This Week in Texas Methodist History April 16
General Conference Favors Creation of North West Texas Conference April 16, 1866
The MECS General Conference of 1866, meeting in New Orleans, had a great deal of work to catch up on. The 1862 General Conference had been cancelled because of the Civil War. The bishops were eight years older (and more feeble) and less able to travel to preside over annual conferences. There were calls for increasing the role of laity. Many Methodist schools and churches had been destroyed or damaged by war. African Americans were leaving the denomination in huge numbers, many of them changing to the MEC, AME and AME Zion denominations which were sending preachers into the South.
The General Conference of 1866 was one of the most memorable of all such conferences. Lay representation was approved. Enoch Marvin was elected bishop, the first bishop to have served a Texas pulpit. (Marvin had served in Marshall during the Civil War.)
On April 16 the Committee on Boundaries reported favorably on the Texas Conference peitition to strike off its northern portion and create a new conference from that region. The General Conference concurred, and the North-West Texas Conference was created. The division line started at the Trinity River and Leon County's southern boundary. It followed the southern boundaries of Leon, Robertson, and Milam Counties. It then followed the Williamson/Travis County line. The new conference was thus assigned the wonderfully rich farm lands of the Black Land Prairie and the booming cites of Waco, Waxahatchie, Belton, Hillsboro, Cameron, Marlin, Georgetown, as well as less populated lands to the west.
In less than twenty years the Texas Conference asked General Conference to return Falls, Milam, Freestone, Robertson, and Leon Counties. The booming population of the North West Texas Conference had created a large imbalance in conference memberships. In 1910 the North West Texas Conference was itself divided into the Central Texas and North West Texas Conferences whose boundaries we observe to the present.
The MECS General Conference of 1866, meeting in New Orleans, had a great deal of work to catch up on. The 1862 General Conference had been cancelled because of the Civil War. The bishops were eight years older (and more feeble) and less able to travel to preside over annual conferences. There were calls for increasing the role of laity. Many Methodist schools and churches had been destroyed or damaged by war. African Americans were leaving the denomination in huge numbers, many of them changing to the MEC, AME and AME Zion denominations which were sending preachers into the South.
The General Conference of 1866 was one of the most memorable of all such conferences. Lay representation was approved. Enoch Marvin was elected bishop, the first bishop to have served a Texas pulpit. (Marvin had served in Marshall during the Civil War.)
On April 16 the Committee on Boundaries reported favorably on the Texas Conference peitition to strike off its northern portion and create a new conference from that region. The General Conference concurred, and the North-West Texas Conference was created. The division line started at the Trinity River and Leon County's southern boundary. It followed the southern boundaries of Leon, Robertson, and Milam Counties. It then followed the Williamson/Travis County line. The new conference was thus assigned the wonderfully rich farm lands of the Black Land Prairie and the booming cites of Waco, Waxahatchie, Belton, Hillsboro, Cameron, Marlin, Georgetown, as well as less populated lands to the west.
In less than twenty years the Texas Conference asked General Conference to return Falls, Milam, Freestone, Robertson, and Leon Counties. The booming population of the North West Texas Conference had created a large imbalance in conference memberships. In 1910 the North West Texas Conference was itself divided into the Central Texas and North West Texas Conferences whose boundaries we observe to the present.
posted by texman at 6:45 AM
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