Father: William Scripps (1749-1823)
Mother: Grace Scripps (1750-1811)
-
Children of William & Grace (above):
• William Arminger Scripps, b.21-Jul-1772.
• Joseph Locke Scripps b.???? d.age 4-1/2.
• Benjamin Scripps, b.15-May-1779.
• 8 children who died in infancy
> John Scripps, b.26-Aug-1785 d.26-Jul-1865.
• Anne Scripps, b.10-Jan-1787.
• Sarah Scripps, b.12-Feb-1788.
• Sarah Scripps, b.Mar-1789 d.Sep-1793, Morgantown.
• George Henry Scripps, b. & d. Alexandria, b.1792.
• Camilla Scripps, b. & d. near Morgantown, b.1794.
• one stillborn, in 1796.
---
BIO in brief: Reverend John Scripps [excerpt]: "During the summer of 1831 the church was greatly strengthened by the accession of Rev. John Scripps and family, who removed from Cape Girardeau county, Missouri. Mr. Scripps had been for many years a traveling preacher in connection with the Tennessee and Missouri conferences, and had been one of the gospel pioneers in a large portion of Southern Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. But his health having failed he had taken a superannuated relation to the conference, and embarked in the mercantile business. Unwilling, however, to bring up his children under the influence of slavery, he sought a home in a free State, and finally settled at Rushville. He was a man of vigorous and well cultivated intellect, and was possessed of a wide and varied knowledge of men and books. As Dr. Stevenson has truly said, "To no one person was society in all its departments in the early days of Rushville more indebted than to him. In fact, the influence of his vigorous intellect, and his strong, manly, and harmoniously developed Christian character may be seen till this day. The coming of such a man and Christian minister into the young society at Rushville was hailed as a providence; God's hand was seen and recognized in it. His long experience in the itinerancy, his intimate acquaintance with the workings of Methodism, his personal acquaintance with the ministry, and his influence with the bishops, pre-eminently fitted him for a counselor and leader in the young society. How much he loved, how wisely he planned, and how well he built is attested by the permanent and efficient character of the church to-day."
SOURCE [link]:
Methodist Episcopal Church
---
On November 25, 1824, Rev. John Scripps married Agnes Corrie of Corrieville, Lawrence County, Illinois, and soon after engaged inmercantile business at Jackson, Mo. In July, 1831, he removed to Rushville, Illinois, then but newly established, and was thus one of its very earliest citizens. Here he embarked heavily in business, carrying on also a tan yard. At a later period he resumed the pulpit, and for some years edited and published a weekly newspaper, The Prairie Telegraph. His death occurred in Rushville, July 26, 1865.
SOURCE: "Memorials of the Scripps Family", pages 88-89, by James E. Scripps, 1891 (only 100 copies were printed). The volume from which the texts above were reproduced, is within the holdings of the Library of Congress. [link]:
Memorials of the Scripps Family [PDF]
---
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: John Scripps was a native of England, having been born in London, August 26th, 1785. When he was six years old his father removed to America, settling first at Alexandria, and afterwards in the neighborhood of Morgantown, Virginia. John, who was a sickly child, was not sent to school, but was allowed to avail himself of his father's excellent library, which he did to such advantage that when in his twentieth year he entered the Virginia Academy, with the exception of the dead languages, he was found the best scholar in the institution. On his eighth birthday, under the direction of his mother, he began reading the Scriptures consecutively - a practice which he kept up as long as he lived. And yet, in spite of this, he early imbibed infidel notions, of which he did not get rid until he read Grotius on the Truth of the Christian Religion." He now became a firm believer in the truth of Christianity, and united with the Methodist Episcopal church, of which his mother had already become a member. But he could never give the exact date of his conversion. In 1809 he removed to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and established a tan yard. He was soon after made class leader, and was then given license to exhort, and afterwards to preach. In the fall of 1814, he was employed by the presiding elder to travel the Illinois circuit whilst the preachers went to conference; and on their return found, to his surprise for he had not been consulted that he had been received into the conference and appointed to Patoka circuit in Indiana. He went to his charge, however, resolved to do his duty. Up to this time no society had been formed in Columbia, the only town in his circuit;but Mr. Scripps not only formed a class there, but extended his circuit so as to include Evansville, on the Ohio river, where he also formed a good society, in which nearly every family in the town was represented. In 1815 he was appointed to the Illinois circuit, to which, as stated before, the Okaw circuit was attached. In it was Kaskaskia, the Capital of the Territory, which Mr.Scripps made one of his preaching-places, and where he had good success. At the close of the year he had to prepare for the session of the newly formed Missouri conference, which was to be held at Shiloh, in his circuit. He was to meet Bishop McKendree at a camp-meeting near Vincennes, to conduct him to the seat of the conference. But instead of taking the circuitous route down the Mississippi and up the Ohio and Wabash, which was usually taken in order to avoid danger from the Indians, and keep within the settlements, Mr. Scripps resolved to take a straight course for Vincennes, though it would compel him to travel one hundred and thirty miles through a country infested with Indians, and uninhabited by a single white settler. In company with several others, he made the trip in safety, preached four times at the camp-meeting, and then returned by the same route with the bishop, starting from the camp-ground on Tuesday, and reaching Shiloh on Saturday, after resting four nights under the open canopy of heaven. Before this, Mr.Scripps had often doubted his call to the ministry; but after conversing with Bishop McKendree on the subject whilst on this trip, the bishop told him that if John Scripps had not been called to preach, neither had William McKendree. After the first session of the Missouri conference, Mr.Scripps was its secretary until the formation of the Illinois conference, in 1824. In 1816 he was appointed to Coldwater, afterwards called St. Louis circuit. He took the city into his charge, and made his debut in an old dilapidated log building used as the court-house, legislative hall and theater, which was the only public building in the place, except the Roman Catholic cathedral. He stood on the stage, surrounded by comic scenery, and preached to a large and attentive audience, composing the entire American population. He continued to preach there, and in a school-house which was built during the year; but his successors abandoned the place, and there was no more Methodist preaching in St. Louis until Jesse Walker re-established it in 1820. During this year Mr. Scripps visited Kaskaskia, where he had preached the year before. He was in rough pioneer costume, with knees, toes and elbows out. Two other well-dressed missionaries from the East were in the place. But when the time for preaching came, Governor Edwards selected Mr.Scripps, who had been tried, in preference to the untried strangers, and put him in the sheriff's box, a small platform above the heads of the audience, for a pulpit. His next appointment was Boonslick. In 1818 he was sent to Cape Girardeau, in 1819 to Boonslick and Lamoine, and in 1820 to Blue River. For the two following years he was on the Arkansas district, and in 1823 on the St Louis circuit. At the close of the year, his health having failed, he was granted a superannuated relation to the Missouri conference, in which he continued until the division of the Church in 1845. Refusing to go South with his conference, he was transferred to the Illinois conference in 1846, and placed on the superannuated list, and continued in it until 1850, when he withdrew from the Church. In 1854 he reunited with