This Week in Texas Methodist History  January 31

 

 

Bishop Moore Asks “What Should 1940 General Conference Do?”  February, 1940

 

When A. J. Weeks died in December 1939, the Southwestern Advocate was thrown into a crisis since Weeks had been both editor and business manager of the denominational newspaper.

 

The bishops of the area quickly decided on a new arrangement so that there would be no interruption in the publication schedule.  Bishop John M. Moore had retired to Dallas so he agreed to serve as editor without receiving a salary.  He would be assisted by a prominent pastor in each of the constituent conferences.   Those names are well known to readers of this column:   John Nelson Russell Score, Marshal Steel, Edmund Heinsohn, Dawson Bryan, J. O. Haymes, and Wallace Crutchfield.  Later the Dallas District Superintendent would take over the business side of the Advocate. 

 

Moore needed copy to fill up the sixteen pages of the Advocate so he put out an appeal to his readers.  What should the General Conference of 1940 do? 

 

The Uniting Conference which created the Methodist Church from the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and the Methodist Protestant Church had been held the previous year, and Moore had lobbied against having a 1940 General Conference at all.  The Uniting Conference had been preceded by years of committee work and it resulted in a new Discipline, but there were plenty of details yet to be worked out by 

 committees appointed in 1939.  Those committees were composed of members of the MEC, MECS, and MP churches in a 4-4-1 ratio—which approximated the membership of the three denominations before the merger. 

 

Moore asked his readers to submit their suggestions for 1940 General Conference actions to modify the decisions made in 1939.  Here are some of the most interesting suggestions:

 

W. F. Bryan, Huntsville:    Merge all the apportionments for benevolences into a single category—World Service.   Let the designated special offerings count as credit for a church’s apportionment.

 

Wm. E. Brown, El Paso—Convene a cabinet meeting three months before annual conference, and make all the appointments then rather than waiting and making them all at annual conference.

 

P. E. Riley, Corsicana:  a.  reduce the number of Advocate editions by consolidation.

                                          b.  increase pensions for retired pastors

                                          c.  allow large churches to have more than one lay delegate to annual conference.

 

Eugene Hawk, SMU:   Strengthen the Jurisdictional Conferences by giving them something else to do besides electing bishops.  

 

Ella Fondren, Houston:  Institute a mandatory retirement age for preachers to make room for younger pastors needing appointments.

 

C. E. Mead, Marfa:   a.  Mandate a Board of Lay Activity in each jurisdiction.

                                    b.  Allow the Conference Lay Leader to be elected by nomination from the floor

 

b.      Make the Chair of the Official Board of the local church the Lay Leader

 

 

 

Phil Deschner, Tulsa:   a.  eliminate some of the General Boards and give that work to Jurisdictions

b.      Eliminate Special Offerings that do not count toward apportionments

c.       Create a Commission on Stewardship not connected with finance

d.      Direct bishops to delegate more tasks to District Superintendents

 

Mrs. Gid Bryan , Cleburne:  Define more clearly who is responsible for promotion of Benevolences.

 

F. P. Culver, Olney:   Plant more churches in “unoccupied territory.”

 

Ray Nichols, Vernon:  Have Jurisdictional newspapers. 

 

 

 

This Week in Texas Methodist History  January 24, 2021

 

Robert and Eliza Alexander Abandon Rutersville, Move Back to Caney Creek, January 1842

 

 

Robert Alexander, the first of the three appointed missionaries to reach  the Republic of Texas, lived in various parts of Texas during his long, productive life.  He had been one of the organizers of the town and university at Rutersville in Fayette County.  He owned an island in Galveston Bay within sight of the San Jacinto Battlefield.  He lived in Waco for a while, and died in Chappell Hill in the Isaac Applewhite house, which still exists. 

 

His greatest land holding, though, was his beloved Cottage Hill which embraced the camp site on which the 1834 and 1835 Methodist meetings were held.  The 1835 meeting resulted in a call for missionaries to Texas, to which he responded.  Robert and Eliza bough the property, consisting of about a quarter league (about 1100 acres) in January, 1842, after living briefly in Rutersville and helping get the university started. 

 

There were good reasons for the move.   The most important was that they were now living just a few miles from Eliza’s father, David Ayres who still had hopes that his city-building project of Centre Hill would prosper.   The other reason was that Alexander was a Presiding Elder who spent weeks away from home holding quarterly conferences.   Cottage Hill was more central to the three districts over which he would preside, and much of his salary was paid in cattle so he needed a ranch to hold them. 

 

The seller was Horatio Chriesman, trustee for the Willis Stanley League in Austin County.  Chriesman was a prominent surveyor whose name appears on the list of donors to Rutersville.  He is also important in Texas Presbyterian history since it was at his residence in Washington County that the Brazos Presbytery was organized just months before the organization of the Texas conference of the MEC. 

