| Joseph
Cheuvront moved with his wife and babe [Mary Elizabeth]
to Fredericksburg, Va., when his four years' service on the farm of Moses
Elsworth in Germany Valley was concluded in 1778. He was "converted
to God" the year following, united himself "with the despised Methodists"
and was almost immediately licensed an exhorter. By 1780, he was
licensed a "local preacher". [Unfortunately,
due to mistakes made in 1862 during the transcription of Joseph's
last words, many researchers, including WL Cheuvront, erroneously believed
that Rev. Joseph emigrated to Fredericksburg, Virginia in 1778, when he
actually resided in Germany Valley (Rockingham County, Va.) from his arrival
from England in 1774 until he went to Harrison County with his father-in-law,
Moses Elsworth about 1787.*info via Mike Cheuvront, mchevy@earthlink.net]
He was called out
with the Militia in April, 1780, when requisition was made on the State
of Virginia for 300 men in the American Army of the Revolution, where he
served to the surrender of Cornwallis in Oct., 1781. A family tradition
has it that he served as substitute chaplain though only enlisted as a
private soldier.
He was ordained in
the Methodist Ministry at the Conference meeting in Uniontown, Pa. on July
29, 1790, after having served some ten years as a licensed local preacher.
He gave bond to perform marriage services on the 20th of Sept., 1790; Col.
Benjamin Wilson, the first Clerk of the Harrison Co. Court, wrote the
bond, which is still preserved at the Ohio University Museum in Columbus,
Ohio. There is a tradition that he served as Presiding Elder of the
Ohio District through the last months of 1790 and the first months of 1791,
as there are no marriages recorded by him in Harrison Co. until April 5,
1791. Then they come thick and fast from that date on. He says
in his last message that he served the Methodists as "exhorter, class-leader,
steward, local preacher, traveling preacher and presiding elder".
He spent most of his life substituting [for others].
Personality and Habits
of Joseph Cheuvront:
He was a man of medium
statue, with very black eyes and hair, in his younger days, but becoming
gray and bald in later life. He was always a student, preferring
to work alone, and assigning his boys a task of clearing land or attending
or gathering crops, while he himself would work somewhere else. While
he spoke and read seven different languages he never taught his children
anything but English.
After the death
of his first wife [Elizabeth Elsworth, Aug.
18, 1800], he accepted work in Ohio, joining on trial the Baltimore
Conference at the session held in Pipe Creek, May 1st, 1801. He was
assigned to the Muskingum and Hockhockin Circuit, with some 30 preaching
places. He met Sarah Bollen at Painesville, Ohio, and the
two were married January 26th, 1802. Sarah Bollen Cheuvront was
born in Pennsylvania on June 22nd, 1780, and was 23 years younger than
her husband.
lineages
of the 2nd family of Joseph Cheuvront and Sarah Bollen here
At the Conference session
held in Baltimore on April 1, 1802, Joseph was assigned to the Ohio Circuit
that included all territory in the northern panhandle of what is now West
Virginia. Some record of his work is still preserved at the Old Stone
Church at Short Creek, a regular appointment of the West Liberty Charge
(1950).
As the Conference
[April 1, 1802, Baltimore] made no provision for married men, we find Joseph's
name among those who "have located through bodily weakness or family concern".
He did not quit preaching, and, according to the Rev. J.A.Earl, he organized
the first Methodist Church in Randolph County. The Rev. James Quinn,
who served Clarksburg Circuit in 1799, wrote that "Old Brother Chieuvront
was the most extensively useful local preacher I've ever known," and even
said to Joseph's children, "Never forget that your father was a Methodist
Minister."
[Hon.
Harvey W. Harmer, in his excellent work ‘One Hundred and Fifty Years
of Methodism In Clarksburg, 1788-1938,' introduces Rev. Joseph Cheuvront
as follows:
At
a conference in 1797, all the societies in this upper valley were formed
into the Clarksburg Circuit, with Robert Conn and Richard Pearson as the
preachers in charge.
Among
the members of the Clarksburg Methodist Episcopal Church were the Cheuvronts,
Elsworths, Davissons, Cottrills, and others. Probably the most active
of these were Joseph Cheuvront. He was a native of France were he
was being educated for a Catholic priest. Before he had finished
his education he renounced the Catholic faith and became a Protestant.
For his change of faith he was disinherited and suffered bitter persecution.
As a result he ran away and came to New York as a "stowaway".
In
New York he met and made friends among the Methodists and became a member
and local . . .[sentence cut off when copied] . . . to join them in their
new adventure. They came in 1776 and made their settlement on Coburn's
Creek, five mile south of here (Clarksburg).
When
the Methodist Church in Clarksburg was organized, Joseph Cheuvront and
John and Jacob Elsworth were three of the charter members. Cheuvront
was already a local preacher and in 1790 the local Church recommended
him and he was ordained a local deacon. In 1801, he became a member
of the Baltimore Conference and continued in the active ministry until
his death in 1832.
descendants
of the Davissons, Cottrills, Nutters and Cheuvront are now (1938) among
the members of this Church. Mr. Will H. Cheuvront (of this church)
is a great-grandson of Joseph Cheuvront and other great-grandsons are the
Rev. Wesley L. Cheuvront now pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in
Bridgeport, and John R. Cheuvront now (1938) pastor of the Methodist
Church at Wallace.] |
