WEST CHAPEL

1996 Camp County "Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin."1996 Camp County "Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin."


1883	Page 100 Rev. W. R. Grundy, the true and great, succeeded me as pastor. Notwithstanding that he had much with which to contend, he wrought a good work. Grundy was a true type of the primitive preacher, never careful about his dress or appearance. He was a man of prayer and a great power as a Christian minister. He located at Pittsburg, Tex., in 1883.
	Page 104 Closing at Universe, I passed on to Chapel Hill. The quarterly meeting there was very large--larger than some of the District Conferences which I attended in the West. Benjamin Goodacre, George Jackson, and Edward Anderson were wheel horses at Chapel Hill; also Holt, Jesse Warren, Stephen Oliver, Green Morehead, Aaron Moland, Jacob Warren, and Moses Goodacre were men who could not be beaten at this place. Mrs. F. A. Warren, Aunt Goodacre, Vinia Oliver, Catherine Holt, Eliza Mitchell, Sarah Black, Vinia Anderson, and the Mrs. Mosleys were all truly great women. They were true wives, clean housekeepers, and as pure as fine linen. I like to recall those days, because in so doing I am refreshed and thus richly rewarded for the struggles of those days of toil and joy. I did my very best at Chapel Hill in the way of preaching, because the way in which the people assembled made them deserving of the very best. They came up manfully to the help of the stewards. I remained here several days with Rev. H. P. Hollingsworth, the pastor, and his people. I next went to Starville, where I met a vast crowd, largely mixed with white people. My text was from John i. 17. Mr. Samuel Waters was the most celebrated steward there; and when he called for help, the whites gave their dollars and remarked that the new elder was as sharp as a brier. That was a grand time with Methodists. Brothers Pinkston, Mosley, William Webb, Alexander, John Pinkston, and Richard Burchard were the lights in the Starville Church.
	Page 112 Conference assembled about two o'clock in the afternoon. It was a fine-looking set of men, among whom were Lewis Robertson, Ben Robertson, R. Lee, Jack Cole, and others. We soon learned that there was a division among the brethren. I confined my inquiries to the main questions of the Discipline. Finishing these, I was ready to listen to all things the brethren had to say touching the pastor's removal. I soon discover that the whole trouble was the result of Elder Taylor's interfering with the affairs of the charge; so I dismissed the case with a request that the brethren uphold their preacher in charge. Nearly all seemed willing to do this. When I signed the journal, I took pains to state that the cause of the trouble was attributed mainly to Elder Taylor's leaving the Pittsburg District to interfere at Shiloh with Rev. Lloyd's business.
1878	Page 124 The year 1878 was a splendid year throughout the entire Church. Many souls found precious deliverance from sin and Satan through faith in the Son of God. The Revs. Hollingsworth, Hagler, Lowe, Roberts, Whiten, and Mimms set the district ablaze with their spiritual zeal and hallowed fire. The greater portion of the Marshall District was added to the Tyler District, thus giving me nine counties over which to travel. Longridge Circuit was composed of Center Academy, Longridge, Sunny Point, and Shady Grove. It was on this circuit that a great work was accomplished through good old Brother Daniel Mimms, Robert Roberts, E. E. Bowens, Walker Garrett, Thomas Price, M. Bell, York Goff, K. Hardy, King Smith, and Hilburn. They were true officers and men of rare abilities. It was on this circuit that Elder Mimms had licensed me to preach seven years previous to this. The Annual Conference met at Pittsburg that fall, with the good Bishop Lane presiding. This was a very good and profitable session, all things being considered. Rev. Grundy played an important part in making this Conference quite interesting. Some very nice families are to be found in and around Pittsburg. The Rev. P. J. Jones resides here. I saw in Pittsburg something that I have never seen in any other town in Texas. It was a white man with a colored wife.
1879	Page 128 The most noted event of 1879, perhaps, was the Blue Spring Camp Meeting, held by Rev. H. P. Hollingsworth, near Chapel Hill. I was a curiosity in that part of the country. Thousands attended the meetings night and day. W. R. Grundy, O. T. Womack, Robert E. Hagler, and J. R. Wages did the preaching, and it was good preaching indeed. I sang all the good songs I knew. I made "Jerusalem City" ring for miles around. Sister Warren seemed to have taken greatest delight in my singing.
	Page 131 Not long afterwards we joined Rev. D. Mimms in a meeting held by him at Shady Grove. Rev. A. Taylor, a Baptist minister, accompanied us. When we arrived at the church, we found that services had begun. George Roberts, a local Baptist preacher, was preaching. The brethren came out and requested me to do some of my best preaching. "For we are on a rock," they said, "and it requires hard preaching here to get us off." Grundy said laughingly: "Put me up. I'll set 'em up. Won't I, Joe?" "Yes, you will," I assented. But the brethren knew nothing of Grundy's ability as a preacher, and to them it was no time for experimenting; and, besides, they thought he was joking. Grundy, adjusting his tooth and snuff brush most vigorously, would roll his big white eyes at them in a regular backwoods manner which was very amusing. Finally the evening services were begun. Elder Mimms put Grundy up to preach.
1883	Page 177 1883 Conference met at Pittsburg, Tex.
1884	Page 178 The Annual Conference of 1884 convened at Crockett, with Bishop L. H. Holsey presiding. A pleasant time was had, and all things went off nicely, so far as the Conference work was concerned. At this Conference Bishop Holsey assigned me to the Leesburg Circuit. I was no stranger to the officials here, as most of them knew me by some means before I visited the circuit. Hon. George Jones was head and shoulders above the West Chapel division, and was one of the soundest Christians I ever met. Bob Caldwell was a great man. He was generally liberal toward the Church, and this counted for much when it is remembered that he was a man of considerable means and influence. Dennis Bufford and D. Ladd stood head at Mt. Lebanon, a church in the piney woods of Upshur County. The house had no door or window shutters. Nothing praiseworthy can be said of Mt. Lebanon. They would not finish their church nor build another. It was cold here, and the wintry winds made it very uncomfortable to worship at that season of the year. When spring set in and the birds were all out in beautiful plumage and with sweet songs, the seed ticks would cover one and almost drive him insane. Notwithstanding all this, I liked Mt. Lebanon. Joe Culberson, Christon, and others stood head at Oak Grove Church. Henry Williams was collecting steward at Mt. Zion. Mr. Joe Mangum was the old chief among the sinners, yet he was a free-hearted gentleman with his means. In fact, he was the wealthiest negro in that part of the country. Mr. Stephen Waddleton and Mr. Stephen Meadows were truly good citizens and good Christians, and they possessed good farms. Mr. Abe Mangum was a splendid man, one whom everybody respected very highly. Of the four Churches, Mt. Zion thought more of its pastor than any of the rest, and the people seemed always ready and willing to come out to enjoy preaching. At each monthly meeting they paid the pastor by roll call, and generally all paid their dimes. At Conference we were only ten dollars short of the claims. Oak Grove stood second in 1885 and 1886. West Chapel stood first in 1885, but fourth and last in 1886. I made a mistake in moving my family to West Chapel in 1886. Wife was very much displeased with the place. This and some of the people made it harder on me.
1886	Page 182 The Bishop read out his appointments for 1886, returning me to the Leesburg Circuit. I had hoped for a better appointment; but it was thought that, as I had done so well on that circuit--purchasing a one-hundred- and-eighty-dollar bell, building a new church, and adding ninety-three souls to the Church--I should be returned and allowed to finish the work so well begun. But it proved a delusion. The Caldwell faction and the Jones faction squabbled about the school. Caldwell was the great schoolman, and Jones was the great churchman. It had been the rule to run a ten months' session during the year--seven months' free school and three months' subscription school at one dollar and fifty cents per month for each student. Now, in order to do this the two factions had always pulled together; but owing to short crops that year, Jones foresaw the impossibility of paying the preacher and running a pay school at the same time. The teacher had married the daughter of Mr. Caldwell, the great school champion, and the refusal to carry on the ten months' session was regarded as a stroke at the school champion and his family. He withdrew his aid from the Church, thus weakening its financial interests. The general claims necessarily went up minus a few dollars, and the pastor fell seventy-five dollars short in his own claims. Such was the result of the division in the West Chapel community that Conference year. I paid dearly, I thought, for these two leaders' differences. It was no fault of mine, and yet I sustained the greatest loss. I held my peace by holding my tongue, for both were good to me. Prof. Joseph Anderson was teacher, and carried on one of the best schools in Texas. He has prepared and equipped some of the best teachers to be found in the public school service in the State. Our friend, R. A. Caldwell, was deserving of praise for the successful prosecution of the grand work. I have never seen a colored man more devoted to the educational interests of his race than Mr. Caldwell. Though I liked them all, I had decided not to serve them again as pastor.
	Autobiography and Work of Bishop M. F. Jamison, D.D. ("Uncle Joe") Editor, Publisher, and Church Extension Secretary; a Narration of His Whole Career from the Cradle to the Bishopric of the Colored M. E. Church in America Jamison, M. F. (Monroe Franklin), 1848-1918 Nashville, TN: Published for the Author by the Publishing House of the M. E. Church, 1912. 206 p. Courtesy of The University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"The American Missionary Association is doing more to quicken the hopes and aspirations of the Southern Negro, more toward arousing the Southern white man to educate himself, and more toward bringing the two races to an acknowledgment of each other's rights, than any other similar institution in the country.

