PASTOR'S LETTER          top

Two hundred years! Consider the enormous number of people who have passed the portals of First Church's meeting-houses and sanctuaries ... the many prayers offered ... handshakes given ... pledges paid ... missions supported ... homes strengthened and sometimes restored ... love for Christ discovered, nourished and matured ... lives redeemed by Christ ... children guided to fulfilling lives. Two hundred years! And not one person nor one deed has been forgotten by our Lord. A written history is a valuable possession even though it only gives us glimpses of the church's life. Below the surface, like the hidden muscles and the blood vessels of a human body, are the lives, prayer, tears, sacrifices and love of multitudes of unremembered persons. This history will help us see the form of the whole body and the devotion that motivated those valiant person. Their spirit and stamina will challenge us who have come lately into this heritage. Also, we will be helped by fifty-five persons who are still with us and who have lived out a least one-fourth of that two hundred year history as members of this congregation.

Such reflection will also help us appreciate the wisdom, providence and grace of God. Let us give Him thanks for His sustaining grace in bringing the church through good and difficult times, for His faithfulness in working within the strictures in which He is sometimes placed and for the periodic renewals f the church's spiritual vitality that helped to keep it strong. He has nurtured the Christian values of many who have influenced the life or our city as well as Methodism in Kentucky.

Special thanks are due Foster Ockerman, Jr., for his diligent research and writing of this excellent bicentennial history. His deep appreciation of, and interest in, Methodism came in part from his parents and their participation in First United Methodist Church. But these attitudes were also nurtured by his grandfather, the Rev. Dr. R.F. Ockerman, who devotedly served in the Kentucky Conference as minister and district superintendent for forty-five years. This helped him capture the liveliness of spiritual revivals, conflict and brave ventures and to see the humanness as well as spiritual strengths of those about whom he has written.

May the sense of God's Presence accompany you in your journey through the humor, sadness, joy and victories of your spiritual ancestors. And let us remember that it is our devotion, sacrifice and creative prayerful thought that will help determine what the church will be fifty years hence. May this lively history call us to renewed commitment to our Christ and His Church and to renewed devotion to each other in our spiritual journey.

James C. Stratton

Pastor

FOREWARD         top

I don't know how often a minister can point to a direct tangible result of a sermon, but this history, or at least my authorship of it, is such a result. Over two and a half years ago, William R. Jennings took as the thesis of a sermon something on the order of: "While you may not always need everything the church offers you, the church always needs your help."

That message struck home to me. Although a life long member of First United Methodist Church, I had not involved myself in the church, despite spending time and energy in other community activities. Billy Ray's sermon made me realize I had a duty to my church as well, and I called him a couple of days later to volunteer. During the course of our conversation, my interest in history generally (my undergraduate major field and in the history of the church came up. Billy Ray asked me to undertake this effort and to serve as church historian.

The entire effort, of course, could not have been accomplished without help from several sources. One of the most significant sources was Rick Bailey.

The training of a historian is to research, assemble and analyze information at and from a distance. The closer an event approaches in time to the analysis, the more the work of history blends into and become journalism. A journalist is trained to interview, assemble and analyze information proximately and intimately. Although similar, the skills are enough different that I felt some hesitancy in covering the most recent period of our church history.

Our church is fortunate to count as a member Rick Baily, the religion writer for the Lexington Herald-Leader. As a trained journalist, Rick would be better able to record the "present history;" and I was pleased when he agreed to write the penultimate chapter covering the period of Dr. Jenning's pastorate. The result is to the advantage of our history.

An additional debt is due to Jeff Duff, a professional archivist. During this tenure as church historian a few years ago, he organized the church archives a great deal, which made my research through that material infinitely easier. I am also obliged to Roy H. Short, retired bishop and himself the author of a volume on Kentucky Methodism history, for supplying me with material from his researches.

There are others to thank as well, especially our members who called to volunteer information and materials. I also want to thank the staff of the Lexington Public Library for their assistance, particularly in searching their archival material for the pamphlet discussed in Chapter Three. Unfortunately, neither the Library, the Filson club nor the university of Kentucky Special Collections contained a copy. Thanks also to Mary S. Rezny for her professional assistance with some of the oldest photographs, the staff at Host Communications Printing, and most especially Phil and Ann Baughn for their help in sending the manuscript directly to Host's computers.

Some comments are in order regarding this history and the research. When Billy Ray and I first discussed the project, one of the questions was what kind of history was desired: an update of the thirty-two page 1939 history, an academic work with footnotes and so forth, or what is called a "popular history." We decided on the latter. He wanted more than just an update; but, with due deference to my history advisor at Chapel Hill, he believed that a text which conformed to strict academic standards would not be what the congregation wanted or would enjoy. Jim Stratton, upon his arrival, agreed.

This is a distinction my history advisor brought home to me during a visit I made to campus some years after I graduated, and shortly after I sent him a copy of small historical essay of mine. He introduced me to one of his star doctoral candidates as "one of those local historians who make our job so interesting." I was not entirely pleased at the comparison. However, the point is well taken; and in the context of this history, perfectly valid. When he reads this, he and other professional historians will find it to be clearly on the order of local histories.

As a consequence, I have not always attributed a quotation or source of information, although my research notes will be placed in the church archives for the use of any historian who wants to dig deeper, and I have included in the bibliography all quoted sources as well as other consulted. By way of general acknowledgments, I have relied heavily on Charles W. Ferguson's Organizing to Beat the Devil for much of the general Methodist history in chapter one. The volumes on Kentucky Methodist history written by Bishops William E. Arnold and Roy H. Short are the primary sources for that material as well as almost all of the biographical information about various preachers up to the lst forty years or so. Thereafter the information comes more from our own church records and personal interviews.

On occasion I have taken the liberty of correcting spelling or syntax errors in quoted material to keep the meaning clear. Likewise, casual references are sometimes made to "the Northern church" or "the church south," instead of the formal names of those two branches of the Methodist Church.

The general approach of this history is to focus on the various preachers, for several reasons. First, the pastors of our church are identifiable and, for the most part, information about them and their lives is available. In contrast, material on the significant lay leaders of the church is not, particularly more than about forty years ago. Further, as much as every member would like to see his or her contributions to the church recognized, it would be impossible to do so here. To deal fairly with all the efforts of individuals over two hundred years would magnify the work required beyond the time available and the task assigned, assuming such information even exists. Finally, under the Methodist itinerant system, we received new pastors with regularity, and their different abilities and interest sometimes had a dramatic effect on the church. In this context, I should not that at the beginning the history keeps track of the ministers assigned to the Lexington Circuit. Once our church became a permanent station, the focus shifts to our ministers.

Last but not least, the local historian's disclaimer: I have tried to e accurate and complete in my research and writing. however, for various reasons, there may well be some errors here - very few, I hope. As church historian, my research will continue, and I would appreciate any corrections and additions. The Two Hundredth Anniversary is a finite deadline. There are no doubt sources of information, the records at Asbury and Kentucky Wesleyan for example, which I did not have time to consult. The work will continue, and I hope that the job of the next historian, fifty years hence, will be made easier.

On a personal note, I want to thank my wife, Martina, whose pregnancy spanned the final research and the first draft, and my daughter Hannah, who was born during the second draft and began her life during the final draft and editing, for the time they allowed me to work on this history. I also thank First Church for the opportunity of service.

Foster Ockerman, Jr.

September, 1988

Lexington, Kentucky

CHAPTER ONE          top

The Methodist church in Lexington, Kentucky had its genesis several years before the first official Church Society was formed in 1789. It will continue its history of service to God, community and congregation long after its Two Hundredth Anniversary.

