Roy Benton Leedy (1883- 1981), American minister, was born February 13, 1883 in Richland County, Ohio, and spent much of his childhood in Fremont, Ohio. He graduated from Northwestern Academy (now North Central College), and from Evangelical Theological Seminary. He received his license to preach in 1907, and his full membership in 1913 in the Ohio Conference of the Evangelical Church. In 1912 he married Rose V. Voigt, and they bore three children. After his first wife's death, Leedy married Margaret Koepnick Faust in 1933. He began his ministry at Bettsville, and later served at Akron, Kenmore, Marion-Salem, Flat Rock, Cedar Hill, Gibsonburg, Huron, Carey, Napoleon, Perrysburg, Green Springs, and Warren- Grace. During his years of ministry, Leedy served as secretary of the General Historical Society of the Evangelical Church, and served for 35 years as historian of the Ohio Conference. After his retirement in 1951 he finished his book, The Evangelical Church in Ohio, which was published in 1959. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity Degree from Baldwin- Wallace College in recognition of his work in collecting materials of and writing about the history of the Evangelical Church. Leedy died on January 2, 1981 at the Elyria Home in Elyria, Ohio, and is buried in Fremont, Ohio.
George Washington Farmer was a circuit rider in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and a soldier for the Federal Army during the Civil War. He was a member of the itinerancy in Mississippi in 1860-61, and in southern Illinois in the late 1860s and 1870s.
John McKendree Springer (1873-1963), a pioneering Methodist Episcopal Church missionary and bishop, was instrumental in developing Methodism in Africa. He graduated from Northwestern University (1895 and 1899) and received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Garrett Biblical Institute (1901). In 1901 he was appointed a missionary.
From 1901 to 1906 he was a pastor and the superintendent of the Old Umtali Industrial Mission in Rhodesia. During 1907 he and his wife journeyed across the continent of Africa. His first furlough was taken from 1907-1909, and when he returned to Africa in 1910, he was stationed in the Lunda country of Angola and Congo. Between 1910 and 1915 Springer had various appointments: Kalalua in North Western Rhodesia ( 1910-1911); Lukoshi in Belgian Congo (1911-1913); and Kambove (1913- 1915). A second furlough, taken in 1915, lasted until 1916.
Upon return to Africa, Springer became superintendent of the Congo Mission Conference but returned to the United States in 1918 to work on the Centenary and Inter-Church World Movement projects. In 1920 he was appointed superintendent of the Elisabethville-Luba District but was transferred to the Rhodesia Mission Conference in 1921 to serve as superintendent of the Mutumbara District. Another transfer occurred in 1924 when Springer joined the Congo Mission Conference a second time and was appointed superintendent. During this time he was stationed at Panda-Likasa. From 1925 to 1928 he was in the United States on furlough.
Returning to Africa in 1928, Springer continued his work as superintendent of the Congo Mission Conference but was stationed on the Likasi Circuit. His missionary work there would continue until 1935 when he was granted a fourth furlough. In 1936 Springer was elected Missionary Bishop for Africa and began travels through the continent. He retired in 1944 and returned to the United States in 1950.
Helen Emily Chapman Springer (1868-1949) was a pioneer Methodist Episcopal Church missionary to Rhodesia and the Congo. She graduated from Holyoke High School in Massachusetts and Women's Medical College in Philadelphia. In 1890 she sailed for Africa and soon married William Rasmussen (n.d.-1895). The Rasmussens arrived in Lower Congo, Africa, in 1891. Due to ill health they were forced to return to the United States after only a year and a half.
When they returned to the mission field in 1894, they were assigned to Isangila, Congo, but she was forced to leave Africa again due to failing health. In 1901 she returned to Africa and was stationed in Rhodesia at Old Umtali where she started a girls' boarding school. On January 2, 1905, she married John McKendree Springer, and they continued to work as missionaries in Africa. Helen Springer's work focused on translating Christian literature and scriptures into native languages. She also assisted her husband in his duties as bishop and missionary.
Helen Newton Everett Springer was the second wife of Bishop John McKendree Springer. She was a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Massachusetts General Hospital where she received a B.A. and a nursing degree. Springer arrived in Africa in 1921 and began work as a nurse in Kapanga, Congo. She also worked in Kanene and Elisabethville, Congo, as well as in Mount Silinda, Southern Rhodesia. Springer served as a missionary for twenty-one years.
Daniel Asbury (1762-1825) was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, on February 18, 1762. Though not directly related to Bishop Francis Asbury, he served with Bishop Asbury for many years, and was a close friend
Daniel Asbury went to Kentucky when he was about sixteen years old (1778). He was captured by the Indians and then handed over to the British who jailed him in Detroit. Escaping, he made his way back to Virginia around 1783. He was converted and received into the Methodist Conference in Virginia. His first circuit was Amelia in Virginia. In the year following his admission, he was sent to North Carolina, where he spent most of his later life. In 1794 Daniel Asbury held the first camp meeting in the North Carolina area. In 1824, he retired and settled near the present Terrell in Catawba County, North Carolina. There he married Nancy Morris. Asbury died in 1825, and was buried in the Rehoboth Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Reverend James McKendree Reiley (1817-1897), son of the Reverend James Reiley, was born on March 8, 1817 at Broad Top Mountain, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. Reiley was given a license to preach by the church in September of 1840. After his father's death in 1841, James McKendree was appointed to take over his father's work on the Saint Mary's Circuit, thus beginning his experience in the itinerancy. He travelled to Virginia in the spring of 1842 and resumed his school work until 1844. Reiley was admitted on trial in 1844 with the Baltimore Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The same conference placed him in full connection in 1846 and ordained him an elder in 1848. Reiley is known in Methodist history as the person who secured the necessary legislation to organize the colored conferences into separate organizations. He was twice transferred from the Baltimore Annual Conference, but returned to finish out his ministerial career. Reiley died on June 2, 1897 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Richard Warner Hammett (1829-1910), Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Methodist Episcopal Church minister, was born on March 4, 1829, in Marion County, Mississippi, to James H. and Sarah Henrietta Head Hammett. Hammett married Mary Elizabeth Dobson (1842-1925), which produced seven children.
