History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880
Chapter 131 : Phillip Embury, Barbara Heck, and Capt. Thomas Webb were the germ from which, in the g

Phillip Embury, Barbara Heck, and Capt. Thomas Webb were the germ from which, in the good providence of G.o.d, has sprung the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The first chapel was erected upon leased ground on John Street, New York City, in 1768. The ground was purchased in 1770. Subscriptions were asked and received from all cla.s.ses of people for the building, from the mayor of the city down to African female servants known only by their Christian names. Here the Colored people became first identified with American Methodism. From this stock have sprung all who have been subsequently connected with it. Meetings were held, prior to the erection of John Street Church, in the private residence of Mrs. Heck, and in a rigging-loft, sixty by eighteen feet, in William Street, which was rented in 1767. Here Capt. Webb and Mr. Embury preached thrice a week to large audiences. The original design to erect a chapel must be credited to Mrs. Heck, the foundress of American Methodism. Mr.

Richard Owen, a convert of Robert Strawbridge, the founder of Methodism in Baltimore, was the first native Methodist preacher on the continent. The first American Annual Conference was held in Philadelphia, Pa., twenty-nine years after Mr. Wesley held his first conference in England, with ten members, precisely the same number there were in his. They were Thos. Rankin, President; Richard Boardman, Joseph Pilmoor, Francis Asbury, Richard Wright, George Shadford, Thomas Webb, John King, Abraham Whiteworth, and Joseph Yearbry. It began Wednesday the 14th and closed Friday the 16th of July, 1773. All the members were foreigners, and in the Revolution many of them were subject to unjust suspicions of sympathy with England, in consequence of this fact alone. The aggregate statistical returns for this conference showed 1,160, which was much less than Mr.

Rankin supposed to be the strength of Methodism in America.

On the 2d of September, 1784, Rev. Thomas c.o.ke, D.D., LL.D., a presbyter in the Church of England, was ordained by John Wesley, A.M., Superintendent or Bishop of the Methodist Societies in America. He was charged with a commission to organize them into an Episcopal Church, and to ordain Mr. Francis Asbury an a.s.sociate Bishop. He sailed for America at 10 o'clock A.M., September 18th, and landed at New York, Wednesday, November 3, 1784. Mr. c.o.ke at once set out on a tour of observation, accompanied by Harry Hosier, Mr. Asbury's travelling servant, a Colored minister. Hosier was one of the notable characters of that day. He was the first American Negro preacher of the M. E.

Church in the United States. In 1780 Mr. Asbury alluded to him as a companion, suitable to preach to the Colored people. Dr. Rush, allowing for his illiteracy--for he could not read--p.r.o.nounced him the greatest orator in America. He was small in stature and very black; but he had eyes of remarkable brilliancy and keenness; and singular readiness and aptness of speech. He travelled extensively with Asbury, c.o.ke, and Whiteworth. He afterward travelled through New England. He excelled all the whites in popularity as a preacher; sharing with them in their public services, not only in Colored but also in white congregations. When they were sick or otherwise disabled they could trust the pulpit to Harry without fear of unfavorably disappointing the people. Mr. Asbury acknowledges that the best way to obtain a large congregation was to announce that Harry would preach. The mult.i.tude preferred him to the Bishop himself. Though he withstood for years the temptations of extraordinary popularity, he fell, nevertheless, by the indulgent hospitalities which were lavished upon him. He became temporarily the victim of wine; but possessed moral strength enough to recover himself. Self-abased and contrite, he started one evening down the neck below Southwark, Philadelphia, determined to remain till his backslidings were healed. Under a tree he wrestled in prayer into the watches of the night. Before the morning G.o.d restored to him the joys of His salvation. Thenceforward he continued faithful. He resumed his public labors. In the year 1810 he died in Philadelphia. "Making a good end," he was borne to the grave by a great procession of both Colored and white admirers, who buried him as a hero--one overcome, but finally victorious.

It is said that on one occasion, in Wilmington, Del., where Methodism was long unpopular, a number of the citizens, who did not ordinarily attend Methodist preaching, came together to hear Bishop Asbury. Old Asbury Chapel was, at that time, so full that they could not get in.