 

The house the Alexanders built near a spring  (Holly Springs) on the property began a favorite resting place for traveling Methodists, including bishops coming to Texas to hold annual conferences. 

 

They moved on, though.  In 1846 Centre Hill lost the county seat election to Bellville for the new seat of Austin County, replacing San Felipe.  David Ayres realized that Centre Hill would not prosper so he moved to Galveston.  Eliza thought her health problems would be alleviated by therapeutic springs in Central Texas so they moved to Bell County where David Ayres had extensive land holdings.    Robert took appointments in Waco and also as a representative for the American Bible Society.   They sold Cottage Hill to Robert W. and Harriet Scales, recent immigrants from Alabama.   Both Robert and Harriet had been previously married, and the bride was considerably younger than the groom.  Robert already had grown sons whom he put in charge of the ranch and also over the enslaved persons Harriet had brought into the marriage.  The sons abused their stepmother and  slaves terribly, and Harriet tried to reprimand her stepsons to know avail.  The breaking point, though, came when she caught Robert having sex with one of the enslaved women.  She filed for divorce---the Scales ranch failed, and Robert and Eliza bought it back, or really they just bought half of it back, 505 acres including the house.  That was in in 1862 so presumably they paid with  $6500 in Confederate money. (By the way, a descendant of the Scales family was Roland (Bill) Scales who was an outstanding preacher in the Texas Conference. )

 

Remember that David Ayres had moved to Galveston.  He had been the main supporter of the Methodist publishing efforts which were located in a building on the Strand.  He and his son, David Theodore Ayres, operated a thriving business---dealers in just about everything that a thriving seaport would need.   In 1868 Robert and Eliza bought Perkins Island (also called Adams Island) at the upper end of Galveston Bay.   Robert used a skiff to sail to Galveston where he continued to conduct church and family business.   One of the most important actions was serving on the Educational Commission which met in Galveston.  That commission led to the creation of Southwestern University in Georgetown—making Alexander the only participant in the creation of both Rutersville and Southwestern. 

 

He was semi-retired but was a main force in the church at Lynchburg, but alas in 1875 a hurricane wiped the island clean.   The cattle were killed, the house was blown away, and the family was presumed dead.  They had survived by clinging to the branches of a tree above the flood.

 

Alexander needed to un-retire.   He took an appoint to the Travis Circuit, less than ten miles from his beloved Cottage Hill which he had sold again when he moved to Galveston Bay.  The family also included his widowed daughter.   Alas, Eliza never recovered from injuries received during the hurricane.  With so many problems, they needed to live in a supportive community and settled in Chappell Hill. 

 

Soon after Robert Alexander’s death Methodists in Chappell Hill and Bellville purchased a small portion of the former Cottage Hill, and created a campground which flourished from the 1880s until about World War I. 

 

I have made friends with the current landowner and have walked these grounds many times, often leading tours.  The only signs of the campground are a row of sycamore trees and the cast iron pipe that served as a water well for the campground. 

 

My last visit to the site showed recent pipeline construction.  My heart sank.  If I had known about the construction, I would have monitored it, looking for artifacts revealed by the excavation. ---I was really upset since I serve on the Austin County Historical Commission which should have been notified that the construction was occurring. 

 

 

This Week in Texas Methodist History, January 17

 

Keziah Payne DePelchin Named Shearn Organist January 26

 

One of the most remarkable women in Texas Methodist history, Keziah Payne DePelchin (1828-1893), was hired as the organist for Shearn Methodist Church (today Houston First Methodist Church) during the pastorate of Rev. A. H. Werlein.   She accepted a salary of $12 per month and kept the job only briefly, turning the position over to Miss Carro Bryan. 

 

DePelchin was born in the Portuguese Madeira Islands and spent her early years in England.  When she was still a child, her mother died, and the family moved first to New York and then to Galveston.  We know that she was in Galveston by 1837.  Her name appears on the roll of the charter members of the Methodist church in Galveston.  Her father remarried, but then died in a yellow fever epidemic.  Keziah also contracted the disease, but survived.  The acquired immunity from yellow fever played an important part in the rest of her life.  She worked in various hospitals as a nurse in other epidemics. 

 

She and her step mother arrived in Houston by 1841.  She worked as a music teacher and spent much time as a nurse, including working with charity patients.  She married Adolph DePelchin in Bastop in 1862.  They had no children, and although they did not divorce, the marriage ended.

 

Besides being head nurse at the Houston Charity hospital, in 1888 she became Matron of the Bayland Orphan’s Home for Boys.   The home had recently moved from the west side of Galveston Bay, near Morgan’s Point to Houston. 

 

She also found time to open Houston’s first day care center, charging ten cents per day to working women who needed child care.  When she died on January 13, 1893, she had to be buried at public expense, but her legacy lives on in the  DePelchin Children's Center which carries on her legacy of service with a wide variety of programs. 

