Romance Rides the Circuit
By PAUL H. BOASE*
Romantic love--unpredictable,
capricious, and mercurial at its
best--survived precariously for the
mounted Methodist parson on
the American frontier. His salary, when
paid, provided scarcely a
living wage for one person, limiting his
bride's prospective dowry
to little more than a horse, saddle
bags, and blanket. His eccle-
siastical superior often cast an
unfriendly, even malignant eye to-
ward his romantic endeavors. His parish
often embraced a vast un-
charted forest with a congregation of
backwoodsmen scattered over
half a state, and unless his wife was
willing to ride the circuit too,
they might share common quarters only a
few days each month.
Freighted thus with marital
encumbrances, this twice-born pioneer
preacher furnished a poor target for
amorous darts from the god
of love. Indeed, so great were the
hazards of romance for the
Methodist itinerant that the first four
bishops and most of the early
circuit riders experienced the hilarity
of a frontier wedding only in
their performance of the ceremony. More
intimate involvement in
the rite usually stripped the victim of
his status as a traveling parson.
These celibate horsemen, however, did
not despise the estate.
An eminent Ohio divine solemnly warned
the males in his congre-
gation "that no old bachelors would
get to heaven except those that
were in the ministry."1 Some
of his colleagues excepted neither the
layman nor the priest, hoping thereby to
enjoy earthly as well as
eternal bliss. Like George Callahan, the
first circuit rider to preach
in Ohio,2 they "felt the
marriage fever," and "caught by the charm"
* Paul H. Boase is an associate
professor of speech at Oberlin College. A pre-
vious article of his, "Slavery and
the Ohio Circuit Rider," was published in the
April 1955 Quarterly, pages
195-205.
1 James Mitchell to Samuel W. Williams,
June 5, 1850. Williams Manuscript
Collection, Ohio Historical Society,
Columbus, Ohio.
2 Samuel W. Williams, Pictures of
Early Methodism in Ohio (Cincinnati, 1909),
36-38.
168
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
bid the "circuit farewell for
ever."3 During the first thirty years of
American Methodism about one half of
those in the itinerant ranks
forfeited their circuits for brides,4
few being able to emulate the
example of the eloquent Ohioan John P.
Durbin, later president of
Dickinson College and pastor of Union
and Trinity churches in
Philadelphia.5 Using Job for
a guide, Durbin primly observed, "I
made a covenant with mine eyes; why then
should I think upon a
maid?"6 William Winans of
the Miami Circuit in Ohio, some years
after a leader of the Methodist Church
South,7 found it impossible
to limit his thoughts to just one. The
Western Conference of 1809
ordered bachelor Bishop McKendree to
"give him a severe repri-
mand for his . . . making proposals of
marriage to the Sisters &
his general familiarity with the
fair."8
The church set a rigid, chaste pattern
for matters romantic,
cautioning its traveling preachers to
"avoid all lightness, jesting, and
foolish talking" and further
fortified its interdictions by invoking
the Biblical injunction to
"converse sparingly, and conduct your-
selves prudently with women."9
An unwritten rule, canonized in
some conferences,10 "inexorable
as death" prohibited marriage dur-
ing the four-year probationary period.
In 1809 the Virginia Con-
ference of eighty-four ministers
contained only three who were
married.11 Itinerant preachers
"were not exactly obliged to take the
Popish vow of celibacy," wrote
Ohio's most famous circuiteer, James
3 Methodist Magazine, XI (1828), 191.
4 Nathan Bangs, A History of the
Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1839),
II, 421-454.
5 John A. Roche, The Life of John
Price Durbin (New York, 1893), 98-108,
141-154.
6 Williams, Pictures of Early
Methodism, 250-251.
7 See the Report of Debates in the
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church . . . 1844 (New York, 1844), 87-90, for Winans' part in the
discussion
on slavery.
8 Manuscript journal of the Western
Conference, September 1809. Ohio Wesleyan
University, Delaware, Ohio.
9 The Doctrines and Discipline of the
Methodist Episcopal Church (New York,
1832), 34. Cited below as Discipline.
10 Journal of the Indiana Conference,
October 1841, in W. W. Sweet, Circuit
Rider Days in Indiana (Indianapolis, 1916), 258.
11 Joseph Tarkington, Autobiography (Cincinnati,
1899), 27. "The high taste of
these southern folks," wrote
Asbury, "will not permit their families to be degraded
by an alliance with a Methodist
travelling preacher . . .; all the better--care and
anxiety about worldly possessions do not
stop us in our course." Francis Asbury,
The Journal of the Rev. Francis
Asbury (New York, 1821), III, 257.
