VOLUME 2 — BOOK IV — CHAPTER III
INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM INTO THE WEST

Methodism crosses the Alleghenies — Jeremiah Lambert — Francis Poythress — Robert Wooster, a Local Preacher, first introduces Methodism into the Valley of the Mississippi — John Jones the first Layman — Cooper and Breeze Itinerating in the Redstone Country — Traces of their Labors — Early Chapels — First Traveling Preacher raised up beyond the Mountains — The first Circuit — Asa Shinn — Outspread of the Church — The Holston Country — Lambert's Labors — Henry Willis and other Early Itinerants — Their Field — Their Trials — Thomas Ware's Mountain Adventures — Perils from Savages — First Conference beyond the Alleghenies — General Russell and his Family — William — Outlines of the Field, 1789-1792 — Conversion of Felix Ernest — Van Pelt — Methodism enters Kentucky — Tucker killed by Indians — Early Local Preachers — James Haw and Benjamin Ogden the first Itinerants — The first Society — Subsequent Evangelists and their Success — Asbury beyond the Mountains — First Kentucky Conference — First Western Methodist School — Western Conferences — Asbury's Wayside Home

We have already had several anticipatory glimpses of the advance of Methodism over the great Appalachian range. As early as 1783, Jeremiah Lambert is recorded in the Minutes as appointed to the Holston country — the first Methodist preacher designated to the ultramontane part of the continent. [1] We have seen Ware's eulogy on him as a man of "eminence in the pulpit," remarkable for his intelligence and amenity. Elsewhere he alludes to him as "the dovelike Lambert." [2]

But in the same year that Lambert is supposed to have penetrated the Holston region, Francis Poythress, then on the Allegheny Circuit, Pa., extended his travels across the Alleghenies to the waters of the Little Youghiogeny. [3] The honor, however, of leading the march of Methodism into the great valley of the Mississippi belongs to the local ministry. Robert Wooster, a local preacher, labored in the Redstone country about the year 178l. A venerable Methodist itinerant, resident in that section, three years later, and who witnessed the first Conference held there, at Uniontown, has left us a brief notice of the pioneer. Speaking of John Cooper and Solomon Breeze, who are first recorded in the Minutes for Redstone, (in 1784,) he says: "They made their entrance at Uniontown, in the immediate neighborhood of which were many Church people, and a few Methodists. But they had been preceded by Robert Wooster, a local preacher of piety and considerable talent. He had preached in many places, both in Fayette and Washington Counties. Souls had been awakened and converted to God by his preaching; but I am not sure that he formed any Societies. He came to one of my appointments in 1790, and preached for me a pure and powerful Gospel sermon. At that time his hair was as white as wool. I felt it a privilege to hear the first Methodist preacher, perhaps, whose voice was ever heard this side of the Allegheny Mountains. No doubt he is safe at home in paradise. He was an Englishman, and came to America about the time that Mr. Asbury did. He left the Redstone country early in the present century, settled in Bracken County, Ky., and removed from thence to Indiana, on White River, near Connersville, and died shouting." [5] It was under Wooster's preaching that John Jones, who went ten miles to hear him, became the first Methodist convert, of whom we have any record, beyond the mountains; he welcomed the preachers from the Allegheny Circuit, and was one of the first members of the first Society formed by them at Beesontown, now Uniontown. He gave a son to the itinerancy in the early part of our century. [6] Cooper and Breeze went to and fro in their new and extensive field, reaping the harvest of Wooster's labors — "following the openings of Providence, and wherever they found an open door there they entered," says Quinn, who followed them "over all the ground" fifteen years later, "while their footsteps remained to be seen, and their evangelical works were still found, in living epistles, all through the country." "The first Society," he continues, "was raised near Uniontown. I next found their steps on the Youghiogeny, near the Broad Ford;" he followed them down that river and discovered abiding traces of their labors at its forks in Westmoreland County. They passed thence over the Monongahela into Washington County, and, "directing their course up the river, raised the standard on Pike Run. In this place old Robert Wooster had labored with success. The fathers and mothers here have all gone, but I have seen and heard of their descendants, who still stand in the ranks of Methodism, still pressing forward in their happy toil." The missionaries found an open door, some five or six miles from Brownsville, on the road to Washington. On the National Road, about five miles eastward from Brownsville, is a neat stone chapel, called Taylor's, on the spot where stood the log hut that some forty-five or fifty years since [7] was called Hochin's Meeting, (after one of the first Methodists,) and the second, if not the first, reared beyond the mountains. Near Washington the itinerants formed a Society, of which John Jones became a member, and thence they entered Washington. "Still in Washington," continues our authority, "we next find our missionaries on the waters of Cross Creek and Buffalo, kindly received by John and Philip Dodridge, and their old brother-in-law, Samuel Teeter. These all, with the greater part of their numerous families, fell into the ranks of Methodism; and Joseph, son of John Dodridge, became a traveling preacher — and the first raised up in the great valley — of considerable promise and success. [8] On the land of John Dodridge was built a little log meeting-house, which Dr. Joseph Dodridge insisted — the last conversation I had with him — was the first on this side of the mountains. The original Society here has had the place of its meeting transferred to Middletown, midway from Wellsburg or Steubenville to Washington; hence, going east on that road, a short distance before you reach Middletown, you leave on your right hand, within one mile, Dodridge's Meeting-house, and the sleeping dust of many of the first members of the Methodist Church in the head of the great valley. Before I leave this section, I must be permitted to say that the Dodridge and Teeter families, and the Society in their neighborhood — and I knew them well more than forty years ago — were a noble, free-hearted set of Christian people, who loved one another, and served God with humility of mind. We still have scores, yea, hundreds of their descendants with in the pale of Methodism. I am not sure that Cooper and Breeze ever got out any further toward the Ohio River; but if they did, it does not appear that they made any permanent stand. In those days there were perilous times; Indian depredations were quite common. Next I find these devoted servants of Christ raising the flag on Muddy Creek, where a Society was formed, and a meeting-house built, called Shepherd's Meeting-house. It was a small log building. Methodism still lives in that place, although those who first were brought under its influence, having served their generation, by the will of God, have fallen asleep. Thence I follow them up the Monongahela to Whiteley and Dunkard Creeks. Here I found a good Society in 1799, and I am told that God still had a people in that place. They also raised a Society on Crooked Creek, eight or ten miles from Morgantown, Va. In Morgantown they had not much fruit of their labor; but in 1799 I found there a meeting-house and a small Society. I know not that Cooper and his colleague went any further up the waters of the Monongahela, but turning their faces toward Uniontown, near the mouth of Cheat River, they found the Parishes. These were men of sterling worth. Here a good class was formed, and a meeting-house built, called Martin's Church, and Methodism has had a permanent standing there ever since its first introduction. They now enter again into old Fayette, and bearing down the Monongahela River toward Brownsville, they establish a preaching-place at a Mr. Roberts's, nearly opposite the mouth of Muddy Creek, two or three miles from the river. Here also a Society was raised, and a meeting house built, called Roberts's Meeting-house. There was a good Society here in 1803, and in that year they had an accession to the Church, and built a new chapel. James, the eldest son of old Mr. Roberts, became a traveling preacher at an early day, but soon married and retired from the work, yet sustained the relation of a local preacher, and maintained the Christian character till a few years since, when, near the town of Cadiz, Harrison County, O., he closed his eyes in death. I have followed these indefatigable men round their circuit, embracing parts of five counties, four in Pennsylvania and one in Virginia, and have come to the place of beginning, old Uniontown. Here is the place where, by the instrumentality of Wooster, Cooper, and Breeze, the handful of corn was placed in the head of the great valley, the fruit of which has been shaking, like Lebanon, for more than half a century. I next proceed to take some notice of the extension of the work by those who came after. In 1785 Peter Moriarty, John Fidler, and Wilson Lee were appointed to Redstone. Moriarty was the first man I ever heard preach; I was then a lad in my eleventh year. His text was Hebrews xii, 1. Under that sermon I concluded myself a sinner, and that anger was the sin that most easily beset me. Whether this was a correct conclusion or not, I have been profited greatly by it through life thus far. These men were greatly beloved by the people, and very useful among them; and the first generation of Methodists in that region of country loved, and thought, and talked about their endeared Cooper, Breeze, Moriarty, Lee, etc., as long as they lived. Blessed preachers! blessed people! they are now in paradise, and will be forever each other's joy and crown. Moriarty and his colleagues not only nursed the Societies that had been raised by their predecessors, while they were enlarged under their ministry, but they also extended and enlarged their field of labor, including all or most of the settlements between Washington County and the Ohio River, and embracing that part of Virginia included in the counties of Brook and Ohio, and extending on the Ohio River from Wheeling, some twenty-five or thirty miles up, to or above a place called Holliday's Cove. At the close of 1785 the number of members from this field was five hundred and twenty-three, so that it appears they labored not in vain in the Lord. The next year, William Phoebus, John Wilson, and E. Phelps being appointed to Redstone, enlarged the circuit, passing up the several branches of the Monongahela above Morgantown, Va., namely, West Fork, Buckhannon, Tygart's Valley, and Cheat River, as far as settlements had been made by the whites. On the West Fork, some twenty miles above Morgantown, a Society was formed in the neighborhood, perhaps in the house of old Calder Raymond. This man, his three sons and several daughters, with their families and others, constituted a large and flourishing class. Some fifteen or twenty miles further up, toward Clarksburgh, a door was opened, and a good Society formed, at the house of Mr. J. Shinn, father of Rev. Asa Shinn. This man was of Quaker origin, but he believed and was baptized and his household. Forty years have passed away since I preached and met the class in this good man's house. At that time Asa was seeking salvation with a broken spirit — a broken and a contrite heart; we prayed together in the woods, and I have loved him ever since. This young man was admitted on trial in 1801, although he had never seen a meeting-house or a pulpit before he left his father's home to become a traveling preacher. He had only a plain English education, yet in 1809 we find him, by the a appointment of the venerable Asbury, in the Monumental City, as colleague of another backwoods youth, R. R. Robert, afterward Bishop Roberts. Methodism could obtain no footing in Clarksburg for many years — not so now; but some eight or ten miles still further up the Wet Fork a door was opened, and a blessed work ensued. Many souls were born of God. The patriarch in the membership here was old Moses Ellsworth, of German descent. He was great-grandfather to our Ellsworths of the Ohio Conference. In this vicinity lived and labored, and died in holy triumph, Joseph Chieuvrant, a Frenchman by birth. He was converted from Catholicism, and converted to God, about the commencement of the Revolution, and had permission to exhort. He was called out by draft as a militia-man in the army; he became acquainted with and was instrument in the conversion of Lasley Matthews, an Irish Catholic. These men were mighty in the Scriptures; they preached and loved, and lived holy. Chieuvrant was one of the most extensively useful local preachers I ever knew. Still on the West Fork, ascending, a Society was raised at an early date. Some of these people journeyed to the West, and settled in Champaign County, Ohio, where some of their posterity are still in the ranks of Methodism. We now take a left-hand fork, called Hacker's Creek, and find a living, loving, large Society at old Father Hacker's. His numerous family were chiefly members, and his son William a local preacher, and another a class-leader. Thence we cross over a mountain, or very high hill, on to the head of Buckhannon, another branch of the Monongahela. Here I found a very good Society, which had been formed by the first preachers. From Rogers' settlement, on Buckhannon, we cross the high or mountainous lands to the swamps in Tygart's Valley. Here was a Society forty years ago, which had been raised by the pioneers of Methodism some eight or ten years prior to that period. The principal members were two brothers by the name of Thomas, sons of an old Methodist traveling preacher, who used to labor successfully on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia in the early days of Methodism. Having taken this little excursion of a hundred and fifty miles or more through the hills or mountains of Virginia, and visited all or most of the Societies which had been organized some years previous to the close of the eighteenth century, I returned to old Uniontown, the place of beginning, passing down Tygart's Valley to the mouth, and so on through Morgantown. I found in this range some large settle settlements, where there was no Methodist preaching or a Society, although attempts had been made in all. Thus Methodism, for a time, at least, was kept out of these strongholds. But it has had an entrance. After the lapse of forty years I have found the grandchildren and great grandchildren of those who at that time were its determined enemies, among its warmest friends and most zealous supporters and defenders." In 1787 the number in Society in Redstone was seven hundred and fifty-six. From Uniontown, which was then the center of Methodism in the head of the great valley, the preachers continued to enlarge the field of labor on every side, and to every place where the Macedonian cry was heard. In 1788 the Redstone field seems to have been divided into four circuits: Clarksburg, Ohio, Pittsburg, and Redstone. Seven preachers were appointed to it. "I knew them all," says Quinn; they were considered pious men, and useful in their day, and some of them of very acceptable preaching talents." Jacob Lurton and Lasley Matthews stand for Redstone proper, and it was for them to enlarge the field to the east, and carry the Gospel to these sparse settlements interspersed through the mountains. They entered the range fifteen miles south of Uniontown, and passing up a creek, made their way to Sandy Creek Glades. Here in a large settlement they preached, and raised a strong Society, "which was a good, loving people forty years ago, and met at the house of old William Waller." Hence they pushed on over all the neighboring country. Crossing the Laurel Hill, they made their way into the head of Ligonier Valley. Near old Fort Ligonier west raised a large and flourishing Society. Here the father of the venerable Bishop Roberts and his extensive family joined the

