I left this church for the station of Newberne, N. C. This was my birthplace. I was really glad to get back to the place where I first saw the light. I had been absent for twenty years. I saw that great changes had taken place during this time. There were no slave gangs, no whipping posts, no slave pen, no auction block. One of the first things that I did was to go to see a tree opposite the house of Bob Walker, in an old field, the spot where Tom Lewis had been whipped nearly to death for attacking a White man. After they had nearly killed him they took him down to the boat and put him on it and told him that he was never to put the prints of his feet on that part of the country again.
I was received very cordially by the church members. Many of them I remembered as my friends twenty years ago and longer. I had charge of Rue’s Chapel. My first year was a very successful one. I was returned again the second year.
Newberne has quite a history. It is situated on the banks of two rivers, the Neuse and Trent rivers. The elm trees are magnificent. Here lived the Stevenses, Jenkinses, Bryans, Webbs, and others, all old slave owners. They were of course deeply interested in the traffic and did all in their power to keep the regime from passing away. There was a Colored man at this place that owned slaves also, a Mr. J. S. Stanley. Newberne was a great turpentine center. There were turpentine distilleries here and about here. But great changes had taken place. The magnificent dwelling house of the Stevens was now occupied by a Colored man and run as a hotel. A Mr. George H. White was the superintendent of the public schools, (Colored) at this place and had also a law office. He afterwards became solicitor of state and a member of the U. S. Congress. He is now the president of a Savings Bank, on Lombard Street, Philadelphia, Penna. Mr. Sylvester Mackey and Judge Mumford were merchants. Presiding Elder, Edward Hill, of the Zion A. M. E. Church, was a wealthy planter. Mrs. Edward R. Richardson was a clerk in the Post Office. Mr. John Willis was a deputy sheriff. These and other men and women had made good their opportunities. They had not only welcomed the change from slavery but they had taken their places as freedmen among the citizens of this country and had demonstrated that they had in them that out of which the best citizens are made. I forgot to mention that the Rev. J. C. Price, D.D., former president of Livingston College, Salisbury, N. C., was born at this town. Dr. Price was one of the most distinguished orators, educators and scholars of the country regardless of color.
After my second year at this place, I attended the General Conference of the A. M. E. Church which met in St. Louis, Mo. I took my wife and baby and we went up on boat. My daughter Ada returned to Shaw University, Raleigh, N. C. where she was an instructor. At St. Louis, I met a great many ministers whom I knew and many more with whom I got well acquainted. I was quite indisposed while there, but was able to attend the sessions of the Conference. It was at this Conference that Elder R. H. Cain, D.D., made his defense against the charge of maladministration in office. And I am sure that it was his noble defense that brought about his election to the office of Bishopric. While in St. Louis, I visited some of the places of interest. I called upon Mr. J. Milton Turner, editor of the Freeman’s Journal who afterward represented the U. S. as minister to Hayti.
I visited a large Catholic (Roman) school. This was my first visit to a Roman Catholic institution of any kind. I was deeply impressed with the services, with the use of crucifixes, and the place that images held in their service. It was very strange to me. I could not understand how their minds and hearts could be fixed on God while at the same time they were giving so much time to these genuflections, rituals, and ceremonies. I remembered the second commandment. I saw that this commandment was being broken. For there were the images and likenesses of things in Heaven and on the earth, if not under earth. And yet at the same time these people seemed to be in earnest, they did what they had before them with a devotion that attracted. But it was all wrong because the Word of God in one of the Ten Commandments condemned it. The Roman Catholic Church with all its pomp, pride and wealth, is wrong in its fundamental principals and is therefore guilty of idolatry—they are not worshipping God only, they are worshipping saints and other divinities.
On Thursday, May 20, 1880, Revs. H. M. Turner, R. H. Cain, W. F. Dickerson were elected bishops of the A. M. E. Church. Bishops Payne, Wayman, Campbell, Shorter, Ward and Brown, together with the required number of elders, officiated. I left St. Louis and on my way home, stopped over in Little Rock, Ark., spending Sunday there. It was my pleasure to preach in Bethel Church on Sunday afternoon, for the Rev. Dr. J. T. Jennifer, the pastor of the church. I enjoyed meeting my many old friends. I was soon back at my work in Newberne, N. C., and remained there until the end of the year. Quite a number of members united with the church and debts were paid off. My work at this place was reasonably successful.
I attended the Conference that met in Raleigh, N. C. On account of my mother’s health I requested a transfer from this section to the North, and at this Conference I was transferred to the Conference of New Jersey. I received appointment to the station of Morristown, N. J. I arrived at Morristown with my daughter, Ada. It was midnight and very cold. I was somewhat discouraged. My daughter said to me, father, it is very cold and the outlook is a gloomy one, but I am here to stay with you and help all that I can. (Poor child, long since she passed away to that country where the inhabitants are free from the tribulations of this world.) I was reminded of a couplet in one of the old hymns,
“Thy saints in all this glorious war
Shall conquer though they die.”
BISHOP JOHN M. BROWN, D.D., D.C.L.
Who ordained me as an Elder.