William McKendree
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William McKendree (July 6, 1757–March 5, 1835) was the first Methodist bishop born in the United States.
He was born in King William County, Virginia. As a young man, McKendree fought in the American Revolutionary War and was at Yorktown at the surrender of Cornwallis. After the war, he returned to private life. In 1787, while living in Brunswick County, Virginia, he became a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1788 Bishop Francis Asbury appointed him as junior preacher to Mecklenburg circuit and he served for several years on neighboring circuits. In 1793, he was sent to South Carolina, but returned the next year. For the next three years, his circuit was vast—extending from Chesapeake Bay to the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains. In 1798, he was appointed to the Baltimore conference, and in 1800 he went with Bishop Asbury and Bishop Richard Whatcoat to the western conference, which met that year at Bethel, Kentucky.
In 1801, the conference sent McKendree to oversee the church's efforts in southeastern Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and western Virginia. He served as a circuit preacher in addition to his organizational efforts, becoming a respected figure in the region. As a result of his work, McKendree was elected as a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the general conference in Baltimore in 1808, a position that he held the rest of his life. His first episcopal tour of 1,500 miles extended through Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois.
He earned the nickname Father of Western Methodism for his work.
In 1830, McKendree lent his support to the Lebanon Seminary, in Lebanon, Illinois. As a result, the school chose to change its name to McKendree College.
McKendree's family had moved to Sumner County, Tennessee about 1810. When the bishop was not traveling, he also called that area home. He died at his brother's home in Sumner County, Tennessee, on March 5, 1835. He never married.
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[edit] References
- Short, Roy Hunter, Chosen to be Consecrated: The Bishops of The Methodist Church, 1784-1968, Lake Junaluska, N.C., General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church, 1976.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Ohio History Central web site (Ohio Historical Society).
- Virtual American Biographies from the Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889)
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