As the Holston region was the field whence it marched into the middlewestern and southwestern states. Let us now return to its labors and struggles in the Holston Mountains.

The "Holston country" was about the headwaters of the south fork of the Holston River, which extended as far east as Wythe and the borders of Grayson county, and as far west as the Three Islands. It was in the rugged but sublime heights that the itinerants began their movement westward into Tennessee. At the Conference which appointed Lambert, sixty church members were reported. By whom had they been gathered? and by whom were the returns made? I cannot answer these questions, but conjecture that as early as 1777, when King, Dickins, and Cole labored in North Carolina, if not indeed in the preceding year, when Poythress, Dromgoole, and Tatum preached there, their travels were extended into these mountains. Lambert's Circuit comprised of the settlements on the Wautauga, Nolachucky, and Holston Rivers, including what are now Green, Washington, Carter, Johnson, Sullivan, and Hawkins' Counties in Tennessee, and Washington, Smyth, Russell, and perhaps Lee and Scott Counties, in Virginia; "a large circuit; but he made his way as best he could in the name and for the sake of Him who had said, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world;' and at the next Conference, or in April, 1784, he returned seventy-six members, or sixteen more than he had received." [9]

Henry Willis, whom we have lately left in Charleston, S. C., traversed these mountains in 1784, [10] a man of whom Thomas Ware says that "he stood pre-eminent. I knew him well. He was a manly genius, and very intelligent. He well understood theology, and was a most excellent minister. His life, as a traveling and local preacher and a supernumerary, was, I believe, unblemished. I followed him to the south as far as North Carolina, to the east as far as New York, and to the west as far as Holston, and found his name dear to many of the excellent of the earth. His physical powers, however, were not sufficient to sustain the ardor of his mind. But of this he was often wholly unmindful, until his bow nearly lost its elasticity, when a local or supernumerary relation became inevitable." The contemporary records of Methodism incessantly mention this able and useful Itinerant.

