John Early

John Early (January 1, 1786 – November 5, 1873) was instrumental in organizing the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was their bishop from 1854. Early and family life John Early was born in the Forest, Virginia neighborhood of Bedford County, Virginia, to Joshua Early (1738–1812) and his wife, the former Mary Leftwich (1746–1818). He married Ann Winnifred Jones (1790–1820) in 1815 and Elizabeth Browne Rives (1805–1857) in 1822. He fathered seven children in his second marriage. Career Although his parents were Baptist, Early awakened to Methodism in 1804, appreciating early circuit riders' eloquence and fire at camp meetings. He was licensed to preach by the Virginia Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1806. He began his labors among slaves of Thomas Jefferson concentrated to erect a retreat styled Poplar Forest. Early was received on trial in 1807 and dispatched to preach along a Meherrin River circuit reaching into North Carolina before being ordained a Deacon by Bishop Francis Asbury in 1809. Ordained an Elder in 1811, Rev. Early was assigned to the Greenville, North Carolina circuit of the Virginia Conference. He was credited with converting a thousand souls in week-long camp meeting at Prospect, Virginia in 1815. He stepped into church administration with 1817 appointment as Presiding Elder on his circuits. Parson Early was ambivalent toward slavery until inheriting souls at his father's 1812 death. He married well and settled in Lynchburg, Virginia where, in 1823 he was among incorporators of The Lynchburg Charity School, the town's "first organized effort for public education." Early was named a Trustee when the Virginia Legislature chartered Randolph–Macon College in 1830: he was elected President of that board, chaired its inaugural Building Committee and served the college as Rector and business agent. His term as Trustee (1830–1873) is longest in the college's history.