"The church that today sits on the corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets in Leavenworth, Kansas, has had an interesting life. The congregation traces its history to an outdoor church service alongside the Missouri River in October 1854. At the time, Leavenworth was the oldest town in the Kansas Territory, but it was still little more than a raucous frontier town, located next to a frontier Army post." (A Brief History, p. 3)
"When Leavenworth was first chartered as a city in 1854, Methodism in the United States was mostly spread by circuit riders. On October 8 of that year, the Reverend W. G. Caples, an elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South) in Weston, Missouri, crossed the Missouri River to the new city of Leavenworth and led the first Methodist service. He preached on the bank of the river under a cottonwood tree." (A Brief History, p. 3)
Several Methodist ministers preached in Leavenworth in the first four years: (A Brief History, p. 4).
1855: Rev. A. L. Downey-Placed in charge of the Leavenworth Mission of the M. E. Church, he held services in the Leavenworth Hotel at the corner of Delaware and Main Streets. Later, services were also held under an elm tree on Second Street between Shawnee and Seneca Streets. A rough plank meeting house big enough for 200 persons was erected on Seneca Street (another source says Miami Street) between 2nd and 3rd Streets. It cost $400 to build. Prayer meetings and Sunday school were held regularly.
1856: Rev. William Butt-Designated as the presiding elder, he convened the first quarterly conference of the church.
1856: Rev. Charles Ketchum
1857: Rev. Milton H. Haun
The Rev. Hugh Dunn Fisher (1824-1905), an abolitionist preacher born in Steubenville, Ohio, was the first Methodist pastor appointed to Leavenworth. He was not a novice preacher, having already served in several Methodist churches (Paris and Limaville in Ohio; New Brighton, Lewicklyville, McKeesport, and Birmingham in Pennsylvania). In 1858, the Pittsburg Annual Conference appointed Fisher to Leavenworth to "create an atmosphere of permanency," for Methodists in the first city of the Kansas Territory.
Rev. Fisher, his wife, Elizabeth Acheson Fisher, and their boys arrived in 1858 aboard the steamboat, "Oglesby" from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. In Fisher's autobiography, The Gun and the Gospel, published in 1899, he described his arrival in Leavenworth and his first experiences here:
"My first sermon was to a congregation of less than thirty hearers, and that in a little shot-marked schoolhouse, seated with rude benches, and very untidy, indeed filthy, with Kansas soil. The first Sabbath of June 1858 was absolutely the 'bluest day' I had ever experienced. It was the date of my first sermon in Kansas. But as I preached the gospel of consolation, tears started from many eyes. My heart was touched and my tears began to flow. I wept because it seemed to me that I had brought my wife and three dear boys away out to Kansas to starve them to death. It looked so that day. But I wept also because I knew Christ, whom I preached, was able to deliver all those who would put their trust in Him. And before the sermon ended I was convinced I was in a providential opening..." (Fisher, p. 133)
"But we had to face difficulties. The "Town Company," being all pro-slavery men, had early resolved that the Northern Methodist Church, as they called it, should not build a church in Leavenworth…and adding to our trouble, six weeks after our arrival, and after I had obtained a good subscription to aid us in building a house of worship, a fire originating in the greenroom of the theater destroyed the whole business center of the city, including the business of the only four persons connected with our church upon whom we could depend for substantial help, namely George Weaver, H. P. Johnson,* R. Newland, and Rev. Stewart of Philadelphia. Our subscription was wrecked. The struggle we had because of poverty and abounding wickedness in the city was enough to discourage the most heroic soul. But our necessity was so absolute that we could not go back on our plans of work…we were compelled to press on to success, or forfeit all we had gained. So committing our cause to the God of all grace, and confiding in Him, we pressed forward…renewing our effort we purchased a lot** in the most central part of the city..." (Fisher, p. 134)
*(Note: H. P. Johnson, named Hampton P., but nicknamed "Hog" Johnson; Col. H. P. Johnson of the5th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, a Union militia group raised in Leavenworth, was killed at the Battle of Morristown, [Cass County] Missouri, in 1861. Hugh Fisher preached his funeral in Leavenworth on September 20, 1861. See Fisher, p. 164.)
