Wesleyan Methodist
The Wesleyan Methodist is a split from the Methodist Episcopal Church on the question of slavery. Some of the old line Methodists were slave owners, and those opposed to human slavery seeded from the church. The leader among them in Grant County was Rev. Alfred Tharp. Believing in emancipation principles, Rev. Tharp organized several Wesleyan classes, and was an active member of Westfield, long since abandoned as a place of worship. Sampson Reeves, of the same community, was another prominent Wesleyan, although he lived much later than Rev. Tharp. The first Wesleyan Church in the county was on the site of Gethsemane, organized by Rev. Tharp and later owned by Moses Bradford, and it was as much of an abolition center as any church in Grant County. Rev. Tharp died in 1848, but several churches owe their existence to him. There are now three Wesleyan Churches in Marion, one in Fairmount, where there is a Wesleyan Theological Institute, one at Roseburg, Fowlerton, Wesleyan Back Creek, and the farthest north is Fairview. There have always been missions and there is one in Gas City. While slavery was the reason of its origin, the Wesleyan Church teaches justification by faith, entire sanctification, and the subsequent work of regeneration wrought in the human heart by the Hold Spirit.
Among the prominent early Wesleyans were Rev. Tharp, Rev. Reeves, Rev. Isaac Meeks (who organized several schoolhouse classes), Enoch Marsh and William Lacey. Rev. Lacey, who was an Abolitionist, had the distinction of having helped Eliza of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" across the Ohio when she was a refugee. He died at the home of Riley Howell, and at that time the Wesleyans were as active un underground railroad operations as the Quakers. Moses Bradford always having a station in Marion, then his home, in the edge of Washington Township. While Mrs. Bradford never had any secrecy about his slaves in hiding, he never lost any of them and would often mislead their owners in search of the negroes and yet know absolutely nothing of any refugees that were being hotly pursued, and once when he had six negroes in hiding, he came to Eugene Norton's store and asked him for $5 toward their support, and at the expense of his patronage Mr. Norton was forced to give him the money. He had no more use for an Abolitionist than a negro, but he produced the money, saying: "Take it, Moses, and lead them on to the Promised Land." Thus everybody knew Mr. Bradford was a Wesleyan Abolitionist.
There have been women among the Wesleyan ministers, and one time Mrs. Leah Moore, mother of the late Mrs. Deborah Moore Wall, was preaching at Fairview while the war cloud still hovered over Grant County. Her text, "Blessed is the Nation Whose God is the Lord," is well remembered by some who heard her masterful appeal against the institution of slavery. Mrs. Moore died in 1864 at the home of Abram Goodykoontz. She organized the Wesleyan Church in Fairmount. On the cold New Year, 1864, she preached at Wesleyan Back Creek and took a cold, which resulted in her death in January. Prominent among Wesleyan laymen of an early day were Christopher Sears, Ziba Marine, William Bartholomew, Riley Howell, William Cox, and many others who were as active in putting down slavery as the Quakers, who were nearly all Abolitionists at the time slaves were making their way across Grant County toward Canada, that "cold and dreary land" where they were safe from their pursuers -the planters from the south.
Centennial History of Grant County, Indiana 1812-1912
The Lewis Publishing Company, 1914