Text online at wesley.nnu.edu/wesleyctr/books/0201-0300/stevens/, viewed 8 April 2004

(Copyright 2000 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology of Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho 83686. Text may be freely used for personal or scholarly purposes, provided this notice is left intact.)

HISTORY of the METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH in the United States of America

By Abel Stevens, LL.D.,

VOLUME I

The Planting of American Methodism

BOOK I — CHAPTER IV

WESLEY'S FIRST MISSIONARIES TO AMERICA

[In 1771, Joseph Pilmoor and Robert Williams] made an excursion to New Rochelle, where they found a little company gathered for worship, at the house of Frederick Deveau. A clergyman present refused Pilmoor the privilege of addressing the meeting; but the wife of Deveau lying sick in an adjacent room, saw him through the opened door and gave him a mysterious recognition. During her illness she had had much trouble of mind; she had dreamed that she was wandering in a dismal swamp, without path, or light, or guide; when, exhausted with fatigue and about to sink down hopeless, a stranger appeared with a light and led her out of the miry labyrinth. At the first glance she now identified Pilmoor with the apparition of her dream, and appealed to him, from her sick bed to preach to her and the waiting company. He did so; and while "he was offering to all a present, free, full salvation" the invalid was converted, and in a few days died "triumphant in the Lord!" These singular events awakened general attention; Pilmoor preached again to the whole neighborhood, and Methodism was effectively introduced into New Rochelle, where, not long after, Asbury was to form the third Methodist Society of the state, after those of John Street and Ashgrove. The beautiful town became the favorite resort of Asbury and his compeers for occasional repose from their travels, though not from their labors; the fountain whence Methodism spread through all Westchester county; its eastern-most outpost, whence it, at last, invaded New England.