Saturday, September 30, 2017
This Week in Texas Methodist History Oct .1
William Medford Receives Sitio of Land
in Bastrop County, Oct. 4, 1835
William Medford, a member of the
Missouri Conference (admitted 1818)who located and moved to Texas,
became one of the last grantees of land under the government of the Republic of Mexico.
Medford,
although a local pastor, was very important to the small group of Methodists in
the last years of the Republic
of Texas. After the Caney Creek Camp Meeting of
September 1834, he organized a 4 point circuit.
Since he did not own a horse, he started walking on Saturday so he could
reach his preaching point in time to preach.
After one round, a church member loaned him a horse.
On October 4, 1835, as revolution was
in the air, he finally received his land grant which he had applied for the
previous April. His grant was one of the
last issued by the Republic
of Mexico. When the Revolution began, the land offices
closed.
Medford
volunteered for service in the Texian Army, but was discharge on account of his
advanced age. He was 47. His two weeks of service qualified him for
another land grant.
After the Revolution, he became deputy clerk
of Austin County, and in that capacity, his signature
is on many of the land transactions of the era.
He bought land on Piney Creek and created a camp meeting site on
it. (see post for last week.)
He died in 1841, never having secured
title to his second land grant. His
widow, Elizabeth, went back to United
States and left David Ayres with her power
of attorney. In that capacity Ayres
finally secured title in what eventually became Uvalde
County----a really long, long way from
Austin County.
Saturday, September 23, 2017
This Week in Texas
Henry Matthews Describes Camp Meeting
Site on Piney Creek, September 23, 1838
The Henry Matthews Diary sheds
interesting light on Methodist activities in the Republic of Texas. The entry for September 23, 1838 describes
the Piney Creek Camp Meeting site.
Matthews was writing from San Felipe
which was situated at a major river crossing on the Brazos River. It had been Stephen F. Austin’s headquarters
and played a prominent role in events leading up to the Texas Revolution. The town was burned during the Revolution and
although residents tried to rebuild, and it was named seat of newly created Austin County,
but it never regained its pre-Revolution prominence. The reasons for its decline were rooted in
both human and physical geography. Independence from Mexico brought new circulation
patterns for travelers. As immigrants
came to the San Felipe region, they preferred the higher lands just to the
north of San Felipe. Those lands
featured a mosaic of prairies and woodlands that offered both timber and
grazing. The rolling sandy hills
contributed to better drainage.
Some of the immigrants were Methodist,
and a cluster of them developed on Piney Creek to the north of San Felipe. Here is how Matthews described a site chosen
for a camp meeting in a grove of pine trees
the Church
camp meeting 15 or 16 (miles) above on Piney is now in progress. And the
weather delightful. As we returned from Kenney’s we viewed the spot and give it
the preference to any we ever saw in the United States. The grove is naturally open and clean and an
open stream meandering through the wood. It also had the advantage of the
oldest Anglo Saxon settlement in Texas
who are beginning to get over the evils of the Mexican invasion.
The host families at the site, Bell,
Medford, and
Atkinson, continued to support Methodist preachers in the area. Three miles further to the north was the
home of David Ayres, the proprietor of Centre Hill and father-in-law of Robert
Alexander. About 7 miles to the
northwest was the home of John Wesley Kenney.
The region became one of the most important sites of Methodism in the
Republic.
When residents finally gave up on San Felipe as
the county seat of government, there was an election to determine the new
site. Ayres and Bell
each offered tracts for that purpose.,
The offer by Bell,
adjacent to the Piney Creek Camp Meeting site won the election., That is how Bellville was created. Ayres abandoned Centre Hill and moved to
Galveston.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
This Week in Texas Methodist History September 17
Nathan Bangs Informs Fowler of
Reorganization of Texas Mission
September 1838
The death of Martin Ruter in May 1838
necessitated a reorganization of the MEC mission to Texas.
Ruter was one of the most respected and experienced administrators in
the denomination. He had been Agent of
the Cincinnati Book Depository, president of two colleges, General Conference delegate, and well-known
author. His two junior partners assigned
to the Texas Mission in 1837, Littleton Fowler and Robert Alexander were both
younger men, and thus not nearly as experienced.
The bishops met in the summer of 1838
and decided to appoint Fowler as head of mission until the winter round of
conferences began. When the Mississippi
Conference convened in December, the Texas Mission would be added to that
conference.
Fowler took his new responsibilities
seriously, but Texas
was a vast republic and he had just married in June, and was also trying to set
up housekeeping. In practice, an
informal arrangement grew up in which Fowler remained in Eastern Texas and
Alexander in Western Texas. Folwer’s home base was the San Augustine
area and Alexander moved to Rutersville where a “Methodist town” was being
formed.
The informal arrangement was eventually
made official when two Texas
districts were created in the Mississippi Conference with Alexander and Fowler
being appointed the Presiding Elders.