Richard Swift and Michael Gilbert, Mark Moore and Mark Whitaker, John Tunnel, Jeremiah Matson, Nathaniel Moore, Edward Morris, Joseph Dodridge, Philip Bruce, Thomas Ware, John McGee, William Burke, and others, followed, pressing further westward, before the close of our present period. An evangelist of those times, who well knew the country and its adventurous preachers, informs us that they were under the care of an elder whose district included Salisbury and Yadkin Circuits in North Carolina, and Holston in the west. In 1787 the Holston Circuit was divided into two circuits, Holston and Nolachucky, and Philip Bruce was appointed elder. Two new preachers, Jeremiah Maston and Thomas Ware, were sent in 1788, when two new circuits were made out of the old ones: the Holston Circuit, embracing all the settlements on the East and North Forks of Holston, and all the settlements on the Clinch River, including the counties of Washington and Russell in Virginia, and Blount County in "the Western territory;" and French Broad, including all the settlements west and south of the main Holston to the frontier bordering on the Cherokee nation. The same authority, speaking [11] of Swift and Gilbert, who traveled among these mountains in 1785, says that the country at this time was new and thinly settled; that they met with many any privations and sufferings, and made but little progress; that the most of the region through which they traveled was very mountainous and rough, and the greater part a frontier exposed to Indian depredations. They were followed by Mark Whitaker and Mark Moore, "who were zealous, plain, old-fashioned Methodist preachers," and were instrumental in raising up many Societies. Mark Whitaker in particular was a strong man. He laid a good foundation for his successors, and was followed by Jeremiah Matson, Thomas Ware, and others. These men planted the standard of the cross in the frontier settlements of the French Broad, and numerous Societies were raised up, so that in 1791 they numbered upward of one thousand members. About this time William Burke arrived in the Holston country; he says the pioneers of Methodism in that part of Western Virginia and the Western territory suffered many privations, and underwent much toil and labor, preaching in forts and cabins, sleeping on straw, bear and buffalo skins, living on bear meat, venison, and wild turkeys, traveling over mountains and through solitary valleys, and sometimes times lying on the cold ground; receiving but a scanty support, "barely enough to keep soul and body together, with coarse home-made apparel;" but "the best of all was their labors were owned and blessed of God, and they were like a band of brothers, having one purpose and end in view — the glory of God and the salvation of immortal souls. When the preachers met from their different and distant fields of labor they had a feast of love and friendship; and when they parted, they wept and embraced each other as brothers beloved. Such was the spirit of primitive Methodist preachers."

Ware's departure, in 1787, to this distant section, at the call of his friend Tunnell, has already been recorded. He found, he says, the population of his circuit spread over a region equal in extent to East Jersey, almost wholly destitute of the Gospel. "Many were refugees from justice. Some there were who had borrowed money, or were otherwise in debt, and had left their creditors and securities to do the best they could; some had been guilty of heinous or scandalous crimes, and had fled from justice; others had left their wives, and were living with other women. Among these there were a few who had made a profession of religion, and two in particular, who had been ministers of the Gospel and who opposed the Methodists violently. But, notwithstanding the opposition we had to contend with from these and other causes, God prospered us in our work. In many of the settlements we found some who had heard the Methodists preach, and they hailed us with a hearty welcome. Societies were formed, and a number of log-chapels erected, and on the circuit three hundred members were received this year." In the fall of the year Tunnell, the presiding elder, received letters from persons. sons low down the Holston and French Broad, deploring their entire destitution of the Gospel, and entreating him, if possible, to send them a preacher. These letters he read at the Quarterly Meeting Conferences, and it was agreed that Ware should attempt to form a circuit in those parts. "There were many things," he says, "which rendered itinerating in that section of the country at the time I went peculiarly painful to a person like myself. I have always considered the a season of the most severe sufferings I have passed through in an itinerant life of more than forty years." Sometimes the cold, for a few days, is intense there. At these times, especially when he had to ford rivers and creeks at the risk of life, as he often did, and to lodge in open log-cabins, with light bed-clothing, and frequently with several children in his bed, he was much exposed to sickness; and "traveling there, on these accounts, was rendered exceedingly crossing to nature." But, in addition to these sufferings, much of the time his path was infested with savages, the deadly foes of white men, who had but too justly incurred their resentment; and more subtle and terrible enemies, could not be imagined than were the native red men, incensed at the wrongs inflicted upon them by the whites. Many individuals and families had been murdered by them in places directly on his routes, and once, at least, he narrowly escaped being killed or taken prisoner. "My course," he says, "led through a fine bottom, covered chiefly with the crab-apple tree. I passed along very slowly, making observations upon the richness and beauty of the country, and had thoughts of halting to muse a little in the grove;" but, recollecting at the moment that he had heard a rumor about hostile Indians in that vicinity, he concluded not to pause, but rather mend his pace. He had now approached a lofty grove, when suddenly his horse stopped, snorted, and wheeled about. "As he wheeled I caught," he says, "a glimpse of an Indian, but at too great a distance to reach me with his rifle. I gave my horse the reins, and hastened to the nearest settlement to give the alarm. I had been told that some horses were singularly afraid of an Indian. Be that as it may, I have reason to suppose that the sudden fright which mine took at seeing one was the means, under God, of saving me from death or captivity."

The Indians sometimes dashed into the settlements while the people were assembled in a cabin or barn to hear the preachers. "I was preaching," says Ware, "at the house of a man who had invited us by letter to visit their settlement, when we were alarmed with the cry of 'Indians!' The terror this cry excited at that time none can imagine, except those who witnessed it. Instantly every man flew to his rifle, and sallied forth to ascertain the ground of the alarm. On coming out we saw two lads running with all speed, and screaming, 'The Indians have killed mother!' We followed them about a quarter of a mile, and witnessed the affecting scene of a woman weltering in her blood. The savages were concealed in the canebrake, and, coming up slily behind a fallen tree, so as not to be discovered by her, they drove the tomahawk into her head before she knew they were near. The Indian who did the bloody deed was seen by the boys just as he struck their mother; but they were at a sufficient distance to make their escape." The event was not without good results. Ware preached her funeral sermon, and warned her neighbors of the peril of their souls, for they were a demoralized class, and hitherto seemed unimpressed by his admonitions. They now gathered with tears around him, and entreated him to return again. At the next time he arrived there ten or twelve "united with purpose of heart to seek the Lord."

From this settlement he went down to the lowest on the Holston. He found the people assembled in several places in great alarm, devising means of defense against the enemy, from whom they expected no mercy. Many seemed struck with astonishment that he should hazard his life to visit them at such a time. They were full of kindness, heard with interest, and guarded him from place to place. From this section he crossed over to French Broad River. "This journey," he says, "was dreary enough. No regular road, and for much of the way not a vestige of one to be seen, except the marked trees leading to the lower settlements on the French Broad, in the vicinity of the Cherokees. Nor was there a cabin to be seen. I was sometimes roused from my monotonous revery by flocks of deer, wild turkeys, or an affrighted bear dashing through the underbrush. Among the white children of the forest, inhabiting the region I visited, there were some Methodists who had come from distant parts and brought their religion with them. These hailed me as a welcome messenger; and leading the way, many followed them in the service of the Lord. So in a short time we had a flourishing Society, and there were men capable of taking a part in conducting its operations."

He was attacked by mobs, and barely escaped with his life. Sick and weary, pursuing his route by marks on the trees, he was lost in the forest, wandering bewildered most of the night. He sometimes slept on the ground under the trees. His trials were as severe as perhaps were ever endured by an American pioneer preacher.

