Brewer, Aaron G

Brewer, Aaron G.

a Methodist minister, was born in Monmouth County, N.J., December 5, 1795. He was converted March 1, 1816, and immediately afterwards became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was licensed to exhort in 1820. On January 1, 1821, he withdrew, and afterwards associated himself with the Methodist Reformers. At their first Annual Conference, held in April 1822, he was ordained deacon, and appointed a general missionary to labor and organize churches in the states of New York and Connecticut. At the Conference of 1825 he succeeded in having a call issued to all the non-episcopal Methodist societies in the United States, to meet in convention in New York, which convention was held June 1, 1826; when a constitution, declaration of rights, and articles of religion were adopted. At the Conference of 1827 he was appointed to visit the state of Georgia, and form churches, ordain preachers, organize an annual conference, etc. Being successful, and having made a good impression, he was earnestly importuned to go and labor in the South; he yielded to the call, and went to Georgia the second time, in 1829. At the General Convention of Methodist Reformers, held in Baltimore, November 1830, he was a delegate. On September 20, 1834, he organized the Methodist Protestant Church in Charleston, S.C., and for two years was its pastor. In 1836 he was principal of the academy at Mechanicsville; at this place he organized a Methodist Protestant Church, which Church became the nucleus of the South Carolina Conference. In 1838 he was appointed general-missionary in the South. Soon afterwards, his health and that of his family failing, he taught school until 1852, when he became editor of the Christian Telegraph and Southerns Olive-tree, which was published at Atlanta, Georgia. From 1858 to 1860 he filled appointments in the Alabama Conference. For some years he was chaplain in the Confederate army. In 1865 he went to live with his daughter at Charleston, S.C.. where he died, April 7, 1877. See Cothouer, Founders of the M.E. Church, 1880, page 365.