February 27, 1833 — to the Bishops & Va. Ann. Confe. at Petersburg

February 27, 1833

[TO THE BISHOPS & VA. ANN. CONFE. AT PETERSBURG]

Rev. Fathers and Brethren,

Peace be to thee, and grace be multiplied. I am now in the 66th year of my natural age, 43 in Religion and Methodism, 40 in the ministry, ten years of that period under a location from a broken constitution by the arduous toil and labour of Itinerant preaching, opening, clearing up and fiting for cultivation the worst of the ground in hopes of a copious and prosperous crop and increase of Wesleyan Methodism. My first efforts were in Bottetourt, Holstein & New River Circuits 40 years ago, presents a view of a people & country poor in circumstances, rough in surface & rough in manners. Soon after from the Mountain filth, flees & buggs to the extremity of the low lands—Williamsburg & Gloucester Circuits, to fan & fight the flies & mosquitos, and endure the shaking Agues & Fevers—and epidemic subject to man and beast in the lowlands, swamps and marsh’s. Having in ten years rest from pulpit itinerant labours—tho older in years— strengthened in constitution—at the Ann. Confe. in 1827—where you are now assembled. I offered to the Confe. a return of my location, and was readmitted into the travelling connexion—in a Superannuated relation to the M.E. Church. The same year I voluntarily formed a Mission from Lynchburg to the city of Richmond—on James River—the distance of 300 miles as the River meanders about the 60th year of my age—ordering my course of apts. when no regular class in a Circt. was attended by the Circt. preachers in this way. I had to rub thro various denominations free-meeting Houses, and lost part of the fruits of my labour, being four weeks in the round absent, yet I estimated 50 converts—10 of them in the Va. Penitentiary among the Prisoners. The Preachers from the Circts. on both sides of the river can judge of the utility of the James River Mission. Since that I have exercised in the camp-meeting, until I am exhausted—the present year out of 4 places to exercise in my feeble manner—I kept up one viz. Bro. Nathanael Terry’s—4 miles distant, in the bent of James River, a member of my Class, and the Lord blessed my feeble endeavours in the awakening and conversion of several souls.

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Perhaps our contributions in a pecuniary way to aid the Gospel, together with the hopes sustained by persecution for Christ and Methodism was some means of our great privation, in actual cash. The items of the Guirey persecution in 1807 & 1808 &c. amounts to $930 and deducting the contributions of Brethren and friends $118 presents a clear loss of $812 dollars. That it was for Methodism I suffered this loss appears from his first book called Priest Craft Detected or a correct account of the proceedings between Stith Mead, Presiding Elder of the Methodist Church, and William Guirey, minister in the Christian Church, from Sunday the 17th until Thursday 21st May, 1807. Including an account of their trial in Lynchburg before 1. William Norvell, 2. John Lynch, Jun. 3. William Warwick, 4. Joseph Slaughter, 5. M. Lambeth, 6. Rhoderick Taliaferro, 7. William Morgan—By William Guirey. Taken from the title page after which he brought Suit in Caroline County Court as follows, William Guirey against Stith Mead—Slander $5000 (verdict $430) that the plaintiff is guilty of forgery. That the defendant a Presiding Elder in the Methodist Church, and an Itinerant Preacher, did to his congregation &c. In the 5th page of his Book he says little notice will be taken of any other Methodist Preacher in this publication but Stith Mead, about the same time he married into a rich family who supported him in persecuting the M.E. Church so he made Bishop Asbury the object of his Diabolical hatred—& published a Bound book of near 400 pages called the History of Episcopacy—representing the venerable Father of American Methodism, under the figure and character of the Baltimore Bull. In point of contributions—In the year 1796—when on the Williamsburg & Hanover Circts. joined in a six weeks Circt. the City of Richmond included no Mt. H[ouse] & not 20 Methodists in the great Metropolis, I procured a subscription of 100.00 [pounds] which started the first Meth. Mt. House in Richmond. In the year 1800 when stationed to Augusta once the Metropolis of Georgia—where we had no Methodist Society, I started a Subscription—and contracted with Mr. P. Crawford Mechanic—to build a Methodist Mt. H[ouse] on my own—individual responsibility which in its completion cost about $4000 and had to go from 20 to 40 miles—to get suitable Trustees to deed and secure it to the M.E.C. after contributing hundreds more than the Dist. of Georgia. Was stationed to the Richmond Dist. in 1805, where I had started a Subscription in the town of Lynchburg in the great Revival in 1804—and finding opposition made to prevent it—the Trustees nominated discouraged I became by promise responsible for the money & started the Brick building for the first Methodist Mt. House in Lynchburg—where we had no organized Meth. Church before—which building cost about $3000 as I had not fully wound up matters in Ga. the above house was badly executed—so I gave up much money—due me from the Trustees to make the house better builded on its present plan in Lynchburg and many other Meth. Mt. H. in the Richmond District so I appropriated what I made by commissions for Book printing and Book Selling about the year 1801 or 1802—on the sale of a tract of land in Va. I instructed my Agent to remit me $500 which I gave to the Bishops and Ann. Confe. at Augusta. When Bro. L. Skidmore started with me on the WmsBg. Circuit in 1812, thence to Confe. I was boarding my family on my own expense at $200 pr. Annum—as the prejudices in Va. was against married Preachers travelling—my wife preferred staying at one place. It is a record in Scripture—”Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” God has in mercy to us as a family provided Benevolent Brethren & friends in and about Lynchburg— by food and raiment, or I do not believe the aged and infirm could have survived the present winter’s cold. I am in arrears for last year’s supply—at least $200—it is our concern and mortification to be expensive & troublesome to our Brethren—Adieu.

Affectionately

STITH MEAD

Property of Edgar A. Potts