at the mouth of the Little Miami, on the 11th day of September; and on the following Sabbath, the 14th of the month, "for the first time, he sounded the peaceful gospel of Jesus Christ to a listening few on the pleasant banks of the Miami." *

Uniting his field of labor with the Scioto, and forming a six-weeks' circuit, he directed his course up the Ohio River, and "found some families friendly to religion." At the mouth of the Scioto he found several Methodist families "from Redstone and Kentucky," and organized them into a class. On the 15th of October, he preached in Chillicothe, "for the first time, to a considerable congregation," but met with no success. His circuit embraced a large territory, over which he traveled regularly every six weeks, organizing societies, and performing all the work of a minister of Christ.†

It is a melancholy hour for a faithful minister who had spent the morning and the noon of his life in the effective field-who had cheerfully made sacrifices, suffered privations, and met hardships, without complaint, that he might aid in the advancement of the noble cause of gospel truth—when his waning strength compels him to seek such a change in his relation to the work as deprives him of a pastoral charge. For nearly forty years, Henry Smith had gone in and out among his brethren, a representative man. In the mountains of Western Virginia; in the sparsely settled State of Kentucky; in East

* Methodist Magazine, Vol. IV., p. 271.

† Ibid., p. 273.

Tennessee; along the waters of the Nollichuckie; and across the "beautiful Ohio," in advance of the rapid tide of emigration; and then amid the scenes of his early childhood, he had, in the forefront of the battle, "lifted the consecrated cross." Nothing daunted by the perils to which he was exposed from the Indians, nor discouraged by the privations he endured, nor the want of support, he had ever been true to the trust confided to him by his brethren. In 1828, his name is stricken, for the first time, from the effective roll, and he is returned as superannuated. In the following year, with his strength slightly renewed, he reënters the list, and for six years prosecutes his labors as an itinerant; and then, at the Conference of 1835, he yields to advancing age, and, as a superannuated preacher, retires from the effective list, to be placed upon it

no more.

He settled at Hookstown, Baltimore county, Maryland. In referring to this event, he says: "On reflecting that the Lord had provided a home for me, after many years' wandering without house or home, and just at the very time when I must change my relation to the Conference for I plainly saw that I could no longer do effective work—I felt grateful to him for all his tender mercies over me, and called my house ‘Pilgrim's Rest.' Perhaps 'Pilgrim's Lodge' would have been a more suitable name, for this is not yet my rest.”*

*General Minutes M. E. Church, for 1863, p. 18.

For about thirty years he sustained this relation to the Baltimore Conference-so bright an example of meekness, patience, and of all the adornments of Christian character, that he was called "good Henry Smith."

"As he drew near his end, and was no longer able to speak, he made signs to those who sat watching by him of a desire to be placed in his usual attitude of prayer. After remaining on his knees about two minutes, he was gently laid upon his bed again, where he lingered for a short time, and then expired, in the ninety-fourth year of his age, and sixty-ninth of his ministry."*

Mr. Smith, although a delicately framed man, outlived all his cotemporaries.

By order of the Baltimore Conference, held March 4, 1863, it was resolved that his remains should be removed from Hookstown, where he was buried, to Mount Olivet Cemetery, there to repose with the dust of Bishops Asbury, George, Waugh, and Emory.†

The successful termination of the expedition under Gen. Wayne brought with it the most beneficial results to Kentucky. Not only did hundreds of persons return to the homes which they had left for safety, but a tide of emigration from Virginia and Maryland, and other States, set in, that increased the population with remarkable rapidity. Among those who this year sought a home in

*General Minutes M. E. Church, for 1863, p. 17.
† Ibid., p. 18.

life and labors of John Baird is felt to the present time, not only in his family, but in the community in which he lived and died. In all the surrounding country, he, as an able expounder of the word of God, proclaimed its heaven-born truths. For fifty years his walk and conversation exemplified the doctrines of the gospel, and in death their hallowed principles afforded him sweet consolation.

On a marble slab, in the garden, close by where he lived and breathed his last, is the inscription:

Sacred

to the memory of

THE REV. JOHN BAIRD,

who departed this life,

April 17, 1846,

in the 78th year of his age,
54 years of which he spent
in the Methodist Episcopal Church,
calling sinners to repentance.
He was an acceptable preacher,
an affectionate husband,

a kind father,

and faithful friend.

We report this year an increase of forty-seven in the membership. The causes of the small increase in the membership about this period will be accounted for in a separate chapter.

At this Conference the Shelby Circuit was formed, or rather detached from the Salt River-making six circuits in Kentucky.