188 History of Methodism 



admitted on trial in 1783. His first appointment was 

 to Berkeley Circuit. The two following years he trav- 

 eled respectively the Guilford and Tar River circuits, 

 in North Carolina. At the Virginia Conference, held 

 at Lane's Chapel, in Sussex county, April 10, 1786, 

 when a call was made for missionaries for Georgia, a 

 larger number responded than could be spared for 

 that field. Thomas Humphreys and John Major were 

 selected, and, crossing the river at Dooly's Ferry, be- 

 came the messengers of peace to thousands beyond 

 the Savannah. 



Mr, Major came over from the Burke Circuit in 

 Georgia to attend the quarterly - meeting of Broad 

 River Circuit in South Carolina, and to conduct Bishop 

 Asbury to the first Georgia Conference, but in conse- 

 quence of sickness was unable to jneet with his breth- 

 ren, and died April 12, 1788, the day after the adjourn- 

 ment of Conference. "A simple hearted man; a living, 

 loving soul, who died as he lived, full of faith and the 

 Holy Ghost; ten years in the work; useful and blame- 

 less." 



Mr. Humphreys, assisted by Lemuel Moore, formed 

 the Little Pedee Circuit in 1789, and was sent with 

 Hardy Herbert to Georgetown in 1790, after which he 

 married and settled as a local preacher within the 

 bounds of the Pedee Circuit. He was presiding elder 

 in 1797, and on Little Pedee Circuit in 1798. He was 

 a man of fine personal appearance, preached with 

 great earnestness and power, and was distinguished 

 for his native wit and fearlessness. In the judgment 

 of Mr. Travis, who often heard him, he was one of the 

 greatest natural orators of his day, though by no 

 means free from eccentricities. On a certain Sabbath, 

 when he was to preach at Georgetown, a good sister, 