The first Methodist Conference beyond the Allegheny is usually supposed to have been held at Uniontown, Pa., on the 22d of July, 1788; but a session was held, as we have seen, at Half Acres, Tenn., as early as the second week of the previous May. [12] We have followed Asbury in his adventurous journey thither. Ware gives some further information of the memorable occasion. "As the road by which Bishop Asbury was to come was," he says, "infested with hostile savages, so that it could not be traveled except by considerable companies, he was detained for a week after the time appointed to commence it. But we were not idle; and the Lord gave us many souls in the place where we were assembled, among whom were General Russell and lady, the latter a sister of the illustrious Patrick Henry. I mention these particularly, because they were the first-fruits of our labors at this Conference. On the Sabbath we had a crowded audience, and Tunnell preached an excellent sermon, which produced great effect. His discourse was followed by a number of powerful exhortations. When the meeting closed, Mrs. Russell came to me and said: 'I thought I was a Christian; but, sir, I am not a Christian — I am the veriest sinner upon earth. I want you and Mr. Mastin to come with Mr. Tunnell to our house and pray for us, and tell us what we must do to be saved.' So we went, and spent much of the afternoon in prayer, especially for Mrs. Russell. But she did not obtain comfort. Being much exhausted, the preachers retired to a pleasant grove, near at hand, to spend a short time. On returning to the house we found Mrs. Russell praising the Lord, and the general walking the floor and weeping bitterly. At length she sat down, quite exhausted. This scene was in a high degree interesting to us. To see the old soldier and statesman, the proud opposer of godliness, trembling, and earnestly inquiring what he must do to be saved, was an affecting sight. But the work ended not here. The conversion of Mrs. Russell, whose zeal, good sense, and amiableness of character were proverbial, together with the penitential grief so conspicuous in the general, made a deep impression on the minds of many, and numbers were brought in before the Conference closed. The general rested not until he knew his adoption; and he continued a faithful and an official member of the Church, constantly adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour unto the end of his life." No name is recorded, in the biographies of the pioneer itinerants among these mountains, with more grateful affection than that of General Russell. His house was long their asylum, and Asbury always entered it with delight.

The appointments of this Conference for the Holston country were Edward Morris, Elder; Holston, Jeremiah Mastin, Joseph Dodridge; French Broad, Daniel Asbury; East New River, Thomas Ware, Jesse Richardson. Ware says that he and his colleague were instructed to enlarge our borders from a two to a four weeks' circuit. This we did with great ease. There was not within the bounds of our circuit a religious meeting except those held by us. The hearts and houses of the people were open to receive us, so that we hesitated not to call at any dwelling which might first come in our way when we wanted refreshment. Here had been a goodly number gathered in the preceding year. These needed to be nursed with care. Of these we lost, by death, removal, and otherwise, during the year, twenty; and we received eighty into the Church." During the ensuing winter he endured fearful exposures among the mountain storms, the effects of which, on his health, he bore with him to the grave; but he says of the two years he spent in these regions, "I passed them very pleasantly to myself, and so it would have been in Greenland itself, with the sentiments and feelings I possessed."

A succession of energetic men were rapidly dispatched to this new field, and thence to the further West. William Burke, a Virginian, was one of the mightiest among them. He was converted under the preaching of Isaac Lowe, in North Carolina, in 1790, when twenty years old. Lowe soon called him out upon a circuit. In 1791 he was sent to the Holston Mountains. He has left us a rapid sketch of the ecclesiastical field there. "In 1789," he says, "John Tunnell was presiding elder, and Bottetourt Circuit added. In 1790 two districts were formed; one was composed of West New River, Russell, Holston, and Green Circuits — Charles Hardy, presiding elder. This year John McGee and John West were on Green Circuit. Bottetourt, Greenbrier, and Kanawha Circuits made the other district — Jeremiah Able, presiding elder. This year the Little Kanawha Circuit was formed, and Jacob Lurton was the preacher in charge. He was an original genius, and a useful preacher. In 1791 Mark Whitaker was residing elder, and Charles Hardy and John West were on the West New River Circuit. Charles Hardy located this year, and the later part of the year I succeeded him. John West remained with me on the circuit till the Holston Conference, on the 15th of May, 1792. Mr. Asbury, on his return from the Kentucky Conference, met the Conference at Huffaker's, Rich Valley of Holston, on the 15th of April, 1792. Hope Hull, who had accompanied him from Georgia, and Wilson Lee, who was now returning from Kentucky to the East, were with him. Both preached at this Conference with great success. General William Russell, who had married the widow of General Campbell, and sister of Patrick Henry, and had embraced religion, together with his amiable lady, and who lived at the salt-works, on the North Fork of Holston, attended this session, and accommodated a number of the preachers. Upon the whole, we had a good time for those days. Stephen Brooks, from the Kentucky Conference, was appointed to Green Circuit, in charge, and I was appointed with him; and Barnabas McHenry, who came, also with the bishop from Kentucky, was the presiding elder. We had an entire set of new preachers for the whole district: Salathiel Weeks and James Ward on the Holston Circuit, both from Virginia; David Haggard, Daniel Lockett, and Jeremiah Norman, from North Carolina. Norman was on Russell, and Haggard and Locket on West New River. The presiding elder and all the preachers entered into a covenant to attend strictly to the Discipline. When Brooks and myself arrived at our charge, which was in a few days after the Conference, we mutually agreed to enforce the rules of the Society, and by midsummer we had the satisfaction of seeing a gracious work in many places on the circuit." Burke had the usual perils and hardships of his ministerial brethren in these mountains, but saw many of the worst opposers reformed, and Churches founded in many settlements. "On Kentucky there was," he says, "a rich and thickly settled community, which afterward bore the name of Ernest's neighborhood. It had but one Methodist, the wife of Felix Ernest, who attended preaching when she could, being about five or six miles distant from the appointment. Ernest was a very wicked man, and a drunkard. Being one day at a distillery, the Spirit of God arrested him. He immediately went home, and inquired of his wife if she knew of any Methodist meeting anywhere on that day. It happened to be the day that Brooks preached in an adjoining neighborhood, and Ernest immediately put off for the meeting. He arrived there after it had begun, and stood in the door, with his shirt-collar open, his face red, and the tears streaming down his cheeks. He invited Brooks to preach in his neighborhood. He consented, and in two weeks Brooks came round and found a good congregation. 'The word of God,' he says,' had free course, and was glorified.' The whole family of the Ernests was brought into the Church, with many others, and by the first of September we had a large Society formed. I left the circuit in September, but the work continued. In a short time they built a meeting-house, and Ernest became a local preacher."

