TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page, TOC, Forward

CHAP. 1 Apostolic Christianity before Otterbein, p. 1-7

CHAP. 2 William Otterbein and the German Reformed Church, p. 8-16

CHAP. 3 Martin Boehm and the Mennonites, p.17-20

CHAP. 4 German Immigration in the Eighteenth Century, p.21-31

CHAP. 5 The Evangelical Movement among the German Immigrants, p.32-39

CHAP. 6 Early Years of the Church, p.40-43

CHAP. 7 Planting the Church in Virginia, p.44-51

CHAP. 8 Extracts from Newcomer's Journal, p.52-65

CHAP. 9 The Early Preachers, p.66-69

CHAP. 10 Reminiscences of Some of the Early Preachers, p.70-88

CHAP.11 The Transition from German to English, p.89-93

CHAP.12 The Church in the War of 1861, p.94-98

CHAP.13 The Church in Recent Times, p.99-105

CHAP.14 Movements toward Union with Other Churches, p.106-112

CHAP.15 Concerning Slavery and Intoxicants, p.113-118

CHAP.16 Concerning Secret Societies, p.119-123

CHAP.17 List of Preachers: Chronological, p.124-130

CHAP.18 List of Preachers: Alphabetical, p.131-146

CHAP.19 Bishops, Missionaries, and Others, p.147-154

CHAP.20 Biographical Sketches of Ministers, p.155-189

CHAP.21 Early Deaths among Ministers, p.190-192

CHAP.22 Church Dedications, p.193-202

CHAP.23 Sketch of A. P. Funkhouser, p.203-213

CHAP.24 The Church and Education, p.214-219

CHAP.25 The Virginia Conference School, p.220-223

CHAP.[26] 27 A Digest of the Conference Minutes, p.224-309

CHARGES, 1921, p.309

CONFERENCE ROLL, 1921, p.310-312

GENERAL INDEX, p.313-315

NOTICE OF ATTRIBUTION

Work originally published in 1921.

Scanned, proofed and minor spelling corrections by the United Brethren Historical Center.

Electronic edition ©2006 United Brethren Historical Center

Suggested Citation:
[Identification of Item]. Available at the United Brethren Historical Center website; http://www.huntington.
edu/ubhc/publications/ebooks/
virginia/virginiatitle.htm

History of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Virginia Conference

by A. P. Funkhouser

CHAPTER VI

EARLY YEARS OF THE CHURCH

In the early conferences of the United Brethren, business was a very subordinate matter. There were no committees. Everything done was done by the body as a whole. Circuits were laid out by the preachers themselves and not by the conference. The preachers met for mutual encouragement and spent nearly all the session in religious services. It is therefore easy to account for the brevity of the minutes of these conferences.

The conferences of 1789 and 1791 were in the nature of informal, advisory meetings between two de facto bishops and the small band of local preachers working under their direction. Otterbein and Boehm acted as bishops, but there was no definite organization to elect them to the office. The primary object of these two assemblages was mutual advice and consultation. This fact helps to bring out the progressive nature of what began as a movement and gradually developed into a compact organization.

The United Brethren movement was one of the results of the revival period of 1750-1825. It was very hard to reform the old German congregations and bring them to the New Testament standard of law and order. Otterbein's flock at Lancaster was disorderly, and like some others it had been in the hands of incompetent pastors. The fathers of the United Brethren denomination were committed to the idea of a spiritual church. They were not designedly "come-outers." Yet they could not stay in the church homes that had reared them, because of the narrow and vituperative conservatism which could not brook any change in the old order of things.

The followers of the new movement had not been known by any general name. Such terms as "the Brethren," "the Unsectarian," and "the Liberty People" were applied to them. Still other designations were the "New

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Reformed" and the "New Mennonites." Sometimes the names of the leaders would be used, and they would be styled "Otterbein's People," or "Boehm's People." There were also semi-independent groups of Mennonites, such as "Light's People," who were drifting toward the new church. In 1820 Peter Cartwright speaks of a tavern-keeper at Knoxville, Tennessee, whom he calls an "Otterbein Methodist."

As a distinct church the United Brethren sect begins with the meeting held in September, 1800, at the house of Peter Kemp, two miles west of Frederick, Maryland. Fourteen preachers appeared. Their two-day meeting did not call itself a general conference, although it exercised the functions of one. It chose a name for the new denomination and it elected bishops.

