This Week in Texas Methodist History July 30

Texas Cowboy Turned Preacher Rides Horseback 2000 Miles to Celebrate Bicentennial of Methodism in America   1966 

There may be some readers who remember the 1984 Bicentennial Celebration of the founding of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore in 1784.  Fewer would remember that in 1966 the denomination celebrated the bicentennial of the first Methodist activity in the American colonies that occurred in 1766.

Both the 1966 and 1984 celebrations were held in Baltimore, and both included re-enactors.  In 1966 the re-enactors went all out.   The organizers of the event put out a call asking for volunteers to ride horseback to Baltimore to help the celebration.   130 Methodist ministers volunteered to do so, and the committee selected 12 from that group.   Among the starting points were Omaha, Nebraska and Cape Girardeau, Missouri.   A preacher who had actually been a Texas cowboy but was now a preacher in the Louisiana Conference, Dan Wesley Tohline, chose Vidalia, Louisiana, as his starting point for the ride which would take forty-two days.  

Tohline had been raised on a ranch near Fort Worth. After high school he went to Texas Tech and became an engineer.  After a stint in the Navy he moved to Beaumont to put his engineering degree to use but felt the call to ministry.  After being licensed as a local preacher he moved to Shreveport to attend Centenary College to take courses in preparation for seminary.  After seminary at Vanderbilt, he moved back to Crowley, Louisiana, and back to work as an engineer for Sun.   He filled Baptist, Presbyterian, and Nazarene pulpits while working as an engineer, but in 1954 joined the Louisiana Conference of the Methodist Church and began a series of appointments which were interrupted by his pursuit of a master's at Iliff.  During those years he served a Colorado appointment.  

Tohline chose an authentic route---the Natchez Trace from Natchez to Nashville.  He used two horses.  One he rode and one was trailered in a truck driven by a friend.  Along the way he distributed copies of the book of Romans--just as a pioneer circuit rider would have done.  

As you may imagine, he rode the truck home rather than retracing his ride on horseback.