Boe Nee | CONFERENCE _ OLN $49 N4 Mau CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Goodkind Book Fund IN MEMORY OF MARTIN H. GOODKIND CLASS OF 1887 BX 8381.N4M94 History of the New E Ni ll SO? Cornell University Library (G iit OF THE NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 1796 — 1910 BY JAMES MUDGE SECRETARY PUBLISHED BY THE CONFERENCE 36 BROMFIELD STREET BOSTON 1910 PUBLISHING COMMITTEE GEORGE S. CHADBOURNE SETH C. CARY GEORGE WHITAKER WILLIAM H. MEREDITH ALFRED NOON \SL SC DEDICATED TO THE FATHERS WHOSE LABORS AND CHARACTERS THESE PAGES SO INADEQUATELY DESCRIBE AND COMMEMORATE. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us that they, without us, should not be made per- fect—Heb. vi. 39, 40. Our fathers trusted in Thee, they trusted in Thee, and Thou didst deliver them.—Ps. xxii. 4. O God, our fathers have told us of the work Thou didst in their days, in the times of old.—Ps. xliv. 1. : The Lord our God be with us as He was with our fathers. —I. Kings viii. 57. The little one shall become a thousand and the small one a strong nation: I, the Lord, will accomplish it in his time — Isaiah lx. 22. Walk about Zion, go round about her, tell the towers there- of, mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following.—Ps. xlviii. 12. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.—Ps. cxlv. 4. PREFACE All previous Conference histories, we are told on good authority, have been attended with financial loss. The New England Conference now adds to the many special triumphs and signal distinctions recorded in the follow- ing pages this, that it publishes a history at a considera- ble profit. Before this work was fully entered upon enough subscriptions for it had been easily secured to pay all expenses; which is as it should be. It is not the first time that a similar effort has been set on foot. As early as 1846 a committee of five—John W. Merrill, Z. A. Mudge, T. H. Mudge, B. K. Peirce and Amos Binney—were appointed ‘‘for the purpose of col- leecting materials for a history of the church, pursuant to the order of the last General Conference.’’ We presume but little came of it. In 1887 the Conference requested Daniel Dorchester, so eminently qualified by his long attention to the subject, to prepare a history of the Conference. And the same request was made, in 1890, of David Sherman, another very competent his- toriographer. But in neither case was any arrangement made for the publication, and, of course, there was no result. In both 1908 and 1909 the Conference asked its secretary to do this long-needed work; and at the latter session such steps were taken, through the appointment of a publishing committee, named on a previous page, 5 6 PREFACE as to make it plain that the business part would have competent attention. Hence this favorable outcome. The author designated found on taking up the subject that there was, as he had expected, a superabundance of materials within reach. His chief task has been that of selection, condensation, and the due proportioning of the various parts of the work. Huis main sources of information have been, first, the official journals and papers of the Conference, preserved without break from 1800 to the present time; second, the writings of Abel Stevens, invaluable for the earlier years; third, the treasures in the New England Methodist Historical Society, freely put at his disposal. It would serve no useful purpose to attempt a complete list of the many hundreds of books, pamphlets, and manuscripts which have been consulted and studied. Nor has it been deemed best to encumber the pages with footnote refer- ences to authorities. It may be said here, once for all, that great pains has been taken to verify all the state- ments. It can hardly be hoped, however, that there will be a total absence of error. Absolute inerrancy amid such a vast multitude of facts and figures, names and dates, some of them obscure from lapse of time, is not possible, especially as good authorities are found to differ on some points. Corrections will be welcomed. There is much here about individuals. It is inevitable. Without individuals there can-be no history. They make history. History is ‘‘the essence of innumerable biographies,’’ the record of those persons who have been appointed by God for the forwarding of his work in the world. We have avoided, so far as possible, placing estimates upon those still in the field, but this rule could not be followed in all cases without marring the picture that was being presented or doing grave injustice to PREFACE 7 worthy workers. If these slight sketches, im which severe condensation has had to be used (a volume put in a paragraph or a sentence), these hurried references to the most important and interesting personages, shall lead our readers to further study along the lines indi- cated, such as is afforded by the large works of Stevens and Hurst, and by the many biographies easily accessi- ble, one of the objects of the book will have been accom- plished. William R. Clark, in an address given, 1885, before the New England Methodist Historical Society, presented three reasons why we should recount the history of Methodism. They were these: as a moral tonic, a stimulant to loyalty for the church and its cause; as a verification of great principles, those which Methodism has from the beginning made prominent; as a prelude to its future, a help to its avoidance of effete conservatism and reckless latitudinarianism. It is hoped that all these results may come to those who peruse the pages that follow. Particular attention is called to the illustrations, on which much time has been spent, and which, it is be- lieved, will greatly add to the value of the book. Full explanation of them will be found in the appendix, along with many other matters of importance. It was planned at first to have a series of maps, showing the changes in the Conference boundaries from time to time; but it was discovered that the cost, if they were well made, would far outweigh their value to the reader. So we have reluctantly concluded to omit this feature. Special acknowledgments should, perhaps, be rendered to the very many who have supplied help in various ways. But the number is great who have aided, and we fear to mention any lest some should be omitted. They all have our sincere thanks. 8 PREFACE It is expected that the profits of the book will be assigned by the Conference to the Veteran Preachers’ Fund. Hence the sooner the entire edition is sold the better it will be for this most worthy cause. And we urge those who read these lines to promote such sale. Applications for copies at $1.50 net (ten cents addi- tional for postage) should be made to the Rev. George Whitaker, D. D., Room 4, No. 36 Bromfield St., Boston. The author may be addressed at Malden, Mass. CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE. BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM IN NEW ENGLAND. Charles Wesley George Whitefield Richard Boardman William Black Cornelius Cook Freeborn Garrettson Jesse Lee His early life He enters New England His first circuit The first class He reaches Boston Conference of 1790 Opening at Lynn Conference of 1791 First church in Massachusetts Bishop Asbury Lee’s strenuous labors Conference of 1792 Boston beginnings Needham circuit Conference of 1793 Ezekiel Cooper George Roberts Enoch Mudge George Pickering Lee goes to Maine Conference of 1794 First church in Boston Conferences of 1795 and 1796 Results so far John Brodhead Timothy Merritt Review of the period CHAPTER TWO THE ORIGINAL NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE. The first Annual Conference Boundaries changing Lee travels with Asbury First session of Conference Bishop Coke visits here Wilbraham Conference, 1797 Granville circuit Epaphras Kibbe Daniel Webb Billy Hibbard Lorenzo Dow Joshua Soule 10 CONTENTS ‘The constitution Elijah Hedding Conference of 1799 Conference of 1800 Spicy comments Early allowances for support Scanty pickings Encouraging gains Lee’s last visit to us Asbury’s hopes for us Martin Ruter Wilbur Fisk Edward T. Taylor Joseph A. Merrill Lewis Bates Joel (Steele Solomon Sias John Lindsay Charles Virgin Daniel Dorchester Aaron D. Sargeant General advances Methodist Alley Bromfield Lane Pickering leads The nine who fell first CHAPTER THREE. IN A LESSENING AREA. Beginnings in Maine The Maine Conference Reduced dimensions Disorder deplored Uniformity of dress Reading sermons Free Masonry Taylor rebuked Melville B. Cox Orange Scott Abraham D. Merrill John N. Maffiitt A good growth Change of boundaries New Hampshire Conference James Porter Jefferson Hascall Jason Lee Charles K. True Ralph W. Allen William Gordon Abel Stevens David Patten Miner Raymond Mark Trafton Opening of the doors Fasting and prayer Pews in churches Ministerial support Asa Kent Various persecutions Many misrepresentations. Physical abuse Severe sufferings Hedding’s toils and pains Forced locations Early deaths Summing up of the period CONTENTS 11 CHAPTER FOUR. ON THE MODERN TERRITORY. Our excellent field Its area and numbers What it is that confronts us The District boundaries How much do we occupy? Aggressive Methodism List of places abandoned A. H. Nazarian and Chelsea E. P. King and Franklin Names of the churches Lorenzo R. Thayer Loranus Crowell William R. Clark William Butler Amos B. Kendig William N. Brodbeck Hugh Montgomery J. O. Peck William S. Studley The Methodist families Century runs Birthplaces of the ministers Conferences first joined Age of the preachers Education, where procured Deaths, how many CHAPTER FIVE. THE CONFERENCE ORGANIZATION. The presiding bishops A pbishop’s duties Episcopal record of the Con- ference Gilbert Haven Erastus O. Haven Henry W. Warren Willard F. Mallalieu John W. Hamilton James W. Bashford Edwin H. Hughes Randolph S. Foster Daniel A. Goodsell The secretary’s duties Ralph Williston Reuben Hubbard Joshua Taylor Thomas Branch Zachariah Gibson Daniel Fillmore Martin Ruter Phineas Crandall Charles Adams William R. Bagnall Edward A. Manning James Mudge The assistant secretaries The biographical secretary The statistician The treasurer Trustees of the Conference Bureau of entertainment Board of examiners 12 CONTENTS CHAPTER SIX. LIFE IN THE CONFERENCE. At the end of the year Attention to business Religious exercises Small numbers in other days Places of the sessions Times of the sessions The departed Opening and closing The minutes The elections to General Conference Trials ecclesiastical Joshua Randall Ephraim K. Avery CHAPTER LIFE IN THE How the churches started The Lynn churches Boston Methodism Dorchester beginnings South Boston East Boston Roxbury endeavors Tremont Street People’s Temple St. Mark’s, Brookline Cambridge churches Lowell Methodism Worcester openings Malden Springfield Newton Somerville A table of comparisons William Butler’s going out Other departures to India James P. Magee Franklin Rand Father Merrill’s poem The fall of Richmond Reunion with the Providence Conference Unitarian greetings Centennials observed The General Conference in Boston The tie that binds SEVEN. CHURCHES. The earliest meeting houses Square Pond, Connecticut Norwich, Connecticut Newport, Rhode Island Provincetown Martha’s Vineyard Nantucket Sandwich New Bedford Topsfield Stoneham Marblehead Salem and Fillmore Sunday Schools Persecutions Wilbraham Oxford’s good record Genuine heroism CONTENTS 13 CHAPTER EIGHT. THE LAITY. Biography a necessity The local preachers The located preachers Lay delegates to Conference Lay electoral Conference Laymam’s Association Equalizing the numbers Women in the General Con- ference Aaron Sandford Benjamin Johnson Enoch Mudge John Mudge Samuel Burrill Amos Binney Abraham Bemis General Lippett Noah Perrin Leonard Dean Abel Bliss Abraham Avery William Rice Anthony Otheman Benjamin Pitman Ezra Mudge Benjamin F. Mudge Thomas P. Richardson Roland G. Usher Lee Claflin William Claflin Isaac Rich Jacob Sleeper Alden Speare Edward H. Dunn Oliver H. Durrell Henry O. Houghton James A. Woolson Chester C. Corbin Marshall S. Rice Five others Benjamin F. Barhydt Mother Munroe Mother Holway The ministers’ wives CHAPTER NINE. THE ANTI-SLAVERY STRUGGLE. The primacy of the Confer- ence in this Methodism’s early position Orange Scott Friction with Fisk Opposition of the bishops At the General Conference A delayed report La Roy Sunderland Dr. Bangs takes a hand Hedding and Scott Many memorials Alteration of the General Rules advocated Two sides to the matter The glory of the abolitionists Both parties did good The Wesleyan secession 14 CONTENTS The main merit of the Con- ference Anti-slavery papers Subsequent resolutions The Plan of Separation Zion’s Herald What the church has done for the slave. CHAPTER TEN. OTHER REFORMS, BENEVOLENCES, AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. Temperance Foreign Missions Cox and Africa Jason Lee and the Indians Spaulding and South America Butler and India Other names Money for missions Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society Woman’s Home Missionary Society City Missions The Swedes The Negroes Deaconess Work The Preachers’ Aid Society Sustentation Fund Society Church Aid Society Methodist Historical Society Methodist Ministers’ Relief Association Boston Itinerants’ Club Society for Spiritual Research Boston Methodist Social Union Work for sailors Work for prisoners Other labors CHAPTER ELEVEN. EDUCATIONAL MATTERS. The Academy at Newmarket Martin Ruter What was accomplished Removal to Wilbraham Wilbur Fisk Twelve other Principals Miner Raymond Wesleyan University Its founders and presidents Trustees and professors The Centennial Convention Newbury Biblical Institute John Dempster Removal to Concord Experiences there Results secured in that place Boston Theological Seminary Boston University William F. Warren Other educators Lasell Sieminary Charles C. Bragdon CONTENTS 15 Presidents of institutions Samuel F. Upham Many others Lay teachers New England Education So- ciety. CHAPTER TWELVE. PUBLICATION Zion’s Herald Barber Badger Solomon Sias G. V. H. Forbes Removal to New York The New England Herald Boston Wesleyan Association Zion’s Herald returns The new building William C. Brown Timothy Merritt Shipley W. Willson Benjamin Kingsbury Abel Stevens Daniel Wise Erastus O. Haven Bradford K. Peirce Charles Parkhurst Wesley O. Holway Adelaide Seaverns Franklin Rand Alonzo S. Weed George E. Whitaker INTERESTS. Other periodicals The Book Room James P. Magee Charles R. Magee The early writers of the Conference James Porter George Prentice Amos Binney Zachariah A. Mudge David Sherman Daniel Dorchester William McDonald William Butler Some later writers Franck C. Haddock William H. Meredith James Mudge Luther T. Townsend William F. Warren Daniel Steele A few women Frederick Lawrence Knowles CHAPTER THIRTEEN. CAMP MEETINGS AND REVIVALS. Early Camp Meetings Their primitive arrangements Camp Meeting John Allen The Marshfield meeting Mark Trafton’s description H. C. Dunham’s description Four days’ meetings Wellfleet and Eastham 16 CONTENTS Martha’s Vineyard Reformation John Adams Sterling Junction Asbury Grove South Framingham Wilbraham Laurel Park Revivals CHAPTER FOURTEEN. CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS. Points of special eminence Our bishops Other connectional officers The anti-slavery leadership Missionary excellence Educational triumphs Literary merit " Bffect on the church at large Conclusions from a review of 120 years What have the fathers to say to us? Have we their spirit? What are the real essentials of primitive Methodism? Do they abide with us? Certain dangerous tendencies What is our problem? What will save us? What we can learn from the past Is genuine piety increasing among us Heroism still needed Our debt to the fathers Their record We have a great trust What should be our aim? “Holiness to the Lord” The little cloud and the great shower APPENDICES. . Membership List. . Conference Sessions. . Membership Table. . Roll of the Honored Dead. . Delegates to the General Conferences. oP wD FH 6. List of Presiding Elders. 7. Members of the Conference Who Served in the Civil War. 8. Comparative Statistics. 9. The Pictures. INDEX, OMDNARBA KWH Bee eee NnnF WN rH OO LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Conference Group, 1904 Old-Time Preachers Primitive Chapels Conference Group, 1833 Modern Preachers Group of Bishops Group of Secretaries Group of Bishops Modern Church Buildings Group of Laymen Group of Laymen Conference Group, 1877 Group of Presiding Elders Group of Educators Group of Editors An Old-Time Camp Meeting Under the Old Elm Frontispiece Chapter I. Chapter IT. Chapter III. Chapter IV. Chapter V. Chapter V. Chapter VI. Chapter VII. Chapter VIII. Chapter VIII. Chapter IX. Chapter X. Chapter XI. Chapter XII. Chapter XIII. Chapter XIV. 17 Why should we study history? Because only he who under- stands what has been can know what should be and will be. From observing the past we get instruction for the present and a basis of prognostication for the future. We cannot properly comprehend our own times until we have compared them with other times. Such comparison, rightly made, leads to encouragement and empowerment. Wisdom comes from history because we get the experience of age without its infirmities. The effect of historical reading is like that pro- duced by foreign travel. It broadens the mind and gives us material for thought. A good history must have truth, and also a certain splendor. It must be both accurate and pict- uresque. Not all the truth can be put in. There must be selection, as in painting a landscape. The materials, while they should not be falsified, should be arranged with suf- ficient skill to give a pleasant impression wherever that is possible. A good history is the product both of reason and imagination. There should be not only facts but principles deduced from the facts; phenomena should be not only stated, but explained. There should be generalizations and specifications. There are artists in history and there are artisans, the first working beautifully and the last clumsily, if truly. We have studied history to no purpose if it does not set us to emulating the good of whom we have learned, avoiding their faults and profiting by their virtues. May such be the effect of this book upon its readers. 