Excerpts from The Illustrated History of Methodism, The Story of the Orgin and Progress of the Methodist Church, from it's Foundation by John Wesley to the Present Day by: Rev. James W. Lee, D.D., Rev. Naphtali Luccock, D.D. and James Main Dixon, M.A. 1900 The Methodist Magazine Publishing Co.

Alexander Mather

Alexander Mather was of Scottish descendent. When a boy about thirteen he joined the Jacobite insurgents and fought at the famous battle of Culloden. He was born in the old cathedral city of Brechin, in east Scotland.

Bishop Edward Thomson

Edward Thomson born in 1810 at Portsea, England. Emigrated to America with his family when he was eight. The family settled in Wooster, Ohio. Graduated in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania at nineteen. Practiced as a physician for several years and was prone to agnosticism and was against Methodists. In 1831 Russel Bigelo converted him and the following year he entered the Ohio Conference as a traveling preacher. He was principal of Norwalk Seminary for six years, two years he was editor of The Ladies Repository, and for sixteen years he was president of the Ohio Wesleyan University. In 1860 he became editor of the Christian advocate. He held this position until he was elected as bishop. He died March 22, 1870 at Wheeling, West Virginia

Calvin Kingsley

Calvin Kingsley was born in 1812 at Annsville, New York. He was a hard working pioneer until age 24 at which time he entered Allegheny College. He graduated four years later with honor. He paid all his own expenses for this education by working as janitor and later as tutor. He was elected a professor at his alma mater until 1856. He became editor of the Western Christian Advocate until he was elected to the episcopacies. Five years later, he undertook the first missionary tour around the world by a Methodist bishop. He visited China, met the Missionary Conference in India and was going to visit the missions in Europe. He died suddenly in April 1870 at Beirut, on the coast of Syria. His tomb is at the foot of the Lebanon mountains, forming a bond between the churches in America and Asia.

Dr. Alpheus W. Wilson

Aplpheus Wilson was born in Baltimore, Maryland on February 5, 1834. He was educated in Maryland and attended Columbian College in Washington D.C. He made the most Episcopal tours around the world in his time.

Atticus Greene Haygood

Atticus was born November 19, 1839 in Watkins Georgia. Atticus was the oldest born of six children to Greene B. and Martha Askew Haygood. In 1859 he graduated from Emory College. He was president of Emory College from 1876 to 1874. He died in 1896.

Rev. Stephen G. Roszel

Stephen Roszel was born April 8, 1770 in Loudon Co., Virginia. Was a leader at the Baltimore Conference of 1808 and was close friends with Bishop Asbury. His ministry area was the neighborhoods of Baltimore and Philadelphia. He died May 14, 1841.

Russel Bigelow

Russel Bigelow was born February 24, 1793 and died July 1, 1835. He was a preacher among the early Ohio Methodists. (photo coming soon)

Bishop William McKendree

Bishop McKendree, one of the great lights of the Church, who for nineteen years had ranked as senior bishop, died in March 1835 at the home of his brother in Nashville. For a considerable period his health had been feeble, but he remained active to the last. His final words were a declaration of hope and trust: "All is well." Like Asbury, he had refrained from assuming the responsibility of married life, and he died a bachelor.

Bishop William McKendree

Bishop McKendree, one of the great lights of the Church, who for nineteen years had ranked as senior bishop, died in March 1835 at the home of his brother in Nashville. For a considerable period his health had been feeble, but he remained active to the last. His final words were a declaration of hope and trust: "All is well." Like Asbury, he had refrained from assuming the responsibility of married life, and he died a bachelor.

