Rev. Thomas Glanville and Son.
The subject of this sketch was long and favorably known to the Church in Missouri, and was highly esteemed for his integrity, honesty and fidelity to principle as well as for his general usefulness as a minister.
Others who knew him better have furnished the following account of his life and labors, together with the circumstantial details of the dark and bloody tragedy which closed his career of usefulness on earth—one of the most heartless and cruel assassinations in all the dark history of martyrdom in Missouri.
The following sketch has been furnished by an intimate friend of the martyred minister, and will be read with mournful interest:
“Rev. Thomas Glanville and Son.—It was the privilege of the writer to be intimately acquainted with the subjects of this sketch for more than a score of years. Without reference to official documents or private papers, I write mostly from memory, hoping thereby to preserve the precious memory of two worthy men.
“Rev. Thomas Glanville was born in England about A. D. 1811, and came to America when about sixteen years of age. He was converted to God in early life, and after much mental agony yielded to the conviction that it was his duty to preach.
“Soon after he began to preach, he joined the St. Louis Conference M. E. Church, South, and traveled several years. But family afflictions came upon him—his wife died and left him three children. He married again and soon afterward located.
“Time rolled on and ever found him diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; and laboring efficiently as a local preacher.
“In the fall of 1852 a camp-meeting was held in his neighborhood by the lamented Leeper, Anthony and Bond. Bro. Glanville’s three children were at the altar as penitents. All the tenderest sympathies of a father’s heart went out after them. How pointed his instructions! and his prayers O, how fervent!
“He told the writer that he had made a vow that if the Lord would accept his three children at that meeting, he would rejoin the Conference and travel and preach as long as his way seemed open. The Lord did mercifully accept his three children; and, true to his vow, he rejoined the Conference and remained an acceptable member till the day of his death.
“When the late civil war commenced and the flock in Southwest Missouri was left for the most part without a shepherd, he and the local preachers a his neighborhood met in council and went out ‘two and two’ and held meetings in the most destitute neighborhoods.
“After a time he was ordered by a militia Captain to discontinue his preaching. This grieved him much, but he yielded and remained silent for almost a year.
“In February, 1863, a meeting was appointed in one of those destitute neighborhoods, which he attended. The ‘fire was shut up in his bones,’ and in company with a friend he waited on the Captain then in command in that vicinity and requested permission to resume his duties as a minister. To his great joy he received a written permission, and the next night he preached a sermon full of joy and comfort.
“In July or August following three men called at his gate one dark night and ordered him to leave the country on pain of death. A few days after he remarked to the writer that he would love to live to see peace restored to the country, and he hoped he would, and then added, ‘Those fellows may kill me, but I think not. Of one thing I am certain, they can’t harm me; death has no terrors for me, and has not had for fifteen years.’
“He was a bold and fearless man. ‘Conscious innocence knows no fear;’ but through the entreaties of friends he left home for a month or more; and it is to be regretted that he made up his mind to return, and did so, saying that he would ‘risk the consequences.’
“He published an appointment for preaching, and a few hours before the time came, two militia soldiers waited on him and informed him that he would not be permitted to hold the service. He remained at home that Sabbath, and remarked to a neighbor, ‘Those fellows will kill me, I believe; but they shall never have it to say that they shot me in the back.’ That holy Sabbath was his last on earth.
“When night came on and good men laid them down to peaceful slumbers, his murderers approached his quiet dwelling. A ball discharged from a revolver passed through his window, entered his face and he fell to the floor. To make sure of his victim the murderer raised the window and reaching in shot him through the chest. They then went round, forced the door and three men entered. After a few words with Bro. Glanville’s son, one of them remarked that he had better finish the old man, and so saying shot him again. Thus died the Rev. Thomas Glanville, in the fifty-third year of his age.
“After threatening to burn the house and ordering the family to leave on short time, they rode two miles to the residence of Bro. Glanville’s eldest son, Mr. A. C. Glanville, a man of fine mind and respectable literary attainments, with a meek and quiet spirit, and a member of the M. E. Church, South. They called him up, and, all unconscious of his father’s fate and his own danger, he made a light. No sooner was the light made than a ball passed through his window, entered his head and he fell lifeless on the hearth. Thus perished father and son in one night.
“Since their death little has been said in reference to them; but they still live in the hearts of many friends, and it is well known that they bore the highest type of manhood.
“Bro. Glanville had for many years been an ordained elder in the M. E. Church, South, and while as a preacher he was neither profound nor brilliant, yet he possessed a sound mind, a good understanding in the things of God, was a good sermonizer and improved every year, so that his last days were his best. Peace to his memory.
“John H. Ross.”