the Church, was restored to the ministry, and remained a local preacher until his death July 26th, 1863. He was a member of the General conferences of 1820 and 1824. Soon after his superannuation he married Miss Agnes Corrie, of whose conversion an account is given in the history of 1820. In 1825 he settled in Jackson, the county seat of Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, and engaged in the mercantile business. But, being unwilling to lead his children into temptation by bringing them up in a slave State, in 1830 he removed to Illinois and settled in Rushville, where for a time he engaged in merchandising. He afterwards published a county paper, and held several county and township offices. Soon after his removal to Rushville he organized a Sunday-school, of which he was superintendent for seventeen years, and was afterwards a teacher in it for ten years. Mr.Scripps was a man of more than ordinary ability. Small in stature, he was yet possessed of remarkable energy and determination. Sometimes, indeed, the strength of his will and his adherence to his own convictions of right impressed others with the belief that he was obstinate, and occasionally brought him in to collision with his pastors or presiding elders. He could not endure oppression in any form, nor would he submit to be dictated to by others. Having made up his mind in regard to right or duty, it was with difficulty he could be induced to change his course, and the slightest exercise of compulsion would excite in him the most determined opposition. Having done so much to build up Methodism in Rushville, having shown his love to the Church by a life of labor and sacrifice in her behalf, and having a vastly wider experience than most of those appointed as pastors of the church there, he felt that his views of church polity were entitled to some consideration from them — more, indeed, than they were always disposed to give them. At the conference of 1848 his character was arrested, on the ground that he had imprudently indulged in the use of intoxicating liquors. The matter was referred to his presiding elder, Dr. Akers, who investigated it,and concluded that there was no ground of complaint in the case. Mr.Scripps, on the recommendation of his physician, and for a disease from which he suffered greatly, and which eventually caused his death, did of necessity use spirituous liquors, but only as a medicine. And so well satisfied was the presiding elder of the groundlessness of the charge that he employed him for six months of the year to fill a vacancy in the station where he lived. But in 1830, his pastor, W. W. Mitchell, took such strong ground in opposition to him that he withdrew from the Church, and surrendered his ordination parchments to the conference. Yet during the four years in which he was out of the Church, he kept up the family altar, and attended to all the outward duties of religion, and was frequently called onto officiate at funerals. After his reunion with the Church he seems to have become more spiritual, and in March, 1860, he writes in his journal, "This month I obtained a second blessing." Mr.Scripps possessed an iron will, never tired till his object was accomplished, and clung to his opinions with a tenacity that commanded admiration, if not assent. Self-educated and a close student in early life, he maintained the same habit to the close of his days. While a mere boy in the wilds of Virginia, with no schools, and but few facilities for acquiring knowledge, he commenced the work of self-instruction, and though his time was all occupied in labor, except at night and on the Sabbath, yet, by the light descending through an old-fashioned chimney by day and pine splinters by night,he learned to write by epitomizing two large volumes of the History of Rome. A careful observer of particulars and generals, with a strong, retentive memory, the incidents of his early career were ever fresh in his mind in all their details, thus rendering him a most delightful companion. Industrious and methodical in all his habits, both secular and religious, he accomplished an amount of labor equaled by few, and surpassed by fewer still. Given to hospitality, with enlarged Christian benevolence, much of his time and means were employed for the good of others, and many a young man has gone forth to bless the world who owes his aspirations and success in life to the early and long-continued training received from him." Dr. Stevenson well says of him: "To an intellect naturally vigorous there was added a culture that was extensive, accurate and intensely practical. A close and critical examination of his numerous papers failed to discover a misspelled word, a sentence faulty in construction, or a sentiment that would not bear the closest scrutiny." To his pastor and other friends, who were with him in his last moments, he expressed himself as assured of a blissful immortality. A short time before his death he called his family around his bedside, gave to each of them his dying admonition, bade them an affectionate farewell, and then, in full possession of his mental faculties, quietly sank to rest in Jesus his Savior. He was a careful observer and faithful recorder of passing events. He was a good preacher, his sermons being always thoroughly evangelical and indicative of much thought. In doctrine he was sound. He was very fluent in conversation, and his habits of close observation and his very retentive memory made him, in his old age, one of the most delightful companions. He was an excellent business man, careful, correct, and yet prompt and ready. The writer knew him well during the last years of his life, being often entertained by him at his quarterly visitations to Rushville, and learned to esteem him highly for his intelligence, geniality and piety. He had the sad privilege of visiting him on his death-bed and preaching at his funeral. He died well in the full faith of the gospel. One of his contemporaries and fellow itinerants, Rev. John Hogan, thus writes of him: "I have been acquainted with him for many years. I have traveled several circuits that had been traveled long before by John Scripps, and there collections of him by all the people were very vivid and pleasant. He was very strict and particular in all the minutiae of a Methodist preacher's duty. I have often been shown, as a relic, treasured by the old class-leaders, the class papers prepared by Brother Scripps. How singularly neat they were! He wrote a beautiful plain hand. He made no flourishes, no extras, everything so clean and neat; and then the state of life and state of grace were so particularly noted: and on the front leaf, clearly written out, the disciplinary requirements as to the regular quarterly fast. He was very careful to have all these matters regularly attended to." In his day there were but few public roads, and in most places not even a pathway from one settlement to another. Sometimes the preachers traveled by the use of a pocket compass. Sometimes they took along a little hatchet, and being shown the way, blazed or notched the trees to point out the road, or rather course, afterwards. John Scripps had a sharp iron with which he would scratch the trees in the course he was to pursue in going from one appointment to another, and these remained plain for years afterwards. When the trees had not been disturbed, I have often followed these marks upon such parts of his original circuits as remained in my bounds. I have heard many anecdotes of his manner of preaching, of study and devotion to his work. The people loved him; and his ministry was profitable to them, and his memorial was written on their hearts. No wonder, then, that his memory was cherished, and they loved to speak of his work of faith and his labors of love."
SOURCE: biographical sketch of Rev. John Scripps from the "History of Methodism in Illinois, from 1793 to 1832", by Rev. James Leaton, D.D., of the Illinois Conference, Cincinnati. Printed by Welden & Stowe for the author, 1883.
---
Further reading...
The Cholera Year of Rushville 1834 [link]:
As retold by Rev John Scripps
Virtual Cholera cemetery [link]:
Cholera deaths of 1834 & 1841
Methodist Episcopal Church, South - Boonville, MO. [link]:
Rev John Scripps - History
Mother: Grace Scripps (1750-1811)
-
Children of William & Grace (above):
• William Arminger Scripps, b.21-Jul-1772.
