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CHAPTER 9.
ITINERANT LIFE
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At the close of this conference year, 1806, I met the Kentucky preachers at Lexington,
and headed by William Burke, about twenty of us started for conference, which was held
in East Tennessee, at Ebenezer Church, Nollichuckie, September 15th. Our membership had
increased to twelve thousand six hundred and seventy; our net increase was about eight
hundred.
This year another presiding-elder district was added to the Wester Conference, called the
Mississippi District. The number of our traveling according to the printed Minutes, this
was placed in 1807, but it was in the fall of 1806. Two years before there were eighteen
of us admitted on trial; that number, in this short space of time, had fallen to thirteen;
the other five were discontinued at their own request, or from sickness, or were reduced
to suffering circumstances, and compelled to desist from traveling for want of the means
of support.
I think I received about forty dollars this year; but many of our preachers did not receive
half that amount. These were hard times in those Western wilds; many, very many,
pious and useful preachers, were literally starved into a location. I do not mean
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that they were starved for want of food; for although it was rough, yet the preachers
generally got enough to eat. But they did not generally receive in a whole year money enough
to get them a suit of clothes; and if people, and preachers too, had not dressed in home-spun
clothing, and the good sisters had not made and presented their preachers with clothing, they
generally must retire from itinerant life, and go to work and clothe themselves. Money was very
scarce in the country at this early day, but some of the best men God ever made, breasted the
storms, endured poverty, and triumphantly planted Methodism in this Western world.
When we were ordained deacons at this Conference, Bishop Asbury presented me with a parchment
certifying my ordination in the following words, namely:
"Know all by these presents, That I, Francis Asbury, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in America, under the protection of Almighty God, and with a single eye to his
glory, by the imposition of my hands
and prayer, have this day set apart Peter Cartwright for the office of a DEACON in the said
Methodist Episcopal Church; a man whom I judge to be well qualified for that work; and do hereby
recommend him to all whom it may concern, as a proper person to administer the ordinances of
baptism, marriage, and the burial of the dead, in the absence of an elder, and to feed the flock
of Christ, so long as his spirit and practice are such as become the Gospel of Christ, and he
continueth to hold fast the form of sound words, according to the established doctrine of the Gospel.
"In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my
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hand and seal this sixteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and six.
"FRANCIS ASBURY."
I had traveled from Zanesville, in Ohio, to East Tennessee to conference, a distance of over five
hundred miles; and when our appointments were read out, I was sent to Marietta Circuit, almost right
back, but still further east. Marietta was at the mouth of the Muskingum River, where it emptied
into the Ohio. This circuit extended along the north bank of the Ohio, one hundred and fifty miles,
crossed over the Ohio River at the mouth of the Little Kanawha, and up that stream to Hughes River,
then east to Middle Island. I suppose it was three hundred miles round. I had to cross the Ohio
River four times every round.
It was a poor and hard circuit at that time. Marietta and the country, round were settled at an
early day by a colony of Yankees. At the time of my appointment I had never seen a Yankee, and I
had heard dismal stories about them. It was said they lived almost entirely on pumpkins, molasses,
fat meat, and bohea tea; moreover, that they could not bear loud and zealous sermons, and they had
brought on their learned preachers with them, and they read their sermons, and were always criticizing
us poor backwoods preachers. When my appointment was read out, it distressed me greatly. I went to
Bishop Asbury and begged him to supply my place, and let me go home. The old father took me in his
arms, and said,
"O no, my son; go in the name of the Lord. It will make a man of you."
Ah, thought I, if this is the way to make men, I do not want to be a man. I cried over it bitterly,
and prayed too. But on I started, cheered by my presiding
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elder, Brother J. Sale. If ever I saw hard times, surely it was this year; yet many of
the people were kind, and treated me friendly. I had hard work to keep soul and body together.
The first Methodist house I came to, I found the brother a Universalist. I crossed over
the Muskingum River to Marietta. The first Methodist family I stopped with there, the
lady was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but a thorough Universalist. She was
a thin-faced, Roman-nosed, loquacious Yankee, glib on the tongue, and you may depend on it,
I had a hard race to keep up with her, though I found it a good school, for it set me to
reading my Bible. And here permit me to say, of all the isms that I ever heard of, they were
here. These descendants of the Puritans were generally educated, but their ancestors were
rigid predestinarians; and as they were sometimes favored with a little light on their moral
powers, and could just "see men as trees walking," they jumped into Deism, Universalism,
Unitarianism, etc., etc. I verily believe it was the best school I ever entered. They waked
me up on all sides; Methodism was feeble, and I had to battle or run, and I resolved
on the former.
There was here in Marietta a preacher by the name of A. Sargent;
he had been a Universalist preacher, but finding such a motley gang, as I have above
mentioned, he thought (and thought correctly too) that they were proper subjects for his
imposture. Accordingly, he assumed the name of Halcyon Church, and proclaimed himself the
millennial messenger. He professed to see visions, fall into trances, and to converse with
angels. His followers were numerous in the town and country. The Presbyterian and
Congregational ministers were afraid of him. He had men
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preachers and women preachers. The Methodists had no meeting-house in Marietta. We had
to preach in the court-house when we could get a chance. We battled pretty severely. The
Congregationalists opened their Academy for me to preach in. I prepared myself, and gave
battle to the Halcyons. This made a mighty commotion. In the meantime we had a camp-meeting
in the suburbs of Marietta. Brother Sale, our presiding elder, was there. Mr.
Sargent came, and hung around and wanted to preach, but Brother Sale never noticed
him. I have said before that he professed to go into trances and have visions. He would
swoon away, fall, and lay a long time; and when he would come to, he would tell what mighty
things he had seen and heard.
On Sunday night, at our camp-meeting, Sargent got some powder, and lit a cigar, and then
walked down to the bank of the river, one hundred yards, where stood a large stump. He put
his powder on the stump, and touched it with his cigar. The flash of the powder was seen by
many at the camp; at least the light. When the powder flashed, down fell Sargent; there he lay
a good while. In the meantime, the people found him lying there, and gathered around him. At
length he came to, and said he had a message from God to us Methodists. He said God had come
down to him in a flash of light, and he fell under the power of God, and thus received his
vision.
Seeing so many gathered around him there, I took a light, and went down to see what was going
on. As soon as I came near the stump, I smelled the sulphur of the powder; and stepping up to
the stump, there was clearly the sign of powder, and hard by lay the cigar with which he had
ignited it. He was now busy delivering his message. I stepped up
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to him, and asked him if an angel had appeared to him in that flash of light.
He said, "Yes."
Said I, "Sargent, did not that angel smell of brimstone?"
"Why," said he, "do you ask me such a foolish question?"
"Because," said I, "if an angel has spoken to you at all, he was from the lake that burneth
with fire and brimstone!" and raising my voice, I said, "I smell sulphur now!" I walked up to
the stump, and called on the people to come and see for themselves. The people rushed up, and
soon saw through the trick, and began to abuse Sargent for a vile impostor.
He soon left, and we were troubled no more with him or his brimstone angels.
I will beg leave to remark here, that while I was battling successfully against the Halcyons, I
was treated with great respect by the Congregational minister and his people, and the Academy was
always open for me to preach in; but as soon as I triumphed over and vanquished them, one of the
elders of the Congregational Church waited on me, and informed me that it was not convenient for
me to preach any more in their Academy, I begged the privilege to make one more appointment in the
Academy, till I could get some other place to preach in. This favor, as it was only one more time,
was granted....
(The remainder of this chapter is still under construction.)
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