They stood outside to hear the Bishop, as they supposed; but in reality they heard Harry. Before they left the place, they complimented the speaker by saying: "If all Methodist preachers could preach like the Bishop we should like to be constant hearers." Some one present replied: "That was not the Bishop, but his servant." This only raised the Bishop higher in their estimation, as their conclusion was, if such be the servant what must the master be? The truth was, that Harry was a more popular speaker than Asbury, or almost any one else in his day.[130]

So we find in the very inception of Methodism in the United States the Colored people were conspicuously represented in its members.h.i.+p, contributing both money, labor, and eloquence to its grand success.

The great founder of Methodism was an inveterate foe of human slavery, which he p.r.o.nounced "the sum of all villainies," and in this particular the Methodist societies in their earliest times reflected his sentiments. The early preachers were especially hostile to slavery. In 1784 it was considered and declared to be contrary to the Golden Law of G.o.d, as well as every principle of the Revolution. They required every Methodist to execute and record, within twelve months after notice by the preacher, a legal instrument emanc.i.p.ating all slaves in his possession at specified ages. Any person who should not concur in this requirement had liberty to leave the Church within one year; Otherwise the preacher was to exclude him. No person holding slaves could be admitted to members.h.i.+p, or to the Lord's Supper, until he complied with this law. But it was to be applied only where the law of the State permitted.[131] These rules provoked great hostility, and were suspended within six months.

The Church had, however, put the stamp of condemnation upon it. And ever in a more or less active but always consistent manner opposed it, until its final extirpation was accomplished, though not until the Church had been several times divided in favor of and against it.

The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America was organized in what is historically known as the Christmas Conference, which convened in Baltimore at ten o'clock Friday morning, December 24, 1784, Bishop Thomas c.o.ke, presiding. Rev. Francis Asbury was there consecrated a bishop. In 1786 a resolution emphatically enjoining it upon the preachers to leave nothing undone for the spiritual benefit and salvation of the Colored people was adopted. The Church is a limited Episcopacy. The bishops are elected by the General Conference.

They fix the appointments of all the preachers, but the conference arranges their duration. The bishops hold office during good behavior.

The General Conference is the Legislative, and the bishops, presiding elders, pastors, annual, district, and quarterly conferences, with the leaders' and stewards' meetings, and the general and local trustees, are the Executive Department. The ministerial orders are two: elder and deacon. The offices of the ministry and rank are in the order named,--bishop, sub-bishop, pastor, and sub-pastors. The ministry are cla.s.sified as Effective, Supernumerary, Superannuate, and Local. The property of each congregation is deeded in trust for them to a Board of Local Trustees, who may sell, buy, or improve it for the use of said congregation. The stewards are officers whose labors are partly temporal and partly spiritual. They are entrusted with the raising of supplies, benevolence, and the support of the ministry. Exhorters are prayer-meeting leaders and general helpers in the work of the circuits.

Methodism began in a college and has been a great patron of education.

It has been largely devoted to the educational and religious culture of the Colored people in the South and in Africa. There are sixteen conferences of Colored members in the M. E. Church--fifteen in the United States and one in Liberia. For the Liberian Conference two Colored bishops have been consecrated, viz.: Francis Burns and ex-President Thomas Wright Roberts, both deceased. The present bishops are all white, one of whom annually visits Africa. The same is true of conferences in Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, India, China, and j.a.pan. The agency by which the Church prosecutes this work is the Missionary, Church Extension, Freedmen's Aid, Education, and Sunday-school Union societies. Books and periodicals are amply supplied by its own publis.h.i.+ng house, which is the largest religious publis.h.i.+ng house in the world.

In the sixteen conferences there are 225,000 members, 200,000 Sunday-school scholars, 3,500 day scholars, one medical, three law, and seven theological colleges, and twelve seminaries. There is $500,000 in school and $2,000,000 in church and parsonage property owned by the Colored members.h.i.+p! The Colored members elect their own representatives to the General Conference, and are fully represented in all the work of the Church.

At the present time the Rev. Marshall W. Taylor, D. D., and the Rev.