James Andrew

James Andrew was a Methodist born and bred. His father John Andrew, was the first native of Georgian to be admitted as an itinerant, and in his early life he had seen a good deal of hardship. At the time of his election, James Andrew was but thirty-eight years old, but his whole career had been such as to inspire the Church with confidence in his judgment. Having joined the Church when thirteen, he was licensed to preach before he was out of his teens; and the early appearances in the pulpit of the shy, awkward boy caused many to underrate him. Gradually, he showed his powers, and when he was transferred to a city charge in Charleston, his fame as a preacher growing. While in Charleston, he married Miss Amelia McFarlane, who belonged to a family of stanch Methodists. It was a bequest of this lady's mother which furnished one of the occasions for the well-known Andrew case. Mrs. Andrew received from her mother as a bequest a negro boy; and, as she died without a will, the lad became the legal property of her husband, Bishop James Andrew. Emmacipation was impracticable, owing to the laws of the state; but the bishop declared that the boy might leave for elsewhere as soon as he showed himself able to take care of himself. A second case of the same kind, by a peculiar accident, had fallen to the bishop's lot. Several years before the meeting of Conferences an old lady had bequeathed to him in trust a young negro girl, who was to be taken care of until she was nineteen years of age and then sent to Liberia. If however, she refused to go, she was to have the option of remaining in Georgia, under as free conditions as the law would permit. When the time came for decision, she refused absolutely to cross the ocean and remaining in her native state of Georgia, where emancipation was impossible. She was nominally the slave of Bishop Andrew, who derived no pecuniary profit whatever from her possession. A third slave-holding record stood against him. During the previous year he had married as a second wife a lady who possessed slaves. In order that he might have no responsibility from this property he secured them to her by a deed of trust and would have willing have done his best to see them emancipated, but the laws of Georgia prohibited it.

John Seybert

John Seybert was born in Pennsylvania in 1791. He was converted in 1810. He became a itinerant minister of the Evangelical Association in 1820. He was first elected bishop in 1839 and was unanimously elected as his own successor until his death at Bellevue, Ohio in 1859.

Henry Boehm

Henry Boehm, son of Martin Boehm, born in 1175 lived to be a centenarian and a link between several generations. He joined the Methodist Church in 1798 and was licensed to preach two years later. He was admitted on trial by the Philadelphia Conference in 1801. After 1808 he became Bishop Asbury's traveling companion and was closely associated with him for about five years. He did most of his preaching in German. He was the first man to preach in German in Cincinnati. He could still occupy the pulpit in his hundredth year. He died on December 17, 1875 - 1876.

Henry Moore

Henry Moore was born in the year 1751 in Dublin of well-to-do parents, he was left fatherless at an early age and had to abandon his intention of following a scholastic career. Until the age of nineteen he served unwillingly as a wood-carver and then he determined to seek his fortune in London. He married a Coleraine girl, Nancy Young. He survived until 1844, becoming the Nestor of English Methodism.

Rev. Francis McCormick

Rev. Francis McCormick was Founder of the Methodist Church in Northwestern Territory. Born in Frederick county, Virginia in 1764. He began to preach in Bourbon county, Kentucky in 1795. Founded McCormick Settlement near Cincinnati, Ohio.

Rev. Ezekiel Cooper

Rev. Ezekiel Cooper was born in Caroline, Maryland in 1763. He died in 1847. He received the last letter written to America by John Wesley. When he was a boy he once listened earnestly to a discourse delivered by Freeborn Garrettson to the soldiers of the Revolutionary army, in which his father served as an officer. He entered into the ministry in 1785 at the age of twenty-two. He served in New Jersey, Massachusetts and in the Middle States. He succeeded John Dickins as book agent in 1798 and proved himself to be a prudent and skillful business man. At the time of his death he is said to have been the oldest Methodist preacher in the world.

Rev. Enoch M. Marvin, D.D.

Rev. Enoch M. Marvin was born in Warren county, Missouri on June 12, 1823. His parents having thither from Massachusetts. He joined the Church in 1839 at a campground in St. Charles county. He entered the Missouri Conference in 1841. He was pastor at Centenary and First churches in St. Louis during the Civil War. He served as chaplain in the Confederate army and was for a time at Marshall Station in Texas. He visited the China missions in 1876 and on his return by way of England he attended the British Wesleyan Conference as fraternal delegate fro the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He was the author of several books, the most popular of which was his "To the East by Way of the West" He died November 26, 1877.

