Chapter I: Preface

For many years, and by many persons, including bishops, editors, and others, I have been importuned to publish the substance of my records and recollections of the Methodism of my day. It was judged that my great age, my intimate relations with Bishop Asbury, and my acquaintance with other pioneers and fathers of the Church, would enable me thus to preserve much desirable information which would otherwise soon be forgotten.

In 1847 the New Jersey Conference took action on the subject, and appointed a committee to confer with me in respect to my journals and other papers, and aid in preparing them for publication. The committee was a very competent one, but the members were too widely separated for any effectual result. I had concluded to abandon the design, and this volume would probably never have seen the light had not the Rev. J. B. Wakeley come to my help.

For the materials of the work I had a manuscript journal of two thousand pages. This we went over together, reviewing all my fields of labor, and drawing additional particulars from the storehouse of memory, Brother Wakeley performing the work of transcribing, arranging, and revising. Thus the journal furnished the warp and recollection the filling of what is before the reader in the shape of a book. In this way we were employed, at different times, during a period of twelve years, so that if the work has been poorly done it has not been through undue haste or the sparing of labor or pains.

Next year is the centenary of American Methodism, and this volume is a connecting link between the present and the origin of our Church, for I have heard Robert Strawbridge, who laid the foundation of Methodism in Maryland nearly a hundred years ago. From it the reader may get a good idea of primitive Methodism, and learn how our fathers toiled and “endured hardness as good soldiers,” and some, I trust, will catch their spirit of labor and self-denial for Christ and the Church.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. MY ANCESTORS AND MY EARLY DAYS 9

II. SKETCHES OF EARLY PREACHERS 19

III. BOEHM’S CHAPEL 30

IV. GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1800 35

V. PHILADELPHIA CONFERENCE—GREAT REVIVALS—BARRATT’S CHAPEL 44

VI. MY FIRST CIRCUIT, DORCHESTER 57

VII. MY SECOND CIRCUIT, ANNAMESSEX, 1802 65

VIII. KENT, BRISTOL, AND NORTHAMPTON CIRCUITS 75

IX. PHILADELPHIA CONFERENCE, 1803—BRISTOL CIRCUIT 88

X. SHORT TOUR WITH BISHOP ASBURY, 1803 100

XI. DAUPHIN CIRCUIT, 1803-4 106

XII. BALTIMORE AND PHILADELPHIA CONFERENCES, 1805—ST. MARTIN’S
CIRCUIT 118

XIII. FIRST CAMP-MEETING ON THE PENINSULA, 1805 128

XIV. DOVER CIRCUIT, 1806—SICKNESS AND DEATH OF BISHOP WHATCOAT 137

XV. DOVER CIRCUIT—GREAT CAMP-MEETINGS 147

XVI. MISSIONARIES, 1807 161

XVII. DOCTOR ROMER AND THE GERMAN METHODIST DISCIPLINE 173

XVIII. GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1808 180

XIX. FIRST ANNUAL TOUR WITH BISHOP ASBURY, 1808 186

XX. FIRST VISIT TO THE SOUTH 209

XXI. NORTHERN TOUR—VIRGINIA AND BALTIMORE CONFERENCES 220

XXII. FIRST VISIT TO NEW YORK CITY—NEW YORK AND NEW ENGLAND
CONFERENCES 234

XXIII. SECOND ANNUAL TOUR—WESTERN AND SOUTHERN CONFERENCES 254

XXIV. TOUR TO VIRGINIA, BALTIMORE, AND PHILADELPHIA CONFERENCES 273

XXV. NEW ENGLAND AND GENESEE CONFERENCES OF 1810 289

XXVI. ANNUAL TOUR, 1810—WESTERN CONFERENCE 310

XXVII. TOUR TO SOUTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE 322

XXVIII. VIRGINIA, BALTIMORE, PHILADELPHIA, AND NEW ENGLAND
CONFERENCES 333

XXIX. BISHOP ASBURY’S FIRST VISIT TO CANADA 348

XXX. FOURTH WESTERN AND SOUTHERN TOUR—CONFERENCES OF 1811 363

XXXI. DEATH, FUNERAL, AND CHARACTER OF REV. MARTIN BOEHM 372

XXXII. THE UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST—SKETCH OF OTTERBEIN, ETC. 387

XXXIII. PHILADELPHIA AND GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1812 394

XXXIV. NEW YORK, NEW ENGLAND, AND GENESEE CONFERENCES 399

XXXV. MY LAST TOUR WITH BISHOP ASBURY 405

XXXVI. SCHUYLKILL DISTRICT, 1813-14 416

XXXVII. CHESAPEAKE DISTRICT—GOVERNOR BASSETT’S DEATH AND CHARACTER 424

XXXVIII. GENERAL CONFERENCE—ASBURY’S FUNERAL, ETC. 430

XXXIX. BISHOP ASBURY—CHARACTER AND HABITS 438

XL. DEATH OF JESSE LEE—HIS CHARACTER 460

XLI. CHESAPEAKE DISTRICT—TOURS WITH BISHOPS GEORGE AND
M’KENDREE 466

XLII. DELAWARE DISTRICT, 1819-21—THOMAS AND EDWARD WHITE—JOSHUA
THOMAS—CIRCUITS 472

XLIII. LAST VISIT TO MY NATIVE PLACE—WESTERN TOUR 481

REMINISCENCES OF REV. HENRY BOEHM.