A Light in theWindow in the Wilderness

By Bob Jones

Francis Asbury, Bishop of the new Methodist Church and the first circuit rider for the Methodists in America, known as the "Prophet of the Long Trail" for his extensive travels from Maine to Georgia, first came to Western NC in 1800. His diaries are full of descriptions, mostly unfavorable, of the roads and trails on which he traveled in the mountains. With his traveling companions and a small "chaise" or two wheeled cart they laid the groundwork for the Methodist Church on the frontier with his travels from 1800 to his death in 1813. Often he was accompanied by the first official circuit rider assigned to North Carolina, Rev. Samuel Edney who lived in today's Edneyville, Henderson County, NC. 

The rugged terrain of the mountains left many a soul in isolation on the sparsely settled frontier, so the purpose of the riders was to move from place to place to preach the gospel and so knit together the far flung congregation. To accomplish this they established "campgrounds", places that were known to the settlers where they could come on occasion, several times a year, with their backwoods families, to hear the preachers, socialize and sing hymns. Here baby's born since the last meeting were baptized, disputes were arbitrated and young boys and girls were allowed to meet under close supervision. Great feasts were prepared and often quantities of backwoods "mash" were consumed by the men as they told their pioneer's tales. Souls were saved, marriages were often made and a memorable time was had by all. Often these gatherings would last for several days with all the congregation camping out under the huge virgin trees along the rivers. 

These meeting places were offered for use by local landholders, and on the Pigeon River the campground was provided by Jacob Shook. Samuel Edney began the congregation at Clyde known later as Shook's Campground with Jacob's help and Jacob's big frame house was always a welcome sight for the weary ministers as they made their way across the mostly road-less wilderness. The big three story house stood over the campground like a cathedral, one can only imagine the scene of the tents of the gathered neighbors and their uplifted faces as the Bishops came out on the wide porch to offer a morning prayer after their usually late arrival the night before.

Asbury's journals, and those of his associate Henry Boehm often mention Jacob. On November 30, 1810 Asbury relates that he had been talked into attempting a different road for coming into the mountains as he could imagine no worse road than that one he normally took which followed the French Broad River from Tennessee. This route along the Pigeon River is now followed by Interstate 40 but in those days was no more than a poor footpath. He says "Friday our troubles began at a foaming, roaring stream, which hid the rocks. At Catahouche I walked over a log, but then O the mountains- height after height and five miles over! After crossing many streams and after losing ourselves in the woods for a time, about 9 o'clock at night we gratefully came to Vater Shucks" (Vater, German for Father).

Henry Boehm was a traveling companion of Bishop Asbury on many trips, he was a Methodist preacher who "spoke both English and Pennsylvania Dutch" (German). He also kept a detailed journal of his travels into what Asbury called "the land of filth, fleas, rattlesnakes, hills, mountains, rocks and rivers". In October of 1808 he recalls that he made a side trip to the Pigeon River. "To benefit the Germans I took a little tour myself" and " I preached six times and then rode to overtake the Bishops. After riding twenty miles I learned they were still far in advance of me and had gone on to Buncombe. On Thursday I hastened over the mountains hoping to overtake them.I went over lofty hills and solitary valleys along the banks of the river. This is an astonishing river with its meanderings through beautiful valleys and mountain gorges with overhanging rocks. Here nature is seen in her beauty and grandeur and I wonderfully admired that day the works of nature as one scene after another broke on my delighted vision." Referencing Asbury's often used description as "alps" he says "Well might he (Asbury) call those high mountains the Alps. Never can I forget the toils over those mountains, hills, rocks, stumps, streams, awful roads and dangerous passes." On another trip in December of 1810 he describes another trip up the Pigeon: "After crossing the stream we had to toil for several hours over high mountains and then came to Catahouche Creek." This is Cattalochee Creek in the Great Smoky Mountain Park. He goes on to say "This was a deep and rapid stream. After we had refreshed both man and beast we prepared to cross. There was no bridge. Brother McGee rode through and we drove the horses after him, then the Bishops and myself walked over the rapid stream on a tree, and were thankful to get across safely. The next thing was to climb the Catahouche Mountain. No wonder the Bishop wrote ‘But O' the mountain, height after height and five miles over'. To add to our troubles we got lost in the wilderness and crossed several streams wandering hour after hour in the home of wild beasts. We came to a gate at last that we entered and passed through the settlements of Johnathan's and Richland Creeks, and came in at Brother Jacob Schunck's at nine o'clock in the evening, long after dark, weary, cold and hungry."

As the years came and went the roads improved and the valleys began to fill with settlers. Eventually churches were built to house the congregations, and these houses of worship were close by, so overnight trips began to become rare. The old campgrounds served the purpose of a far flung isolated society but faded as populations grew. Still for a generation this was the grandest kind of event.

Jacob and his family, living in the big old house, were at the center of this, and from this association a bond was built with their adopted religion. There is some reason to believe that several sons that went west in the early 1800s did so as missionaries of Methodism to the receding frontier. Jacob Jr. is believed to have gone to Missouri in 1805 and begun the first Methodist Church there. He had three sons that were circuit riders across the frontiers of Arkansas and Texas for the Methodists, in the style of old Bishop Asbury. There is even a tale of another later generation of Shooks that moved to the Republic of Texas around 1839 and began Methodist congregations in several counties. Of these we have nothing but Methodism and the Shook surname to connect them to Jacob, but that may be enough.

In later times the great migration across the continent overshadowed the early years of the frontier. In the late 1700's when Jacob came across the Blue Ridge the land around Clyde was as far distant and unspoiled as any spot in the west was to be later in peoples imaginations. These were true pioneers, they fought a war against the Indians, and against the British and their Tory neighbors to win this wilderness. They came first, when there were no roads and no civilization to cut the virgin timber and make a place. They then set about bringing God to themselves and the people around them. Families grew and "settlement" found its inevitable way here. But even then Shook's children were "gone west" following the frontier with the power of the word of God.