Putting Texas
churches (except those in northeastern Texas
which were part of Arkansas)
proved disastrous. The arrangement
meant that preachers wishing to volunteer for the Texas Mission had to
transfer to the Mississippi Conference where they were subject to appointment
anywhere within the bounds of that conference—Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Texas. When Bishop Andrew appointed one
of the 1838 volunteers for Texas, Lewell
Campbell, to New Orleans,
it had stifling effect on further transfer requests.
Fortunately the arrangement lasted only
until the creation of the Texas Conference in 1840.
Saturday, September 09, 2017
This Week in Texas Methodist History September 10
James Caldwell Shares Doubts with
Fowler, September 18, 1840
One of the most prominent citizens of
the Republic of Texas was James P. Caldwell (1793-1856).
He had been born in Baltimore, and lived
in Kentucky before his arrival in 1824. He settled
on the lower Brazos at Velasco and is credited
with building and operating one of the first sugar mills in that fertile river
bottom. In 1852 he shipped 200 hogsheads
of sugar.
He was also a participant in the Battle
of Velasco and an organizer of the first Masonic Lodge in Texas.
On September 18, 1840, he wrote
Littleton Fowler a letter expressing the hope that the two would see each other
in October when Methodists planned to gather for the Centenary Campmeeting. The letter also reveals some interesting
doubts about Caldwell’s
assurance of salvation.
I want to
realize those feelings of Joy which belong alone to the Christian, ah! Bro
Fowler, I have some bitter moments of reflection, at times I imagine I have
sinned against the best of beings too long ever to hope for repentance, these
thoughts will obtrude themselves uncalled for, and though I never give them
audience long before I banish them yet they cause at times phantoms to flit
across my breast, that this may possibly be, or why so long without the
evidence of redemption from sin. Parson Allen & Baker talking to me on the
subject thought it probably I expected to receive too much, that we should be
satisfied, etc., etc., etc. Well, I have not that evidence that I am a changed
man, and until I experience that I have passed from death until life, I shall
never feel that I am prepared to die, and until I can feel ready to die,
assured of my acceptance with God in heaven, I shall never feel that I am a
Christian in my acceptation of the term.
Allen and Baker refer to William Y. Allen and
Daniel Baker, both Presbyterians, who along with Jesse Hord, the Methodist circuit
rider, had been preaching in the Velasco area.
Our interest in the letter comes from the fact
that most Methodist correspondence of the period is full of the assurance of
salvation rather than doubts about it.
It sounds much more like letters and diaries from 17th century
Puritans who were obsessed with the question of whether they were saved. One of the features of the revival movement
of the early 19th century was the “sure and certain” promise of
salvation that penitents received at the mercy seat. Caldwell’s
letter shows that he wanted some dramatic sign even though his spiritual
advisors provided reassuring advice.
Caldwell
died in one of the periodic yellow fever epidemics and was buried at Peach
Point.
Saturday, September 02, 2017
This Week in Texas Methodist History September 3
Annie Williams and Rebecca Toland Sail for Mission
Field, Sept. 6, 1881
On September 6, 1881, Annie Williams (1860-1926)
and Rebecca Toland (1859-1947)sailed from Galveston
to Mexico
to begin their lives of service in missions.
They were the first two missionaries sent from the Woman’s Foreign
Missionary Society of the Texas Conference.
The MEC began formal missionary efforts in 1819,
but it was not until the late 19th century that women organized the
societies that recruited and supported missionaries. The missionaries sent by the women’s
organizations were destined to have a major influence all around the
world.
Williams and Toland both attended Chappell Hill
Female College,
and volunteered for missions in Mexico. They went first to Conception and the home of
Rev. Joseph Norwood. After about a week
they decided that Toland should go to Laredo and work in the
Laredo Seminary (later Holding Institute) and for Williams to live with the
Norwoods and study Spanish.
In only two weeks (Sept. 19) Williams opened a
school with 7 students enrolled. She
built the enrollment up to about 20 pupils and after Rev. and Mrs. Norwood
moved on, was in charge of the Sunday School.
In the fall of 1882 she followed Toland to Laredo and joined the faculty of Laredo
Seminary. In 1883 she married Rev. J. F.
Corbin, and they became a missionary couple who served in Mexico. They stayed there until the Mexican
Revolution when they moved to Los
Angeles, California. She died there in 1926.
Toland worked at Laredo Seminary until 1890 when
she transferred to the new school in San
Luis Potosi.
She stayed there for 12 years and after the Spanish American War moved
to Matanzas, Cuba. She served there 23 years and became the
first of the Texas Conference missionaries to be designated emerita.
Her total service---from 1881 to 1926--stands as one of the longest
terms of service of her generation of missionaries.
She eventually moved to in Santiago,
Cuba, and taught in the
school named for her sister, Dr. Irene Toland, who had died in Cuba
while caring for yellow fever patients.
*Annie Williams was a granddaughter of the famous
Samuel May Williams.