This Week in Texas Methodist History February 18

Methodist Preachers on the Move, February, 1839

The week of February 18, 1839 is especially interesting to Texas Methodist historians because we have several travel accounts from preachers who were on the go that week.

Jesse Hord was travelling his circuit.  His circuit stretched from Houston to Victoria with most of the appointments in Brazoria and Matagorda Counties.  For those of you who have travelled these same counties in winter know that the coastal plains can be hostile in February.  There is little protection from the wind, the marshes that make the region a haven for waterfowl, made it miserable for travelers.  It seems like the roads never dry out.    Fortunately the fertile alluvial soils along the water courses of Caney Creek, the San Bernard River, the Colorado River, and lesser streams had attracted farmers so there were settlements along the way.

Hord started the week on Sunday, February 17 in Egypt, and left Monday for Matagorda and Quintana.  Egypt was home base for the Alabama Colony,  a group of interrelated families and neighbors who had immigrated to Texas in 1828/29.  They made contributions to Texas Methodism for generations.  Readers of this column would be familiar with the families, especially Sutherland and Menefee. 

The same week a party consisting for Littleton Fowler, Missouri Fowler, and Joseph Sneed were making their way from East Texas to Washington.   Fowler, the head of the Texas mission since Martin Ruter’s death the previous May, had stayed in East Texas-travelling back and forth from Houston to San Augustine, and preaching mainly in East Texas.   On February 10 Joseph Sneed arrived from the Mississippi Conference as a recruit for the Texas Mission.  He was bringing missionary funds entrusted to him by Bishop Andrew who had presided over the Mississippi Conference of which Texas was a part.  When Sneed arrived, Fowler was conducting a love feast at McMahan’s Chapel.  On Monday, February 11, they headed west. 

On Saturday they arrived at Cincinnati on the Trinity River.  Fowler preached on Sunday a.m. the 17^th and they did a very rare thing---they travelled on Sunday.  That afternoon they made 12 miles, so that Monday they were able to make it to Robinson’s in southwestern Walker County.  Robinson and Fowler spent Tuesday locating a 30 acre camp ground which would prove to be an important Methodist site for years, including hosting the 1843 session of annual conference.

There were delays caused by the swollen San Jacinto River, but the party arrived in Washington on Feb. 20.   On the 22^nd they went to the Kessee house where they stayed until March 5 and met other preachers who had been sent the notice to rendezvous at Kessee’s.  That party included Schuyler Hoes, the agent for the American Bible Society, Abel Stevens  a missionary recruit from the New England Conference, and Daniel N. V. Sullivan, another recent volunteer for Texas.  The attraction was the missionary funds Sneed had brought from Mississippi-  The men were going to receive their wages.  This was the first time Fowler met these 3 colleagues. 

Hoes reported that he had organized chapters of the Bible Society in Cedar Creek (north of present day Chappell Hill) and Austin County.  He and Stevens had travelled together from Houston, become lost in the underbrush and were saved from spending a night sleeping on the ground when they heard the family of Thomas Bell singing hymns during their nightly devotionals.  (later Bellville).

     This same week Chauncey Richardson left New Orleans for Galveston.  He was going to spend the rest of 1839 organizing a new school—Rutersville College—which did open the following January.

All in all the last two weeks of February, 1839, saw Methodist preachers in Texas on the move---that wasn’t rare.  The rarity was that their travels were so well documented.