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Methodist Episcopal Church book for New Orleans City and Faubourg and Lafayette Mission

 Collection
Identifier: LACUMC-New Orleans City

Scope and Contents

This manuscript volume documents the early activities of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New Orleans, Louisiana. It includes membership records and administrative reports. The membership records identify 634 black members (1836-1838) and 242 white members (1825-1838). The administrative reports consist of quarterly conference meeting minutes for Wesley Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church (New Orleans, La.) dated 1844-1846. Located at the back of the volume is a section labeled “colored church” quarterly conference meeting minutes. This includes records for the following congregations: Gravier Street Methodist Episcopal Church (New Orleans, La.) from 1843-1859; Wesley Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church (New Orleans, La.) from 1844-1849, which includes an act of incorporation; and Soule Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church (New Orleans, La.) from 1849, which document a real estate transaction.

The following note appears in the volume: “Joseph Travis and Seymour B. Sawyer having been appointed to this station from the Alabama Conference. They arrived here on the 13th of January 1836 and after due inquiry for a church book containing the names of the members of the Methodist Episcopal Church: no such book was to be found. No, not even a class paper for the whites in the whole city. In the Faubourg and Lafayette Mission a class paper was found, but no church book. And the mission and the city station having this year been united by Bishop Soule: we have procured a book (as a church book) recording the names of such members as we can find both white and colored in both places.”

Dates

  • 1825 - 1859

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Physical rights are retained by the Centenary College of Louisiana Archives and Special Collections. Copyright is retained in accordance with U.S. copyright laws.

Biographical / Historical

Rev. Joseph Travis (1786-1858) was born in Harford County, Maryland. He was the son of Robert and Phebe L’Estrange Travis. Travis became a Methodist minister in 1806 and served North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. He published Autobiography of the Rev. Joseph Travis, A.M., a member of the Memphis Annual Conference: embracing a succinct history of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, particularly in part of western Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi: with short memoirs of several local preachers, and an address to his friends (Nashville, TN: E. Stevenson & J.E. Evans, Agents, for the Methodist Episcopal Church,South, 1856).

In 1811, Travis married Elizabeth Forster (d. 1843). In 1845, he married Mary Smith Butler.

Extent

1 Volumes

Language of Materials

English

Arrangement

Arranged by subject, then chronologically.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Unidentified transfer.

Title
Finding Aid to the Methodist Episcopal Church book for New Orleans City and Faubourg and Lafayette Mission
Author
Chris Brown
Date
2016
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the Centenary College of Louisiana Archives and Special Collections Repository

Contact:
2911 Centenary Blvd.
Shreveport LA 71104 US
(318) 869-5462