History of the M.E. Church, Vol. IV - Media Sabda Org

at the anvil, through the day, he would throw off his apron and paper cap, wash, and change his
dress, and walk, with Spicer, to Albia, where he exhorted at the close of the sermons." Naturally
gifted with energy, rare tact, and vivid eloquence, young Levings rapidly rose to eminence not only
in his own denomination, but in the general religious community. In 1817 Samuel Luckey had
similar success in Troy, adding about one hundred and fifty members. In 1813 the erection of
Division Street church in Albany gave a new impulse to the denomination in that city, and it has
advanced, though with occasional and severe trials, ever since. Zealous Captain Webb had preached
in Schenectady an early as 1766 or 1767, but its first Methodist society was not formed till when
Andrew McKain, of Albany Circuit, united some fifteen or twenty members who had been
converted, in social meeting, at the house of Richard Clute. The same year Samuel Howe was
appointed their circuit preacher. They worshipped in private houses, and, later, in a schoolhouse, till
1809, when they built a humble temple, and in 1816 became a station under the charge of Laban
Clark, though yet a "little flock," comprising but fifty members. Nearly the whole Ashgrove District
was astir with revivals during these years. Camp-meetings were now in more general vogue than
ever, and rekindled, summer after summer, religious interest throughout the whole territory of the
middle and northern Conferences.
In each year of the period, able young men, besides those already mentioned, and destined to
become generally recognized as ministerial leaders, but of most of whom no adequate records
remain, entered the itinerancy: in 1805 Charles Giles, George Lane; in 1807, Peter P. Sandford,
Phineas Rice, Lewis Pease, George Harmon; in 1808, Friend Draper, Thomas Neal, William Jewett;
in 1809, Stephen Martindale, Isaac Puffer, Loring Grant, Coles Carpenter, George Gary; in 1810,
Arnold Scolefield, Benjamin G. Paddock, Seth Mattison; in 1811, Joseph Lybrand, Manning Force,
John B Matthias, Benjamin Griffin, Marmaduke Pearce; in 1812, David Daily, George Baughart,
Tobias Spicer, Elisha Williams, William Ross, Gad Smith, Gideon Lanning; in 1813, John Potts,
Israel Chamberlayne; in 1814, Joseph Rushing, Buel Goodsell, Elias Bowen; in 1815, Richard W.
Petherbridge, Josiah Bowen; and in the remaining five years John Dempster, George Peck, Fitch
Reed, John J. Matthias, Charles Pitman, Noah Levings, Seymour Landon, Zachariah Paddock,
Glezen Fillmore, men of pre-eminence in the pastorate, or in educational institutions, editorial
positions, the missionary secretaryship, the American Bible Society, but who were yet in their
youthful preparatory training. Scores of others joined the itinerancy with these, many of them
scarcely less important laborers, if not so familiar to the present generation of Methodists, and whose
names, with these, may hereafter be more conveniently commemorated.
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