VOLUME 4 — BOOK V — CHAPTER XX
METHODISM IN THE WEST, CONTINUED: 1790 — 1804

McKendree takes Charge of the Western Field — Poythress' Decline and Insanity — Introduction of Camp-meetings — Remarkable Scenes at them — Grenade — David Young — Making a Circuit — The Southwest opens — Tobias Gibson at Natchez — He falls a Martyr to his Work — Recruits for the Field — Learner Blackman — Methodism in Ohio — McCormick — Dimmitt — Kobler sent to Ohio — Hunt and Smith there — the Miami and Sciota Circuits — Advance of the Church — Philip Gatch in the West — Kobler at the Grave of Gatch — McCormick's End — Sale in Ohio — Methodism in Cincinnati — At other points in Ohio — Bostwick in the Western Reserve — Methodism enters Indiana and Illinois — Benjamin Young — Hardships there — Methodism in Michigan — Planted at Detroit — Asbury in the West in 1797 — terrible Trials there — He has to retreat — Returns in 1800 — Conference at Bethel, Ky. — Its Academy — The First Camp-meetings — Sufferings on the route Eastward — Returns in 1801 — Conference in Tennessee — Back again in 1802 — Reposing on the Holston Heights — Conference at Bethel — The Bishop in a Storm — Reflections on his Sufferings — Again in the West in 1803 — Conference at Cynthiana, Ky. — Early Life in the West — Statistics

The year 1800 was signalized in western Methodist history by the appearance of William McKendree at the head of the pioneer itinerants. Poythress, hitherto its chief representative man, was beginning to totter in both mind and body, and it now needed an able commander. Poythress has often appeared on the scene, and always as a giant among his greatest compeers. Few of the early itinerants did more to lay the foundations of the Church both east and west of the Mountains. He was one of the most zealous laborers for its educational interests, and fell a martyr to his devotion to that cause. He was the chief founder of the first Methodist seminary in the West — the Bethel Academy in Jessamine County, Ky. Its edifice was a large brick structure of two stories, and it had incurred a considerable debt, which weighed down his noble mind till it sunk in ruins. All efforts of himself, Valentine Cook, and other co-laborers, to retrieve the institution failed, and Poythress lingered a wreck like his favorite project. At the session of the Western Conference, held at Bethel in 1802, an intimation was recorded in its journals of his "critical state of unaccountability." His name was ordered to be "left off the General Minutes;" but the Conference expressed itself as "tenderly concerned for his support and welfare, and therefore resolved that his name shall stand on our Journal" and "further, that his name should be perpetuated on the Journal of this Conference." [1] Accordingly his name, after remaining among the elders during 1802 and 1803, but nowhere else, disappears from the Minutes. [2] This fact, together with a hasty allusion to him in Asbury's Journals, as late as 1810, has given the unfortunate impression that he apostatized. Asbury's brief, unqualified allusions to other men are often liable to such misinterpretation. Fortunately for our own feelings, as well as for the reputation of this great and good man, a living witness of Asbury's interview with him has unveiled the mystery, and shed a clear though saddened light on his grave, after doubt if not reproach has hung for half a century over his memory in much of our literature. Henry Boehm was the traveling companion of Asbury in the West at the time of Asbury's unfortunate record. Boehm says: "On Monday we visited an old minister, one of the pioneers of the West, and the bishop makes this melancholy record. I never read it without pain: 'This has been an awful day to me. I visited Francis Poythress. If thou be he; but O how fallen!' Perhaps no record in his journals has been so little understood as this, and none is more liable to be misinterpreted. Some have supposed that he had fallen like wretched apostates who have made shipwreck of the faith; but it was not so, and the bishop would not willingly or knowingly have done the unfortunate brother injustice. My journal reads thus: 'Monday 15, we went with Brother Harris to see Francis Poythress, one of our old preachers. He has been for a year in a state of insanity, and is still in a distressed of mind.' This is the record I made over fifty years ago, and it was italicized as the reader now sees it. Francis Poythress was one of the leaders in our Israel. He was admitted into the traveling connection at the third Conference, held in 1776, with Freeborn Garrettson, Joseph Hartley, Nicholas Watters, and others. He was a pioneer of the West, In 1790, John Tunnel dying, Francis Poythress was appointed elder at the West, having five large circuits on his district, and on them were Wilson Lee, James Haw, and Barnabas McHenry. We have not space to trace his history. His excessive labors shattered his system, and his body and intellect were both injured. About the year 1800 he became deranged, and a gloom settled down upon him not to be removed. When Asbury saw him he was shocked, contrasting his former look with his appearance then. He was then living with his sister, twelve miles below Lexington. Bishop Asbury never saw him more; death soon came to the relief of poor Francis Poythress, and none who knew him doubt that he is among the clear unclouded intellects of the upper and better world." [3] His old friend, Judge Scott, has paid a befitting tribute to his memory. "Poythress," he says, "was grave in his deportment and chaste in his conversation, constant in his private devotions and faithful in the discharge of his ministerial duties. We have no recollection of his having ever disappointed a congregation, unless prevented by sickness or disease. As often as practicable he visited from house to house, instructed and prayed in the family. He was unwearied in his efforts to unite the traveling and local ministry as a band of brothers, so that their united efforts might be exerted in furthering the cause of God. As the weight of all the Churches in his district rested upon him, he sensibly felt the responsibility of his station, and put forth his utmost efforts to discharge, with fidelity, the important trusts which had been confided to him. The education of the rising generation he deemed to be intimately connected with the interests of the Church, and the result of that conviction was the erection of Bethel Academy. He was about five feet eight or nine inches in height, and heavily built. His muscles were large, and when in the prime of life, he was a man of more than ordinary muscular strength. He dressed plain and neat. When we first saw him, we suppose, he had passed his sixtieth year. His muscles were quite flaccid, eyes sunken in his head, hair gray, turned back, hanging down on his shoulders; complexion dark, and countenance grave, inclining to melancholy. His step was, however, firm, and his general appearance such as to command respect. He possessed high, honorable feelings, and a deep sense of moral obligations. In general, he was an excellent disciplinarian. Among the eight pioneers of Methodism in Kentucky and Tennessee in the year 1788, the name of Francis Poythress stands pre-eminent. By these intrepid heroes of the cross the foundation of Methodism was laid in those states, on which others have since built, and others are now building. Their names ought to be held in grateful remembrance by all who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth; but among all, we are inclined to the opinion, there is not one of them to whom the members of our Church, in those states, owe a greater debt of gratitude than to Francis Poythress." [4]

We have seen McKendree tending westward for some years among the mountain appointments of Western Virginia, and witnessed his departure on his transmontane route with Asbury and Whatcoat, without his "money, books, or clothes." They passed over the mountains, down the Holston River, into Tennessee, into the valley of Church River, where, reaching a "station" on the outskirts of the settlements, they combined with other travelers to form a company, and, on the 27th of September, 1800, began their course direct to Kentucky. Wearied and sick, they reached Bethel Academy, Jessamine County, and there held the Western Conference in the first week of October, the first session of that body of which there remains any correct record. [5] Ten traveling preachers were present, including Asbury and Whatcoat; the session lasted but two days; two candidates were admitted on probation, one member located, fourteen local and four traveling preachers were ordained. Some of the members of the small body lingered long in the Church, but all have now gone to their rest.

After the session Asbury, Whatcoat, and McKendree traveled and preached together, from the center of Kentucky to Nashville, in Tennessee, and thence to Knoxville, where they parted, McKendree returning to his great district, which comprised thirteen circuits, over which he went preaching night and day with an ardor befitting so grand a sphere, and such sublime results as he could justly anticipate for the rising commonwealths around him, whose moral foundations Methodism was now effectively laying. An extraordinary religious excitement spread over all the country. It was largely attributable to the introduction of camp-meetings at this time — a provision which, however questionable in dense communities, seemed providentially suited to these sparsely settled regions. In the latter part of 1799, John and William Magee, who were brothers, the first a Methodist local preacher, the second a Presbyterian minister, started from their settlement in Tennessee to make a preaching tour into Kentucky. Their first labors were with a Presbyterian Church on Red River, where remarkable effects attended their labors, and excited such general interest that, at their next meeting, on Muddy River, many distant families came with wagons and camped in the woods. This was, in fact, the beginning of religious "camp-meetings" in the United States. [6] The co-operation of the brothers, though of different creeds, presented a grateful example of Christian fellowship, and the settlers, of whatever faith, gladly copied it, so that the earliest camp-meetings were catholic or "union meetings," composed of Presbyterians, Methodists, and nearly every sect in the country. They soon became general through all the Western Territories, and, at last, throughout the nation and Upper Canada. Ten, twenty, or more thousands attended them, devoting usually a week exclusively to religious exercises, living in tents or booths, which were arranged in circles around a rude pulpit or platform, and were illuminated at night by torches or pine-knots, and governed by prescribed rules and a temporary police. The poetic grandeur of the primitive forest, lit up at night by the stars above and the torches below, resounding with hymns which seemed like "the voice of many waters;" the powerful eloquence of the itinerants, who could hardly fail, in such circumstances, to reach their maximum ability; the opportunities of social greeting afforded by such assemblings to the dispersed settlers; and, above all, the religious enthusiasm which such unwonted and protracted exercises could not fail to produce, rendered the camp-meeting immediately a favorite occasion, and drew the people, as in armies, from all distances within two or three hundred miles. They soon bore the name of "general camp meetings" from their catholic character, as combining all sects. As they were Presbyterian as well as, or even more than Methodist in their origin, Presbyterian clergymen were generally active in them. A great one was held in Cambridge, seven miles from Paris, Ky., soon after their introduction, which produced a general sensation; thousands of persons were present from all parts of the state, and even from Ohio; it continued a week. Hundreds fell to the earth as dead men under the preaching. At another, held at Cabbin Creek, Ky., twenty thousand were present; thousands fell as slain in battle, and the religious interest of the whole state seemed to be quickened by its results. Astonishing effects attended another on Desher's Creek, near Cumberland River; "the people fell under the power of the word like corn before a storm of wind." A young man of shattered mind and body, who for a long time had wasted to a shadow by religious melancholy and despair, was present; amid the falling hosts he also sunk down to the ground, but rose renewed in spirit and health, and being educated, and a man of ardent and poetic nature, became one of the most effective itinerants among the Holston heights and the settlements of Kentucky and Tennessee. The name of Grenade is still remembered among the elder Methodist families of the West. His revival hymns were once familiar through most of their circuits.