18 THE NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE ow E.T. TAYLOR TIMOTHY MERRITT 5 Plate II OLD-TIME PREACHERS THE NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE CHAPTER ONE. BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM IN NEW ENGLAND Childhood and youth are fascinating. Little things that are on the way to become big have a peculiar charm. We like to watch the brook as it grows into the river, or the sapling which shall after a while become a tree, Methodism in New England has become a glorious river, a magnificent tree, and it will be pleasant as well as profitable to look at the seed of that tree, the fountain of that river, that we may discover the way God worked in bringing such wonderful results to pass. In the latter part of 1736 Charles Wesley, driven into Boston by storms while on his way back to England from Georgia, and being detained more than a month, preached repeatedly in both Christ Church and King’s Chapel; but it was not Methodist preaching, for as yet this particular form of the Way, or will of God, was not made known to him; his conversion took place about two years later. A better report can be made concerning George Whitefield’s sermons in Boston and other places round about, in 1740, together with some subsequent years—1750, 1770—for he had before this time, in con- nection with the Wesleys, received the light and was pro- claiming a mighty gospel. But he made no endeavor to effect new organizations, contenting himself with 21 22 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE infusing some fresh life for the time being into the dry bones that he found so plentifully about him. He died at Newburyport, September 30, 1770, on his seventh vis- it to America. About two years after this, 1772, Richard Boardman, who had reached America in 1769, as one of Wesley’s first missionaries, came through Providence to Boston, preaching as he journeyed, and formed a small society in the New England metropolis. But, as there was no one to look after the sheep, they soon became scattered and, for the most part, were quite likely devoured. Our mis- sionaries in India deem it inexpedient to plant where they cannot water, or to gather a flock which they can- not shepherd. Boardman probably hoped to see Boston again very soon, but circumstances, in those exciting, pre-revolutionary times, did not permit. We have to pass along for twelve years before the next Methodist preacher enters even transitorily upon the scene. It was William Black, an Englishman, chief founder of Methodism in Nova Scotia, whose grave can be seen to-day in Halifax. He wended his way through Boston southward to Baltimore, seeking, and finding, ministerial re-enforcements for his distant province. He seems to have tarried three and a half months in Boston, preaching there, February to May, 1785, on his way back from New York, with considerable suecess. Denied access at first to the pulpits he spoke in a chamber at the North End, then in a chamber at the South End. At both places the floor settled under the crowd and occasioned alarm. Then he preached in Dr. Stillman’s (Baptist) chureh; then in the North Latin school house ; then in the Sandemanian chapel; and, finally, on his last Sabbath, in the new North church of the estimable Dr. Eliot, where 3,000 persons, it is estimated, assem- BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 23 bled to hear him. Arrangements made for a successor failed, and the converts joined other churches or disap- peared. Very little came of his earnest endeavors, almost nothing to Methodism so far as can be subse- quently traced. About the only visible result that appears in history was at Fairfield, Connecticut, five years later, when a pious sister who gladly entertained Jesse Lee, proved to be one of the little company who had heard the word with joy from Black and had been praying ever since for more of the same spiritual food. Three years later, in 1787, Cornelius Cook, who had just entered the itinerancy and was to die of yellow fever in New York, August, 1789—‘‘a faithful laborer and patient sufferer while he was employed in the church for three years,’’ says the General Minutes— preached a little in Norwalk, where Black also had been heard in 1784. And, lastly, Freeborn Garrettson—a greater man than any of these, except the first two, one of the most suc- cessful champions of the Methodist cause, a veritable bishop in fact though not in form, and strongly desired by Wesley for the office—Garrettson, a flaming herald of salvation over an immense territory, with a zeal that no privations or persecutions or hardships, of which he had plenty, could extinguish, returning in 1787 from Nova Scotia, where he had accomplished wonders, passed through Boston. He discovered there three persons who had been members of the lttle society formed by Board- man in 1772. He preached several sermons in private houses, and then departed for the South with the pur- pose, however, of returning in God’s time. He started back from Maryland for New England in May, 1788, but was headed off by Asbury at New York and sent up the Hudson to do a great work in that region. He could 24 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE not, however, altogether forget Boston, and in 1790, while yet superintending his vast New York District, he resolved on an evangelistic excursion to.the Eastern metropolis. Entering Connecticut at Sharon, near the northwest corner, June 20th, he passed on to Litchfield and Hartford, then through Worcester to Boston. At Worcester he writes: ‘‘The people appeared to have but a small share of religion. I went from one end of the town to the other but could not get any one to open the court house to gather the people.’’ He arrived in Bos- ton on Thursday, July 1st, having ridden forty-eight miles, and found lodging with a gentleman who had been a Methodist in England, but had fallen away sadly from the faith. On Sunday, July 4th, and the day after, he was able to preach in the meeting-house which had formerly belonged to Dr. Mather, on Hanover street. ‘‘Tuesday,’’ he writes, ‘‘I went from end to end of the town and visited several who were friendly, a few of whom were formerly Methodists, but I fear they are not such in practice. I engaged the use of the meeting- house and a place for the preacher to board, and on ‘Wednesday set out for Providence.’? When about ten miles from the latter city, to his astonishment and delight, he met Jesse Lee, just pressing forward for his first assault on the Puritan stronghold. The two knights of Arminius took sweet counsel together, at first on horseback and then in the house which opened its gen- erous hospitality to them for the night, where they also had services. The next day Garrettson passed south- ward and Lee northward to begin the siege (for such it proved rather than a mere assault) on staid old Boston.* *Garrettson will not come into our story much of any after this, as his main work lay elsewhere. It was a great work, and he himself is well worth our study, for he had a BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 25 Having arrived now at the chief figure of the fight, the man who under God, after God’s time had come, was to earry through what these others had made but slight and abortive attempts at accomplishing, we must needs go back a little and see how he came to be here and what manner of man he was. Jesse Lee was born about six- teen miles from Petersburg, in Prince George County, Virginia, which lies on the James River a little below Richmond. He was born March 12, 1758, on a farm of several hundred acres, owned by his parents, Nathaniel and Elizabeth Lee, who were devout members of the Chureh of England. They greatly profited by the evan- gelical labors of the Rev. Devereaux Jarratt, a pious priest of the Anglican church living in that section, and in a revival which swept through the region in 1772 under Jarratt’s preaching, Nathaniel Lee was converted. The conversion of the mother soon followed, and then both parents labored for their children. It was not long before Jesse, the second son, a boy of good moral habits was soundly saved. It took place when he was just about fifteen, in the year 1773, and the change was so most remarkable career. He was born in Maryland, 1752, and died in New York, 1827. As soon as God told him that slave-holding was wrong, one day at family prayers, when quite young, he instantly gave all his slaves their freedom. He had a narrow escape from being made Bishop, and from a great variety of other dangers. He escaped matrimony until June 30, 1798, when he married Miss Catherine Livingstone, daughter of Judge Livingstone, @ woman every way deserving. He built him thereupon a very handsome dwelling house at Rhinebeck, on the eastern pank of the Hudson, dedicated it to God, and dispensed therein a lavish hospitality. From the beginning of his min- isterial life to the close he took not a penny of salary or pay from the people, being one of the few Methodist preachers who had, both from ancestry and marriage, money of his own, which he distributed most generously. 26 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE deeply wrought that he never had occasion to be in doubt about it. No Methodists had yet came into these parts, but one was soon to appear in the person of Robert Williams, of the Irish Conference, who reached Norfolk in 1769, and formed, in 1774, the Brunswick Circuit in the neighborhood of Mr. Jarratt and the Lees. The for- mer heartily welcomed the Methodist itinerant, and the latter joined the society he established. Mr. Lee opened his house for preaching services, and meetings were held there continuously for forty-six years, until his death in 1820, in his ninetieth year. He led an active Christian life for forty-eight years, nearly all of that time a Methodist class-leader, and left behind him at his departure, besides a fragrant, hollowed memory, seventy-three grandchildren and sixty-six great-grand- children. Jesse Lee contributed nothing to this splendid corporeal total, for he never married, but his children of the spirit were a vast host. Jesse united with the Methodist class and society formed by Williams in 1774, and thus became one of the 1,160 Methodists at that time in America. When he ceased at once to work and live, in 1816, the Methodist army mustered 214,934, of whom 695 were preachers, and few indeed among them all had made a better record than this Virginia farmer’s boy. The young lad, not privileged with any special education, but brought up near to nature’s heart and well acquainted also with folks, soon showed something of his mettle by pressing forward for a deeper religious experience. It came to him as a shining, ever-to-be-remembered epoch, in 1776, and in the following year, being called away from home to look after some farm interests for a relative in North Carolina, he was led out into a larger sphere of Chris- tian work than would have been easily possible amid BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 27 the embarrassing associations of his boyhood. He be- came a class-leader in 1778, and began to hold neighbor- hood or cottage prayer-meetings. On March 8th of that year he received an exhorter’s license from the Rev. John Dickins, one of the ablest preachers and strongest men of early Methodism, afterwards founder of the Book Concern, who was at that time preacher-in-charge of the Roanoke Cireuit. November 17, 1779, he made his first attempt at a regular sermon, probably having received a local preacher’s license about that time. The tenth Conference of the American Methodists was held in Sussex County, Virginia, April 17th, 1782. It was the first one attended by Lee. Asbury, noting the zeal and ability of the young preacher, urged him to take a circuit, but he was not quite ready for such a venture. By November, however, he had acquired sufficient cour- age to make a start, and in the following spring, May 6th, 1783, the Conference assembling again in Ellis’ meeting-house, Sussex County, he was admitted on trial to the itinerant ranks, of which he was soon to be so brilliant, useful and conspicuous a member. His first appointment was to a circuit in North Caro- lina, and the next few years saw him making full proof of his new ministry in various place, where we need not follow him. Especially significant, however, as leading up to his main life work, was a little incident which oc- eurred in 1785, while he was traveling in South Carolina with Bishop Asbury, who had taken a great liking to him. On their way to Charleston they passed through a small place called Cheraw. A young clerk of the mer- chant who entertained them there was from Massachu- setts, and from him Lee learned much about New Eng- land which greatly interested him, and his heart was drawn out to go there, but Asbury did not favor it, 28 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE thinking that section already sufficiently provided for in the way of religious privileges. The name of this young man has never been ascertained, but he proved a provi- dential link in a chain of circumstances leading to very large results. In 1786 Lee was eligible to Deacon’s orders but declined them, for some reason not very clearly discernible, unless it was diffidence. He did the same in 1788, and not even Asbury’s influence could prevail with him in the matter. It was not till the New York Conference of October 4th, 1790, that he consented to be ordained, being made both Deacon and Elder on two consecutive days. The fortieth American Methodist Conference was held in John street, New York, May 28th, 1789, the second one in that place. The first one the previous year sent Garrettson up the Hudson into territory which was for a while in the New England Conference. Twenty preachers in all were present, among them Lee, seeking a commission to evangelize New England, on which his thoughts had now for some four years been set. He obtained it. His appointment read ‘‘Standford,’’ Connecticut. There was, in reality, no such circuit. He was sent to create one out of the raw materials he might find, as Methodist preachers had a way of doing in those days, and have been doing in various parts of the world down to the present. It is a good old custom worthy of all aeceptation and imitation. That New England should have been so long passed by on the part of the Methodists, who had been oper- ating now for twenty-three years close to its western borders in the city of New York, must seem a little strange to us until we put ourselves back in that far- away period. We ean see, on reflection, how natural it was that Methodism, starting at about the same time in BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 29 New York City, Maryland and Virginia, and meeting in those middle regions with much encouragement, should find there ample scope for all its limited resources dur- ing the trying years of the Revolution, should have, indeed, all it could do to maintain itself and should see no way to spare any workers for a distant section; especially as that section was the best-churched one of the whole country, divided into close-guarded parishes with religion established by law, peculiarly hostile to the Church of England, with which Methodism was closely affiliated, and most strongly fortified, by its general cul- ture and its severely Calvinistic doctrines, against the acceptance of a new church with an Arminian tincture. It held itself also in moral and intellectual matters proudly above any need of outside assistance, least of all from a set of comparatively illiterate, strolling preachers who appeared to it in the light of disturbers of the peace and even as ‘‘wolves in sheep’s clothing.’’ Dr. Dorchester says that in 1760 there were nearly four times as many people for each church in the Middle States as in New England, and in 1790 the dispropor- tion was almost as large. Nevertheless, as Bishop E. O. Haven shows in his Autobiography, there was pressing need for the new laborers. He says: ‘‘The itinerant Methodist preachers did not come too soon. In almost every town there were some of the most active minds among the people who were disaffected with high Cal- vinism, and yet were disposed to evangelicalism; these were ready for the Methodists. There were others in the back rural districts who did not go to the central meet- ing-houses. These, too, were ready. There were others of the more depraved and wicked classes who were reached by the novel methods of the itinerants, con- verted, and in many instances became ardent and useful 30 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE Christians. Thus the whole community was stirred to life, though religious controversy was keen, and persecu- tion lacked only the power of the State, which had been effectually broken by the changes which followed the Revolutionary War. The itinerant Methodists were nearly as much needed in New England as in the West.”’ This is still further illustrated by an anecdote concern- ing Jacob Sleeper, told to W. I. Haven by his grand- mother. Young Jacob had an Uncle Croswell in Malden, and it was the custom of these relatives when their nephew visited them to call upon him to lead the family devotions. He always responded and prayed for all men that they might be brought to the Saviour. The aunt held her peace for a while, but, at last, taking her hus- band to one side, she said: ‘‘I can’t stand this any longer ; Jacob prays for all creation; he must not in this house make any more of his Arminian prayers.’’ So Brother Croswell, after this, addressed the throne of grace himself, and for the ‘‘elect’’ alone. It was doubtless fully time (nearly 40,000 members having been gathered west and south of the Hudson) that an endeavor should be made to see what could be done with the new doctrines in New England. But it was no holiday task that Lee had before him, as he well knew, although he gladly accepted his appointment on that bright day in early June. He set out bravely on horseback, all alone, yet not alone, trusting in God and ready for whatever might befall him in the path of duty. On the 17th of June—notable day, suggesting that the courage shown fourteen years before at Bunker Hill would be equally called for in this spiritual con- flict—Lee preached his first sermon in New England, at Norwalk, Connecticut, taking for his text the words, ““Ye must be born again.’’ The discourse was delivered BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 31 to a handful of people (called by Lee ‘‘a decent congre- gation’’), under an apple tree by the side of the road, no better place being available. The next day finds him at Fairfield, sixteen miles away, and by Sunday, the 21st, he reaches New Haven, where he preaches in the court house to a considerable number, among whom were the president of the college, Dr. Stiles, many of the stu- dents, and the Congregational clergyman, who came out in the rain to hear him. A rapid passage, with constant preaching, through Redding, Danbury, Ridgefield, Rockwell, Canaan and Middlesex, brought him to Nor- walk again, July Ist, in time to keep his appointment of two weeks previous. This constituted his first round or circuit, about 130 miles in circumference, with ‘‘upward of twenty preaching-houses.’’ In his journal he records “‘some hope that the Lord owned the word preached at each of these places.’’ There had been, however, no conversions, and no attempt, of course, at organization. In fact, it was three months before the formation of the first class, three months of incessant labors, vexatious rebuffs, and all manner of discouragement. The parsons were greatly alarmed at his presence and denounced him from their pulpits. The Methodists were said to be people ‘‘going about the country preaching damnable doctrines and picking men’s pockets.’’ Where there was no active persecution there was a most chilling atmosphere of utter indifference quite as disheartening. At Milford, he writes: ‘‘This is the third time I have preached at this place and have not yet become acquainted with any person.’’ No hospitality was granted him save in a few instances. On his second visit to New Haven, a black- smith, David Beecher by name, grandfather of Henry Ward Beecher, called upon him at the tavern, asked him 82 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE to go home with him, and promised to entertain him when he came to town again. Mrs. Beecher was very kind, he says, adding in explanation, ‘‘not a friend of Calvinism.’’ Lee, after establishing the circuit which included the towns above mentioned, by way of refresh- ment, made an exploring expedition eastward, finding a somewhat more encouraging reception among the shore towns of Connecticut and Rhode Island. But he was soon back at Stratfield, where, Saturday, September 26th, he formed the first Methodist class in New Eng- land, composed of three women, and it was some months before any one else united with them. The second class was organized at Redding, December 28th, where a man and a woman joined the society. ‘‘Glory be to God,”’ exclaims Lee, ‘‘that I now begin to see some fruit of my labor in this barren part of the world. O my God, favor this part of thy vineyard with ceaseless showers of grace.’” The man was Aaron Sandford, who has the dis- tinction of being the first male member of Lee’s society, also the first class leader and the first local preacher of New England. The third class came January 29th, 1790, in Limestone, consisting of two men and two women. Thus after more than seven months of most arduous toil a total of nine, seven women and two men, had been gathered in, a scanty first fruits of the bounti- ful harvests that were to come. Saturday, February 27th, to Lee’s great delight, three Methodist preachers—Jacob Brush, Daniel Smith and George Roberts—-dispatched by Asbury to his assistance, reached him at Dantown, and things immediately bright- ened. Much cheered, and taking Smith with him, the pioneer soon departed to survey new fields of labor. All the eastern and northern sections of New England were yet unentered. He soon formed a second circuit, cen- BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 33 tering in New Haven, extending over 120 miles, com- prising three cities, five thickly settled towns, and sev- eral villages, to be compassed every fortnight. In April he passed northward as far as Vermont, and then by way of New Hampshire into Massachusetts, the first sermon at Wilbraham being preached May 3, 1790. He was quickly back in Connecticut, at Middletown and other places; and then, in the latter part of June, set his face toward the east, visiting Norwich, New London, Newport, Bristol, Warren and Providence. At the lat- ter town he preached five times in a private house and several times in the court house. On his way thence in July, as already noted, he met Garrettson, after which, much strengthened by Christian fellowship, he pressed forward, reaching Boston July 9th. No audience room was found after the most diligent search, so the preacher, nothing daunted, at 6 p. m., Sunday, July 11th, as Whitefield had done before him, took his stand on the Common, near the Frog Pond, under the great elm, which was old when the town was settled and remained until prostrated by the wind in 1876. Some sympathizer had furnished a deal table for a pulpit. Lee was a good singer, with a loud, clear voice, and the strains of some old Methodist hymn, ‘“‘Blow ye the trumpet, blow,’’ or ‘‘Come, sinners, to the gospel feast,’’ soon brought a crowd. He prayed, kneel- ing on the table, with a fervor unknown in the Puritan pulpits, read the Scriptures, preached with power, attracting from the shady walks throngs of prome- naders, who agreed that ‘‘such a man had not visited New England since the days of Whitefield.’”’ He an- nounced a similar service for the following Sunday. The intervening week he spent exploring the north shore fishing towns as far as Portsmouth, visiting 34 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE Salem, Marblehead, Ipswich and Newburyport, traveling 130 miles and preaching ten times. For three succes- sive Sundays he delivered his message on Boston Com- mon to increasing multitudes roughly estimated at sev- eral thousands, but making only the slightest of impres- sions on the place, and before the end of July he was back again in Connecticut. Conference met for the third time in New York, October 4th, 1790. What had Lee to show for the six- teen months since his appointment to New England? Two small chapels had been erected, one in the parish of Stratfield, town of Stratford, and another in Dantown; nearly 200 souls had been united in classes, five circuits formed, the Methodist message proclaimed in all the five Eastern States, and much of the ground definitely sur- veyed for more systematic labors. Considering the for- midable obstacles encountered, this was a good report. Bishop Asbury so regarded it, and agreed not only to dispatch additional workers, but to visit the field him- self in the course of the ensuing year. Seven men were sent into New England at this Con- ference. Lee had immediate charge of only four—his younger brother, John (who had entered the itinerancy in 1788, and located through ill health in 1791), Daniel Smith, already mentioned, John Bloodgood, and Nathan- ael B. Mills. Their circuits were Fairfield (the one first formed called also Stamford and Redding), New Haven (the second circuit), Hartford, which took in both sides of the Connecticut, reaching as far north as Wilbraham, and, fourth, Boston, to which Lee and Smith were assigned. There was also a fifth circuit, which had two preachers, the Litchfield, formed in the spring of 1790. comprising the northwest section of Connecticut and BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 35 attached to Garrettson’s District, which lay mostly in New York State. Turning to Lee who had just been ordained at New York, and hence was no longer a mere lay evangelist, but a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, we discover him traversing Connecticut and administering the sacraments for the first time. He reached Boston in November, and found it colder, spiritually as well as physically, than he had in the previous July. The weather kept him from the Common, and he could get no house of any sort to preach in, though he sought it diligently for several weeks. A trial of this kind which shut his mouth and kept him from pouring out his great heart in gospel deliverances bore heavily upon him. But enlargement from another quarter was at hand. Monday, November 29th, he received a letter from Benjamin Johnson, of Lynn, inviting him there. Mr. Johnson, a leading shoe manufacturer, had heard Methodist preaching some twenty years before on his business trips, and was glad to improve this opportunity of hearing it again. So Lee, feeling that the Lord was manifestly in the call, left Boston at 2 p. m., Monday, December 13th, in a stage which reached Lynn a little after dark. He received a warm welcome from his host, preached in his house the next night to an attentive company, and in a few days found another appreciative audience at Mr. Lye’s in Wood End, the eastern part of the town. From Juynn as headquarters he soon formed an Essex County circuit, which took in Salem, Marble- head, Beverly, Danvers, Manchester, Ipswich and Cape Ann. These places do not appear to have yielded any immediate fruit, but when he took his departure for Conference on the 9th of May he could report fifty-eight members from Lynn. 36 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE The first Methodist society of Massachusetts was formed in Lynn, February 20th, 1791, and consisted of eight persons. Their names, as given by Abel Stevens, were: Enoch Mudge and his wife, Lydia; Benjamin Johnson and his wife, Mary Lewis, Hannah Leigh, Ruth Johnson and Deborah Mansfield, afterward Ramsdell. Boston, though visited repeatedly during these months, continued to turn its back on the Methodist itinerant for whose fervent message it seemed to feel no need, and he had to wait till the following year for an effective entrance there. Lee’s co-laborers in Connecticut, whose work we cannot give in detail, had been cheered by more decided success, so as to report 423 members, making, with Lynn’s 58, a total for New England of 481, a gain of about 300 for the eight months since the previous Conference. The percentage was immense, and the actual advance encouraging. Surely God was with them, and was blessing this honest effort to spread the principles of a milder, more reasonable theology and a livelier, more thorough-going piety through the Puritan States where religion so greatly needed revival. At the New York Conference of May 26th, 1791, Lee was returned as Presiding Elder with eleven men and six New England circuits, besides Kingston, in Upper Canada, Litchfield being given him this time, and Stockbridge in Western Massachusetts being opened. The principal events of the year were the building of the church in Lynn, Bishop Asbury’s visit to New England, and some slight progress in Boston. At Lynn—where seventy men, coming out from the established, or Con- gregational church (leaving but five male members), had taken certificates of their support of the Methodist ministry, as the laws of the Commonwealth demanded if they were to claim exemption from paying taxes to BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 37 the ‘‘standing order’’—so great was the enthusiasm for the new faith that on the 14th of June, just six months from the preaching of the first sermon, a house of wor- ship 34 by 44 feet in dimensions, was begun on an ex- cellent site at the head of the Common. With such energy was the enterprise prosecuted that the building was raised on the 21st, and dedicated on the 26th. It was, of course, only the shell of a very plain framed structure, not lathed or plastered for several years, but it admirably answered the purpose for which it was made and furnished a rallying place for the growing Methodist army.* Bishop Asbury entered Connecticut June 4th, 1791. This wonderful man, who presided at no less than twenty- five Conferences in New England, and had very much to do with the advancement of Methodism within its bor- ders, deserves a larger introduction to our readers than the space at our disposal seems to permit. It is the less necessary, however, in that the general histories of the church, easily accessible to all, dwell so extensively on his career. It has been well said of him: ‘‘He was the chief founder of the denomination in the new world. The history of Christianity since the apostolic age affords not a more perfect example of ministerial and episcopal devotion than was presented in this great man’s life. He preached almost daily for more than half a century. During forty-five years he traveled, * There had been a Providential preparation for Methodism in Lynn, not only by the favorable proclivities of Mr. John- son, but by the great dissatisfaction which existed in the Congregational church with their pastor, who had just been dismissed, combined with a long succession of church divi- sions and trials, which left them in a condition to welcome almost any change, especially one which gave promise of evangelical earnestness and religious warmth. 38 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE with hardly an intermission, the North American conti- nent from north to south and east to west, directing the advancing church with the skill and authority of a great captain. It has been estimated that in his American ministry he preached about 16,500 sermons, or at least one a day, traveled about 270,000 miles, or 6,000 a year; that he presided in no less than 224 annual Conferences, and ordained more than 4,000 preachers. He was, in fine, one of those men of anomalous greatness, in esti- mating whom the historian is compelled to use terms which would be irrelevant to most men with whom he has to deal. With Wesley, Whitefield and Coke, he ranks as one of the four greatest representative men of the Methodistic movement. In American Methodism he ranks immeasurably above all his contemporaries and successors.’’ Bishop Simpson says: ‘‘To no other man does American civilization owe so much as to Bishop Asbury.’’ Freeborn Garrettson said of him: ‘‘He prayed the best and prayed the most of all men I knew.”’’ Dr. Ezra 8. Tipple, in ‘‘A New History of Methodism,”’ says: ‘‘This habit of close and fervent communion with God was the spring of that amazing and steady zeal which bore him on in his unparalleled American career. The secret of his life and labors was a regnant sense of fellowship with God, a sense so real, so vivid, so domi- nant, that it drove him across seas, into cities and out of cities, through wildernesses and over mountains, a sense of fellowship so complete and so beautiful that it made him impervious to hardships, buoyed him amid uncom- mon discouragements, and held him steady amid dis- tressing torments, until at last the chariot of the Lord eaught him up.’’ He was at this time forty-six years old, and had been in America twenty years. Passing through the Connecticut circuits, where he 4, BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 39 was received with joy by the scattered Methodists, but with scant courtesy by the rest of the population, he reached Providence on the 18th, and Boston on the 23d. Recording his inhospitable reception at the latter place, he writes in his journal: ‘‘I felt much pressed in spirit as if the door was not open. It was appointed for me to preach at Murray’s churech—not at all pleasing to me, and that which made it worse for me was, that I had only about twenty or thirty people to preach to in a large house. It appeared to me that those who professed friendship for us were ashamed to publish us. On Fri- day evening I preached again; my congregation was somewhat larger. Owing perhaps to the loudness of my voice, the sinners were noisy in the streets. I was dis- turbed, and not at liberty, although I sought it. I have done with Boston until we can obtain a lodging, a house to preach in, and some to join us. Some things here are to be admired, in the place and among the people, their bridges are great works, and none are ashamed of labor. Of their hospitality I can not boast. In Charleston, South Carolina, wicked Charleston, six years ago, a stranger, I was kindly invited to eat and drink by many —here by none.’’ In Lynn it was, of course, different. He calls it ‘‘the perfection of beauty,’’ and says: ‘‘ Here we shall make a firm stand, and from this central point shall the light of Methodism and truth radiate through the State.’’ He tarried here about two weeks, an extraordinary occur- rence, preaching, meeting the classes, baptizing, adminis- tering the Lord’s Supper, and visiting from house to house. It was a mutual joy to him and the people. Other places touched were Marblehead, Salem and Manchester. July 13th he departed to Springfield, and thence to Al- bany. His concluding reflection, as he leaves, for the pres- 40 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE ent, this section, was: ‘‘I am led to think the eastern church’’ (meaning the Congregationalists) ‘‘will find this saying true in the Methodists, viz: ‘I will provoke you to jealousy by a people that were no people, and by a fool- ish nation will I anger you.’ ’’ It is not necessary to dwell much on Lee’s labors this year. He gave a large part of the time to the Lynn circuit, with a brief excursion to New Hampshire. October 6th he preached the first Methodist sermon in Needham. He visited also Sterling and Wilbraham. He projected a circuit in Rhode Island. In the spring of 1792 he undertook a laborious tour of the Connecticut circuits, during which he rode 517 miles in thirty-three days, and preached forty sermons. During the Con- ference year he preached 321 times, besides twenty-four public exhortations, and read a long list of books of the most solid description, covering 5,434 pages; he also listened to seventy-four sermons, a harder task perhaps than to have preached that number more himself. He was a wonder of consecration and diligence, of strength and courage, as were most of the other ministers in this period. God’s blessing was abundantly given to him and to his Jess conspicuous co-workers, so that by the end of the year 1,358 members were returned, a gain of nearly 900. Methodism was beginning to get firm root, and the tree thus carefully, skilfully planted was to take on added strength, praise God, with each recurring year. August 3d, 1792, is a memorable date in our history, since it marks the convening of the first Conference held in this region, which was the eighty-third in the country. It should be distinctly noted, however, that this was not the first session of the New England Annual Confer- ence. There was as yet no such body. The Conferences during the earlier years were considered simply local or BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 41 sectional or adjourned meetings of the one undivided ministry, held at different times in different places, widely apart, for the better convenience of the preach- ers. They were sometimes called District Conferences, quite appropriately since the Presiding Elder’s District was the basis, although two or more Districts might be united for the purpose. The number in attendance at any one place was small. All legislation was accom- plished by the superintendent presenting each new measure to the several Conferences, and the enact- ment of the measure was not secured until it had proved acceptable to the majority of the members in all the other sessions of the same ecclesiastical year. The first Conference was held in Philadelphia, July 14th, 1773, ten preachers present, all Europeans, Thomas Rankin presiding. In the next eleven years there were seventeen Conferences. After the Christmas Con- ference at Baltimore in 1784, which was the first Gen- eral Conference, when the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized, the annual Conferences lost much of their historic importance, as the well-considered organic measures of that session rendered much additional leg- islation unnecessary for a number of years. Three Conferences were held in 1785, four in 1786, five in 1787, six in 1788, eleven in 1789, fourteen in 1790, fifteen in 1791, seventeen in 1792, twenty in 1793, the number increasing with the enlarging territory to be accommo- dated. We have mentioned the four Conferences held in New York City from 1788 to 1791, which had close connections with New England. We come now to the seven held in New England previous to the formation of what is properly the New England Conference. The first of them was at Lynn, August 3d, 1792. It was dignified by the presidency of the greatest man in 42 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE the ecclesiastical annals of America, Francis Asbury. By his side sat the indomitable Lee, second only to Asbury in labors and travels. It is a pity we have no portrait of him that can be presented to our readers. He was over six feet high, weighing fully 250 pounds, a stalwart figure, with a bright, genial, clean-shaven face, a fair skin, large gray eyes, an open, cheerful countenance, marked by shrewdness, tenderness and humor, with a Quaker-like dress and military bearing. On account of his weight he rode, as a rule, two horses alternately, leading one. He had a pleasant address, a prepossessing appearance, with unusual conversational powers, intense missionary zeal, strong love for souls, and high moral courage. He was powerful in prayer, and one of the best preachers in the denomination or in America, besides