Henry Bidleman Bascom, the distinguished Methodist preacher and orator,
was born at Hancock, New York, May 27, 1796. He received a scanty
education, and when but eighteen years of age he was licensed to preach
by the Ohio conference of the Methodist church. He was a circuit-rider,
traveling more than four hundred miles upon horseback his first year in
the work, and receiving the princely salary of $12.10 for his year's
services. Bascom was too florid for the Ohio brethren, and they caused
him to be transferred to Tennessee and Kentucky circuits. In this work
he won a wide reputation as a pulpit orator. In 1823 Henry Clay had
Bascom appointed chaplain of the House of Representatives, but his long
sermons did not please the members, and he was not a great success in
Washington. Bascom was elected as the first president of Madison
College, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1827, but two years later he became
an agent for the American Colonization Society. From 1831 to 1841 he was
professor of moral science and belles-lettres in Augusta College,
Augusta, Kentucky, the first Methodist college in the world. The
Methodist church having taken over Transylvania University, at
Lexington, Dr. Bascom was elected president of that institution in 1842.
He revived the ancient seat of learning to a wonderful degree, becoming
another Horace Holley, but the rebirth proved ephemeral. In 1844
President Bascom protested against the action of the General Conference
of the Methodist church concerning slavery, and, in the Louisville
conference of 1845, he took a most prominent part, winning for himself
the title of "father of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South." Dr.
Bascom was editor of the _Southern Methodist Review_ for several years;
and in 1848 he resigned the presidency of Transylvania University, only
to be elected a bishop in the branch of the Methodist church he had
helped to establish. He was ordained as bishop in May, 1850, and almost
immediately set out for Missouri, where he held his first and only
conference. On his return to Kentucky he was in very poor health; and he
died at Louisville, September 8, 1850. Bishop Bascom was the greatest
Methodist preacher Kentucky can claim; and he was also an able writer.
His works include _Sermons from the Pulpit_; _Lectures on Infidelity_;
_Lectures and Essays on Moral and Mental Science_; and _Methodism and
Slavery_. In 1910 a portrait in oils of Bishop Bascom was painted by
Paul Sawyier, the Kentucky artist, for Transylvania University.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Life of Henry Bidleman Bascom, D.D., LL.D._, by M.
M. Henkle (Nashville, Tennessee, 1856); _The Transylvanian_
(Lexington, Kentucky, June, 1910).