The Nome daily nugget., 1935-12-03

E WAS BORN 150 years ago-on Sep ' tember 1, 17S5
 At the age of seventeen he was an Fl "exhorter"
 By the time he was a year older, he A - was a regularly ordained preacher Cat
 Ao the munificent salary of SS0 year
 which nine times out of ten I got aS only in part'D and for the next 70
 years he rode up and down the land
 carrying the Word to the remotest settlements.
 During that time he preached more than 15,000 sermons and baptised more than 12000 persons And those are only the highghts in the career of Peter Cartwright, backwoods Methodist preacher circuit rider and one of the most pie. turesque figures in the history of the American frontier. Because he spoke the language of the pioneering folk, could hold his a man among men in the rough-and tumble of debate o: of physical encounter but more particularly, because of his eccentricities, the legends of him "were almost numberless They were famil lar at the fresides of older generation as the tales of the Cid were to the people of Spain in the olden times. Not Mr. Travers Dayy Crockett hardly even President Lincoln was the subject of more anecdotes than this ouch beloved itinerant preacher"
 A native of Amherst county, Virginia. Cart, wright, when six years old was taken by his parents to Kentucky. They settled first in Lin. ccn county, near the present site of Lancaster, then moved to place south of Nashville in Logan county within a mile of the Kentucky Tennessee boundary line. Cartwright describes this section as such haunt for refugees from justice that 1t was called "Rogues' Harbor," filled with "murderers. horse thieves, highway robbers and ccunterfeiters." Certainly it was virgin soil for the abors of the future preacher and 1t gave him valuable experience for the role which he was to play in the future in the iron tier country of the Mississippi Valley.
 In 1901 young Cartwright was converted and united with the Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal church. He displayed such talent and fervor in speaking that the following year he received from the Society of Ebenezer permission to ex- ercise his gifts as an eXhorter so long as his exhortng conformed to its doctrines In 1So3 he beca me regular travelling preacher or circuit rider on the Red River circuit. Within nine years he was presiding elder in Kentucky and in Illinois to which he removed in 1925. He held that office for half a century, during which time the membership of the church within his 1urs- dlctlon grew from 72,0O0 to 1750,0Oo.
 One of hls contemporaries has left this vivid word picture of the famous circuit rider. Telling of attending services in a little church in Illinois, he says:
 Our attention was arrested by strange ap- partition striding up the aisle. All seemed whis- pering to their nelghbors, There he goes! and all eyes were riveted upon man of medium height. thickset with enormous bone and muscle and although his irongray hair and wrinkled brow told of the advance of years his step was still vigorous and firm. His face was bronzed by exposure to the weather; he carried white Quaker hat in his hand, and his upper garment was furnlturecalico dressing gown without waddlng. The truant breeze seemed to seize this garment by It's skirt, and, lifting 1t to level with his armpits disclosed to the gazing congre ft,an . n n1 n looms and shirt of the divine-for he was di vine and one worth days journey to see.
 He had then been a backwoods preacher for nearly 40 years ranging the country from the Lakes to the Gulf and from the AleghenieS to the Mississippi. He was inured to every form of hardship and had looked calmly at peril oi every kInd-the tomahawk of the Indian, the spring of the panther, the hug of the bear, the sweep of the tornado the rush of swollen tor rents and the fearful chasm of the earthquake He had lain in the canebrake and made his bed upon the snow of the prairie and on the oozy soil of the swamp, and had wandered hunger bitten, among the solitudes Of the mountains Ht had been In jeopardy among robbers and in dan ger from desperadoes who had sworn to take hiS life. He had preached in the cabin of the slave and the mansion of the master to the Indians and to the men of the border. He had takeI his life in his hands and had ridden in the patf of whizzing bullets that he might proclaim peace He had stood on the outskirts of civilization ant welcomed the first corners to the woods ant prares.
 Many a son of Anak had been leveled in th dust by his sledgelike fist, and when the blin' fury of his assailants urged him headiong int personal conflict with him his agility, strengtl and resolution gave them cause for bitter re pentance.
 Such was the man that now stood before u fla the desk, the famous presiding elder of Ill noIs-the renowned Peter Cartwright"
 Truly a churchman militant was this sam rsnowne1 Peter Cartwright One story told O