Vol 2, pages 1-100 - My Primitive Methodist Ancestors

46 PKIMITIVE METHODIST CHURCH.
stations as such, and, in 1825, Ashton, together with Hyde and Dukinfield, were
transferred from Manchester to Oldham ;
and in 1838, these and other places
became the Stalybridge Circuit.
Ashton made full amends for the rough treatment of our early missionaries by
some of its inhabitants. It has paid a large indemnity, by which the Connexion has
been enriched. As a set-off to the hustling of Walton Carter and the imprisonment
of S. Waller, it has sent forth some of its sons who have done splendid service.
The Ashton society was instrumental in the conversion of three young men who were
companions. One of these was James Austerbury, now spending a quiet evening after
serving the Church at home long and faithfully the second was
;
Edward Crompton,
who after spending some years in the ministry in this country, entered that of the
Primitive Methodist Church of the U. S. A. ;
the third was John Standrin, who prior
to his being sent out in 1857 by the G. M. Committee to Australia, travelled in the
Knowlwood Circuit 1854-55. During revivalistic services which he conducted at
Summit, on the Lancashire side of the Pennine range, a group of young men were
won to the Church, some of whom were to carve their name deep in the history
of our Church during the middle and later periods of its history. When we say that
one of these was James Travis, another John Slater, and a third Barnabas Wild, long
esteemed in the Sunderland District as a solid preacher and an upbuilder of the
churches, it will be seen that Ashton is an interesting
which, in the providence of
God, have produced far-reaching results.
ROCHDALE ;
STOCKPORT.
link in the chain of causes
Rochdale was part of the Manchester Circuit until 1837, when it became the head
of a station with five hundred members. We know the exact date when our missionaries
first lifted up their voice in this important town. It was July 15th, 1821, when
Walton Carter " went to open Rochdale," as he himself has told us. " Three of our
society," he says, " went with me. We sang up the street at one o'clock, and collected
a good many people. But heavy rain coming on, I was obliged to desist ;
but resumed
my place at five, and preached to a very large and attentive congregation. Some were
affected, and I have heard since were brought to God."
The heavy rain here referred to may have been the identical rain-storm which, as
Jonathan Ireland avers, led Jenny Bridges to take pity on the missionary, and offer
him. the shelter of her cellar in Cheetham Street for the service. Anyway, the cellar
was Rochdale's first lowly preaching-place. The tenants of the cellar, John Bridges,
the carrier, and his wife, must be numbered among the eccentrics of our Israel, yet
one trait in Jane's character may be recalled to her credit. Reverence may show itself
in cellar as well as in cathedral ;
and for that particular flag in her own cellar whereon
Jane knelt when she found peace through believing, she had ever a feeling akin to
reverence. She kept
it clean. She pointed
it out to visitors. To her it was a spot as
sacred as an adorned altar.
From the cellar, a remove was made, in 1825, to a room in Packer Meadow, off
Packer Street. The remove was a step upward in the scale of respectability ;
for we
are told that Packer Street (of
which we give a view, taken from an old print), was,