being a good presiding officer, always fearless in the discharge of his duty, persevering under difficulties, and wholly devoted to the Lord. Nine per- sons in all were present at the first Conference in this unfinished Lynn Common chapel or meeting-house. We do not know for certain all their names; nor would any of the rest, were they mentioned, strike our ears famil- larly. They deliberated, and separated, continuing Lee as Elder for the eastern part of the work, and appoint- ing Jacob Brush over the circuits in Connecticut, to- gether with some in New York; western Massachusetts went with Freeborn Garrettson’s Albany District, Bos- ton, Needham. Providence and Pittsfield cireuits ap- pear for the first time, the first three of these, with Lynn constituting Lee’s District. Jeremiah Cosden, who was in the itineraney only five years in all, and only one year in New England, was assigned to Boston at this Conference. He was a gen- tleman of fortune and educated for the bar, but left BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 43 the law for the gospel. No class had yet been formed here, but Lee’s persistent labors had brought a few friends around him, among them Samuel Burrill, a blacksmith, who opened his house on Sheafe street, at the North End, to the preaching. The use of a public school-house was procured for Mr. Cosden at first, but the ringing of the school bell, for the 5 o’clock morning service, so disturbed the community that protests arose and the Methodists were soon turned out. They were also ejected from a room in the Green Dragon tavern after keeping it one Sabbath. But these repulses only stiffened the determination of the little flock, and July 13th of this year at the house of Mr. Burrill twelve, of whom he was the first (six men and six women), joined themselves in a society to be henceforth known as the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Boston. After a considerable time they succeeded in hiring for their services a chamber opposite the ship-yard on what is now North street, and this was dedicated to the worship of God by the Rev. James Martin, a local preacher from Virginia, August 17th, 1793, at which period the society had increased to about forty members. It was certainly the day of small things. Lynn had at this time 118 members. And there were 1,358 in all the circuits bear- ing New England names, but two of them probably stretched over somewhat into New York. Needham Circuit, which comes on the record newly this year, covered at first about all the territory between Boston and Worcester. After the manner of those days it branched out increasingly under the vigorous labors of the saddle-bag men, never twice alike in its inclu- sions, for as one or another outlying village would be taken in, some particular class would get strengthened enough, through a big revival, to set up for itself, or, 44 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE through the gradual multiplication of laborers, a new circuit would be formed out of a portion of the old territory that the field might be more intensively worked, At the beginning this circuit included (besides Needham) Weston, Waltham, Framingham and Milford. It soon spread to Natick, Newton, Sudbury, Holliston, Hopkinton and Uxbridge. On its Steward’s financial record book, still preserved in our Historical Library, can be seen also at different times the names of Malden, Westborough, Harvard, Grafton, Shirley, Lunenburgh, Townsend, Littleton, West Boylston and Marlborough. The accounts were kept until 1799 in pounds, shillings and pence; after that in dollars, cents and mills. A Steward’s book of this circuit, begun February 14, 1803, has a preface, written and signed at Harvard under that date, by ‘‘Joshua Soul,’’ which is worth transcribing. ‘As the interest of the Methodist society greatly de- pends upon the pious and assiduous exertion of the offi- cial characters, I sincerely hope that my successors in the holy ministry of the circuit may be faithful to inculeate every article of the Discipline in the fear of God. As no records have been kept previous to my coming on to the circuit whereby I could obtain information concerning the antecedarious state of the societies, I can leave no chronicle of circumstances existing prior to my personal knowledge. This book contains a record of baptisms, numbers in society, deaths, ete. Joshua Soul.’’ One heading in the book is ‘‘excommunications.’’ Five, whose names are given, were turned out in the next few years, for ‘‘unchristian temper and breach of rules,’’ ‘“‘immoral conduct and neglect of duty,’’ ‘‘improper conduct and breach of discipline.”’ The Conference of 1793 for this region was held in two sections. The preachers of the eastern circuits BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 45 assembled, August Ist, at Lynn; those of the western circuits, August 11th, at Tolland, Connecticut. Eight preachers attended at Lynn. Asbury remarks: ‘‘We have only about 300 members in the District, yet we have a call for seven or eight preachers; although our members are few our hearers are many.’’ The business of the session closed on Saturday, the 2d; the next day four sermons were delivered in the new chapel, begin- ning at 6 in the morning; the little band of itinerants partook of the Lord’s Supper with the disciples at Lynn, and on Monday morning dispersed to their vari- ous fields for the toils and triumphs of another year. At Tolland there was a partially finished chapel, in which on Monday, the 11th, ten or twelve preachers met and consulted briefly as to the growing work. The appoint- ments show that it had come to include now twenty- five laborers on fourteen circuits, which were grouped into two Districts and extended over part of a third. Ezekiel Cooper had the eastern District, George Roberts the western, and there were a few circuits attached to the Albany District headed by Thomas Ware. Cooper was a Maryland man, son of an officer in the Revolu- tionary army, who entered the ministry in 1785, at the age of twenty-two. He had a distinguished career, one item of which was that, as the editor and agent of the Book Concern for six years, he brought its capital stock up from almost nothing to $45,000. He lived till 1847, at which time he was supposed to be the oldest Methodist preacher in America. Roberts, the other Elder, was also a Marylander, one of Lee’s first re-enforcements, who did noble work in New England till 1796, then for ten years more in the Middle States, when the size of his family obliged him to locate and devote himself to the practice of medicine for the rest of his life. During the 46 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE early period of his labors in New England he never received, from any and all sources, over $40 per annum. He never had more than one suit of clothes at once. His son long preserved the thread and needle-case which he used in mending his garments with his own hands in the woods or behind a rock. Appearing for the first time this year is the name of Enoch Mudge (son of the Enoch already mentioned) one of the first members at Lynn and the first native of New England to enter the itinerant ranks. He was barely seventeen at this time, having been converted under John Lee two years before and licensed to preach almost at once. He did heroic and most valuable service during a long hfe, part of it in the local ranks in Maine (where he was scarcely less useful than when traveling) until he died at Lynn, his native place, in 1850, a man of whom Abel Stevens says: ‘‘I never knew him sur- passed in the purity of his moral character. His name must have a distinguished place in any future history of our cause.’’ ‘‘His personal presence,’’ says another, ‘‘was a benediction. He had the simplicity of a child and the sweetness of an angel.’’ His closing active years, some thirteen, were spent as the greatly revered minister to seamen at New Bedford. He was twice hon- ored with an election to the legislature of Massachusetts, and was a member of the State Convention for revising the Constitution. We shall meet him more than once in the course of these annals. A still greater man than he also appears among the appointments for the first time this year, George Pick- ering, who at the end of his days, 1846, was the oldest effective Methodist preacher in the world. He, like so many others, was from Maryland, born in 1769, and joining Conference in 1790. His honors and distine- BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 47 tions were many, as we shall see later, among them that of sitting in all the General Conferences of the Church (save two) during forty years. He was a rare charac- ter, with wonderful gifts. The Minutes, at his death, contain this description and tribute: ‘‘In person he was tall, shght, erect; with a serene though earnest expres- sion of countenance; and walking with a steady, elastic step. In his personal habits he was remarkably precise and methodical, and his manners were dignified and courteous. His distinguishing traits of mind were pen- etration, clearness, decision, a tenacious memory, an inventive genius, a prompt yet cautious judgment, pru- dence, a peculiar quaintness of humor, and an elevated taste. He was spiritually minded in an eminent degree. His faith was unwavering. He was a popular preacher, a sound divine, a cheerful and self-sacrificing itinerant, an able and patient ruler, and he was successful in bringing souls to Christ.’’ Lee’s appointment this year was ‘‘Province of Maine and Lynn’’; a singular one; the former part he did not like. He was very desirous to stay in Lynn, and would not leave for a while. But he had given great dissatis- faction to the singers there by interdicting fugue tunes, and the disturbance from this, and some other things, was of so ‘serious a nature that numbers of the people said if he stayed another year they would go back to the Congregational society whence they came. Cooper, who had been made Presiding Elder in his place, to straight- en out some things, says that Lee ‘‘showed a stiff obsti- nacy about it, was unreasonable and ungovernable.’’ But he finally consented to go to Maine.* * The authority for this interesting affair, which only shows that Lee had the defects of his high qualities, is a book ealled “Beams of Light on Early Methodism in America, 48 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE He entered that Province early in September and gave a large part of his time for the following months to trav- ersing its sparsely settled regions. Along the coast and up the rivers he rode, as far as Oldtown on the Penob- scot and Waterville on the Kennebec, prosecuting his mission with his customary diligence and singleness of purpose. There were very few settled ministers in that country then, and the scattered communities, destitute for the most part of regular preaching, were in many eases very glad to receive him. He formed his first Maine circuit on the Kennebec about two hundred miles from any other which we then had in New England. October 13th he preached the first Methodist sermon in Hallowell, on the 18th in Readfield, which gave its name to the circuit, and on the 22d in Monmouth, where the first class in Maine was organized, but not until Novem- ber, 1794. The membership in New England at the be- ginning of this conference year was 1,409 and at the chiefly drawn from the diary, letters, manuscripts, documents, and original tracts of the Rev. Ezekiel Cooper.” It was com- piled by George A. Phoebus, D. D., and published by the Book Concern in 1887. It contains two important letters from Lee, one from “Standford, N. England,” Aug. 11, 1789, in which he says: “I have a pretty little two-weeks’ circuit to myself, about 130 miles in circumference. I think the time is come to favor New England, and if I had acceptable preachers with me, I believe we should soon cover these States. I have some thought of writing to Brother Asbury to send you; if you are desired to come I hope you won’t object.” The other letter is from Boston, March 4, 1792, in which he says: “Lynn is a great place for Methodists, and the work of the Lord revives among the people. I wish it could be so that you could come and stay one year in Boston. We could do pretty well here if we had a preacher to stay constantly in town.” Mr. Cooper came to Boston and Lynn, early in February, 1793, and did not find things at all to his mind as regards Lee’s discipline, or lack of it. Many matters are touched on very racily in the Cooper diary, which we have not space for here. BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 49 close 1,734, small gains when compared with later prog- ress, but large for those days of struggle, and especially in view of the fact that the Methodist church at large declined this year more than two thousand. The Conference of 1794, like that of the previous year, was held in two sections; one at Lynn, July 25th, and the other at Wilbraham, September 24th. Bishop Asbury presided at both, feeble with disease and wearied with unremitting labors, but strong in spirit. Preaching on the way at Boston in an upper room in the house of Mr. John Ruddock, corner of Harris and Ann, now North, street, he laments the noise made outside by sail- ors and boys, but says his noise was the loudest and that ‘‘we shall yet have a work in Boston.’’ The Wilbraham Conference was held in the chapel, 40 by 34 feet, which the people had, with great exertion and amid determined hostility, just erected. It was a memorable time, given largely to preaching by Asbury, Lee, Roberts and others. Four young men were ordained, and the deep- est interest was aroused. The services on Sunday con- tinued for seven and a half hours. Thirty preachers received appointments at these two Conferences, nearly all on the two Districts headed by Lee and Roberts. It was during this year that the little band of Bos- ton Methodists addressed themselves in earnest to building a much-needed house of worship. Lee bestirred himself in their behalf and raised for them in the South about $520. Encouraged by this to proceed, although they were but forty-two in number all told and all poor, they purchased, September 5th, 1795, a lot of land in ‘‘Ingraham’s Yard,’’ (at 22 cents a square foot) after- wards for some time called Methodist Alley, but now known as Hanover Avenue. This was then a very respectable locality. Dr. Eliot’s new brick church was 50 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE only 200 feet distant, while Ann street and others adja- cent, was inhabited by people of considerable social rank. Lee laid the cornerstone of the structure, which was 46 by 36 feet, and George Pickering dedicated it amidst the thanksgivings and grateful tears of the little flock, May 15th, 1796. It was a small, plain building, unfinished within, a sanded floor, seats of rough boards without backs serving as pews. But it was much for them. That they could do even this was largely owing to the efficient help of Col. Amos Binney, who joined them in March, 1794, and was for a long time the leading lay- man of Boston, a man of most generous spirit and extra- ordinary business abilities, subsequently Collector of the Port. We shall speak of him again, more than once. Only two other Conferences were held during the period we are now traversing, and they need not long detain us. Both were in Connecticut, one at New Lon- don, July 15th, 1795, and the other at Thompson, Sep- tember 19th, 1796. In neither place had they a chapel, but were well accommodated in private houses. Nine- teen were present at the first, which continued from Wednesday till Sunday; and thirty at the second, some of them being from the Province of Maine, 300 miles distant. The work was expanding slowly on all sides, new circuits were being formed and considerable num- bers converted. In July, 1795, there were nearly 2,300 members and some half dozen chapels. By the end of the Conference year, which began in September, 1796, the return of members was 3,000, an increase amounting to one-fourth of the gains of the whole church that year, and that not counting Vermont, from which there was no report. In Connecticut there were 1,201, in Massa- chusetts 913, in Maine 616, in Rhode Island 177, and in New Hampshire 92. Scarcely a great multitude as yet, BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 51 but as Stevens well remarks: ‘‘It was not by numerical exhibits alone that they measured their success; hun- dreds who never united in their humble communion were recovered unto God by their instrumentality, and became, in other denominations, the first agents of that resuscitation of vital piety which has since transformed the aspect of the New England church. More thorough views of experimental religion were disseminated through the length and breadth of the Eastern States, and, chiefly, the foundations were laid for a mighty agency in the future, the results of which our grateful eyes have beheld in part, and our children’s children will behold, we trust, on a still sublimer scale.’’ Among those who came into the ranks for the first time, and who had before them a long career of eminent usefulness, were John Brodhead and Timothy Merritt. The former was born in Pennsylvania, in 1770, and en- tered the itinerant service in 1794. He spent forty-four years in the ministry (dying in 1838), all but two of them in the New England States, in all of which he la- bored with great success. He was Presiding Elder of several Districts (New London, New Hampshire, Bos- ton), served during four years as a representative in Congress, and could have been Governor of New Hamp- shire had he given his consent. While in eivil office in the State Legislature and elsewhere, he retained unabated the fervency of his spiritual zeal. At Washington he maintained at his lodgings a weekly prayer-meeting, which was attended by his fellow legislators; and on Sabbaths he preached more or less in all the neighboring Methodist churches. He was a courteous, Christian gen- tleman, with an imposing presence and an eloquent tongue, universally popular, everywhere most highly respected. Timothy Merritt was born in Connecticut, 52 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE 1775, and led into the pulpit by Enoch Mudge soon after his conversion. Christian Perfection was his favorite theme, and he was a living exemplification of that Wes- leyan doctrine. He was a well read man and a good writer, one of the editors of Zion’s Herald, for four years assistant editor of the Christian Advocate, and author of various good books; an accomplished debater, an eloquent preacher, a most useful minister. His favorite topics were those which pertain to experimental and practical piety. He was most lovable and amiable. : He died at Lynn in 1845. Here, then, we pause for a brief review of this first period whose extreme dates are 1736 and 1796, but whose main activities are confined to eight years. In that time seventy-two names appear on the list of appointments for the New England circuits, but only thirty-three of these are found at the close. Of the rest’ a few had withdrawn, a few died, many had located, many had gone to other parts of the country whence, in fact, they had nearly all come. The itinerant work was so severe that most were able to endure it only a short time. Nearly half of those whose deaths are recorded between 1773 and 1845 fell before they were thirty years old, and more than half spent less than twelve years in the service, most of them much less. The hardships were great, the perils numerous, the labors very wearing. The earliest ministers of New England, of whom we have had space to give particulars in only a few cases, were, as a rule, remarkable men of unusual energy, sagacity and piety, carefully selected by Asbury, than whom no better judge of men existed. While not learned in the schools they were educated by the external cir- cumstances around them which turned them into heroes. They were men of extraordinary devotion, intense con- BEGINNINGS OF METHODISM 53 victions, apostolic faith and spirit. They had a great gospel to preach—a free, a full and a present salvation —they had the unrivaled evangelical lyrics of Charles Wesley to sing; they were running over with enthusiasm, their souls on fire for God, fluent of speech, quick at repartee, strong in argument, ready to do, and, if need be, die, to redeem lost men. They carried with them an atmosphere of deep and permanent religious exhil- aration; the public worship they conducted was electric with spiritual life and love. So it is not surprising that they succeeded. In spite of the low state of religion into which most of the communities had fallen, in spite of the closely articulated parochial system which every- where resisted and resented their inroads, in spite of the proud Puritan theologians who looked with contempt and horror upon their ‘‘damnable doctrines,’’ in spite of the disdain with which the old families held them- selves aloof in their much-prized, well-endowed respecta- bility, these humble men of God, filled with burning zeal and invincible determination, secured a hearing, estab- lished churches, raised up helpers and exerted an influ- ence out of all proportion to their numbers or earthly resources, for the truth was with them and the Lord of truth himself was in their hearts. In the whole country at this time there were about 60,000 Methodist members and 300 preachers. New England Methodism had one- twentieth of the members and one-tenth of the preach- ers. It was fairly well equipped for conquest. The preliminary struggles were largely over. We shall now have the pleasure of watching its further development. CHAPTER TWO THE ORIGINAL NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE 1796—1824. We have given in the first chapter an account of certain Conferences, which were sessions of the undi- vided Methodist itinerancy, or the one Continental Con- ference, held for the convenience of the preachers in various localities. Not far from 130 of these District Conferences had convened previous to the General Con- ference at Baltimore, October 20th, 1796. At that time the manifold objections to the system thus far pursued —such as lack of wisdom and dignity in so small gath- erings, and the difficulty of transferring preachers from one District to another—were distinctly noted; and it was accordingly decided that the whole territory of the church could now be suitably divided into six parts, one yearly Conference to be held in each part. The names assigned were: New England, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Virginia, South Carolina and Western. To the New England Conference were committed ‘‘the affairs of our church in New England, and in that part of the State of New York which hes on the east side of Hudson’s River.’”’ This remained the boundary from 1796 to 1800. At the beginning of this period there were two Districts and thirty cireuits—the Eastern under Jesse Lee, with fourteen: the Western under Freeborn Gar- rettson, with sixteen. At the end of the period there were six Districts and forty-eight circuits, apportioned 54 SIMdVH,) GALLUNIN TIL Pd WYHUYSTIM |) aS AE YK NOWWOS NNAT YO THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 55 somewhat as follows: New York and Western Connecti- cut; Western Massachusetts and Vermont; Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island; Eastern Connecticut; Maine; Upper Canada. At the General Conference in Baltimore, October 20, 1800, there was a marked change in boundaries, the New York Conference being separated from the New Eng- land.* It took away all Connecticut, all Vermont, nearly all New Hampshire (all west of the Merrimac), and most of Massachusetts, everything west of Worcester, besides the missions in Upper and Lower Canada. It had five Districts—New York, New London, Pittsfield, Vermont and Canada, with twenty circuits. The New England Conference (called also, occasionally, in early times the Eastern) had but two Districts, one which occupied the Province of Maine, where there were eight circuits, and one which included Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where there were twelve circuits. The most westerly of the twelve was Needham, of whose extent we have spoken. The Conference New York, in name, was chiefly a New England Conference territo- rially, for twenty-six of its thirty-one appointments were either wholly or partly within the Eastern States. Of the sixty-one preachers who received appointments from it in 1802, only eighteen were sent to places which *Dr. James Porter, in his “History of Methodism” (page 318), strangely says: “The General Conference of 1800 fixed the boundaries of seven annual Conferences, including the New England, which it created out of territory before cov- ered by the New York Conference.” Which is just contrary to the fact. However, in this he did but follow Abel Stevens, who says, in his Memorials of Methodism (II. 9): “1800 is the date of the organization of the New England Conference by its separation from that of New York.” Neither Stevens nor Porter, it would seem, could have seen the General Con- ference Journal for 1796. 56 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE bore New York designations. This was an anomalous and unnatural condition of things which, evidently, could not last. It was radically altered by the General Conference of 1804, when New England was given back the large New London and Vermont Districts, including about twenty circuits, the Albany District being taken from Philadelphia and assigned to New York by way of compensation. For the next twenty years (1804-24) the boundaries remain substantially unaltered. The New England Con- ference included Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island complete, with that part of Vermont east of the Green Mountains, and those parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut east of the river. At the beginning of the period there were five Districts—Boston, New London, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. In 1806 Maine was parted into two Districts, Portland and Kennebec, and in 1820 the Penobscot District appears, making seven in all. In 1820 the bishops were authorized ‘‘by and with the advice and consent of the New England Conference to form a new Conference in the eastern part, between this and the next General Conference if they shall judge it to be expedient.’’? But it was not considered expedient to make this change until 1824. With the field of operations during this period now clearly in mind we can proceed to inquire what was accomplished in it, and by what instrumentalities or methods was success achieved. It may be said, in gen- eral, that the same means which God had so wonder- fully blessed thus far were continued, with steadily increasing prosperity. Some of the old workers for a while remained, but there were constant changes, and new names continually appear whose acquaintance we shall be glad to make. Jesse Lee has in the main done THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 57 his part for New England, and we shall not see him much more. In the Minutes of 1797, 1798, 1799, he is put down as ‘‘traveling with Bishop Asbury,’’ which took him, of course, all over the country. In 1800 he is assigned to New York City, and afterwards passes south- ward whence he came, being in 1801-03 Presiding Elder of the Norfolk District of the Virginia Conference. Asbury was present at nearly every session of the New England Conference until his death in 1816. But the first one, which met at Wilbraham, September 19, 1797, he was unable to reach, though he made heroie efforts to do so. Illness detained him at New Rochelle, and he sent word to Lee to preside. These two great men, the one a bishop and the other coming within one vote of the office in 1800 (failing mainly because of his outspoken, independent opinions and his fidelity to his convictions), traversed New England diligently in all its parts, going to and from the Conferences during the next three years, proclaiming the word with power, encouraging the preachers in their privations and toils, strengthening the feeble churches, inspiriting them to erect chapels and extend their efforts into adjacent neighborhoods.* * As the General Conference met in Baltimore, October 20, 1796, less than a month after the adjournment of the New England preachers at Thompson, Connecticut, it would seem proper to count as original or charter members of our Con- ference those who took appointments from Asbury at Thomp- son, September 21, of that year, and in October were consti- tuted the first regularly named New England Conference. There were forty-nine in the two districts, sixteen in Lee’s and thirty-three in Garrettson’s. It were easy to give their names from the Minutes, but an inspection of the list shows that only a very few—Pickering, Mudge, Merritt, Brodhead, Taylor and Williston—became permanently identified with the New England work or come afterwards into our history. Not one of the four who were with Lee in 1792—Menzies Rainer, Jeremiah Cosden, John Allen and Lemuel Smith— are appointed in New England for 1796. 58 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE The only other bishop of the earliest years, Thomas Coke, LL.D., appeared but once in our territory, and this for so short a time that he hardly comes into our narrative. On his final visit to America, the ninth, at the close of the Baltimore General Conference in 1804, he made his first and last visit to this section. Coming to New York he took passage on a sailing packet to Newport, and thence made his way, through Bristol and Providence, as far north as Marblehead. At Bristol he preached in St. Michael’s Episcopal church. At Provi- dence he stayed a week, probably to see the Rev. James Wilson, whom he knew well in the old country, and who was now pastor of the Broad Street Congregational church. He preached first in the Town House on Col- lege Hill, where the Methodist preachers usually held forth, declining all invitations elsewhere till he had first done his duty there. On Sunday he preached in Mr. Wilson’s church morning and evening. At Boston, Lynn and Marblehead, he preached three able sermons. Daniel Webb, then stationed at the last named place, heard them all and spoke of them in the very highest terms, remembering the texts as long as he lived. The Bishop hoped to come again in three years, and spend much time in Boston, with which he seems to have been greatly pleased, but Providence did not so ordain. Ina few days he left New England and America, never more to return. Two sessions of the Conference were held in 1798, for the better accommodation of the widely dispersed preachers, one at Readfield, Maine, August 2d, and the other at Granville, Massachusetts, September 19th. At the former place there was a new unfinished chapel, the first erected in Maine, and over a thousand people tried to crowd into it, so great was the interest aroused. THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 59 Granville, on the border of Connecticut, southwest of Westfield, was one of the plantings of the Litchfield circuit, which came up near it on the south, and for sev- eral years rivaled or exceeded in fame and numbers the societies in Lynn and Boston. It first appears in the Minutes of 1793 and included several of the mountain towns. In 1800 it reported 300 members, and in 1810 352, while Lynn had but 245 and Boston 306. The Cir- euit Steward’s book for Granville from 1795 to 1822 lies before us, bearing on its first page a preface by Enoch Mudge, dated West Springfield, June 20, 1795. In it he says: ‘‘To record the baptisms, marriages and different collections contributed in the several classes of Gran- ville Circuit, in order to give a just account of all these things. For all things pertaining unto godliness ought to be kept decently and in order. For where people are economical there harmony subsists in matters of reli- gion; it creates peace, and opens the door for happiness through Jesus Christ. May this be the end of the Meth- odists: which is the prayer and desire of a well-wisher to Methodism.’’ The accounts are kept for the first two years in pounds, shillings, pence and farthings, after that in dollars, cents and mills, all possible figures being brought into play to give the number of mills collected and paid. Enoch Mudge and Joshua Taylor were paid, each, in 1795, four pounds, ten shillings, seven and three-quarters pence; and George Roberts, the Elder, was paid twelve shillings. This circuit covered about all of Western Massachusetts. To give some idea of its size we transcribe the following fifty names of the classes which appear on the book at various times, Agawam, Ashfield, Barnes, Barrington, Becket, Bethlehem, Beach Plains, Barkhamstead Hollow, Blandford, Brush Hill, Buckland, Case’s Farm, Center Hill, Chester, Cole 60 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE Brook, Conway, Dalton, Feeding Hills, Granby, Gran- ville, Hartland Hollow, Hartland Mountain, Hoop Pole, Hope Brook, Lee, Lenox, Middlefield, Montgomery, Horse Hill, Meadow Plain, Milses, New State, North- ampton, Otis, Pittsfield, Pillason’s, Russell, Suffield, Southfield, Southwick, Stockbridge, Tyringham, Tatham, Turkey Hills, Westfield, Windsor, Washington, Worth- ington, Winterbury. This is not a complete list, and at several places there were two classes. Changes in the population and the organization of many independent churches on its territory caused its decline as a circuit. At this Granville Conference there was the largest assemblage of Methodist preachers which had been con- vened in New England, about fifty being present. Ten new ones were received; among them Epaphras Kibby and Daniel Webb. The former lived to the great age of eighty-seven, spending in the ministry sixty-six most fruitful years marked by extensive revivals, brave en- durance of hardships, and glorious victories for Christ; when stationed in Methodist Alley he preached at one time thirteen sermons from the text, Acts 28:22, ‘‘The sect everywhere spoken against,’’ and multitudes came from all over the city to hear. The latter died in 1867, aged eighty-nine, having spent sixty-nine years in the ministry, sixty-five of them without a single interrup- tion. He went four times to General Conference, the last time in 1852, when he was in his seventy-fifth year: he was Presiding Elder of the New Bedford District, and for a short time publisher of Zion’s Herald. There also entered this year two remarkable and very eccen- tric men, Billy Hibbard (Billy was his entire Christian name) and Lorenzo Dow. This was the third time that Dow had applied, for the brethren, though they admired his zeal and diligence, his ability and success in making THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 61 converts, were rightfully afraid of his aberrations. He was a right-hearted, wrong-headed man, almost a lunatic at times. After laboring two years with much fruit he believed himself called of God to preach in Ireland, whither he repaired. But he turned up again in 1801, traveled one more circuit, and then set out on that wan- dering career which took him into every corner of the nation. Hibbard’s work was mostly in New York State, although he spent one year at Granville; he died in 1846, At the Conference in 1799 appears the great name of Joshua Soule (or Soul). Although only eighteen years of age (born in Maine, August 1, 1781), he had already traveled one year under the Elder, and had given prom- ise of his coming fame. He was appointed to Portland with Timothy Merritt. At the Lynn Conference of 1800 he was continued on trial, and the Secretary, with the characteristic frankness of the period, makes the follow- ing minute on his case: ‘‘A man of great talents so- called, he being absent, was examined, and though Brother Taylor, who spoke concerning him, thought him in great danger of high-mindedness, yet he, with others, judged that if Brother Soule continued humble and faithful, he would become a useful minister in our church and connection.’’ He was in the Conference seventeen years until 1816, when being elected Book Agent at New York he was transferred there, eight years before being chosen Bishop for the second and final time. While in our Conference he was stationed at Sandwich, Needham, Nantucket and Lynn in Massachu- setts, and at Portland and Union River in Maine. The other eleven years he was Presiding Elder of and in Maine. In 1808, 1812 and 1816 he was chosen to the General Conference and made himself very strongly felt 62 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE in that important body. He became, indeed, in 1808, when only 27, the ‘‘Father of the Constitution’’ under which the Methodist Episcopal Church has lived and prospered, with some changes, ever since. It came about in this way. There had been for some time no little dissatisfaction with the fact that, all fully ordained ministers being equally entitled to a seat in the General Conference, the central Conferences, Philadel- phia and Baltimore, in whose territory the body met, were sure to have a majority and control legislation. In 1804 they had 70 out of 111, New York and New Eng- land having but 16. In 1808 they had 63 out of 129, besides 18 from Virginia, New York and New England having together only 26. Hence the movement to have a delegated body justly gathered force. It came to a head in 1808 by the presentation of a memorial from the New York and New England Conferences, the chief sufferers, proposing that a representative or delegated Conference be formed. This being defeated by the votes of the two central Conferences, who would be stripped of their power by the arrangement, intense feeling was naturally aroused at such selfishness, and six of the seven New England delegates, besides two from the West, prepared to go home, stating that they considered their presence wholly useless. But Hedding, who saw that a crisis had, indeed, arrived, and that if these men departed no fur- ther General Conferences were likely to be held, plead with them to stay in the city another day at least, which they did. Bishops Asbury and McKendree exerted themselves to make peace, and, as the result of private interviews, a sufficient number of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Conferences agreed to vote for the plan if the brethren would come back. So a more peaceful situation ensued, and the constitution came into being. The sub- THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 63 committee who had been charged with constructing it were Ezekiel Cooper of New York, Joshua Soule, and Philip Bruce of Virginia. But it was the paper drawn up by Soule that was approved and adopted, with slight modifications, by the Conference. Thus there came that introduction of representative government, well called “the most vital change in American Methodism next to the organization of the church in 1784.’’ A great evil was remedied. In 1812 Baltimore and Philadelphia had but twenty-nine out of ninety members, and in a few quadrenniums they had less delegates than New York and New England. Soule was chosen Bishop in 1820, but, deeming the action of the Conference in proposing to make the Presiding Eldership elective unconstitu- tional, he declined to accept the election, and persisted in his refusal despite all persuasions, until at the next Conference this action was rescinded and he, being again triumphantly elected, was inducted into office. It has been fittingly remarked that ‘‘he demonstrated himself to be the most dominating personality, except Asbury, in American Methodism.’’ At the division of the church in 1844 on the slavery question, Bishop Soule went with the South and became the senior Bishop of the new organization, remaining such till his death at Nashville, March 6, 1867. For intellect, energy and will he had few equals; he was an able administrator, a strong and, occasionally, an overwhelming preacher. Only a little later than Soule we meet his distin- guished colleague in usefulness and in episcopal honors (elected the same year, 1824, by 66 votes, Soule having 65) Elijah Hedding. He was a New Englander in every respect, except that for a very few of his earliest years he lived in New York State, where he was born, June 7, 1780, and then, being in Vermont (where he was 64 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE converted in 1798) which happened then to belong to the New York Conference, he joined that body in 1801, and was a member there for three years. His labors, however, were wholly in Vermont and New Hampshire, and so when these Districts passed to the New England Conference in 1804, he, stationed then at Hanover, passed with them, and continued in this jurisdiction till his election to the episcopacy, belonging to our Confer- ence twenty years, and then living in Lynn from 1824 till 1837. He was Presiding Elder on four Districts— New Hampshire, New London, Portland and Boston— besides being staticned at Boston and Lynn. From 1808 to 1824 he was a delegate to every General Conference, receiving always nearly every vote, and was always emi- nent in influence and power in that body. In fact, during these years the New England Conference dele- gates were surpassed by none, and were a very large factor, indeed, in the councils of the denomination. So much so that Bishop Simpson, in his ‘‘A Hundred Years of Methodism,’’ speaking of the ‘‘few men of creative minds who in the period from 1816 to 1820 became lead- ers in their respective spheres and gave breadth and energy to connectional movements,’’ and mentioning six such—-Joshua Soule, Nathan Bangs, John Emory, Elijah Hedding, Wilbur Fisk and Martin Ruter—names four members of our Conference. What these four men accomplished for the church, were it drawn out in de- tail, would make a very large chapter. They are but a small fraction of the great men which this Conference has supplied. Hedding as a Bishop stood among the few best, filling the office with unsurpassed ability, for twenty-eight years, till his death in 1852. It has been said that ‘‘for clear and strong intellect, broad and commanding influence, administrative ability and deep THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 65 devotion, combined with amiability and gentleness, Bishop Hedding has had few equals and possibly no superiors in the church.’’ Dr. Abel Stevens has this summary of his excellencies : ‘‘His manners were marked by perfect simplicity and ease. In the pulpit he was always perspicuous, lucid and instructive. He was dis- tinguished for his accuracy in the doctrines and disci- pline of Methodism, the exact discrimination of his judgment, the extraordinary tenacity of his memory, the permanence of his friendships, and his invariable pru- dence.’’ On his tombstone he is called ‘‘a man of un- affected simplicity and dignity of manners, of deep and consistent piety, of sound and discriminating judgment; a well-read theologian, an able divine, a pattern of Christian propriety and integrity, and a model Bishop.’’ The New England Conference for 1799 was held in New York City, which strikes us in these days as rather peculiar, but as, with the boundaries then prevailing the New York preachers had gone to Wilbraham and Gran- ville the two previous years, it was doubtless no more than fair to favor that part of the territory in its turn. The numbers in the society reported at this Conference for that part of New York State within its boundaries were 3,289 (New York City having 818), for Connecti- eut 1,497, Massachusetts 1,409, Maine 1,117, Vermont 603, Rhode Island 196, New Hampshire 131, or a total of 8,242. In Massachusetts Pittsfield had the largest membership, 421, Granville coming next with 319; Bos- ton had but 74, of whom 11 were colored, and Lynn 97. In Maine, Readfield circuit had 300, Portland 222, Pe- nobseot 207, and Kennebec 196. In Connecticut there were six cireuits—Litchfield, Middletown, New London, Pomfret, Redding and Tolland. Of the next twenty-five Conferences, completing our 66 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE present section, five were in Lynn, two in Boston, one in Nantucket, and the other seventeen were scattered all through the other States. The Conference records which have been preserved begin with the session at Lynn in 1800. There had been, it seems, no regular minutes kept in New England before, and the Secre- taries are unknown. The General Conference of 1800 especially prescribed, on the motion of ‘‘Mr. Asbury,’’ ‘‘that records be kept of the proceedings of the Annual Conferences by a Secretary and a copy of the said rec- ord be sent to the General Conference.’’ The first two of these little record books, covering the first twenty-two Conferences, contain about ten cents worth of extremely coarse paper, but the contents are much more precious than their weight in gold. Nine small pages are devoted to the doings of the first of these Lynn Conferences, and eight to those of the second, in 1801. Twenty-four were present at the first, including two Bishops, and seven- teen at the second, which is signed by ‘‘R. Williston, Seribe, for and in behalf of the Conference.’’ Two items occupy nearly all the space of the early minutes; one is the examination of character, and the other is the adjustment of the receipts. The marked thing about the former is the perfectly free, frank, fraternal comment and criticism offered on the young men as they severally come up for admission on trial or in full connection; and a very similar sort of remark was indulged in by the members regarding each other when the passage of character was in question. As the sessions were private, held with closed doors, there was not the restraint felt which has come from the presence of the public in more modern times. It is evident also that there was, as a rule, a searcity of men as compared with the ever-grow- ing demands of the work, and hence almost any one that THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 67 seemed willing or showed any promise, was given a chance to prove what he could do; but the testing was pretty thorough before admission to full membership was granted. Discontinuances or expulsions for immor- ality were quite frequent, and divergences in points of doctrine not seldom appear. The characterization of the candidates in the quaint, terse language of long ago is likely to awaken smiles now, but it was made in deepest earnest then. Our fathers had a refreshing simplicity and directness of speech, which might, perhaps, with profit be oftener imitated today. We have already mentioned the summing up in the ease of Joshua Soule. Here are a few others from the 1800 session. Daniel Ricker was rejected, ‘‘he being obligated by his promise to marry a certain person at some future though uncertain period, and it being un- certain how long, should his life be protracted, he would continue in the traveling order. It was argued that should he be received and travel but a short time, he then desisting would wound the cause.’’ Stephen Hull, at this same Conference, withdrew by letter, in which he says that ‘‘he does not withdraw from having fellow- ship with the Methodists, but from our connection and form of church government.’’ Apparently some feeling was aroused, for the Secretary adds this suggestive prayer: ‘‘The good Lord have merey on him.’’ John Martin’s application to enter the ranks in 1801 was “almost unanimously rejected, not on account of any immoralities, but on account of a family concern, to- gether with some imprudences in his manner of pro- ceeding. We suppose that he both wants gifts and a good report from them that are without.’’ At this ses- sion Epaphras Kibby ‘‘having some temporal business and being debilitated, desired a dispensation, and re- 68 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE ceived it for the present year.’’ This was quite often done in those years, a ‘‘dispensation’’ meaning exemp- tion from the regular work of a charge. Timothy Mer- ritt, in 1802, ‘‘requested a location alleging for his principal reason that he thought himself deficient as a disciplinarian. Huis brethren believed it to be a tempta- tion, and as they were unwilling to lose him from trav- eling, he consented to take an appointment again.”’ In 1803 it was suggested as an objection to Joshua Taylor that ‘‘he has not enemies enough, and Brother Pickering judged that he was not sufficiently austere in order to govern some that he had to deal with; which objection Brother Taylor said was well founded.’’ Of Daniel Webb, ‘‘Brother Pickering suggested that he loved home rather too well.’’ But this criticism must be taken in the light of Pickering’s own more than Roman rigidity as to infrequent visits to his family. During fifty years of married life he spent upon an average but about one-fifth of his time at home. If business called him to the town of his family residence, Waltham, at other times than those appropriated to his domestic visits, he returned to his post of labor without crossing the threshold of his home. In 1805 there were a number of peculiar cases. W. G. was suspended for one year from performing the functions of a deacon for marrying a woman of fifteen without religion, the Conference considering this to be improper conduct. D. B. was objected to because he ‘“denied visions and spiritual influences by dreams,’’ but he was finally admitted on his ‘‘averring his firm belief of Scripture in these respects.’’ Of another it was said that ‘‘his conduct sometimes was like that of a man in delirium’’; but he was received by a vote of 21 to 11. Without indicating years or persons we append a THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 69 few specimens of the brief characterizations that appear constantly throughout these journals: ‘‘Useful, firm, perhaps obstinate, contentious, well meaning.—Pious, unimproved, impatient of reproof, unacceptable-——He leaned too much toward anabaptism.—Zealous, perhaps indiscreetly so.—Not acceptable, owing to his slowness of thought and ungracefulness of speech; imprudent in his conversation to young women; it was hoped, and rather concluded by all, that he was pious.—Small abil- ities, somewhat improving, a disciplinarian—Not the most promising, but approved.—Stable amidst storms.— An excellent speaker, very forward.—Labors rather ex- cessively.—Rather childish.—Full of oddities, somewhat useful and improved.—Rather favors needless orna- ments.—Preaches too much about the millennium.— Hypochondriacal.—Pious, subject to trials —Not profita- ble, singular, absent in mind.—An example of Christian simplicity.—Not the most refined, good abilities—Sober, faithful, in some degree useful.—Gives some satisfaction as a preacher, but is faulty in neglecting his appoint- ments.—Bright young man, well approved.—Solemn, moderate abilities—Good character, good gifts, poor acquirements.—Not a methodical preacher.—Fails in utterance, sentimental, spotless character.—Slender con- stitution, close piety, good talents—-Commended in judgment, small in preaching.—Bright genius.—Very solemn.—Singular abilities——Professes sanctification, small abilities—Decent abilities, very pious.—Pious, spiritual—Rather bashful——Deficient in energy, very pious.—Very pious, not so ready as some to communi- eate—Singular in his gestures, but improving.—Uni- formly pious, useful——Pleasing in his conversation, pious, prudent, not great.—Bold, harsh, tolerable gifts. —Deeply pious, promising talents, been improving about 70 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE one year.—An improving gift—Not so well acquaint- ed with science and theology as would be desired.— Said to be very corpulent, and is therefore disqualified for a traveling preacher.’’ One was objected to because of his oddity and uncouthness of expression, in regard to which the Presiding Elder had labored with him and it was thought that he had reformed, so he was con- tinued. There were a number of cases where the candi- dates were not clear as to the validity and propriety of infant baptism. One was refused orders on this ac- count; but a committee labored with him, ‘‘after which he stated that he had received light and conviction, in consequence of which he now believes in infant bap- tism and in future he intends to be a disciplinarian on this subject.’’ Resolutions against re-baptizing were passed at various times. The other matter of primary importance which took up much space is the report of the stewards, who were carefully appointed, sometimes by ballot, at the begin- ning of each session. A heart-breaking effort had to be made every year to procure for the preachers enough to keep soul and body together. How it was accom- plished must ever remain a mystery, and a source of boundless admiration as the heroism displayed and the hardships endured come to be clearly seen. There was no salary, but an ‘‘allowance’’ which included what was called ‘‘quarterage’’ (it being supposed to be paid by the quarter) and also traveling expenses. The allow- ance was in the beginning $64 a year, but the General Conference of 1800 raised it to $80 and assigned an equal amount for the wife or widow of the preacher, as well as $16 for each child under seven and $24 for each one between seven and fourteen. In 1816 the allowance was raised to $100 per annum, and it was made the THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 71 duty of the stewards of the church to estimate the amount necessary to furnish fuel, rent and table ex- penses for the preachers. In the New England Confer- ence Minutes as late as the fifties the total estimate is made up of quarterage (at the old rate), table ex- penses, rent, fuel and traveling expenses, and these five items are given separately for each charge. (This divid- ing up of the estimate for support was done away with by the General Conference of 1860.) In the earlier Conferences of which we now write the receipts of each member were reported at the Confer- ence, a certificate being brought from the circuit stew- ard, and after deducting his quarterage, the surplus, if any, went toward making up, so far as possible, the deficit of his fellow laborers. Even private presents were at first required to be reported, but in 1800 these were exempted. It was voted in 1822: ‘‘If a preacher, after settling at the Conference should receive anything from his circuit or station that he left he shall account for it at the next Conference.’’ These self-sacrificing men were as one family in those days of severe priva- tions; what little they had they held very much in com- mon, and they were ready to share with one another the pittanees they received. We read in one of the early Minutes: ‘‘A subscription paper was passed for the assistance of the most deficient preachers.’’ ‘‘Brother C. requested a location, but the Conference being unwill- ing to give him up, agreed to give him $80 extra quar- terage by charity or other ways, and holy affection ex- cited the preachers to contribute $44.75.’’ Another collection taken in Conference in 1822 for destitute preachers amounted to $86.60. But in spite of their deep poverty they were not inclined to abate one jot of principle in the matter, or take funds that they felt 72 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE were wrongfully exacted. Witness this action in 1813, when things were at the worst with them, also repeated in 1816: ‘‘Resolved, that in future the preachers and ministers of the New England Conference will receive no money or other means of support, directly or indi- rectly, by taxation or legal assessment.’’ In 1801 the aggregate allowance or estimate of the twenty-two men (all but four of them single) was $2,206, but of this only $1,506 was received. The resources to meet this deficiency of $700 was $170, of which $110 came from the Chartered Fund and $25 came ‘‘as a compliment’’ from the Baltimore Conference. The next year the Baltimore Conference sent ‘‘as a present’’ by Bishop Asbury $185, and the New York Conference sent $20; so that the married preachers received $120 and the single brethren $62. In 1803 Baltimore for- warded $100 as a token of its continued sympathy with the noble men whom it had sent to evangelize New Eng- land. The whole reported receipts of the twenty-six preachers that year were $1,200, an average of but little more than $47, and the deficit was $1,287, toward which only $306 from all sources could be provided for divi- sion. Surely there was pecuniary sacrifice here rarely if ever paralleled in the records of any church. And it went right on. In 1813, when the war with England had gripped the land, destroying commerce and making prices very high ($16 a barrel was paid for flour), the aggregate deficiency was reported as $3,635, and the committee regarded it as their opinion ‘‘that this is not more than half the real insolvency, as no account has been made of the children and many preachers who were greatly deficient have made no claim.’’ To meet this need there were available, what? $587.65, all told, so that the Stewards were able to give the married preach- THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 73 ers enough to make up their receipts to $70, instead of more than $200 which was their due, and the single preachers had in all $35. Yet these preachers voted that $200 of the money received from Baltimore be given to the Genesee Conference, just getting started, for which they also took up a special collection the year before. Baltimore, the generous, gave in 1806 and 1807 its Book Concern dividend of $300 wholly to the New England Conference, besides a private contribution of $44.50. In 1814 the total deficiencies of thirty-six men who had received $1,359, were $2,766, to meet which $438 were available, so that the married preachers’ receipts were raised to $62.18, and single men’s to $31.09. One man had only received $1.50 on his circuit, so he was given $29.59. But why continue the distressing story? Ex- cept that it is well for us to remember at what cost our liberties and privileges have been purchased. No doubt the severe times during the war which struck this section so very heavily account in part for this record of 1813 and 1814, but it was bad enough in the usual years to arouse our sympathy and admiration. In 1821 the de- ficiency was $11,062, out of an estimate of $16,487, and there were only $863.28 to meet it. In 1822 the de- ficiency was $9,035.15; in 1823 it was $17,459 out of an estimate of $35,552.57 ; in 1825 it was $14,517.27. These figures and others of the period conclusively show that out of the small allowance estimated for support (far too little at the best) the amount collected was any- where from 30 to 70 per cent, a state of things well cal- culated to try men’s souls to the utmost and send them into location as soon as they had families to support. Although great numbers of men had to drop out others filled up the ranks and the march was ever on- ward. In 1800 there was a gain of more than 1,100, one- 74 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE seventh of the increase of the whole denomination in the United States and Canada; this in spite of the fact that the majority, it is thought, of the converts of Methodism in New England entered other communions; a large pro- portion did, at least. Within the first decade three and a half Presiding Elder’s Districts were established, thirty circuits formed, forty-one ministers were on their rounds, while ninety-five preachers in all had taken part in this Methodistic invasion of the Eastern States. Con- verts had been made at the rate of 500 a year. In twelve years from the start it had gained nearly 7,000 members, besides spreading its doctrines everywhere throughout the Eastern States, building many chapels, and getting into good shape for permanent advance. In another year the Methodists of the Eastern States were nearly one-tenth of the. whole church. In 1810 the entire membership of the New England Conference was 11,220, and the total number in the New England States (including those in the New York Conference) amounted to 17,592, almost exactly one-tenth of the membership in the United States. In 1820 the membership in the New England Conference was 17,739, a gain in ten years of 6,519 or 58 per cent. The New York Confer- ence gained 5,000 or 27 per cent, and the total Method- ists in New England were probably 25,000. In 1824, the close of the period we are treating, this Conference numbered 21,625, a gain of 3,886 in the quadrennium, or 22 per cent, while the New York Conference had 27,195, a gain of 3,739. Surely a good work was nobly done and genuine prog- ress royally made. Let us look at a few more of the splendid men by whose efforts all this was accomplished. Our space restricts us to a very few of the more prom- inent, but it should be distinctly understood that those THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 75 not noted here were equally zealous, faithful and de- serving. Lee must be mentioned once more, for, after going south in 1800 as we have seen, and filling high places there, he returned again for a farewell visit to New England in 1808, and made a triumphant progress through the land, being everywhere received with great enthusiasm and everywhere able to rejoice at large manifest advance. At Newport he saw with astonish- ment and displeasure for the first time a Methodist meeting-house with a steeple and a bell. At Lynn he met his old friends with exceeding delight, and there was much weeping as they separated to see each other no more on earth. He passed through all the States (except Vermont) in about three months, preaching forty-two sermons during his forty-three days in Maine, and by September 30th had reached Garrettson’s ‘‘Trav- eller’s Rest’’ at Rhinebeck on the Hudson. Thus ended his personal connection with New England Methodism. He survived his visit about eight years, was chaplain to Congress from 1809 to 1814, having seven elections in all to the Senate and the House, wrote three books, and had a very happy, triumphant death at the age of fifty-eight years and six months. He hes in Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Baltimore, where there are so many acres of precious Methodist dust, and where the Methodists of New England have raised to him a handsome monu- ment. His deeds speak so strongly for him that we might well be excused from penning any elaborate eulogy. He was not without faults, but his executive energy, his imperturbable persistence, his unfailing good humor, his deep devotion, his tender sensibilities, his powerful eloquence, mark him as an extraordinary man. Asbury, who also died in 1816, did much for New England in his repeated visits, but he never felt alto- 76 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE gether at home in its, to him, strange and chilling atmosphere. Nevertheless, though grieved over the encroachments of pews and steeples and musical in- struments which he deemed unmethodistic, he had a firm faith that a glorious work of God would be wrought in these States. ‘‘Surely,’’ he writes, ‘‘we shall rise in New England in the next generation.’’ Similarly, Gar- rettson, who died in 1827, and whose mighty labors for God on the western borders of this section had given him a great interest in it, said: ‘‘I should not be sur- prised if New England should become the richest soil in the Union for Methodism.’’ In some respects his proph- ecy has been fulfilled. One of the many eminent men who helped fulfil it, springing from this soil and blessing the whole nation, was Martin Ruter, born in Sutton, Massachusetts, April, 1785. Being drafted into the work in Vermont he joined the New York Conference in 1801, at the age of sixteen. He labored, for these years, entirely in New England, except that. he volunteered as a missionary to Montreal in 1804. In 1805 he comes into the New Eng- land Conference, after a while takes charge of the young Methodist Academy at New Market, then is made Agent of the Western Book Concern, 1820-1828, after which he does great things as President of Augusta College, Kentucky, and Allegheny College, Pennsylvania, which he had been chiefly instrumental in founding. He passed triumphantly to heaven, in 1838, from Texas, where he labored most heroically as a missionary. The only person ever received into an American Conference at a younger age than Ruter was George Gary, who was admitted to the New England Conference in 1809 when he was fifteen and a half, and who, like Ruter, amply vindicated, by a devout and useful life of no little emi- THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCHD 7 nence, the propriety of the unusual step made necessary by the peculiar circumstances of the times. There are some half a score other ministers of large usefulness and prominence who entered the work during this period, whose names will appear at intervals on our pages and who should have at least brief mention here if our history is to be in any sense even tolerably complete. Wilbur Fisk, who first appears in 1818, may almost be said to mark a new epoch in our annals. He was the first preacher of this section, or perhaps in American Methodism, who had the advantage of a col- legiate education, having graduated with honor at Brown in 1815. He was a man of intrinsic greatness, of the highest style of Christian character, of rare pulpit eloquence, full of grace, dignity and power, the idol of the whole Church, South as well as North. His birth was in Brattleboro, Vermont, 1792. He was the first Principal of the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, and the first President of the Wesleyan University at Mid- dletown, was elected bishop of the Canada Conference in 1828, but declined, was elected Bishop of the Method- ist Episcopal Church in 1836, but declined, feeling in each case that his calling was educational rather than administrative. After a life that was saintly in the extreme he passed to the church triumphant, February 22, 1839. Edward T. Taylor, the sailor preacher, a genius of the rarest quality, illustrious for wit, imagination, oratory, for high gifts of intellect no less than those of the heart, received marvelous tributes of admiration from such divers and unexpected sources as Horace Mann, William Ellery Channing, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Dick- ens and Harriet Martineau. His name appears in the Minutes: for the first time in 1819, when he was ap- 78 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE pointed to Scituate circuit. He was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1793, and lived on the earth till 1871. His main work was at the Mariner’s Bethel in North Square, where for over forty years he ministered to the seamen in a way that has never been equaled. Joseph A. Merrill was born in Newbury, Massachu- setts, 1785, received by the New England Conference into the traveling connection in 1807, and served for sixteen years as Presiding Elder on the Vermont, New London, Providence and Springfield Districts. With great abilities and rare sagacity in ecclesiastical affairs he was a chief factor in the important events of the Con- ference for forty years, and fell asleep in Jesus at Wil- braham, Sunday morning, July 22, 1849. A man of much the same sort was Lewis Bates, born in Cohasset, Massachusetts, in 1780, uniting with the church in 1801, joining Conference in 1804, and, after a very effective ministry attended with many converts, passing away in 1865. Father H. C. Dunham speaks of him as ‘‘in early life a son of thunder, later on a son of consolation. In protracted meetings I have heard him preach with pathos and great force, and exhort with overwhelming power, tears coursing down his cheeks and a voice choked with emotion, pleading with precious sin- ners.’”’ Joel Steele was born in Tolland, Connecticut, 1782, entered the itinerancy in 1806, and labored, with many revivals attending his ministry, till 1846. He was the father of George M. Steele. Solomon Sias joined the same year at the age of twenty-five, a New Hampshire boy. His first year’s labor as Presiding Elder of the New Hampshire District in 1811, netted him $1.04 above his traveling expenses, the next year yielded $5.33, the third $18.24. He scored a magnificent success as pub- THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCE 79 lisher of Zion’s Herald, from October 1, 1824, to Octo- ber 1, 1827, making a net profit for the paper in that time of $8,018.94, and leaving to his successor a sub- scription list of 6,000. He died in 1853, a member of the Vermont Conference. John Lindsay was born in Lynn, July 18, 1788, and admitted on trial to the Conference in 1809, the record being ‘‘very acceptable.’’ He continued to be thus through a long life, fillimg appointments during his first nine years in the ministry in every one of the New Eng- land States, serving as Presiding Elder on the Vermont, Lynn and Boston Districts, laboring also in the New York and Troy Conferences, and dying at Schenectady in 1846, greatly lamented by all who knew him. Charles Virgin, born in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, and converted when twelve years old, joined Confer- ence in 1807, at the age of twenty. He was Presiding Elder on the Kennebee and Boston Districts, member of the General Conference in 1816 and 1836, and was transferred above from Wilbraham in 1853. Upright- ness and decision marked his character; he was faithful in the discharge of every duty, much given to prayer; his final hours were those of unusual triumph. Daniel Dorchester, born at Vernon, Connecticut, in 1790, entered the ministry in 1816; had charge of the Boston, Providence, New London and Springfield Dis- tricts, was an able defender of Methodism, as well as an extensive revivalist. Becoming superannuated in 1850 he soon after went West, was made librarian of the Pub- lie Library in Chicago, and died near that city, August 6, 1854. Aaron D. Sargeant became a preacher in 1821, at Mal- den, where he lived from very early days, although born 80 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE in Acton, December 15, 1801. In 1822 he joined Con- ference, to which he belonged for nearly fifty-nine years, forty-seven of which were in the effective ranks. He never lost a Sabbath or a day by sickness. He was Pre- siding Elder for eight years, and Treasurer of the Board of Conference Trustees for nineteen. He died of apoplexy, 1881, greatly lamented. ‘ Through the labors of these and the other equally good men associated with them, great things were done in this widely extended field which spread from the extremities of Cape Cod on the southeast to, and into, Canada on the northwest. It is interesting to note the gradual advance of Methodism as indicated by the ap- pointments. Provincetown first comes into sight with thirty members in 1795, Sandwich with forty-seven in 1797; Martha’s Vineyard with thirteen in 1798, Nan- tucket in 1799, Harwich in 1807. Methodism took pretty full possession of the Cape early in the century and has held it ever since. The part of the field which makes up the modern New England Conference did not in those early years yield the large fruit which was found in some of the other sections, such as Maine and Cape Cod. The Minutes of 1810 contain but five cir- cuits in this modern territory—three on the Boston Dis- trict—Lyun, Boston and Marblehead*—and two on the New London District—Needham and Ashburnham— with a total membership in the five of 1,192. The Steward’s book of Ashburnham circuit in 1809 gives the following as the location of its classes: Winchester (New *It is not easy for us to realize the amazing changes which 120 years have made in the populations of this country. By the census of 1790 the towns of Essex County ranked ag fol- lows: Salem, 7,921; Marblehead, 5,661; Gloucester, 5,317; Newburyport, 4,937; Ipswich, 4,562; Newbury, 3,972: Beverly, 3,290; Andover, 2,863; Danvers, 2,425; Haverhill, 2,408; Lynn, THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCH 81 Hampshire), Winchendon, Northfield, Orange, Rindge, Marlborough, Sullivan, Gilson, Keene, Westmoreland, Chesterfield; later Wendell and Princeton were added. In 1820 there had come to be nine circuits, Dorchester and Malden being added in 1818, and Charlestown and Springfield in 1819. The Boston District had in all nineteen circuits, but only six of them were within our present Conference boundary. The total membership of these nine circuits was 2,025, a gain of 833, or 170 per cent for the ten years. In 1824 the circuits had grown to thirteen, and the membership to 2,398; there being fully 30,000 at this time in all the New England States, and nearly 330,000 in the whole country. Of the new circuits Salem first appears in 1822, Cambridge and Wilbraham in 1823, the latter having been previously a part of the Tolland circuit. A second chureh was built in Boston during the first decade of the century. In 1800 the first church on Methodist Alley was freed from debt, and not long after, by the expenditure of $500 was completed, five years from its dedication. It was severely plain, and not much of a house, judged by modern standards even when finished. The alley in which it was situated had no sidewalk. The ground floor of the building was two steps above the street, and the outside door opened di- rectly into the aisles; on the right and left stairs led into the galleries, one of which was occupied by males and the other by females. A stove stood in front of the altar. Opposite the pulpit were the singers’ seats. Here 2,291. Hence the prominence of Marblehead in the appoint- ments of the early days. Boston had in 1790, 18,038 inhabit- ants; Worcester, 2,095; Springfield, 1,574; Massachusetts, 378,787; New York State, 340,120; Connecticut, 237,946; New Hampshire, 141,885; Vermont, 85,425; Maine, 96,540; Rhode Island, 68,825. &2 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE the society worshipped until the erection of the more ‘ spacious and pretentious edifice on Bennett street, in 1828, when the old church was occupied by the Boston Port Society until the completion of the Seamen’s Beth- el in North Square, after which it was used as a car- penter’s shop until destroyed by fire. Five years after the completion of the first church, the membership having grown to 257, the quarters had become too strait for the congregation, and the trustees, under the lead of Col. Amos Binney, were authorized to procure a lot and erect a second chapel in another part of the city. The lot on the corner of Park and Tre- mont streets was available and was considered, but, as a matter of economy, a place on ‘‘Broomfield’s Lane’’ was bought for $8,000; $12,000 more was borrowed for building purposes, and the cornerstone was laid by Peter Jayne, April 15, 1806. In the foundations was placed a block of hewn stone from Plymouth Rock, which, alas, in the remodeling of 1848, when the lane was widened into a street, and the rebuilding of 1864, after the fire, was removed and lost. Dr. Dorchester, noting the con- nection with Plymouth, asks: ‘‘Was it a symbol of the engrafting of the Methodist bough into the stock of the old New England order, or of the absorption of that into the larger life and growth of Methodism?’’ The building was completed in a remarkably short time and dedicated by Samuel Merwin, November 19th of this same year. It was 84 by 64, and is described by Lee, who preached in it in 1808, as ‘‘large and elegant, very handsome, but not on the Methodist plan, for the pews are sold to the highest bidders.’’ Notwithstanding this financial expedient a very heavy debt remained, which threatened destruction, for the times were hard and the pews did not sell. The stress was so great that the THD ORIGINAL CONFERENCH 83 trustees were forced to sell 1,212 feet from the land south of the chapel for $1,414, a sad sacrifice. Extreme embarrassment continuing, the General Conference of 1808 at Baltimore was entreated to devise some means for relief. It was ‘‘moved from the chair’’ that a sub- scription be opened in behalf of the Boston meeting- house to be placed in the hands of all the Presiding Elders, and George Pickering was authorized to ‘‘raise a subscription in any part of the connection to assist in defraying the enormous debt on the new church.’’ He obtained $3,300. But it was not until 1816 that the whole debt was removed under the ministry of Elijah Hedding and Daniel Fillmore. The method by which it was done deserves at least a few lines. The debt had come in some remarkable way to amount to $18,000 at this time, and as the two churches were held by one Board of Trustees and the creditors demanded their money it looked as though Methodism was likely to be wiped out of existence in Boston. Even a forced public sale would not have real- ized the whole encumbrance. It was truly a desperate state of affairs. Col. Binney came to the rescue. He proposed that if the two preachers would go through the city and persuade the people to take the unsold pews at their original valuation—for enough of them still re- mained unsold to pay the entire debt—he would take the notes of the people thus subscribing, the people to pay in any articles of trade or in any kind of labor that might be most convenient to them. Also that he would give sufficient time for the payment, and run all risks; and as soon as a sufficient amount was secured on these conditions he would assume the church debt and take these notes in payment. So the two preachers tackled this very difficult undertaking. They traveled the city 84 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE from end to end and from side to side, early and late, six days in the week, and after three months’ unremit- ting labor of this sort a sufficient number of pews had been taken, Col. Binney gave his check, and the debt was paid. The first contribution of Boston Methodism to the ministry was Joseph Snelling, converted under Ezekiel Cooper in 1793 and joining Conference in 1797; he gave a very good account of himself indeed for many years until his location in 1810. Pickering was the leader of the Conference after the departure of Lee during all this period, going to the General Conference every time at the head of the dele- gation with a practically unanimous vote, and exerting there large influence. ‘‘In person,’’ says Stevens, ‘‘he was tall, slight and perfectly erect, his countenance ex- pressing energy, shrewdness, self-command and benig- nity. The exactitude of his mind extended to all his physical habits. In pastoral labors, diet, exercise, sleep and dress he followed a fixed course which scarcely ad- mitted of deviation. He continued to the last to wear the plain, Quaker-like dress of the first Methodist min- istry, and none could be more congruous with the bear- ing of his person and his venerable aspect. His voice was clear and powerful, and his step firm to the end.’’ He was a man of few words, seldom if ever known to occupy three minutes at a time in the discussions of the Conference, and the directness of his sentences and the pertinence of his counsels always indicated the practical sage. Almost unerring prudence marked his life. He had a ‘‘sanctified wit’? and unwavering faith in the evangelical doctrines, an ardent zeal, a steadfast trust, always ready for every good word and work. Other men of mark who came with him, or after him, from the South, and did royal work for a season—David Os- THE ORIGINAL CONFERENCHD 85 trander, Thomas F. Sargent, Samuel Merwin, William Beauchamp, who came very near being a Bishop—tar- ried only a short time, but Pickering remained. Nine of the little band, men of promise, succumbed to the hardships of the time and passed to their reward in these years. Zadok Priest was the first to fall, a youth- ful martyr to the excessive labors which the cause seemed to exact. He was a native of Connecticut, began to preach in 1793, was attacked with consumption in 1795, while on the Warren circuit, and died at Norton, January 22, 1796, in the twenty-seventh year of his age. The next to go was Peter Jayne, a native of Mar- blehead, who began to travel in 1796, when he was eighteen, and, after ten years of hard service, died in Boston in 1806. In 1808 died, ‘‘with songs of praise on his quivering lips,’’ says the Minutes, Henry Martin, a native of New Hampshire, ‘‘thorough in both the theory and practice of religion,’’ a laborer in Maine, where in departing to form a new circuit, he sunk under his toils at the age of twenty-six, after only three years in the ministry. William Hunt, who went next, in 1810, aged twenty-three, spent four years in the ministry, having been born at East Sudbury; consumption took him. ‘‘I have fought a good fight,’’ he said, as he came to die, and requesting his attendants to take him from his bed and place him upon his knees, he expired ‘‘in tranquil- lity and holy triumph.’’ Greenleaf R. Norris spent five years in the ministry before he was called away, at the age of twenty-seven, taking a violent cold while sta- tioned at Boston in the winter of 1810, which laid the foundation of a consumption, from which he died, Sep- tember 29, 1811, in Cambridge. ‘‘He was well read in the Seriptures, engaging and easy in his address,’’ says the obituary, ‘‘and heard with pleasure and profit.’’ 86 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE Thomas Branch, who joined Conference in 1801, was the secretary of it for five years (1806-1810), during which time he was also Presiding Elder; he was placed on the supernumerary list in 1811 as a disabled man, his health having thoroughly given way under the incessant preaching and severe exposure of his large field, which reached into Canada, and required, especially in winter, difficult traveling and much suffering. He proposed to go to the Southwest and labor while his dwindling strength should last in that section. But he perished on the way, of consumption, June, 1812, in the remote wilderness of the northwest angle of Pennsylvania. He is described as an Israelite indeed who walked close with God. In 1814 Abner Clark of New Hampshire departed, exclaiming, ‘‘I am going; I am going; blessed be God for victory over sin, the world, and the devil; I have gained the victory.’’ He was twenty-five years of age, and had spent six years in the ministry. Jason Walker, born in Ashby, Massachusetts, 1793, after six years’ service, passed through the valley in triumph, at the age of twenty-six, struck down by consumption, as were most of these young men. Richard Emery, born in Haverhill, 1794, joined Conference at Lynn, 1812, in his eighteenth year, and passed away, from consumption, aged twenty-six, January 7, 1821, exclaiming with his last breath: ‘‘I am wrapped in visions of God’s love.’’ The reader will notice that the average age of these men was twenty-six, and the average length of their ministry six and one-third years. What more eloquent testimony could there be to the severity of the service demanded of them and the thoroughness of their consecration, for without exception they witnessed a good confession in life and death, and left behind them the sweet fragrance of a blameless life. SE8I ‘“laduLg aiadwoug ‘dn0ur) TONAUAANOD AL ®PI1d CHAPTER THREE. IN A LESSENING AREA 1825—1840 Jesse Lee, as we have seen, prospected a little in Maine in September, 1793, preaching the first Methodist sermon at Saco, but did not form the first class (at Monmouth) until November, 1794. Readfield was the name given to the first circuit. It was there the first Methodist church was dedicated, June 21, 1795, and the first Conference held, August 29, 1798. August 6, 1800, Lee preached the dedicatory sermon (‘‘to a large con- gregation of attentive hearers, much engaged with the Lord,’’ he says), of the church at Kent’s Hill where, twenty-four years later, the Maine Wesleyan Seminary was incorporated and established. Methodism greatly prospered in Maine. It first comes into the Minutes in 1793, Jesse Lee being appointed to ‘‘the Province of Maine and Lynn.’’ Readfield circuit appears in 1794. Penobscott and Portland are added in 1795. In 1797 there are six circuits, with Joshua Taylor as Presiding Elder of the new District. In 1800 there were 1,197 members. In 1806 there had come to be two Districts, the Portland and the Kennebec, with 2,501 members. Oliver Beale and Joshua Soule were then Presiding Elders, and remained so for many years. Other men who had charge of the Districts for brief periods in the eighteen years following were Elijah Hedding, Charles Virgin, Asa Heath, David Hutchinson, and Eleazer 87 88 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE Wells. The numbers by 1810 had grown to be 3,464, by 1820, 6,017, and in 1824 they stood at 6,466. In 1820 the third District, the Penobscot, was formed. Having now three out of the seven Districts consti- tuting the whole Conference, and nearly one-third of the total membership, Maine thought it full time that she was given separate Conference conveniences. As far back as 1796 the General Conference had said: ‘‘If the Bishops see it necessary, a Conference may be held in the Province of Maine.’’ Seven Conferences were held there in the next twenty-eight years. In 1820 a com- mittee of six, headed by Pickering, was appointed by the Bishop, on the motion of Solomon Sias, to inquire into the expediency of forming a new annual Conference from the eastern part of New England territory. They reported in favor of having one, and the report was ac- cepted. But this was June 24th, and the General Con- ference of that year had adjourned May 27th, so nothing could be done for quite a while. In June, 1823, the record says, ‘‘Some conversation took place relating to the formation of a new Conference. The Bishop said he was not authorized to do it, but recommended to adopt measures to have it done at the General Conference.’’ A committee was accordingly appointed to lay out the boundary lines of the contemplated Conference and draft a memorial to the General Conference. Solomon Sias, Enoch Mudge, Elijah Hedding and two others were appointed. The General Conference of 1824 formed the new Conference to include ‘‘all the State of Maine’’ ——Maine in 1820 had ceased to be a District of Massa- chusetts and had been admitted into the union as a sep- arate Commonwealth, which perhaps emphasized the feel- ing on the part of its people that it should be separated from Massachusetts ecclesiastically also—‘‘and that part IN A LESSENING AREA 89 of New Hampshire lying east of the White Hills and north of the waters of the Ossipee Lake.’’ This part of New Hampshire still abides in the Maine Conference, after nearly a century; which illustrates the difficulty of rectifying lines once made crooked. The session in 1824 at Barnard, Vermont, was the last one of the undivided Conference. In view of this fact there was much feel- ing, special prayer, and a unanimous resolution ‘‘that we continue still to pray for each other’s prosperity.’’ The first session of the new Conference ‘‘in the Maine,’’ as they frequently phrased it, was fixed for Gardner, July 7, 1825. For the next four years the only complete State be- longing to the New England Conference was Rhode Island; and it still is the only New England State be- longing wholly to any one Conference. Joined with it were the parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Ver- mont previously possessed, and nearly all of New Hamp- shire. It had during part of this time four Districts, and during the remainder either five or six. In 1826 the Boston District was divided and the Lynn District formed from it, with John Lindsay as Presiding Elder, but the following year it was re-absorbed, and the name of Lynn does not appear again as designating a District till 1854. In the same year the Vermont District was divided, the Danville District being formed from a part of it, and this arrangement remained. During this quadrennium not a great deal happened that we need to dwell upon here. Much was said and done about the Zion’s Herald and the Wesleyan Acad- emy just getting started, but these matters will come up more properly in another connection. The sessions of the Conference—at Cambridge, Wilbraham, Lisbon (New Hampshire), and Lynn—were on the whole harmonious 90 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE (‘‘peace and love and union prevailed”’ is the record in 1828), although there were several expulsions. The preachers did not all of them behave as well as they might, either in major or in minor matters, and there were many efforts at regulating things with which we do not now so readily meddle. In 1825, on motion of Merritt, it was resolved ‘‘that it be expedient that all the members of this Conference be uniform in the fashion of their coats’’; and it was also resolved ‘‘that we wear single-breasted coats with plain rolling collars.’’ In 1827, ‘‘plaited bosom shirts’’ were, on motion, discountenanced. The only further allusion to dress discoverable is a resolution introduced by James Mudge in 18438, and passed by the Conference, ‘‘that a committee be appointed to examine such essays as may be presented to them on the subject of dress, and that they cause such of them to be printed as in their opinion may be advisable.’’ It was moved in 1826, by Merritt and Lindsay ‘‘that it would be highly improper and injudicious to the work of God in which we are en- gaged to introduce the practice of reading sermons in our congregations; but on special occasions, when the evidence of important truth depends on a series of close and connected argumentation it may be at the option of the speaker to read or to extemporize.’’ The first part was carried, but the second part was evidently looked upon as a dangerous entering wedge and was indefinitely postponed by a vote of 46 to 20. In 1825 it was voted that ‘‘in the judgment of this Conference the application of water a second time in baptism is inconsistent with the gospel and the discipline of our Church.’’ In 1827 resolutions were passed pro- testing against the departure of the Canadian Confer- ence and affectionately entreating them not to press IN A LESSENING ARBA 91 their request for permission thus to do. A few years later, however, 1831, the Conference concurred ‘‘in the principles adopted by the late General Conference as a foundation for the adjustment of the claims of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Upper Canada upon the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States for a share in the general Book Concern and hereby give our full approbation to the final settlement of said claims on the principles aforesaid.’? The vote on this was sev- enty-three to one, James Porter, who had only been in the Conference one year, giving the solitary negative vote. There was much excitement during these years as to the attendance of a few of the preachers on public Masonic dinners and processions, the Conference having declared, ‘‘We will have no connection whatever with speculative Free Masonry,’’ and ‘‘We recommend our members not to frequent Masonic assemblies.’’ HE. T. Taylor was especially prominent and independent and belligerent in the matter, so much so that he twice got into trouble. In 1829 he was judged guilty of unchris- tian and imprudent conduct for certain rash and hasty expressions which drew down upon him ‘‘the decided disapprobation of the Conference.’’ The President, in the name of the Conference, was requested to give Broth- er Taylor ‘‘an affectionate and plain rebuke, reproof and exhortation on these subjects, and then if he mani- fest suitable submission his case shall pass.’’ Brother Taylor was accordingly rebuked, reproved and exhorted, manifested due submission, and his character passed. But his penitence was not probably as profound as it appeared, for in 1831 he very similarly offended, and was required ‘‘explicitly to acknowledge his fault and pledge himself in the presence of this Conference that 92 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE. he will transgress in this way no more’’; which he ac- cordingly did. His biographer says that when asked how he liked the punishment inflicted he answered: ‘“‘The only objection I had to it was that there was not enough of it. I am willing to take advice from Bishop Hedding every day of my life; for I am sure he has a true heart, and what he says shall be an excellent oil that shall not break my head.’’ Hedding was his best friend, almost his idol, under whose preaching at Brom- field street he had been converted. Several noted men about this time became members of the Conference. Abraham D. Merrill, Orange Scott, and Melville B. Cox were admitted in full in 1824. The last named was our first foreign missionary, going to Liberia to establish the mission in 1831, and leaving behind as a motto: ‘‘ Although thousands fall let not Africa be given up.’’ Scott became a leader of the abolition forces a few years later, and afterwards the chief founder of the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Mer- rill as a revivalist, a saintly and indefatigable worker, and a sweet singer in Israel, had few equals. The ex- amining committee well says of him in recommending his admission, ‘‘very pious, good talents.’’ He had a wealth of emotion and enthusiasm which swept all be- fore him. In 1825 E. K. Avery and John Newland Maffitt were admitted. The latter, an Irishman, born in Dublin in 1794, had a brilliant but somewhat erratic career in various parts of the country, was chaplain to Congress in 1841, and died of heart rupture in Mobile in 1850. He was a marvelous pulpit orator and a very successful revivalist at times, but his influence was sadly marred by serious defects of character. He took stations in this region for a few years only. In 1826 and 1827 there IN A LESSENING ARBA 93 entered La Roy Sunderland and George Storrs, after- wards so prominent in the anti-slavery struggles; and in 1829 Amos Binney, author of the Theological Compend, was admitted. Among the Presiding Elders, who shouted on the battle, were Wilbur Fisk, Joseph A. Mer- rill, Edward Hyde, Daniel Dorchester and John Lind- say. Solomon Sias and Timothy Merritt were preach- ers-in-charge of Boston, and Daniel Fillmore was at Lynn Common. Other appointments were George Pickering, missionary to Newburyport and Gloucester ; Frederick Upham, Falmouth; Enoch Mudge, Provi- dence; Lewis Bates, Barnstable; E. T. Taylor, Martha’s Vinyard; Thomas C. Peirce, Danville; M. B. Cox, Ken- nebunk; Daniel Webb, Nantucket; Asa Kent, New Bedford; Joshua Randall ‘‘without an appointment un- til he complies with the decision of the Conference in his case.’’ His case was a famous one, as was also that of E. K. Avery, concerning which we must speak later. In 1825, immediately after the division of the Confer- ence, the membership numbered 16,055; in 1829 it had grown to 20,557, a gain of 4,502, or 28 per cent, which, under the circumstances, must be accounted to show faithful, earnest labors in all directions. It is the precise percentage gained by the denomination as a whole dur- ing this quadrennium. So far as the printed journals of the General Confer- ence of 1828 are concerned no action regarding a change of boundaries in the New England Conference, or the contemplated division of its territory, can be discerned, nor is any trace of such action discoverable in the Dis- cipline, as Dr. Sherman also asserts. Nevertheless such action must have been taken, as is evident both from the printed General Minutes and the MSS. Minutes and committee reports of the New England and New 94 NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE York Conferences. The New England Conference, July 31, 1828, adopted the report of a committee on the divi- sion of the Conference presented by the chairman, Wil- bur Fisk. This report proposed to the New York Con- ference an adjustment of boundaries so as to provide for a new Conference on the north. At Portsmouth, June 16, 1829, the committee to whom was assigned ‘‘the expediency of forming a new Conference out of the New England and New York Conferences’’ re- ported ‘‘that it is expedient, and that the boundary line of the new Conference shall be as follows: Beginning at the mouth of the Merrimac River and following said river to the New Hampshire line, then following the State line to the Connecticut River, and then on the Vermont line to the hight of the Green Mountains, in- eluding as much of Massachusetts as is contained in the Leyden circuit,’’ or ‘‘that section of country now in- eluded in the New Hampshire, Vermont and Danville Districts’’; ‘‘the new Conference shall be called the New Hampshire and Vermont Conference.’’