Wm. M. Butler are the most prominent men in the Church. Marshall William Boyd (alias) Taylor was born July 1, 1846, at Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky, of poor, uneducated, but respectable parents. He was the fourth in a family of five children, three of whom were boys, viz.: George Summers, Francis Asbury, and himself; and two girls, Mary Ellen and Mary Cathrine. He is of Scotch-Irish and Indian descent on his father's side. Hon. Samuel Boyd, of New York; Joseph Boyd, of Virginia; and Lieut.-Gov. Boyd, of Kentucky, were blood-relations of his, and all descended from the "Clan Boyd" of Scotland. His mother was of African and Arabian stock. His grandmother, on his mother's side, Phillis Ann, was brought from Madagascar when a little girl, and became the slave of Mr. Alexander Black, a Kentucky farmer, who at his death willed his slaves free. His mother, Nancy Ann, thus obtained her freedom, and by the terms of the will she was put to the millinery trade, which she fully mastered, and meantime obtained an elementary knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic. She married Albert Summers, and bore to him two children, viz., George Summers and Mary Catharine. He ran away to prevent being sold, and she afterward married Samuel Boyd, to whom she bore three children, viz., Francis Asbury, Marshall William, and Mary Ellen. His father, Samuel, was the son of Hon. Samuel Boyd, of New York. He was noted for his independence of character; was a valuable but unruly slave. He was allowed an opportunity to purchase his freedom, and this he began to do, and had paid $250, three fourths of the price, when his master sold him to Tennessee. He promptly ran away from his new master, but unwilling to forsake his family, went back to Kentucky.

His master pursued and overtook him at Lexington, where he had stopped. He refused to go back to Tennessee, and once more was permitted to select a master, and finally to again contract for his freedom, which he this time succeeded in obtaining. In consequence of his mother's emanc.i.p.ation, Marshall was free when he first saw the light of day. By occupation his father was a hemp-breaker, rope-maker, and farmer. The last he elected to follow after he was free. He employed his boys as farmers, but his mother strenuously opposed it, wis.h.i.+ng better opportunities than could be thus afforded for their education. She at length succeeded in carrying her point.

In religion his father at first inclined to the Baptists, of which Church he became a deacon in the congregation of Rev. Mr. Ferrill, of Pleasant Green Church, Lexington. Later he became dissatisfied with the Baptists, and united with the African Methodists at Frankfort, Ky.

He finally went back to the Baptist Church and died in that faith.

Marshall's mother, and all her people, so far as known, were Methodists. His early training and first and only religious impressions were Methodistic, which Church, after his conversion, he joined. His father had no knowledge of letters, so that all his home instruction came from his mother. Her text-books were the Bible, Methodist Catechism, and Webster's Elementary Spelling Book. And in these young Marshall became very proficient. He afterward attended school daily to Rev. John Tibbs, an African Methodist preacher, who came from Cincinnati to Lexington to teach free children and such of the slaves as would be permitted to attend. Some masters granted this permission, but the greater number refused it. Finally, some "_poor white_" fellows, unable to own slaves themselves, mobbed the teacher, rode him on a rail, tarred, feathered, and drove him from town. They were called black Indians. It was impossible to secure another teacher in Lexington for a day school, but Mr. George Perry, an intelligent free Colored man, had the courage to teach Sunday-school, in the Branch Methodist Church. It is now called Asbury M. E. Church.

Marshall attended, as did his mother and brothers. In 1854 the family moved to Louisville, looking for a school. Finding none there, they continued their journey about fifty miles above there on the Ohio River, and landed at Ghent, a little village in Carroll County, Ky., opposite Vevey, Indiana. They indulged a hope that the children would be allowed to attend the public schools at Vevey, but they were doomed in this expectation. They spent two years at Ghent. Marshall and his brother obtained instruction during this period from the little white children who attended school, after hours, using "an old hay loft back of a Mr. Sanders's Tavern" for a recitation-room, and paying their teachers with cakes and candies bought with odd pennies gathered here and there.

