Jessamine county, and the Woodfields in Fayette county; and, not long after, Philip Taylor, from Virginia, settled in Jessamine county. These were considered a great acquisition to the infant societies. Nathanael Harris and Gabriel Woodfield were among the first order of local preachers, and they were highly esteemed and labored with success. They have been connected with the itinerancy, and labored in that relation with acceptance. Gabriel Woodfield afterward settled in Henry county, but, before his death, removed to Indiana, in the neighborhood of Madison, where he lived to a good old age, and died in peace among his friends and connections. Nathanael Harris still lives,* at the age of nearly fourscore years. Joseph Ferguson, a local preacher from Fairfax county, Virginia, moved to Kentucky at an early time, and settled in Nelson county, and was among the first preachers that settled in that section of the country. He was an amiable man, possessed of good preaching talents, and was rendered very useful. He was highly esteemed, blessed with an amiable family; and his house was a home for the traveling preachers, who were at all times welcome guests. Brother Ferguson was subject at times to great depression of mind; but when in the company of the traveling preachers he was always cheerful and happy. He lived to a good old age at the place where he first settled, and died in peace and in the triumphs of that gospel which he had proclaimed for many years. Ferguson's Meeting

* He died August 12, 1849.

house was one of the first that was built in that part of the country, and at one time there was a large society at that meeting-house; and when I was last in the neighborhood, in the fall of 1811, they still maintained a respectable standing."*

Among the local preachers whose names we have mentioned, that of Francis Clark stands preeminent as the founder of Methodism in Kentucky. As early as 1783,† accompanied by John Durham, a class-leader, and others of his neighbors, with their families, he left Virginia, and settled in Mercer county. He immediately organized a class, the first in the far West, about six miles west from where Danville now stands.‡ An impression has obtained that the first Methodist organization in the District was at the house of Thomas Stevenson, in Mason

*The Rev. Wm. Burke, in Sketches of Western Methodism, pp. 62, 63.—The following letter from the Rev. T. F. Vanmeter will explain the present condition of this society:

'In answer to your inquiry, I would state that 'Ferguson's Chapel' was originally built in the Poplar Flat neighborhood, about six miles east of Bardstown, Nelson county, Kentucky. The first building was a round-log, with clapboard roof. I cannot ascertain the date when this building was erected. It remained a long time, and became so much dilapidated that it could not be used, and was displaced by a hewed-log building in 1822, about fifty yards west of the former building. In 1844, a handsome brick was erected about fifty yards farther west, where the society now worship, making about one hundred yards from where the Poplar Flat Church now stands to the original Ferguson's Chapel. The society now numbers about seventy members-a thriving, spiritual Church, in the bounds of the Bloomfield Circuit, Kentucky Conference."

Recollections of the West, p. 10.

Rev. J. F. Wright, Western Christian Advocate, March 7, 1866. Mr. Wright fixes the date, however, one year later.

county, under the supervision of Benjamin Ogden.* The emigration of Mr. Clark, as previously stated, was three years in advance of the appointment of Mr. Ogden to the District. It is also an interesting fact that the society formed by Mr. Clark dates one year prior to the Christmas Conference, when the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America took place. As early as 1784, Mrs. Mary Davis joined this society, under Francis Clark; and in 1859, at the advanced age of ninety-seven, sweetly fell asleep, full of faith and of hope, at the residence of her son-in-law, Lazarus Powell, senior, in Henderson county, Kentucky, having been for seventyfive years a member of the Methodist Church.t

Previous to the appointment of Messrs. Haw and Ogden, several families who had been members of the Methodist Church in Maryland and Virginia, "tired of cultivating the flinty fields and unproductive soil of their native States, where, under the most favorable circumstances, the utmost that could be hoped for, as the result of the most energetic and unremitted attentions, was a bare subsistence, determined to wend their way to the 'far-off West,' concerning which they had heard so many glowing descriptions and thrilling accounts." Among these early Methodist pioneers, were Mr. Thomas Stevenson and his wife, from the State of Maryland, who were among the first converts to Methodism on the American Continent. They settled two and a half

*Collins's Kentucky, p. 124.

+ Mrs. Davis was the paternal grandmother of the wife of the author.

miles south-west of Washington, in the county of Mason.*

It was in the latter part of the summer of 1786 when Messrs. Haw and Ogden arrived in the District of Kentucky. One of the first families that bade them welcome to their cottage home was that of Thomas Stevenson. At Mr. Ogden's first visit to the house, immediately on his reaching Kentucky, "he remained for several days, preaching to the people by night, and visiting and praying with the families by day, while his labors were duly appreciated by all in the garrison." From this date to the time of his death, which occurred in 1829, the house of Mr. Stevenson was "a regular preachingplace," as well as "a constant home for the traveling ministry of the Methodist Connection."

The Rev. Dr. Stevenson, in his "Fragments from the Sketch-book of an Itinerant," published in the Christian Advocate (Nashville), October 30, 1856, says: "Mr. Collins, in his deservedly popular and well-written History of Kentucky, has represented, on the authority of some one, that the first Methodist society or Church was organized in my father's house. I am not prepared to endorse the entire correctness of this statement. That such a class was associated together in his little apartment, while living in Kenton's Station, in 1786, by Mr. Ogden, is certain; but whether this was the first he formed

*They were the parents of the Rev. Dr. Stevenson, who recently died, a member of the Louisville Conference. Mrs. Stevenson joined the Methodists, under Robert Strawbridge, in 1768; Thomas Stevenson about ten years later.

in the country, I have no data on which to affirm or deny. It may not, however, be improper to remark that the first prayer that was ever presented to the throne of the heavenly grace, at a family altar in the District of Kentucky, by a Methodist preacher, was in my father's cottage, in the station above named, Benjamin Ogden officiating." When the author of the History of Kentucky says, "The first Methodist Episcopal Church organized in Kentucky was in the cabin of Thomas Stevenson, in Mason county, by Benjamin Ogden, some time during the year 1786," he can only mean that no organization previous to this year was recognized in the printed Minutes of the Church. And when Dr. Stevenson affirms that the first prayer ever presented to the throne of the heavenly grace, at a family altar in the District of Kentucky, by a Methodist preacher, was in his father's cottage, Benjamin Ogden officiating, he only refers to the prayers offered by the missionaries. Three years before, we have seen a local preacher leaving Virginia, and not only as a settler of the soil, but as a pioneer of his faith, seeking a home in the wilderness of Kentucky. In his house he erects an altar to God, and in early morn and at close of day he offers prayers to the Most High, commending his household to Heaven.

A writer* familiar with the times and the labors of these men, says, "They came fired with holy zeal and deeply imbued with the spirit of their mission. They commenced their labors in earnest and with

* Rev. Lewis Garrett.