ROMANCE RIDES THE CIRCUIT 169
B. Finley, "but it almost amounted
to the same thing;...if a preacher
married he was looked upon almost as a
heretic who had denied the
faith."12 John L.
DeSellem of Columbiana, Ohio, experienced this
heartless ecclesiastical ostracism when
he married after traveling
only eighteen months. "My
name," he wrote bitterly in his manu-
script autobiography, was dropped
"from the Traviling List for no
Crim[e] but that of marrying a lawfull
wife." His request for
redress and explanation perished amidst
the taunts of his former
colleagues who contemptuously hurled
"a Slur at the married boy
Saying you married too soon[.]
Another[,] ah you backed out did
you[,] & such like Reflections[;]
hoever [sic] I went to my old
business namely working &
preaching."13 Lucien Berry, the second
president of Indiana Asbury University,
now DePauw University,
suffered a similar fate at the hands of
the Ohio Conference in
1835.14
Ten to twenty years later Buckeye
Methodists were still firing
their embryonic theologs for the sole
reason that they married be-
fore completing their probation.15 In
1845 an Ohio itinerant noted
sadly in his journal that two
"young brethren who had traveled
one year were discontinued, one for
marrying too soon & with-
out consultation--one for imprudent
conduct with respect to
marriage."16 Elnathan C.
Gavitt, a probationer in 1830, recalled
nostalgically fifty years later that he
did not dare to "squint" at
the delightfully attractive frontier
belles on his circuit in Monroe,
Michigan.17
The first bishop, Francis Asbury,
himself a bachelor, and the one
largely responsible for the church's
ascetic program adamantly de-
clared: "When men enter their
probation, they have ministerial
characters to form.... Prudence says,
that they ought to form that
character, and exhibit those talents,
before they take that important
12James B. Finley, Sketches of
Western Methodism (Cincinnati, 1855), 180-181.
13 DeSellem manuscript autobiography.
Nessly-DeSellem Collection, Ohio Historical
Society.
14 Journal of James Gilruth in W. W.
Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier,
1783-1840, Volume IV, The Methodists (Chicago, 1946),
456-457.
15 Finley, Sketches, 181.
16 Manuscript journal of Uriah Heath. Ohio Historical Society.
17 Elnathan C. Gavitt, Crumbs from My Saddle Bags (Toledo,
1884), 172.
170
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
step."18 Attempting to
explain his own celibacy, Asbury laid the
blame on the Revolutionary War, his
inability "to find a woman
with grace enough to enable her to live
but one week out of the
fifty-two with her husband," his
poverty, and his obligation to
support his mother. "If I have done
wrong," he wrote in his Journal,
"I hope God and the sex will
forgive me."19
Married men applying for admission faced
almost insuperable
barriers, and James B. Finley, one of
the few family men accepted
as an itinerant, observed proudly that
"only one or two had courage
and endurance enough to travel when
married."20 Alfred Brunson,
a married veteran of the War of 1812,
repeatedly sought admission
to the Ohio Conference only to be
rejected on the assumption that
the circuits of northern Ohio were too
poor to support a married
man.21 Though Brunson finally won his
parchments, his wife un-
questionably received the same tactless
treatment accorded Mrs.
William Fee on the Guyandotte, Virginia,
Circuit in 1847. An of-
ficious "sister" bluntly
informed the young bride that "they had no
use for preacher's wives, and that
preachers had no business to
get married. Mrs. Fee bore this insult
in silence," wrote her husband,
"as she has borne all the trials of
an itinerant life."22 Petitions like
the one from Irville, Ohio, in
1845--"Could we be favored with
a pious single man"23--echoed
monotonously in conferences along
the frontier, while the eccentric Jacob
Gruber implored divine in-
tervention to prevent "boys getting
married to the first girl silly
enough to have them. What will become of
us? Many a circuit,
not able to support one preacher, must
take two married men; and
the younger is the most particular about
his and his lady's support
and accommodation."24
At the conclusion of the trial period
the church reluctantly granted
the circuit rider permission to seek a
helpmeet, if the courtship was
18 John F. Wright, Sketches of the
Life and Labors of James Quinn (Cincinnati,
1851), 77-78.
19 Asbury, Journal, III, 128.
20 Finley, Sketches, 181.
21 Alfred Brunson, A Western Pioneer (Cincinnati,
1880), I, 170.