• Joseph Locke Scripps b.???? d.age 4-1/2.
• Benjamin Scripps, b.15-May-1779.
• 8 children who died in infancy
> John Scripps, b.26-Aug-1785 d.26-Jul-1865.
• Anne Scripps, b.10-Jan-1787.
• Sarah Scripps, b.12-Feb-1788.
• Sarah Scripps, b.Mar-1789 d.Sep-1793, Morgantown.
• George Henry Scripps, b. & d. Alexandria, b.1792.
• Camilla Scripps, b. & d. near Morgantown, b.1794.
• one stillborn, in 1796.
---
BIO in brief: Reverend John Scripps [excerpt]: "During the summer of 1831 the church was greatly strengthened by the accession of Rev. John Scripps and family, who removed from Cape Girardeau county, Missouri. Mr. Scripps had been for many years a traveling preacher in connection with the Tennessee and Missouri conferences, and had been one of the gospel pioneers in a large portion of Southern Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. But his health having failed he had taken a superannuated relation to the conference, and embarked in the mercantile business. Unwilling, however, to bring up his children under the influence of slavery, he sought a home in a free State, and finally settled at Rushville. He was a man of vigorous and well cultivated intellect, and was possessed of a wide and varied knowledge of men and books. As Dr. Stevenson has truly said, "To no one person was society in all its departments in the early days of Rushville more indebted than to him. In fact, the influence of his vigorous intellect, and his strong, manly, and harmoniously developed Christian character may be seen till this day. The coming of such a man and Christian minister into the young society at Rushville was hailed as a providence; God's hand was seen and recognized in it. His long experience in the itinerancy, his intimate acquaintance with the workings of Methodism, his personal acquaintance with the ministry, and his influence with the bishops, pre-eminently fitted him for a counselor and leader in the young society. How much he loved, how wisely he planned, and how well he built is attested by the permanent and efficient character of the church to-day."
SOURCE [link]:
Methodist Episcopal Church
---
On November 25, 1824, Rev. John Scripps married Agnes Corrie of Corrieville, Lawrence County, Illinois, and soon after engaged inmercantile business at Jackson, Mo. In July, 1831, he removed to Rushville, Illinois, then but newly established, and was thus one of its very earliest citizens. Here he embarked heavily in business, carrying on also a tan yard. At a later period he resumed the pulpit, and for some years edited and published a weekly newspaper, The Prairie Telegraph. His death occurred in Rushville, July 26, 1865.
SOURCE: "Memorials of the Scripps Family", pages 88-89, by James E. Scripps, 1891 (only 100 copies were printed). The volume from which the texts above were reproduced, is within the holdings of the Library of Congress. [link]:
Memorials of the Scripps Family [PDF]
---
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: John Scripps was a native of England, having been born in London, August 26th, 1785. When he was six years old his father removed to America, settling first at Alexandria, and afterwards in the neighborhood of Morgantown, Virginia. John, who was a sickly child, was not sent to school, but was allowed to avail himself of his father's excellent library, which he did to such advantage that when in his twentieth year he entered the Virginia Academy, with the exception of the dead languages, he was found the best scholar in the institution. On his eighth birthday, under the direction of his mother, he began reading the Scriptures consecutively - a practice which he kept up as long as he lived. And yet, in spite of this, he early imbibed infidel notions, of which he did not get rid until he read Grotius on the Truth of the Christian Religion." He now became a firm believer in the truth of Christianity, and united with the Methodist Episcopal church, of which his mother had already become a member. But he could never give the exact date of his conversion. In 1809 he removed to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and established a tan yard. He was soon after made class leader, and was then given license to exhort, and afterwards to preach. In the fall of 1814, he was employed by the presiding elder to travel the Illinois circuit whilst the preachers went to conference; and on their return found, to his surprise for he had not been consulted that he had been received into the conference and appointed to Patoka circuit in Indiana. He went to his charge, however, resolved to do his duty. Up to this time no society had been formed in Columbia, the only town in his circuit;but Mr. Scripps not only formed a class there, but extended his circuit so as to include Evansville, on the Ohio river, where he also formed a good society, in which nearly every family in the town was represented. In 1815 he was appointed to the Illinois circuit, to which, as stated before, the Okaw circuit was attached. In it was Kaskaskia, the Capital of the Territory, which Mr.Scripps made one of his preaching-places, and where he had good success. At the close of the year he had to prepare for the session of the newly formed Missouri conference, which was to be held at Shiloh, in his circuit. He was to meet Bishop McKendree at a camp-meeting near Vincennes, to conduct him to the seat of the conference. But instead of taking the circuitous route down the Mississippi and up the Ohio and Wabash, which was usually taken in order to avoid danger from the Indians, and keep within the settlements, Mr. Scripps resolved to take a straight course for Vincennes, though it would compel him to travel one hundred and thirty miles through a country infested with Indians, and uninhabited by a single white settler. In company with several others, he made the trip in safety, preached four times at the camp-meeting, and then returned by the same route with the bishop, starting from the camp-ground on Tuesday, and reaching Shiloh on Saturday, after resting four nights under the open canopy of heaven. Before this, Mr.Scripps had often doubted his call to the ministry; but after conversing with Bishop McKendree on the subject whilst on this trip, the bishop told him that if John Scripps had not been called to preach, neither had William McKendree. After the first session of the Missouri conference, Mr.Scripps was its secretary until the formation of the Illinois conference, in 1824. In 1816 he was appointed to Coldwater, afterwards called St. Louis circuit. He took the city into his charge, and made his debut in an old dilapidated log building used as the court-house, legislative hall and theater, which was the only public building in the place, except the Roman Catholic cathedral. He stood on the stage, surrounded by comic scenery, and preached to a large and attentive audience, composing the entire American population. He continued to preach there, and in a school-house which was built during the year; but his successors abandoned the place, and there was no more Methodist preaching in St. Louis until Jesse Walker re-established it in 1820. During this year Mr. Scripps visited Kaskaskia, where he had preached the year before. He was in rough pioneer costume, with knees, toes and elbows out. Two other well-dressed missionaries from the East were in the place. But when the time for preaching came, Governor Edwards selected Mr.Scripps, who had been tried, in preference to the untried strangers, and put him in the sheriff's box, a small platform above the heads of the audience, for a pulpit. His next appointment was Boonslick. In 1818 he was sent to Cape Girardeau, in 1819 to Boonslick and Lamoine, and in 1820 to Blue River. For the two following years he was on the Arkansas district, and in 1823 on the St Louis circuit. At the close of the year, his health having failed, he was granted a superannuated relation to the Missouri conference, in which he continued until the division of the Church in 1845. Refusing to go South with his conference, he was transferred to the Illinois conference in 1846, and placed on the superannuated list, and continued in it until 1850, when he withdrew from the Church. In 1854 he reunited with the Church, was restored to the ministry, and remained a local preacher until his death July 