WESLEYAN HERITAGE LIBRARY Reference THE JOURNAL AND LETTERS OF FRANCIS ASBURY VOL. III “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” Heb 12:14 Spreading Scriptural Holiness to the World © 1998 Wesleyan Heritage Publications The Journal and Letters of FRANCIS ASBURY EDITORIAL BOARD Elmer T. Clark J. Manning Potts Jacob S. Payton Illustrator Erie Prior FRANCIS ASBURY This original painting is in the World Methodist Building at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina, U.S.A. It has been attested as contemporary by the experts of the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery at Washington. It was probably, but not certainly, painted from life by John Paradise at New York in 1812. It was widely copied, and there are similar portraits in London, Philadelphia, and Madison, New Jersey. Frontispiece The Journal and Letters of FRANCIS ASBURY In Three Volumes VOLUME III The Letters ELMER T. CLARK Editor-in-Chief J. MANNING POTTS JACOB S. PAYTON Published Jointly By EPWORTH PRESS ABINGDON PRESS London Nashville FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1958 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY HAZELL WATSON AND VINEY LTD AYLESBURY AND SLOUGH EDITORIAL STAFF EDITORS ELMER T. CLARK, A.B., M.A., B.D., S.T.D., Litt.D., LL.D. Secretary of the World Methodist Council; Secretary of the International Methodist Historical Society; Executive Secretary of the American Association of Methodist Historical Societies; Author of The Warm Heart of Wesley, An Album of Methodist History, etc.; Editor of What Happened at Aldersgate, etc. J. MANNING POTTS, A.B., M.A., Th.M., D.D. Editor of The Upper Room; Member of the Executive Committee of the World Methodist Council and American Association of Methodist Historical Societies; Vice-President of the International Methodist Historical Society; President of the Southeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society; Collector of Asbury's Letters. JACOB S. PAYTON, A.B., B.D., D.D. Sometime Washington Correspondent for The Christian Advocate; President of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society; Member of the Executive Committee of the International Methodist Historical Society and American Association of Methodist Historical Societies; Author of Our Fathers Have Told Us, The History of Methodism in Western Pennsylvania. REGIONAL RESEARCH EDITORS FRANK BAKER, A.B., M.A., Ph.D. Executive Secretary of the Wesley Historical Society of Great Britain; Secretary of the International Methodist Historical Society; Author of A Charge to Keep, The Methodist Pilgrim in England, An Introduction to the People Called Methodists, Charles Wesley as Revealed by His Letters, etc. ALBERT DEEMS BETTS, A.B., M.A., B.D. Author of History of South Carolina Methodism. CULLEN T. CARTER President and Member of Commission on Historic Places and Relics of the Tennessee Conference Methodist Historical Society; Secretary of the Southeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society; Author of Methodist Doctrinal Beliefs, History of the Tennessee Conference of The Methodist Church. JOHN OWEN GROSS, D.D., L.H.D., Litt.D., LL.D., S.T.D., D.Sc.Ed. Executive Secretary of the Department of Educational Institutions of the Board of Education of The Methodist Church. VERNON BOYCE HAMPTON, Ph.D., Litt.D. President, Newark Conference Methodist Historical Society; Author of Francis Asbury on Staten Island, etc. WALLACE H. HARRIS, A.B., B.D., S.T.M. Vice-President of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society; Biographical Secretary of the Philadelphia Conference Methodist Historical Society. LEWIS O. HARTMAN, Ph.D., D.D., Litt.D., L.H.D. Bishop of the Methodist Church; Librarian of the New England Methodist Historical Society. (Deceased.) BROOKS B. LITTLE, A.B., M.A., B.D. Editorial Associate and Librarian of The Upper Room; Associate Research Director and Collector of the Letters of Francis Asbury. ISAAC P. MARTIN, D.D. Librarian-Historian of the Holston Conference Methodist Historical Society; Author of Elijah Embree Hoss, History of Methodism in Holston Conference, Church Street Methodists, A Minister in the Tennessee Valley. ARTHUR BRUCE MOSS, A.B., M.A., B.D. Pastor of Old John Street Methodist Church, New York City; Secretary of the New York City Methodist Historical Society. LOUIS D. PALMER, B.A. Author of Heroism and Romance: Early Methodism in Northeastern Pennsylvania. LAWRENCE SHERWOOD, B.A., B.D. Research Historian, West Virginia Conference Methodist Historical Society. WALLACE GUY SMELTZER, B.S., S.T.B., D.D. Historian of the Pittsburgh Conference Methodist Historical Society; Vice-President of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society; Author of Methodism on the Headwaters of the Ohio. WILLIAM WARREN SWEET, Ph.D., Litt.D., D.D. Sometime Professor of American Church