Local preachers were, here as elsewhere, important auxiliaries to the few itinerants: Morgan on West New river; "Father Regen" in "Rich Valley," a man much respected and useful in his neighborhood; Stilwell, a successful laborer on "Fish Creek, Green County, Western Territory;" but particularly Benjamin Van Pelt, brother of Asbury's friend on Staten Island, also in Green County, where Van Pelt's Chapel was long a headquarters of Methodism on the frontier. Asbury rejoiced to greet him again in these distant wilds, and to preach in his humble church. Not a few itinerants were also raised up among these mountain Societies: Francis Acuff; "of precious memory," who fell at his post, a pioneer of the Church in Kentucky; David Young, long a Western veteran; Hanager, Massie, Porter, and others, "whose labors and usefulness are known among the thousands of Israel; and the few who remain to witness the spread and triumph of the Redeemer's kingdom are ready to exclaim, 'The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.' "

Meanwhile the itinerant heralds had entered Kentucky. It was only about ten years before the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church that Colonel Daniel Boone penetrated this wilderness, and that the first emigrant families settled there. The luxuriant country invited immigration, and adventurers poured into its beautiful valleys. As early as 1784 Methodist local preachers began to enter it, both as settlers and as pioneers of their faith. In this year one of them, by the name of Tucker, while descending the Ohio in a boat with a number of his kindred, men, women, and children, was fired upon by Indians; a battle ensued; the preacher was mortally wounded; but, falling upon his knees, prayed and fought till, by his self-possession and courage, the boat was rescued. He then immediately expired, "shouting the praise of the Lord." Not long after the Revolutionary War, Francis Clark, a local preacher from Virginia, settled in the neighborhood of Danville, Mercer County, and was among the first Methodists that emigrated to the country. He was a man of sound judgment, and well instructed in the doctrines of Methodism. As a preacher he was successful in forming Societies, and lived many years to rejoice in the cause that he had been the instrument, under God, of commencing in the wilderness. He died at his own domicile, in the fall of 1799, in great peace. William J. Thompson emigrated at an early day from Stokes County, North Carolina, and settled in the same neighborhood. He became also a useful laborer, preaching with acceptance and success. He afterward joined the traveling connection in the Western Conference, and when he moved to the State of Ohio became connected with the Ohio Conference, where his labors and usefulness are had in remembrance by many. The next local preachers that entered Kentucky were Nathaniel Harris, from Virginia, and Gabriel and Daniel Woodfield, from the Redstone country. Harris settled in Jessamine County, and the Woodfields in Fayette County; and not long after Philip Taylor, from Virginia, located in Jessamine County. These were considered a great acquisition to the infant Societies, Nathaniel Harris and Gabriel Woodfield were among the first order of local preachers; they entered the itinerancy. Gabriel Woodfield afterward settled in Henry County, but removed to Indiana, in the neighborhood of Madison, where he lived to a good old age, and died in peace among his friends and connections. Joseph Ferguson, a local preacher from Fairfax County, Virginia, moved to Kentucky at an early time, settled in Nelson County, and was among the first preachers in that section of the country. He was an amiable man, possessed good preaching talents, and was very useful, highly esteemed, and blessed with an excellent family; his house became a home for the traveling preachers, who were at all times welcome guests. He lived to a good old age, at the place where he first settled, and died in the triumphs of the Gospel. Ferguson's meeting-house was one of the first that was built in that part of the country. [14]

In 1786 the itinerants reached Kentucky. James Haw and Benjamin Ogden were the first that appeared there. [15] Ogden was born in New Jersey, in 1764. He served in the Revolutionary army, and had no little influence among his fellow-soldiers, many of whom he found afterward in his western travels. Kentucky was then a hunting-ground for Indian tribes, and the home of a few daring pioneers from Virginia and Maryland, whose lives were in continual jeopardy from savage foes, on which account they dwelt in communities within strongly. defended forts called "stations." Among these pioneers was Thomas Stevenson, whose wife was one of Strawbridge's converts. Both were members of the Church, and to their humble cabin at "Kenton's Station" the missionary received a cordial welcome, and there found a home; in their house the first Methodist Church in Kentucky was organized, and there for more than a quarter of a century the Gospel was proclaimed by the fathers of the ministry. [16] In 1788 Ogden located on account of his worn-out health. It is said the at he subsequently sympathized with the O'Kelly schism, [17] left the Church, and even fell into open vices; but the Minutes record no such charges. At a later day he reappeared in the itinerancy, and died a member of the Conference in 1834. His brethren commemorate him as "a man of good native intellect, and various attainments as a Christian minister, and especially well instructed, and deeply imbued with the principles and spirit of his vocation, as a primitive Methodist preacher. After a long life of laborious toil and effective service in the furtherance of the Gospel, this venerable servant of God and his Church, one of the first missionaries who penetrated the vast valley of the Mississippi, was released by death from his militant charge, and expiring in all the calmness and confidence of faith and hope, went to his reward." [18]

James Haw joined the itinerant ministry in 1781, and continued to travel till 1791, when, like most of his itinerant contemporaries, he located. "He was," says one who knew him well, "the first traveling Methodist preacher that entered on the field in Kentucky in 1786. He was an able and successful laborer in the Lord's vineyard. Numerous were the sufferings and hardships that he underwent in planting the standard of the cross in that wild and uncultivated region, surrounded with savages, and traveling from fort to fort, and every day exposing his life; but, notwithstanding every difficulty and embarrassment, the good work progressed. In the years 1787, 1788, and 1789, the holy flame spread all over Kentucky and Cumberland. Haw, Poythress, Wilson Lee, and Williamson, were the chief instruments in carrying on this great work." Haw was a man of ardent soul. We have noticed his letter, reported by Coke, to a Southern Conference, calling for martyrs for the Indian regions of Kentucky. A letter written by him to Asbury, in the beginning of the year 1789, says "Good news from Zion; the work of God is going on rapidly in this new world; a glorious victory the Son of God has gained, and he is still going on conquering and to conquer. Heaven rejoices daily over sinners that repent. At a Quarterly Meeting held in Bourbon County, Kentucky, July 19th and 20th, 1788, the Lord poured out his Spirit in a wonderful manner, first on the Christians, and sanctified several of them powerfully and gloriously, and, as I charitably hope, wholly. The seekers also felt the power and presence of God, and cried for mercy as at the point of death. We prayed with and for them, till we had reason to believe that the Lord converted seventeen or eighteen precious souls. Halleluiah, praise ye the Lord! As I went from that through the circuit to another Quarterly Meeting, the Lord converted two or three more. The Saturday and Sunday following the Lord poured out his Spirit again. The work of sanctification among the believers broke out at the Lord's table, and the Spirit went through the assembly like a mighty rushing wind. Some fell; many cried for mercy. Tears of sorrow for sin ran streaming down their eyes. Their prayers reached to heaven, and the Spirit of the Lord entered into them and filled fourteen or fifteen with peace and joy in believing. A few days after Brother Poythress came, and went with me to another Quarterly Meeting. We had another gracious season round the Lord's table, but no remarkable stir till after preaching; when under several exhortations some broke out into tears, others trembled, and some fell. The first round I went on Cumberland the Lord converted six precious souls; and every round I have reason to believe some sinners are awakened, some seekers joined to Society, and some penitents converted to God. At our Cumberland Quarterly Meeting the Lord converted six souls the first day, and one the next. The work still goes on. The Lord has converted several more precious souls in various parts of the circuit, and some more have joined the Society, so that we have one hundred and twelve disciples now in Cumberland, forty-seven of whom I trust have received the gift of the holy Ghost since they believed, and I hope these are but the first of a universal harvest which God will give us in this country. Brother Massie is with me, going on weeping over sinners, and the Lord blesses his labors. A letter from Brother Williamson, dated November 10th, 1788, informs me that the work is still going on rapidly in Kentucky. Indeed, the wilderness and solitary places are glad, and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose, and, I trust, will soon become beautiful as Tirza and comely as Jerusalem. What at shall I more say? Time would fail to tell you all the Lord's doings among us. It is marvelous in our eyes."

