first session was held in January, 1869, at Union Chapel, Alexandria County.21

The Methodist Episcopal Church grew steadily in North Carolina. Although there were no members or ministers by August 9, 1866, when Dr. Mitchell came to the state, 160 North Carolinians had been organized into societies by James H. Postell, a South Carolinian and former mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.22 By early September, when Mitchell had left the state, these l6O persons plus 70 others had joined the Methodist Episcopal Church.23 Four months later, Mitchell

\

was able to report that there were 5l5 members and probationers, and 7

ministers (3 more to be supplied) in North Carolinaozu In January of

1869, three years later, North Carolina reported 794 members and pro-

bationers, 4 local preachers,25 and 5 churches worth $2,600.00.26

Another three years' growth, reported at the December 20, 1871, Annual 2IChurch Extension Society, op. cit., p, 5l.

22Missionary Society, 23. cit., p. l43.

24

22. 513., p. 5l, says that there were 510 members.

23Ibid. Ibid., pp. 144, I45. Note that the Church Extension Society,

251‘Local preachers" was a term to indicate men authorized to preach but dependent upon a secular occupation for a living. The regu- lar ministers of the church were called then, as now, ”traveling preachers," Dwight w. Culver, Negro Segregation in the Methodist Church (New Haven: Yale University Press, l953),_5. 45, note l3.

26

Church Extension Society, 23' cit., p. 51.