In between, however, the church has had a variegated experience. Against its present and past successes are set a series of disappointments and difficulties. Indeed, at one stage it was described by the Lexington Herald as having "had more troubles perhaps, than any other church in the city."

At its beginning, what is now First United Methodist Church was but a small group in a frontier settlement. It grew and strengthened under the constant administrations of the circuit riders. However, over a period of several decades, each time it appeared that the church was firmly established, a schism or congregational division dealt it a severe setback. Once apparently secure, the national Methodist Church split north and south, preceding by several years the devastating divisions of the Civil War, each of which in turn hampered the evolution of the church. When the war ended, yet another schism occurred.

This summary of problems, however, is not meant to hide the fact that a strong core church existed. The church experienced a long period of growth in the latter part of the nineteenth century leading to the erection of new church buildings just after the new century began. Even as the church expanded its own domain, it launched new churches and missions in Lexington

While this was occurring, the evolution of the city itself was creating both opportunities and problems, which would slowly alter the community, the congregation and ultimately the church. New "suburbs" were developed, leading to new Methodist churches and the transfer of members from First Church. The old residential sections of the city, long a source and residence of church members, gave way to commercial use or lower income housing. It took many years to for the church to feel the effects and more years to identify and respond to the problems. Outwardly strong and expanding, the church would lose some of its inner strength.

Finally began a long period when the problems were recognized and addressed: the neighborhood first, then the congregation and the need for new, and younger members. With the acknowledgment that its modern mission was in the special capacity of the downtown church, the growth and expansion returned.

As its third century begins, First United Methodist Church has a dedicated membership, superior facilities and religious spirit devoted not only to its own people, but the downtown community as well.

The story of the church begins over two centuries earlier its birth not just in frontier Lexington, but in the American Methodist experience.

The Methodist movement began in the 1700's in England with the spiritual experience and development of John Wesley who, as an Anglican priest, founded the first Methodist societies. As colonization of America continued, it was natural that Methodists and their spiritual leaders emigrated across the ocean. During the American Revolution, the Methodists were viewed as suspect by many patriots because of their ties to the Church of England. After the war, political separation and the refusal of Anglican bishops to ordain ministers for the Methodists caused a further handicap. Wesley took the initiative, grounded in his beliefs in the practices of the early church, to consecrate Thomas Coke, an Anglican priest, who in turn was authorized by Wesley to ordain and consecrate Francis Asbury, a lay missionary who had remained in America. Coke and Asbury were to be the superintendents of the American church.

Asbury surprised them, however. In the spirit of democracy which had permeated American life, he refused to be ordained and made superintendent until he was elected by the American preachers! To Wesley's astonishment, Asbury sent riders to summon the preachers from their circuits to a meeting.

The minister congregated in Baltimore in 1784, reaching a quorum for business on Christmas Eve. There they elected Asbury. This body then resolved itself into the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, and soon served its ties with the Methodist connection in Great Britain. The spirit of religious and political independence was so strong that when Wesley attempted several years later to exercise some administrative authority over the body, this founder of Methodism was censored by the new group.

This national American Methodist Church was established two years before the Continental Congress met to write the United States Constitution. More than other denominations, it exhibited a national sense and attitude for central governance at the same time that these concepts were developing politically. Its attentions were social as well. Goodwill Industries evolved from the work of a Methodist minister in Boston. The Anti-Saloon League would be described in later years as the "political arm" of the Methodist church. The Salvation Army grew from the labors of a London preacher and crossed the Atlantic.

However, much Methodism gains its name from the use of method in liturgy, service and study, it was the methodical application of the itinerant preacher which increased the church in America. One historian identifies the Methodist Church as "a solid line of order in a chaotic westward migration." Methodism was not a mass religious movement, he says, its growth statistics notwithstanding; it was driven and sustained by the small constituent bodies, the "class."

These were small group, developed by Wesley in 1743, for the advancement and maintenance of personal religion. Led by lay leaders between visits by the minister on circuit, in America they gave occasion for neighbors to get together on the frontier and helped develop a sense of community in sparsely settled areas. These classes would grow into a larger membership of several classes known as a society. If successful, a society in turn would grow to at the point that it would be officially designated as a station. At this point, it would be assigned its own minister and separated from the circuit in the sense that it was no longer the direct responsibility of the minister riding circuit.

That simple description of organization belies the importance of the itinerary and class system for the growth of the church.

The great advantage of the circuit-riding preacher was that he could reach, convert and minister to far greater numbers than the pastors of other denominations who stayed in the vicinity of their church. This meant, however, that the Methodists were often without a minister immediately at hand. The response was to elevate the individual to an active role in the religious work, again to an extent unmatched by other churches. As Donald Mathews put it" "The genius of the developing system was utilization of laymen as class leaders, lay preachers and exhorters."

The minister would organize the Methodists of an area into a class, usually no more than a dozen and frequently smaller, and then instruct a lay leader in the manner and method of conducting class meetings. When the minister left on his circuit, this lay leader would see that the class met and lead the members in prayer, scripture reading, song and discussions of personal faith. This kept the group together until the circuit rider returned.

In this manner the Methodist Church grew rapidly. During the eight years preceding the American Revolution it gained over four thousand converts in the southern colonies alone.

As the wilderness area of Virginia known as Kentucky was explored and the first forts and settlements established, among the settlers were Methodists and their lay leaders and lay preachers. By the time of the Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1796, held in Baltimore just two years after the Christmas Conference which organized the Methodist movement, there were sufficient Methodists in Kentucky for Bishop Francis Asbury to create a new Kentucky District, and appoint preachers James Haw and Benjamin Ogden as missionaries to the area.

It was no small assignment. Haw and Ogden had to leave their friends and family to venture over rough paths into what was still, for all purposes, Indian territory. Their task, like the task of every minister sent into the expanding edge of the young nation, was to find the Methodist families who has preceded them, gain converts, and organize them into classes and societies.

Haw's date of birth is not know, but he was the older of the two men heading for Kentucky. According to Arnold, he was accepted by the church on trial as a preacher in 1781 and received into full connection in 1782. By the time of his appointment to the Kentucky District, Haw had been an itinerant preacher for at least five years and, as an ordained elder, was authorized to administer the sacraments. Those five years had been spent on different circuits in southwest Virginia. It may be supposed that many of his friends and church members had made the comparatively short trek from western Virginia to what was still Kentucky County, Va.

Ogden, by comparison, was a young man of only twenty-two years, newly admitted that year on trial. The purpose of the one year "trial admission" was to give the new preacher further training under a more experienced minister, and to see if he was up to his task. Ogden was assigned with the veteran Haw, but, because the district they were assigned encompassed so much territory, they would have to travel separately much of the time.

Ogden was born in New Jersey in 1764, and he had served in the American army as a young boy during part of the Revolution. His abilities must have been quickly apparent as he was sent on perhaps the most difficulty of the circuits only two years after he was converted. He was a plain, but strong and effective preacher.

These two preachers came to Kentucky, and soon to Lexington, by different routes. They were appointed in May, and would have left Baltimore as soon as the Conference adjourned and provisions were obtained. Haw, having served five years in southwest Virginia, probably returned there, and then traveled through the Cumberland Gap and over the Wilderness Road.

Ogden is recorded as having preached at Simon Kenton's Station, a few miles west of Maysville, and therefore took the northern route to Kentucky through Pennsylvania and down the Ohio River. Haw, the senior preacher of the two, is not mentioned in these accounts of Ogden's first services in the state as he no doubt would have been had he been present.

In any event, as the major settlement in the area, Lexington would have been a natural meeting place. It is known that they joined forces and were soon preaching in Fayette, Madison, Garrard and Mercer counties, locating the widely scattered Methodists in the settlements and isolated cabins and gathering converts.