In the summer of 1884, near Leesburg, Texas, a well-appointed Negro school was burned by the whites of that community. The colored people, seeing their hope of years in ashes, advertised their little holdings for sale, and prepared to leave in a body. But the whites offered to supplement the insurance on the former building and to re-build the school, if the colored people would remain in the community. The terms were accepted, and now West Chapel, which is the name of the school, is excellently furnished and has a $200 bell upon it, and is the best known school in Northeast Texas. Previous to the burning of West Chapel, the whites were continually distracted by factional fights. There was general apathy with regard to improvement in any way whatever. Their teachers were always of the inferior class. But, when they found that the colored people would have a school, they decided to have one also. The colored people bought a bell. So did they. The colored people had a foreign teacher. So must they have one, and they paid $750 a year for him. One of the white citizens of the locality summed the situation up thus:—"West Chapel is to the whites what a coal of fire is on the back of a terrapin." This school was organized by a Fisk student and has ever since been taught by students of Fisk. Thus is the A.M.A. lifting up the Negro directly and the whites indirectly, and establishing friendly relations between the two.

But this is no isolated case. The story is the same wherever the educated Negro comes in contact with the whites. At one time, our school was so far in advance of the white school, that I was told by my school director that "no high-learnt teacher was wanted to teach 'Nigger Schools,'" and I was actually driven from my school by threats of violence.

The North can better understand the work of the American Missionary Association, when it is fully understood that the presence of Fisk University in Nashville brought about the existence of Vanderbilt University. When Fisk began to send out her graduates as refined and upright gentlemen, and the newspapers were enthusiastic in their accounts of its literary and musical exhibitions, the white people said; "We must have a university in Nashville also."