McKendree, as he passed over his vast district, promoted these meetings, and it was not long before the Methodist itinerants were thus making their word resound in all parts of the state. New societies were abundantly organized, and the Church assumed unprecedented vigor. At the close of his second year on the district seven new circuits had been formed, and the one district was divided into three. The mere handful of members, scattered here and there in the settlements, now numbered at least eight thousand, having increased more than five thousand in the last two years. The little Conference of twelve members had more than doubled its numbers. No small part of the impetus which had been given to the Western work was through the preaching and superior wisdom of McKendree as the presiding elder. [8]

One of the most interesting characters in Methodist biography was recorded in the appointments of 1802, Jacob Young, a man of such evangelical simplicity and purity, such good sense in counsel, and perspicuity and pertinence in speech, so entertaining in conversation and of such cordiality of manners, and saintliness of character, that the most obstinate opposers and most fastidious critics were won by him, notwithstanding the faithfulness of his admonitions, and some obvious defects made the more obnoxious to criticism by the peculiar recitative tone of his preaching. He survived far into our day, not only revered by, but endeared to all who knew him, by the peculiar charm of his character, as well as by his long and faithful public services. His simple narrative of his early travels and labors is one of the most entertaining records in the literature of the Church; and no book gives us more striking and characteristic, though transient, glimpses of early Western and early Methodist life. [9] He was born on the western frontier of Pennsylvania, in Allegheny County, in 1776. His childhood was beset with Indian perils, and he grew up remarkable for activity and courage. His mind seemed to take, at a very early age, a spontaneous bias toward a religious life. In his fifteenth year he removed, with his family, into Kentucky, and settled on its frontier in Henry County. When he was about twenty-one years of age the Methodist itinerants reached his neighborhood, and his sensitive soul was soon wrestling with the problems of life, death, and eternity. He "wept bitterly" under the preaching of young Hunt, one of the earliest martyrs to the Western itinerancy, and a pioneer in Ohio as well as Kentucky. The youthful backwoodsmen fell under his word to the floor. "My tears flowed," he says, "my knees became feeble, I trembled like Belshazzar, the great deep of my heart was broken up." "Toward midnight God in mercy lifted up the light of his countenance upon me, and I was translated from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son, and rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory." He began family prayer in his father's cabin, and it was not long before his "father, mother, and almost the whole family embraced religion, and were enrolled as Methodists." His brother Benjamin was among these converts, and became a preacher; the first who bore the standard of Methodism into Illinois.

In 1799 he was laboring as an exhorter amid the great revivals that then prevailed in Kentucky. In 1801 he was licensed as a local preacher; McKendree met him on his great district, "covering the whole of Kentucky and Tennessee," and extending into Ohio. "He had been but a few months," says Young, "on the ground when he understood perfectly his field of labor, moving day and night, visiting families, organizing societies, and holding quarterly Conferences. It was his constant practice to travel from thirty to fifty miles in a day, and preach at night. All classes of people flocked to hear him; statesmen, lawyers, doctors, and theologians of all denominations clustered around him, saying, as they returned home, 'Did you ever hear the like before?' Some, indeed, were so captivated, that they would say, 'Never man spake like this man.' He saw that the harvest was truly great, and the laborers few. Early in the morning and late in the evening, with streaming eyes he prayed God, with hands and heart uplifted, that he would send forth more laborers into the harvest. He was actively engaged in forming new circuits, and calling out local preachers to fill them. Whenever he found a young man of piety and native talent, he led him out into the Lord's vineyard; and large as his district was, it soon became too small for him. He extended his labors to every part of Southwestern Virginia, then crossing the Ohio River, he carried the holy war into the state of Ohio, and there he formed new charges, and called out young men. They found that he gloried in doing the hardest of the work, and his example inspired them with the same spirit. McKendree, like a noble general, was always in the first ranks, followed by such men as Thomas Wilkinson, John Page, Lewis Garrett, and Jesse Walker. Under the supervision of these men the preachers were stationed. Throughout the length and breadth of the West, as far as the country was settled, McKendree was first in counsel, and first in action. If he appeared on a campground every eye was upon him, and his word was law. In private circles, Quarterly Conferences, and Annual Conferences he was the master-spirit."

In 1802 McKendree summoned Young into the itinerancy. Happily, at one of his appointments on the circuit, lived Barnabas McHenry. "I may truly say," writes Young, "he was a man by himself. He was, at least, fifty years before the time in which he lived. He had not a collegiate education, but was one of the best English scholars I ever saw. I feel myself greatly indebted to that good man for the instruction I received from him at that early period of my life."

He completed his first round of Salt River Circuit in six weeks, traveling five hundred miles, preaching fifty sermons, holding many class and prayer meetings, visiting many families, and rejoicing over this laborious field as the happiest scene of his life. "I now," he says, "began to feel myself pretty well harnessed for the battle. My soul had caught the missionary fire, and I felt disposed to go on." A great revival spread over the circuit. His next scene of labor was Wayne Circuit, his colleague being James Gwinn, "then called Colonel Gwinn, afterward General Jackson's chaplain at the famous battle of New Orleans."

They divided their labors, proposing to form two circuits on Green River. The young evangelist had now strange work. He must form his own appointments, organize his Churches, and break his way through the wilderness as best he could. His record shows how such work was done in those times. "In two days," he says, "I arrived at Manoah Lasley's, where I spent a few days, rested my horse, and recruited my wardrobe. I found myself at a very great loss to know how to form a circuit in that vast wilderness, and had no one to instruct me. I preached, on Sabbath day, in Father Lasley's house, and set off on Monday on my great and important enterprise. I concluded to travel five miles, as nearly as I could guess, then stop, reconnoiter the neighborhood, and find some kind person who would let me preach in his log-cabin, and so on till I had performed the entire round."

He found his way full of difficulties; but they readily yielded to his charming manners and indomitable spirit. He met many northern Methodist settlers buried in the woods, for a long time without the means of grace, and who hailed him with rapturous welcomes. Our volume could be filled with thrilling incidents from his narrative, all of which are historical in their significance, if not in their local importance. Soon after he had started on his route he says: "I had a long ride through a dreary country. Late in the evening I came to a little log-cabin, standing in the woods, with no stable or outbuildings of any kind. Seeing a woman in the door, I rode up and asked if I could stay all night; she seemed to think not. I paused a few moments, thinking what to do. I was afraid to go any farther, lest I should have to lie out all night. That I was afraid to do, as the weather was very cold, and there were always a great many ravenous wolves in the barrens. My life would be in danger, and there was nothing to encourage me to stay at this place. I knew I would have to tie my hungry, tired horse to a tree, without any shelter or food. The woman was unwilling to let me stay. She was not entirely alone, but had several children, and one daughter partly grown, which inclined me to think I could stay with safety. I finally concluded to let her know who I was, and what business I was on. I said to her, 'I am a Methodist preacher, sent by Bishop Asbury to try to form a circuit.' This information appeared to electrify her. Her countenance changed, and her eyes fairly sparkled. She stood some time without speaking, and then exclaimed, 'Has a Methodist preacher come at last? Yes, brother, you shall stay all night. Mr. Carson is not at home, but we will do the best we can for you with a glad heart.' I alighted from my horse, and went into the house. The children clustered around me as if some near friend had come. After having gone through with the usual ceremonies, my next concern was to take care of my horse. Their oldest daughter, a pleasant girl, provided me with a halter, and directed me to a suitable tree where my horse could stand. I soon found I was to have a comfortable night's rest. They furnished me with plenty of good sound corn for my horse. The cabin, and what little furniture they had, was neat and clean. Supper was soon served up, just such as suited me, corn fried venison, and crop-vine tea. Mrs. Carson then told me her history. She and her husband were both raised in North Carolina. They both experienced a change of heart when young. Her husband had been class-leader for some years before he left his native state. They had emigrated in order to buy land for their children. They had purchased a pretty large tract on one of the tributaries of Green River, lying about ten miles from where they then lived, and her husband was now at work on their own land. He had cleared out a small farm, and built a tolerable large house, which he was furnishing. By the time I came round again they would have it ready for me to preach in. I spent the evening pleasantly, and by the time day dawned was on my way in search of another appointment. My ride was along the dividing ridge between Green River and Salt River. In the evening I stopped at the house of a man by the name of Honnel. He was in pretty good circumstances for that country, had a convenient house, and very willingly opened it for preaching. I stayed all night, and the next day preached to 'a small congregation; had some encouragement, and in the afternoon went on my way rejoicing. Late in the evening I came to a Mr. Cooper's. He was a local preacher; but, from the manner in which he received me, I thought he took me for an impostor. In family prayer he officiated himself. The family were reserved, and I had nothing to say. They fed my horse, gave me my supper, and a place to sleep. Next morning they told me I might preach. The word was circulated, and at eleven o'clock the congregation began to come together. The first man that came was a Seceder; as I had been reared among Seceders, he became much attached to me, and gave me all the encouragement he could. I tried to preach, God gave me great freedom of speech, and we had an excellent meeting, and Brother Cooper wept much. Here we organized a small class, and, having tarried one night longer, the next morning I started early. Brother Cooper and his wife went with me. About ten o'clock we halted at Mr. McCowan's. Here I was astonished to find a large congregation assembled. This being the Sabbath, they had come, hoping to meet the preacher, hearing there was one on his way to form a circuit. The house was a large, double cabin, with both rooms full, and a good many in the yard. I saw many Methodists among them, and they were singing Methodist hymns in a revival spirit. I spent most of the afternoon in class-meeting. This was truly a good day to my soul, and to the souls of many others. Here I found a class of about fifty members ready formed to my hand. I took some pains to learn the history of this society. It was formed by a local preacher who had resided several years in that vicinity. I regulated the society, appointed a class-leader, etc., and went on, bearing toward the Crab Orchard. I preached at Mr. Samuel Stewart's, and found a small class. Here I regulated matters, and appointed a class-leader. In this neighborhood I found a great many Baptists, who received me as the Lord's messenger. I felt myself at home, and would gladly have spent days in the place, but my work was before me. Before night I met with a man, who gave me a cordial invitation to preach in his house, where, finding a small society already organized, I made them a class-paper, appointed them a leader," etc.

