This Week in Texas Methodist History December 24

Pioneer Houston Preacher Elias Dibble Laid to Rest, December 18, 1886

A previous post recounted the life and ministry of the most influential African American pastor in Houston Methodism, Elias Dibble.  He was born in Georgia in 1814 and was in Houston as early as 1837.  He had already been converted in 1825 before coming to Texas and had already started preaching as a very young man.  

He gained popularity as a preacher and is listed in the appointments of the Texas Conference of the MECS in 1865.   If he could have made the trip to New Orleans, he would have been ordained in the MEC  Conference that was established to serve churches in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.  

Since he could not travel to New Orleans, he had to wait for his ordination by Bishop Matthew Simpson until the organizing annual conference of the Texas Conference of the MEC in January 1867.  

In addition to Houston (today Trinity) he also served appointments in Lynchburg, Harrisburg, and St. Paul's Galveston.  

Thanks to the Rev. W. H. Logan, we have a detailed account of his funeral services which were conducted on December 18, 1886.  

Dibble's final illness began with a sore throat on December 14.  He became worse, and his friend Rev. Logan came to spend the last two nights with him.  Dibble died on December 17, leaving his wife, four daughters, and one son.  

The funeral was conducted the next day.  A crowd assembled at his home, and six men--three clergy and three laymen bore the body from his bedroom to the waiting hearse.   A large group walked behind the hearse down Franklin, then Main, finally to Bell Street where the church was.  At the church the three lay pallbearers deferred to three clergy waiting there and the coffin was brought to the altar.  The service began with Rev. J. B. Bryant reading Psalm 90.  Rev. J. W. Williams sang a hymn and then read verses from I Corinthians 15.  Rev. J. S. Minnegan had arrived from Beaumont in time to give Dibble's life story.  The Honorable Richard Allen delivered the eulogy.  

The hearse then proceeded to Olivewood Cemetery which Dibble had co-founded.

 This Week in Texas Methodist History  December 17

Oak Lawn Sunday School Class Keeps Possum Hunt Tradition Alive  December 1943

Sunday School classes provide much more than education.  They are also a major source of building community in local congregations.  Because that is one of their main functions, most of them have some sort of bonding activities such as game nights, covered dish dinners, holiday parties, and so on.  I recent ran across the strangest Sunday School bonding activity of all---the annual possum hunt conducted by the T. M Cullum Class of Oak Lawn Methodist Church in Dallas.  

The 1943 possum hunt had about 75 members in attendance--not just the class members, but also boys as young as 12 years old.  It was the 30th year in a row the class had conducted such a hunt.

The party assumed at Cullum's store and caravaned to a thicket on the East Fort of the Trinity River close to where the North Creek ran into the river.  The party of 75 divided into three groups.  One group stayed at the camp site and maintained the bon fire and started boiling water and chopping up onions. That party included the Rev. Glenn Flinn---one of the most prominent Methodist preachers of the mid 20th century known for his work with college students.  The other two groups were the hunters.  

The hunting dogs began their work and soon their baying was heard in the night.  Back at the camp the members recalled successful hunts of the past.  The most successful hunt anyone could remember was the year that 14 possums went into the pot.   This year was less successful.  Only one small runt of a possum was brought back to the camp site.  The party decided it was not worth butchering so they dumped hot dogs into the boiling water that had been prepared for the game they expected to capture. 

The party closed with sort of a devotional.  John Donaho gave a prayer for the men not there because they were in the service.  Ashley Cullum recited the names of some of the men who had been there in the past but were no longer living.   Glenn Flinn closed with words of appreciation for the men of Oak Lawn.  

 This Week in Texas Methodist History  December 10

Snapshot of East Texas Conference, First Week of December 1879

The East Texas Conference of the MECS convened in Palestine in December 1879 with Bishop McTyeire still absent.   In his absence R. S. Finley gaveled the members to order.  Nominations for chair and secretary were approved and the roll was perfected.  

