Undated — The Ordination Certificate of Peter Cartwright
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 442
Peter Cartwright was the best-known preacher of the West in the early days of American Methodism. He was born in Amherst County, Virginia, on the James River. His parents early moved to Kentucky. He was licensed to exhort in 1802 and formed the Livingston Circuit in 1803 at the age of nineteen. He did much to pioneer for the Methodist Church in Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois. He was a striking figure, and not only took part in opening up the country but also took part in political life in Illinois. He was twice a member of the state legislature of the state of Illinois and ran against Abraham Lincoln for Congress, but was defeated. He was a friend of Andrew Jackson and one of the founders of the Illinois State Historical Society. Cartwright was received on trial into the Western Conference in 1804 and was ordained deacon by Asbury in 1806.1 He was ordained elder by Bishop McKendree in 1808. In that year Bishop Asbury appointed him a presiding elder. He preached for seventy years, retiring in 1875 at the age of eighty-five. He was a presiding elder for fifty-four years and a member of thirteen General Conferences.
THE ORDINATION CERTIFICATE OF PETER
CARTWRIGHT
NOLLICHUCKIE, TENNESSEE
September 16, 1806
Know all by these presents, That I, Francis Asbury, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, under the protection of Almighty God, and with a single eye to his glory, by the imposition of my hands and prayer, have this day set apart Peter Cartwright for the office of a Deacon in the said Methodist Episcopal Church; a man whom I judge to be well qualified for that work; and do hereby recommend him to all whom it may concern, as a proper person to administer the ordinances of baptism, marriage, and the burial of the dead, in the absence of an elder, and to feed the flock of Christ, so long as his spirit and practice are such as become the Gospel of Christ, and he continueth to hold fast the form of sound words, according to the established doctrine of the Gospel.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal this sixteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and six. FRANCIS ASBURY
Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, 97
Notes (1)
- Peter Cartwright (1785-1872). In Cartwright’s Autobiography he says that the correct date was September 16, 1806, though the Minutes stated 1807. Cartwright had come five hundred miles to conference from Zanesville, Ohio, where all the salary he had collected for the year was forty dollars. At this conference he was assigned to the Marietta Circuit in Ohio. ↩