These two standard-bearers were soon reinforced. In 1787 Wilson Lee and Thomas Williamson joined them. In 1788 they had three circuits, Lexington, Danville, and Cumberland, and Peter Massie, Benjamin Snelling, David Coombs, Barnabas McHenry, and Poythress, were added to the little ministerial corps. Haw and Poythress had charge of them as elders. They reported 539 members. The next year Stephen Brooks and Joshua Hartley came to their help, and 1088 members were reported. In 1790 Samuel Tucker, Joseph Lillard, Henry Burchet, and David Haggard were the ministerial recruits, and the membership numbered 1366. In 1791 they reported 1969 members, and Joseph Tatman and James O'Cull were added to the itinerant band. In the last year of our present period (1792) they had four circuits, their membership had risen to 2,235, and John Ray, John Sewell, Benjamin Northcott, John Page, Richard Bird, John Ball, Jonathan Stephenson, and Isaac Hammer, were their reinforcement. [19] Of some of these itinerants we shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter. William Burke, one of their early successors, gives us notices of a few of them. Of McHenry, he says that he was one of the early fruits of Methodism in the Holston country. "He penetrated the wilderness, and came to the help of the Lord against the mighty. The band of young, resolute soldiers of the cross united under two old and experienced veterans, Francis Poythress and James Haw. Providence opened their way; they occupied the whole ground, and, with the assistance of the few local men who had been there before them, they carried the war into the camp of the enemy, and in a short time a powerful and extensive revival took place. Hundreds were added to the Church, and, considering the situation of the country, a wilderness, the Indians continually making depredations on the frontiers, and the people constantly harassed and penned up in forts and stations, it may be considered among the greatest revivals that was ever known. In this revival a number of wealthy and respectable citizens were added to the Church: the Hardins, Thomases, Hites, Lewises, Easlands, Mastersons, Kavanaughs, Tuckers, Richardsons, Letemors, Browns, Garretts, Churchfields, Jefferses, Hoards, and numbers of others of respectable standing in society; and out of this revival was raised up some useful and promising young men, who entered the traveling connection, and many made full proof of their ministry, and lived many years to ornament the Church of God. Peter Massie, who was termed the weeping prophet, was among the first-fruits. He was an instrument of great good wherever he went. He literally wore himself out in a few years. He was mighty in prayer, and always wished that he might die suddenly, and without lingering in pain." He labored faithfully for three years, and on the 18th of December, 1791, while sitting in his chair, at a "station" six miles south of Nashville, Tennessee, suddenly expired. "His remains lie near the Old Station, unhonored by a single stone, and to the present generation entirely unknown; but he rests from his labors in hope of a resurrection, while his immortal spirit is in the world of bliss and of glory." Others well known to the present generation of Methodists were also thrust out into the vineyard: John Ray, Benjamin Northcott, Joseph Lillard, and Joseph Tatman. In the year 1791 Henry Burchet and David Haggard, from the Virginia Conference, and James O'Cull, from the Redstone country, were sent out as a reinforcement, and united in carrying on the work, which was still in progress, notwithstanding the campaigns that were carried on against the Indians; for during this time Harmar and St. Clair had both been defeated on the north of the Ohio River, and the country was constantly kept in a state of agitation. Still Methodism held up her head, and presented a bold front. The Societies maintained their ground. In 1792, the number of members being 2,235, and the number of traveling preachers 11, there were about two hundred members to one preacher. "The reader may have some kind of an idea what kind of pecuniary support they had: traveling and preaching, night and day, in weariness and want; many days without the necessaries of life, and always without those comforts that are now enjoyed by traveling preachers; with worn and tattered garments, but happy, and united like a band of brothers. The Quarterly Meetings and Annual Conferences were high times. When the pilgrims came they never met without embracing each other, and never parted without weeping. Those were days that tried men's souls."

Thomas Williamson was a very successful and laborious itinerant. He wore himself out preaching, but ended his days in peace in the State of Kentucky, not far from Lexington. Wilson Lee was one of the most successful preachers of the times. He was a man of fine talents, meek and humble, of a sweet disposition, and not only a Christian, but much of a gentleman. During his stay in the West, from 1787 to 1792, he traveled over all the settlements of Kentucky and Cumberland, much admired and beloved. While he traveled in Kentucky he passed through many sufferings and privations, in weariness and want, in hunger and nakedness; hastening from fort to fort, sometimes with a guard and sometimes alone; often exposing his life to the savages, for scarcely a week passed without reports of some one falling a prey to them; and what is said of Lee may be said of all the Western preachers, as it respects their perils, till the year 1794, the year of Wayne's campaign, when the northern Indians were finally subdued.

In 1791 Henry Burchet was sent from the Virginia Conference, and stationed on Lexington Circuit; in 1792 on Salt River. On both these circuits he was eminently useful. He was very zealous, and declined no labor or suffering, but offered himself a willing sacrifice. He was among the first preachers in the West who took a deep interest in the rising generation. In every neighborhood, where it was practicable, he formed the children into classes, sang and prayed with and catechized them. In this labor he had a peculiar aptitude, and was remarkably successful. He fell at last in his work. At a Conference it appeared that Cumberland must be left without a preacher. Burchet said, "Here am I, send me." His friends remonstrated against his going; the distance was great; there was considerable danger from Indians; the small-pox prevailed in the country, and he was sick; but alter asking the consent of Bishop Asbury and the Conference, he said, "If I perish who can doubt of my eternal rest?" He labored with great success in Cumberland, and though much afflicted, he held on his way till late in the fall, when he was obliged to stop traveling. He was a welcome guest at the house of a rich planter, two miles west of Nashville, by the name of James Hockett, where he remained, enjoying the hospitality of the family and the visits of his numerous friends, till the month of February, 1794, when he died in hope of eternal blessedness. [20]

In 1791 James Haw located [21] and settled on the Cumberland River, where he became infected with O'Kelly's opinions; in 1801 he joined the Presbyterians, and died among them. [22]

We have followed Asbury repeatedly to these new fields, but without delaying to record the particulars of his visits, except in the instance of 1788, when he held the first Conference for the Holston country. In 1790, accompanied by Whatcoat, he again crossed the Alleghenies, and reached the interior of Kentucky. As they got among the Tennessean heights, from the southeast, and crossed the "Stone Mountain," Asbury wrote: "They who wash to know how rough it is may tread in our path." "Up the Iron Mountain we ascended, where we had many a seat to rest, and many a weary step to climb." "Now," he added the next day, "it is that we must prepare for danger in going through the wilderness . I received a faithful letter from Brother Poythress in Kentucky, encouraging me to come. This letter I think well deserving of publication. I found the poor preachers indifferently clad, with emaciated bodies, and subject to hard fare; yet I hope they are rich in faith."

Soon after he remarks: "We are now in a house in which a man was killed by the savages; and O, poor creatures, they are but one remove from savages themselves. I consider myself in danger, but my God will keep me while thousands pray for me." Whatcoat, his traveling companion, gives a fuller account of these Episcopal adventures in the far West. "After preaching," he says, "at several places in Georgia and North Carolina, we passed on for Kentucky. As we journeyed toward Holston night overtook us and we were shut in between two mountains. We gave our horses a little provender out of our sacks, let them loose, and struck up a fire; but a thunder-gust nearly put it out. The next day we pursued our journey toward General Russell's, and there we were kindly entertained. After a few days' rest we traveled on to the last station, in the Grassy Valley, expecting to meet a company to conduct us through the wilderness, according to appointment; but no company was heard of; and next morning our horses were gone. That day diligent search was made, but no horses were found; so the next day we packed up our saddles and baggage on Brother T. Henderson's horse, and returned ten miles back into the settlement. After we had been there a little while two boys followed us with our three horses. We traveled about the settlement, and held meetings for about a fortnight. One morning Bishop Asbury told me that he dreamed that he saw two men well mounted, who told him they were come to conduct him to Kentucky, and had left their company in the Grassy Valley. So it was. After preaching they made their appearance. We then got our horses shod, mustered up a little provision, joined our company, and passed through the wilderness, about one hundred and fifty miles. The first day we came to the new station. Here we lay under cover; but some of the company had to watch all night. The next two nights we watched by turns, some watching while others lay down. As there was not a good understanding between the savages and the white people, we traveled in jeopardy; but I think I never traveled with more solemn awe and serenity of mind. As we fed our horses three times a day, so we had prayer three times. Bishop Asbury preached at Henry Reynolds' on the 2th of May, on the 13th at Lexington, and on the 14th our Conference began at Richard Masterson's, near Lexington. We stayed about two weeks, and traveled about one hundred miles through the settlements, preached thirteen sermons, and then returned through the wilderness. Suspecting danger from the savages, we traveled one night and two days without lying down to rest. We called at General Russell's, who informed us that he and his lady had found peace with God. We came to George McNight's, on the Yadkin, the 3d of June. Here the preachers were waiting for the bishop to hold Conference with them. After the Conference closed we passed on, and came to Petersburg the 13th of June, and held Conference there." He adds that "from December 14, 1789, to April 20, 1790, we compute to have traveled two thousand five hundred and seventy-eight miles. Hitherto hath the Lord helped. Glory! glory to our God!"