On the 1st of August, 1856, there was an Emanc.i.p.ation celebration at Dayton, Ohio. Frederick Dougla.s.s was advertised to speak, and other eminent Abolitionists were expected to partic.i.p.ate. Marshall's mother attended it. Soon after her return several slaves mysteriously disappeared from the vicinity of Ghent. Among them was a very valuable family belonging to Esquire Craig, of the village. Suspicion fastened on the old lady who had been off among the "Abolitionists." She was indicted by the Grand Jury, and thirty-six men filed into her cabin, and while she lay sick in bed, read the indictment to her. They ordered her to leave the place. She refused to go, claimed her innocence, but to no purpose. "They chased Francis with guns and dogs on the public streets in daylight; shaddowed the cabin and gave unmistakable evidence of a diabolical purpose." She soon after returned to Louisville.

Young Marshall became a messenger in the law firm of J. B. Kincaid and John W. Barr. Here his chances were good, both of these gentlemen aiding him in his studies. He did his work after school hours at the office, and attended a school which was kept in the "Centre Street Colored Methodist Church," until it closed.

Rev. Henry Henderson, a Colored Methodist preacher, now opened a school in Centre Street, and Marshall was duly enrolled among his pupils. On his retirement, Mrs. Elizabeth c.u.mings, a highly cultured and pious lady, taught a private school on Grayson, between Sixth and Seventh streets. He now went to her. She died soon after, when he was sent to a Mr. William H. Gibson, who had already opened a school on Seventh, between Jefferson and Green streets, in an old carpenter shop. Here he continued until 1861.

In 1866 Mr. Taylor opened a Freedmen's School at Hardinsburg Breckenridge Co., Ky. This was in an old church, the property of the M. E. Church South. It had been donated for church purposes by George Blanford. If used otherwise it was to revert to the donor. A Negro school was obnoxious to the community. His was the first there had ever been in the village, and notwithstanding the white people had long since abandoned the property to the Colored people this question was now raised in order to break up the school. It did not succeed, as they easily proved that the original intent of the donor was not violated, since Colored people still used the property as a church.

Failing in this the school was tormented by ruffians. Pepper was rolled up in cotton, set on fire, and hurled into the room to set every one coughing. Finally threats of personal violence were made if he did not leave, but Mr. Taylor armed himself, defied the enemies of freedom, and stayed. At last, on Christmas evening, Dec. 25, 1867, the house was blown up with powder. The arrangement was to set off the blast with a slow match so as to catch the house full of people, there being a school exhibition that night. The explosion took place at 11:30 P.M., but owing to the excitement occasioned by the novelty of such a thing as a "Negro School Exhibition," the crowd had gathered much earlier than announced. The programme was completed before 11 P.M., and by this accident the school and teacher were saved. The old wreck still remains a monument to color prejudice.

By the aid of the Freedmen's Bureau another school-house was soon built, and the school proceeded. This was followed by a meeting-house.

The white people, whose sentiments were now rapidly turning, subscribed liberally toward it.

In 1868 an educational convention was held at Owensboro, in Davies Co., Ky., of which Mr. Taylor was elected president. He soon after wrote a manual for Colored schools, which was generally used in that section. In 1869 he attended the first Colored political convention ever held in Kentucky, at Major Hall in Frankfort. He was one of the Educational Committee, and submitted a report. This year he was also a member of a convention at Jackson Street Church, Louisville, which inaugurated the movement for the Lexington M. E. Conference. He was licensed as a local preacher this year by Rev. Hanson Tolbert at Hardinsburg, and was a.s.sisted in the study of theology by Rev. R. G.

Gardiner, J. H. Lennin, and Dr. R. S. Rust. He went to Arkansas as a missionary teacher and preacher at the call of Rev. W. J. Gladwin, and remained there one year. He organized several societies, of the Church, taught school at Midway, Forrest City, and Wittsburg; took part in the political campaign of that year; and was nominated, but declined to run, for Representative from Saint Frances County.

He preached in Texas, Indian Territory, and Missouri; was put in peril by the Ku Klux at Hot Springs; took the chills and returned to Ky., in 1871. He was then appointed to the Litchfield Circuit, Southwestern Kentucky. In 1872 he united with the Lexington Conference of M. E.