Thus had Methodism, by its peculiar practical system, been working like leaven all through these obscure regions. It trained its humblest people to labor in religion, and some of the humblest were the most useful. Young now met another striking example. He found a man who could exhort, and forced him into the service. They "traveled about twenty miles on Fishing Creek, and put up with an old gentleman by the name of Chappel. This was a curious neighborhood. Several things, worthy of remark, came under my observation. There was a Methodist society here, the preacher of which was a colored man by the name of 'Jacob.' I believe every member had been awakened under his preaching, said, by the assistance of Mr. Chappel's daughters, he had organized them into a class. One of the girls made out a class-paper, and they appointed Jacob leader. He was both preacher and leader; and, although he could not read a word, he could preach a good sermon. He had a kind master, who would read for him Saturday evenings; and when a text was read that suited Jacob, he would ask his master to read it again, memorize the text, book, chapter, and verse; then he was ready for his work. The next day was the Sabbath. The congregation was large, and I found his society in excellent order. I preached several times, and left this delightful place on Monday morning. I moved on toward the West. Some time after dark, and while stopping at a tavern, a man called at the door. Being asked what he wanted, he inquired if there was not a Methodist preacher there. I heard him, and was soon on the porch. He said he understood I was forming a circuit through that country, and wanted me to take in his house for one of the appointments. I asked him how far off he lived. 'Ten miles.' I replied, 'I will go with you tonight.' At a very late hour we arrived at a small log-cabin. He kindled a fire on the hearth, the light shone brightly, and I took a close view of everything within. I am sure it would have frightened anybody but a backwoodsman. There was no floor in the house. They had leveled off the ground, and made it somewhat smooth. There were hickory poles laid across in the place of joists. Some clapboards laid on these poles constituted the upper floor. There was neither bedstead, chair, nor table in the house. Some small stakes or forks had been driven down in the west corner of the cabin; they laid two round poles in the forks, and placed clapboards on these poles. This was their bedstead. Some bedding, such as it was, formed all the sleeping place I saw for the man and his wife. The little Negro boy slept on the ground floor with a deerskin under him. I saw no cupboard furniture, excepting some earthen bowls of inferior quality. The woman of the house was badly crippled. I felt rather melancholy, and my mind began to run back to days of other years, when I was dwelling among my own people in ease and plenty; here I was in a strange land, without friends or money. The squalid appearance of the inside of the house made an impression on my mind that never can be erased. Surrounded by these gloomy circumstances, I had no friend to fly to but the Redeemer. I kneeled down and prayed, and the Lord blessed me. I felt happy and resigned to my lot. The next thing was to make my bed, and lie down to sleep. I spread, for my bed, a blanket that I kept under my saddle, and took a stool for my pillow. I had another blanket on which I rode; this I used for a sheet. My saddle-bags on the stool made my pillow soft, my overcoat became my covering. I thanked God that I had a pretty comfortable bed. I thought within myself, I am better off than my Saviour was, for he 'had not where to lay his head;' and far 'happier than the rich, who roll on beds of down, and enjoy all the luxuries of life. I had a comfortable night's rest, and rose in the morning much refreshed, and prepared for my day's labor. Breakfast was soon served up on a board bench. It consisted of corn and milk, but no spoons. When I turned up the bowl to drink, a black ring would make its appearance from the sediments in the bottom. Breakfast being over I retired to the woods, and spent the forenoon in reading and praying till preaching time. Returning, I saw the cabin pretty well filled with men and women. Although it was late in November, many of them had neither hats nor bonnets on their heads, nor shoes on their feet. I took my stand opposite the door, read a hymn, began to sing, and while I was singing, a remarkable man made his appearance. He was so distinguished from other men, that I will give some account of him. He was very large, with strongly-marked features. From the muscles of his face I perceived that he was a man of strong natural courage. He had a high forehead, very wide between the eyes, with a broad face; his whole form was well proportioned, his eyeballs remarkably large, showing a great deal of white. He fixed his eyes upon me, and looked as if he were scanning my whole person. Had I not been used to seeing rough men on the frontier of Kentucky, I should have been frightened. I looked him full in the eyes, and scanned him closely. His hair appeared as though it had never been combed, and made me think of old Nebuchadnezzar, and his head 'like eagles' feathers.' He wore no hat; his collar was open, and his breast bare; there was neither shoe nor moccasin on his feet. I finished my hymn, kneeled down and prayed, and took my text to preach. The man looked for no seat, but stood erect, gazing on me. Before I was half through I saw the tears roll down his rough cheeks. I closed, and told them that on that day four weeks I would be there again. I rode away, but could not forget the big man. I was sure he had distinguished himself some way, which made me anxious to find out his history. I soon learned that he was brother-in-law to the famous robber, Micajah Harp, a character so well known in the history of the West. No doubt they had been together in many a bloody affray. On my next round he joined the Church, and soon afterward became a Christian. He could neither read nor write. I procured him a spelling-book. His wife taught him to read, and he soon learned to write. On my third or fourth round I appointed him class-leader. He trimmed off his hair, bought a new hat, clothed himself pretty well, and became a respectable man. I heard of him several years afterward, and he was still holding on his heavenly way."

Such facts show the times, and the manner in which Methodism met them, better than could whole chapters of dissertation. In almost all the settlements Young had similar adventures and success, and left them, followed with the blessings of the people, who were hungry for the word of life. "The people gathered around me," he says, in speaking of his leave-taking in a neighborhood, which was an example of most of them; "some talked, others shouted, I wept. I mounted my horse, and rode away. While passing through a dense forest I said to myself; 'These are great and glorious days!' I was thankful that I had left father, mother, and all the world, to preach the gospel to perishing sinners. Coming to a little cabin standing in the barrens, I tarried all night there, preached next morning, and in the afternoon rode to the Rev. Noah Lasley's, the place where I began to form a circuit. I had been gone three weeks, and had formed a full four-weeks' circuit. Not having one resting day in the whole plan, I sat down, wrote out my plan, and, having reviewed and corrected it several times, felt well satisfied. I compared myself to a man settled in a wilderness, who had built his cabin, surveyed his land, and was preparing to clear his farm. I laid aside my books and papers, and, like Isaac, walked into the woods to meditate. I thought I was one of the happiest mortals that breathed vital air."

At the close of the year he says: "I received but little money, not quite thirty dollars, for my whole year's labor. The women made me cotton clothes, and I wore them quite contentedly. This was the best year of all my life. I performed ten entire rounds on that circuit, and closed my year with a protracted meeting on a delightful eminence. The windows of heaven were opened, and God poured out such a blessing that there was not room to contain it. The congregation was so large that we held prayer-meetings in many places under the shade-trees. The work went on with increasing rapidity till the middle of the next week, when I gave them my valedictory. I had never seen such a meeting before, and never expect to again. I mounted my horse, and, riding away, left them shouting and praising God, and have never seen them since. Rev. Thomas Wilkinson came on in the place of the presiding elder, and took the supervision of this meeting. He preached like an apostle, often falling on his knees. Wilkinson and Garrett were two of the greatest and best men I ever knew. They were among the early pioneers of the West. What these men did and suffered for Methodism in the West will never be known till the books are opened at the last day." He had taken three hundred members into the Church on his new circuit. I have given these abundant citations because they illustrate a curious problem, forming the only account, so far as I know, of the manner in which a new circuit was formed by the early itinerants of Methodism.

We are tempted to linger over his interesting pages, but must hasten. He went to the conference of 1808, and gives us a glance at that session, so little known, but so momentous for the moral welfare of the valley of the Mississippi. " It was held," he says, "in the house of Benjamin Coleman, near Cynthiana, Kentucky. Next morning I repaired to the Conference room, which was about eighteen feet square, and upstairs. I was dressed like a backwoodsman. My manners and costume were answerable to the description given of 'Rhoderick Du,' of Scotland, by Walter Scott. I hesitated. At length I ascended the stairs, and entered the Conference room. There, for the first time, I saw the venerable Asbury, seated on a chair, elevated by a small platform. He was writing, his head white as a sheet. Several of the preachers said, 'Come in, come in, Brother Young.' The bishop raised his head, lifted his spectacles, and asked who I was. McKendree told him my name. He fixed his eye upon me as if he would look me through. McKendree saw I was embarrassed, and told me kindly to take a seat. Business went on, and I sat as a silent spectator. I thought they were the most interesting group of men I had ever seen. McKendree appeared the master-spirit of the Conference. Burke, very neatly dressed, was secretary. His auburn head, keen black eye, showed clearly he was no ordinary man. I still remember most of the members' names: Thomas Wilkinson, John Watson, Benjamin Lakin, Samuel Doughty John Adam Grenade, Lewis Garrett, William Crutchfield, Benjamin Young, Ralph Lotspeich, Anthony Houston, and some few more not now recollected. These were members of the great Western Conference, comprehending Kentucky, Ohio, Southwestern Virginia, old Tennessee, and the Mississippi territory. This year they sent missionaries to Illinois and Indiana. In a beautiful grove, a mile from Mr. Coleman's, they erected up a stand, and seats to accommodate a congregation. The Conference adjourned every day, that the preachers might attend public services. As I was not in full connection I had no seat in the Conference; but I was free to go and come as I pleased. We kept up prayer-meetings nearly all the time. There was a great deal of good preaching during the session, and I have no doubt but much good was done at that time. There was an extensive revival all through Kentucky. On Sabbath Bishop Asbury preached one of his masterly sermons to about ten thousand listeners. This was a very solemn and profitable day. On Tuesday I was appointed to preach. The congregation was still very large, and the cross was heavy. I mounted the stand in my rough costume; every eye was fixed upon me. My voice was both strong and clear. I preached upward of two hours, and wound up with a pleasant gale. Many of the preachers hung around me and wept, and bade me Godspeed. It seemed as if the whole assembly wanted to shake hands with me. I sat long in the pulpit weeping and praising God. These were days of the Son of God with me."

His appointment was to Clinch Circuit, where he had many a romantic encounter. In the last year of our present period he was traveling the Holston Mountains, where we must leave him, but to meet him often hereafter, for he is henceforth to be one of the chief heroes of Western Methodism, from Ohio to Mississippi, and to survive most of his itinerant compeers.

In 1802 a very striking appointment appears on the roll of the Western Conference, that of "Natchez," with the solitary name of Tobias Gibson attached as preacher. Natchez, however, was obscurely recorded, with Gibson's name, two years earlier, as on the Georgia District, which fact only made the record appear the more extraordinary, for the immense territories which are now the two large states of Alabama and Mississippi, lay between Georgia and this point on the Mississippi River. The remote appointment appeared as a new sign in the far off Southern heavens; to the pioneer preachers of Kentucky and Tennessee it was as the constellation of the cross to mariners in the Southern Seas. It opened a boundless prospect of progress; and the word Natchez sounded like a new order of march to the itinerants and their cause — that march which they have since made over Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, even to the Pacific boundary of California.

