CHAPTER 01 INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM IN TO THE WEST

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM IN TO THE WEST

Many years ago, during the Revolutionary struggle, and before the bloody scenes of Lexington or Bunker Hill were enacted; before these states were declared independent, and before there was a President in the chair of the Union; when all the western country was a waste, howling wilderness, untenanted except by the savage who roamed over its broad prairies, or through its dense forests, or sped his light canoe over the surface of its mighty rivers, the pioneer Methodist preacher might have been seen urging his way along the war-path of the Indian, the trail of the hunter, or the blazed track of the backwoodsman, seeking the lost sheep of the house of Israel in these far-off, distant wilds. Before the sun of civilization shone upon these mountains or in these vales, or over these prairies, or on these rivers, the herald of the cross, with his messages of mercy, was seen wending his way to the desolate haunts of savage man. To pursue such in their godlike journey and labors of benevolence, will be the object of our work. History may record the deeds and achievements of mighty warriors of olden time, effected by the sword: be it ours to follow the Christian pilgrim warrior over the fields of his labor, and toll, and sacrifice, and recount the victories achieved by the cross. The history of Methodism in the western country is, to a great extent, an unwritten history. With the exception of a few biographies and historical sketches, and a few detached and scattered fragments, gleaned from time to time by historical societies, from the pioneers who yet linger among us, but little has been made a matter of permanent record. A thousand hallowed associations start up in the mind at the mention of venerable names whose voices, as ambassadors of Jesus, waked the echoes of these dense and extended forests fifty years ago. What mind is not thrilled and delighted with the adventures and incidents of pioneer life in the wilds of the west? When we hear them we seem to be listening to the tales of fiction wrought out from a fervid imagination, designed only to please for the while, and then to pass away and leave the mind to the contemplation of life’s sober realities; but instead of being the fanciful, overwrought productions of that wonderfully inventive faculty, they are graphic descriptions of a real life, in which the simple narration of truth becomes more strange than the most glowing fiction. But what, we ask, were the privation and heroic deeds of daring of the pioneer backwoodsman, leveling the forest, or roaming the woods in search of game, when compared with the toils, hardships, and privations of the pioneer preacher of the Gospel? If the lives of the one are an example to their descendants of an energy and an enterprise which danger and the greatest difficulties could not intimidate or destroy, the self-sacrificing devotion of the other, urged on by a spirit of benevolence as boundless as the wants and woes of humanity, has left to the Church and the world an example of heroism abounding in every thing morally sublime. Their heroic deeds, in bringing to the cabins of the sturdy pioneer, as well as the wigwams of the savage, the blessings and benefits of religion, will be treasured up in memory, if not recorded upon the page of history, and will live as long as one is found to recount them to the generations yet to come. The names of Ellis have produced what we so richly enjoy; and though no splendid monuments of brass, or marble, or even rude, simple stones may tell where their ashes rest, yet in the faithful urn of a thousand hearts their memories shall live forever fresh and the fair fame which they achieved on the well-fought field will be better than the precious ointment which loses its fragrance and departs with the dead. In the language of one, "It is a homage due to departed worth, whenever it rises to such a heigh as to render its possessor an object of general attention, to endeavor to rescue it from oblivion, that, when it is removed from the observation of men, it may still live in their memory, and transmit through the shades of the sepulcher some reflection, however faint, of its living luster. By enlarging the cloud of witnesses with which we are encompassed, it is calculated to give a fresh impulse to the desire of imitation; and even the desire of reaching it is not without its use, by checking the levity and correcting the pride an presumption of the human heart." A few of these early pioneers yet linger among us; but every year their number grows less, and with their departure perishes to a great extent the history of early Methodism. They came here when all was a wilderness; when the "Queen of the West" — where we now live to sketch their history — and its sister cities, consisted of a few block-houses, to protect them from the savages, and a few rude hamlets. They have seen the mighty west grow up around them, with its towns, and cities, and teeming population; and their lives are identified with its very history. While they yet remain we will sit by them and listen to their eventful history, gathering instruction from the past, and hope and encouragement for the future, that we may thereby grow wiser and better. As autobiographies are more interesting and satisfactory than any sketches, however graphically or faithfully written, we shall avail ourselves of such whenever we can obtain them; and where this is impossible, we shall leave no means untried to obtain the most reliable information from living contemporaries. If our object were simply to make a book, we need not travel beyond the precincts of our own library or personal knowledge — the latter of which alone would furnish us materials of a historical and biographical character sufficient to fill volumes.

We shall begin with the oldest pioneer preacher now living in the west, an octogenarian, bending with the weight of years, but yet engaged in active life, and enjoying a green old age, with health and faculties alike unimpaired by the ravages of time. We shall introduce him to our readers, and he shall speak for himself; not, however, with that tongue which, in the days of his prime, possessed an eloquence and a power that few could rival and none surpass; but with the pen the silent pen, which he yet wields almost as vigorously as in the days of his youth. The venerable Burke, bending beneath the weight of more than "threescore years and ten" — the first secretary of an annual conference in America — shall tell you, in his own quaint but nervous style the history of his life and times. The very presence of this venerable man, who entered the ministry within a year or two of the time when Washington ascended the chair of state — upward of sixty-four years ago — not only brings around us the heroes and patriots of the Revolution, but the very fathers of Methodism, and we seem to talk with Asbury, and Coke, and McKendree; Watters, Gatch, Everett, and Vasey, and a host of other contemporaries, who have long since passed away. This history will connect us with the first Methodist missionaries to America; will take us back to the days of Embury, and Webb, and over this vast continent from the lakes to the everglades of Florida, and from Maine to Oregon and California. It will record, in part, the history of a society which, in a period of eighty six years — within two years of the age of our venerable friend and father — has increased from a little company of ten or twelve to upward of a million, and which has more ministers, more churches, and more persons attending its ministry, than any other denomination in the world. We shall, in his autobiography, see him when but a mere youth, the foremost of a pioneer band, encountering the perils of the wilderness, which he crossed eleven times during the Indian war, braving its dangers, and submitting to its hardships and privations with a zeal and devotion worthy of the high and holy calling in which he was engaged, and which would damp the ardor and check the zeal of many of the aspirants of the present day. But we must not anticipate, and shall introduce our readers at once to the narrative.