**(Note: The property was located at Choctaw and Fifth Streets where the building of the First Methodist Episcopal Church was begun in 1859, and completed in 1862.)
"By the request and direction of my official board I made a visit abroad, succeeding in raising some money, and returned to cheer my brethren in the good work. A few months later I made a second visit, and much farther East, which resulted in the raising of considerable means, through great effort, wherewith to sufficiently complete the church for temporary occupancy. I spent everal weeks in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and other cities and towns, while the building went slowly on… By the help I raised abroad and $1000 I borrowed from Brother Fry, of Baltimore, on my own paper, we began pushing the church to completion as fast as possible." (Fisher, 134, 142-3)
"I found services had been suspended during my absence, the congregation scattered, and matters in a state of general disorganization, except the Sunday school; but we soon rallied, finished the lecture room, and gathered in the church and Sunday school to a new home. The first service we held nine persons joined our ranks. We had the best Sabbath school in town, and Methodism became so strong and respectable that we held the controlling influence in the city, and greatly aided other churches to get a foothold." (Fisher, p. 142).
"It is impossible to depict the suffering and distress incident to the terrible drought and awful famine of 1860. For four months consecutively there fell not a drop of rain…for seven long months we suffered the horrors of a desert drought…thousands of brave pioneers were compelled to return overland to their former homes to keep from starving. A Committee of the Kansas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in session in Atchison in March of 1861, reported that in October of the year previous there were not enough provisions in the territory, nor the means to procure them, to preserve more than half the people from starvation, and that most of the population were being compelled to live on corn-bread and a little salt meat…the report (had) the effect that in almost all cases, relief (was) judiciously distributed…the aid invoked by pen and pulpit saved untold suffering and hundreds of human lives…the generosity of eastern people…was an open-handed generosity, and succor came to the distressed as fast as the steamers and overland freight caravans could carry it." (Fisher, 146-148)
"There were a few colored persons in Leavenworth who affiliated with the Southern Methodist Church, but they were not permitted to commune when the whites held their sacramental service. Brother Pritchard, the pastor, announced that they would hold a special service for the colored population in the afternoon. This was so contrary to my feelings of Christian equality that I advised Uncle Moses White…a local preacher, to come out and organize a church of their own people…They soon organized and at the ensuing conference held at Alton, Ill., the African M. E. Church sent them Rev. John M. Wilkerson…They early resolved to build a substantial brick church….the two churches stand today (meaning 1896) as monuments of the real grit and liberality of Christian people under trying circumstances. Brother Wilkerson and I had the pleasure of remaining to see the work in both departments flourishing, and still live to labor together in the gospel of peace." (Fisher, p. 142-143)
*****
Rev. Fisher's work and indeed, his entire life, were controversial and adventuresome. In 1862 he was transferred to the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Lawrence where he was pastor of the church and involved in the Civil War.
Under the leadership of General James H. Lane, the ardent, charismatic, and reckless champion of "free-soil" Kansas, and later the first U.S. Senator from Kansas, Rev. Fisher served as regimental chaplain in Lane's 5th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry and was deeply involved in the border war between Kansas and Missouri. Because of his abolitionist views, active involvement in jayhawker raids into Missouri (for the purpose of helping slaves escape), and participation in the war itself, Rev. Fisher was a prime target of William Quantrill's bushwhackers when they raided Lawrence, Kansas, on August 21, 1863.