26th, 1863. He was a member of the General conferences of 1820 and 1824. Soon after his superannuation he married Miss Agnes Corrie, of whose conversion an account is given in the history of 1820. In 1825 he settled in Jackson, the county seat of Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, and engaged in the mercantile business. But, being unwilling to lead his children into temptation by bringing them up in a slave State, in 1830 he removed to Illinois and settled in Rushville, where for a time he engaged in merchandising. He afterwards published a county paper, and held several county and township offices. Soon after his removal to Rushville he organized a Sunday-school, of which he was superintendent for seventeen years, and was afterwards a teacher in it for ten years. Mr.Scripps was a man of more than ordinary ability. Small in stature, he was yet possessed of remarkable energy and determination. Sometimes, indeed, the strength of his will and his adherence to his own convictions of right impressed others with the belief that he was obstinate, and occasionally brought him in to collision with his pastors or presiding elders. He could not endure oppression in any form, nor would he submit to be dictated to by others. Having made up his mind in regard to right or duty, it was with difficulty he could be induced to change his course, and the slightest exercise of compulsion would excite in him the most determined opposition. Having done so much to build up Methodism in Rushville, having shown his love to the Church by a life of labor and sacrifice in her behalf, and having a vastly wider experience than most of those appointed as pastors of the church there, he felt that his views of church polity were entitled to some consideration from them — more, indeed, than they were always disposed to give them. At the conference of 1848 his character was arrested, on the ground that he had imprudently indulged in the use of intoxicating liquors. The matter was referred to his presiding elder, Dr. Akers, who investigated it,and concluded that there was no ground of complaint in the case. Mr.Scripps, on the recommendation of his physician, and for a disease from which he suffered greatly, and which eventually caused his death, did of necessity use spirituous liquors, but only as a medicine. And so well satisfied was the presiding elder of the groundlessness of the charge that he employed him for six months of the year to fill a vacancy in the station where he lived. But in 1830, his pastor, W. W. Mitchell, took such strong ground in opposition to him that he withdrew from the Church, and surrendered his ordination parchments to the conference. Yet during the four years in which he was out of the Church, he kept up the family altar, and attended to all the outward duties of religion, and was frequently called onto officiate at funerals. After his reunion with the Church he seems to have become more spiritual, and in March, 1860, he writes in his journal, "This month I obtained a second blessing." Mr.Scripps possessed an iron will, never tired till his object was accomplished, and clung to his opinions with a tenacity that commanded admiration, if not assent. Self-educated and a close student in early life, he maintained the same habit to the close of his days. While a mere boy in the wilds of Virginia, with no schools, and but few facilities for acquiring knowledge, he commenced the work of self-instruction, and though his time was all occupied in labor, except at night and on the Sabbath, yet, by the light descending through an old-fashioned chimney by day and pine splinters by night,he learned to write by epitomizing two large volumes of the History of Rome. A careful observer of particulars and generals, with a strong, retentive memory, the incidents of his early career were ever fresh in his mind in all their details, thus rendering him a most delightful companion. Industrious and methodical in all his habits, both secular and religious, he accomplished an amount of labor equaled by few, and surpassed by fewer still. Given to hospitality, with enlarged Christian benevolence, much of his time and means were employed for the good of others, and many a young man has gone forth to bless the world who owes his aspirations and success in life to the early and long-continued training received from him." Dr. Stevenson well says of him: "To an intellect naturally vigorous there was added a culture that was extensive, accurate and intensely practical. A close and critical examination of his numerous papers failed to discover a misspelled word, a sentence faulty in construction, or a sentiment that would not bear the closest scrutiny." To his pastor and other friends, who were with him in his last moments, he expressed himself as assured of a blissful immortality. A short time before his death he called his family around his bedside, gave to each of them his dying admonition, bade them an affectionate farewell, and then, in full possession of his mental faculties, quietly sank to rest in Jesus his Savior. He was a careful observer and faithful recorder of passing events. He was a good preacher, his sermons being always thoroughly evangelical and indicative of much thought. In doctrine he was sound. He was very fluent in conversation, and his habits of close observation and his very retentive memory made him, in his old age, one of the most delightful companions. He was an excellent business man, careful, correct, and yet prompt and ready. The writer knew him well during the last years of his life, being often entertained by him at his quarterly visitations to Rushville, and learned to esteem him highly for his intelligence, geniality and piety. He had the sad privilege of visiting him on his death-bed and preaching at his funeral. He died well in the full faith of the gospel. One of his contemporaries and fellow itinerants, Rev. John Hogan, thus writes of him: "I have been acquainted with him for many years. I have traveled several circuits that had been traveled long before by John Scripps, and there collections of him by all the people were very vivid and pleasant. He was very strict and particular in all the minutiae of a Methodist preacher's duty. I have often been shown, as a relic, treasured by the old class-leaders, the class papers prepared by Brother Scripps. How singularly neat they were! He wrote a beautiful plain hand. He made no flourishes, no extras, everything so clean and neat; and then the state of life and state of grace were so particularly noted: and on the front leaf, clearly written out, the disciplinary requirements as to the regular quarterly fast. He was very careful to have all these matters regularly attended to." In his day there were but few public roads, and in most places not even a pathway from one settlement to another. Sometimes the preachers traveled by the use of a pocket compass. Sometimes they took along a little hatchet, and being shown the way, blazed or notched the trees to point out the road, or rather course, afterwards. John Scripps had a sharp iron with which he would scratch the trees in the course he was to pursue in going from one appointment to another, and these remained plain for years afterwards. When the trees had not been disturbed, I have often followed these marks upon such parts of his original circuits as remained in my bounds. I have heard many anecdotes of his manner of preaching, of study and devotion to his work. The people loved him; and his ministry was profitable to them, and his memorial was written on their hearts. No wonder, then, that his memory was cherished, and they loved to speak of his work of faith and his labors of love."
SOURCE: biographical sketch of Rev. John Scripps from the "History of Methodism in Illinois, from 1793 to 1832", by Rev. James Leaton, D.D., of the Illinois Conference, Cincinnati. Printed by Welden & Stowe for the author, 1883.
---
Further reading...
The Cholera Year of Rushville 1834 [link]:
As retold by Rev John Scripps
Virtual Cholera cemetery [link]:
Cholera deaths of 1834 & 1841
Methodist Episcopal Church, South - Boonville, MO. [link]:
Rev John Scripps - History
Father: William Scripps (1749-1823)
Mother: Grace Scripps (1750-1811)
-
Children of William & Grace (above):
• William Arminger Scripps, b.21-Jul-1772.
