[Autumn, 1804] — to Ezekiel Cooper
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 381
Little is known about this letter. The facts in it are the only clues. No reference has been found to it, nor does it appear to have been printed. A list of the books printed up to 1794 and shown in Phoebus, Beams of Light on Early Methodism in America, indicates that the letter was later than 1794, as none of the books mentioned here is listed there. The agents appointed in 1804 are shown to be Ezekiel Cooper and John Wilson. A new edition of the Discipline was printed in 1804. The letter deals with the business of printing, and Asbury was criticizing the work.
[Autumn, 1804]1
[TO EZEKIEL COOPER]2
We got your address and have drawn upon you for 150 dollars as our dividend of the profits coming from the Book Concern. You will doubtless expect that we should address you as the agents to whom we have intrusted the management of our Book Concern and that we make such abbreviations and give you such directions as we think necessary.
Many [mistakes] were chargeable in your binders for misplacing the pages, have been discovered in the samples and the binding there is quite too slight.
The Life of Mrs. Hester Rogers,3 we think it proofed too light on the paper and the bindings are indifferent, although the papers and bindings of the Life of the Revd. Mr. P. Dickinson4 are better yet. We think it also a dear [?] book.
We wish you immediately to circulate an edition of the discipline, leaving out the different tracts, the Articles of Religion, ordination, etc., and to have it stitched in blue or some other colored paper. We wish you also to print a volume of sermons written by Mr. Thos. Walsh.5 Joseph Everett6 can procure a copy.
In your abilities and integrity to promote the interests of our book [concern], we repose the utmost confidence and hope and believe you will do everything in your power to procure the best materials and to have the work executed in the most correct and elegant manner. At the same time we depend on you to collect all our money of the debt due to the institution as you possibly can. You will please accept of our best wishes for your individual happiness in this and the world to come. F.A.
Signed by order of the Conference W.P.C.7
The Historical Society of the Philadelphia Conference and Old St. George’s Methodist Church, Philadelphia
Notes (7)
- There is no date attached. The agents Cooper and Wilson were appointed in 1804, and the Book Concern was set up in New York in the latter part of the year. (Phoebus, Beams of Light on Early Methodism in America, 282.) ↩
- There is no person addressed on the letter, but it seems to be to Ezekiel Cooper. “The book business was carried on in Philadelphia under the management of Ezekiel Cooper until 1804, when it was moved by a vote of the General Conference to New York, where it was carried on under the control of the same gentleman, aided by Rev. John Wilson as assistant editor and general book steward. “When the business was moved to New York, Mr. Cooper was allowed $600 a year; and, although he was ‘principal editor’ and was receiving the above salary from the book room for his services, he took charge of the society in Brooklyn, Long Island, and insisted upon receiving from that society the disciplinary allowance of a travelling preacher. Such was the statement made to the writer by those who paid the money. Be it, however, as it may, his name stands on the Minutes of 1805 and 1806 as being stationed in Brooklyn. In 1808, Mr. Cooper’s constitutional term of service expired, and the General Conference of that year, being so well pleased with the manner in which he managed the ‘Concern,’ voted him a bonus of $1000, so said the reports of the day.” (M’Caine, Letters, 11.) ↩
- Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers was one of Wesley’s women leaders, “one of the most saintly women of that first generation of Methodists.” (Fitchett, Wesley and His Century, 496.) ↩
- The Rev. Mr. Peard Dickinson was an English Methodist preacher. He was Wesley’s clerical helper and had been curate at Shoreham. There are several references in Wesley’s Journal and Letters to him. ↩
- Thomas Walsh was a Methodist preacher. Asbury read the volume during his confinement in Delaware. (See Journal, July 17, 1779.) “Walsh became one of Wesley’s most gifted and saintly preachers.” (Wesley, Letters, III, 40.) ↩
- Joseph Everett was born in Maryland June 17, 1732. He was appointed to the Lancaster Circuit in Virginia in 1785. He was one of the preachers at the Christmas Conference of 1784. Everett is called the father of Methodism in the northern neck of Virginia. He had been brought up in an Anglican home but was converted from a life of vice during the New Light revival. Everett was awakened by Asbury and became an outstanding preacher. He was responsible for much of the growth of the church on the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia, where he served as presiding elder. He served on several districts as presiding elder from 1796 to 1803. ↩
- William P. Chandler was secretary of the conference. The Philadelphia Conference had management of the Book Concern. A standing committee was appointed on it. After Dickins’ death Ezekiel Cooper was chairman. Thomas Ware, John McClaskey, Christopher Spry, William McLenahan, Richard Swain, Solomon Sharp, and Charles Cavender were the other members. ↩