 

This Week in Texas Methodist History   January 10

 

Texas Methodists Mourn Former Pastor and Bishop, H. M. DuBose,  January 15, 1941

 

 

A beloved former member of the Texas and East Texas Conferences who was elected Bishop,  Horace Millen DuBose, died in Nashville on January 15, 1941.   He had served churches in Galveston, Houston, Huntsville, and Tyler as well as three other conferences.  He had also served as an editor of church publications in both San Francisco and Nashville.

 

DuBose was born near Mobile, Alabama, in 1858.  His father was local Methodist preacher.  DuBose received a high school education, but never earned a college degree.

 

He jointed the Mississippi Conference in 1877 at age 19.   His last appointment in Mississippi was the Fayette Circuit, and was appointed to St. James in Galveston---a remarkable ascent for such a young man.  He served St. James, Huntsville, Shearn in Houston (today’s First Methodist), and Marvin Methodist in Tyler. 

 

In 1890 he transferred to Los Angeles and ministered Trinity Methodist, at the time the largest Methodist church west of the Rocky Mountains.  After two years there he moved to San Francisco to assume the editorship of the Pacific Methodist Advocate.  After four years in that position he returned to Marvin in Tyler.  The next appointment was back to the Mississippi Conference and First Methodist Jackson.  

 

He was named Secretary of the Epworth League and moved to Nashville.   He had taken an interest in youth work, and while at Shearn in 1886 had organized a youth Chautauqua in San Marcos.  He later claimed that the event was the origin of the Epworth League.  (He was overstating his importance.  The Epworth League actually began in the MEC and was soon adopted by the MECS.  One of his duties in that role was editing the Epworth Era which he did for 12 years.  He asked to return to the pulpit and was assigned to Augusta, Georgia, but after two years returned to Nashville as Book Editor.  It was from that office that he was elected bishop in 1918.  

 

It was common in his era for editors to also become authors.  After all, they had access to publishing and book distribution systems.  Dubose wrote, among others, The Gang of Six, Margaret, The Life of Dr. Barbee, and The Symbol of Methodism.

 

 

Dubose was an anchor of the conservative wing of Methodist bishops,  Time magazine quoted him  in his obituary, "If the Angel Gabriel should come down and tell me that he had changed his mind on prohibition  and wanted it resubmitted, I would not follow him.”

 

The unsigned obituary in the Southwestern Christian Advocate, probably written by his former colleague, retired Bishop John M. Moore, commented, “His theology was exceedingly traditional and conservative.  His understanding and understanding of the Bible rested upon scholars that were in no sense modern.”    Quite a constrast---DuBose never had any college and Moore had an Ivy League Ph.D. and theological study in Germany.   That both could be elected bishops of the MECS says something about the different paths to the episcopacy. 

 

 

This Week in Texas Methodist History January 3

 

Bishops Announce Mass Meetings to Promote New World Order, January 1944

 

 

There were still months of brutal warfare ahead when Methodist bishops announced mass meetings throughout the United States to promote a New World Order.  Today, the phrase “New World Order” has been appropriated by fringe conspiracy theorists, but to the Methodist bishops the phrase meant the evangelization of the entire world.  They foresaw a chance to create a Christian New World Order with the defeat of the Axis Powers if the peace terms were based on the Gospels rather than a punitive isolationism as had occurred after World War I.  The rallies, given the name, “The Coming Peace and the Prince of Peace,” had been authorized at the meeting of the College of Bishops in Princeton, New Jersey, held in December 1943.  The idea was promoted by the Secretary of the College of Bishops, G. Bromley Oxnam, widely known for his liberal idealism. 

 

The mass rallies were scheduled for the most prominent churches in each of the conferences and would be presided over by the area bishop. 

 

The designated churches for the January meetings  in Texas were

 

Trinity, El Paso

Polk Street, Amarillo,

First Houston

First Dallas

First Fort Worth

Travis Park, San Antonio

 

 

Each of rallies had speakers on the same four topics:

 

A Christian America

A Christian World

The Coming Peace

The Prince of Peace.

 

Speaker teams consisting of laity, bishops, and denominational staff provided the four speeches at each rally.  In Texas the visiting speakers included Bishop Edwin Lee (Singapore and Manila), Dr. Y. C. Yang (President of Soochow University in China).  Lee and Yang were both refugees who had experienced war in their homelands. 

 

 

The editor of the Southwestern Advocate wrote

 

The aim of the Crusade is to arouse eight million Methodists in the United States to a crusading fervor in behalf of a righteous peace and a Christian world.

 

The place of Methodists is, of course, not at the Peace Table.  Our place is at the mourner’s bench;  we are all sinners.    

 

All the rallies included a call for attendees to write their congressional representatives and urge them to support a peace based on the model of the Prince of Peace.