This Week in Texas Methodist History--March 6
James Collard reports on riding circuit in southeast Texas--March 6, 1842
Perhaps the most difficult circuit in the Republic of Texas was coastal Texas between the Trinity and Sabine Rivers. Settlements were scattered. Travel was difficult, and the threat of mosquito borne diseases was very real. There are reports from annual conference that when the appointment to Liberty Circuit was read, preachers would gather around the unfortunate brother who had been so appointed and offer their condolences. The southeast Texas circuits did have one redeeming virtue. Preachers could supplement their salaries by selling alligator hides from the reptiles they shot while making their rounds.
On March 6, 1842 James Collard wrote the following from Cornstreet in Jefferson County:
I left home on January 24th for this circuit. There I took up the heviest cross that ever presented itself before me. My wife with a little girl about 20 days old & 2 little boys seamed to cling around my heart and had it not been for assisting grace, sorrow would have overcome me, but with his grace assisting me, commenced work. . .it does seam to me that the people generally speaking is the most ignorant of spiritual matters that I ever saw, but the natural man dizerneth not the things of the spirit. . .
Collard did survive his turn on the "Alligator Circuit" and was appointed to Franklin well above the coastal plains. He located in 1847, but that was not the end of the story. James Collard, Jr., one of the two little boys mentioned in the letter, was ordained elder in the Texas Conference in 1881.
Perhaps the most difficult circuit in the Republic of Texas was coastal Texas between the Trinity and Sabine Rivers. Settlements were scattered. Travel was difficult, and the threat of mosquito borne diseases was very real. There are reports from annual conference that when the appointment to Liberty Circuit was read, preachers would gather around the unfortunate brother who had been so appointed and offer their condolences. The southeast Texas circuits did have one redeeming virtue. Preachers could supplement their salaries by selling alligator hides from the reptiles they shot while making their rounds.
On March 6, 1842 James Collard wrote the following from Cornstreet in Jefferson County:
I left home on January 24th for this circuit. There I took up the heviest cross that ever presented itself before me. My wife with a little girl about 20 days old & 2 little boys seamed to cling around my heart and had it not been for assisting grace, sorrow would have overcome me, but with his grace assisting me, commenced work. . .it does seam to me that the people generally speaking is the most ignorant of spiritual matters that I ever saw, but the natural man dizerneth not the things of the spirit. . .
Collard did survive his turn on the "Alligator Circuit" and was appointed to Franklin well above the coastal plains. He located in 1847, but that was not the end of the story. James Collard, Jr., one of the two little boys mentioned in the letter, was ordained elder in the Texas Conference in 1881.
posted by texman at 5:56 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home