March 15, 1815 — to William Mckendree
PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 631
A Letter of Jesse Lee to Bishop William McKendree
In 1814 Jesse Lee was on the Cumberland and Manchester charge in the Virginia Conference with Jacob Hill. At the meeting of that conference at Lynchburg on February 20, 1815, it was announced that he would receive his appointment at the Baltimore Conference at Baltimore on March 20, 1815. He was there appointed to Fredericksburg in the Baltimore Conference. Lee objected to the method of appointing him. It was in fact a transfer. Lee took the position that he had been left without an appointment. In order to explain Lee’s controversy with Asbury, this letter is included in the collection.
PETERSBURG, VIRGINIA
March 15, 1815
[TO WILLIAM MCKENDREE]1
Dear Brother:
Since I have returned home, I find it will be necessary for many reasons, for me to abide in this part of the world the present year. Had I have been treated2 as a Methodist Preacher at last Conference, in having an appointment made me, if it had been at Boston, I should have acknowledged it as a regular appointment. But to say I should have my station “From the Baltimore Conference” was a right that no Bishop possesses, and such treatment as I never received from any Bishop before. Of course, you have now no power to give, and I have no inclination to receive any appointment within the bounds of the Baltimore Conference. If you send me an appointment within the bounds of this Conference, I shall attend to it as a regular appointment.
Observe, my objection lies against sending a preacher to any other Conference to receive his appointment, and not against his being appointed at his own Conference to a Circuit in the bounds of another Conference. Admit the principle, that you have a right to give me no appointment now, and to say I shall receive it at Baltimore; when I come there, you may say I shall receive it at Philadelphia &c &c. Thus I might be sent around the States the whole year, and have no appointment, in violation of that Rule which says “The Bishop shall appoint the Preachers to their Circuits.” I shall expect you to send my appointment from Baltimore3 as soon as convenient. I am as ever yours &c.
JESSE LEE4
Emory University Library
Notes (4)
- This letter was sent in care of Mr. Ryland, Preacher’s House, Light Street, Baltimore. ↩
- See Jesse Lee’s letter to Asbury, April 10, 1815, for the remainder of the story. ↩
- The Baltimore Conference began on Monday, March 20. ↩
- For a discussion of this letter and that of April 10, 1815, to Francis Asbury, see W.L. Duren, The Top Sergeant of the Pioneers, ch. xv, 145-55. ↩