Tobias Gibson was worthy of the pioneer mission, and was soon worthily to fall a martyr to his heroism, but not without opening the way, never to be closed, for the southwestern triumphs of the Church. He was a saintly man, of vigorous intellect, "greatly given to reading, meditation, and prayer;" [10] very "affectionate and agreeable" in his manners. He was born in Liberty County, Georgia, in 1771, where he owned a valuable patrimony, which he forsook for the gospel. Joining the itinerancy in his twenty-second year, he traveled for eight years large circuits, mostly in the far South, but one of them, as early as 1795, among the Holston Mountains. We have heretofore seen him encountering with Asbury formidable hardships. In 1799 [11] he volunteered to go to the distant southern banks of the Mississippi, though he was already broken in health by excessive labors and privations. With the approval of Asbury he started alone, and made his way on horseback to the Cumberland River, in Kentucky, traveling hundreds of miles through the wilderness, mostly along Indian trails. At the Cumberland he sold his horse, bought a canoe, and, putting his saddle-bags and a few other effects upon it, paddled down the river into the Ohio, and thence, six or eight hundred miles, down the Mississippi to his destination, where he immediately began his labors, eighteen years before the Mississippi Territory became a state of the Union.

Four times he went through the wilderness, six hundred miles, among "Indian nations and guides," to the Cumberland, for the purpose of obtaining additional laborers from the Western Conference. In 1803 he presented himself before that body a broken-down hero, and, though needing recruits themselves, they spared him Moses Floyd, for the solitary veteran had gathered more than fourscore (87) members at Natchez, and the whole country was ready for the gospel. By the next Conference there were more than a hundred Methodists reported from it, and Hezekiah Harriman and Abraham Amos were sent to aid the two evangelists; but the apostle of the little band was about to fall at his post; he had over-worked. Harriman made his way thither through "thirteen days and twelve nights' toil in the wilderness," and soon witnessed a "revival" and formed the Washington Circuit; but he wrote back that Gibson was sinking; "his legs were swelled up to his knees," he had "violent cough," and had not been able to preach for months. "Tell my dear brethren, the young preachers," adds Harriman, "not to be afraid of this place, for God is here, and souls have been converted this winter in public and private, and others are inquiring the way to heaven. Here are also a great many souls that must die like heathens, except they are visited by faithful ministers of the gospel. My hope revives that God will pour his Spirit on us more abundantly, and that our brethren will come and help us." [12] Twenty days later Harriman wrote, "Brother Gibson has gone to his long home." He preached his last sermon on New Year's Day, 1804, "and it was profitable to many souls." After having suffered for three years with consumption, he "was seized with fever and vomited blood." He died in Claiborne County, on the 5th of April, 1804. He had "continued to labor in the vineyard of the Lord as long as he was able to preach or pray," and declared to his fellow-laborer that "he was not afraid to meet death," and "wished for the hour." His brethren, in the Old Minutes, 1805, commemorate him with admiration, and say, "When Elijah was taken away there was an Elisha: we have two valuable men that will supply his place; but still Gibson opened the way; like a Brainerd he labored and fainted not, nor dared to leave his station till death gave him an honorable discharge. Tobias Gibson did for many years preach, profess, possess, and practice Christian perfection; and those who were acquainted with him must be impressed with his depth of piety; infidelity itself would stagger before such a holy, loving, and devoted man of God." The pioneer martyr of the Southwest had done a great work, and his sublime example will never be forgotten by the Church. In the autumn of the year of his death Learner Blackman, one of the noblest itinerants of the West, went to take his place, and a succession of evangelists followed till Methodism spread out over all the country.

Of Learner Blackman we have had a transient glimpse, in New Jersey, his native state, where John Collins, his brother-in-law, and afterward his co-laborer in the West, was guiding him in his early religious life. He now, and for some years, becomes almost ubiquitous in Western Methodism, south of the Ohio. He was born about the year 1781; the exact date is unknown. His early education was religious, but he owed his conversion to John Collins, in about his sixteenth or seventeenth year. In 1800, when not nineteen years old, he joined the Philadelphia Conference, traveled two years in Delaware, and, in 1802, threw himself among the pioneers of the Western Conference. After itinerating, with much success, three years in Kentucky, he was sent in 1804 [13] to take the place of Gibson. "Here," say his brethren, "a new scene presented itself to his view. He is now to face uncivilized nations, and a wilderness of four or five hundred miles. After a journey of ten or eleven days, and lying out as many nights, making his saddle-bags his pillow, his blanket and cloak his bed, the heavens his covering, the God of Israel his defense, he arrived safe in the territory. At the time of his arrival Methodism was in its infancy in that country. Notwithstanding there were some respectable men and women [who were] friendly, yet it is a lamentable truth, that a number of the first settlers of that country were bankrupts in morals, and their proud hearts and irreligious lives made them oppose the truths which this, as well as other good men, delivered. As such, our first preachers in those parts had considerable difficulties. We may venture to affirm that they were the subjects of almost universal contempt; and Blackman shared largely in these sufferings. In 1806 he was appointed to preside in the Mississippi District: God honored his ministrations with success, sinners were converted, and houses were built and dedicated. In 1807 he still presided in the district; his labors were still blessed, souls were converted, and he left the low lands, followed by the blessings of the people. [14]

When he left the Southwest it had a large district, five circuits, six preachers, and more than four hundred (415) members. Returning to Tennessee he labored faithfully on various circuits and districts till 1815, when, crossing the Ohio in a ferry-boat, his horse was frightened and threw him into the river, where he perished, "an event which caused the heart of the whole Church to throb with sadness." He ranks as one of the great men of early Methodism. "He had the appearance, both in and out of the pulpit," says a contemporary authority, "of being quite a cultivated man." In stature he was about the middle height, well-formed, with a full face, and an eye which shone with the light of genius. Every feature became strikingly expressive while he was preaching or conversing. "He was an eloquent divine," says one of his fellow-itinerants, and "perhaps under the labors of no one, in his day, were the borders of our Zion more enlarged, in the lengthening of her cords and the strengthening of her stakes." [15]

While the range of Western Methodism was thus extending southward, it was also advancing in the opposite direction into the great Northwestern territory. We have traced its introduction and first movements there under the agency of McCormick. Repeatedly did this faithful local preacher go over to Kentucky to solicit itinerants from the Conference, but none could yet be spared from their urgent work. Meanwhile laymen, like himself, were planting the Church. He met in Kentucky Ezekiel Dimmitt, a young emigrant from Berkeley County, Va., where he had been received into the Church by Joshua Wells. McCormick urged him to move into the Northwestern Territory, and help to found Methodism and a new state there. Dimmitt, full of religious and patriotic ardor, went in 1797, and built his cabin on the east fork of the Little Miami, not far below the present town of Batavia. He was eight or ten miles from any neighbor, but attended McCormick's class, twelve miles distant on the little Miami, near the present Milford. He became a powerful coadjutor with McCormick. His home was long a lodging and preaching appointment of the itinerants, and he deservedly ranks among the founders of the denomination in Ohio. [16] He "possessed extraordinary physical strength, and his great muscular power seems to have been made an auxiliary to his usefulness. By it he was enabled to suppress disturbances that would sometimes occur at seasons of worship in the newly settled country. No man, knowing his tremendous force, was willing to come within reach of his iron grasp. Disorderly persons, who happened to be so unfortunate, were sure to be subdued, finding resistance entirely useless. Indeed, he seemed fully persuaded that it was better for such as were possessed of evil spirits to be delivered, even if they were torn a little, than to remain under the power of demons."

At last McCormick's appeal to the Conference was answered by the mission of Kobler, who, on the second of August, 1798, "preached the first sermon delivered in the territory by a regularly constituted Methodist missionary." "He administered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper at a regularly appointed quarterly meeting at McCormick's, held on the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth days of December, 1798. This was the first time the Methodists had partaken of the sacrament in the territory," etc. [17]

We have from Kobler's own pen an allusion to his expedition. [18] In passing through the country he found it in its almost native, uncultivated state. The inhabitants were settled in small neighborhoods, few and far between, with little or no improvement about them. No house of worship had been yet erected. The site on which Cincinnati now stands was a dense forest. No improvement was to be seen but Fort Washington, which was built on the brow of the hill, and extended down to the margin of the river; around it were cabins, in which resided the first settlers of the place. This fortress was then under the command of General Harrison, and was the great place of rendezvous for the federal troops, which were sent by the government to guard the frontiers against the Indians. Forty years later Kobler, in revisiting the country, landed at Cincinnati, and wrote that he came from aboard the steamboat Bristol, and walked through a considerable part of the city; but had no language to express his reflections while comparing the past with the present. He went from street to street, and from square to square, for more than half a mile, wondering and admiring at the great change. Having, he says, since arriving in Cincinnati, traveled over many parts of his old missionary ground, he finds a most astonishing improvement has taken place. Where formerly there were indistinct paths, sometimes only trees being blazed to direct his course from one house or settlement to another, now there are highly improved roads and turnpikes, and every facility for public conveyance. And where there stood unbroken forests, now there are numerous villages and large towns, numbering their thousands. He spread the first table for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper that was seen northwest of the Ohio. When the communicants were called to approach it, the number did not exceed twenty-five or thirty; and this was the sum total of all that were in the country. Now the Minutes of the Annual Conferences of Ohio returned one hundred thousand regular Church members; so mightily had the word of God run and prevailed! "Where," he continues, "we once preached in log-cabins, we now see stately churches, whose spires point toward heaven, and whose solemn bells announce the Christian Sabbath, and call the attention of the multitude to the house of God. This is indeed the Lord's doing! Your aged servant has been standing on the walls of our Zion for fifty-five years; and while, with unwearied vigilance, he has been guarding and laboring for the interests of the Church, he has been making strict observations on circumstances and things connected with the Church; and from long observation he has been fully convinced, and of late more so than ever, that it is the doctrine which we preach, the discipline which we have exercised, and the system by which, as a Church, we are regulated, that have produced these happy results in the conversion and sanctification of so many thousands."