• Joseph Locke Scripps b.???? d.age 4-1/2.
• Benjamin Scripps, b.15-May-1779.
• 8 children who died in infancy
> John Scripps, b.26-Aug-1785 d.26-Jul-1865.
• Anne Scripps, b.10-Jan-1787.
• Sarah Scripps, b.12-Feb-1788.
• Sarah Scripps, b.Mar-1789 d.Sep-1793, Morgantown.
• George Henry Scripps, b. & d. Alexandria, b.1792.
• Camilla Scripps, b. & d. near Morgantown, b.1794.
• one stillborn, in 1796.
---
BIO in brief: Reverend John Scripps [excerpt]: "During the summer of 1831 the church was greatly strengthened by the accession of Rev. John Scripps and family, who removed from Cape Girardeau county, Missouri. Mr. Scripps had been for many years a traveling preacher in connection with the Tennessee and Missouri conferences, and had been one of the gospel pioneers in a large portion of Southern Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. But his health having failed he had taken a superannuated relation to the conference, and embarked in the mercantile business. Unwilling, however, to bring up his children under the influence of slavery, he sought a home in a free State, and finally settled at Rushville. He was a man of vigorous and well cultivated intellect, and was possessed of a wide and varied knowledge of men and books. As Dr. Stevenson has truly said, "To no one person was society in all its departments in the early days of Rushville more indebted than to him. In fact, the influence of his vigorous intellect, and his strong, manly, and harmoniously developed Christian character may be seen till this day. The coming of such a man and Christian minister into the young society at Rushville was hailed as a providence; God's hand was seen and recognized in it. His long experience in the itinerancy, his intimate acquaintance with the workings of Methodism, his personal acquaintance with the ministry, and his influence with the bishops, pre-eminently fitted him for a counselor and leader in the young society. How much he loved, how wisely he planned, and how well he built is attested by the permanent and efficient character of the church to-day."
SOURCE [link]:
Methodist Episcopal Church
---
On November 25, 1824, Rev. John Scripps married Agnes Corrie of Corrieville, Lawrence County, Illinois, and soon after engaged inmercantile business at Jackson, Mo. In July, 1831, he removed to Rushville, Illinois, then but newly established, and was thus one of its very earliest citizens. Here he embarked heavily in business, carrying on also a tan yard. At a later period he resumed the pulpit, and for some years edited and published a weekly newspaper, The Prairie Telegraph. His death occurred in Rushville, July 26, 1865.
SOURCE: "Memorials of the Scripps Family", pages 88-89, by James E. Scripps, 1891 (only 100 copies were printed). The volume from which the texts above were reproduced, is within the holdings of the Library of Congress. [link]:
Memorials of the Scripps Family [PDF]
---
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: John Scripps was a native of England, having been born in London, August 26th, 1785. When he was six years old his father removed to America, settling first at Alexandria, and afterwards in the neighborhood of Morgantown, Virginia. John, who was a sickly child, was not sent to school, but was allowed to avail himself of his father's excellent library, which he did to such advantage that when in his twentieth year he entered the Virginia Academy, with the exception of the dead languages, he was found the best scholar in the institution. On his eighth birthday, under the direction of his mother, he began reading the Scriptures consecutively - a practice which he kept up as long as he lived. And yet, in spite of this, he early imbibed infidel notions, of which he did not get rid until he read Grotius on the Truth of the Christian Religion." He now became a firm believer in the truth of Christianity, and united with the Methodist Episcopal church, of which his mother had already become a member. But he could never give the exact date of his conversion. In 1809 he removed to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and established a tan yard. He was soon after made class leader, and was then given license to exhort, and afterwards to preach. In the fall of 1814, he was employed by the presiding elder to travel the Illinois circuit whilst the preachers went to conference; and on their return found, to his surprise for he had not been consulted that he had been received into the conference and appointed to Patoka circuit in Indiana. He went to his charge, however, resolved to do his duty. Up to this time no society had been formed in Columbia, the only town in his circuit;but Mr. Scripps not only formed a class there, but extended his circuit so as to include Evansville, on the Ohio river, where he also formed a good society, in which nearly every family in the town was represented. In 1815 he was appointed to the Illinois circuit, to which, as stated before, the Okaw circuit was attached. In it was Kaskaskia, the Capital of the Territory, which Mr.Scripps made one of his preaching-places, and where he had good success. At the close of the year he had to prepare for the session of the newly formed Missouri conference, which was to be held at Shiloh, in his circuit. He was to meet Bishop McKendree at a camp-meeting near Vincennes, to conduct him to the seat of the conference. But instead of taking the circuitous route down the Mississippi and up the Ohio and Wabash, which was usually taken in order to avoid danger from the Indians, and keep within the settlements, Mr. Scripps resolved to take a straight course for Vincennes, though it would compel him to travel one hundred and thirty miles through a country infested with Indians, and uninhabited by a single white settler. In company with several others, he made the trip in safety, preached four times at the camp-meeting, and then returned by the same route with the bishop, starting from the camp-ground on Tuesday, and reaching Shiloh on Saturday, after resting four nights under the open canopy of heaven. Before this, Mr.Scripps had often doubted his call to the ministry; but after conversing with Bishop McKendree on the subject whilst on this trip, the bishop told him that if John Scripps had not been called to preach, neither had William McKendree. After the first session of the Missouri conference, Mr.Scripps was its secretary until the formation of the Illinois conference, in 1824. In 1816 he was appointed to Coldwater, afterwards called St. Louis circuit. He took the city into his charge, and made his debut in an old dilapidated log building used as the court-house, legislative hall and theater, which was the only public building in the place, except the Roman Catholic cathedral. He stood on the stage, surrounded by comic scenery, and preached to a large and attentive audience, composing the entire American population. He continued to preach there, and in a school-house which was built during the year; but his successors abandoned the place, and there was no more Methodist preaching in St. Louis until Jesse Walker re-established it in 1820. During this year Mr. Scripps visited Kaskaskia, where he had preached the year before. He was in rough pioneer costume, with knees, toes and elbows out. Two other well-dressed missionaries from the East were in the place. But when the time for preaching came, Governor Edwards selected Mr.Scripps, who had been tried, in preference to the untried strangers, and put him in the sheriff's box, a small platform above the heads of the audience, for a pulpit. His next appointment was Boonslick. In 1818 he was sent to Cape Girardeau, in 1819 to Boonslick and Lamoine, and in 1820 to Blue River. For the two following years he was on the Arkansas district, and in 1823 on the St Louis circuit. At the close of the year, his health having failed, he was granted a superannuated relation to the Missouri conference, in which he continued until the division of the Church in 1845. Refusing to go South with his conference, he was transferred to the Illinois conference in 1846, and placed on the superannuated list, and continued in it until 1850, when he withdrew from the Church. In 1854 he reunited with the Church, was restored to the ministry, and remained a local preacher until