The Rev. John Monroe, of the St. Louis Conference, one of the oldest ministers in Missouri, furnishes the following sketch of the lamented Glanville:
“The Rev. Thomas Glanville was born in England, May 15, A. D. 1811. Came to this country about the year 1829 or 1830, and a short time afterward was married to Miss Donnell, of Green county, Mo. Not long after this event he embraced religion and united with the M. E. Church, and in 1841 was received on trial in the Missouri Conference.
“In 1843 he was appointed to Buffalo Circuit, where he endured much affliction, both of body and mind. His wife died and he married again, and the next year he located. For a time he traveled under the Presiding Elder and was readmitted into the St. Louis Conference in 1855, and then traveled regularly until the war came up. He did not cease to preach in his neighborhood. He had an appointment the day he met his awful fate, but dared not attend it, as his avowed enemies were watching his movements. This was Sabbath, Sept. 20, 1863. At night three outlaws, guided, no doubt, by another who was not responsible to any military organization, approached his peaceful home and shot him. And what for? No one knows. He, like all good men, was self-denying and made no compromise with sin, wicked men or devils; reproving sin in all its forms and in all places, he had enemies who threatened him years before, and this was a good time to put their designs into execution.
“At first he was ordered from home; he went, remained some three weeks and returned. Then they compelled him to take an oath and give bond, in which he was bound to stay at home—just what he wanted to do. But in a few days after giving bond there came a stripling of a boy, purporting to have orders from a Lieutenant of the same family whence all his troubles came, ordering him to again leave home forthwith, and be quick about it. He then, as a law-abiding man, went to Captain Allen, then at Hermitage, for protection to enable him to keep his obligation, and to know how to act under the circumstances. But the Captain refused to protect or instruct him, only to tell him that he had better leave quickly, knowing at the same time that such a course would forfeit his bond. He had made up his mind to leave the next morning, but, as stated, three armed men came after dark and shot him some three or four times, and he expired instantly. His last and dying words were, ‘Lord, have mercy on my enemies.’
“He was buried without a song; not even a prayer was permitted to be offered in behalf of his disconsolate wife and weeping children. But the good man exchanged a world of woe for a land of rest.
“Thomas Glanville was always known to be a law-abiding man and a peaceable citizen. He often boasted of the privileges he enjoyed under this benign Government, and only claimed his rights under its Constitution and laws. He was never known to violate any law, abhorred a mean thing and would speak out against it. He strenuously opposed all bushwhacking, stealing, murder, and any and all infringement upon the rights of others. He stood up squarely for the rights of the M. E. Church, South, and contended boldly for the principles of religious liberty. In view of these things it is not difficult to account for his shameful and brutal murder.
John Monroe.”
It is quite a relief to turn away, for a time at least, from the contemplation of such scenes of barbarity and more than savage cruelty as the history of the terrible past presents to our faith and philosophy.
Three long chapters, prepared for this volume, are laid over for the second, by the decree of the publisher, to prevent the enlargement of the present volume to an improper size. By it the next volume will be enriched beyond measure. What is lost to this will be gained for that, and neither the work, as a whole, nor the reader will be damaged.
The deferred chapters contain an account of the “Rosecrans oath,” in “Special Order No. 61,” of March 7th, 1864, and its designs upon the common laws and facts of religious liberty; the persecutions, trials, banishment, etc., of the Rev. Drs. McPheeters and Farris, of the Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Tyson Dynes, of the M. E. Church, South, the long imprisonment and peculiar sufferings of the Rev. Dr. McAnally; the effort to crush or confiscate the publishing house at St. Louis, and its preservation and security by the agent, the Rev. P. M. Pinckard; and a “Chapter of Martyrs,” detailing with careful minuteness the cold-blooded murder of the Rev. John L. Wood, the Rev. George L. Sexton and the Rev. Edwin Robinson.
The history of the indictments, trials, imprisonment and persecutions of ministers under the “test oath” of the New Constitution will form a prominent and extensive feature of the second volume, with due attention to the particulars of the murder of the Rev. Samuel S. Headlee and others, which will invest the work with thrilling interest. The future historian will assign to these names a conspicuous place upon the long roll of martyrs, and the future Church will reap a rich harvest of souls, with multiplied agencies and resources, from the blood they shed “for the testimony of Jesus and the word of God.”
“They lived unknown
Till persecution dragged them into fame,
And chased them up to heaven. Their ashes flew,
No marble tells us whither. With their names
No bard enbalms and sanctifies his song:
And history, so warm on meaner themes,
Is cold on this. She execrates, indeed,
The tyranny that doomed them to the fire,
But gives the glorious sufferers little praise.”
End of Volume I.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.