40 History of Methodism 



port of Charleston. While lying off the bar, waiting 

 to lighten the ship that she might enter the port, a 

 hurricane arose in which she went to pieces, and Cap- 

 tain Gibson, with all on board, perished in the waters 

 by a just retribution from Heaven upon him, as it was 

 interpreted in Scotland, for his cruelty toward the 

 prisoners whom, for their persistent non-conformity, 

 he had by order of the government transported as 

 exiles to this same Carolina in 1684. Mr. Stobo, how- 

 ever, had been waited on the day before this catas- 

 trophe by a deputation from the Independent Church 

 of Charleston, and invited to occupy the pulpit made 

 vacant by the death of Mr. Cotton, and had gone up 

 to the town with Mrs. Stobo and a party of friends, 

 all of whom thus escaped with their lives. 



The Rev. Mr. Stobo, who bore a specific commis- 

 sion from the General Assembly of Scotland, under 

 date of July 21, 1699, as a minister of the Presbytery 

 of Caledonia, became by election the fourth pastor of 

 the Independent Church of Charleston. On his res- 

 ignation, in 1704, the Rev. William Livingston, a 

 Presbyterian minister from Ireland, was chosen pas- 

 tor, and continued in office till death, after which the 

 Rev. Nathan Bassett, a graduate of Harvard College 

 in the class of 1692, and a Congregationalist, was 

 elected his successor; and beginning his ministry in 

 this Church in 1724 r continued it till his death in 

 1738. The -original edifice in which the congregation 

 worshiped was a wooden structure forty feet square, 

 and slightly built. A second church-building was 

 erected' in 1732, which was also a wooden structure, 

 and the circumstance of its being painted white fur- 

 nished the occasion of a new designation, as did also 

 the form of a third building, erected in 1787, give 