What better monument could we have to these tremendous years and those incredible men and women who made such events a reality than the old frame house that Jacob built, a house that every weary traveler might long to see at the end of a rugged journey? Time has not yet swept this monument away, thanks to 150 years of preservation by the Smathers family of Clyde. I hope the good fortune of this wonderful structure will continue and, as a distant cousin says, God's work, substantial in the past, isn't finished there yet.

Quotes are as taken from "The History of Buncombe Co, NC" by Sondley

More on Bishop Asbury, and an indictment on the clergy of today (and 100 years ago) with all their comforts, gives a feeling for these Methodist Bishops and the life they lived.

The following on Asbury is from a 1891 description:

Two Bishops Traveling in Style

Soon after the adjournment of the General Conference which met in Baltimore on May 6, 1808, Bishop Asbury started out to attend some of the Southern and Western Conferences, as well as to preach by the way. It was a rough and toilsome journey, for a part of it lay directly across the Alleghany Mountains. Physically the Bishop was wholly unfit for this trip, since his old enemy, the inflammatory rheumatism, had deprived him of the use of his feet. But, after all, he traveled hundreds of miles on horseback, and preached either sitting down or standing up with the aid of his crutches. Sick and infirm as he was, the "driving-fires" within his soul never slumbered.

From Pennsylvania, where he had been preaching to the Germans-assisted by Rev. Henry Boehm, who acted as interpreter-he crossed over into Kentucky, where Bishop McKendree joined him. The two now entered upon an arduous round, preaching, marrying, administering the sacraments, and visiting the Conferences. It will doubtless interest the reader to learn something of the style in which two bishops of the early Methodist Church did their traveling.

They started out in "a poor thirty-dollar chaise," with "purses to match," as Asbury himself humorously put it. Under this vehicle they carried an ax, for often thy had to stop while the younger of the two cut trees out of the way, and the elder, feeble and crippled as he was helped to clear the path. Such bishops! But they had no dainty hands to roughen nor fine cloths to soil-no ruffles to tear, no lawn to rumple, no powdered hair to disorder, nor silver buckles to tarnish.

Frequently they had to sleep in the woods, for the lack of that within their purses to pay for entertainment at the inns. Many a night they lay with nothing between them and the ground but the saddlebags under their heads. When they could get a bed of leaves or a pallet of raw deer-hide, what a luxury it was! Some new danger constantly menaced them - at one time it was in the form of a bivouac with wolves, at another a close escape from Indians. Once they were near drowning by missing a ford. Again a hurricane blew directly across their path, but God wonderfully preserved them. Annoyances, too, beset them-they lost their way in the woods, they were stung by ants, bitten by fleas, tormented by gnats, and harassed by mosquitoes.

Sometimes the coarse fare of the district was enough to satisfy their hunger-at other times it was insufficient. Often when they wanted a dinner they had not only to stop and cook it, but to hunt it as well. But this was small discomfort in comparison to trying to cook another meal by the fire that would not blaze, or when it did blaze to be at once put out by the rain. And what a "feast-day" it was when they could dine "on raccoon and bear steaks!" O such bishops! Not once amidst all these hardships did "a cloud arise to darken their skies, or to hide for a moment their Lord from their eyes."

Contented with their lot? Beyond question they were, and often happy-yes, actually happy over it. Even that old shaky, wheezy, thirty-dollar chaise was the source of great happiness and satisfaction. And why? Because every and anon they saw "men, women, and children, almost naked, paddling up the rocky hills, while even the best-off were two or three on the same horse." What a luxurious vehicle, then seemed that creaky old chaise!

As poor accommodations as the woods frequently offered there were poorer ones at the cabins, where there was but one room, one fire-place, and from half a dozen to one dozen inmates. "Here," says the patient Asbury, "we had to preach, read, write, pray, sing, talk, eat, drink, and sleep." Sometimes these cabins were very oddly fitted up and ornamented inside and out with wild-cat skins, deer's horns, turkey wings, and the like. But wherever they come upon the inmates of these cabins, with few exceptions, our bishops were given a hospitable welcome. Where the surroundings were clean and tidy numerous discomforts were cheerfully borne; but where they were disgustingly filthy, as well as infested with vermin, as was to often the case, then indeed the real trials of the poor bishops began, for both men were fastidiously neat in person and habits. They had a high sense of delicacy as well of the proper return to make for honest and hearty hospitality, and they would far rather have been bitten over by the tormenting vermin-even poor Bishop Asbury, who had unfortunately "as thin and fair a skin as ever came form England" than to have hurt the feelings of their hospitable entertainers for a moment by complaining of their accommodations. O royal-hearted bishops!

How many miles that dilapidated old chaise passed over on this trip; how many times that patient old horse-representing fully two thirds of Bishop Asbury's earthly property-took his place morning after morning between the shafts; how many times at evening the two bishops came to those little crowded, skin-adorned cabins, seeking rest, or, in lieu of the cabin, lying in the woods-we may not know. But we do know that never before had bishops traveled like these two, and never have they since-at least not since the days of Caper and Bascom. Now our favored head of Church go whirling over country in luxuriously furnished steam-cars, the common schedule of which is from thirty to forty miles on hour; and instead of the threadbare homespun garments and rough cow-hide shoes of the pioneer episcopacy, lo, broadcloth and patent-leather! But times change, and people and things change with them; and surely a man is none the less zealous or devout, no farther from being a Christian, because he wears broadcloth.