When he crossed the Ohio in 1798 "at a little village called Columbia," he fell upon his knees upon the shore, and prayed for the divine blessing upon his mission. "That evening," he writes, " I reached the house of Francis McCormick. He lived ten or fifteen miles from Columbia, on the bank of the Little Miami River. On Thursday, August 2, I preached at his house to a tolerable congregation on Acts xvi, 9: 'And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: there stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia and help us.' It was a time of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, who gave testimony to the word of his grace. The little band was much rejoiced at my arrival among them, together with the prospect of having circuit preaching and all the privileges and ordinances of our Church." After spending five days in and near Milford, Kobler and McCormick started out on the first missionary circuit ever traced in the Miami country, if not the entire Northwest Territory. They traveled up to the head-waters of the Miamis and Mad Rivers, to the outskirts of the white population, and returned southward down the Great Miami to its mouth, and thence eastwardly to Milford, the place of beginning. This circuit embraced about one half the territory now included in the Cincinnati Conference.

After seeing Methodism well established on the north bank of the Little Miami, McCormick once more changed his location, and settled in Hamilton County, about ten miles east of Cincinnati. "Here again his ardent soul went out in prayer and ministerial effort for the conversion of his neighbors, and again God set his seal of approbation to the labors of his devoted servant. A class was soon formed, and the neighborhood supplied with regular circuit preaching, McCormick pushing out in all directions to open the way for the itinerants. This class was the beginning of what has been long and widely known as the 'Salem Society,' and in early times became identified with the old White Oak Circuit, from the bounds of which nearly fifty preachers have been raised up for the regular work of the Methodist ministry. Among this number were Winans, Light, Simmons, McClain, Eddy, Raper, Christie, Baughman, Foster, holding in reserve a long list, having as honest, though perhaps not so wide a fame. This class, the germ of the Salem society, was formed McCormick's new double log-cabin. It cannot now be asserted who had the honor to pronounce the dedicatory address in this primitive 'Church in the wilderness;' but we know that its pulpit, a space behind the chair upon the white ash floor, was afterward occupied by such men as Bishops Whatcoat, Asbury, McKendree, George, and Roberts, as well as by the chief lights of our early Western ministry. This cabin was one of the principal land harbors into which those men put for shelter, provision, said repair. Here was held many a bishop's council, for our local preacher was one of those wise said judicious men whom a bishop might safely consult." [19]

Kobler labored and traveled night and day in the territory for about nine months. He wrote: "The houses here are very small, often with only one room and fire place, around which the whole family, children, dogs, and all, crowd, and seem to claim the same privileges, and possess equal rights. Frequently I sit on one stool or bench, and eat off another, which serves as a table. This domestic order I ever met with good humor, being taught by experience for years to 'know how to be abased, and how to abound.' In all things and everywhere to be instructed 'both to be full and to be hungry.' When we retire for private devotion, and approach a throne of grace, we kneel down by the side of a tree in snow knee deep; yet even this is a gracious privilege. There are no candles to be had for night reading and study. We take a parcel of clarified beeswax, while in a warm state, and roll out a tube in the shape of a candle, one end of which is rolled into a coil, so as to set on the table, which answers for a candlestick, the other end projects perpendicular, and gives the light. This construction is very portable, and can be taken out in the saddle-bags. In the daytime we had recourse to the woods for reading the Bible, and studying divinity. Thus, seated on an old log, many a sermon has been composed, which, on returning to the house, has been preached in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Horses usually had to be tied to a tree or fence."

He continued in the itinerancy till 1819, when he located; but the Baltimore Conference, without his solicitation, put his name upon its honored roll of superannuated preachers in 1886. He died in Fredericksburgh, Va., in 1843, aged seventy-four years. His last words were, "Come, Lord Jesus; come, Lord Jesus, in power; come quickly!" [20]

On Kobler's return to Kentucky Lewis Hunt was sent to the territory, and in 1799 the Miami Circuit, the first Methodist appointment in Ohio, appears in the Minutes, with the name of Henry Smith as preacher. [21] Dimmitt's house was on Hunt's circuit, and was made a preaching place; it was a cabin about sixteen feet square. Here was commenced a small class, consisting of Ezekiel Dimmitt and Phoebe his wife, Samuel Brown and Susan his wife. At this time there were very few settlers in that section, and the country was almost a trackless wilderness, with no public roads except those which had been temporarily opened for the army engaged a short time before in the frontier war with the Indians. Dimmitt usually accompanied the preacher, removing the obstructions, and breaking bushes to guide him when he should have no pilot. No effort or sacrifice was too much for the zealous layman to make for the good cause.

Smith says: "Lewis Hunt, a young man from Kentucky, was appointed to travel the Miami Circuit, in the year 1799, by the presiding elder. We had heard that he was broken down, and I was sent to take his place. On the fifteenth of September I set out, in company with McCormick, to meet Hunt on Mad River. We met him at Hamor's, and found him so far recovered as to be able to go on in his work. My instructions were, that if he should be able to continue, to go up to Scioto and form a circuit there. We consulted our friends, and formed the plan of uniting Scioto to Miami, and making a six weeks' circuit of it. This plan was, however, abandoned on account of the great distance between the circuits, and the dismal swamp we would have to pass through every round." The distance between the two streams was nearly one hundred miles, and the swamp was nearly twenty miles in extent. He organized therefore a separate circuit, the Scioto, nearly four hundred miles in range. He found several classes already spontaneously formed by emigrant Methodists; one, the first on the circuit probably, at Anthony Davenport's, Deer Creek, on the west side of the Scioto. It had been organized by Tiffin, who was now effectively helping to found Methodism in the territory, as we have already seen, and who "preached regularly to the little society." "We had a powerful time," says Smith, "at our first meeting, and looked up for a revival of God's work, and an ingathering of precious souls." [22]

He went on laboring unceasingly over his long circuit, preaching twenty sermons every three weeks, and organizing small societies in almost every settlement, for he found emigrant Methodists nearly everywhere. The first quarterly meeting of the circuit was held in March, 1800. "We had," he says, "no elder to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper; but the great Head of the Church deigned to be with us, and blessed us indeed. Many tears were shed, and some thought they never were to such a meeting before. We had twelve classes, and eight or nine local preachers, and some exhorters. I was re-appointed to the circuit, and returned in June, 1800. No preacher was sent to the Miami Circuit that year, so I was alone in that wilderness, as it was then, for about eighteen months, and withal I was much afflicted, and not able to do much. Our first quarterly meeting (for Scioto Circuit) for this year began at Moore's Meeting-house, on Scioto Brush Creek, on the 2th of September. I believe this was the first Methodist meeting-house that was built on that side of the Ohio River. We had no presiding elder present; but the Lord was with us of a truth, and condescended to manifest himself to us in the house that we had built for his worship. Our next quarterly meeting was at Pee-pee, on the 27th and 28th of December, and the Lord made it plain to us that he does not despise the day of small things, for he deigned to meet with us in our cabin on the banks of Scioto, and we had a very refreshing season indeed; yea, in the presence of the great Head of the Church, and the enjoyment of his love, we were as happy as if we sat among the thousands of Israel in some magnificent building. Miami Circuit was then in a woeful situation, and so continued until autumn, 1802, when Elisha Bowman was sent there. That year things took a favorable turn, and a great and glorious change was soon visible. I dragged on through great difficulties and much affliction, and ended my labors at the quarterly meeting on Scioto Brush Creek, on the 29th and 30th of August, 1801, and returned to Kentucky on the first day of September following, having spent near two years in the territory northwest of the Ohio." He organized Methodism at Chilicothe, July 7, 1800, after preaching there under the trees. The first society consisted of eighteen members. Tiffin, though residing at Chilicothe, still remained a member at Davenport's, where he preached regularly.

Meanwhile an important acquisition was made by the struggling society in the arrival, on the scene, of one of our earliest and most interesting heroes. Philip Gatch emigrated, with his family, to the Miami region, and appeared there but a few months after the coming of Kobler. He was born, as we have noticed, in the same year, and began to preach as early as William Watters, who worthily ranks as the first native Methodist preacher of the United States, having anticipated Gatch a short time on the records of the Conference. But Gatch was more conspicuous than Watters for his sufferings and activity in the early history of the denomination. We have seen him, after his marriage, locate, but continue his labors, in Virginia. In October, 1798, he started for the West. "My mind," he writes, "had dwelt on the subject; still I could not relinquish the enterprise. I viewed the evils of slavery at present as great, and apprehended more serious results in the future, if some effectual remedy should not be applied. Before setting out I met with a large assembly of my neighbors and acquaintances, and discoursed to them on Acts xx, 25. We reciprocated warm feelings, and shed many tears on the occasion. On the 11th of October my brother-in-law, Rev. James Smith, my friend Ambrose Ransom, and myself, with our families, set out." [24] He was now a neighbor of, and a co-worker with McCormick, and his home became a "preaching place" and a shelter for the itinerants. Most of his children were here gathered into the Church. Kobler, who had known him in the East, was delighted to meet him. In his Memoirs, Kobler is described as "tall and well proportioned; his hair black and long, extending over the cape of his coat; his dress neat, with a straight breasted coat, and in every respect such as became a Methodist preacher of that day. He had a most impressive countenance. It showed no ordinary intellectual development, united with sweetness of disposition, unconquerable firmness, and uncommon devotion. His manner was very deliberate at the commencement of his discourse, but as he advanced he became more animated, and his words more powerful." While the Miami Circuit was without a preacher, as noticed in the extracts from Smith, Gatch labored hard to supply it, and "a great revival," he says, "took place in our settlement." And now, for the remainder of his life, he was a representative man of his Church in Ohio, preaching often, and promoting zealously its rising interests. He was made a magistrate, was a delegate to the convention which formed the Constitution of the state, and was appointed by the legislature an Associate Judge. He became a most influential citizen, a patriarch of the commonwealth as well as of the Church. Asbury, Whatcoat, and McKendree were often his guests, and his old eastern fellow-laborers, Watters, Dromgoole, and others, cheered him with letters. For twenty-two years his position, on the bench of the Court of Common Pleas, reflected honor on the public justice. His friend and fellow-preacher, Judge Scott, who, as we have seen, attained the honor of the Supreme Court, says he was "regarded as a man of inestimable worth." His connection with the early history of the Church rendered his old age venerable, and the Ohio Conference placed his name among its superannuated preachers, that he might die with it on their record. After invaluable services to his Church and country, he preached his last sermon on the day in which he was eighty-four years old, and died the next year (1835) "in great peace and unshaken confidence in Christ." [25] His old friend, Kobler, revisited the country six years after his death. "Taking my hand," writes a son of Gatch, "he held it for some time in silence, looking me in the face with a most impressive expression of countenance, which produced in me a sensation that I shall not attempt to describe. At length, in the most emphatic manner, he said, 'Your father was a great man in his day. He fought many hard battles for the Church. May you be a worthy son of so worthy a father!' He visited the graves of my parents, took off his hat, and stood some minutes as if absorbed in deep thought; fell upon his knees for some time, arose bathed in tears, and walked out of the graveyard in silence." He was burdened with great memories, for the two veterans had shared in events which history, ages to come, may commemorate. Henry Smith, with whom we have journeyed so much in these western regions, says of him, "He preached extensively and successfully, and did much toward establishing and extending Methodism in that country, and giving it a proper tone. We all looked up to him as a patriarch, a counselor, and waymark. In a word, he was a prince in our Zion."

