Hi Everyone, Sorry I was away from my mail digging in the Ohio archives trying to make some sense out of them. I only got through E then needed a break. The Maggie_Ohio list has been discussing circuit riders in Ohio and I am posting this to my mailing list as it is useful information for all. I found the following URL's of interest on the Internet: http://www.crds.edu/abhs.htm AMERICAN BAPTIST-SAMUEL COLGATE HISTORICAL LIBRARY ------------------- http://www.abc-usa.org/ American Baptist Churches in the USA. ------------------- http://www.nci2000.net/cotsum/history.htm Church History (Church of the Savior United Methodist Church in Canton , Ohio) The tiny village of Canton was scarcely more than two years old when the first Methodist circuit rider -- the Rev. Mr. James Watts -- arrived in 1808. The inhabitants of the town numbered less than 30 that year, but by the time Canton was incorporated 14 years later the population was just a little short of 2000. Methodist meetings were held at first in members' homes, later in the log court-house, the frame school house, and finally in the newly-built brick two-story school building on the site of present-day Timken High. The Wills Creek Circuit as laid out by Mr. Watts covered 475 miles, and included in addition to Canton, Zanesville, Cambridge, Coshocton, New Philadelphia and 20 other stops. The circuit riders were sturdy souls who braved untold hardships in the course of attending to the religious needs of the early settlers. As we look back to that humble beginning so many years ago, as we trace through the pages of history the long and arduous paths of our devoutly dedicated forbears, feelings of awe, admiration and gratitude well up within us for those generations whose bonds of Christian love put church above self as they built for the future. Today as we worship on the ground they consecrated and hallowed, we reap the bountiful fruits of their labors. -------------------------- http://www.familytreemaker.com/5_grnwd.html Family Tree Maker's Guide to Locating Church Records -------------------------- http://rylibweb.man.ac.uk/data1/dg/methodist/methcats.html Link for researching Methodist Ministers -------------------------- Maggie !^NavFont02F075E000ENGHHHeNN59HN6069CF Maggie's World of Courthouse Dust & Genealogy Fever http://www.infinet.com/~dzimmerm/mindex.html *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* God Put Me On Earth to Accomplish a Certain Number of Things. Right Now I am so far behind, I will never die. --- Unknown *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*