Burch, Thomas

Burch, Thomas one of the earlier Methodist preachers in America, was born in Tyrone county, Ireland, August 30, 1778. In 1801 he was awakened and converted under the preaching of Gideon Ouseley, the great Irish missionary. In 1803 he emigrated to the United States, and about a year after was licensed to preach, and in 1805 was admitted on trial in the Philadelphia Conference. He regularly graduated in the office of deacon and elder, and soon became eminent as a preacher. He was elected a member of the first delegated General Conference of 1812, held in New York. He was afterward stationed in Montreal, Lower Canada, and continued there, occasionally visiting Quebec, during the war with Great Britain. At the close of the war he returned to the United States, and continued in the itinerant ranks, filling some of the most important appointments, until disease prevented him from laboring efficiently, when, in 1835, he took a supernumerary. relation in the New York Conference. In this relation he continued until 1840, when he resumed his efficient service, but was able to continue in it only four years, when he was again returned supernumerary. Mr. Burch died suddenly Aug. 22, 1849. — Minutes of Conferences, 4, 444; Sprague, Annals, 7, 421.