his death July 26th, 1863. He was a member of the General conferences of 1820 and 1824. Soon after his superannuation he married Miss Agnes Corrie, of whose conversion an account is given in the history of 1820. In 1825 he settled in Jackson, the county seat of Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, and engaged in the mercantile business. But, being unwilling to lead his children into temptation by bringing them up in a slave State, in 1830 he removed to Illinois and settled in Rushville, where for a time he engaged in merchandising. He afterwards published a county paper, and held several county and township offices. Soon after his removal to Rushville he organized a Sunday-school, of which he was superintendent for seventeen years, and was afterwards a teacher in it for ten years. Mr.Scripps was a man of more than ordinary ability. Small in stature, he was yet possessed of remarkable energy and determination. Sometimes, indeed, the strength of his will and his adherence to his own convictions of right impressed others with the belief that he was obstinate, and occasionally brought him in to collision with his pastors or presiding elders. He could not endure oppression in any form, nor would he submit to be dictated to by others. Having made up his mind in regard to right or duty, it was with difficulty he could be induced to change his course, and the slightest exercise of compulsion would excite in him the most determined opposition. Having done so much to build up Methodism in Rushville, having shown his love to the Church by a life of labor and sacrifice in her behalf, and having a vastly wider experience than most of those appointed as pastors of the church there, he felt that his views of church polity were entitled to some consideration from them — more, indeed, than they were always disposed to give them. At the conference of 1848 his character was arrested, on the ground that he had imprudently indulged in the use of intoxicating liquors. The matter was referred to his presiding elder, Dr. Akers, who investigated it,and concluded that there was no ground of complaint in the case. Mr.Scripps, on the recommendation of his physician, and for a disease from which he suffered greatly, and which eventually caused his death, did of necessity use spirituous liquors, but only as a medicine. And so well satisfied was the presiding elder of the groundlessness of the charge that he employed him for six months of the year to fill a vacancy in the station where he lived. But in 1830, his pastor, W. W. Mitchell, took such strong ground in opposition to him that he withdrew from the Church, and surrendered his ordination parchments to the conference. Yet during the four years in which he was out of the Church, he kept up the family altar, and attended to all the outward duties of religion, and was frequently called onto officiate at funerals. After his reunion with the Church he seems to have become more spiritual, and in March, 1860, he writes in his journal, "This month I obtained a second blessing." Mr.Scripps possessed an iron will, never tired till his object was accomplished, and clung to his opinions with a tenacity that commanded admiration, if not assent. Self-educated and a close student in early life, he maintained the same habit to the close of his days. While a mere boy in the wilds of Virginia, with no schools, and but few facilities for acquiring knowledge, he commenced the work of self-instruction, and though his time was all occupied in labor, except at night and on the Sabbath, yet, by the light descending through an old-fashioned chimney by day and pine splinters by night,he learned to write by epitomizing two large volumes of the History of Rome. A careful observer of particulars and generals, with a strong, retentive memory, the incidents of his early career were ever fresh in his mind in all their details, thus rendering him a most delightful companion. Industrious and methodical in all his habits, both secular and religious, he accomplished an amount of labor equaled by few, and surpassed by fewer still. Given to hospitality, with enlarged Christian benevolence, much of his time and means were employed for the good of others, and many a young man has gone forth to bless the world who owes his aspirations and success in life to the early and long-continued training received from him." Dr. Stevenson well says of him: "To an intellect naturally vigorous there was added a culture that was extensive, accurate and intensely practical. A close and critical examination of his numerous papers failed to discover a misspelled word, a sentence faulty in construction, or a sentiment that would not bear the closest scrutiny." To his pastor and other friends, who were with him in his last moments, he expressed himself as assured of a blissful immortality. A short time before his death he called his family around his bedside, gave to each of them his dying admonition, bade them an affectionate farewell, and then, in full possession of his mental faculties, quietly sank to rest in Jesus his Savior. He was a careful observer and faithful recorder of passing events. He was a good preacher, his sermons being always thoroughly evangelical and indicative of much thought. In doctrine he was sound. He was very fluent in conversation, and his habits of close observation and his very retentive memory made him, in his old age, one of the most delightful companions. He was an excellent business man, careful, correct, and yet prompt and ready. The writer knew him well during the last years of his life, being often entertained by him at his quarterly visitations to Rushville, and learned to esteem him highly for his intelligence, geniality and piety. He had the sad privilege of visiting him on his death-bed and preaching at his funeral. He died well in the full faith of the gospel. One of his contemporaries and fellow itinerants, Rev. John Hogan, thus writes of him: "I have been acquainted with him for many years. I have traveled several circuits that had been traveled long before by John Scripps, and there collections of him by all the people were very vivid and pleasant. He was very strict and particular in all the minutiae of a Methodist preacher's duty. I have often been shown, as a relic, treasured by the old class-leaders, the class papers prepared by Brother Scripps. How singularly neat they were! He wrote a beautiful plain hand. He made no flourishes, no extras, everything so clean and neat; and then the state of life and state of grace were so particularly noted: and on the front leaf, clearly written out, the disciplinary requirements as to the regular quarterly fast. He was very careful to have all these matters regularly attended to." In his day there were but few public roads, and in most places not even a pathway from one settlement to another. Sometimes the preachers traveled by the use of a pocket compass. Sometimes they took along a little hatchet, and being shown the way, blazed or notched the trees to point out the road, or rather course, afterwards. John Scripps had a sharp iron with which he would scratch the trees in the course he was to pursue in going from one appointment to another, and these remained plain for years afterwards. When the trees had not been disturbed, I have often followed these marks upon such parts of his original circuits as remained in my bounds. I have heard many anecdotes of his manner of preaching, of study and devotion to his work. The people loved him; and his ministry was profitable to them, and his memorial was written on their hearts. No wonder, then, that his memory was cherished, and they loved to speak of his work of faith and his labors of love."
SOURCE: biographical sketch of Rev. John Scripps from the "History of Methodism in Illinois, from 1793 to 1832", by Rev. James Leaton, D.D., of the Illinois Conference, Cincinnati. Printed by Welden & Stowe for the author, 1883.
---
Further reading...
The Cholera Year of Rushville 1834 [link]:
As retold by Rev John Scripps
Virtual Cholera cemetery [link]:
Cholera deaths of 1834 & 1841
Methodist Episcopal Church, South - Boonville, MO. [link]:
Rev John Scripps - History
Mother: Grace Scripps (1750-1811)
-
Children of William & Grace (above):
• William Arminger Scripps, b.21-Jul-1772.