In his book, I, Fisher wrote his first-hand account of that day when Missouri guerillas burned Lawrence and killed nearly 200 men and boys. After first avoiding detection in the cellar of his house by crawling behind a mound of excavated dirt, he survived the massacre by the courageous work of his wife, who rolled him in their parlor carpet and dragged him away from their burning house to a woodpile where he hid. (Fisher, p. 195-210; Goodrich, p. 84-86; Etcheson, p. 228, 236)
After the Civil War, Rev. Hugh Fisher spent almost all the remaining years of his life in Kansas as the pastor of several Methodist churches, including Atchison, Ottawa, Olathe, Marysville, Wamego, and Westmoreland. He served as Presiding Elder of the Baldwin City District of the Kansas Annual Conference, President of the Kansas State Temperance Society, President of the Board of Trustees of Baker University (and at one time, Baker's financial officer), Regent of theUniversity of Kansas, and member of the Central Committee of the Republican Party. He later served as pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Omaha, Nebraska and a Methodist church in Salt Lake City, Utah. In the last years of his ministerial career, he and his wife traveled throughout the far west, distributing Bibles to Mormons for the American Bible Society. (Fisher, p. 222, 225, 250, 258, 262, 313, 317)
After the 1866 death of the "Grim Chieftain," Senator James H. Lane, Governor Samuel Crawford offered Rev. Fisher an appointment to finish Lane's term in the U. S. Senate. After a time of prayer with his wife, Fisher declined the senatorial seat, saying that he believed his calling from God to preach the gospel was more important than any earthly calling. (Fisher, p. 231)
*****
In the undocumented history of the First Methodist Church in Leavenworth there has always been the story that Abraham Lincoln visited or stayed in the Methodist parsonage with Rev. Fisher when Lincoln came to Leavenworth. In December of 1859, Lincoln spoke at Stockton's Hall at the corner of 4th and Delaware to test the "political waters," garner support, and expand his influence as he considered running in the 1860 presidential election. He spoke on the issues of "popular sovereignty, the union and slavery." The claim has been made for the authenticity of the story of Lincoln at the Methodist parsonage, but such an account is hard to find in original sources or later histories.
In a series of historical articles published in the Leavenworth Times in 1954, mention is made of Lincoln and the Methodists in Leavenworth: "Lincoln remained for four or five days in the city, and according to reports, made a talk at the Methodist Church. He spent part of his time at the Delahay home on the corner of Third and Kiowa. Mrs. Delahay is though to have been a distant relative on the Hanks side…" (Leavenworth Times, July 1, 1954)
On the other hand, Rev. Hugh Fisher did not report the Lincoln visit in his 1899 autobiography. In one historical work outlining the accounts of Lincoln's visit to Leavenworth, it is stated that Lincoln stayed at the Planter's Hotel and in the home of Mark W. Delahay. No mention is made of the Methodist parsonage or Rev. Fisher. (Ayres, p. 126, 138-140) In his contemporary biography of Lincoln, considered to be the modern definitive work, the historian David Herbert Donald does not describe Lincoln's trip to Kansas in any specific way at all. (Donald, p. 235-246)
*****
Rev. Hugh Fisher retired in 1895, after almost 40 years "in the service of the Master in the Kansas Conference." (Fisher, p. 321) He died in 1905, and was buried in Topeka, Kansas. Although unnecessary to say, it is true that the work and vision of Rev. Fisher, with the gracious blessing and guidance of God, have sustained this church in the 150 years since its modest beginnings in 1854.
Alice M. Hall
Chairperson, History and Records Committee
2006
Bibliography
A Brief History of the First United Methodist Church, Leavenworth, Kansas, 1854-2004. Compiled by Roy Ramsey, First United Methodist Church, Leavenworth, August 2004, for the 150th anniversary of the church.
Ayres, Carol Dark. Lincoln and Kansas: Partnership for Freedom. Manhattan, Kansas: Sunflower University Press, 2001.
Biographical Directory of the U. S. Congress, 1774 - Present; (sketch of James H. Lane), Internet source: http://bioguide.congress.gov
Donald, David Herbert. Lincoln. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995.
Etcheson, Nicole. Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2004.
Fisher, Rev. H. D. The Gun and the Gospel: Early Kansas and Chaplain Fisher. Chicago: Medical Century Company, 1899, paperback edition 1986.
Goodrich, Thomas. Black Flag: Guerrilla Warfare on the Western Border, 1861-1865. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995.
"The Story of Leavenworth," in the Leavenworth Times, July 1, 1854, from the collections of the Leavenworth County Historical Society and Museum.
