The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993 Page: 348
681 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Ilistorzcal Quarterly
to follow." It therefore behooved the citizenry to use any means-
whether legal or not-to suppress them. "There is no law in our statute
book to prevent them, without the overt act, but there is something
above all law-self-preservation."'
Most of the Northern Methodist churches in Texas appear to have
collapsed in the wake of the debacle at Timber Creek. Only Bewley and
one other minister, William Butts, remained to continue the work.
Working in Johnson County, Bewley managed to avoid open confron-
tations with local citizens by preaching only in the homes of the faithful
few who supported his ministry. His inability to make new converts and
continual harassment by pro-slavery whites finally convinced him that
his efforts in North Texas were a waste of time, and he left the state at
the end of the year. Nevertheless, when promised additional financial
support by Bishop Edward A. Ames of the Missouri Conference, he
and a co-worker, Thomas M. Willet, agreed to return to Texas in the
spring of 1860, this time to work among the South Texas German com-
munities, whose citizens might be more sympathetic to the Northern
Methodist doctrines."'
Bewley never made it to his new mission field. He had been back in
Texas only one month, apparently pausing to visit, or perhaps to finish
personal business at, his old residence south of Fort Worth, when the
sensational news from Dallas hit the press. On July 17, five days after
Pryor wrote his first letter to the State Gazette, Bewley quickly gathered
up a few belongings and, with his wife and eleven-year-old son George,
headed northeastward, intending eventually to make it to Kansas and
safety. The rest of his family, including two grown daughters and their
husbands, three other sons, and a teen-aged daughter, followed later.
Tom Willet apparently left Texas at about the same time, although it is
unclear whether he travelled with the Bewleys." Six weeks after begin-
ning their flight, the Bewleys arrived in southern Missouri. Anthony
"Norton, "The Methodist Episcopal Church .. in North 'exas," 328. It soon became clear
that Taylor's implied threat against anti-slavery religionists was not an idle one A few months
after the 'Timber Creek Conference, irate Dallasites whipped two itinerant ministers named
William Blount and Solomon McKinney and drove them out of the state for allegedly tamper-
ing with local slaves Dallas Herald, Aug 17, 1859, cited in Frank H. Smyrl, "Unionism, Aboll-
tionism, and Vigilantism in 'lTexas, 1856-1865" (Master's thesis, University of Texas, i961),
37-38
"'Elliott, South-Westen Methodism, 21, Norton, "'1 he Methodist Episcopal Church . In North
Texas," 328-331.
"Norton erroneously identifies Willet as Bewley's son-in-law ("The Methodist Episcopal
Church in North T'exas," 331, 334), possibly because he was so identified in a few contem-
porary Texas sources (for examples, see Dallas Ilemld, l)ec 26, 186o, and the letter of a
Southern Methodist minister, H. W South, to the Southern Methodist Itinerant, ()(t 31, 186o,
reprinted in Elliott, South-Western Methodnsm, 191) Elliott, however, calls Bewley's two married
daughters "Mrs Roper" and "Mrs Gasoot," and although he refers several times to "Mr (;ar-348
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 96, July 1992 - April, 1993, periodical, 1993; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101215/m1/406/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.