While Lexington was growing rapidly and becoming an important center of trade, it was still little more than a large frontier outpost. In 1782, the Virginia Assembly granted the petition of its residents to be chartered as an official town and, two years later, a major event for Lexington was the removal of tree stumps from Main Street. The town trustees had reserved a grant of some 710 acres for the town, but as yet this area contained only about thirty log cabins scattered around the town fort.

Commercial activity was increasing, and in 1784, James Wilkinson opened his mercantile store. Wilkinson would later become involved with Aaron Burr in the Spanish Conspiracy. Its purpose was to separate Kentucky and other western areas from the Union to form a western empire allied with Spain. As evidenced of the great number of people, both settlers and traders, passing through Lexington, there were a disproportionately high number of taverns and inns among the few town buildings.

Haw and Ogden met with success in their efforts and by the end of their first year in Kentucky they reported that a total of ninety members had been organized into classes.

In 1787, the Kentucky circuit was divided into the Kentucky and the Cumberland circuits. The next year, the remaining Kentucky circuit was again divided into the Lexington and the Danville circuits. This division is representative of the growth in population and Methodists in central Kentucky, requiring more preachers.

With the first division, Ogden was sent to the Cumberland circuit, comprising southern Kentucky and middle Tennessee. In 1788, he returned to Kentucky where he married. There followed one year's work in Virginia before he located, or retired, from the traveling ministry because of ill health. It appears that Ogden "backslid" for a time, operating a saloon and quitting the church. At a Tennessee revival in 1813, he reclaimed his faith and afterwards regained his license to preach. Haw remained in Kentucky, serving again in 1787 as presiding elder of the circuit. In 1788, he went to Cumberland as the senior preacher of three ministers, replacing Ogden.

Haw and Ogden were two of several men on of the church who laid the foundations of Methodism in Lexington. Bishop Arnold, in his history, make the point: "It is well for us to know that into this work of founding Methodism in Kentucky was lavishly poured some of the best lives and blood of the land...Asbury sent to us some of the choicest spirits to be found in all the East."

Serving on the Kentucky circuit with Haw in 1787, and in the work of building Methodist members, were Thomas Williamson and Wilson Lee. Williamson is described by Redford as "a young man of superior talents, as well as of prepossessing manners. He was an excellent preacher. In the pulpit he commanded not only respect, but the admiration of his hearers, and in the social circle he was remarkably popular." He had served in North Carolina before being assigned to Kentucky.

Wilson Lee was twenty-six years old when he was assigned to Kentucky, having served on circuits in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. "Reared in the midst of refinement, and surrounded by the luxuries of life," Redford notes, "his manners polished, and possessing talents of high order, he might have achieved eminence in any profession." Burke calls him "one of the most successful preachers among those early adventurers." His abilities later carried him from the remote Lexington area to churches in New York City and Philadelphia, and a three year term as presiding elder to the Baltimore District.

Combined with those of Haw, the talents and efforts of Williamson and Lee must have had great effects on the growth of Methodism in Lexington and Kentucky. By the end of the Conference year 1787, Kentucky reported 479 white and 64 colored members. That year the Lexington and Danville circuits were created out of the Kentucky circuit. Lee was sent to Danville while Williamson was retained on the Lexington circuit with the addition of Peter Massie and Benjamin Snelling. Francis Poythress, a man who would play an important role in the development of the Lexington church, was appointed presiding elder.

Of Snelling, very little is known beyond the fact that this was his first appointment as a preacher, and he later served the church in Virginia and other parts of Kentucky. Massie, although assigned to Lexington, actually went to Tennessee with Haw and so appears to have done little work here. The Conference minutes, however, demonstrate that great work was being done, with the Lexington and Danville circuits reporting 863 members, an increase in one year of over fifty percent.

Haw returned to the Lexington Circuit in 1789, together with the returning Wilson Lee and a new preacher, Stephen Brooks. Of the preachers to serve Lexington, Brooks had one of the more unusual backgrounds. He was born on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and served several years at sea where he earned his captain's commission. He family moved from the coast to a farm further inland. Brooks, having been brought to religion under a Methodist preacher, was converted while praying alone in his father's cornfield. He was admitted on trial as a preacher at the Conference in New Bern, N.C., and sent immediately to Lexington by Bishop Asbury. Brooks later served on other Kentucky and Tennessee circuits, and was a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention of 1796.

In addition to the continued efforts of these preachers, one of the special conditions which favored the establishment of a church in Lexington was the home of Richard and Sarah Masterson. Married in Virginia in 1784, they shortly moved to Kentucky and built their home about five miles from Lexington. Their farm is now part of Masterson Station Park. The Mastersons were strong Methodists. Their home was always open to the traveling preachers and was the frequent site of class meetings. Masterson built the first Methodist meeting house in the state. This two-story log cabin hosted the first Methodist Conference west of Allegheny mountains in 1790, and at least five more before the turn of the century.

Unquestionably, Masterson's Station was the focal point for early Methodism in central Kentucky; but it stood at a distance from the settlement of Lexington. The preachers would have also directed their efforts to its citizens, organizing classes in "town" for those who could not conveniently meet out in the country.

By 1789 it would appear that more than one class had been established, and they were constituted in to the Lexington Society of Methodists, the official beginning of what is now the First United Methodist Church.

With a strong faith and encouraged by their traveling ministers, they must have considered themselves to be the beginning of a great church, and they were. But before this frontier Society could reach its potential, it would need to grow and survive the "troubles" ahead, some the result of Lexington's growth, some affecting it from the national religious and political dimensions, and some arising internally.

CHAPTER TWO          top

A "feeble, but devoted little band of Christians, who assembled at times in a dilapidated log cabin, which stood at the corner of Short and Deweese Streets..." Thus was the Lexington Society of Methodists described by a writer for the Lexington Morning Transcript almost one hundred years later.

On the other hand, from the perspective of a Lexingtonian of 1887, no doubt every log cabin seemed in poor condition compared with the buildings in the city then, and that first band of believers weak compared to the strong churches, he knew. After all, in 1789, the Kentucky Gazette, the state's first newspaper, was only two years old. The first of the conventions leading to statehood had been held just three years earlier, and the Lexington Light Infantry, the first uniformed militia west of the mounts, was but a year old.

This unknown writer for the Transcript credited Rev. Francis Poythress with establishing this frontier church. "The father of the little church at Lexington was the unfortunate Francis Poythress with establishing their frontier church. "The father of the little church at Lexington was the unfortunate Francis Poythress, who went from station to station, preaching and toiling and suffering in silence...As a preacher, few in those days, excelled him. His voice was clear and musical, his knowledge of the scripture vast and accurate, and his sermons fell as the dew of life upon the hearts of his congregation." Newspaper writers, until recent decades, rarely reported only the fact: article were often shot with hyperbole and exaggeration, and even the most average man was described in the most glowing terms. In this case, however, the writer was correct in lauding Poythress.

Bishop Asbury valued Poythress greatly for his administrative ability, once nominating him for election as a bishop of the Church. In 1788, Poythress was sent to Kentucky to be the presiding elder and, as such, he would have had the charge of seeing that the new church in Lexington was firmly established and grew in numbers and faith. He continued to serve as elder of the Kentucky area for nine years and thus, more than any particular preacher passing through Lexington on annual appointment, Poythress would have had the major continuing influence on the church. If the Transcript's reporter is correct in assuming that a local church can have a "father," then Francis Poythress must claim that title.

