Rev. John C. Ley - Circuit Riding In 1840s Florida
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Rev. John C. Ley - Circuit Riding In 1840’s Florida
Edited by Spessard Stone from Rev. Ley’s article, originally published in the Florida Times-Union And Citizen of Jacksonville, Florida of March 24, 1907. Comments are enclosed in parentheses.
In the winter of 1844 the Georgia conference of the Methodist church held its session in Eatonton. Here a call was made for volunteers to go to Florida, where, under the order of the general conference, an annual conference was to be organized. Eight of us responded.
The conference was organized in Tallahassee, February 6, 1845 with Bishop (Joshua) Soule residing and 21 members in all. (There were in fact 34 members, of whom only 22 were full members. Of the other twelve, five had been previously admitted on trial, and five more, including Ley, were admitted on trial at Tallahassee.)
Its bounds were Fort Gaines, Albany and the Altamaha on the north, the Atlantic on the east, Key West on the south, the Gulf of Mexico and the Apalachicola on the west.
My first charge in the conference was Ocean Pond mission. Rev. A. J. Devours had partially organized the mission the previous fall, and we completed it, to the number of sixteen, preaching places in the houses of the settlers. It extended from Fort Call on the south to the Okefenokee swamp on the north, from Bryants in Hamilton county west, to Yelington in Camden county east and required a horseback ride of over 200(?) miles for each round.
There being no roads, except such as had been blazed out for military purposes during the war; the missionary substantially had to travel by course. Sometimes, a pocket compass was a necessity.
Its population was immigrants from other states, who for the fine range had brought their cattle and settled in groups of say, five to twenty families for mutual protection from the Indians and wild beasts.
There was no church, school house, or postoffice in the mission. The missionary went each round for his mail to Newnansville.
The country was generally open pine woods, and during the greater part of the year, there was no great trouble in getting from place to place, but during the rainy season the Santa Fe, New River, the head branches of the St. Marys, Cypress creek, etc., became swimming and often the missionary had to shoulder his saddle-bags, ride into a stream and come out on the other side pretty well washed, ride several miles and preach in wet clothes.
But again a kind host would walk before him some miles, conduct him to a log upon which he could walk over, then swim his horse and bring him to the log on the other side, leaving the parson dry, to go to the next appointment.
At that time there was a law (whether written or otherwise) that every settler should keep in his house a rifle and a certain amount of ammunition.
The preaching place was generally the largest house in the settlement. As many of the congregation generally dined with the host, after dinner one would say to his neighbor, “Let’s go by such a head and kill a deer.”
If the reader will excuse the apparent levity of the story, I will here relate an incident of this year’s experience.
It was customary to have preaching at least twice on Sunday and having preached in the morning at Schetroknes, some of the congregation accompanying us, we started for Fort White for the second service.
When about half way thither, we saw two 
bears in the open pine woods. One of our company started at full speed and about half a mile overtook and passed them. The bears separated and the larger turned back and followed the track he had gone over, nearly meeting us.
The rider exchanged horses with his father and sent one of the company back for gun and dogs, the other, by flanking, kept the bear in a circle. The dogs and guns came, and the next day we ate bear meat.
In 1850, at Ocala, we sat at a sumptuous table eating Thanksgiving dinner. Geo. M. amused the party by a story in about these words, “I have recently been in Columbia county. Mr. M. ____ is considered a very great man up there. They told me that one Sunday morning he preached a great sermon and baptized a number of children, then ate dinner, after which he went to another appointment and preached the same evening and received a number of persons into the church.”
The reader will see that some of this was added by way of embellishment. The story, however, illustrates the difference between then and now.
This year (1845) Florida was admitted into the Union as a state. We had, of course, to elect two United States senators and one representative to congress besides a full legislature.
Of course there was plenty of political excitement. True we had not many newspapers to throw mud and to call each other by all manner of names making the unsophisticated believe that our chief men were escaped convicts, but notwithstanding there was scandal enough to make those not acquainted with politics blush for the honor of the state.
But the people were kind, and the hard names were only used for getting office for themselves, their friends, or their party.
In May and June of this year, I, by request, accompanied my presiding elder, Rev. J. W. Yarbrough, around his district, which extended from Georgia to Tampa.
There was continual arrivals of immigrants. The armed occupation law giving to each settler 160 acres of land for the purpose of settling out the Indians, and requiring each settler to live upon his land, build a house fit for the habitation of man, and cultivate as much as five acres of the soil, had passed Congress, and hundreds availed themselves of this opportunity of becoming land owners.
The settlers were generally unmarried men. Others left their families at home and came to secure the prize of 160 acres of land, for, of course there were no mills, no stores, no churches, no schools.
The houses of the best were built of poles, puncheon floors, weather boarding roofs of board split out by hand, generally of one room, but now and then two rooms and a passage.
The common sort were four fork poles fastened to the earth with grapes, weather boarded and covered with the broad leaves of the palm, the earth for a floor, pine leaves for carpets and an oblong square pile of moss for beds. And out of doors for kitchen and all other purposes. For diet the leading article was potatoes.
Thus lived hundreds of people who had enjoyed home and comforts before their immigration.
They were kind and hospitable as neighbors, they were ever ready to help a neighbor, any traveler was made a welcomed guest, the missionary was always greeted with pleasure and when he preached they would assemble for miles to hear the word.
All were happy to receive him, and set the best they had before him and gave him the best place to sleep, where he could enjoy the serenade of the hoot of the owl, the scream of the panther, and howl of the wolves.
I often think of these joys and pray for the blessings of our Heavenly Father to rest upon those kind immigrants, their children and children’s children.
This article was published in The Herald-Advocate (Wauchula, Fla.) of October 18, 2001.
Friday, October 19, 2001