A History Of The Rise Of Methodism In America - Media Sabda Org

For a hundred years after Philadelphia was settled, Dock Creek was the great harbor for shipping
in the city. It has been affirmed, that it was because this creek promised such protection to vessels,
that William Penn selected and sanctioned the site where Philadelphia now stands. Into this creek
nearly all the vessels, at that day, discharged their cargoes; and most of the commercial business was
transacted on and near its shores. At present, the stranger would not suppose this from the aspect of
this region.
While Captain Webb was traversing the shores of the Delaware river from Trenton to New Castle,
he did not pass by Bristol, in Bucks Co., Pa., without giving the people of this ancient borough a call
to repent and believe the gospel. Mr. Louis Kinsey, now more than seventy years old, and among the
oldest Methodists of the region, informed us that he had heard his father relate that Mr. Webb
preached in Bristol under a tree, near the spot where the Methodists have had their place of worship
for nearly two generations.
Bristol was made a market town in 1697. Joseph Chorley was licensed to keep the ferry between
the end of his lane and Burlington. The Methodist preachers labored in Bristol for a number of years
before a permanent society existed.
Among those who were awakened under Mr. Webb's ministry in Bucks county, Pa., was Dr.
Rodman: he, like Captain Webb, had lost an eye in the wars. This Rodman family had much to do
in founding then Bensalem Methodist Meeting. Dr. Rodman's grand daughter is the wife of the Rev.
James Hand of the Philadelphia Conference.
To the account of the introduction of Methodism into Trenton, New Jersey, found on page 52, [no
pages in electronic edition -- see Chapter 5, paragraph 11, beginning with the clause: "Trenton was
founded in 1719..." -- DVM] we add, on information recently received, that Mr. Joseph Toy was an
official man among the early Methodists of Trenton, as well as among the Burlington Methodists.
Mr. Toy was a school teacher -- a man of good education for that day; and subsequently presided
over the mathematical department of Cokesbury College, before he entered the itinerancy of the
Methodist Episcopal ministry.
Tradition gives the following account of the introduction of Methodism into the region of Bethel,
in Brandywine Hundred, above Wilmington, in Delaware; -- Miss Sebra Cloud, sister of Robert
Cloud, Senr., and aunt of the Rev. Robert Cloud, had fallen in with the Methodists about New Castle
and Wilmington, and had been awakened and brought to taste the sweets of pardon and peace; she
returned to her brother and persuaded him to have Methodist preaching in his house, -- thus Robert
Cloud's house became a stand for Methodist preaching. A small society was raised up; and Robert
Cloud, Senr., gave the ground on which Cloud's chapel (a log house) was built. Bethel stands on the
same lot. The farm on which Robert Cloud lived is now owned by a local preacher -- Thomas
Zebley, by name. Two of Robert Cloud's sons, namely, Robert and Adam, were traveling preachers.
We conversed with a Mrs. Harvey once, who, at the age of eighty, informed us that she heard
Captain Webb preach in Cloud's neighborhood: this must have been prior to 1776, as Mr. Webb took
his final leave of this country in 1775.