BOEHM’S CHAPEL.
Great interests cluster around the early Methodist chapels. Boehm’s
Chapel is distinguished for its antiquity. It was the first Methodist
house of worship built in Lancaster County, now studded with Methodist
temples. The plan of the edifice was furnished in 1790 by Richard
Whatcoat, afterward bishop. He was elder at the time, and came there to
administer the ordinances. Years before the erection of this building,
as early as 1775, the year I was born, a class was formed at my father’s
house. My mother was one of the first who joined, and therefore belonged
to the first race of Methodists in America. Until the chapel was built
my grandfather’s house was used as the preaching place, except on great
occasions, when it was too small; then they used the barn.
Boehm’s Chapel was erected in 1791, the year in which Shadrach Bostwick,
Joshua Taylor, and other strong men of our Israel were received on trial.
The house was built on a hill, from which there is a fine view of the
neighborhood country, and was surrounded by trees, which still remain,
adding to the beauty of the scene. The house was built of limestone; was
forty feet deep and thirty-two wide, and had galleries. It was called
“Boehm’s Chapel,” because it was built upon Boehm’s land in Boehm’s
neighborhood, and because the different families of Boehms did much
toward its erection, and were regular attendants there. In the same way
“Barratt’s Chapel,” “Gatch’s Chapel,” “Watters’s Chapel,” and others,
obtained their names. My brother Jacob gave the land for the house and
the burying-ground. In this ground my honored parents were buried.
There were wonderful gatherings at Boehm’s Chapel. The bishops and the
great men of Methodism found their way there, and preached the word. At
quarterly meetings the people came from Philadelphia and the Eastern
Shore of Maryland and the Western Shore from Watters’s neighborhood.
Boehm’s Chapel was a great center of influence. It is difficult now to
estimate the position it once occupied in Methodism. My father was “given
to hospitality,” and at great meetings fifty and even one hundred have
been entertained at his house. Several itinerant ministers were raised
up and went out from the neighborhood of Boehm’s Chapel to preach the
Gospel. Ten I now think of, and there may be others: Joseph Jewell, who
was Nathan Bangs’s first presiding elder in Canada; Simon Miller, Richard
Sneath, William and James Hunter, James and William Mitchell, Thomas and
Robert Burch, and Henry Boehm. David Best and James Aiken were from the
circuit. It is singular they were all from Ireland except Jewell, Miller,
and myself.
Great quarterly meetings were held in this house. I will notice one held
in 1798. Thomas Ware was the presiding elder, William Colbert and William
P. Chandler the circuit preachers. The meeting began on Saturday, and
while the presiding elder was praying the Holy Ghost filled the house
where they had assembled. The work of revival commenced, and such were
the cries of distress, the prayers for mercy heard all over the house,
in the gallery as well as the lower part, that it was impossible for Mr.
Ware to preach. He came down from the pulpit, and the brethren went to
the penitent ones, as they found them in different parts of the house,
and pointed them to Jesus, and prayed with them. They were assembled in
different groups praying for the broken-hearted, and one after another
found redemption in the blood of the Lamb. It was impossible to close the
meeting, so it continued all day and most of the night. Sunday morning
came, and they attempted to hold a regular love-feast, but all in vain.
The cries of mourners, the prayers for mercy, and shout after shout as
one after another passed from death unto life, made it impossible to
proceed. On Saturday, when I beheld my niece Nancy Keaggy kneeling near
me in an agony of prayer asking for mercy, the comparatively innocent
child so intent on forgiveness, my heart was melted, my eyes were filled
with tears, and again I knelt down and there “gave my wanderings o’er by
giving God my heart.” There God restored to me the joy of his salvation.
Then I united with the Church, a duty I ought to have performed years
before. I was admitted by Thomas Ware.
A few months before my probation expired they appointed me class-leader
at Soudersburg. The brethren knew what I had lost by refusing to bear
the yoke in my youth, and they were determined to put it on me and
make me wear it. I begged, but there was no excuse. They threw the
responsibility on me, and said, “On such a day, Henry, do you go and
meet that class.” I was living at my brother Jacob’s, near where the
class met. On Saturday I took my horse and rode to my father’s, eight
miles. My object was to have a good excuse for not meeting the class.
My father was absent preaching. The devotional exercises of the family
devolved on me, and I attended family prayer. The power of God came down,
and my beloved mother and a relative were so overwhelmed they fell to
the floor, and the room was filled with glory. That Saturday night I
retired to rest, but not to sleep. In the morning I rode nine miles and
met the class. We had a refreshing season. I dared not stay away. I took
the manifestations of power the evening before as an indication that I
should obey the preachers in taking charge of the class. I continued to
meet that class for over two years, till I became an itinerant minister.
To the class-meeting I am greatly indebted. There I was “strengthened,”
“stablished,” “settled.”
A great revival followed that quarterly meeting. My father’s children
and grandchildren shared largely in it. Some moved to Canada, some to
Ohio, and other parts of the West. They are nearly all now in heaven.
The revival spread to the Peninsula, from that to Baltimore in 1800, and
the influence was felt all over the country. Bishop Asbury mentions my
brother Jacob, and says, “God has begun to work in the children of this
family. The parents have followed us for the space of twenty years.”
On August 31, 1799, he says: “I had a comfortable time at Boehm’s
church. Here lieth the dust of William Jessop and Michael R. Wilson....
Martin Boehm is upon wings and springs since the Lord has blessed his
grandchildren. His son Henry is greatly led out in public exercises.”
This is the mention the bishop makes of my boyish performances. Honorable
mention I might make of the ministers who were engaged in this revival:
Thomas Ware, William Colbert, and William Penn Chandler. The latter was
my spiritual father.