The life of a circuit-riding preacher in central Pennsylvania was not an easy one. 

The Methodist system, as devised by John Wesley, was based on classes and circuits. Half a dozen people could band together into a class, which met weekly under a class leader. When there were several classes in an area, a circuit was set up and a preacher appointed. A circuit was typically two weeks (12 preaching points) with one preacher, four weeks (24 preaching points) with two preachers, or six weeks (36 preaching points) with three preachers. Each appointment received preaching every two weeks.

Historians report that the circuit rider preacher made his appearance in the North Branch Valley almost as soon as the settlers had arrived. A story in a 1935 Columbia County newspaper account reported, “Educated beyond their hearers, they were highly esteemed even though their gospel message was not always heeded and the response was not generous.”

One of those preachers was William Colbert, who preached in the North and West Branches of the Susquehanna Valley. He kept a detailed diary of his experiences. Colbert had a missionary field that included an area from Huntington to Northumberland and into New York and up the West Branch of the Susquehanna River to Jersey Shore. Called the Northumberland circuit, Reverend Colbert covered the area in 1792, 1793 and 1797, and 1798. His missionary journey began in Abington, Maryland in April of 1792, and he arrived in Northumberland on May 27th.

As he made the circuit up the North Branch he noted, “…preached at the cabin homes of Samuel Osburn, Patterson's, John Thompson, Thomas Pees, William Search, William Pegg, and Joseph Odgen. On Sunday, June 10th, he inserted this item in his journal "I preached at Captain Joseph Salmon's (on West Briar Creek in Columbia County) on Revelation 22:17 and in the afternoon about 8 or 9 miles farther I preached in a beautiful town on the Susquehanna called Berwick on Job 22:21. Religion appears to be at a very low ebb in these parts.”

Ministers usually preached in the cabin of their guests, and the neighbors were invited. Most of the ministers presented sermons without notes. Hymns and altar calls were given during the service. When not preaching, preachers like Colbert were called upon to do baptisms and burials. They often worked with their hands, helped with the harvesting, or the fall hunt, cut down trees, and removed stumps. Sometimes they taught school.     

On Reverend Colbert’s stop in the town of Catawissa in August of 1792, which contained a large Quaker population, he noted, "In this little town, a woman treated me with kindness. She told me that she had heard that the Methodists were a strange kind of people, that they carried knives about them to fight the devil. I lodged at Samuel Boone's. I was permitted to pray. I had to kneel alone."

On Tuesday, August 14th, he began a long journey on horseback that led him up the West Branch of the Susquehanna River to Williamsport and Jersey Shore. He continued up Pine Creek for many miles. 

During a preaching engagement in Northumberland in early September, Colbert said he was interrupted by a drunken spectator by the name of Flavel Roan, who happened to be the sheriff of the county. Because the sheriff persistently questioned Colbert during the sermon, the meeting was stopped.

As I wrote in a Susquehanna Footprints post in July of 2024, Francis Asbury, the British-American Methodist minister who became one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, preached in Northumberland and Sunbury in Northumberland County. Asbury was no stranger to circuit-riding preaching. He served as an itinerant preacher in England for several years and volunteered to come to North America in 1771.

Colbert noted in his June 30^th, 1793 diary, “I met Bishop Asbury in Northumberland.  I found him upstairs at the widow Taggarts. When I entered the room, he rose and spoke to me in a way I was never spoken to, by him before; he was very agreeable. At 11:00, he preached in the meetinghouse, and in the afternoon at Sunbury. At night, Brother Hill preached in Northumberland. I was very much rejoiced seeing four preachers in this part of the world.”

Ten years after Colbert’s first appearance on the circuit, the “Stewards’ (Record) book indicated that the pattern was beginning to take more definite form. Several (Bible) classes were functioning, but there were fewer preaching places.

As Methodism gained a foothold in the Susquehanna Valley, meeting houses such as the one referred to earlier in Northumberland began to appear.

Log cabin churches then began to appear. Methodist services were held in the “Old Log Cabin Church” in Mifflinburg, Union County, for 53 years, or until 1856, when it was torn down and another Methodist church building was erected in its place.

A special quarterly meeting of the Methodists was held in Milton, Northumberland County, in the summer of 1805 for the purpose of authorizing the meeting house, which was erected in 1807.

In 1808, a stone church building was erected at Briar Creek in Columbia County, where Christian and Thomas Bowman had started the first class in 1793 after William Colbert came on the scene.

These and other buildings are directly or indirectly the result of the old Northumberland circuit, where the stories of preachers such as William Colbert were filled with hardship and heroism, while sharing the Gospel of Christ.