It seems to have been easy for these men to agree on the name by which the church has ever since been known. It was not enough to use the simpler form of "United Brethren," because this was already the official name of the Moravian body. To avoid uncertainty, especially in matters that might involve questions in law, the words "in Christ" were added.

William Otterbein and Martin Boehm, who were already bishops in effect, were now elected as such. Otterbein was now seventy-four years of age and Boehm was seventy-five.

The first printed Discipline says this of the first conference: "The preachers were obliged to appoint an annual conference in order to unite themselves more closely, and to labor more successfully in the vineyard of the Lord; for some had been Presbyterian, or German Reformed, some Lutherans, and others Menonists."

In 1801 came the beginning of an itinerant system, ten men consenting to travel as directed by the bishops, instead of laying out circuits for themselves. Still more method was introduced into the system by the conference of 1802. One or two of the preachers would agree to serve as presiding elders. The action taken in this matter was generally informal and usually unanimous.

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Ever since the meeting at Kemp's, there has been a regular and uninterrupted succession of general conferences. Until 1810 there was but one annual conference for the entire church. The first new conference was the Miami, set off in that year. In 1829 the Eastern, or original, Conference was divided into the Hagerstown and Harrisburg conferences, the former including the Virginia territory, and the latter becoming the Pennsylvania Conference. The first conference to be definitely known as a general conference was held in June, 1815, in a log schoolhouse of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. It adopted a Confession of Faith, substantially the same as that of 1789, and Rules of Discipline, based on those of Otterbein's church in Baltimore. The Discipline was ordered to be printed, but only in German. However, the next general conference, that of 1817, ordered that 100 copies of the Revised Discipline be printed in English. This book includes forms for the ceremony of marriage and the ordination of bishops and ministers. The Confession of Faith "rests on the Apostles' Creed and the New Testament, and adds only those necessary specifications in regard to the application and mission of the gospel that even the simplest of the later creeds have been compelled to include. The creed might be called a working creed for a revival people."*

In 1841 the Confession of Faith was revised and a Constitution adopted. These remained in force until 1889.

It had now been half a century since the meeting of Otterbein and Boehm in Long's barn. The early fathers of the United Brethren had passed away. Thirteen years more and the ministry had ceased to be exclusively local. The pioneer period in the history of the church may therefore be considered to close in 1830.

Of the three leading fathers of the church, Otterbein was the skilled theologian. He was eloquent and argumentative, and his elucidation of Scriptural truth was exceptionally clear. Boehm was essentially an exhorter, and

*Drury.

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his appeal was to the feelings. Geeting was regarded by Henry Boehm as the greatest orator among the United Brethren.

It is well for us to speak further of George Adam Geeting, whose name in German tongue is spelled Guething. He came to America in his youth, and settled about 1759 on Antietam Creek near the present town of Keedysville. In winter he taught school and in the warm weather he quarried rock and dug wells. He seems to have been converted through the preaching of Otterbein and he at once became an earnest Christian. For a while he read printed sermons to his congregation. Discerning that Geeting was capable of doing better than this, Otterbein had a friend come up behind the young preacher and take the book out of his hand. Geeting was thus thrown back on his own resources, yet delivered an impressive discourse. In 1783 he was ordained as a minister of the Reformed Church. The Geeting meeting house, a small log building dating from a little before the beginning of the Revolution, is believed to have been the first house of worship built by Otterbein's followers of the revival movement. Otterbein was too heavy a man to be cast out of the Reformed Church, yet Geeting was expelled for "wildly fanatical" preaching that was at variance with "decency and order." Thenceforward, his home was with the new church, of which he has been called the St. John, and also the Apollos. He was the traveling companion and adviser of Otterbein. His house was a favorite stopping place for Newcomer and other early preachers. His meeting house was an Antioch to the young church and many revivals took place here. Geeting died in 1812 at the age of seventy-three years. Otterbein, Boehm, and Geeting were the "clover leaf" of the early church, and their departure occurred at nearly the same time. This coincidence, coming as it did in the formative period of the church, had a depressing effect. Much depended on the new leadership that became necessary.

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