First Executive of Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society Nathan Bangs, 1778 -1862, was the primary organizer and first administrator of the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, founded in 1819. He was concurrently for almost a decade the head of the denomination’s Book Concern. Thus, Bangs had a major impact on the origins of two of the United...
First Continuous Methodist Presence in Alaska Lydia Hill Daggett was a native of Boston who played a pivotal role in introducing Methodism into Alaska in the late 1880s. Her labor resulted in the opening of the Jesse Lee Home and School in Unalaska, the first successful Methodist outpost with continuity in the territory. She also...
Bishop with a Passion for Mission United Methodist Bishop James K. Mathews had a lifelong passion for mission and evangelism across his long life of 97 years. The son-in-law of noted evangelist E. Stanley Jones, Mathews traveled the world as a Methodist missionary. He made more than 60 trips to India, 28 to Africa, 16...
Long-time African-American missionary educator in Liberia Anna E. Hall was born near Bainbridge, Georgia on March 1st, 1870. She lived a religiously oriented childhood with her mother, a seamstress, and expressed the desire to serve as a missionary while a student at Clark University (now Clark Atlanta University) in Atlanta, Georgia, where she completed the...
Mission Bishop and Founder of Relief Agency Herbert Welch (1862-1969), the longest serving Methodist bishop, played multiple roles of lasting significance in the mission and social history of the church. His accomplishments included: Originator and first executive (1940 to 1948) of what is today the United Methodist Committee on Relief, the disaster response and development...
Home church of first MEC foreign missionary Methodism in Hallowell dates from October 13, 1793, when Jesse Lee preached in the town. This was probably the first Methodist sermon ever heard in the Kennebec region of Maine. In 1800, a revival was held by Epaphras Kibby, and the first two converts, Charles and Martha Cox,...
Heritage Site of the Founding of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church The former Tremont Street MEC was the site of the founding of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society (WFMS) of the Methodist Episcopal Church by eight women who braved a stormy day, March 23, 1869 to meet together at the...
Medical Work and Care for Orphans, Quéssua Mission, Angola Martha Drummer was born in 1871 in Barnesville, Georgia, the third of eight children in her family. Her father, a Methodist preacher, died of typhoid fever when Martha was 15. Mrs. Drummer moved the family to Griffen, Georgia, where the children had access to public education....
The Boston University School of Theology has a rich history of missionary outreach from its beginnings in 1839 as the first Methodist theological seminary in North America. By the time of the 1910 World Missionary Conference, at least a hundred graduates from the School of Theology had gone overseas as missionaries. In addition, many women...
Educator and theologian Born into slavery in New Orleans, Bowen became a free man when his father purchased his family’s freedom in 1858. After the Civil War, in which his father served with the Union Army, Bowen attended Union Normal School in New Orleans. In 1878 he graduated with the first graduating class of New...
