Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/233

 METHODISM IN PORTSMOUTH.

��209

��METHODISM IN PORTSMOUTH.

��BY HON. THOMAS L. TUL1

��In the Portsmouth Journal of No- vember 3, 1866, appeared an article furnished by the author of this sketch, entitled " Rambles about Portsmouth," No. 167, being the History of Method- ism in that City. The facts relating to the introduction of Methodism into Portsmouth were collected from Asbu- ry's and Lee's Journals, Conference Minutes, from unpublished sources, mainly manuscripts, and from our own recollection of what we had seen and heard concerning it. We were par- ticularly indebted to Rev. Dudley P. Leavitt for his sermon at the dedication of the new Chapel on Daniel street, Dec. 6, 1859, and also to a previous discourse by Rev. Samuel Kelley, con- cerning the early history of the denom- ination in Portsmouth. Both of these obtained considerable information from the oldest members of the Church, during their pastorates in that city.

The official record in relation to the introduction of Methodism in Ports- mouth, and its subsequent history, is very meager and incomplete. Before presenting the history of the denomi- nation in Portsmouth, we will briefly consider its origin in England, and its introduction and growth in America, until it became firmly established in New England.

Methodism had its origin in 1729, at the University of Oxford, England, when John and Charles Wesley, with others, associated themselves together to promote scriptural holiness and im- provement in scholarship. John Wes- ley considered the world as his par- ish ; and the labors of himself and his contemporaries — Whitefield and oth- ers — exemplified the sentiment he had enunciated. The first Methodist con- ference convened in London, June 25, 1 744, for the purpose of considering the best method of conducting the work. It was composed of ten per-

��sons : John and Charles Wesley, four ordained ministers of the church of England, and four lay preachers. The first Methodist conference in this coun- try, numbering ten persons, assembled in Philadelphia, July 14, 1773. and closed its session two days later. The first Methodist preacher in New Eng- land was Charles Wesley, who was invited as a minister of the Church of England to preach in King's Chapel, and Christ's church, the only Episco- pal church then in Boston. He ac- cepted the invitation and preached September 24, 1736. On the 25th oi the following month he embarked for England. George Whitefield was in Boston four years later, in Sept., 1740. In 1772 or 1773, Richard Boardman, one of the first two missionaries whom John Wesley sent to America, was in Boston and preached there ; but the mission did not long survive his depart- ure, there being no one to organize or care for the converts. In 1 7S4 Will- iam Black, while returning to Nova Scotia from a conference held in Bal- timore, preached in Boston. In 1788 Freeborn Garrettson, a distinguished Methodist pioneer, returning from Nova Scotia, passed through Boston, and preached several sermons. The founder, however, of Methodism in New England was Jesse Lee. He first successfully introduced the denomina- tion into Boston, when he preached on the common under the large elm tree, July, 1790; and through his labors Methodism was permanently establish- ed in Boston and its vicinity.

George Whitefield, who was born in Gloucester, England, Dec. 16, 1714, introduced the general " Methodistic movement" into America, and first visited Portsmouth in Nov., 1 744. He was sick there for a short time, but sufficiently recovered to start for Bos- ton on the 24th of Nov., 1744. He

�� �