22 William I. Fee, Bringing the
Sheaves (Cincinnati, 1896), 215.
23 C. W. Rutgers to James B. Finley,
August 18, 1845. Finley Papers, Ohio
Wesleyan University.
24 Jacob Gruber to James B. Finley, May
10, 1844, in Western Christian Advocate
(Cincinnati), November 20, 1850.
ROMANCE RIDES THE CIRCUIT 171
conducted according to specified rules
on the highest ethical plane.
Approval by the girl's parents was
mandatory. The luxury of an
elopement, sanctioned for the ordinary
Methodist, was specifically
denied for the minister. Before asking
the timeless question, the
prospective bridegroom was also
expected to consult his brethren,
particularly his presiding elder.25
Michigan pioneer James Gilruth
recognized the hazards of this marriage
counseling arrangement for
both the advisor and the advisee, but
he endeavored to carry out its
provisions tactfully. Writing in the
early nineteenth century to his
former Ohio colleague James B. Finley,
he detailed the conjugal
fortunes and romantic vicissitudes of
his Michigan preachers, whom
he described as "not deficient in
the matrimonial spirit--Colelager
& Whitney have each taken a wife,
& Pilcher is expected to--
Elliott was on the point of so doing;
but another gained his fair
one--I have cautioned & reasoned on
this subject as far as I felt
was becoming me. But man is man: &
young men will have wives
& young women will have husbands so
that I am on the point of
saying I will not meddle myself on this
subject."26
A meddler from Piqua, Ohio, found
little cause for rejoicing at
the marriage of his preacher, Richard
Brandriff. Six days after the
wedding he fired off a letter to one of
the bridegroom's colleagues,
the Rev. George Maley of Columbus,
charging that "Brandriff has
diddled it in marrying an unconverted
girl, she is no more fit to
support under the trials incident to a
Methodist preacher's wife
than I am to be President of the United
States of America. Pray
for us George, we have been in the dark
for a long time."27 Happily,
Brandriff's presiding elder took a less
lugubrious view of the nup-
tials. The bride, he opined
optimistically in a letter to Maley, ap-
pears "to be a sincere Seeker. I
think she will do well. She is well
calculated to travel and go into all
kinds of Company. If she gets
religion she will be a helper."28
Mrs. Brandriff apparently got the
right type of religion, having been
prior to her marriage a Pres-
25 Discipline, 1832 ed., 88,
34-35. See Tarkington, Autobiography, 28.
26 James Gilruth to James B. Finley, May 19, 1833. Finley Papers, Ohio
Wesleyan
University.
27 B. M. Mitchel to George W. Maley,
October 12, 1825. Maley Correspondence,
Ohio Wesleyan University.
28 Russel Bigelow to George W. Maley,
January 17, 1826. Maley Correspondence,
Ohio Wesleyan University.
172
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
byterian, and when she died sixty-two
years later in 1887, an official
Methodist publication glowingly
described her "deep, mature Chris-
tian experience," and praised her
conduct as a minister's wife. This
happy couple, parents of eight
children, came within thirteen days
of fulfilling the prayer of the
minister officiating at their wedding,
who asked that they "might live to
a good old age, and die
together."29
Harvey Sweney, a circuit rider still on
trial,30 hoped to avoid any
such gossip as accompanied the
Brandriff marriage. Writing from
his home in Piketown, Ohio, to his
presiding elder, he set forth
four good reasons, though probably not
the real ones, why he had
"come to the conclusion to
chang[e] my state in life from a single
.... to a double one." Nowhere
does he mention his prospective
wife, nor any overpowering emotional
attachment. The condition of
his clothes, he argued, scattered from
house to house convinced him
that marriage would enable him to
"be more useful and live better."
His second motive, that "it will
free me from some temptations
that I am at present exposed to,"
sounded more plausible than his
feigned distaste for "some females
[who] are so foolish about yong
preachers they are allways throwing
themselves in thare way." These
feminine advances, he insisted,
"frequently embarises me for I doe
not like it." Moreover, the young
circuit rider implied, his colleagues
advised him to marry, and he had
"maid it a matter of prayer and
series thought for I want to act
prudent in the matter." His pious,
concluding clincher, expressing his
"sole aim . . . to do good and
gett to heaven,"31 apparently fell
on unsympathetic ears. Pastor
Sweney's name mysteriously disappeared
from the Ohio Conference
Minutes the following year.32
Sweney was hardly unique in picturing
marriage as a coldly cal-
culated, practical arrangement devoid
of any passion. Their piety
and natural suspicion of worldly
pleasure often rendered the letters
of the circuit riders on marriage,
masterpieces of dissimulation.
