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 60
The names of the following preachers are found in the Minutes of 1784, as having been received
on trial: John Robertson, John Philips, Richard Smith, David Jefferson, James Riggin, William
Lynch, John Fidler, Simon Pyle, Thomas Jackson, Elijah Ellis, John Smith, William Jessup, Wilson
Lee, Isaac Smith, and Thomas Ware. As Mr. Ware had traveled half of the preceding year, and as
we have given his labors up to the Christmas Conference, we pass to notice the others.
John Philips supplied a vacancy for one year. Richard Smith was in the itinerancy but one year.
David Jefferson located, after two years, in 1786. John Robertson desisted, after three years, in 1787.
John Fidler, most likely from New Jersey, traveled three years, stopping in 1787. James Riggin,
probably from Somerset county, Md., located in 1790.
Elijah Ellis was in the work four years. He was a steady, solid, humble, diligent minister, who
spent his energies in the service of God. He died in Lancaster, Va., in 1788. Simon Pyle located in
1792, making New Jersey his home. In 1806, he was living in Lower Freehold, in Monmouth county,
where he entertained Bishop Asbury. Thomas Jackson was a useful preacher, but located in 1790.
It seems that he resumed the work after a few years, and finally stopped in 1804. William Lynch, of
Baltimore county, Md., a good man and a good preacher, was on Kent Circuit, Md., in 1784; be was
long and favorably known as an acceptable local preacher; he went to his heavenly reward in 1806.
Mr. William Jessup was a native of Sussex county, Del., near Bridgeville. Mr. Asbury preached
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the funeral of Mrs. Jessup in 1779. About this time he was brought to God. His father was an
ungodly man, and opposed his son in becoming a Methodist, and in serving God. He suffered his son
to go to meeting on the Sabbath day in no better clothes than he allowed his Negroes: this he did to
keep him away from meetings; but, however coarse or ragged his apparel was, he was found
worshipping regularly among the Methodists. When he began to itinerate, his father, though a large
landholder, refused him a horse, and suitable clothes to appear in public in. His brethren, who
believed God had called him to the work, gave him his outfit. He labored as an itinerant from
Virginia to Nova Scotia. He was a Christian of great simplicity and sincerity. He finished his course
in 1795. His last words were, "My work is done, Glory! Glory! Glory!" and died away. He is interred
at Boehm's Meeting house, in Lancaster county, Pa., where, probably, he died. Mr. Asbury preached
his funeral in Dover, Del., and says, "I received the last loving request of our dear Brother Jessup,
that I should preach his funeral. I had difficulties in speaking, and the people in hearing, of a man
so well known and so much beloved. He was always solemn; and few such holy steady men have
been found among us."
Mr. Wilson Lee was born in 1761, near Lewistown, in Sussex county, Del. He was some of the
first fruits of the labors of Methodist preachers in that part of the country. He served the Church in