Rev. John Montgomery (1912)

MONTGOMERY, RICE

Posted By: Pat Hochstetler
Date: 11/8/2023 at 18:04:35

The Winterset Madisonian
Winterset, Iowa
Wednesday, June 26, 1912
Page 3, Column 1

Methodist Pioneer Dead

Marshalltown.—Word received here from DeSoto, Dallas county, announced the death of Rev. John Montgomery, one of the real pioneers of Iowa Methodism. Rev. Mr. Montgomery, whose home was for many years in Albion, this county, was the last surviving member of the original Upper Iowa conference, which was organized in 1856.
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The Dallas County News
Adel, Iowa
Wednesday, June 26, 1912
Page 3, Column 4

Rev. John Montgomery died in DeSoto, June 18th, 1912, aged 88 years, 4 months and 6 days. He was born in Clarksville, Pa., Feb. 12, 1824. He was converted at the age of 10 and united with the M.E. church. At the age of 17 he was appointed as class leader and at 19 licensed to preach so that at his death he had been for 69 years a Methodist preacher.

November 27, 1850, he was married to Sarah M. Rice, who preceded him to that better land by only a few months. In 1855 he and his wife moved to Iowa, and that year he was admitted on trial to the traveling connection at the session of the Iowa conference. The following year the Upper Iowa conference was formed, of which he was a charter member and probably was the last of the original members of that body to leave the shores of time. The succeeding years were full of hardships, privation and danger. The salaries were a pittance, the people were few, scattered and poor. There were long journeys through deep snow, storms and over unbridged streams and over trackless prairies. Bro. Montgomery was much of the time accompanied by his faithful wife. Once during the Civil war he was ordered to desist from preaching at a certain place by the disloyal element, under pain of death but refusing the guard offered by friends and accompanied only by his wife he braved the wrath of man that he might do his duty. It was by the exertions of such men and women as those that the Christian civilization of our great state was established. His last sermon, preached less than a year ago, was upon the relation of children to the atonement and to the church.

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