29 Minutes of the Cincinnati Conference (Cincinnati, 1887),
128-129.
30 Minutes of the Annual Conferences
of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the
Years 1829-1839 (New York, 1840), II, 354, 419. Cited below as Minutes.
31 Harvey Sweney to James B.
Finley, December 8, 1836. Finley Papers, Ohio
Wesleyan University.
32 Minutes, II (1837), 497-500.
ROMANCE RIDES THE CIRCUIT 173
Even during the honeymoon there hovered
the fear expressed by
Shakespeare that "these violent
delights have violent ends." Thus,
William Simmons guarded his expression
of pleasure to his friend
Samuel Williams: "You will pardon
me if I say the day glides
Sweetly oer our heads made up of
innocence and love--in a word
I feel as if I was a member of Social
Society. I think I rejoice with
trembling, remembering that each
pleasure hath its poison to[o]
and every Sweet a Snare."33
The highly mobile nature of circuit life
likewise rendered court-
ship an extremely precarious exercise
for both sexes. If a lovely pros-
pect were sighted in one community, the
necessity for the male
suitor to fulfill appointments on his
circuitous route might make
further contact impossible for a month
or perhaps a year. And
with the rapid exchange of ministers a
good potential preacher's
wife might appear tempting to several
itinerants almost simultan-
eously. It is hardly surprising,
therefore, that one presiding elder
met three preachers in one day, each
declaring his love for, and
God's approval of, his marriage to the
same frontier lass. The
elderly church officer understandably
concluded that someone had
misunderstood the Lord's message, and
consigned the attractive
young miss to the circuit rider with the
swiftest steed.34
Henry E. Pilcher, on completing his
probation in 1832,35 hoped to
avoid such complications by employing
the highly explosive Miles
Standish-John Alden plan. On a trip
through Hillsboro, Ohio, he
espied a young lady possessing
"real merit & the necessary quali-
fications for a Methodist preach[er's
wife]." His prospect, the
sixteen-year-old daughter of Ohio's
former Governor Allen Trimble,
was indeed an alluring choice. The best
approach, thought Pilcher,
was through her pastor, George Maley, so
the young circuit rider
wrote immediately, but begged his friend
to "keep dark" from the
other traveling preachers his romantic
endeavor. "Dont by any
means betray me as you know how my
standing is[.] Everybodys
eye fixed on me, & a little step
aside would be looked at with more
33 William Simmons to Samuel W.
Williams, October 12, 1827. William Simmons
Collection, Ohio Historical Society.
34 Tarkington, Autobiography, 31-32.
35 Minutes, II
(1832), 123.
174
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
criminality than any body els all
most." Exhibiting the usual con-
fusion of the timid male, Pilcher
confessed his suppressed desire
to make his "pretentions known to
her, but feel somewhat delicate
on the subject. I have no convenient
opportunity. As I feel willing-
ness to confide in you, I thought I
would ask the favour of you to
recommend me to the young Lady &
asertain what the prospect
would be."
In his eloquent exhortation to the
intermediary to apply every
persuasive trick, Pilcher proudly
displayed his qualifications as a
husband. Free from debt and entangling
female alliances, he
reckoned his pecuniary fortunes at from
sixty to one hundred dol-
lars, and his "past" romantic
ventures at zero, at least since donning
the cloth. In a final burst of specific
instructions, amidst profuse
expressions of gratitude, the young
itinerant vowed to "seek her
happiness" as "the zenith of
my ambition"; and indicating his will-
ingness to call on Miss Trimble if there
seemed to be any hope for
success, he closed his letter "in
suspens till I hear from you."36 This
romance, so carefully nourished,
however, failed to bear fruit. Five
years later Eliza Jane Trimble married a
young attorney, James
Henry Thompson, and in 1873, familiarly
known as Mother
Thompson, she led the celebrated
temperance crusade in Hillsboro,
the inspiration for the W.C.T.U., formed
the following year in
Cleveland.37
Pilcher's failure to win the heart of
Eliza Jane Trimble was not
necessarily typical of the circuit
preacher's romantic fortunes, and
in spite of the hardships of itinerant
life, frontier lasses were often
eager to catch a preacher. When an
unmarried parson stopped at a
cabin, often selected because of the
eligible lovelies within, the
oldest daughter was on her best
behavior.38 An exchange of letters
between Polly Dana, later the wife of
Mighill Dustin, popular
Ohio circuit rider, and Eliza Reed, her
love-sick chum, reveal how
desperately Eliza wanted a husband, how
she envied the engaged
36 Henry E. Pilcher to George W. Maley, May 18, 1832. Maley
Correspondence,
Ohio Wesleyan University.