The bishop records that in his Kentucky journey he was strangely outdone for want of sleep, having been greatly deprived of it through the wilderness; "which is like being at sea in some respects, and in others worse. Our way is over mountains, steep hills, deep rivers, and muddy creeks; a thick growth of reeds for miles together, and no inhabitants but wild beasts and savage men. Sometimes, before I am aware, my ideas would be leading me to be looking out ahead for a fence, and I would, without reflection, try to recollect the houses we should have lodged at in the wilderness. I slept about an hour the first night, and about two the last. We ate no regular meal; our bread grew short, and I was much spent. I saw the graves of the slain, twenty-four in one camp. I learn that they had set no guard, and that they were up late, playing at cards. A poor woman of the company had dreamed three times that the Indians had surprised and killed them all; she urged her husband to entreat the people to set a guard; but they only abused him, and cursed him for his pains. As the poor woman was relating her last dream the Indians came upon the camp. She and her husband sprung away, one east, the other west, and escaped. She afterward came back and witnessed the carnage. These poor sinners appeared to be ripe for destruction. I received an account of the death of another wicked wretch who was shot through the heart, although he had vaunted, with horrid oaths, that no Creek Indian could kill him. These are some of the melancholy accidents to which the country is subject for the present. As to the land, it is the richest body of fertile soil I have ever beheld."

Of this first Conference in Kentucky, the bishop says that it was held at Masterson's, "a very comfortable house, and kind people." They went through the business "in great love and harmony." He ordained Wilson Lee, Thos. Williamson, and Barnabas McHenry, elders. There was preaching noon and night, and "souls were converted, and the fallen restored. My soul has been blessed among these people, and I am exceedingly pleased with them. I would not, for the worth of all the place, have been prevented in this visit, having no doubt but that it will be for the good of the present and rising generation. It is true, such exertions of mind and body are trying; but I am supported under it if souls are saved it is enough. Brother Poythress is much alive to God. We fixed a plan for a school, and called it Bethel, and obtained a subscription of upward of three hundred pounds, in land and money, toward its establishment." Thus early did Methodism attempt to provide education for the West; too early, as we shall hereafter see. Bethel Academy started well, but failed, and in its fall dragged down the noble intellect of Poythress.

On their return they had quite a caravan, and Asbury seems to have directed its movements. He says: "Monday, May 24. We set out on our return through the wilderness with a large and helpless company. We had about fifty people, twenty of whom were armed, and five of whom might have stood fire. To preserve order and harmony we had articles drawn up for and signed by our company, and I arranged the people for traveling according to the regulations agreed upon. Some disaffected gentlemen, who would neither sign nor come under discipline, had yet the impudence to murmur when left behind. The first night we lodged some miles beyond the Hazel-patch. The next day we discovered signs of the Indians, and some thought they heard voices; we therefore thought it best to travel on, and did not encamp until three o'clock, halting on the east side of Cumberland River. We had gnats enough. We had an alarm, but it turned out to be a false one. A young gentleman, a Mr. Alexander, behaved exceedingly well; but his tender frame was not adequate to the fatigue to be endured, and he had well-nigh fainted on the road to Cumberland Gap. Brother Massie was captain, and finding I had gained authority among the people, I acted somewhat in the capacity of an adjutant and quartermaster among them. At the foot of the mountain the company separated, the greater part went on with me to Powell's River. Here we slept on the earth, and next day made the Grassy Valley. Several of the company, who were not Methodists, expressed their high approbation of our conduct, and most affectionately invited us to their houses. The journeys of each day were as follow: Monday, forty-five miles; Tuesday, fifty miles; Wednesday, sixty miles."

It was on this journey that he ordained, in Tennessee, the local preacher, Benjamin Van Pelt, the brother of his old friend Van Pelt, of Staten Island; and, soon after, he laid in the grave, with a funeral sermon, the pioneer hero, John Tunnell. On re-entering North Carolina he hastened to McKnight's, on the Yadkin River, "where the Conference," he says, "had been waiting for me nearly two weeks. We rejoiced together, and my brethren received me as one brought from the jaws of death." "I rode," he adds, "about three hundred miles to Kentucky in six days, and on my return about five hundred miles in nine days." Such was the primitive Episcopacy of Methodism. Can the success of the denomination remain a problem to any thoughtful man after such an example of the manner in which its highest dignitary labored and suffered? The humblest Itinerant in its vast field grew great with such a model before him.

In the spring of 1792 the bishop was again traversing these mountains and wildernesses from Georgia. He had to ford creeks, "steeped to the waist," to lodge in wretched cabins, sometimes among "such a set of sinners as made it next to hell itself." He traveled with immigrants and a guard. Swimming Laurel River, they reached Rock Castle, Kentucky, on the 3d of April. The next day he wrote: "How much I have suffered in this journey is known only to God and myself. What added much to its disagreeableness is the extreme filthiness of the houses." He arrived at Bethel, where he held the Kentucky Conference, amid a vast gathering of the settlers of all the surrounding regions. "I am," he says, "too much in company, and hear so much about Indians, convention, treaty, killing, and scalping, that my attention is dawn more to these things than I could wash. I found it good to get alone in the woods and converse with God." On the 30th he writes: "An alarm was spreading of a depredation committed by the Indians on the east and west frontiers of the settlement. In the former, report says one man was killed; in the latter, many men, with women and children. Everything is in motion. There having been so many about me at Conference, my rest was much broken. I hoped now to repair it, and get refreshed before I set out to return through the wilderness; but the continual arrival of people until midnight, the barking of dogs, and other annoy annoyances, prevented. Next night we reached the Crab Orchard, where thirty or forty people were compelled to crowd into one mean house. We could get no more rest here than we did in the wilderness. We came the old way by Scagg's Creek and Rock Castle, supposing it to be safer, as it was a road less frequented, and therefore less liable to be waylaid by the savages. My body by this time is well tried. I had a violent fever and pain in the head, such as I had not lately felt. I stretched my self on the cold ground, and borrowing clothes to keep me warm, by the mercy of God I slept four or five hours. Next morning we set off early and passed beyond Richland Creek. Here we were in danger if anywhere. I could have slept, but was afraid. Seeing the drowsiness of the company I walked the encampment, and watched the sentries the whole night. Early next morning we made our way to Robinson's station. We had the best company I ever met with, thirty-six good travelers and a few warriors; but we had a pack-horse, some old men, and two tired horses. These were not the best part. Saturday, May 5. Through infinite mercy we came safe to Crabb's. Rest, poor house of clay, from such exertions! Return, O my soul, to thy rest!"

