Methodism in WNC
Elmer Clark

Contributed by Robyn Putnam
From: Methodism in Western North Carolina
by Elmer T Clark
Henderson Co Public Library NC 287.6C 1966

Various selections

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Page 35:

In 1808 Haywood County was cut out of Buncombe. In October of that year Henry Boehm "went to Pigeon Creek to preach to the Dutch," while Bishop Asbury was preaching in Buncombe Court House. Boehm preached six times on this visit among the German speaking people in Haywood. Louisa's Chapel at Clyde, which bears the date of 1798, was probably the recipient of some of this preaching.

Page 41:

... The Lincoln Circuit was divided and the preacher was Samuel Edney; he was one of the founders of Methodism in Western North Carolina and probably the first to serve in the mountain area. His circuit covered the whole western section and a part of Tennessee. He was an important figure and many of the churches he established are still in existence. ... Edney was born in Pasquotank County in 1768, began his ministry on the New Hope Circuit in 1768, and was ordained by Asbury in 1814. ...

Thus, launched in the present Western North Carolina Annual Conference, the camp meetings spread to various other areas throughout the State during the period. Here as elsewhere they were well adapted to the conditions of the day and contributed much to the social life of the people and the growth of Methodism.

Such outstanding personalities as John McGee, Daniel Asbury, Bishop McKendree, William and Nicholas Watters, Samuel Edney and others, were greatly used by the Holy Spirit in winning frontier people to Christ through the Camp Meeting method of evangelism.

They were also leaders who gathered people into societies and circuits after they were converted. They developed class Leaders, Exhorters, and Local Preachers, who shepherded the people through classes and societies. They led them from conversion experience to growth in grace and knowledge of the Bible. The disciplined them in moral life and fearlessly weeded out those who fell from grace.

Page 60:

(Illustration of the Shhok Smathers House) Caption reads: The Shook House At Clyde, North Carolina, where Asbury visited "Father Shook."

Page 64:

Asbury's eighth and last trip over the Madison County route to Western North Carolina was made in October and early November of 1814, when he was accompanied by John Wesley Bond.

At Jarratt's on Pigeon River they had to chop away a tree which had fallen across the road.

On October 23, he ordained Thomas Bird and Samuel Edney, and stopped with Bird's father, Benjamin, a prominent Methodist who lived near his father in McDowell County.

Barnett's barn had been burned by arsonists and Asbury asked Hoodenpile about his religious experience.

Asbury attended a camp meeting in Haywood County, which had been formed from Buncombe in 1808 and extended westward across the Great Smoky Mountains to the Georgia and Tennessee lines.

THE CATALOOCHEE TRAIL

In December, 1810, Asbury, McKendree, Henry Boehm, and John McGee entered Western North Carolina over a new route. They took Mahon's Road from near Pigeon Forge in East Tennessee and went to the Mahon home, which was a toll gate near Cosby, Tennessee.

From that point they went over the old Cataloochee Trail, an aboriginal Indian trail. At Cataloochee Creek, McGee drove the horses across and Asbury and McKendree walked over on a log. They crossed other streams, were lost in the woods, and came to settlements on Jonathan and Richland Creeks at or near the present Cove Creek in Haywood County. They probably went up Pigeon River through Dellwood Gap, since the best known trail led that way, and came to Richland Creek where it now forms Lake Junaluska, and spent the night with Jacob Shook at Clyde.

This was one of Samuel Edney's preaching places and his pulpit and chair are in the attic of the Shook house at the present time; the Society continues as Louisa Chapel, formerly known as Camp Ground because Shook bequeathed a tract of land for a camp meeting site. Some descendants of Jacob Shook still live at Clyde and Waynesville in Haywood County.

On Sunday, December 2, 1810, the party proceeded to Asheville, where Asbury and Boehm preached at Newton's Academy, while Bishop McKendree and John McGee preached at Samuel Edney's near Hendersonville.

Page 74:

In some parts of the South some ministers and people had Northern sympathies even though they were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.

At Clyde in Haywood County there was a former Methodist Episcopal Church, probably formed by Samuel Edney in 1798 and called Camp Ground, later Louisa Chapel, and Arnon Plains (now Plains Church) east of Canton which were served by local preachers to the close of the Civil War when these congregations received ministers appointed by Bishop Clark at the newly organized Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It thus appears there was nearly always a group in the mountain area which had Northern sympathies.

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