This Week in Texas Methodist History August 12
Invitation to Preacher Creates Flap Between MEC and
MECS August 1871
David Coulson, the MECS preacher appointed to the
Colorado Colored Mission invited George W. Honey, the Presiding Elder of the Austin District
of the MEC to preach at a camp meeting in Bastrop County
in August 1871. The invitation resulted
in controversy and illustrates several themes of Methodist history during
Reconstruction.
The incident shows that as late as 1871, the MECS
was still appointing preachers to African American congregations. They were still in the process of spinning
off those congregations into a new denomination; the Colored Methodist
Episcopal Church South, later renamed the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church,
or C. M. E.
It also shows that the MEC was still trying to
forge an interracial Texas Conference.
George Honey was born in Lowell, Massachusetts,
in 1833. In 1860 he was living in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin
and enlisted as a private in the 4th Wisconsin Calvary. He eventually became Chaplain for the
unit. In 1866 he moved to Texas as an agent for
the American Missionary Society. He
encouraged the establishment of schools for former enslaved African Americans. When the Texas Conference met under Bishop
Ames, he was elected Secretary and appointed to Galveston.
In 1869 he won the office of State Treasurer during
the Republican administration. He was
then appointed Presiding Elder of the Austin
District so he could move to Austin.
He was a busy man.
He started building a brick church about a mile north of the Capitol in
the Harney Addition. He defended himself
in district court against charges of misappropriating state funds. He
still had time to accept the offer to preach at the camp meeting in Bastrop County.
Some Bastrop Methodists objected to having a “Black
Republican” preach at a MECS event. The
hostilities of the Civil War were alive and well. At least one of the most vigorous protestors
was asked to leave the camp meeting.
Honey’s church tensions were nothing like his civil
ones. Governor Davis asked him to step
down as Treasurer, but the Texas Supreme Court reinstated him.
In 1875 he decided he had had enough of Texas. He moved to Kansas.
Honey died in 1906 and is buried in Arlington National
Cemetery.
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