Israel Chamberlayne was a Methodist circuit rider.
Chamberlayne was born in Unadilla County, New York, around 1795. He was received on trial as a circuit rider in 1813. He was assigned to the Northumberland Circuit, where he rode alongside Joseph Kinkead. In 1814, he was assigned to the Brome Circuit, along with George Washington Densmore.[1] In 1815, he was assigned to the St. Lawrence Circuit.[2] There he worked alongside John Arnold. The pair saw membership in the church decrease by twelve individuals that year.[3] Some time into 1815, the Superintendent of the Lower Canada District, Henry Ryan, ordered Chamberlayne to the Montreal Circuit, as no rider had been assigned to it. After a month in Montreal, he was replaced by Daniel Bromley, a previously retired circuit rider from Vermont. Chamberlayne was reassigned to the Ottawa Circuit, which had been riderless.[4] He travelled north to Hull, where he found a town entirely without Christian ministry.[5]
In 1817, he was assigned to the newly created Belleville circuit. The circuit counter 165 members of the Methodist church at the year's end.[6]
Notes
editReferences
edit- Carroll, John (1869). Case and his cotemporaries, or, The Canadian itinerants' memorial constituting a biographical history of Methodism in Canada, from its introduction into the Province, till the death of the Rev. Wm. Case in 1855. Vol. II. Toronto: Wesleyan Conference Office.