Poythress was about five feet, eight inches tall and heavily built, even powerful. He was born in Virginia of a wealth family and later inherited a large estate. Although he had a wild youth, he soon began seeking spiritual comfort. He first joined the Church of England, the dominant church in his part of Virginia, eventually traveling as an assistant to an evangelical preacher. On one journey, he rode in the company of a traveling Methodist preacher who gave Poythress a copy of the Methodist discipline and doctrines. Shortly thereafter, he converted to the Methodism, being admitted as a preacher during the Revolution. After serving several circuits, he was made an elder in 1786. Two years later he was sent to Kentucky.

As elder and with Asbury's confidence, Poythress played a strong leadership role in Kentucky, presiding at Conferences in Asbury's absence and stationing preachers. As such, Poythress had great influence over which preacher was assigned to Lexington. He was also influential in the establishment of Bethel Academy. Arnold reports that when Poythress arrived in Kentucky, the district held just over 500 Methodists; but when his administration as elder ended, there were almost 2500 members of the church. "It was he who directed the forces in this formative period of Methodism in Kentucky."

After a year's assignment elsewhere, Poythress served on more year, 1799, as elder in Kentucky before being moved outside the state. By 1800, however, the stress and strain of frontier work had broken his health. He retired to his sister's home in Jessamine county where he died in 1818.

Historical research from a distance of two hundred years has its hazards and its question. Sources often differ on date and "facts." At this juncture, Lexington was not a station on its own, with one preacher assigned just to it. It shared its pulpit with those men assigned to the Lexington circuit, with the president elder and other preachers traveling through the area.

A question raised at this first year of the church in Lexington is, Who was the first preacher? One reference found which purports to identify Lexington's first preacher is Bennett H. Young's A History of Jessamine County, Kentucky. Young, writing in the 1890's could have had access to a least secondhand accounts and reports. He states flatly that the Rev. John Metcalf was "the first Methodist minister who ever preached a sermon in Lexington." The inclusion occurs during a description of Rev. Metcalf's significant contributions to the church in Nicholasville, including leadership in erecting the first church building there in 1799.

Arnold, however, reports from his examination of Conference Minutes that Metcalf's assignment to Bethel Academy as occurring in 1790, while Arnold places the date at 1799 or 1800. Presumably, Arnold, with the Conference records at hand, is the more accurate, but a legend as having been the "first preacher at Lexington" must have some foundation, as such sobriquets for preachers, unlike those for politicians, are more often grounded in truth.

Perhaps Metcalf, like many of his fellow Virginians, had occasion to travel into Kentucky before he became a licensed preacher. He would have been thirty-one years of age in 1789, of an age to preach in some lay capacity in Lexington's small log church. On the other hand, perhaps Young, without other record available and concentrating on a county rather than church history, took a story on faith.

Charles R. Staples, in his History of Pioneer Lexington, written forty years after Young, reports that "tradition says Francis Poythress preached the first sermon" in the little cabin at Short and Back (now Deweese) Streets. However, Staples doesn't address the distinction between preaching the first sermon in the log cabin, and the first sermon in Lexington; a subtlety which may or may not be important.

The title "the first preacher," then, must remain unresolved. In addition to Haw, Ogden, Metcalf and Poythress, all of whom would have valid claims, there are other contenders who played a vital role in the development of the church.

There were the local preachers, men not admitted into full status as a preacher, though often they were later, but who resided in one place and assisted the preacher assigned to the circuit during his absence from that place. Arnold described the local preacher as "an important factor in the economy of Methodism. Neither American nor Kentucky Methodism originated in missionary enterprise. but through the labors of immigrant local preachers.... Local preachers have also been important factors in extending the work. They have sought out destitute communities and established churches in them. They have been promoters in building houses of worship, and have aided both the class leader and the traveling preacher in holding together the classes; in ministering to the needs of the people; and in pushing forward the work in all it branches."

The local preachers began arriving in Kentucky around 1790, and brothers Gabriel and Daniel Woodfield arrived in Fayette County about that date. Gabriel Woodfield, particularly, is described a s a local preacher of "more than ordinary ability." Twice he entered the traveling connection as a full preacher, and as such was appointed to Lexington and then Shelby circuits. These two men, together with Philip Taylor, a former Revolutionary War soldier who arrived at about the same time as the Woodfields, must also be counted as strong elements in the establishment of the Lexington church, and among its first preachers. The Morning Herald, in its 1887 historical sketch, reported that John Page, James O'Cull and Thomas Allen also preached at Lexington between 1792 and 1800.

The year 1790 also witnessed a major event in the history of both Kentucky and Lexington Methodism. Recognizing the importance of the west, Asbury called the Annual Conference for that year to be held in Lexington, at Masterson's Station. This would be the first of our Conferences at Masterson's before 1796 Unquestionably, Lexington Methodists played large roles in hosting the Bishop and preachers who gathered here.

Bishop Asbury and the three ministers accompanying him arrived in Lexington after an eight day journey through the mountains and Indian territory from North Carolina. Here they met with six other preachers, together with many area Methodists who traveled to Lexington and Masterson's Station for the Conference. The exact date of the Conference is in doubt. Arnold reports that it was held April 15th, while Short sets that date as May 12,1790.

There are no surviving minutes of the two day Western Conference, which conducted the usual business of passing on the character of the preachers, making assignments, reporting the number of members (now a total of 1372 in the Kentucky area), and adding four new preachers to the list. Lewis Garrett, from Garrard County and himself to be admitted as a preacher four years later, attended and described the scene: "Here a tolerably large log meeting house had been erected, which was crowded day and night with shouting converts or anxious inquirers. There were no altars or mourners' benches, but the floor was often covered with person groaning for redemption, and the woods resounded with the shouts of the converted."

Bishop Asbury himself described the Conference in his journal: "Our Conference was held at Brother Masterson's - a very comfortable house and kind people. We went through our business in great love and harmony.... We had preaching noon and night, and souls were converted, and the fallen restored. My soul had been blessed among these people, and I am exceedingly pleased with them."

The Lexington Circuit at this time lay between the Licking River on the north and the Kentucky River on the south. Assigned this year were Henry Birchett and David Haggard. Birchett was a native of Brunswick County, Virginia. After two years as a preacher in Virginia, he cam to the Lexington circuit and served two years. Described as a "gracious, happy, useful man, who freely offered himself for four years' service on the dangerous station of Kentucky and Cumberland," he died in 1794.

Haggard, admitted in 1787, served in Virginia before coming here. After one years, however, he was moved to the Limestone (Maysville) circuit. Haggard served three more years on different assignments before he left the Methodist Church during the O'Kelly schism, becoming a minister in that new organization and eventually returning to Kentucky, but not Methodism. The O'Kelly movement will be discussed in the next chapter when its effects were felt in Lexington.

One final significant act took place during this Conference. First among the churches of American, the Methodists undertook to establish a school in the west. This Western Conference, held two years before Kentucky became a state, adopted a plan to establish Bethel Academy and obtained pledges and gifts of land and money.

The next year, 1791, bears a small footprint in history so far as the church in Lexington is concerned. Although weekly services would not be held on a consistent basis until after 1819, no doubt the local class meetings and services continued, punctuated by the arrival of the ministers on circuit, Birchett and Haggard. Arnold reports that their appointments to the Lexington circuit, somewhat unusually for the period, were for two years. Perhaps this is why there is no strong evidence of a Conference this year. If there were, it would probably have been again at Masterson's Station. On July 9, 1791, the Kentucky Gazette reprinted from The August of London, England, the obituary of John Wesley, who died more than four months earlier. News of the death of the founder of Methodism would have traveled fast through the church, and that it took four months for word to reach Lexington shows just how remote the town still was.

