Byrd, John Ira Ellis

Byrd, John Ira Ellis a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church South, was born in Sumter District, S. C., May 15, 1791. He was left fatherless when ten years old, and was apprenticed to a shoemaker. He was converted in 1810, and in 1811 entered the South. Carolina Conference, in which he labored two years, and then was transferred to the Mississippi Conference. In its ranks he served for fifty-nine years. He died April 6, 1871. By his own exertions he became well read and a powerful preacher. See Minutes of Annual Conferences of the M. E. Church South, 1871, p. 578.