The Establishment of the Methodist Church

in Athens , Georgia

Carley Ruff

Upon hearing the news of America’s independence, Francis Asbury, one the foremost leaders in American Methodism, remarked, “I had various exercises in mind on the occasion: it may cause great changes to take place amongst us...”¹  Little did Asbury know of the great changes that would come for the Methodist-Episcopal Church following America’s independence.  Between the time of its organization on January 2, 1784 until the schism between the northern and southern brethren in 1844, the growth of Methodism in America was phenomenal.  Church membership grew from less that 15,000, to 1,171,356 in sixty years.²  The effectiveness of the newly formed church stemmed from its organization in meeting the problems of the new republic.  The church met the demands of a mobile and restless population during westward expansion and its positive theology appealed to pioneers who lived under constant hardship.  The Methodist Episcopal Church also appealed to free and enslaved African Americans as well as whites because of the Methodist theology, which asserted that no outward condition could strip the immortal soul of its value.³

The growth of the Methodism in Athens , Georgia can be attributed to many of the factors that promoted the growth of this religious organization throughout the new republic.  The preaching style and theological message taught by circuit riders in the late eighteenth century showed great appeal to Athenians.  The spiritual message brought by Reverend Hope Hull to the community came at a time of spiritual and moral deadness found throughout the country.  In Athens , like other parts of the nation, lively revivals and camp meetings brought huge numbers of new converts into the church and energized the congregation.  It can also be documented that the Methodist Church in Athens , like other parts of the South, gained a great number of members from the African American segment of the population.  Unique to the growth of the Church in Athens was the influence of a university in its formation.  This essay will be addressing the factors that attributed to the growth of the Methodist Church in Athens , Georgia .

 Reverend Hope Hull, who was said to be “second to no other in fostering Methodism in Georgia ”, moved to the site of the newly-activated University of Georgia in 1803.⁴  Had it not been for the creation and charter of the University of Georgia , Hull might not have been compelled to relocate to the Athens area, and thus, the development of the Methodist Church in Athens may have been considerably inhibited.   Hull served as a professor at the university and later became a Trustee.  He brought with him his experience as an itinerant preacher on the eastern shore of Maryland and involvement in the organization of the Methodist-Episcopal Church .  Hull was described to be large man with a broad forehead; evidence of a man of great decision.  His hair was curly, with each lock looking as if it was “living under a self-willed government.”⁵  Hull instigated the activation of the first Methodist meeting house in the Athens area in 1804.  The creation of this church came at a time of great spiritual need in Athens , as well as the entire country.  In the last years of the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth, Americans had slipped into moral deadness and away from the church.  A student at the University of Georgia attested that there were no serious students at the college and few were not “grossly immoral.”⁶  Of the thirty students that entered the University in 1801, only eight graduated in 1804.

The University of Georgia and the Methodist Church in Athens have always been interconnected.  Many of the founders of the church in Athens also held important positions at the University.  General David Meriwether, who accompanied Reverend Hull to Athens in 1803, served as a professor at the newly established University.  Hull ’s sons, Asbury and Henry, in addition to graduating from the University of Georgia , both later served as trustees of the church and of the University.   Henry Hull also served as a professor of Mathematics and Astronomy.  One of the first board members of the Methodist Church in Athens , James R. Carlton, was a master brick mason and was brought to the area to assist in the rebuilding of new college at the University.  Countless other members of the Church have been connected to the University of Georgia since its formation.    

The Methodist theology and style of preaching that Hull introduced in Athens appealed to many living in the hardship of the times.  The pioneer days of the early nineteenth century held no glamour.  Very few people enjoyed the comforts of prosperity and most lived in poverty in pine pole cabins with dirt floors.  The social and moral conditions were no more advanced.  At the dawn of the nineteenth century, many adults in rural Georgia claimed to have never heard a sermon.  The conditions in rural Georgia likened those in America ’s western frontier.   The appeal of Hull ’s preaching was similar to the appeal of Methodist circuit riders following the growth of westward expansion.  These men were simple and neat in appearance and their message was similarly as simple.  They worshiped in barns, cabins, or anywhere that would suit the settlers.  There was no strict order or formality involved in services which allowed the  preachers plainness of speech and a directness of appeal.  The great goal of these types of preachers was simply the saving of souls.  They preached that all men were equal in the sight of God and that provision was made by God for the salvation of all.  Methodist theology gave an equal opportunity to all regardless of class.  Emphasis was placed on individual responsibility.  Similarly, Hope Hull used the style of Methodist evangelical preaching to reach the masses.  It was said that Hull had a voice of great range quickly moving from a soft whisper of love to a sharp thunder of wrath in an instant, leaving the hearers like “clay in the hands of a potter.”⁷   The meeting house in Athens where Hull preached was little more than a pine cabin lacking a chimney and within which a box served as a makeshift pulpit.  At the beginning of its existence, there were never more than 100 in attendance, but as the years went on, this number steadily increased.  In 1806, Methodists in Athens abandoned the rustic meeting house and a new, larger building was built nearby to accommodate growth.  In 1818, Reverend Hull died and it was reported that Methodism in Athens nearly perished along with him.⁸  This occurrence shows the impact that Hope Hull’s preaching made on the populace of Athens . 

The Methodist church throughout the nation as well as in Athens received a phenomenal amount of growth due to the influence and appeal of revivals and camp meetings.  Methodism in the Athens area did not perish following the death of Reverend Hull, but due to the seriousness of the situation, a charter was given for the erection of a church in 1824 on land donated by Mr. Herby Hancock.  Much of the church’s growth following this point was due to the popularity of local camp meetings and revivals hosted by the Methodist church.  The camp meeting is an event unique to the United States and were originally great outdoor events attended by all denominations.  The first notable camp meeting in the southern and western states convened in Cane Ridge Kentucky in 1801.  During the course of this event, between ten and twenty-five thousand people were in attendance and hundreds professed religion.  These revivals were accompanied with fiery preachers and also peculiar bodily exercises.  Spectators would fall into spells of uncontrollable jerking, barking, dancing, and some would fall unconscious or semiconscious.  Peter Cartwright, in his account of the Cane Ridge Revival, states, “...at times more than one thousand persons broke out into loud shouting all at once, and that the shouting could be heard for miles.”⁹ 

In Athens , camp meetings and revivals drew many into the church.  These events were announced in newspapers and were held at places such as Cherokee Corner Camp Ground, Watkinsville Camp Ground, or other various camp grounds in the Athens area.  They normally lasted for four to five days, beginning on the evening of the first and ending on the morning of the last.¹⁰  During a revival held in June of 1840, it was reported in the Southern Banner that seventeen whites and six African American members of the community became members of the church and approximately twenty-five “professed to have experienced religion.”¹¹  Events such as these gave hope to the church for continued growth.  This hope was manifested during the ministry of W. J. Parks during a revival in 1844 which was extremely effective.  During this revival, 163 whites and 97 African Americans were brought into the membership of the church.¹²  It was the growth in the church as a result of this revival that led the African American members to gain their own minister and split from the white congregation.  The growth of membership during this revival also led to the establishment of many other Methodist churches in the Athens area in the late nineteenth century.

Another catalyst for the growth of Methodism in Athens as well as the entire nation was the church’s appeal to the African American segment of the population.  No other church was so largely influenced by the presence of African Americans in America .  For many years, the formation of the Methodist Episcopal church expanded much quicker in the southern United States .  As early as 1754, nine-tenths of the black population was located in the Southern colonies and this group represented half of the South’s population at the time.  Thus, appeal to the African American segment of the population was essential to the universal growth of the Methodist church.  Free and enslaved African Americans alike were drawn to the Methodist-Episcopal Church for many of the same reasons as poor frontier settlers.  Unlike Calvinistic Churches, that followed strict doctrines regarding predestination and limited salvation and Baptists who insisted upon immersion, Methodists were proclaiming the doctrine of a free and full salvation for all and the freedom of individual acceptance.  Religion for Methodists knew no class distinction and no one was beyond the reach of salvation.¹³  This democratic doctrine gave hope to many living under the shadow of slavery.

