Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/239

 METHODISM IN PORTSMOUTH.

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��sick and unable to be present, Rev. Jesse Lee presided. The Annual Con- ferences from i 773 to i 796 had no de- finite boundaries. Ministers attended such conferences as were most accessi- ble, or elsewhere in pursuance of notices from the Bishop. Conferences held in the large Presiding Elders' districts were known as District conferences, the chief conference being at Balti- more. The New Hampshire Confer- ence was severed from the New Eng- land at the conference held at Portsmouth, June 10, 1829, Bishop Hedding presiding. At this session the New England was divided, and the New Hampshire, embracing mainly the states of New Hampshire and Vermont, was formed. May 20, 1S30, the New England convened at New Bedford. The New Hampshire and Vermont held its first session at Barre. Vt., June 23, 1830, and included all the State of New Hampshire, excepting that por- tion east of the White Mountains and north of Ossipee Lake, — Gorham,Bart- lett and Conway being assigned to the Maine Conference, and also included that part of Vermont east of the Green Mountains, and all that portion of the state of Massachusetts northeast of the Merrimack river. In 1S32 the name of the New Hampshire and Vermont Conference was changed to New Hampshire. The Maine Con- ference was organized in 1824, and its first session was held at Gardiner, July 7, 1825. In 1844 the New Hamp- shire Conference held its annual session at Portsmouth, commencing July 10, Bishop Hamline presiding. It was the first conference he attended as Bishop. It was at this conference that all that portion of the state of Vermont con- nected with the New Hampshire con- ference was separated from it, and was organized as the Vermont Conference with other territory assigned to it, leav- ing the New Hampshire conference as now defined, all the State excepting that portion east of the White Moun- tain range, as heretofore named, and all that part of Massachusetts north- east of the Merrimack river, which in-

��cludes Lawrence, Haverhill, Amesbury, Methuen, and Salisbury ; the Dover, Concord, Claremont, and Haverhill Districts, constituting the New Hamp- shire Conference ; and the Montpelier, Danville and Springfield districts, the Vermont Conference. The New Hampshire Conference for the first session met at Winchester, N. H., May 2S, 1S45 ; the Vermont at Roch- ester, Vt., Jan. 18, 1845. The first Methodist society in New England was formed in Stamford, Conn., by Rev. Jesse Lee, Sept. 26, 17S9. Rev. John Wesley, the founder of Method- ism, gave to the meetings of ministers associated with him in evangelistic labors, when convened to consider matters of discipline, doctrine, or the interests of the cause they represented, the name of Conferences, which desig- nation has been retained. All organ- ized bodies of Methodism, whenever assembled for. ecclesiastical purposes, adopt the name. In this country we have " General Conferences," which meet quadrenially, and are composed of Ministerial delegates elected by the different annual conferences, and also a lay representation of two from each annual conference chosen bv an elect- oral conference of laymen, at the place where the ministerial delegates are elected by the annual conference, excepting when a conference is only entitled to one delegate ; then the same number is accorded to the electoral conference.

CHURCHES AND CHAPELS.

The first meeting-house owned and occupied by the Methodists of Ports- mouth was purchased in 1S0S, of the Universalist society, as formerly no- ticed, for two thousand dollars. It was situated on a short avenue or alley between Congress and Hanover streets, in the rear of the Pickering mansion, which was built by Edward Hart in 1 "80, and occupied by him until it be- came the property of Judge John Pick- ering, who removed there when his residence on Market street was de- stroyed by the fire of 1802. The church

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