THE DETROIT CONFERENCE COMMISSION ON ARCHIVES AND HISTORY THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH HISTORICAL MESSENGER Published by The Friends of the Archives James G. Simmons, Editor 2724 Elmwood Drive Adrian, Michigan 49221- 4127

Volume XXIII, Number 4 September 1995

NCJAH CONVOCATION from which the following information In the hot days of July (when wasn't is reprinted. John is the Vice­ it hot this summer?) four Chairperson of our North Central representatives from the Detroit Jurisdiction Commission on Archives Conference a ttended the North and History.] Central Jurisdiction Archives and History Convocation at Illinois We respond to God's gracious Wesleyan University. Attending were activity in our lives by telling Frank and Hilda Crisman and others about it, by witnessing about Charlotte and Jim Simmons. Frank is the power and presence of God. This the Secretary for the Jurisdiction. proclamation of who Jesus Christ is Again this year there was a and what Christ has done for us is wonderful balance of activities the responsibility of those who which included dramatic profess the Christian faith. presentations, informative papers Witnessing as response and and tours of such places as Baby responsibility is at the heart of Fold (similar to our Children's the Heritage Sunday theme " United Village) and the Peter Cartwright Methodist Witness for Jesus Christ." Church and burial site. There was great fellowship in which much Ph ill ips Brooks once said, "All valuable information was shared. preaching is autobiography." All All in all it was a valuable four Christians are called to share the days. stories of their faith journeys with their words and by their actions. Next year the Wisconsin United The Heritage Sunday t opics for 1995- Methodists will host the convocation 1998 (1995-Witness of our Founders, in Platteville July 8 through 11. 1996-Witness of the Laity, 1997- More information on this meeting Witness of Women . 1998-Witness of will be forthcoming in the spring. Lay Preachers) suggest that our efforts focus on sharing faith * * * journeys and examining how they can emphasize the idea of response to HERITAGE SUNDAY Christ. God's call to those who believe in Jesus is to share the [Paragraph 275 of the 1992 Book of story of salvation within life's Discipline indicates that all United constantly changing circumstances. Methodist Churches shall observe One way to approach each topic is to Heritage Sunday on April 23 or the ask how it can be preached and Sunday following that date . Dr. taught so as to lift up the presence John M. Sims has prepared a folder of Christ to the modern believer THE HISTORICAL MESSENGER Even gifts will cost you money in SEPTEMBER 1995 terms of storage, space, acid-free PAGE 2 storage containers and your time. As we reflect on these United It is impossible to keep everything. Methodist witnesses for Jesus Christ If you try, you will soon deplete founders,laity,women, lay all your resources and discover that preachers we are challenged to you are unable to complete your consider their motivation. Why did goals. these persons serve God? As we begin to answer that question, we Basic questions you should ask when must ask another: why do we serve considering the addition of God? By learning about our materials to your permanent heritage, we face important collection should include: What is questions about our own ministries, the significance of this material? and we reJOl.ce in the "cloud of Is it appropriate for my archives? witnesses" that guide us on our way. Is another archives already collecting this? Are there copies God's saving love is given to all. available elsewhere? Do I have the Those who experience that love resources to take care of this witness to it in many ways, in material according to archival different languages and cultures, in standards? Your answer to these different times and places. Yet questions will det ermine what you running through our diversity is the will do next. IF YOU DON'T HAVE A common constant of God's love: we MISSION STATEMENT FOR YOUR ARCHIVES, are all one in Jesus Christ. We DEVELOP ONE NOW. celebrate our diversity and our unity as United Methodist Christians * * * on Heritage Sunday 1995-1998. ROOT'S OF THE UNITED METHODIST WOMEN * * * ARCHIVES MISSION STATEMENT To clarify the root ' s of the United Methodist Women I excerpted the The Michigan Christian Advocate has following information from a Woman's recently stirred up interest in what History publication put out by the should be kept in a local church General Commission on Archives and archives . In my estimation the History. important factor is that each local church HAVE an archives, as the METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH ( 1784- Discipline requires. So , first of 1939) all an archives should be Woman's Foreign Missionary established, then a mission Society(1869-1939) statement ought to be developed for Woman's Home Missionary Society that archives . (1880- 1939) Wesleyan Service Guild ( 1921- All archives, even our Conference 1972) Archives , should have a mission stat ement that spells out the METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH purpose of the archival collection. (1844-1939) It can be used as a guide in Woman's Foreign Missionary deciding what to keep and reject. Society(1878-1910) All materials arriving at your Woman's Home Missionary Society archives need to be appraised as to (1890-1910) their historic value or Woman's Missionary Council appropriateness for your archives. (1910-1939) .-