• Joseph Locke Scripps b.???? d.age 4-1/2.
• Benjamin Scripps, b.15-May-1779.
• 8 children who died in infancy
> John Scripps, b.26-Aug-1785 d.26-Jul-1865.
• Anne Scripps, b.10-Jan-1787.
• Sarah Scripps, b.12-Feb-1788.
• Sarah Scripps, b.Mar-1789 d.Sep-1793, Morgantown.
• George Henry Scripps, b. & d. Alexandria, b.1792.
• Camilla Scripps, b. & d. near Morgantown, b.1794.
• one stillborn, in 1796.
---
BIO in brief: Reverend John Scripps [excerpt]: "During the summer of 1831 the church was greatly strengthened by the accession of Rev. John Scripps and family, who removed from Cape Girardeau county, Missouri. Mr. Scripps had been for many years a traveling preacher in connection with the Tennessee and Missouri conferences, and had been one of the gospel pioneers in a large portion of Southern Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. But his health having failed he had taken a superannuated relation to the conference, and embarked in the mercantile business. Unwilling, however, to bring up his children under the influence of slavery, he sought a home in a free State, and finally settled at Rushville. He was a man of vigorous and well cultivated intellect, and was possessed of a wide and varied knowledge of men and books. As Dr. Stevenson has truly said, "To no one person was society in all its departments in the early days of Rushville more indebted than to him. In fact, the influence of his vigorous intellect, and his strong, manly, and harmoniously developed Christian character may be seen till this day. The coming of such a man and Christian minister into the young society at Rushville was hailed as a providence; God's hand was seen and recognized in it. His long experience in the itinerancy, his intimate acquaintance with the workings of Methodism, his personal acquaintance with the ministry, and his influence with the bishops, pre-eminently fitted him for a counselor and leader in the young society. How much he loved, how wisely he planned, and how well he built is attested by the permanent and efficient character of the church to-day."
SOURCE [link]:
Methodist Episcopal Church
---
On November 25, 1824, Rev. John Scripps married Agnes Corrie of Corrieville, Lawrence County, Illinois, and soon after engaged inmercantile business at Jackson, Mo. In July, 1831, he removed to Rushville, Illinois, then but newly established, and was thus one of its very earliest citizens. Here he embarked heavily in business, carrying on also a tan yard. At a later period he resumed the pulpit, and for some years edited and published a weekly newspaper, The Prairie Telegraph. His death occurred in Rushville, July 26, 1865.
SOURCE: "Memorials of the Scripps Family", pages 88-89, by James E. Scripps, 1891 (only 100 copies were printed). The volume from which the texts above were reproduced, is within the holdings of the Library of Congress. [link]:
Memorials of the Scripps Family [PDF]
---
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: John Scripps was a native of England, having been born in London, August 26th, 1785. When he was six years old his father removed to America, settling first at Alexandria, and afterwards in the neighborhood of Morgantown, Virginia. John, who was a sickly child, was not sent to school, but was allowed to avail himself of his father's excellent library, which he did to such advantage that when in his twentieth year he entered the Virginia Academy, with the exception of the dead languages, he was found the best scholar in the institution. On his eighth birthday, under the direction of his mother, he began reading the Scriptures consecutively - a practice which he kept up as long as he lived. And yet, in spite of this, he early imbibed infidel notions, of which he did not get rid until he read Grotius on the Truth of the Christian Religion." He now became a firm believer in the truth of Christianity, and united with the Methodist Episcopal church, of which his mother had already become a member. But he could never give the exact date of his conversion. In 1809 he removed to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and established a tan yard. He was soon after made class leader, and was then given license to exhort, and afterwards to preach. In the fall of 1814, he was employed by the presiding elder to travel the Illinois circuit whilst the preachers went to conference; and on their return found, to his surprise for he had not been consulted that he had been received into the conference and appointed to Patoka circuit in Indiana. He went to his charge, however, resolved to do his duty. Up to this time no society had been formed in Columbia, the only town in his circuit;but Mr. Scripps not only formed a class there, but extended his circuit so as to include Evansville, on the Ohio river, where he also formed a good society, in which nearly every family in the town was represented. In 1815 he was appointed to the Illinois circuit, to which, as stated before, the Okaw circuit was attached. In it was Kaskaskia, the Capital of the Territory, which Mr.Scripps made one of his preaching-places, and where he had good success. At the close of the year he had to prepare for the session of the newly formed Missouri conference, which was to be held at Shiloh, in his circuit. He was to meet Bishop McKendree at a camp-meeting near Vincennes, to conduct him to the seat of the conference. But instead of taking the circuitous route down the Mississippi and up the Ohio and Wabash, which was usually taken in order to avoid danger from the Indians, and keep within the settlements, Mr. Scripps resolved to take a straight course for Vincennes, though it would compel him to travel one hundred and thirty miles through a country infested with Indians, and uninhabited by a single white settler. In company with several others, he made the trip in safety, preached four times at the camp-meeting, and then returned by the same route with the bishop, starting from the camp-ground on Tuesday, and reaching Shiloh on Saturday, after resting four nights under the open canopy of heaven. Before this, Mr.Scripps had often doubted his call to the ministry; but after conversing with Bishop McKendree on the subject whilst on this trip, the bishop told him that if John Scripps had not been called to preach, neither had William McKendree. After the first session of the Missouri conference, Mr.Scripps was its secretary until the formation of the Illinois conference, in 1824. In 1816 he was appointed to Coldwater, afterwards called St. Louis circuit. He took the city into his charge, and made his debut in an old dilapidated log building used as the court-house, legislative hall and theater, which was the only public building in the place, except the Roman Catholic cathedral. He stood on the stage, surrounded by comic scenery, and preached to a large and attentive audience, composing the entire American population. He continued to preach there, and in a school-house which was built during the year; but his successors abandoned the place, and there was no more Methodist preaching in St. Louis until Jesse Walker re-established it in 1820. During this year Mr. Scripps visited Kaskaskia, where he had preached the year before. He was in rough pioneer costume, with knees, toes and elbows out. Two other well-dressed missionaries from the East were in the place. But when the time for preaching came, Governor Edwards selected Mr.Scripps, who had been tried, in preference to the untried strangers, and put him in the sheriff's box, a small platform above the heads of the audience, for a pulpit. His next appointment was Boonslick. In 1818 he was sent to Cape Girardeau, in 1819 to Boonslick and Lamoine, and in 1820 to Blue River. For the two following years he was on the Arkansas district, and in 1823 on the St Louis circuit. At the close of the year, his health having failed, he was granted a superannuated relation to the Missouri conference, in which he continued until the division of the Church in 1845. Refusing to go South with his conference, he was transferred to the Illinois conference in 1846, and placed on the superannuated list, and continued in it until 1850, when he withdrew from the Church. In 1854 he reunited with the Church, was restored to the ministry, and remained