McCormick, Gatch, Tiffin, Scott, laymen and local preachers, with not a few others of like spirit, gave a character and impulse to Methodism in Ohio, to which must be ascribed much of its subsequent power over all the old Northwestern Territory. McCormick lived and died in a manner worthy of his historical position. In advanced life (1821) he wrote, "I am now grown old, and what can I say respecting Methodism? I believe its plan is of divine origin, and millions with me will have cause to thank and adore the Lord through eternity for it, and for the whole of Methodism. I do not believe there ever was such a set of men since the apostolic day for zeal, fortitude, and usefulness in bringing sinners to the knowledge of themselves and of Christ as our traveling preachers. My journey through life will soon be brought to a close. I have no other plea to make 'but that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." [26] In the latter part of his life he was absolved from active service by maladies which were the effects of the exposures and fatigues of his early preaching, but "the evening of his days was cloudless." He died in 1836, and his last words were "Glory, honor, immortality, and eternal life!" [27]

John Sale, from whom we have recently parted, was sent to the Scioto Circuit in 1803. The next year he was appointed, says his biographer, to Miami Circuit. These two circuits then embraced all the south and west portions of the state of Ohio. It was while traveling this circuit that he organized the first society of Methodists in Cincinnati. The Conference which had been held at Mount Gerizim, Ky., the preceding year, organized the Ohio District, the first in the state, and appointed Burke presiding elder. We may get some idea of the extent of its fields of labor, and the manner in which they were supplied, from the list of appointments: Muskingum and Little Kanawha, George Askins; Hockhocking, James Quinn, John Meek; Scioto, William Patterson, Nathan Barnes; Miami, John Sale, J. Oglesby; Guyandotte, Asa Shinn. When we remember the sparseness of the population, the distance between the appointments without roads, rivers to be crossed without bridges, it must be obvious, says a contemporary Methodist, that none but such as felt a necessity laid upon them to preach the gospel would be likely to engage in such a work." From the same authority we learn, more particularly, the organization of the Church in Cincinnati by Sale. Several preachers had been there before. Kobler had visited it in 1798; he describes it as "an old garrison, (Fort Washington,) a declining, time-stricken, God-forsaken place." He wished to preach, but "could find no opening or reception of any kind whatever." Lewis Hunt and Elisha Bowman occasionally ventured into the demoralized place, and preached without result. In 1804 John Collins, who had come the year before to the territory, but was not yet in the itinerancy, went to it to purchase provisions. He inquired of a storekeeper, "Is there any Methodist here?" "Yes, sir," was the reply; "I am a Methodist." The local preacher was taken by surprise at the joyful intelligence, and, throwing his arms around the layman's neck, he wept. He eagerly inquired if there were any more Methodists in the place. The response was equally cheering: "O yes, brother, there are several." The heart of Collins leaped for joy. "O," said the zealous young preacher, "that I could have them altogether!" "In this you shall be gratified, my brother," rejoined the layman; "I will open my house, and call together the people, if you will preach." The upper room of Carter, the merchant's house was fitted up with temporary benches, while every effort possible was made to give the appointment an extensive circulation. Only twelve persons attended, but "it was a memorable time for Methodism in Cincinnati. It was the planting of a handful of corn on the tops of the mountains, the increasing and ever, multiplying products of which were to shake with the fruitage of Lebanon." The next sermon to this infant Church was by Sale in a house in Main Street, between First and Second Streets. The congregation was increased to thirty or forty persons. After preaching, a proposition was made to organize a society in the usual way, according to the Discipline of the Church. A chapter was read from the Bible; then followed singing, prayer, and the reading of the General Rules of the society. All, then, who felt desirous of becoming members of the society, and were willing to abide by the General Rules, came forward and gave in their names. The number was only eight, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Carter, their son and daughter; Mr. and Mrs. Gibson, and Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair. Mr. Gibson was appointed the leader. A Church being organized, arrangements were made to have preaching regularly every two weeks by the circuit evangelists. The society received an accession in the ensuing spring by the arrival in town of two Methodist families; namely, those of Messrs. Richardson and Lyons, and subsequently by the arrival of Messrs. Nelson and Hall, and their families. This little band of Christians were closely attached to each other, and were one in sentiment and action. Meetings were held in the old log school-house below the hill, not far from the fort. The location of this school-house was such as to accommodate the villagers; and as its site was near the intersection of Lawrence and Congress streets, it is presumed that this portion of the town was the most thickly inhabited. In 1805 the small society began to build their first church, the "Old Stone Chapel." Such was the humble origin of Methodism in Cincinnati.

We have already had occasion to note that it was, during these times, invading Ohio from the East as well as from the South. Robert Manly, as early as 1799, formed a circuit reaching from the Ohio River up the Muskingum some forty miles, organized the first society in Marietta, and left some ten or twelve classes on the circuit. [29] Jesse Stoneman followed him, and so enlarged the field, that Quinn was sent by Hitt in the fall to assist him; the townships on Hockhocking were comprehended in it, and many societies were formed, and a host of preachers, local and itinerant, raised up. Asa Shinn organized a large four weeks' circuit on Hockhocking in 1803, with some fifteen societies, and Quinn was there again in 1804. Thence Methodism kept pace with the settlements extending back on the tributaries of the stream, and to Lake Erie, giving rise to scores of circuits.

Meanwhile, from the home of Roberts, in the Chenango and Erie

regions, the itinerants made their way across the line, and Deerfield, in Portage County, is reported in the Minutes of 1803, with Shadrach Bostwick as its "missionary." Henry Shewel, a local preacher from Virginia, had preceded him, as we have recorded, and as early as 1801 a small society had spontaneously organized in Deerfield. Bostwick was preeminent among the men of that day, a native of Maryland, who joined the itinerancy in 1791, and after traveling in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York, entered New England in 1797, and presided over some of its districts with great success down to 1803, when, like Beauchamp in Western Virginia, he surprises us by his sudden appearance here in the northwest of Ohio. He had thus penetrated the old "Western Reserve," and was the first Methodist preacher sent into that region, and formed the circuit. It extended among the sparse villages, and required extraordinary labors and sacrifices. He traveled on the Indian trails and by marks on the trees. The roads were so bad in winter, and the bridges so few, that he had to desist from traveling for several months during the worst weather. He formed the first Methodist societies in that flourishing country, and the results of his labors during this and the following year have continued to multiply to the present time, "keeping an even pace with the progress of the settlements, and the improvement of society." [30] He located, on account of domestic necessities, in 1805, and resumed the practice of medicine, to which he had been educated. "Shadrach Bostwick," says one of his old friends and fellow-laborers, "was a glorious man." [31] He was a remarkable preacher, famous through all the extensive regions of his labors for the intellectual and evangelical power of his sermons. His talents would have secured him eminence in any department of public life. His discourses were systematic, profound, luminous, and frequently overpowering, his piety deep and pure, h is manners dignified and cordial.

Methodism was then fully on its march into the Northwestern Territory, at nearly every accessible point, by the close of our present period. It had not only invaded Ohio, but reached hopefully beyond it. As early as 1802 [32]Methodist preachers ventured within the present limits of Indiana, which then had but a few scattered settlers. Its first Methodist was Nathan Robertson, who moved from Kentucky to Charleston in 1799; three years later a small class was organized at Gassaway, near Charleston, in Clark County. [33] The first chapel of the denomination, in the state, still stands about two miles from Charleston; it was made of hewed logs, and is in a good state of preservation, though not used for worship." [34] By 1807 we shall find in the state one circuit, with one preacher. And sixty-seven members; and by 1810, three circuits, four preachers, and seven hundred and sixty members, the beginning of that great host, now a hundred thousand strong, led by four hundred itinerants. Before the close of our period, Benjamin Young, brother of Jacob Young, was dispatched (1804) as a missionary to Illinois, which had but about two hundred and fifteen inhabitants in 1800 and was not admitted as a state of the Union till fourteen years after Young's appointment. We have some glimpses of the pioneer's trials in a letter from him, dated Indiana Territory, Randolph County, June 1, 1804, in which he says: "I am and have been very sickly since I have been here, but I hope I am on the mend ... As for the state of religion, it is bad. I have formed a circuit, and five classes of fifty members. In some places there is a revival. About twenty have professed to be converted since I came, but the bulk of the people are given up to wickedness of every kind. Of all places it is the worst for stealing, fighting, and lying. My soul, come not into their secret places! I met with great difficulties in coming to this country. I lost my horse in the wilderness, fifty miles from any settlement, and had to walk in and hire a horse to go and find mine. The Kickapoo Indians had stolen him, and Mr. Reed's, who was with me, but we got them with cost and trouble. When I got to Kaskaskia I preached there, but they made me pay two dollars for the room, and twenty shillings for two days' board. I ran out of money, and had to sell my books. At last the people began to help me; but I thank God I can make out, though I have suffered with cold. Last winter my clothes were thin and worn out, and I had no money to buy more. But I trust I am in the way to heaven, and I know my heart is engaged in the work of God. As I do not expect to come to Conference, I may not see you again in this life, but I hope to meet you in a better world." [35] In the first year he returned sixty-seven Church members from its sparse population.

