- Title
- Slavery in the state of North Carolina
-
-
- Date
- 1899
-
-
- Creator
- ["Bassett, John Spencer, 1867-1928."]
-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Slavery in the state of North Carolina
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373]
Religious Life.
57
slaves. He bought a lot, and through the penny collection
from the blacks and the scanty contributions of the few
poorer whites who had joined with him, a building was
completed. This was the beginning of Methodists in the
town. Hither came Bishop Francis Asbury in 1807 and
preached twice in one day. On the same day, John Charles,
a colored preacher, preached at sunrise. The feeling of
friendship for him seems to have been great and the good
Bishop writes in his journal that it was “a high day on
Mount Zion.” The attitude of the community was not
always tolerant of this “negro church.” There were vari¬
ous disturbances, and once the building was wrecked by
a mob.1
More striking, but not so typical, is the story of the plant¬
ing of Methodism in Fayetteville. Late in the eighteenth
century, Fayetteville had but one church organization, the
Presbyterian, and that had no building. One day there
arrived in town Henry Evans, a full-blooded free negro from
Virginia, who was moving to Charleston, S. C., where he
proposed to follow the trade of shoemaking. He was perhaps
free born ; he was a Methodist and a licensed local preacher.
In Fayetteville he observed that the colored people “were
wholly given to profanity and lewdness, never hearing
preaching of any denomination.” He felt it his duty to stop
and work among them. Fie worked at his trade during the
week and preached on Sunday. The whites became alarmed
and the Town Council ordered him to stop preaching. Tie
then met his flock in the “sand hills,” desolate places out¬
side of the jurisdiction of the Town Council. Fearing vio¬
lence he made his meetings secret and changed the place of
meeting from Sunday to Sunday. He was particular to
violate no law, and to all the whites he showed the respect
which their sense of caste superiority demanded. Public
'See “ Early Methodism in Wilmington,” by Dr. A. M. Chreitz-
l.ierg, in the Annual Publication of the Historical Society of the N. C.
Conference, 1897, p. 1; also Wightman: “Life of Bishop Capers,”
p. 136.
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