Church on trial. He was ordained a deacon by Bishop Levi Scott at Maysville, Ky., and sent to c.o.ke Chapel, Louisville, Ky., and Wesley Chapel, Jeffersonville, Indiana. He remained in this charge three years, during which time he published the monthly "Kentucky Methodist," and wrote extensively for the press. He was elected a.s.sistant secretary, editor of the printed minutes of the conference, and finally secretary. In 1875 he was sent as pastor to Indianapolis, Ind. He was ordained elder by Bishop Wiley at Lexington in 1876, and returned to Indianapolis. He took an active part in the political campaign of 1876, and was sent to Union Chapel, Cincinnati, 1877-8. In 1879 the faculty of Central Tennessee College, at Nashville, Tennessee, conferred upon him the t.i.tle and credentials of a Doctor of Divinity. He wrote the life of Rev. Geo. W. Downing.

In 1879 Dr. Taylor was appointed Presiding Elder of the Ohio District, Lexington Conference. In 1880 he was sent as fraternal delegate from the M. E. to the A. M. E. General Conference at St. Louis; he having been previously elected lay delegate to the General Conference of the M. E. Church in Brooklyn, New York, in 1879. He was the youngest member of that body. Upon his motion fraternal representatives were sent to the various Colored denominations of Methodists. He was appointed in 1881 as a delegate from the M. E. Church to the Ec.u.menical Conference at London, England. He was the caucus nominee of the Colored delegates to the General Conference in Cincinnati in 1880 for bishop. He was always opposed to caste discriminations in Church, State, or society. He has opposed Colored conferences and a Colored bishop as tending to perpetuate discriminations. He does not oppose the election of Colored men, but wishes that every honor may fall upon them because of merit and not on account of their color. He has become famous as an eloquent preacher, safe teacher, ready speaker, and earnest worker; always aiming to do the greatest good to the greatest number. Certainly the Methodist Episcopal Church has reason to be proud of Marshall W. Taylor.

In this Church there are many other worthy and able Colored preachers.

The relations they sustain to the eloquent, scholarly, and pious white clergymen of the denomination are pleasant and beneficial. It is an education. And the fact that the best pulpits of white men are opened to the Colored preachers is a prophecy that race antagonisms in the Christian Church, so tenacious and harmful, are to perish speedily.

FOOTNOTES:

[130] Stevens's Hist. of M. E. Church, pp. 174, 175; also Lednum, p.

282.

[131] And there was not a single State where this rule could be applied. Slavery ruled the land.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE COLORED BAPTISTS OF AMERICA.

THE COLORED BAPTISTS AN INTELLIGENT AND USEFUL PEOPLE.--THEIR LEADING MINISTERS IN MISSOURI, OHIO, AND IN NEW ENGLAND.--THE BIRTH, EARLY LIFE, AND EDUCATION OF DUKE WILLIAM ANDERSON.--AS FARMER, TEACHER, PREACHER, AND MISSIONARY.--HIS INFLUENCE IN THE WEST.--GOES SOUTH AT THE CLOSE OF THE WAR.--TEACHES IN A THEOLOGICAL INSt.i.tUTE AT NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE.--CALLED TO WAs.h.i.+NGTON.--PASTOR OF 19TH STREET BAPTIST CHURCH.--HE OCCUPIES VARIOUS POSITIONS OF TRUST.--BUILDS A NEW CHURCH.--HIS LAST REVIVAL.--HIS SICKNESS AND DEATH.--HIS FUNERAL AND THE GENERAL SORROW AT HIS LOSS.--LEONARD ANDREW GRIMES, OF BOSTON, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.--HIS PIETY, FAITHFULNESS AND PUBLIC INFLUENCE FOR GOOD.--THE COMPLETION OF HIS CHURCH.--HIS LAST DAYS AND SUDDEN DEATH.--GENERAL SORROW.--RESOLUTIONS BY THE BAPTIST MINISTERS OF BOSTON.--A GREAT AND GOOD MAN GONE.

The Baptist Church has always been a purely democratic inst.i.tution.

With no bishops or head-men, except such as derive their authority from the consent of the governed, this Church has been truly independent and self-governing in its spirit. Its only Head is Christ, and its teachers such as are willing to take "the Word of G.o.d as the Man of their Counsel." From the time of the introduction of the Baptist Church into North America down to the present time, the Colored people have formed a considerable part of its members.h.i.+p. The generous, impartial, and genuine Christian spirit of Roger Williams had a tendency, at the beginning, to keep out of the Church the spirit of race prejudice. But the growth of slavery carried with it, as a logical result, the idea that the slave's presence in the Christian Church was a rebuke to the system. For conscience' sake the slave was excluded, and to oblige the feelings of those who transferred the spirit of social caste from gilded drawing-rooms to cus.h.i.+oned pews, even the free Negro was conducted to the organ-loft.