History at the University of Chicago and Southern Methodist University; Author of The Methodist Episcopal Church in the Civil War, Circuit Rider Days in Indiana, The Rise of Methodism in the West, The Story of Religion in America, Religion on the American Frontier, Methodism in American History, Virginia Methodism, A History, etc. LESTER A. WELLIVER, A.B., M.A., B.D., D.D., LL.D. Sometime President of Westminster Theological Seminary; President of the Northeastern Jurisdictional Methodist Historical Society. INTRODUCTION IT is a tragic thing that relatively so little is known of Francis Asbury, though he traveled a territory much greater than John Wesley and left as his monument a Church in America which at this writing is more populous than any other Church. Too little has been written about him. There are a few outstanding works; but when one attempts to learn much about Asbury and his times, one is confronted at every step with difficulties and information is at a premium. The houses and churches which he visited have today largely disappeared. In whole states which he visited repeatedly, it is next to impossible to find a single place which is hallowed today by the associations of his life and preaching. About the only written thing that he left is his Journal. Very few copies of it are extant. It is little known, and until this effort it has never been annotated. When one examines Asbury's letters and Journal minutely, one discovers that Asbury was a great student. He read the books of his day. He read his Hebrew and Greek Bibles daily. He knew Latin. He was familiar with the historians and the scholars. He was a learned man—and this in spite of his continuous travel over a period of forty-five years in America! He never had the advantage of a college education; however, he literally walked with the kings and princes of the then known educational world and was acceptable in many pulpits of other denominations. He knew and associated with every known condition of men. He knew President Washington, Governors Rodney, Tiffin, Bassett, Worthington, Dickinson, Wright, and Lieutenant-Governor Van Cortlandt. He stayed in homes of the common people, and on occasion was entertained by the great. Here was really a remarkable man. He had little time for writing. Much of nearly every day was consumed with his travels over vast distances, frequently with no place to write except in the open woods. When we compare him with John Wesley, we find that more than 2,600 letters have been collected which came from the pen of Wesley. An attempt has been made to estimate the number of letters Francis Asbury wrote. Certain it is that he wrote as many as Wesley. That was the only way he had of keeping in touch with the preachers and the people. On one occasion he referred to the fact that he wrote as many as a thousand a year. Frankly, this seems to be an exaggeration, though one would only have to write an average of less than three a day to make this figure. It is possible he did. However, in the first few years of his ministry he wrote relatively few. He did not know many people and he had not traveled very extensively. Also he had had few advantages of schooling, and the writing urge was evidently less developed in him. But as he went along, he did develop the urge. Asbury had to keep in touch with the people. He was gradually creating an extensive ecclesiastical empire, and he must of necessity direct it and keep it going. The most tragic thing is that nearly all the letters have been lost. Frontier life knew paper to be one of the scarcest of articles. Witness the fact that Asbury's traveling companions, Whatcoat, McKendree, Boehm, Bond, and others, mainly made their notes at the bottom of Asbury's letters, if there was any space left. The letters which have been preserved show how little paper they had. N.B.'s and P.S.'s take up every spare place in the letters and sometimes on the envelopes. The difficulties of deciphering what was said are greatly accentuated, not only by the poor handwriting but by the crowded condition of the lines and the fact that every inch was used. The matter of collecting the letters has not been easy. My interest in them and in Francis Asbury has not been an overnight interest. I was born in a Methodist preacher's home. My father had a deep interest in Asbury. My grandfather, who for fifty-two years was a Methodist preacher, was born in 1831, fifteen years after Asbury's death. His parents were disciples of Robert Strawbridge and Francis Asbury in Loudoun County, Virginia. Nine Methodist preachers have come from this one family, with an aggregate ministry of more than three hundred years. My interest in history has been a lifetime interest. Years ago I became interested in charting the journeys of Asbury in the state of Virginia and in the accuracy of the statements made about Asbury.