Kentucky was admitted as a state in 1792, and Bishop Asbury again presided over the Kentucky Conference at Masterson's Station. Held on April 25th, the Conference appointed John Sewell, Benjamin Northcutt and John Page to the Lexington circuit. Presumably, the addition of a third minister reflects the growth in population generally, and of Methodists in particular.

John Sewell (or Seawell, as some records show) was of one of the older families of North Carolina. He had accompanied Asbury as a local preacher on the Bishop's first visit to Kentucky. The following year, Sewell served on the Danville circuit, then located and served again as a local preacher in Tennessee.

Benjamin Northcutt first arrived in Kentucky in 1789, one of a volunteer military guard protecting a group of settlers coming from North Carolina. Originally intending to return east, he stayed instead to hunt game for newly arriving groups. His son, Rev. H.C. Northcutt, described his father's conversion to religion as the result of long prayer and thought. He had never been a member of any church, and set about learning as much as he could of different denominations, determined to devote his life to God. Northcutt found himself in agreement with Methodism doctrine, joined the church, and almost immediately was licensed to preach. Lexington was his first appointment, but there followed many strong years of service throughout the west before his death in 1854. Arnold reports that Northcutt was one of the strongest preachers in the period, and during both the Great Revival period beginning in 1800 and the frequent debates and contests for converts with the Presbyterians, Northcutt took major roles.

John Page was unusual for two reasons: he was among the first married men admitted as a traveling preacher, and he was a minister for nearly sixty-eight years, a longer period than most men lived at this time. Another Virginian, he was born in 1766 and married in 1791, one year before he was licenses and sent to Lexington. One preacher, converted to the faith by Page, reported him to be a millwright by trade who spent his time simultaneously building mills and traveling as a preacher. Although he left the Lexington circuit after only one year, he served three more years in Kentucky and the balance of his life in Tennessee, entering on the retired list in 1833 and dying in 1859.

Masterson's Station was again host to the 1793 Conference, Asbury presiding. The Bishop traveled to Kentucky after conducting the Tennessee Conference, bringing William Burke with him as on of his companion ministers. Burke is described as doing more ...

[editor’s note: six pages omitted in transcription at this point.]

CHAPTER THREE          top

The beginning of the new century saw the return of Thomas Wilkerson to the Lexington circuit, together with William Burke and Lewis Hunt. William McKendree was brought newly to the west as presiding elder.

Wilkerson was destined to play a special role in the history of the Lexington church; Burke was the major defender of Methodism in the west in the often heated competition among the denominations; and McKendree is described by Arnold as, simply, "the greatest man ever brought into this western field." It is significant that these three important men were sent to the Lexington area, for events were developing which required strong hands.

But it was Lewis Hunt who received the notice of the press, the Morning Transcript announcing his appointment to, curiously, "Lexingtown." Lexington had been christened many years before with the familiar spelling, in honor of Lexington, Mass. Why the editor permitted this misspelling, repeated not infrequently during this time, is a mystery.

Hunt is described in the records as a "tall, slender young man, with a depressed cheek. He possessed great zeal, and exerted himself beyond his natural strength. He was a very humble, sociable man, whose labors in the ministry were greatly blessed." Granting the praise of his ministry may bear the stamp of a memorial, the physical description is probably correct and reflective of his poor health. Although Hunt was admitted to the ministry in 1798, his service was frequently interrupted by bouts of illness which forced temporary retirement. He was unable to complete the year of his appointment to Lexington, dying of tuberculosis at his father's farm shortly thereafter. Perhaps the reason he received the press, however, is that Wilkerson did not arrive from Baltimore until early 1801, and Burke, by his own accounts, was busy taking care of the rounds of both the Lexington and Hinkstone circuits.

Hunt's activity as a preacher here, primarily due to his health, was mostly confined to the town. Even so, his health was obviously deteriorating and impairing his ability to serve even a local society. Burke's absence on a regular basis is understandable, the Lexington circuit having twenty-six preaching places at this time, and the average circuit was at least thirty. Burke, then, had to travel to at least fifty-six stops before completing his two circuits. Hunt's physical limitations and Burke's far-reaching duties contributed to a growing problem.

The town trustees, meanwhile, were grappling with the problems of a growing community. Among the important steps taken were the prohibition of the easily flammable wood and clay chimneys within the town boundaries, issuance of warnings against polluting of private wells located near privies, erection of bridges over Town Branch, and construction of a market house and courthouse.

Town Branch ran through Lexington between steep banks along the general path of the present Vine Street. As much as it was a vital part of life in Lexington, it was also a major flood hazard. The entirety of the town drained down the two hills, and in times of heavy rain Town Branch would rapidly exceed its banks, flooding the Commons and the area between the present Jefferson Street and Midland Avenue. This threat would not be contained until much later when the branch was covered over and the Commons divided into Vine and Water streets.

If civic improvement was running strong in Lexington, religious fervor ran even stronger. The Great Revival, that most unusual period of the religious history of the United States when an intense religious reawakening swept the country, exploded in 1801. When the Conference was held in October, just weeks after the famous Cane Ridge meeting, only two Kentucky ministers were able to travel to Ebenezer, Tennessee; they were too busy winning souls. Wilkerson and Louis Garrett were assigned the Lexington circuit.

Garrett entered the ministry in his youth in 1794. In later years, after a period when illness forced his temporary retirement, he became a leading minister in Tennessee, establishing "The Western Methodist," and serving as Agent for the Methodist Book Depository in Nashville, later the Methodist Publishing House.

Although the records of the Conference show that Wilkerson was appointed to the Cumberland circuit, Arnold reports that he spent the summer of 1801 traveling the Lexington circuit with Burke. It must have been during these travels that Burke felt compelled to take an action which had serious repercussions in Lexington. The veils of history only give hints of the excitement.

Whether from the Society's own pulpit, if they had one in the log cabin which served as a church, by written report to the Bishop, during a camp meeting, or somewhere on his circuit is not known; but Burke unquestionably issued a reprimand to the Lexington Society. History does not reveal what he said, but he provoked a response.

On July 16, 1802, a paid advertisement appeared in the Kentucky Gazette:

Just published and will be ready for delivery at the office of the Kentucky Herald, on Friday, the 16th inst. Price 1s: "A Defense of the Late Lexington Society of Methodists Against the charges of the Rev. William Burke," by George Brownlee & John Murphy.

What had happened to the Methodists in Lexington? Attempts to locate a copy of this pamphlet have been unsuccessful, and Arnold does not refer to it. Staples, who read a copy in researching his 1939 history of Lexington, comments that the "literature of this Community was greatly enriched" when it was published. He does not discuss its contents directly, although he implies that it was due in some degree to a schism in the Society which took place in 1788 or 1789. This was the first of four known schisms to divide the Lexington church.

It is known from the earlier deed to the Short Street property that Brownlee, a reedmaker by trade, and Murphy were two of the trustees of the Society. Staples reports that the members who left the Society purchased a lot on North Broadway, approximately where the Opera House now stands. This would put it very near the lot the Society had purchased, but not used, for the purpose of building their own church. He also reports that this group later rejoined the Society in 1806, selling their property back to its prior owners. Samuel Douthet, appointed this year to the Lexington Circuit, was young, sickly, and"a horatory and pathetic preacher." With those qualifications, Douthet would not have been of much help, and would have been overshadowed by Burke.

The larger question is why William Burke, a prominent minister in the state who three times, including the two previous years, had charge of the Lexington circuit, should level charges against the Lexington Society; and why two local men, formerly if not still trustees for the Society; should feel compelled to publish a Defense at their own expense?

The reasons for the defense, beyond being the natural reaction, must remain unknown; however, reasonable suppositions can be indulged regarding the attack.