Bishop Cyrus D. Foss

Cyrus D. Foss was a native of New York and was for some years a leading pastor in that state. He was made president of his alma mater, Wesleyan University in 1875. He was elected Bishop in 1880.

Matthew Simpson

Matthew Simpson was born at Cadiz, Ohio on June 11, 1811 and came of the sturdy Sctoch-Irish stock through his father, who emigrated when a young man. His mother, Sara Tingley was of French-English descent. Left fatherless in his infancy he owed his careful upbringing to his devout mother and uncle, Matthew Simpson. His academical training was received at Madison Collefe, Pennsylvania which had recently come under the Pittsburgh Annual Conference and had Doctor Bascom as its principal. At eighteen the young man became tutor in the college. After a short time devoted to the study of medicine, he determined to enter the Church and in 1883 was received on trial by the Pittsburgh Conference.

Trusten Polk

Trusten Polk was born in Delaware in 1811. He was Governor of Missouri, 1851; United States Senator, 1857 -62; appointed Cape May Commissioner, 1875. He died in April 1876.

Daniel A. Goodsell

Daniel Goodsell was born in 1840 at Newbury, New York, was educated at the New York University, and entered the New York East Conference. After successful pastorates in many leading churches, he was elected secretary of the Education Society, as a successor to Dr. D.P. Kidder, and served in this capacity until his election as bishop.

John P. Newman

John P. Newman was born in New York in 1826, was educated at Cazenovia Seminary, and entered the Troy Conference. He became a pastor in New York City in 1858 and was sent five years later to New Orleans. In 1869 he was elected chaplain of the United States Senate, and became pastor of the Metropolitan Church in Washington, DC He was repeatedly pastor of this church, serving it for the third time when elected bishop. Bishop Newman was an extensive traveler, an author of some note, and an orator of great power. He died at Saratoga Springs, July 5, 1899.

Henry Clay Morrison

Henry Morrison was born May 30, 1842 in Montgomery county, Tennessee. He entered the ministry in 1865 and served for twenty-one years in the Louisville Conference. For four years he was pastor of the First Church, Atlanta. He was elected missionary secretary in 1890 and was re-elected four years later. During his last term as missionary secretary he raised one hundred and forty thousand dollars and paid off the debt on the Board of Missions.

John Early

John Early was born in 1786 in Bedford County, Virginia. He was originally associated with the Baptist Church, wo which his parents belonged. In 1804, he united with the Methodist Church and was licensed to preach two years later. Part of his early work was done on President Jefferson's estate among the Negroes. He survived until the 1873 and was active in service until his eightieth year.

Stephen M. Merrill

Stephen M. Merrill was acting as editor of the Western Christian Advocate when elected a bishop. Born in Ohio, in 1825, he served with distinction as pastor and presiding elder in the Ohio Conference. Bishop Merrill may be termed pre-eminently the jurist of the Episcopal college.

Issac W. Wiley

Issac W. Wiley was born at Lewiston, Pennsylvania in 1825. He served as a medical missionary in China. He was at one time a principal of Pennington Seminary in New Jersey and for eight years edited The Ladies' Repository. He died in 1884, while Foochow, the Chinese emporium, where thirty-three years before he had begun his work as a missionary.

Erastus O. Haven

Erastus O. Haven was born in Boston, in 1820. He was educated at Wesleyan University. He was for a short time a pastor in New York City, became editor of Zion's Herald, president of the Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois. In 1872 he was appointed secretary of the Board of Education, two years later became chancellor of Syracuse University, and occupied this post for six years. He died in the first year of Episcopal service, at Salem, Oregon.

Fredrick James Jobson