Methodism had already attempted to erect its standard as far North as Michigan. In 1808 a local preacher by the name of Freeman found his way far into the country, and preached at Detroit, where he left at least one awakened soul who welcomed his successors. In 1804 Nathan Bangs passed over from Canada and sounded the alarm in Detroit, though without apparent success; the place, woefully depraved with a conglomerate population of Indians, French, and immigrants, was subsequently invaded again, from Canada, by William Case, and soon after an Irish local preacher, William Mitchell, organized the first Methodist society in the city, the first in the state. Methodism was never again totally dislodged from Michigan, though its progress was slow, and no Protestant Church of any denomination was erected within its bounds till 1818. [36]

Asbury made five expeditions to the West in these eight years, though his health was more enfeebled, during most of this period, than in any other portion of his public life. It broke down on his first trip in 1797, and he was compelled to return before completing his tour; but he had scaled the Alleghenies from North Carolina. By the twenty-fourth of March he was in the thickest difficulties of the mountains. "Hard necessity," he says, "made us move forward. The western branch of Toe River, that comes down from the Yellow Mountain, was rapidly filling, and was rocky, rolling, and roaring like the sea, yet we were compelled to cross it several times. When we came to ascend the mountain we had a skirmish of rain, thunder, and lightning; it was distant; it was mercy. I found hard work to ride where Thomas White had driven his wagon, for which he deserves a place in my journal, and a premium from the state. When we had ascended the summit of the mountain we found it so rich and miry, that it was with great difficulty we could ride along; but I was wrapped up in heavy, wet garments, and unable to walk through weakness of body, so we had it, pitch, slide, and drive to the bottom. We then came upon the drains and branches of Great Toe River. From Fisher's we had to ride through what I called the 'shades of death,' four miles to Miller's. Here we had to cope with Toe River, and near the house came into deep water. My horse drove to the opposite bank above the landing, and locked one of his feet in a root, or something like it, but freed himself. At last we made the house. The people received us kindly, and gave us such things as they had. We could only partially dry our garments. We heard heavy tidings of a deep rocky ford yet to be passed in our way across Toe River."

On the next day his anticipations were verified. "Three brave young Dutchmen" escorted him. They had to break their way through woods and ravines to escape dangerous fords, and on the following day he writes, "I was met by our brethren, Kobler, Burke, and Page. I rested on Monday and Tuesday to take breath and medicine. I find myself so hardly put to it at times that I can only journalize a little. We concluded, as there are not proper stations on the Cumberland path, it will not do for me to lodge on the ground; the general opinion is against it. We are to try to go to Kentucky next week."

He was now suffering terribly from intermittent fever; the attacks of which sometimes lasted thirty hours. It had become almost chronic, for he had not rested enough at any one place to subdue it. Some of the preachers met him in Tennessee, and, valuing his life more than their own local advantage from his visit, insisted upon his immediate return to the East as his only safety. He saw that he "must give up the cause," and "make the best of his way to Baltimore." "Live or die," he writes on the 29th, "I must ride. After all the disappointments, perhaps every purpose is answered but one. I have sent Brother Kobler to take charge of Kentucky and Cumberland, by visiting the whole every quarter. Brother Bird I have stationed in the Holston District. I have written a circumstantial letter to Brother Poythress and the Kentucky Conference. I have made a plan for the stationing of the preachers, at least those of any standing, and now I will make the best of my way to Baltimore." The backward journey was severe, for, besides his ill health, he had sometimes to ride "thirty miles to get to a house." "I must," he says, "be made perfect through sufferings." He took refuge at last in a "retreat" near Baltimore, but in a few weeks he was abroad on his usual northward route. In the latter part of the year, however, he was compelled, as we have seen, to lay by in Virginia, and give his work chiefly into the hands of Lee.

In September, 1800, he was again on his way westward, with Whatcoat and McKendree, for the purpose of introducing the latter as chief of the great field. We have already briefly glanced at their expedition. By the first of October they were in Kentucky, and on the fourth were at Bethel, the site of Poythress' academy, where they held the Western Conference. Whatcoat and McKendree, he says, "preached. I was so dejected I could say little, but weep. Sabbath day it rained, and I kept at home. Here is Bethel. Cokesbury in miniature, eighty by thirty feet, three stories, with a high roof, and finished below. Now we want a fund and an income of three hundred per year to carry it on, without which it will be useless. But it is too distant from public places. Its being surrounded by the river Kentucky in part, we now find to be no benefit; thus all our excellences are turned into defects. Perhaps Brother Poythress and myself were as much overseen with this place as Dr. Coke was with the seat of Cokesbury. But all is right that works right, and all is wrong that works wrong, and we must be blamed by men of slender sense for consequences impossible to foresee — for other people's misconduct. Sabbath day, Monday, and Tuesday, we were shut up in Bethel with the traveling and local ministry and the trustees that could be called together. We ordained fourteen or fifteen local and traveling deacons. It was thought expedient to carry the first design of education into execution, and that we should employ a man of sterling qualifications, to be chosen by and under the direction of a select number of trustees and others, who should obligate themselves to see him paid, and take the profits, if any, arising from the establishment."

Besides Asbury's companions, the only preachers at the Conference were Burke, Sale, Harriman, and Lakin. Its journal covers not a page of cap paper. [37] After the session, still accompanied by Whatcoat and McKendree; Asbury made his way, through formidable difficulties, to Cumberland. By the nineteenth they were at Nashville, Tenn., where he reports a congregation of a thousand people, in a "stone church, which, if floored, ceiled, and glazed, would be a grand house." On the twentieth they reached the scene of the camp-meetings, then just begun by the Magee's and their Presbyterian associates. All three of the travelers preached, with extraordinary interest, amid these novel circumstances, near Drake's Creek Meeting-house. Two thousand people were present on Sunday. Asbury has left us a brief picture of these first meetings of the kind. On the 21st he says: "Yesterday, and especially during the night, were witnessed scenes of deep interest. In the intervals between preaching the people refreshed themselves and horses, and returned upon the ground. The stand was in the open air, embosomed in a wood of lofty beech trees. The ministers of God, Methodists and Presbyterians, united their labors, and mingled with the childlike simplicity of primitive times. Fires blazing here and there dispelled the darkness, and the shouts of the redeemed captives, and the cries of precious souls struggling into life, broke the silence of midnight. The weather was delightful, as if heaven smiled, while mercy flowed in abundant streams of salvation to perishing sinners. We suppose there were at least thirty souls converted at this meeting. I rejoice that God is visiting the sons of the Puritans, who are candid enough to acknowledge their obligations to the Methodists."

He turned his face eastward again. On his way toward Knoxville he writes: "Here let me record the gracious dealings of God to my soul in this journey: I have had uncommon peace of mind and spiritual consolations every day, notwithstanding the long rides I have endured, and the frequent privations of good water and proper food to which I have been subjected. To me the wilderness and the solitary places were made as the garden of God, and as the presence-chambers of the King of kings and Lord of lords."

The journey among the mountains of East Tennessee was, however, to try his utmost patience. The roads were bad, his horse and chaise were upset, the latter turned bottom upward, and only saved from being precipitated down the steep rocks by the obstructing trees; the clothing and furniture of emigrants were spread on the route from their wagons, which had met with similar accidents. Asbury had but lately taken to a vehicle. He now writes: "We must bid farewell to the chaise; this mode of conveyance by no means suits the roads of this wilderness; we are obliged to keep one behind the carriage, with a strap to hold by and prevent accidents, almost continually. I have health and hard labor, and a constant sense of the favor of God."

On the fourteenth of November he was safe in North Carolina, at "the foot of the grand mountain division of South Carolina." He had traveled in this western excursion a thousand miles in less than two months.

On the 15th of September, 1801, he was again climbing the Alleghenies, accompanied by Nicholas Snethen. When they arrived at the comfortable shelter of the late General Russell's mansion, Asbury wrote: "I have a partial restoration of health; but the fever returns every morning, added to which, the severe and constant riding, with want, and generally irregularity, of meals, becomes in a great degree a cause of sickness. I was pleased to see our local brethren come forty and fifty miles to visit me. We met with joy, and parted in tears." By the thirtieth he was holding a Conference at Ebenezer in Tennessee. "Our brethren in Kentucky," he says, "did not attend; they pleaded the greatness of the work of God. Twelve of us sat in Conference three days, and we had not an unpleasant countenance, nor did we hear an angry word; and why should it not always be thus? Are we not the ministers of the meek and lowly, the humble and holy Jesus? N. Snethen gave us two sermons. We ordained on Friday, Saturday, and Sabbath day, and upon each day I improved a little on the duties of ministers. On the Lord's day we assembled in the woods, and made a large congregation. My subject was Isa. lxii, 1. On Friday and Saturday evenings, and on Sabbath morning, there was the noise of praise and shouting in the meeting-house. It is thought there are twenty-five souls who have found the Lord; they are chiefly the children of Methodists, the children of faith and of many prayers. Monday, October 5, we parted in great love. Our company made twelve miles to Isaiah Harrison's, and next day reached the Warm Springs upon French Broad River."

He and Snethen spent about two weeks more, west of the mountains, traveling, and preaching in cabins and under trees; but we have only brief notes of their progress. They made their way back to South Carolina, and hastened south, north, and east as usual. In the midsummer of 1802 the bishop, with Snethen, was again approaching the mountains, and writing, "My mind is freely stayed upon God, my guide in life and death." By the tenth of September he says: "We came upon Holston. I found the people praising God. A blessed revival had taken place. Fourteen or fifteen times have I toiled over the mighty mountains, and nearly twenty years have we labored upon Holston and lo, the rage of wild and Christian savages is tamed, and God hath glorified himself. Sweet peace fills my mind, and glorious prospects of Zion's prosperity cheer my heart. We have not, shall not, labor in vain. Not unto us, not unto us, but to Jehovah, be all the glory on earth, and in heaven forever!"

He went preaching through Tennessee till the second of October, when he opened the Conference at Bethel, Cumberland. William Hodge and William Magee, Presbyterian ministers of camp-meeting fame, were present, and preached with "great fervency." Thirteen members attended. It was at this session that they disposed of the sad case of their old chieftain, Poythress, and received Jacob Young, Ralph Lotspeich, Jesse Walker, James Gwinn, Leven Edney, and William Crutchfield, some of them still remembered as eminent evangelists." [38] After laboring nearly two weeks longer in Tennessee the bishop returned through his usual western trials. On the eighteenth he writes: "We continued on until half past six o'clock, then stopped, struck a fire, and encamped under a heavy mountain dew, which, when the wind shook the trees, fell like rain upon us. Brother McKendree made me a tent of his own and John Watson's blankets, and happily saved me from taking cold while l slept about two hours under my grand "marquee" (canopy, large tent — DVM). Brother McKendree threw his cloak over the limb of a tree, and he and his companion took shelter underneath, and slept also. I will not be rash, I dare not be rash in my protestations against any country; but I think I will never more brave the wilderness without a tent. On Tuesday, after riding fifty miles, a part of ninety three miles in two days, we came about eight o'clock to West Point."