THE HISTORICAL MESSENGER * * * SEPTEMBER 1995 PAGE 3 EVANGELICAL CHURCH IN MICHIGAN METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH (1830- 1939) [ Lenora Manor a resident of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Chelsea United Methodist Retirement Society(1879- 1928 Community and her sister sent to Woman's Home Missionary Society the archives several items relating (1893- 1928) to the Evangelical Church. Among Woman's Work of the Methodist them was the following concise Protestant Church ( 1928- hist ory by W. H. Watson entitled One 1939) Hundred Years of Evangelical History in Michigan.] THE METHODIST CHURCH (1939- 1968) Woman's Society of Christian One hundred years ago the Service (1939- 1972) Evangelical Church began work in Wesleyan Service Guild ( 1921- Michigan. Seventy-five years ago 1972) the Michigan Conference was organized. UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST (1800- 1946) Rev . Solomon Altimos was the first Women's Missionary Association Evangelical minister to preach in (1875-1946) Michigan. Licensed by the East Young Women's Mission Band, Pennsylvania Conference in 1833, he later Otterbein Guild served three years under appointment (1883- 1946) in that conference. Due to ill health he could not continue in the EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION (1803- 1922) pastorate. He came to Michigan Woman's Missionary Society during the latter part of 1838, (1884-1922) settling in Ash Township, a few miles from Carleton, in Monroe UNITED EVANGELICAL CHURCH (1844- County. He organized the first 1922) Evangelical congregation in Michigan Woman's Home and Foreign at Port Creek near the end of 1838. Missionary Society ( 1891- He was the first Evangelical 1922) minister to preach in Detroit.

EVANGELICAL CHURCH (1922- 1946) Bishop John Seybert, second bishop Woman's Missionary Society of the Evangelical Church (Jacob (1922-1946 ) Albright being the first) was the Christian Service Guild (1944- second Evangelical minister to visit 1958) Michigan. He also dedicated the first Evangelical church built in EVANGELICAL UNITED BRETHREN (1946- Michigan, the Freedom church located 1972) in Washtenaw County. Women's Society of World Service(1946-1972) Rev. George Kaag was the first Christian Service Guild (1944- Evangelical minister under 1958) appointment in Michigan. He was appointed by the Ohio Conference in THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH (1968- ) 1845 as pastor of the Ann Arbor Women's Society of Christian Circuit. He was appointed in 1846 . Service (1968- 1972) He extended his circuit until it United Methodist Women (1972- ) reached into six counties: Lenawee, THE HISTORICAL MESSENGER Society, 1878 SEPTEMBER 1995 Conference Fire Insurance PAGE 4 Society, 1888 Conference Student Aid Monroe, Washtenaw, Jackson,Calhoun Society, 1912 and St. Joseph. Conference Deaconess Society, 1912 Rev . J.G. Zinzer was the first presiding elder to serve under The historic merger of the former appointment in Michigan. Evangelical Association and the United Evangelical Church occurred The Michigan Conference was at Detroit, Michigan, October 14 , organized in 1864 a t Carey, Ohio. 1922. This was an event of great Ten ministers from the Ohio significance in Evangelical history. Conference and six from the Indiana Conference accepted appointments in We now begin a new century of the newly formed Michigan Evangelical progress. May this Conference. second century be more glorious than the first. The first session of the Michigan Conference was held in 1865 in the * * * Beagle church which was located near Blissfield. At that conference ARCHIVIST ON THE GO there were twelve pastoral charges, served by two presiding elders and It is September already and it seems seventeen pastors. At that as if June 1 was last week. Not conference there reported fourteen only has time gone by quickly but itinerant ministers, sixteen local the Archives have been extremely ministers, sixteen churches valued busy. Eight persons have researched at $13,400.00, four parsonages in the Archives. The Commission valued at $2,400.00,1,414 members of members met at conference time and the Church, fourteen Sunday schools began planning for the next annual with 110 officers and teachers, 373 meeting as well as how it could be scholars and 727 volumes in the more effective . Another meeting is Sunday- school libraries. scheduled in September at the Flushing United Methodist Church . I The Michigan Conference at its last attended the North Central session reported 13 , 639 members of Jurisdiction meeting at Illinois the Church, 143 ministers, 19,279 Wesleyan. From September 25- 27, enrolled in the Sunday schools and with one or two Commission officers , property valued at $1,883,233. I hope to be attending the North Central Jurisdiction Archivists Bishop Joseph Long presided over the Workshop in Madison Wisconsin. I am Michigan Conference at its first on the planning committee for this session. It may be of interest to first of its kind meeting. note that he was regarded as