21. William Case, our principal
subject, was removed from the Bay of Quinte to the
Oswegotchie Circuit [May 1806], with Gherhorn Pearse for
his senior colleague, who was brought there from the Niagara
Circuit. In this Circuit [Oswegatchie] he was among the
descendants of Paul and Barbara Heck, who came from Ireland
with Philip Embury in 1760. The lady was the instrument of
stirring up that servant of God to preach when he had become
recreant to his duty, which occurred in 1766, from which
time regular Methodist preaching was maintained in the city
of New York. These two persons were among the most active
promoters of the enterprise of erecting the first "preaching
house" in that city, which was built in 1768; Mr. Heck was
one of the original trustees, and Mrs. H. whitewashed it
with her own hands. They had resided for a time in Camden,
near Lake Champlain, where they were the founders, along
with Embury and others, of another new Methodist cause. They
had lived in Lower Canada ten years, coming to Augusta, in
Upper Canada, in 1785. They settled on "Lot No. 4, 3rd
Concession," in the neighborhood of the Big Creek, where a
class was immediately gathered, in which was embraced John
Lawrence, who married P. Embury's widow, that memorable
lady, as well as the Hecks, with Samuel Embury, Philip's
son, for leader. Paul Heck had passed away fourteen years
before Mr. Case's coming on the Circuit; but Barbara, only
two years before, namely, in 1804. But one of their sons was
there at the time of Mr. C.'s first sojourn, namely,
Samuel, their third son, born in Camden in 1771, who was
a respectable local preacher. John, the eldest, born
in New York in 1767, had died only the year before (1805)
in the State of Georgia. Jacob, the second, of whom
more farther on, was still in Lower Canada. Samuel's
residence was near the old Blue Church grave-yard, where
his father and mother's remains reposed.
22. In this Circuit, besides Mr. Samuel
Heck, there were other local preachers of eminence, such as
Wm. Hallock, of Elizabethtown, near where Lynn now stands,
who had been received on trial in the travelling connection,
in the closing part of the last century (1791), and had
labored one year on a Circuit (the Duchess) in the States,
but who had desisted from want of health; a good man, of a
sympathising spirit, with a pathetic[*] manner of preaching,
who excelled in the delivery of funeral sermons, then, and
long after, an invariable requisition for all who died; and,
in consequence, whose labors were in great request in that
particular, he preaching at more funerals than any other man
in that region, travelling or local, of whom more anon;
William Brown, of the Rideau whom his neighbors called
"Priest Brown," who will come into notice as a travelling
preacher of no mean calibre; and David Brakenridge, who was
magistrate, militia colonel, and local elder, all in one,
and who performed more baptisms in that region than all the
other preachers put together. He was then forty-three years
of age, a U.E. Loyalist, and Tory of the first water. He had
some education, large experience in public matters, and good
preaching talents, but he was very caustic and severe on all
who differed from him. He has had the rare honor of preaching
Barbara Heck's funeral sermon, who had passed away two years
before with the Bible on her lap. We might fill many pages
with Mr. B.'s unusual sayings and doings. He would "advise
those so strenuous about the quantity of water in baptism,
to make thorough work of it, and have themselves put in to
soak over night;" and those that "carried their divinity in
their pocket, to put a lock and key on it, lest they should
lose it," referring to a pretentious clergyman, who read
his sermons, and who had the misfortune to lose his
manuscript on the way to his appointment, and had to dismiss
the people without preaching to them. He will cross our path
again.
* i.e., emotional