William Burke's overriding mission in the west for the past several years had been to lead the counterattack for the church against the O'Kelly schism. It is proposed that, however briefly, the members of the Lexington Society were led astray by the proponents of O'Kelly's Republican Methodists.

Ten years before, James O'Kelly led the first breach in the ranks of the Methodist Church. O'Kelly had become a Methodist preacher in 1778, and was selected at the Christmas Conference of the American church in 1784 as one of thirteen elders. From that year he continuously presided over the South District of Virginia. The same Christmas Conference which organized the Methodist Episcopal Church in America made no provision for a General Conference. However, some national administration was needed and the concept of a Church Council, composed of Bishop Asbury and the elders, evolved. O'Kelly, although a member of the Council, opposed the great powers it had to control the church, especially since the Bishop appointed the elders and thus was assured of their support. Being of a more democratic frame of mind, O'Kelly was largely responsible for calling the first General Conference in 1792, his hope being to reduce the powers of the Bishop and give some of them to the Conference of the assembled preachers of the church.

O'Kelly was reported to have ambitions for bishop's robes; and, if this is true, political purpose is implied in his attempt to give more power to the very preachers who elect the bishops. He proposed the following resolution at that first General Conference:

After the Bishop appoints the preachers at Conference to their several circuits, if any one think himself injured by the appointment, he shall have the liberty to appeal to the Conference, and if the Conference approve his objections, The Bishop shall appoint him to another charge.

O'Kelly had served many years on one circuit, and the people were reported to be very fond of him. The continual threat of reassignment weighed heavily in both his and his flock's thoughts. Further, it is obvious that other ministers had similar concerns of yearly uprooting. Politically, the resolution had the flavor which should have attracted enough votes for passage. After all, in this new democratic country, what would be more appropriate than to give the assembled ministers some veto over their assignments instead of leaving the power resident in one man. No doubt depicting the bishops as similar to the royal authority the country struggled to remove not many years before, the arguments are easily heard even at this distance.

But so are the contrary arguments: that there must be some strong executive for so far flung an organization; that appeals to the Conference would shortly throw the very system of appointments into chaos; let the preachers get on with saving souls and trust God to guide the Bishop in appointing.

After long and frank debate, the resolution was defeated by a large majority. O'Kelly and his supporters walked out, sending a letter the next day making a formal withdrawal from the church. Despite efforts at reconciliation, the dissidents left for home.

In short order, O'Kelly began a two-fold effort, accusing Bishop Asbury of leading Methodism down the road to ruin, and starting his own religious societies, soon to be named "The Republican Methodist Church."

The choice of name is not accidental. At this same time Thomas Jefferson (also a Virginian) was organizing his political party, The Republicans (which evolved through name changes into the present Democratic party), in opposition to Alexander Hamilton's Federalist party. As Jefferson's Republicans called for a more democratic society, O'Kelly's Republican Methodists called for a more democratic church, with each minister, even each congregation, having greater voice in the appointment of preachers.

The result, through Arnold's quotation of an anonymous source, sounds much like the War Between the States in Kentucky: "Families were rent asunder, brother was opposed to brother; parents and children were arrayed against each other; warm friends became open enemies; the claims of Christian love were forgotten in the hot disputes about Church government." Several thousand members of the Methodist church, by some estimates as much as one-fifth of the total membership, and many preachers left with O'Kelly to form what was renamed The Christian Church in 1801, just one year before the "Defense of the Late Lexington Society of Lexington Methodists." Arnold further reports that several Christian Churches were established in Kentucky and Tennessee. Nor was the movement short lived; in 1931 it was still alive and, in that year, merged with the Congregational Church.

What evidence is there that the Lexington Society joined the O'Kelly movement? Admittedly, there is nothing concrete, both Burke's attack and the Brownlee-Murphy defense being lost to history.

It is clear, however, that Burke had been actively engaged for at least seven years in active debate and counter-attack against the O'Kelly faction. Notably, in 1795, he met James Haw, co-founder of Lexington Methodism, in a serious and intense debate on the Cumberland Circuit, which overlapped Kentucky and central Tennessee. Intriguingly, Arnold notes of Haw's former assistant that, "We have but little information concerning Mr. Ogden's connection with the O'Kelly movement;" implying that at least some did exist.

Although Burke is reported to have routed Haw in their debates, it cannot have escaped the attention of Lexington's Methodists that the two founders of their society had gone over to the O'Kelly movement. In the open and fiercely democratic society of Kentucky at this time, it would have been unusual if some questions were not raised about the authority which recently had delegated them ineffective preachers. Finally, there is the report of Staples that there was a schism in Lexington.

The evidence is all circumstantial, but the timing and the personalities are right. What other cause would Burke have had to attack the Lexington Society but for straying from the faith? That, after all, was his primary charge and purpose at this time, defending Methodism and attacking its attackers. It may have been that the local members fell under the influence of a traveling Republican Methodist who led a large number of them to declare for O'Kelly and leave the Society. A direct rebuke by Burke was required. It produced a Defense from two former trustees of, as they described it, the "late Society of Lexington Methodists" It was the dimmest day for the church.

CHAPTER FOUR          top

Whatever errors they had committed to warrant Burke's attack, Lexington's Methodists had most certainly not disappeared. In 1803 the Lexington church made history again by becoming the first Methodist station in Kentucky.

According to the minutes of the Western Conference meeting in Harrison County, Thomas Wilkerson was appointed pastor for the station in "Lexingtown." The church at this time had a total of seventy-seven members, thirty of whom were black. Learner Blackman was appointed to the Lexington circuit, serving only one year before being sent to the Mississippi territory.

It is difficult to reconcile the group attacked by Burke and defended as "the Late Society" with the local society which petitioned Bishop Asbury early in 1803 to become a station. Clearly it had not died or it wouldn't have had seventy-seven members a year later. The adjective "late" would have been completely inappropriate unless those remaining had become discouraged by the schism and Burke's attack.

The most surprising aspect of the entire episode is that Lexington was made a station, just one year after the reprimand! The Conference, meeting just over a day's ride from town, would not have approved the change in status without Bishop Asbury's endorsement of the petition. The Bishop, likewise, would have first consulted with his preachers with the most experience in Lexington - which would have been Burke and Wilkerson. It is not clear whether the Bishop attended the Conference; he had been so ill with rheumatism the year before that he could not walk during the Conference held in Tennessee, and the following year the Bishop would be too ill to attend at all. If he were absent this year, Burke's influence on the Conference deliberations over the Lexington petition would have been even stronger. Burke must have been satisfied with Lexington's reaffirmations.

Whatever the events and thoughts of the preceding months, Lexington was made the first station in the Western Conference, and Thomas Wilkerson was appointed its first pastor. In the ensuing seventeen years, Lexington would be returned to the circuit and reinstated again as a station twice.

Wilkerson was born in Amelia County, Virginia, in 1772, to a family with few if any religious interests. While young, he came under the influence of a traveling Methodist preacher, joining the church at the age of eighteen and becoming a local preacher. Finally, at the age of twenty, he was admitted into the traveling connection on trial, serving first in southwestern Virginia.

Wilkerson, himself, wrote that in the fall of 1794, "There was a Macedonian call from Kentucky. Bishop Asbury would not take the responsibility on himself to appoint where life was to be in danger, but called for volunteers. John Buxton and I offered our services." Severe chills and fever delayed his departure until the spring of the next year, when he left Virginia for his appointment to the Hinkstone circuit, including Mount Sterling, Winchester and Paris.

