Verses from Dolly Parton’s famous song relate, “He preached the word of God throughout the land. Daddy worked for God but asked no pay for he believed that God provides a way. We never had a lot but we got by.”
Such was the life of many a circuit preacher. In the early days before settlements could support a church and/or a full-time preacher, the circuit rider would serve several towns.
Meetings would be held in people’s homes, fields, schoolhouses, wherever there was a place available. They would preach sometimes for two hours or more at a time and hold week long revivals. Weddings and baptisms were planned to correspond with their arrival.
In frontier times, they rode horseback and carried only what fit in their saddlebags, hence the name they were also referred to — saddlebag preachers.
These early preachers faced many dangers and illnesses traveling across the wilderness and prairies. They were lucky to make $30-50 a year, pay usually being given in farm crops.
The concept was Methodist, making them the largest denomination in these years.
In 1784, there were 14,986 members and 83 traveling preachers. By 1839, they had grown to 749,216 members served by 3,557 traveling preachers and 5,856 local preachers.
The Rev. Nathan Cary was an early circuit rider in the Osceola area in the 1850s. He was integral in the establishment of the Osceola Methodist church. The Rev. Jesse Sherwood also ministered in the 1860s.
The Rev. James Smith, who was a Baptist minister for 35 years, traveled over 10 or 15 counties in the 1860s and started the Baptist church in Osceola.
The Rev. T.P. Martin, the M.P. (Methodist Protestant) circuit preacher, at a pound social in 1893 was given as gratitude for his service, a gold watch worth $45, a good amount of provisions, nine chickens and a pair of fancy slippers.
In 1901, it was told that it cost $100 a year to buy hay and food for a team of horses, which was pretty tough on the circuit preacher who only was promised a $400 yearly salary, which he often had a hard time getting.
The Rev. Jacob Delay Clark received his first license to preach at age 21 in 1847. He served several circuits in southern Iowa, and was also a blacksmith and farmer.
On Jan. 9, 1898, he preached an exceptionable sermon “It is Finished” at the Ottawa U.B. (United Brethren) Church. At the close of the service, he became ill and passed away two days later at his son-in-law Job Carson’s home.
His obituary stated: “Truly it can be said of him ‘he died at his post.’” His son Markwood Simeon was also a preacher, his last sermon being the Sunday before his death at East Concord Baptist church in 1937.
Elmer Clark, son of M.S., continued the family profession, serving Davis City, Kellerton, Russell, Bridgewater, Keokuk, Cantril, Derby and Woodburn. He retired in 1949, but lived many years past his last sermon, passing away in 1965.