The Hardships of the Circuit Riding Preachers through the Susquehanna Valley

Glimpses of the hardships faced by the circuit-riding preacher in Pennsylvania can be found in some journals they kept and the histories of some denominations.

Richard Parriott and Lewis Browning received an enormous territory when they established the Northumberland Circuit in 1791. It extended roughly from the Wyoming Valley down the North Branch to Northumberland, then westward along the West Branch toward present-day Lock Haven and Bald Eagle Creek, while also reaching into White Deer Hole, Penns Valley, and Buffalo Valley.

The round was at least 300 miles. Two preachers generally worked opposite portions of the circuit so that settlements might hear preaching about every two weeks. They could preach nearly every day, except when the distance between appointments made it impossible.

A past history of St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church at Danville gives a revealing measure of the territory. At first, only two or three circuit preachers were needed, but later the churches in Williamsport, Newberry, Muncy, Milton, Northumberland, Mifflinburg, Lewisburg, Catawissa, Bloomsburg, Berwick, Orangeville, and Sunbury were included.

In the Second Great Awakening (1784–1830), Reverend Asa Dunham was a circuit-riding preacher ministering to Susquehanna Valley settlers.

An October 1938 story in the Berwick Enterprise newspaper reported, ““The records of the Presbytery mention him as a Missionary in the counties of Luzerne and Northumberland. He seems to have supplied Briar Creek Church in part and to have journeyed through the lower part of Luzerne County, especially below the Susquehanna, to the Mahanoy Mountain, and home, through Catawissa preaching in schoolhouses and at private dwellings and baptizing the children.”

The later Sullivan County circuits could be equally daunting. By 1829 the Loyalsock Circuit included Eagles Mere, Sonestown, Elk Lick, Heverly Settlement, Elkland, Eldredsville, Fox, Hillsgrove and Bear Creek. Preachers “forced their way through woods, forded streams and often slept in the out-of-doors.”

“Circuit rider” can give us the misleading image of a minister trotting pleasantly from one village church to another. Much of the time there wasn't a proper road.

There were trails through forest, muddy wagon roads, roots, rocks, steep mountain passages, primitive bridges and numerous unbridged streams. Rain could turn roads nearly impassable. Snow could obliterate them.

An early Methodist description of neighboring northeastern Pennsylvania remembered roads consisting of “mud, rocks, stumps and roots,” with crude pole bridges—or no bridges at all. William Colbert gives us something even better: contemporary testimony from the Susquehanna Valley itself.

In 1792 he rode through the Northumberland Circuit. Rain stopped one day's journey. On another he traveled from Northumberland toward Penns Valley and recorded: “I have had a long and tiresome ride.” It was his first experience in the backcountry, and he specifically remembered the gloomy mountain narrows between Buffalo and Penns Valleys.

The horse was almost as important as the preacher. A rider's horse was transportation, companion, and sometimes his best chance of surviving a bad road or stream crossing. The preacher had to feed it, find shelter for it and keep it sound enough to make the next appointment. If the horse became lame, the circuit did not become smaller.

Clothing was equally practical. Research in the Susquehanna Conference archives describes William Colbert and other early preachers wearing buckskin breeches and plain coats, with a change of linen carried in their saddlebags and a greatcoat for rain and winter cold. Colbert's circumstances were sufficiently modest that he made his own socks and repaired his own shoes. He even renewed the appearance of his buckskin breeches with yellow ochre. The man bringing Methodism into the Susquehanna settlements was also sitting somewhere at night repairing his shoes because he could not readily afford another pair.

Crossing water could become genuinely dangerous. In 1812, Methodist preacher George Harmon had to travel roughly sixty miles through wilderness between quarterly meetings in the Susquehanna District. It was winter.

Snow lay two or three feet deep along what was known as the Lycoming route. Harmon spent a night at Spaulding's tavern near the headwaters of the Towanda, rode to a Methodist family's home on Lycoming Creek for breakfast, and then continued toward Williamsport.  Eventually he reached a particularly dangerous river crossing. Ice extended outward from both banks, while open water remained between.  A rider attempting a crossing under such conditions risked losing his horse—and his life.

And sometimes there was nowhere to sleep. There were few parsonages. Instead, circuit riders depended upon families scattered around their circuits. A farmhouse became bedroom, dining room, and sometimes church all at once. The preacher might arrive wet, muddy, and exhausted and be given whatever the family could spare. In prosperous households, that might mean a comfortable bed and substantial meal. In an isolated cabin, it could mean sharing very cramped quarters with the family. And sometimes there simply wasn't a house available. The Sullivan County history states explicitly that circuit riders “often slept in the out-of-doors.”

That brings us to the story of circuit rider Henry Wisner. His experience was recorded in the History of Sullivan County Churches by Reverend Ward Mosher.

"Henry Wisner (1835), returning from one of his appointments, was overtaken by darkness. Hearing the wolves around him, he climbed a tree and, to keep awake, preached and sang to his noisy congregation. His sermon has not been preserved. In the morning, the wolves left, and he went on his way rejoicing.”

I previously wrote a story in Susquehanna Footprints taken from a 1947 newspaper column in the Altoona Tribune. It shared the humorous tale of Bill Brewer, a “hick” preacher who, for many decades, shared the gospel in the Pennsylvania lumber camps. A raft of lumber or timber was a “hick,” and the crews that Brewer preached to were “hickies.”

One Sunday he was preaching an open-air sermon to Murdock's men up on *Young Woman's Creek more than 50 years ago.

A bear was picking chestnuts on the hill above the camp when Murdock's dog discovered him and promptly gave tongue. Now a bear, when surprised and scared, generally starts running in whichever direction he happens to be headed when surprised. Well, this particular bear happened to be headed in the direction of the preacher and congregation, so in that direction he ran. He didn't let a little thing like a group of men change his course, so through the crowd of seated listeners he ran headlong. Men fell over each other getting out of his way.

The bear ran past the tree the preacher was using as a pulpit, the preacher 'shinning' up the tree. After the bear and dog had disappeared, the men started looking for the preacher. At last, someone happened to look up and there he was roosting in the top of the tree.

The old circuit riders are gone now. So are many of the trails they followed through the forests and across the mountains of the Susquehanna Valley. Their horses are gone, their saddlebags put away, and most of their sermons were never written down.

But scattered across the valley are churches and congregations whose beginnings reach back to those men who came on horseback—through rain and snow, across swollen streams, sometimes hungry, sometimes cold, and occasionally with wolves for a congregation.

Perhaps the words of the Apostle Paul provide their most fitting epitaph: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” For the circuit rider, the earthly course was often long and difficult. But he rode it believing that the journey did not end at the next preaching appointment.

And that, too, is one of our Susquehanna Footprints.