He held the Holston Conference in the second week in May, and, passing through a valley where for fifty miles there was no house, he at last reached Uniontown, Penn., still beyond the Alleghenies, "both men and horses sore and weary." "O how good," he exclaims there, "are clean houses, plentiful tables, and populous villages, when compared with the rough world we have come through! Here I turned out our poor horses to pasture and to rest, after riding them nearly three hundred miles in eight days."

The local traces of the great Methodist bishop in these Western wilds are still sacred places of pilgrimage to Methodists. "I confess," says a traveler, visiting one of them in the Holston Mountains, "to a peculiar train of emotions as I walked amid the scenes once familiar to the apostle of American Methodism. One place is a quiet East Tennessee Valley, a few miles north of the Paint Rock, on the French Broad River. Along the tortuous course of this headlong mountain-born stream the itinerant bishop used to travel, as you will see by reference to his Journal. Before he would ascend this stream from the valley of East Tennessee to the Carolinas he would here pause, as if to summon his energies for the difficult task; and then again, on his return through these lofty mountains, the most elevated in the Union east of the Rocky Range, he would pause again at this wayside home as if to rest from the fatigue of the way. Here he tarried and preached and wrote and refreshed himself, and thanked God and took courage. The house is a non-descript in modern architecture, and is venerable for its age. It was built in troublous times with the Indians, and in what were then the extreme borders of civilization. The Cherokees, in some respects the greatest tribe of aborigines, had their seat of empire but a few leagues distant, and at that time claimed all the country along these valleys as theirs. Hence the building was wisely put up of massive logs from the great forest, well hewn and strongly fitted together; the chimneys large, and built of limestone rocks obtained near by. They are two in number, and are placed outside the ends of the house. An old-fashioned porch runs the whole length of the building. There appears to have been originally no windows in the lower story for Indian eyes or bullets. The upper story is attic, very low. There are two rooms above corresponding with the two below, and are furnished with small fireplaces, the flues communicating with the chimneys. Each of these upper rooms is well ceiled, the ceiling overhead being fitted to the rafters. They are furnished with eight, though small, windows in the gable, there being one on each side of the chimneys, compose of eight panes. The south room in the attic still goes by the name of 'The Bishop's Room.' Here were his candlestick and table and bed, etc. The bed occupied a corner, and when the wayfaring bishop rested his weary head upon his pillow it was in close proximity to the roof. Here, I doubt not, he slept soundly to the music of the falling rain. Here he slept and roamed in dreams over all his wide-extended work, perchance back to his European home and friends, and then waked to the stern realities of the Western wilderness. Hard by the door of the bishop's wayside home springs from the earth a mammoth fountain of the purest water, abundant enough to supply a great city. It is environed with huge primitive limestone rocks, in the crevices of which ancient elms rear aloft their great forms, and spread wide their giant arms that have battled with the storms of many centuries. On these rocks, beneath these great trees, once sat the man of God, thankful for this cooling fountain, as he rested from the toils of his continent-circuit. To him such a retreat must have been exceedingly grateful. The host and hostess of Asbury have long since followed him to the region of the dead. The old homestead descended to a son, who retains a lively memory of the good old bishop. But the wayside home of Asbury, like the tombs of the prophets and the sepulcher of the Saviour, has passed into the hands of unbelievers and enemies." [23]

Thus had Methodism broken through the mountain barriers of the West. Soon after our present chronological period we shall find it extending energetically over the great Valley of the Mississippi. [24] By the close of this period there were nearly five thousand seven hundred recognized Methodists and thirty-five traveling preachers beyond the Alleghenies. It will not be many years before we shall see organized the great "old Western Conference," reaching from the Lakes to Natchez, with its giant itinerants, McKendree, Roberts, Scott, Kobler, Lakin, Sale, Parker, Blackman, Beauchamp, Collins, Young, Strange, Raper, Cartwright, Finley, Elliott, and hosts of others — the men who chiefly laid the moral foundations of the mighty states of the Mississippi Valley.

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ENDNOTES

1 Quinn's Life, by Rev. J. F. Wright, p. 29. Cincinnati. 1851.

2 Lambert was a native of New Jersey. Ware erroneously gives his Christian name as John.

3 Finley's Sketches of Western Methodism, p.133. Cincinnati. 1857.

4 "Redstone was the name given by those living on the east of the mountains to all the country settled by the whites on the west of the mountains, though among the settlers themselves it was the name of an inconsiderable creek; but on it were the first settlements made. Uniontown, Fayette County, is near its head, and Brownsville near the mouth. The country itself, into which our missionaries entered, and which they occupied under the name of Redstone, was of considerable extent, embracing parts of the States of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and may be called the head of the great and fat valley. At that time Pennsylvania had four organized counties west of the mountains, Westmoreland, Fayette, Allegheny, and Washington; and Virginia had two, perhaps three, Monongalia, Harrison, and Ohio." — Quinn's Life, p. 31.

5 Quinn, p. 54.

6 The Rev. Greenberry Jones, of the Ohio Conference.

7 Quinn wrote in 1889.

8 "But he took orders, got a black gown and white band, and came out a parson. I have heard both Joseph and Dr. Joseph Dodridge preach, and, according to my recollection and judgment, I think Joseph could preach as well as the doctor, if not a little better. The difference was this: Joseph preached and the doctor read." — Quinn.

9 Religious Intelligencer, Morristown, Tenn. 1858.

10 Finley, p. 57, is incorrect. See Minutes of 1783 and 1784

11 Rev. William Burke, in Finley's Sketches of Western Methodism, p. 28.

12 Compare Ware (p. 151 and Asbury (ii, 33.) Quinn (Life, p. 51) says the Uniontown Conference was held in 1787 — evidently an error. Compare Minutes, 1786-87, with Asbury. I know no reason to doubt, however, that the first ordination in the valley of the Mississippi was at Uniontown, as usually supposed.

13 Theophilus Armenius (Rev. Dr. Hind) in Methodist Magazine, 819, p.184. "I am personally acquainted," says this writer, "with another local preacher, who about this time was fired on while descending the same river, and had one arm shattered by a ball from the guns of the same enemy."

14 Finley's Sketches, p. 62.

15 These two pioneers have met with a hard fate in our vague account of those early times. Bangs (i, 253) says "they soon after departed from the work, being seduced by James O'Kelly and his party." Bangs' authority was Dr. Hind, who says (Math. Mag., 1819, p. 136) that they not only seceded, but" both went to nothing;" one long since dead, the other "a poor backslider." I qualify these statements by the authority of J. W. Gunn, of Kentucky. Burke, in Finley, is also one of my best authorities. There is some truth in these imputations, but it is too deeply colored, as my narrative shows.

16 St. Louis Christian Advocate, 1859. The Rev. Dr. Stevenson was a son of this family.

17 Finley's Sketches, p. 48. Cartwright's Autobiography, p. 40.

18 Minutes of 1836.

19 These particulars do not correspond with the Minutes, but I prefer the authority of Burke, in Finley's Sketches, p. 65.

20 I often visited his grave in 1795 and 1798; but I suppose since that day strangers are in the possession of the premises, and every vestige of the spot where he lies is obliterated, and, with the exception of a few, his name is forgotten. It is now forty-five years since Henry Burchet ceased to labor and to live. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth, saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labors, and their works fellow them." — Burke

21 Burke says his "labors closed" in 1789.

22 Finley's Sketches, p. 48.

23 Rev. J. H. Braner, in St. Louis Christian Advocate, November; 1859.

24 "Ohio" is recorded in the Minutes as early as 1787; but it designated a circuit in Pennsylvania and Virginia, on the eastern bank of the river. Methodism entered the state under the labors of McCormick, a local preacher, in 1796, as we shall hereafter have occasion to notice.

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