Hammett began his clergy career in Arkansas, Methodist Episcopal Church. South. There is little information on his Southern Methodist career, except for his appointments to Fort Smith (circa 1852) and the current Central United Methodist Church, Fayetteville (1860-1967). In the 1866 MECS General Minutes records he withdrew from the denomination. Hammett later joined the 1868 Missouri and Arkansas Annual Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church as an elder on trial and sent to the Fort Smith church. From 1869 to 1873, he served as a presiding elder (today’s District Superintendent) for both the Fort Smith District (1869-1872) and Batesville District (1873-1874). After serving as a presiding elder, the conference appointed him to the Fort Smith church (1875-1877). Hammett became the Conference Secretary from 1876 to 1878 while serving local churches. Subsequent appointments include Forth Smith (1875-1877, 1881), Fayetteville (1878-1880), Cedarville (1882), and Buren and Ozark (1884).
The records suggest that physical problems began to take their toll as he aged. In 1883, the conference granted him Supernumerary status. Hammett retained his clergy credentials but did not serve as an appointed pastor to local churches. However, he could preach if physically able. Hammett became superannuated (retired) in 1885. The following year he withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church.
During Hammett’s active ministry, those who knew him considered Hammett a notable preacher. He published an 1896 drama entitled In the Wilderness or A Romance of Christianity in Forty Scenes published by Thrash-Lice Printing Company.
On October 27, 1910, Hammett died in Fort Smith, Sebastian, Arkansas. Burial took place at the Oak Cemetery.
Robert Thomas Parsons (1904-?) was a Church of the United Brethren in Christ missionary, pastor, and academic. Parsons was born on September 27, 1094 to J.B. Parsons, D.D. and Ada Parsons in Dayton, Ohio.
Parsons received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana Central College in 1926, and a Bachelor of Divinity from Bonebrake Theological Seminary in 1929. He was ordained, and in 1929 went to serve as a missionary under the Foreign Missions Board of the United Brethren in Christ to the Kono tribe in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
Parsons would return to the United States on his first furlough in 1933 to enroll as a Ph.D. candidate in the Kennedy School of Missions at Hartford Theological Seminary. During his second furlough in 1937, alongside his Ph.D. work, he received a Master of Arts from Cornell University. Parsons then returned to Sierra Leone for two years and taught at Union College in Bunumbu.
Parsons completed his dissertation in 1940, and went on to serve Fifth Ave Church in Columbus, Ohio. Parsons would join the faculty at Hartford in 1947 as a Professor of African Studies, and would later become Dean of the Kennedy School of Missions. Parsons would make a handful of other trips back to Africa for research. He also went on to serve on committees of the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council of Churches. His dissertation was published in book form as "Religion in an African society: A Study of the Religion of the Kono People of Sierra Leone in its Social Environment With Special Reference to the Function of Religion in that Society" by Brill in 1964.
Robert Cowden (1833-1922), United Brethren Church minister and educator, was born May 24, 1833, in Ohio.
Cowden began his church career by assuming leadership in his local church's Sunday School. Beginning in 1877, Colonel Cowden, as he was known throughout the church because of his military service during the Civil War, served as executive secretary of the Sunday School Association for thirty-six.
During his years of service, two significant developments occurred: First, following the example of the Chautauqua camp meeting organization and the New York Normal Union, a school for training teachers and leaders, the United Brethren Church organized the Bible Normal Union in 1886. It issued diplomas to those who completed a prescribed course of study. Second, the Home Reading Circle was organized in 1887, and provided a three-year reading course of study. In 1889, the United Brethren Church Sabbath School was managed by Cowden as its secretary.
Cowden was charged with organizing and maintaining the Sunday School which replaced the Sabbath School in 1905. The General Conference of 1909 decreed that there should be a unified denominational program for the Sunday School, the Youth Society, and Men's work. As a result the Departments of Sunday School, Brotherhood, and Young Peoples work were created. Cowden assumed leadership of the Sunday School Department. He continued in this work until his retirement in 1919. Cowden died in 1922.
John Samuel Stamm (1878-1956) was born in Elida, Kansas in 1878. After only five grades in public school, at the age of twenty he applied to the Evangelical College and Seminary. Not qualifying for advanced academic work, he took sub-academy courses, and twelve years later graduated from both the college and the seminary. After several parish appointments, he served the Glasgow Evangelical Mission in Missouri.
Stamm married Priscilla Wahl on March 19, 1912. He was elected to teach systematic theology at the Evangelical Seminary in Naperville, Illinois, and remained in this post until he was elected bishop in 1922. During his first eight years as bishop, Stamm served as General Secretary of Evangelism. Following his episcopal assignment he was President of the School of Theology in Reading, Pennsylvania until 1941. After this assignment , he served as President of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches 1945-1949, and then the Federal Council of Churches from 1948-1950. Stamm retired in 1950. He then moved back to Kansas City, Missouri, where he continued to preach. Bishop Stamm died on March 5, 1956.
Frederick W. Umbreit was a pastor in the Evangelical Church and treasurer and business manager of North Central College and Evangelical Theological Seminary, both in Naperville, Illinois.