Many years later, Wilkerson would publish in The Southwestern Christian Advocate, 1841, an account of his first year in Kentucky. Here is a portion of that account:

"We kept up with the frontier settlements, preached to the people in their forts and blockhouses. Here I met no D.D.'s to discuss doctrines, or to make out reports about moral wastes. We had nothing to contend with from without but Indians, wild beasts, and smaller vermin. We thought ourselves quite well accommodated if we had a half-faced camp or a cabin to shelter us, and some wildgame to eat. It has been a matter of inquiry how we found such ready access to the frontier settlements. We followed the openings of providence, as did Mr. Wesley. Owing to the uncertainty of land titles, emigrants would squat down on the frontiers, where they could get permission. Our brethern, moving from the old settlements together, would settle in the same neighborhood. As soon as they could build some cabins, they would go in search of a preacher; and there would be a society raised ... The people searched out the preachers."

Wilkerson served Hinkstone one year, transferring successively to the Lexington and the Cumberland circuits. Apparently, poor health led to a transfer in 1797 to other areas, but he returned in 1801 to be one of the outstanding preachers during the Great Revival period in Kentucky. The summer of that year, he traveled the Lexington circuit with Burke, just before Burke's attack on the Lexington Society. Wilkerson would serve Lexington as its first local pastor for two years before being moved. He later married and located in eastern Tennessee. Wilkerson died at the age of eighty-four in 1856, in Abingdon, Virginia.

Thirty-one years old when he came to Lexington's church, Wilkerson was later described by Rev. W. G. E. Cunningham as "... a man of well-balanced character, distinguished for a sound understanding, lively fancy, tender sympathies and profound piety. As a preacher he was classed among the best of his day. To a thorough acquaintance with the Scriptures and Methodist theology, he added a deep knowledge of human nature, especially in its more profound and subjective experiences. Gentle and persuasive in manner, clear and logical in statement, his sermons were pleasing and instructive, and often overwhelmingly convincing. When inspired by his theme, he rose into the higher regions of pulpit eloquence."

During the second year of his service in Lexington, the General Conference met in Baltimore and, among its other business, adopted the rule that no preacher was to be appointed more than two successive years to the same charge. As a result of this new rule, Wilkerson was moved from Lexington in 1805.

Unexplained, however, is why Lexington's status as a station ended in this year and it was returned to the circuit. Arnold does note that Wilkerson's pastorate in Lexington was reported to have borne "little fruit." It may be that station status had been granted in the expectation that certain goals in terms of growth would be met, and when they were not, the move was deemed premature.

If the growth of the church was inhibited in some way, however, that of Lexington was not. Present and potential Methodists had many available distractions, among them all manner of traveling entertainments. By 1805, the trustees of the town recognized a source of income and levied a tax on "theatrical performances, puppet shows, tumbling acts, rope or wire dancing, balancing of any description, and any show whatsoever, whether factitious or real." The charge ranged from ten to two hundred dollars for a one week performance permit. The first production of Shakespeare in Kentucky would purchase its permit five years later.

Two prominent men were in Lexington in 1805 for visits. Aaron Burr arrived at Postlewait's Inn on this tour of the west; and Bishop Asbury was again in town, preaching to a small gathering of Methodists in October.

Samuel Parker and Miles Harper were assigned to the Lexington circuit by the Conference that year. Among the actions taken at that time was the ordination of Jesse Head as a local deacon. He would later officiate at the marriage of the parents of Abraham Lincoln.

Samuel Parker was born in New Jersey in 1773, coming to New Castle, Ky., in 1800, where he ultimately opened a cabinetmaker's shop. He was very religious, but resisted the call into the ministry until 1804. Reports indicate that, in addition to having good qualities as a minister, he had a superior singing voice and his singing alone attracted many into church. Two years later, he would be sent to Indiana.

Miles Harper was born in Virginia in 1784, and traveled as an assistant to the presiding elder there from 1800 to 1804, before his first appointment to the Red River circuit. The Lexington circuit was his second, but before the year was out he was moved to the Limestone circuit.

1806 saw the circuit appointment of George Askins. He was a small man and crippled, one leg being withered to the hip. Despite this impediment, or perhaps because of it, he was "full of spirit, and a stranger to fear. No threats could deter him from speaking his sentiments, no matter who might hear them, and he would reprove sin wherever or by whomsoever committed. In doing this, he often gave offense, and on two or three occasions suffered personal injury." An Irishman by birth, this was his third appointment. Two years later, he would be transferred from Kentucky to Baltimore, where he died in 1816.

In 1806 the Lexington Society took a major step forward, tearing down its wooden building and erecting in its place a brick church on the same site at Short and Deweese. This effort was fueled by the return of the members who left with Brownlee and Murphy seven years earlier. That splinter group reconveyed its lot on Broadway to the prior owners and rejoined the Society. One can imagine the feisty Rev. Askins officiating at the dedication of the new building.

Little has been found about the two men appointed in 1807 to the Lexington circuit. The Quarterly Conference of the Hinkstone circuit recommended Henry Mallory and the Lexington Circuit was his first appointment. He served the circuit a second time after a year on the Shelby circuit and located in 1811. John Hays, from Maryland, was admitted in 1802 and came west to Ohio in 1806. After this one year in Lexington, he located and disappears from the records.

It is difficult to predict the effect a preacher will have on a circuit or a church when he is appointed; whatever the plans and goals of the bishops be, circumstances and individuals sometimes go in unexpected directions. The appointment in 1808 of Caleb Wesley Cloud to the Lexington circuit would prove to be significant for the Lexington Methodists and very much at odds with expectations. What those expectations were is not known. Presumably the bishop and his advisors hoped Rev. Cloud could revitalize Lexington's believers and reestablish the church as a station. This he did, but he did more as well.

Rev. Cloud was born in Delaware on February 11, 1782. His first appointment was to Ohio, about 1804. From there he served on the Mississippi frontier two years, coming then to Kentucky and, at the age of twenty-six, to the Lexington circuit. At this time, the annual salary (when the churches could afford to pay it) was eighty dollars, with an equal amount for the preacher's wife and a small sum for children over fourteen. While the Conference as a whole reported a $2,500 shortage in its salary fund, Lexington was a wealthy and growing community. Appointment to Lexington must have meant some assurance of salary as well as the excitement of a town, especially compared with Cloud's two years in frontier Mississippi.

Within the year, Cloud had succeeded in his ministry to the point that Lexington was again separated from the circuit and established as a station. Cloud was made the second pastor of the Lexington station.

Unfortunately, the designation was again premature. The congregation could not yet sustain the effort. In 1810, Lexington was returned to the circuit, but stayed in Cloud's care as he, too, was again appointed to the circuit with Eli Auitt and Charles Holliday assisting. Holliday would leave before the year ended to take over another circuit, vacant because the preacher there became ill, and Auitt's own health would fail within the same time period.

Cloud remained a major character, however. A later newspaper account referred to him as "one of the most able and prominent preachers in the state.... Dr. Cloud's ability and piety were only equaled by his eccentricity and independence, and his elaborate Spencer' nick-tailed horse and imprudent language soon occasioned trouble among the members of the church, which, at that time, was noted for its simplicity."

While he was in Lexington, Cloud served as an officer of the volunteer fire company. An 1806 city ordinance required each householder to buy and have available for public use one or more fire buckets, the number depending on the value of the property. Further, all "free male inhabitants were required to help fight fires" in the town. One day a fire erupted in Postlewaite's Tavern, a major establishment and forerunner of the Phoenix Hotel. Cloud arrived to help fight the flames. In the midst of the confusion, Cloud observed a man sitting calmly on his horse, watching the fire. Cloud asked the man why he wasn't helping, to which man replied that he lived in the county and didn't have to help fight a town fire, which may have been true under the letter of the ordinance. Without hesitation, Cloud hauled the man down from the saddle and put him to work!