the most outstanding pulpi teer in the People requesting research did not denomination in his day. take a vacation. The following includes inquiries on particular Conference auxiliaries have been ministers/spouses and about local organized as follows: churches. Conference Missionary Society, MINISTERS/SPOUSES 1865 Eli Alexander Conference Church Extension Ira Blackford THE HISTORICAL MESSENGER PETER CARTWRIGHT SEPTEMBER 1995 POLITICIAN AND PREACHER PAGE 5 William Clack At the NCJ Convocation I renewed my Henry Colclazer memory of Peter Cartwright and his John Crill wife when I visited his grave site Jacob Hamlin and his church . A.Stanley Jones Leonard Kemp Peter was born September 1, 1785 in David Knapp Virginia t he son of a Revolutionary Charles Henry Lucas War veteran. His family moved to Jason Mershon Logan County, Kentucky where at the G.R. Millard age of sixteen he was converted at a Ulysses Ostrander campmeeting and joined the Methodist E.E. Rhoades Episcopal Church. In 1802, this Tussing unlettered man was licensed as an H. Vaughn Whited exhorter. In 1806 he was ordained a CHURCHES deacon by Bishop Asbury and after Brown City four years was ordained an elder . Elba Indian Chapel In 1812 he was appointed a Flint, Grace presiding elder (equivalent to Flint River Indian Mission present day district superintendent) Hastings United Brethren and served in that office for fifty Mooreville years, longer than any other Port Huron Methodist Protestant minister in the Methodist Church. Raisin Republic Unwilling to have his children g row Ritchfield up in a slave state he transferred Ridgeway and became one of the original Warrendale United Brethren members of the Illinois Conference when it was organized i n 1824. OTHER TOPICS Archival materials Peter Cartwright was elected as a Conference United Methodist representative to the state Women legislature in 1828. In his Evangelical Church reelection campaign for a second Hymnals term in 1832, he defeated Abraham Judson Collins Camp Lincoln. In 1846, he ran Lake Huron Camp unsuccessfully against Lincoln for Slavery and the Methodist Congress. Episcopal Church West Michigan Archives Politics was a side issue for Western Christian Advocate Cartwright. His ma in interest was RESEARCH IN ARCHIVES to preach the gospel . He was a Ann Arbor, Glacier Way delegate to twelve General Bradley Chapel Conferences. He was instrumental in Christian Newcomer helping to found McKendree College, Lake Fenton ministers Illinois Conference Female Academy Michigan Native Americans (now MacMurray College) and Illinois Ne- Bis- Sing mission church Wesleyan University . In 18 70 when Raisin Methodist he looked back over sixty- five years Martha Pohly as a traveling preacher he is Reverend John Scott reported to have said, "I would take * * * ... the same track over again, and THE HISTORICAL MESSENGER TIME TO RENEW MEMBERSHIP SEPTEMBER 1995 TO THE FRIENDS OF THE ARCHIVES PAGE 6 The membership dues contributed to the same religion, rather than be the Friends of the Archives do make president of the United States." a big difference. This Historical Messenger is an important channel of * * * communication and it is made possible by the Friends. They also FRANCES GAINES CARTWRIGHT provide research and reference tools for use within the Archives . The early Methodist preachers considered marriage as a handicap to Our fiscal year begins in June and their work. Peter Cartwright we DO need the boost that comes from fortunately fell in love with the your dues and additional right girl when he was twenty-three contributions. The membership dues and he married Frances. They had categories are : two sons and seven daughters. LIFE $100.00 Frances survived Peter's death in REGULAR 4. 00 per year 1872 by less than four years. At SUSTAINING 10 . 00 per year her own death she left fifty- three SUPPORTING 25 . 00 per year grandchildren and sixty- two great­ grandchildren . Carl Sandburg tells Send your dues and contributions to the dramatic story of her last day the Treasurer: in his poem, "Waiting for the Sharon Scott Chariot." 214 E . Michigan Avenue Clinton, Michigan 49236 Can bare cloth make the cloth of a shining poem? Make checks payable to: "Friends of In Sangamon County, Illinois, they the Archives." remember how The aged widow walked a mile from * * * home to Bethel Chapel Where she heard the services and OLD NEWSPAPERS SHED was called on NEW LIGHT "To give her testimony," rising to speak freely , ending: The "Interpreter" which is received "The past three weeks have free by your pastor and some been the happiest of all my officers of your church includes a life; I am waiting for the section called "Idea Mart" which chariot . " often includes suggestions in Church The pastor spoke the benediction; History . The May- June 1995 issue the members rose and moved contains a suggestion from Lyle Into the aisles toward the door, Johnston. He writes, "If you'd like and looking back to know what was happening in your They saw the widow of the famous church 50 or 100 years ago, check circuit rider issues of your hometown newspaper . Sitting quiet and pale in an What you find may surprise you . I unviolable dignity spend nearly every Thursday And they heard the pastor: afternoon looking through old "The chariot has arrived . " newspapers." * * *