A History Of The Rise Of Methodism In America - Media Sabda Org

A HISTORY
OF THE
RISE OF METHODISM IN AMERICA
by
John Lednum
CHAPTER 39
A summary account of the introduction of Methodism on the Peninsula: --
Methodist preaching was established in the neighborhood of Forrest, now Thomas Chapel, about
1775 or 1776. At this place, it seems to us, Philip Cox was converted.
Mr. William Thomas, from whom this chapel afterwards took its name, became a traveling
preacher. Mr. John Day who became a local preacher, was one of the original society formed here
in 1777 or 1778. Mr. Asbury, through Dr. McGaw, had access to the Emory family, in this
neighborhood.
At Richard Shaw's a society was soon formed, which, in the beginning, was an important society,
and among the oldest in Kent county, Del. Mr. Thomas Seward and his companion were original
members here. His son, John Seward, was some time a traveling preacher in the Philadelphia
Conference. Father Seward reached the "Better land" in 1827, aged eighty-three; he had been a
Methodist more than fifty years. Some of the Downs, also, belonged to this society. Mrs. Mary
Downs, of this neighborhood, died in 1827, in her eighty-eighth year; she was an old Methodist.
Mr. Shaw's house was the first home that Mr. Asbury had in that region; and, at his house,
quarterly meetings were held, before the Methodists had any chapels in the county. From this
appointment, Methodism was introduced into Dover. The society at Dr. Edward White's was formed
in the year 1777, or early in 1778.
The Rev. John Cooper introduced Methodism into several places in Delaware. As early as 1777,
he established preaching at Friend Reynear Williams', east of the present town of Milford. Milford
was not built, as yet. The society raised at Friend Williams', was the beginning of the present Milford
society, where it was permanently established after Milford became a town. We know there was a
society at Friend Williams' in 1778; for a Mr. C. Split it. See Asbury's Journal, vol. i. p. 216.
For ten years, the preaching was in private houses and school rooms; the latter part of this period,
in the house of the Rev. Joseph Aydelott.
About 1787, a lot of ground was procured in a central part of the town, and a small frame building
erected, thirty by thirty-five feet, for the worship of God; and a funeral sermon, by the Rev. William
Jessup, was the first discourse delivered in the house; the congregation being seated on the sleepers
of the house, unsheltered -- the roof not yet on. In this humble manner, was this first temple dedicate
to the worship of Almighty God. In 1790, the chapel was ceiled and galleried; and, in 1800,
twenty-two feet were added to it. The present brick church substituted it in 1842.