632 Chronicles of the Cape Fear Rwer

Porter, Rev. B. B. Culbreth, Rev. G. B. Webster, Rev. W. L.
Rexford, and Rev. T. C. Vickers.

The Bladen Street Church is located on the southeast corner
of Bladen and Fifth Streets. Its present structure is a new and
handsome building of wood, which takes the place of a smaller
wooden building, removed in the year 1910.

Trinity Meruopist Episcopat CHurcH.

Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church occupies a site near the
northeast corner of Market and Ninth Streets. The building is
of brick. The erection of a larger connecting structure on the
vacant lot on the corner is contemplated.

The church was organized in 1892 as the Market Street
Methodist Episcopal Church, and originally occupied a site on
the west side of Ninth Street, a little to the south of Market.
Later, the new and better site was procured.

The church has done a good work in supplying the needs of
the members of the denomination living in the eastern section
of the city. Its present membership numbers about 200.

The ministers who have supplied the pulpit of Trinity Church

are: Rev. E. C. Sell, Rev. T. H. Sutton, Rev. M. T. Plyler,
. Rey. A. S. Barnes, Rev. Marvin Culbreth, Rev. W. L. Rexford,
Rev. E. R. Welch, Rev. C. T. Rogers, and the present pastor,
Rev. W. V. McRae. Rev. J. W. Craig, an honored citizen and

efficient life-long pilot on the Cape Fear River, who was also a
local preacher of the Methodist Church, filled the pulpit for

some time in its early history.

At the present time (1916), plans are being formed to con-
solidate the membership of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church
with the Methodists living in the eastern suburbs of the city in
an effort to erect a Methodist Church farther out Market Street
to take the place of the present organization and structure.

Earty Mrtruopism In WILMINGTON.

(Extracts from an address of Dr. Chreitzberg, delivered before the Methodist Conference
at Durham, N.C., December 2, 1894.)

In the year 1813 there was stationed in Wilmington a young
man who afterwards was long revered among us as Bishop Wil-
liam Capers. To him we are indebted for memorials of the
time which none would willingly lose. Of Huguenot descent,

 

 

 

 

Peace Restored 633

with great beauty of person and a manner denoting the Christian
gentleman, with an eloquence of speech that was charming, he
was well calculated to captivate any with whom he associated.
The parsonage to which he brought his bride of a few weeks was
not palatial. It is best described in his own words:

“The parsonage, which I might call a two-story dwelling-
house or a shanty, according to my humor, was a two-story
house, actually erected in that form, and no mistake, with its
first story eight feet high and the second between six and seven—
quite high enough for a man to stand in with his hat off, as men
ought always to stand when in a house. The stories, to be sure,
were not excessive as to length and breadth, any more than
height, each story constituting a room of some eighteen by
twelve or fourteen feet, and the upper one having the benefit of
a sort of step-ladder on the outside of the edifice, to render it
accessible when it might not rain too hard, or with an umbrella
when it did rain, if the wind did not blow too hard. And be-
sides this, there was a room constructed like a shed at one side
of the main building, which, as madam might not relish going
out of doors and up a step-ladder on her way to bed, especially
in rainy weather, was appropriated to her use as a bedchamber.
But we were content. <A palace might scarcely have been appre-
ciated by us, who, by the grace of God, had in ourselves and in
each other a sufficiency for happiness. This house, the church,
and the lot they stood on (the church a coarse wooden structure
sixty feet by forty), and several adjoining lots, rented to free
negroes, had belonged to Mr. Meredith, and had been’ procured,
for the most part, by means of penny collections among the
negroes, who almost exclusively composed the congregation.”

There you have fully the picture of your first church and
parsonage in Wilmington. Mr. Capers speaks further of his
flock. His remarks will not bear condensation:

“Of my flock, much the greater number were negroes. The
whites were very poor or barely able to support themselves with
decency. Here, too, none of the wise men after the flesh, nor
mighty, nor noble were called. Indeed, of men of this class, I
know not that there was one, and believe that if one, there was
but one, who belonged to any church at all as a communicant.
They were, very generally, at least, too much tinctured with the
French deistical philosophy for that. Of churches in the town,
claiming mine to be one, there was but one other, the Protestant
Episcopal Church, of which the Rev. Adam Empie was rector.

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