Circuit Riders
Transcribed by: Tina Easley
10/29/2004
In American Methodism circuits were sometimes referred to as a "charge." A pastor would be appointed to the charge by his bishop. During the course of a year he was expected to visit each church on the charge at least once, and possibly start some new ones. At the end of a year the pastors met with the bishop at annual conference, where they would often be appointed to new charges. A charge containing only one church was called a station. The traveling preachers responsible for caring for these societies, or local churches and stations, became known as circuit- riders, or sometimes saddlebag preachers. They traveled light, carrying their belongings and books in their saddlebags. Ranging far and wide through villages and wilderness, they preached daily or more often at any site available be it a log cabin, the local court house, a meeting house, or an outdoor forest setting. Unlike the pastors of settled denominations, these itinerating preachers were constantly on the move. Their assignment was often so large it might take them 5 or 6 weeks to cover the territory.
Earning fifteen dollars a year, being drenched with water, sore from the saddle and exhausted from the three to four hundred mile circuits they had to cover every two to six weeks, the circuit riding preachers of early America were a faithful, strong group of young men, who were committed to their ministry. They struggled along hard trails and through difficult trials, but, with the purpose of telling the nation about God, they could only continue on joyfully, following God's calling in their lives.
Part of the difficulty of the trails that these men blazed was the uncertainty of lodgings. They often stayed with compassionate families on their circuits, or sometimes slept at inns or out in the open. Because of the rigorous journeying and the two-year maximum time the preachers were allowed to travel a particular circuit, it was suggested that the itinerants remained unmarried . This was another factor in making the life of these dedicated men even harder because of the increased loneliness of circuit riding. Some of these ministers did marry, though, and the wives of these men were looked at as models in the communities where their husbands preached.
The early circuit riders preached and travelled at a gruelling pace. Peter Cartwright (1785-1872) wrote in his autobiography: "A Methodist preacher, when he felt that God had called him to preach, instead of hunting up a college or Biblical Institute, hunted up a hardy pony and some travelling apparatus. He went through storms of wind, hail, snow and rain: climbed hills and mountains, traversed valleys, plunged through swamps, swollen streams, lay out all night, wet, weary and hungry slept with his saddle blanket for a bed and his saddlebags for a pillow.
A circuit was
made up of two or more local churches, sometimes referred to as
'societies' by Methodists. These travelling pastors were
responsible for caring for these societies. Ranging far and wide
through villages and wildernesses, they preached daily or more
often at any site available be it a log cabin, a barn, the local
court house, a meeting house or an outdoor forest setting. A
typical circuit could be from 200 to 500 miles in circumference
and it would take a circuit rider about four weeks to complete
the round.
Educationally and socially, the early Methodist preachers were
cut from the same fabric as the farm and artisan families who
madeup the bulk of their audiences. Most of them had nothing more
than a common school education and they received a paltry salary.
In addition to sheer poverry, they were often placed in the worst
accommodation; and yet no matter how crowded, smelly, filthy or
insect-and-disease-ridden the cabins, they were bound by the very
nature of their calling to accept their lodgings without
complaint.
Not only did the preacher face physical hardship, but often he endured persecution. Another rider, Freeborn Garrettson, wrote "I was pursued by the wicked, knocked down and left almost dead on the highway, my face scarred and bleeding, and then imprisoned." It is no wonder that nearly half of the circuit riders died before they were thirty.
Between 1770 and 1820, American Methodists increased in number from fewer than 1,000 members to more than 250,000 and rose from a dozen ministers to more than 4,000. Largely as a result of the zeal and passion of these 'saddlebag preachers', radical Christianity was firmly planted at the frontier of the infant United States of America.
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