This preacher, then, was a strong and outspoken man, given to taking charge. The reference to his horse implies that he may as well have been given to a style of dress and social interaction which did not suit the members of a small and simple society. In 1811, for reasons unreported, Cloud left the ministry and settled in Lexington to practice medicine. Perhaps the reason Cloud left the active ministry was to concentrate on continuing the Lexington work. After all, he had been in Lexington on circuit or at the station for three years and reassignment out of the area was a strong possibility had he remained active.

Unquestionably, Cloud was not through with the Lexington church as the next event shows. The Lexington Morning Transcript Herald, in an historical article many years later, reported that the "Church became so dissatisfied with his 'ways' that, in 1812, he withdrew from it, carrying a number of the members with him, and founded the Independent Methodists. After preaching for several years at his own house. . ." Cloud was responsible for the building of St. John's Chapel, located on; the north side of Main Street, just east of Spring Street. Described as a "neat, brick church," the building faced thirty feet on Main and extended back fifty feet, and was topped with a cupola and bell. Cloud officiated as pastor, gratuitously, for many years and allowed other Christian denominations to use the Chapel when his group did not require it. The "church" may not have been pleased with Cloud, but a significant part of the small congregation must have been to leave with him and build a new church building in a relatively short time. Those remaining were not enough to continue to struggle back to station status. Lexington would not become a station again until 1819. Thomas D. Porter was appointed in the year of Cloud's secession to the Lexington circuit. He was an able man, serving several years in Kentucky and Tennessee, and the Lexington Society needed his guidance.

In 1813, crippled by the departure of the Independents, the Lexington society resold its lot at Broadway and Short to the original owners, giving up any immediate plans for a new building. William McMahan was appointed to the Lexington circuit and this was fortunate. Arnold and other church historians are very complimentary of McMahan, describing him as one of the strongest members of the ministry in this era.

Arnold says he was versatile, could adapt himself to any grade of social life, was the beloved leader in every community in which he labored, and almost without peer in the pulpit. An other historian states boldly that he was an unsurpassed administrator. Although in Kentucky only four years, spending the rest of a long life in the Tennessee Conference, McMahan must have given great comfort and aid to the diminished Lexington congregation.

The Lexington Society had been meeting for several years in the house at the corner of Short and Deweese streets. The building was the property of Maddox Fisher, who was the first chairman of the Board of Trustees of the church in Lexington.

In 1814, newly encouraged and in possession of the sales proceeds from the Broadway lot, the society purchased their meeting house from Maddox. The Broadway area was becoming the main commercial part of town, while Deweese was still at the eastern edge. The sale of the more expensive tract, coupled with what were probably favorable terms from Maddox and the administrative skills and advice of McMahan, must have made the purchase possible.

Although still suffering from the effects of Cloud's departure, the Society, for the first time, owned its own house of worship. John G. Cicil served the Lexington circuit this year and may have been the first to preach in the meeting house after its purchase.

Thomas D. Porter was again on the Lexington circuit in 1815, together with John Tevis. This was Tevis' first appointment as a preacher, but he would serve the church very well for many years. He married in 1825 while on the Shelbyville circuit, locating two years later, and, with his wife, founding Science Hill Female Academy there.

Porter and Tevis would have presided over another historic occasion in Lexington during the first week of October, 1815. Bishop Asbury had been in the Ohio Conference and traveled down to Georgetown and Lexington. While in Lexington, Asbury preached his last sermon in Kentucky. Although his health was better than it had been recently, Asbury had been in the ministry fifty-five years, the last forty-five in America, caring for and building the Methodist Church. On reaching the Tennessee Conference after leaving Lexington, Asbury turned over the Conference to McKendree.

Asbury's text in Lexington, fitting for his retirement as well as for the state of affairs there, was Zephaniah 3:12-13: "I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid."

The Lexington circuit at this time was quite large, containing several communities and rural churches in the counties of Fayette, Jessamine, Woodford, Franklin and Scott, and parts of Harrison and Bourbon. During the years 1816 to 1818, Absalom Hunt, Samuel Chenowith, Benjamin Malone and George Atkins served on the circuit.

By 1817, the stagecoach line from Lexington to Louisville was established. The need for better roads from Lexington to the other towns which supplied it with commerce was being met by the construction of private turnpikes. A company would be formed and stock sold by private subscription. This money was then used to purchase rights-of-way and construct the road. In order to pay additional costs and earn dividends for the investors, toll houses with movable barriers ("turnpikes") were erected as frequently as every five miles. These roads are easily identified today by their names: Paris Pike, Tates Creek Pike, etc. These new roads doubled the speed of travel and Lexington became the center of a network of new, macadamized roads. The task of riding circuit was made much easier.

In 1819, the last chapter of the Cloud episode occurred, this time to the benefit of the Lexington Society.

Whatever had been the dissatisfactions between the Independent Methodists and the regular society, they were resolved in this year, and Caleb Wesley Cloud led the Independents back into the fold. The two groups merged and St. John's Chapel became property of the Society. Just as the cause of the division, other than Cloud's personal style, are not known, neither are the reasons for reunion. Cloud himself would live another thirty years, dying in 1850 at sixty-nine years of age. After the return of the Independents, the Lexington Society again became a station.

Nathaniel Harris was appointed as the third pastor. After having almost universally young ministers to guide them, with Harris the Lexington church changed directions. Harris was sixty years old when he was appointed to Lexington, having been for many years a local preacher, principally in Jessamine County but in much demand in the entire area. Lexington was his first appointment after joining the traveling ministry but hardly his first work.

Young's History of Jessamine County had this to say about Harris:

"He was born in Powattan County, Virginia, in 1759, of Presbyterian parentage. Being an only son, he was indulged in many things, which in the end proved hurtful. His intercourse with what was then known as the gentlemen of the day, caused him to become both profane and wicked. Shortly after his father removed from the old home place, he became a volunteer in the American army, and was in the battle of Guilford Court House, North Carolina. He was converted in August, 1783, and joined the Methodist Church, and the conviction forced itself on his mind that he was called to preach. He settled in Jessamine County in 1790, and was the Principal of the English department in the Bethel Academy."

After Bethel Academy closed as a church school, Harris continued to run a private school in the building for several years. When he died in 1849, he had been a preacher for more than sixty years

Harris' appointment included the charge to exchange churches with Henry McDaniel who had been appointed to the church in Georgetown. McDaniel, another man with a rowdy youth before his conversion, had been admitted on trial in 1809 and served many years on various Kentucky circuits before this. Obviously, the purpose of the rotation of the two men between the congregations would allow McDaniel to assist Harris in his first appointment as pastor. While McDaniel was at Georgetown, he led a very successful revival, and we can assume that Harris assisted him in that effort.

David D. Dyche was appointed to the Lexington circuit this year, and he would also have helped Harris and McDaniel in their work in Lexington. At this stage in the history of Lexington's church, however, the attention devoted to the ministers of the Lexington circuit will diminish, not because they are not worthy of note, but because the primary focus is on the ministers most affecting Lexington, and they henceforward will be the local pastors.

In 1819, Lexington was the largest town in Kentucky. President James Monroe, accompanied by Andrew Jackson, stayed four days here during their Western tour. Its small society of Methodists, one of the earliest formed in the state, had twice risen to the status of a station, only to fall back again. It had endured the attack of Burke, the earlier schism, and the defection of Cloud. Even so, Methodists continued strong and worked for their church. Now, for the final time, Lexington's society was made a station again. Even with the on-again, off-again condition, it was still the first station in Kentucky. Hopkinsville would become the second the next year. It owned its own meeting house as well as St. John's Chapel.

The era of beginning was over, and great things were ahead for what would become known as First Church, Lexington.