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 6
Captain Webb, in visiting Philadelphia, had to pass through New Jersey, and was the first of Mr.
Wesley's followers, that preached in Trenton, New Mills, Burlington, and other places in the
province. Burlington was first settled in 1677 -- five years before Philadelphia. As early as 1769, or
earlier, Mr. Webb began to exercise his ministry in this town. He preached in the market place, and
in the court house. Among the first converts which he made to God and Methodism, was Mr. Joseph
Toy, in 1770. In the latter end of this year he formed a small class, and appointed Brother Toy to lead
it.
It is probable that Mr. Toys occupation was school teaching. After Cokesbury college was opened,
he was teacher in one department of that institution. In 1801, he became an itinerant in the Baltimore
Conference; and, after more than twenty years spent in this sphere, he died in Baltimore, in 1826,
in the blessed hope of immortality, aged seventy-eight years.
Burlington was the first place in New Jersey where Mr. Asbury preached; he preached in the town,
two weeks after his landing in America, in 1771. In 1772, there was a good work going on in it,
under the preaching of the Methodists; it was headquarters, where the preaching was mostly blessed
to the people. Four, out of the nine or ten preachers then in America, were laboring in this town the
same week; A certain Dr. T___t was awakened under Mr. Boardman. Two persons obtained
justification under Mr. Webb's preaching; the Methodists were very lively; Messrs. Asbury and King
were also there. Mr. Asbury first mentions this society in 1773, and says, "The little society appears
to be in a prosperous state," but he does not tell us the names of any that belonged to it then. Bishop
Asbury, in his Journals, vol. ii. p. 55, says, "After there had been Methodist preaching in Burlington,
for twenty years, they have built a very beautiful meeting house." This house was opened for worship
in 1789. This fixes the date of the first preaching, in the year 1769.
We have been informed that the Methodist society in New Mills, now Pemberton, claims priority
in New Jersey. We have never understood the precise evidence relied upon to establish this priority.
There is little reason to doubt, that it was the strongest and most prosperous society, during the first
age of Methodism, in the state. When Dr. Coke first visited this town, in the early part of 1785, he
remarked that the "place had been favored with the faithful ministry (of the Methodists) for sixteen
years." From 1785, sixteen years carries us back to 1769, which must be fixed upon as the true date
of Methodist preaching in New Jersey.
The town of New Mills was laid out by a Mr. Budd; and Messrs. John and William Budd were
pillars in the Methodist society in this town. One of them was a local preacher. In 1807, Mr. Asbury
says, "I found old grandfather Budd worshipping, leaning upon the top of his staff, halting, yet
wrestling like Jacob. Ah! we remember when Israel was a child; but now, how goodly are thy tents,