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

HISTORY OF THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
By Abel Stevens
CHAPTER XX
METHODISM IN THE WEST, CONTINUED: 1790 -- 1804
McKendree takes Charge of the Western Field -- Poythress' Decline and Insanity -- Introduction
of Camp-meetings -- Remarkable Scenes at them -- Grenade -- David Young -- Making a Circuit --
The Southwest opens -- Tobias Gibson at Natchez -- He falls a Martyr to his Work -- Recruits for
the Field -- Learner Blackman -- Methodism in Ohio -- McCormick -- Dimmitt -- Kobler sent to
Ohio -- Hunt and Smith there -- the Miami and Sciota Circuits -- Advance of the Church -- Philip
Gatch in the West -- Kobler at the Grave of Gatch -- McCormick's End -- Sale in Ohio -- Methodism
in Cincinnati -- At other points in Ohio -- Bostwick in the Western Reserve -- Methodism enters
Indiana and Illinois -- Benjamin Young -- Hardships there -- Methodism in Michigan -- Planted at
Detroit -- Asbury in the West in 1797 -- terrible Trials there -- He has to retreat -- Returns in 1800
-- Conference at Bethel, Ky. -- Its Academy -- The First Camp-meetings -- Sufferings on the route
Eastward -- Returns in 1801 -- Conference in Tennessee -- Back again in 1802 -- Reposing on the
Holston Heights -- Conference at Bethel -- The Bishop in a Storm -- Reflections on his Sufferings
-- Again in the West in 1803 -- Conference at Cynthiana, Ky. -- Early Life in the West -- Statistics
The year 1800 was signalized in western Methodist history by the appearance of William
McKendree at the head of the pioneer itinerants. Poythress, hitherto its chief representative man, was
beginning to totter in both mind and body, and it now needed an able commander. Poythress has
often appeared on the scene, and always as a giant among his greatest compeers. Few of the early
itinerants did more to lay the foundations of the Church both east and west of the Mountains. He was
one of the most zealous laborers for its educational interests, and fell a martyr to his devotion to that
cause. He was the chief founder of the first Methodist seminary in the West -- the Bethel Academy
in Jessamine County, Ky. Its edifice was a large brick structure of two stories, and it had incurred
a considerable debt, which weighed down his noble mind till it sunk in ruins. All efforts of himself,
Valentine Cook, and other co-laborers, to retrieve the institution failed, and Poythress lingered a
wreck like his favorite project. At the session of the Western Conference, held at Bethel in 1802, an
intimation was recorded in its journals of his "critical state of unaccountability." His name was
ordered to be "left off the General Minutes;" but the Conference expressed itself as "tenderly
concerned for his support and welfare, and therefore resolved that his name shall stand on our
Journal" and "further, that his name should be perpetuated on the Journal of this Conference." [1]
Accordingly his name, after remaining among the elders during 1802 and 1803, but nowhere else,
[2]
disappears from the Minutes. This fact, together with a hasty allusion to him in Asbury's Journals,
as late as 1810, has given the unfortunate impression that he apostatized. Asbury's brief, unqualified
allusions to other men are often liable to such misinterpretation. Fortunately for our own feelings,
as well as for the reputation of this great and good man, a living witness of Asbury's interview with
him has unveiled the mystery, and shed a clear though saddened light on his grave, after doubt if not
reproach has hung for half a century over his memory in much of our literature. Henry Boehm was
the traveling companion of Asbury in the West at the time of Asbury's unfortunate record. Boehm
says: "On Monday we visited an old minister, one of the pioneers of the West, and the bishop makes