The next morning the Bishop had arrived so he assumed the chair and the real business of the conference could begin.  The business of the conference would look very familiar---as a matter of fact, much of it was identical to annual conferences of the present.  Candidates for ordination would be presented, the character of members was passed on, committees gave their reports, and of course appointments were read.  

I wanted to provide a snapshot of the state of the conference through the statistical tables.  

There were four districts.   Marshall, Palestine, San Augustine, and Beaumont were the four district seats.  The total number of members was 14,212.  There were also 149 local preachers who would not be included in that number.  There had been 1193 infant baptisms and 718 adult baptisms.   87 members had been expelled by action of church conferences.  There were only 5 stations (Marshall, Palestine, Carthage, Jasper, and Tyler).  A station was a church that was large enough to support a full-time pastor.  All the other appointments were to circuits in which the preacher served multiple "preaching points".  these circuits were aggregated in the statistics, and many of them totaled more members than the stations.  For example, in the Marshall District Marshall Station (later First Methodist) had 199 members, but the Starrville Circuit had 475.  Tyler Station (later Marvin had 179 members, and the Athens Circuit had 542.  Even cities that would later grow to have several churches were on a circuit.  For example Beaumont and Orange shared a preacher.  The appointment reporting the largest membership was the Homer Circuit with 700 members.  One of the frustrations of historians is that the preaching points on the circuits are not listed in these 19th century journals.  Perhaps doing so would be cumbersome because the large number of churches on a circuit.  As late as the 1920s my grandfather served 6 churches on the Hallsville Circuit and in the 1940s, my father served 5 churches on the DeKalb Circuit. (while also living in Dallas and attending seminary.)   In the 20th century as more stations were created and the number of churches on circuits declined, Journals began listing the preaching points on a circuit.  

 This Week in Texas Methodist History December 3

MECS Votes for Union Reveal Strong Support in Texas.  Less So in Other States

By this week in December 1937 the annual conferences of the MECS had conducted their sessions and were able to report on the votes for the Plan of Union between the MECS, MEC, and MP denominations.  

As Bishop John M. Moore wrote, It was a long road to Methodist Union.  The first split from the MEC had occurred in the period of Jacksonian Democracy.  The denomination had been founded on Anglican principles of episcopal governance, and the power of the bishops was inconsistent with Jacksonian Democracy.   The result was the Methodist Protestant denomination.  It did not have bishops but kept the same theology.  A larger split was the division on slavery in the 1840s.   

There were a few voices calling for reunion during Reconstruction, but those efforts went nowhere.  The most serious effort came in 1919-1920 when the three denominations held three sessions of delegates to try to work out a reunification.  Those efforts also failed, but in the 1930s the banner was hoisted again.

Delegates finally worked out a plan in sufficient detail to present to the annual conferences.   If 2/3 of the conference voted in favor, the Plan of Union would be implemented.  The price of Union was enshrining racism into the governance of the church.  Bishops have general authority, but the members of the MECS refused to entertain the idea of an African American bishop presiding over their conference so African American churches were put into a segregated jurisdiction so the racial bar could be maintained.

By December 1937 the votes were tallied and reported.   Texas Methodists were enthusiastically in favor.  Central Texas 305 to 9.  Texas Mexican Conference 30 to 2. Northwest Texas 246 to 11.  Texas 312 to 4.  West Texas 247 to 5.  North Texas 255 to 13.   

Other conferences were much closer.  Illinois was exaxctly 2/3  30 for and 15 against.  Memphis was also 2/3.    Baltimore 68%,  Upper South Carolina  151 to 106;  North Georgia was 65%.   

The only annual conference in which a majority voted against was North Mississippi    by a vote of 117 for and 125 against.  

The final tally was well above the 2/3 threshold  7667 in favor and 1247 against.   Thus the Uniting Confernce of 1939 was held in Kansas City and the Methodist Church was created from the three predecessor denominations.