October 2003 - Tower - Page 11
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Historically Speaking
Louise Fox, Church Historian
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have a deep love for our church history, but of
course, I realize that other churches also have
interesting histories. One of my dear first
cousins living in Mathews County (once a part of
Gloucester County) where my mother and her
ancestors have lived since the
1600s, sent me a copy of
the church history of Saint
Paul United Methodist
Church (1792-1992) in Susan
(Mathews County) where my mother, who was
born there in 1893 grew up. That church was
the very source of her spiritual and social life. It
was first known as Point Comfort Church,
founded in 1792, just two years after the
separation of Mathews County from Gloucester
County.
I am deeply indebted to Mrs. Lady Brownly Hudgins for much of this information. She has served for many years as St. Paul's church historian. Their early preachers were circuit riders who often had as many as eight or ten churches, and "due to the almost impossible roads, and (or) no roads at all, made their rounds on horse back carrying the Bible and a few bare necessities in saddlebags." Mrs. Brownly continues as follows:
No parsonage was provided for the early circuit rider and, no doubt, it would have been of little use as he spent much of his time in the saddle, and the good folk of his many churches vied with each other for the chance to make a contribution to the Cause by furnishing a meal and a bed for the preacher and a stall for his horse; the young people of the home, and often the older ones, willingly vacated their beds and slept on pallets on the floor in order to give him the best bed, sometimes the only one.
Ninety-eight years after Point Comfort was built, there came to the circuit in November
1890, Daniel Gregory Claiborne Butts, (later better known as Dr. D.G.C. Butts). It is a coincidence that Dr. Butts came to our church as our first preacher in November the same month that he went to Saint Paul's, but in 1919 after he had planned to retire.
Dr. Butts is described in St. Paul's church history as "a small man in stature, but large in many other ways." He was a circuit rider, going from church to church on horseback. Point Comfort, as it was first called, now felt a need for a bigger and better church building, and under the leadership of Dr. Butts, a new church was erected, just 100 years after the Point Comfort building was started. When the church was dedicated, it was renamed for the great apostle, Saint Paul.
Another one of Saint Paul's preachers in the early 1900s was John D. Hosier, who served our church from 1927-1933. These were the Depression years, and while he was at our church he did carpenter work, his hobby, for free, often even furnishing the materials. He worked on the second floor of our wooden church building to give the church more Sunday School space. He also did something most remarkable -- he requested a cut in his salary because of the hardship the church members were experiencing from the Great Depression. While Mr. Hosier was at St. Paul's he had made the pulpit for the church in 1915.
How interesting it is to find the interconnection among our churches. A further example of this is when Dr. Butts was ready to retire from Central United Methodist Church in Hampton, the Conference requested that he go to Hilton Village to begin a church there. After three years of service he retired for good, naming his new home across the James River, "Dun Movin."
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If you have any comments on any of these pages, please email me: Robert W.(Bob) Mckitrick, thanks.
Last update: October11, 2003