37 Violet Morgan, Folklore of Highland County (Greenfield, Ohio,
1946), 89-93.
See also the Autobiography and
Correspondence of Allen Trimble (Columbus, 1909),
79, 239.
38 Tarkington, Autobiography, 34-35.
ROMANCE RIDES THE CIRCUIT 175
Polly and others who had ensnared a
preacher.39 The eagerness of
the young ladies, their mothers, and the
village gossips often
rendered the single state of their
pastor untenable, and when the
itinerant exhibited common politeness to
more than one female he
risked the danger of a church trial for
breach of promise.40 Of
course, both sexes could play this game,
and in 1809 the White
Oak, Ohio, Circuit tried Jean Wood
"for a breach of a Matrimon[i]al
Contract with Thomas Sutton," but
apparently not enough witnesses
heard the proposal to "criminate
Sister Wood."41
Circuit rider James Parcels was not so
fortunate in his breach of
promise trial, since he did his
romancing via the mails. Haled be-
fore a church court and confronted with
his billets-doux, he was
found guilty and expelled from the
itinerancy.42 Both he and James
Morris would have profited by reading a
"Letter to a Junior
Preacher" carried by the 1824 Methodist
Magazine, advising those
considering marriage to "fix on a
suitable person and have done with
it. Do not pay your addresses to half a
dozen or more at once.
Never thus trifle with their affections
and your own."43 The con-
ference at Zanesville, Ohio, heard
Morris charged with "unchristian
conduct" in "prematurely
entering into a marriage contract," and
"hastily breaking off the same--and
too hastily forming and con-
summating a marriage contract with
another." Only Morris'
humility, expressions of regret, and
resignation to the will of the
conference saved him from expulsion.44
Perhaps the most celebrated case of a
broken troth involved
Wesley Rowe and Cornelia Andrews. In
1830 the twenty-one-year-
old Rowe married Cynthia A. Kious, and
four years later, in spite
of this encumbrance, joined the Ohio
circuit ranks, serving ac-
ceptably until 1844. The year previous,
his wife, mother of four
children, died,45 and the
widower, preaching in Portsmouth, Ohio,
soon began a search for a suitable
companion and guardian for his
39 Dana-Dustin Collection, Ohio
Historical Society.
40 Tarkington, Autobiography, 30.
41 Manuscript
record of the White Oak, Ohio, Circuit. Williams Manuscript Col-
lection, Ohio Historical Society.
42 Manuscripts of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in Ohio, Ohio Historical Society.
43 Methodist Magazine, VII (1824), 114.
44 Manuscripts
of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Ohio, Ohio Historical Society.
45 Minutes, IX
(1862), 185.
176
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
orphans. Engaging in a highly dangerous
operation, he carried his
list of prospects to Amanda Purcell, one
of the church sisters, seek-
ing her opinion of each matrimonial
candidate. Wilhelmina Jeffer-
son passed the test for Mrs. Purcell,
but the anxious bridegroom
complained of her as "too old, that
she had been crossed in love
too often," and "that she had
not religion enough for her and him
both." Mrs. Purcell also ruled
favorably on Elizabeth Taylor, but
this lady, Rowe decided, was neither
socially poised nor sufficiently
learned; "he wanted a wife that was
smart enough to converse with
any person, and that he could not think
of going into a family where
there was so mean a man as her
Brother." The marriage conference
went on with a discussion of the marital
virtues of the central figure
in the case, Cornelia Andrews. Of all
the candidates, Cornelia, who
was about the same age as Rowe's oldest
child, was the only one
to whom Mrs. Purcell held serious
objections. She bluntly told the
circuit rider "that he had enough
children[;] he had better get a
mother for what he had." Exhibiting
typical masculine independence
and lover's myopia, Rowe immediately
sought the hand of Miss
Andrews.