The simplicity of the Negro led him to the faith of the Baptist Church; but being denied fellows.h.i.+p in the white congregations, he was compelled to provide churches for himself. In Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi the Colored Baptists were numerous. In the other States the Methodists and Catholics were numerous. There were few ministers of note at the South; but New England, the Middle States, and the West produced some very able Baptist preachers. The Rev. Richard Anderson, of St. Louis, Missouri, was a man of exalted piety, consummate ability, and of almost boundless influence in the West. He was the pastor of a large church, and did much to mould and direct the interests of his people throughout Missouri. He was deeply revered by his own people, and highly respected by the whites. When he died, the entire city of St.

Louis was plunged into profound mourning, and over three hundred carriages--many belonging to the wealthiest families in the city--followed his body to the place of interment.

In Ohio the Rev. Charles Satch.e.l.l, the Rev. David Nickens, the Rev. W.

P. Newman, the Rev. James Poindexter, and the Rev. H. L. Simpson were the leading clergymen in the Colored Baptist churches. Cincinnati has had for the last half century excellent Baptist churches, and an intelligent and able ministry. There are several a.s.sociations embracing many live churches.

In Kentucky the Colored Baptists are very numerous, and own much valuable property; but Virginia seems to have more Baptists among its great population of Colored people than any other State in the South.

There are a dozen or more in Richmond, including the one presided over by the famous John Jasper. One of them has, it is said, three thousand members(?). But the District of Columbia has more Colored churches for its area and population than any other place in the United States.

There are at least twenty-five Baptist churches in the District, and some of them have interesting histories. The Nineteenth Street Baptist Church is as an intelligent a society of Christian people of color as there is to be found in any city in the country. Its pulpit has always been occupied by the ablest ministers in the country. The Revs.

Sampson White, Samuel W. Madden, and Duke W. Anderson were men of education and marked ability. And there is little doubt but what Duke W. Anderson was the ablest, most distinguished clergyman of color in the United States. And for his work's sake he deserves well of history.

Duke William Anderson was born April 10, 1812, in the vicinity of Lawrenceville, Lawrence County, in the State of Illinois, of a Negro mother by a white father. His father, lately from North Carolina, fell under Gen. Harrison fighting the Indians. Like so many other great men he was born in an obscure place--a wigwam. At the time of his father's death he was quite a young baby. He was now left to the care of a mother who, in many respects, was like her husband, bold and courageous for the truth, and yet as gentle as a child. It is peculiarly trying and difficult for a mother who has all the comforts of modern city life, to train and educate her boys for the duties of life; and if so, how much more trying and difficult must it have been for a mother on the North-western frontiers, seventy years ago, to train her boys?

Dest.i.tute of home and its comforts, without friends or money; no farm, school, or church, Mrs. Anderson began to train her two boys, John Anderson and D. W. Anderson. Of the former, little or nothing is known, save that he was the only brother of D. W. Anderson.

True to the instincts of her motherly heart, Mrs. Anderson was determined to remain upon the spot purchased and consecrated by the blood of her lamented husband. She could not divorce herself from the approximate idea and object of her husband's life and death. He had turned from the comforts of a happy home; had chosen hards.h.i.+ps rather than ease that he might realize the dream of his youth, and the object of his manly endeavors--the right of suffrage to all. Her children could not build their play-house of Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, or Southey. All the instruction Duke William obtained came from his mother. She was very large and healthy. Her complexion was of perfect black. She was possessed of excellent judgment, patience, and industry. She stored the young mind of her boy with useful agricultural knowledge, of which she possessed a large amount.

An education does not consist in acquiring lessons, obtaining a simple, abstract, objective knowledge of certain sciences. It is more than this. It consists, also, in being able to apply and use rightly a given amount of knowledge. And though D. W. Anderson was never permitted to enter college, yet, what he got he got thoroughly, and used at the proper time to the best advantage.