Several times during this journey the horses of the bishop and his traveling companion had perilous falls upon the difficult paths. By one of them Snethen was so injured that he had to be "left, lame, upon the road." Asbury could stop for no man; yet, while hastening on, he was himself desperately ill. He writes: "I have been sick for twenty-three days. Ah, the tale of woe I might relate! My dear McKendree had to lift me up and down from my horse like a helpless child. For my sickness and sufferings I conceive I am indebted to sleeping uncovered in the wilderness. I could not have slept but for the aid of laudanum [Oxford Dict. laudanum n. a solution containing morphine and prepared from opium, formerly used as a narcotic painkiller — DVM]. Meantime my spirits and patience were wonderfully preserved in general, although I was sometimes hardly restrained from crying, 'Lord, let me die!' for death hath no terrors, and I could not but reflect upon my escape from the toil and sufferings, of another year. I had no sad forebodings of the ills which might befall the Church; it is the Lord's, not mine. Nor did I say to myself; What will become of wife and children? These I have not. But what am I to learn from these ills and aches? 'These are counselors that feelingly persuade me what I am.' I am no longer young; I cannot go out as at other times. I must take the advice of friends who say,' Spare thyself:' I have ridden about five thousand five hundred miles; and in the midst of all I am comforted with the prospects of the Western Conference. We have added three thousand members this year, have formed Cumberland into a district, and have sent a missionary to the Natchez." He reaches South Carolina again, having completed six thousand miles of travel in about a year and a quarter.

In August, 1803, we find him pushing westward of the Pennsylvania Alleghenies. He passed through the Redstone settlement, to "which he gave the preference over almost any in America" for its "good soil, lofty timber, iron and coal," and reached Pittsburgh, where he preached for the first time. Through Northwestern Virginia he penetrated into Ohio, his first visit there. On the 24th of September he was at Chilicothe, the guest of Governor Tiffin, and preached in the Courthouse. Before the month was ended he had passed into Kentucky, and on the first of October was preaching, with Barnabas McHenry, at Mount Gerizim, near Cynthiana, where, on Sunday, he proclaimed his message in the woods to about two thousand people, and on the next day, the third, "we entered," he says, "fully upon our Conference work; but I had to preach nevertheless. We had preaching every day; and the people continued singing and prayer, night and day, with little intermission. On Wednesday the meeting closed. We hope there were twenty souls converted to God, besides five who are reported to have been converted at a family meeting. Our Conference ended on Thursday the 6th. I found my mind devoutly fixed on God. I accomplished two things in Conference: namely, 1. Formed the Ohio circuits into a district; 2. Sent two missionaries to Natchez, and one to the Illinois." We have had a transient view, the best we can now get, of this session in Jacob Young's account of it. The bishop and Snethen hastened on through Kentucky and Tennessee. On reaching Claiborne Court-house, in the latter, after a desperate day's travel, he gives a fuller than usual detail of the life of the times in the West, and of his episcopal comforts and dignities there. "What a road have we passed!" he exclaims, "certainly the worst on the whole continent, even in the best weather; yet, bad as it was, there were four or five hundred crossing the rude hills while we were. I was powerfully struck with the consideration, that there were at least as many thousand emigrants annually from east to west: we must take care to send preachers after these people. We have made one thousand and eighty miles from Philadelphia; and now, what a detail of sufferings might I give, fatiguing to me to write, and perhaps to my friends to read! A man who is well mounted will scorn to complain of the roads, when he sees men, women, and children, almost naked, paddling bare-foot and bare-legged along, or laboring up the rocky hills, while those who are best off have only a horse for two or three children to ride at once. If these adventurers have little or nothing to eat, it is no extraordinary circumstance; and not uncommon to encamp in the wet woods after night — in the mountains it does not rain, but pours. I too have my sufferings, perhaps peculiar to myself: pain and temptation; the one of the body, and the other of the spirit; no room to retire to — that in which you sit common to all, crowded with women and children, the fire occupied by cooking, much and long-loved solitude not to be found, unless you choose to run into the rain in the woods: six months in the year I have had, for thirty-two years, occasionally, to submit to what will never be agreeable to me; but the people, it must be confessed, are among the kindest souls in the world. Yet kindness will not make a crowded log-cabin, twelve feet by ten, agreeable: without are cold and rain; and within, six adults, and as many children, one of which is all motion; the dogs, too, must sometimes be admitted. On Saturday, at Felix Ernest's, I found that among my other trials I had taken the itch; and, considering the filthy houses and filthy beds I have met with, in coming from the Kentucky Conference, it is perhaps strange that I have not caught it twenty times: I do not see that there is any security against it, but by sleeping in a brimstone shirt — poor bishop! But we must bear it for the elect's sake. My soul is tranquil, the air is pure, and the house of God is near; and Jehovah is nearer."

As he hastened onward he passed two of the new "camp-grounds of the Methodists and Presbyterians;" they "made," he says, "the country look like the holy Land." On reaching North Carolina he writes: "Once more I have escaped from filth, fleas, rattlesnakes, hills, mountains, rocks, and rivers: farewell, western world, for a while!" Asbury considered "cleanliness next to godliness;" in his habits of dress, manners, and all things, he was neat almost to precision; no one could be more at home than he in the opulent circles of Perry and Rembert Halls, the mansions of Russell, Bassett; said Lippett; but his preachers were suffering bravely the hardships of the frontier, and, if his presence was not absolutely necessary for their ecclesiastical affairs, still he willingly shared their trials for the moral advantage of his example. Under its influences some of the noblest men of the ministry plunged into these wildernesses to build up their Christian civilization. His example was hardly less important than his administrative ability in these early days of his Church.

There were, in 1804, nearly eleven thousand nine hundred (11,877) Methodists, and nearly fifty (46) preachers, reported in the Western Conference. [39] It comprised four districts and twenty-five circuits. These statistics do not include, however, all the growing societies of Western Pennsylvania and Western Virginia, which have been comprised in this survey of Western Methodism, for, in defining the West, I have regarded neither Conference nor state lines, but the natural geographical boundaries of the country. The Monongahela and Greenbrier Districts, taking in the Redstone and Greenbrier regions, had now nearly three thousand five hundred (3,438) Methodists and twenty-six preachers on fourteen circuits. These, added to the statistics of the Western Conference, would give the denomination, west of the Mountains, six districts, thirty-nine circuits, seventy-two preachers, and more than fifteen thousand three hundred (15,315) members; an estimate which still leaves out many Methodists beyond the Blue Ridge. It shows, however, remarkable prosperity for a newly and sparsely settled country. The Church had now been planted in Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, and Methodist itinerants were preaching the gospel from Pittsburgh to Natchez. Western Methodism had gained in these last eight years two districts, sixteen circuits, thirty-six preachers, and about eight thousand eight hundred members. It witnessed already the presage of its later unparalleled triumphs.

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ENDNOTES

1 See Extracts by Bishop Morris, "from the Journals of the Western Conference" in Western Christ. Advocate, Jan. 8, 1851. A blank stands for Poythress' name in these extracts, but I am certain that I do not mistake it.

2 Bangs records him (Alphabetic List) as "located" in 1801, but erroneously; there is no record of his location in the Minutes.

3 Boehm's Reminiscences, p. 323.

4 Finley's Sketches, p. 136.

5 Fry's Life of McKendree, p 45.

6 In the Meth. Mag for 1821, p.189, is an account of these first meetings, from the pen of John McGee himself.

7 The number that fell at this meeting was reckoned at about three thousand, among which were several Presbyterian ministers, who, according to their own confession, had hitherto possessed only a speculative knowledge of religion. — Bang's Hist. ii, p. 108.

8 Fry's McKendree, p. 68.

9 Autobiography of a Pioneer, etc. Cincinnati, 1857.

10 Minutes, 1805.

11 The Minutes indicate 1800 as the date, but he really arrived at Natchez in the spring of 1799. There is "demonstrative evidence" of the latter fact "from private family records." — Notice of Rev. James Grilling, by Rev. J. G. Jones, in the "New Orleans Christian Advocate." The date of this "Notice" I have lost, though I have the "article" on file. Bishop Wightman, in an allusion to Gibson, (Biog. Sketches of Itinerant Minister p. 29. Nashville, 1858,) gives 1702 as the true year. Such an epoch is not without importance, not only to the locality, but to the general Church.

12 "Extracts of Letters, etc., p. 95. New York, 1805.

13 His appointment to Natchez appears first in the Minutes of 1805; but the Western Conference, then reported, was held in October, 1804. This irregularity of dates affects many other matters of Western Methodist history in these early times.

14 Minutes, 1816.

15 Rev. J. B. Finley.

16 See a sketch of him, by Rev. J. F. Wright, in West. Christ. Adv., January 20, 1866.

17 Report of a committee of the Quarterly Conference or Milford Circuit, on the introduction of Methodism into that part of Ohio, cited in "Life of Gatch," p. 136.

18 In a communication from him to the Western Historical Society in 1841. See Finley's "Sketches," etc., p. 169.

19 Rev. J. W. Fowble, in Ladies' Repository, March, 1860.

20 Minutes, 1844.

21 Hunt's name is not recorded in connection with the appointment, as Smith was sent to relieve him before the appointments were published. See Smith's Recollections, p. 310.

22 Meth. Mag., 1821, p.271.

23 Vol. i, p. 180.

24 Judge McLean's Life of Gatch, p. 95.

25 Minutes, 1836.

26 Meth. Mag., 1822, p. 315.

27 Ladies' Repository, March, 1860.

28 Finley's Sketches, p.187.

29 It appears not improbable that Manly crossed the line from Pennsylvania or Virginia, and occasionally preached In Ohio, early as 1795.

30 Bangs' Hist. of Meth., Vol. ii, p. 80.

31 Bishop Hedding to the author.

32 Rev. Dr. Aaron Wood's Annals of Meth. Epis. Ch. in Indiana, p. 3. Indianapolis, 1854.

33 Rev. Dr. Bowman's Centenary Sermon.

34 Rev. G. L. Curtis, in Christ. Adv. New York, Oct. 11, 1866.

35 MS. Letter in possession of Rev. F. S. De Hass, Washington City.

36 Rev. K. H. Pilcher, in Northwest. Adv., Sept. 5, 1866.

37 Rev. Dr. Trimble's Address at Ohio Wesleyan University, 1800.

38 Bishop Morris, in West. Christ. Adv. Jan. 8, 1851.

39 See Minutes of 1805, which give the statistics of the Western Conference for 1804.

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