Highly flattered by the preacher's
advances, Cornelia accompanied
him to seek her mother's blessing. An
older sister, however, had
already warned Mother Andrews that their
pastor's affection for
Cornelia was more than brotherly, so she
met the couple, prepared,
if possible, to extinguish the romantic
spark. After much discussion
she eventually acceded to Rowe's
importunities and reluctantly gave
her consent.
The heat of Wesley's kindled affection
for Cornelia was cool in
comparison to the firey dust stirred up
by the Portsmouth gossips
when news of the engagement spread. Soon
the preacher's passion
apparently cooled and reason returned.
In his effort to extricate him-
self from his own trap he only became
more embroiled in con-
troversy. Denying that he was ever
really serious about marrying
Cornelia, he infuriated both the mother
and her jilted daughter.
Tempers flared, charges and
countercharges flashed about Ports-
mouth, until, finally, on April 25,
1844, pastor Rowe faced a church
court, charged with immorality and
imprudent conduct, the former
ROMANCE RIDES THE CIRCUIT 177
dealing with his denial of the
engagement, the latter with his
"saying in the public street that a
brother in the Church was a liar
&c &c &c--"
The trial, which lasted for two days and
required forty-three
pages to hold the testimony, stripped
Rowe of his official church
standing until the Ohio Conference could
hear his case in September.
During the summer the Portsmouth
busybodies informally pro-
longed the trial, but much to the
beleaguered minister's credit, he
visited from house to house urging the
brethren to forget their
differences and close ranks. For this
pacific gesture Rowe received
generous praise from his successor and
from sixteen members of
the church who wrote to the bishop
begging leniency for their un-
frocked pastor. While admitting that the
itinerant was "greatly
wanting in discretion, and indeed
sometimes imprudent," they felt
he had suffered sufficiently, so much so
that his physician despaired
of his life from infirmities which
"arose more from the state of his
mind, than from his bodily
disease." Furthermore, if the case were
not settled amicably, the pro-Rowe
committee feared a loss in church
membership, profitable only to
"rival sister churches, who look upon
the desolation that has come upon us, as
tending perhaps ultimately,
to their advantage."46
For two days the Ohio Conference
listened to evidence for and
against Wesley Rowe, and when the vote
was called, he was de-
clared guilty of "highly improper
conduct." A motion to suspend
the guilty man for a year failed for a
substitute requiring that he
"be brought before the conference
& required to make acknowl-
edgments." That afternoon a
contrite penitent faced the conference,
"made his acknowledgments[, and]
said the sentence was as light
as he could expect. He acknowledged he
had acted highly im-
prudent, said what he ought not to have
said[.] He had repented
& believed God had forgiven him
& he hoped his brethren would
forgive him, and by the help of God he
would never give us trouble
in future, and on motion his character
passed."47
Such an experience would have convinced
a more timid man
46 Manuscripts of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Ohio, Ohio Historical
Society.
47 Manuscript journal of the Ohio Conference, September 1844. Ohio Wesleyan
University.
178 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
that he should eschew future romantic
entanglements. Rowe was
not so easily discouraged. The following
year he married the
daughter of Mr. John Hitch of Clermont
County, Ohio, with whom
he lived happily for the remaining
seventeen years of his life,
leaving her at his death with four
children, in addition to the four
by his first marriage.48
The romantic adventures of Wesley Rowe,
Henry E. Pilcher,
Richard Brandriff, and Harvey Sweney would
not have surprised
the venerable Henry Smith of Baltimore,
for many years a circuit
rider on the western frontier. His
letters on marriage, written in
1840 for Methodist newspapers, contained
a multitude of anony-
mous cases involving misplaced ministerial
affection, almost per-
suading the old pioneer to abandon his
faith in ecclesiastical re-
strictions on marriage. "Better
take one well made, well married,
laborious, enterprising minister of
Jesus Christ," he concluded, "than
half a dozen such fickle-minded
boys."49 On the other hand, Caleb J.
Taylor, a western circuit rider and camp
meeting hymnist, used his
skill as a rhymester to fidicule the
unenviable position of his former
colleagues whose texts were now,
"My dear." Nevertheless, he
concluded his satire with the reluctant
admission that the ministerial
summons often met more that its match in
competition with the
mating call:
The strongest need a double guard,
And men like Paul, it's to be fear'd
Are in our day uncommon;
Who think it lawful for to wed,
Yet act as though they thought it good
Never to touch a woman.50
48 Minutes, IX (1862), 185.
49 Henry Smith, Recollections and
Reflections of an Old Itinerant (New York,
1848), 137.
50 Methodist Magazine, XI (1828),
191.