a local preacher until his death July 26th, 1863. He was a member of the General conferences of 1820 and 1824. Soon after his superannuation he married Miss Agnes Corrie, of whose conversion an account is given in the history of 1820. In 1825 he settled in Jackson, the county seat of Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, and engaged in the mercantile business. But, being unwilling to lead his children into temptation by bringing them up in a slave State, in 1830 he removed to Illinois and settled in Rushville, where for a time he engaged in merchandising. He afterwards published a county paper, and held several county and township offices. Soon after his removal to Rushville he organized a Sunday-school, of which he was superintendent for seventeen years, and was afterwards a teacher in it for ten years. Mr.Scripps was a man of more than ordinary ability. Small in stature, he was yet possessed of remarkable energy and determination. Sometimes, indeed, the strength of his will and his adherence to his own convictions of right impressed others with the belief that he was obstinate, and occasionally brought him in to collision with his pastors or presiding elders. He could not endure oppression in any form, nor would he submit to be dictated to by others. Having made up his mind in regard to right or duty, it was with difficulty he could be induced to change his course, and the slightest exercise of compulsion would excite in him the most determined opposition. Having done so much to build up Methodism in Rushville, having shown his love to the Church by a life of labor and sacrifice in her behalf, and having a vastly wider experience than most of those appointed as pastors of the church there, he felt that his views of church polity were entitled to some consideration from them — more, indeed, than they were always disposed to give them. At the conference of 1848 his character was arrested, on the ground that he had imprudently indulged in the use of intoxicating liquors. The matter was referred to his presiding elder, Dr. Akers, who investigated it,and concluded that there was no ground of complaint in the case. Mr.Scripps, on the recommendation of his physician, and for a disease from which he suffered greatly, and which eventually caused his death, did of necessity use spirituous liquors, but only as a medicine. And so well satisfied was the presiding elder of the groundlessness of the charge that he employed him for six months of the year to fill a vacancy in the station where he lived. But in 1830, his pastor, W. W. Mitchell, took such strong ground in opposition to him that he withdrew from the Church, and surrendered his ordination parchments to the conference. Yet during the four years in which he was out of the Church, he kept up the family altar, and attended to all the outward duties of religion, and was frequently called onto officiate at funerals. After his reunion with the Church he seems to have become more spiritual, and in March, 1860, he writes in his journal, "This month I obtained a second blessing." Mr.Scripps possessed an iron will, never tired till his object was accomplished, and clung to his opinions with a tenacity that commanded admiration, if not assent. Self-educated and a close student in early life, he maintained the same habit to the close of his days. While a mere boy in the wilds of Virginia, with no schools, and but few facilities for acquiring knowledge, he commenced the work of self-instruction, and though his time was all occupied in labor, except at night and on the Sabbath, yet, by the light descending through an old-fashioned chimney by day and pine splinters by night,he learned to write by epitomizing two large volumes of the History of Rome. A careful observer of particulars and generals, with a strong, retentive memory, the incidents of his early career were ever fresh in his mind in all their details, thus rendering him a most delightful companion. Industrious and methodical in all his habits, both secular and religious, he accomplished an amount of labor equaled by few, and surpassed by fewer still. Given to hospitality, with enlarged Christian benevolence, much of his time and means were employed for the good of others, and many a young man has gone forth to bless the world who owes his aspirations and success in life to the early and long-continued training received from him." Dr. Stevenson well says of him: "To an intellect naturally vigorous there was added a culture that was extensive, accurate and intensely practical. A close and critical examination of his numerous papers failed to discover a misspelled word, a sentence faulty in construction, or a sentiment that would not bear the closest scrutiny." To his pastor and other friends, who were with him in his last moments, he expressed himself as assured of a blissful immortality. A short time before his death he called his family around his bedside, gave to each of them his dying admonition, bade them an affectionate farewell, and then, in full possession of his mental faculties, quietly sank to rest in Jesus his Savior. He was a careful observer and faithful recorder of passing events. He was a good preacher, his sermons being always thoroughly evangelical and indicative of much thought. In doctrine he was sound. He was very fluent in conversation, and his habits of close observation and his very retentive memory made him, in his old age, one of the most delightful companions. He was an excellent business man, careful, correct, and yet prompt and ready. The writer knew him well during the last years of his life, being often entertained by him at his quarterly visitations to Rushville, and learned to esteem him highly for his intelligence, geniality and piety. He had the sad privilege of visiting him on his death-bed and preaching at his funeral. He died well in the full faith of the gospel. One of his contemporaries and fellow itinerants, Rev. John Hogan, thus writes of him: "I have been acquainted with him for many years. I have traveled several circuits that had been traveled long before by John Scripps, and there collections of him by all the people were very vivid and pleasant. He was very strict and particular in all the minutiae of a Methodist preacher's duty. I have often been shown, as a relic, treasured by the old class-leaders, the class papers prepared by Brother Scripps. How singularly neat they were! He wrote a beautiful plain hand. He made no flourishes, no extras, everything so clean and neat; and then the state of life and state of grace were so particularly noted: and on the front leaf, clearly written out, the disciplinary requirements as to the regular quarterly fast. He was very careful to have all these matters regularly attended to." In his day there were but few public roads, and in most places not even a pathway from one settlement to another. Sometimes the preachers traveled by the use of a pocket compass. Sometimes they took along a little hatchet, and being shown the way, blazed or notched the trees to point out the road, or rather course, afterwards. John Scripps had a sharp iron with which he would scratch the trees in the course he was to pursue in going from one appointment to another, and these remained plain for years afterwards. When the trees had not been disturbed, I have often followed these marks upon such parts of his original circuits as remained in my bounds. I have heard many anecdotes of his manner of preaching, of study and devotion to his work. The people loved him; and his ministry was profitable to them, and his memorial was written on their hearts. No wonder, then, that his memory was cherished, and they loved to speak of his work of faith and his labors of love."
SOURCE: biographical sketch of Rev. John Scripps from the "History of Methodism in Illinois, from 1793 to 1832", by Rev. James Leaton, D.D., of the Illinois Conference, Cincinnati. Printed by Welden & Stowe for the author, 1883.
---
Further reading...
The Cholera Year of Rushville 1834 [link]:
As retold by Rev John Scripps
Virtual Cholera cemetery [link]:
Cholera deaths of 1834 & 1841
Methodist Episcopal Church, South - Boonville, MO. [link]:
Rev John Scripps - History
Family Members
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