Robert Kennon Hargrove

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Robert Kennon Hargrove (17 September 1829 – 4 August 1905) was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, elected in 1882.

Born in Pickens County, Alabama, he was converted to Christianity at the age of eleven. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1852, and was a Professor of Pure Mathematics there, 1853-57. He entered the Traveling Ministry of the Alabama Annual Conference in 1857.

Prior to his election to the episcopacy, Hargrove served as a pastor and a presiding elder. He was President of the Centenary Institute in Alabama, 1865-67, and of Tennessee Female College, 1878-73. He was a member of the Cape May Commission in 1876. He was the first to urge a bond-scheme, which saved the Publishing House of the M.E. Church, South. He originated the Women's Department of Church Extension (for the purpose of securing parsonages in the M.E. Church, South). He was also a member of the Commission that in 1878 established fraternal relations between the M.E. Church and the M.E. Church, South, an important step toward reunification in 1939. Interestingly, he was not a member of the General Conference (1882) where he was elected Bishop.

Bishop Hargrove died on 4 August 1905 in Nashville, Tennessee, and was buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Nashville.

[edit] References

Leete, Frederick DeLand, Methodist Bishops. Nashville, The Methodist Publishing House, 1948.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography.