Rev. James Finley Hestwood (1830-1908)

HESTWOOD, JONES, STANLEY, FULWIDER, MAXEY, COOLEY

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 3/5/2017 at 20:14:56

From Nevada Representative May 8, 1908 (front page)

Pioneer Department

REV. J. F. HESTWOOD
The First Methodist Minster

The Northwestern Christian Advocate of April 19, 1908, brings news of the death of Rev. J. F. Hestood, who was the first Methodist minister to ake up work regularly in this field and who was the original organizer of the Methodist Episcopal church of Nevada. Of Mr. Hestwood's early work in this prairie wilderness there are some traditions, one of which is that he built a log cabin for a parsonage in what is now the Barker neighborhood between Nevada and Cambridge. It is also recorded in Allen's History of Story County that under his ministry the local Methodist church was organized at the J. W. Cessna home of the present site of of the old "Hutchinson House" with a membership of seven, these seven charter members having been E. G. Day and wife, Mrs. Cessna, Mrs. Pettibone, Mrs. Warren, Mrs. W. G. Allen and Mrs. Hannah Kellogg. Of these seven all but two have passed away; but there still survive Mrs. Kellogg of Nevada and Mrs. Cessna, now of Orange, California. Of Mr. Hestwood and his work the editor of the Christian Advocate writes with evident appreciation as follows:

"John Finley Hestwood*, one of four brothers who became Methodist ministers, was born in Delaware County, Ohio, May 1, 1830. Here he grew to manhood and married Miss Catherine Jones. Soon afterward they, in company with his parents, moved to Sycamore, Ill., and in 1850 to Mahaska County, Iowa. Here his father began his pastorates as a local preacher, and he himself began his long ministry being licensed as an exhorter, and presently as a local preacher. In 1854 he joined the Iowa Conference and was appointed to Millersburg. Indian trails enabled him to make the journey around his next circuit, Story Mission, which was fifty-three miles long and thirty miles wide. In each of these charges the parsonage was a log cabin, built by him. At Story Mission the circuit work allowed about thirty-six hours at home each week during the year. These are samples of his strenuous pioneer life. He and often others like-minded gave Methodist tone to Iowa in early days. In his next charge, Boonesborough, his evangelical efforts brought over three hundred into the Church. In 1856 the Iowa Conference was divided and the Upper Iowa Conference was organized at Marion. Brother Hestwood was one of the charter members, served long in pastorates, and was one of eight charter members who lived to see its semicentennial. Two of the four children that blessed their home God had early taken, then the mother followed, and Brother Hestwood had the burdens of the itinerancy alone. In 1865 he married Mrs. Susannah Stanley, who survives, as does their only child, Mrs. Minnie Edna Fulwider of Tipton, Ia. Mrs. Stanley's three children by her first marriage, Ezra W., Frank A., and Lydia Ann, wife of E. G. Cooley, superintendent of schools in Chicago, were as much the objects of Brother Hestwood's paternal care and love as if they had been his own children. The two children of his first marriage who survive him are John Wesley of Mount Vernon, Ill., and Ella May, nos Mrs. Roy Maxey of Washington. Brother Hestwood had pastorates in the following appointments, Millersburg, Story Mission, Boonesborough, Eldora, Manchester, Wauson, North McGregor, Strawberry Point, Elkader, again at Strawberry Point, Dubuque Circuit, Cneter Grove, Masonville, Farley, lamont Tipton Circuit, and Sabula. With the exception of three years of superannuation, 1871-4, this ministry was continuous from 1854 till 1894, at which time he superannuated. Then after a very brief illness he died on Tuesday morning, January 28, 1908, at Strawberry Point, Ia., the town in which he had pastored twice, and in which he has made his home during the years of his supannuation."

*SUBMITTER'S NOTE: This should be James Finley Hestwood, not John Finley Hestwood. Rev. James Finley Hestwood's had a father and a brother named John Hestwood.