ground; had become familiar with its dim and unfrequented paths; they enjoyed the confidence of the people, and had achieved success in their ministry; yet the growing interest of the Church demanded an accession to the ministerial strength.

Thomas Williamson was admitted on trial in 1785, and had traveled successively the Yadkin and Salisbury Circuits, in North Carolina. Wilson Lee preceded him in the work of the ministry one year, and had traveled on the Alleghany Circuit, in Virginia; the Redstone, in Pennsylvania; and the Talbot, in Maryland. For piety, zeal, and devotion to the cause of Christ, these men enjoyed an enviable reputation. In the fields of labor they had previously occupied, they were eminently successful. Wilson Lee, the former year, had been assistant to Richard Whatcoat, afterward Bishop Whatcoat, and enjoyed to the fullest extent the confidence of that great man. He was twenty-six years of age, in the prime of life, and the strength of manhood, when he came to Kentucky. His early advantages were of a superior character. Reared in the midst of refinement, and surrounded with the luxuries of life, his manners polished, and possessing talents of a high order, he might have achieved eminence in any profession. But God had called him to the work of the ministry, and, following the voice of duty, he cheerfully obeyed the summons. At seventeen years of age, he embraced religion, and, in the morning of life, entered the ministry. Familiar with the teachings of Christianity, his address handsome, a well-trained and pleasant voice,

and with a zeal commensurate with the importance of the work to which he had been called-added to all this, he was truly devout, and an excellent singer-his preaching was "with the demonstration of the Spirit and with power." Whether in his vindication of the great truths of Christianity, or in the tremendous appeals he made to the conscience, the effect was overwhelming. Success crowned his labors, and through his instrumentality many were converted to God.

Thomas Williamson was also a young man of superior talents, as well as of prepossessing manners. He was an excellent preacher. In the pulpit he commanded not only the respect, but the admiration of his hearers, and in the social circle he was remarkably popular. Such were the men who were appointed assistants to James Haw.

Notwithstanding the depredations that were so frequently committed by the Indians, the District of Kentucky, at this time, was populating with astonishing rapidity. The want of the ordinary comforts of life, and the dreadful massacres perpetrated on the frontier, were sufficient to have arrested the tide of immigration; yet from Virginia, as well as from other sections of the country, families came in until the settlements, in some parts, were becoming dense. Undaunted by danger, these devoted missionaries went from fort to fort in the accomplishment of their great work. They "counted not their lives dear," but risked all for Christ and the Church. Men were perishing, and they desired to save them. They had left the comforts

of home with no other purpose but to preach the gospel of Christ, and with commendable zeal they prosecuted their calling, and were successful. At the close of the year, they returned four hundred and eighty members.*

The Conference of 1788 was held in Baltimore, September 10th, at which time the Kentucky Circuit was divided, and from it were formed the Lexington and Danville Circuits. Six preachers were sent to cultivate these fields. The appointments were: Francis Poythress and James Haw, Presiding Elders;† Lexington-Thomas Williamson, Peter Massie, Benjamin Snelling; Danville-Wilson Lee.‡ The name of Francis Poythress appears for the first time in the Minutes of 1776. His first appointment was to Caroline Circuit. In 1777, his name does not appear in the Minutes. Whether he had been compelled to desist from traveling in consequence of feeble health, or whether his name is omitted by mistake, we have no means of ascertaining.§ In 1778, his name reäppears, and he is appointed to Hanover Circuit, in Virginia, and then successively filled the Sussex Circuit, in Virginia; the New Hope, in North Carolina; the Fairfax, in Virginia; the Talbot, in Maryland; the Alleghany, in Virginia; and the Calvert and Baltimore, in

*Cumberland Circuit not included in these figures.

†The term "Presiding" does not occur in the Minutes until 1789, and is again dropped until 1797.

Poythress presided over Lexington and Danville, and Haw over Cumberland.

The early Minutes abound in errors and omissions.

Maryland. In 1786, he was appointed Presiding Elder over Brunswick, Sussex, and Amelia Circuits, in Virginia; and in 1787, over Guilford, Halifax, New Hope, and Caswell Circuits, in North Carolina. The important fields he had occupied evinced the high regard in which he was held by the Church, and the extraordinary success that had attended his labors was, under the blessing of God, the result of that zeal and devotion that ever afterward distinguished him, so long as he was able to lift the ensign of the cross. When appointed to Kentucky, he had reached the meridian of life. He was in the

forty-fourth year of his age. "He was a Virginian of large estate, but of dissipated habits in his youth. The conversations and rebukes of a lady in high social position arrested him in his perilous course, He returned from her house confounded, penitent, and determined to reform his morals. He betook himself to his neglected Bible, and soon saw that his only effectual reformation could be by a religious life. He searched for a competent living guide, but such was the condition of the English Church around him that he could find none. Hearing at last of the devoted Jarrat,* he hastened to his parish, and was entertained some time under his hospitable roof for instruction. There he found purification and peace about the year 1772. It was not long before he began to coöperate with Jarrat in his public labors amid the extraordinary scenes of religious interest which prevailed through all

* Jarrat was a clergyman of the Church of England.

that region. Thus, before the arrival of the Methodist itinerants in Virginia, he had become an evangelist: when they appeared, he learned with delight their doctrines and methods of labor, and, joining them, became a giant in their ranks. In 1775, he began his travels, under the authority of a Quarterly Meeting of Brunswick Circuit, and, the present year, appears for the first time on the roll of the Conference.* Henceforth, in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky, he was to be a representative man of the struggling cause. In 1783, he bore its standard across the Alleghanies to the waters of the Youghiogheny. From 1786, he served it with preeminent success for twelve years, as a Presiding Elder. Asbury nominated him for the Episcopate. From the first,' says one of the best antiquarian authorities of the Church,† 'he performed all the work of a Methodist preacher with fidelity and success, and for twenty-six years his name appears without a blot upon the official records of the Church among his brethren.' During the time, he filled every office, except that of Superintendent, and was designated for that place by Bishop Asbury, in a letter addressed to the Conference at Wilbraham, 1797. The preachers refused to comply with the request, simply upon the ground that it was not competent in a yearly Conference to elect Bishops. Poythress, in a word, was to Methodism generally, and to the South-west particularly, what Jesse Lee was to New England

*1776.

† Rev. G. Scott.