved. They all appeared to be uneasy and somewhat alarmed when stranger- came in. After the treaty they were exchanged or re- turned.
"On Christmas morning we had a meeting at five o'clock in a private hope and we had a full house. The novelty of the thing brought out some of the most respectable people of the town, and we had a very solemn and interesting meeting. We preached in the courthouse at eleven c'clock: for we had no meeting house, neither was there any place of worship in the town. We had but one half-finished log meeting house in the whole cirevit. We labored hard and suffered not a little, and did not get the half of sixty-four dollars for support. We traveled through all weather and dangers, over had roads and slippery hills, and crossed deep waters, having the Monongahela to cross seven times every round, and few ferries. Our fare was plain enough. Sometimes we had venison and bear meat in abundance, and always served up in the best style It is true my delicate appetite sometimes revolted and boggled, till I suffered in the flesh. I then concluded to eat such things as were set before me : for other people ate them and enjoyed health. and why not 1? After 1 had conquered my foolish prejudice. I got along much better. Our lodg- ings were often uncomfortable. I was invited to have an appointment at a brother's house one might. After the people were gone, I found there was but one small bed in the house. When bed time came, the good woman took her bed and spread it crosswire before a fine log fire, and was requested to lie down on one end: and it answered very well for me. the man and his wife. and two children. This indeed was very comfartable to what I had sometimes. Most of my clothes by this time became thread- Lare. and some worn out, and I had no money to buy new ones. 1 had to put up one night with a strange family, and I was obliged to keep on my overcoat to hide the rents in my clothes.
"On this circuit I learned some lessons in the school of adversity which have been of great service to me during my itineracy. Although 1 was never in real danger from the Indians. yet I have often ridden fifteen or twenty miles through the woods where no one lived, the people having fled from danger: and I rode alone, for I never had any guard but the angels. The tales of woe that were told me in almost every place where there was danger. the places pointed out where murders had been com- mitted. sleeping in houses where the people who were inured to these things were afraid to go out of door- after sunset : [ say, riding, riding alone under these circumstances was far from agreeable. I was, however, often in real danger in crossing rivers, swimming creeks, etc. 1 found the people remarkably kind and social. Mary pleasant hours we spent to- gether by the side of large log fires in our log cabins, conversing on var- ious subject -. It is true some of us smoked the pipe with them, but we really thought there was no harm in that, for we had no anti-tobacco societies among us then. 1 believe James Fleming and myself were the last who traveled the Clarksburg circuit during the Indian wars"
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Comparing Rev. Smith's description of these people in 1794 with that of Bishop Asbury's in 1788, one can not but wonder at the great so- cial and material improvement within the short period of six years, or charge the discrepancies to the morbid conceptions of, a pessimist.
The following lines indicate the early position of the Methodist Episcopal Church on the slavery question :
"We declare that we are as much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery: therefore, no slave-holder shall be eligible to any official station in our church hereafter, where the laws of the state in which he lives will admit of emancipation. and permit the emancipated slaves to enjoy freedom.
"Whenever any traveling preacher becomes an owner of a slave or slaves, by any means, he shall forfeit his ministerial character in our church, unless he execute, if it be practicable, a legal emancipation of such slaves, conformably to the laws of the state in which he lives.
"All our preachers shall prudently enforce upon our members the nec- essity of teaching their slaves to read the word of God; and allow them time to attend upon the public worship of God on our regular days of di- vine service."
In 1843, owing to the stand taken by the northern membership. the southern membership withdrew from the mother church and organized the Methodist Episcopal Church South. at Louisville, Kentucky.
Since the sectional feeling has nearly disappeared, there is a ten- dency to re-unite these split organizations into one body. and it is prob- ably only a matter of time when that object will be attained.
In West Virginia, in 1890, the total membership of all Methodist bodies numbered 85,102, and in 1906 they numbered 115,825. In 1913, there were 359 Methodist Episcopal churches in the state, with a total membership of 21.953.
Roman Catholics.
From the beginning of the first settlement in Virginia in 1607 up to 1785 the Episcopal Church was the established church under the English and Virginia laws: and while a few of the other Protestant denomina- tions were tolerated under certain cumbrous restrictions, the teaching of the Roman Catholic doctrine was prohibited in the state. A Catholic priest was not even permitted to visit the colony : to do so subjected him to arrest, fine and imprisonment.
A law was passed in Virginia in 1641 imposing a fine of one thousand pounds of tobacco against any Catholic who accepted any office of trust or profit. So severe was the treatment of the Catholics that when the law was repealed, placing all church denominations on an equality, there was but a mere handful of Catholics in the state.
The following proclamation by Governor Gooch of Virginia in 1733 illustrates the feeling toward the Catholics at that time :
"WHEREAS. It has been represented to me in Council that several Roman Catholic priests are lately come from Maryland to Fairfax County in this colony, and are endeavoring by crafty insinuations to seduce his majesty's good subjects from their fidelity and loyalty to his majesty King George. and his royal house. I have, therefore, thought fit, with the advice of his majesty's council, to issue this proclamation. requiring all magistrates, sheriffs, and constables, and other of his majesty's liege people within this colony, to be diligent in apprehending and bringing to justice the said Romish priests, or any of them, so that they may be prose- cuted according to law."
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