          In Athens , it was this appeal that greatly influenced the growth of the African American population in the church.  In 1824, when the new church was built on land given by Mr. Hancock, it was forty feet square, with a gallery in the back to accommodate the growing black membership.  The membership of the church between the years of 1826 and 1827 was approximately 177 with well over one-third of the members being African American.¹⁴   This number grew significantly with the many converts brought in as a result of the formerly mentioned camp meetings and revivals.  Following the revival in 1845, African American membership became so large that many asked for a church and a pastor of their own.  This wish was granted and a white minister, Reverend John M. Bonnell was sent by the Annual Conference.

Many Methodists, namely those in the northern regions of the United States , abhorred the institution of slavery.  The Second Great Awakening that spread across the nation in the early nineteenth century brought on a wave of humanitarian feelings.  Aggressive anti-slavery movements sprung up in the North and these movements were found chiefly in religious organizations.  Methodist pulpits slowly became open to abolitionist speakers and Methodist anti-slavery papers and societies made their appearance.  As early as the Christmas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, rules were passed regarding slave holding which asserted that a church member’s slaves must be freed within a year of their membership.  These rules later became less stringent.   Some Methodists supported the American Colonization Society, which in 1816 presented a plan to send all free blacks out of the United States and colonize them in Africa ¹⁵. 

Juxtaposed, most Southern Methodists accepted the institution of slavery as biblically authorized.  Dependence on the institution of slavery in the South was growing ever more profitable with the rise in cotton culture.  Southern Methodists reconciled religious beliefs with economic pressures by focusing on their “mission to the slaves.”  The mission to the slaves was the conscious alternative to anti-slavery activity by Methodist Episcopals in the South.  This mission focused around the conversion of slaves.  Missionary preachers promoted the view that it is the moral responsibility of masters to care for their slaves in a humane fashion and urged slave owners to allow slaves to participate in religious activities.  They also attempted to convince Christian slave owners that slaves were their fellow “heirs of immortality” and that they must care for their souls as well as their bodies.  Methodist preachers tried to integrate slaves into the life of the church, giving them limited leadership roles.  After conversion, slaves were told to love their enemies and respect their earthly master, and therefore could be accounted as righteous on the day of last judgement.¹⁶  Southern Methodists differentiated between the political and religious arguments surrounding slavery.  At the second quarterly meeting of the Methodist Church in Athens on June twenty-ninth, 1844 , the council expressed, “believing that slavery [is] a civil institution, with which, in the abstract, ecclesiastic judicatories should not meddle” that the Methodist church “has no power to legislate upon the subject.”¹⁷  Though most southern Methodists supported the institution of slavery, a large proportion of slaves in the South converted to Methodism in hopes of freedom in the afterlife.  The conflicting views between the northern and southern brethren of the Methodist Episcopal church regarding slavery, however led to a schism in the Church between the two factions in 1844.  After the proposition of the separation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the council at the Athens Station Quarterly Meeting responded that they regretted the separation, but if “nominal unity must co-exist with unceasing strife, and alienated feeling, the sooner that separation takes place the better.”¹⁸  

Through the years, the First Methodist Church in Athens has been seen a “key church” in Georgia Methodism.  The history of Methodism in Georgia , in America , and in Athens is so closely connected that  consideration of the history of any one of these factions is a reflection of the history of all the others.¹⁹ In Athens , like the rest of the new republic, there were many significant factors that served as catalysts for the growth of Methodism.  As we have seen, the theological style of the early preachers and the doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal Church appealed to not only those living in poverty on the frontier during westward expansion, but those living in rural Georgia.  The interest of the ever-growing African American population added tremendous growth in the membership of the Church. In addition, lively camp meetings and revivals brought in huge numbers of new converts and invigorated the membership of the Church.  Unique to Athens was the important role in the establishment of the church by the creation of the University of Georgia and the great influence of Reverend Hope Hull.  Hull preached of the everlasting love of God and the opportunity of salvation for all.   This democratic theology that characterized the Methodist Episcopal Church in Antebellum America still remains the driving force of modern Methodists throughout the world.