Pipher, William G

Pipher, William G.

a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born August 23, 1817, in Hopkinston, N. H. In 1837 he removed to Illinois, and entered a school in the town of Ebenezer, near Jacksonville. He was converted Aug. 6, 1838, and believing that he was moved by the Holy Ghost to preach the Gospel, obtained license Aug. 14, 1841. In September of the same year he joined the Illinois Conference, and was appointed to the Rushville Circuit; in 1842 was sent to Carthage; in 1843 he was appointed to Pulaski; in 1844 was reappointed to Rushville; in 1845 to Mount Sterling; in 1846 to Lawrenceville; in 1847 to Hillsborough; in 1848 was ordained elder; and from 1848 to 1850 held a local relation. In 1851 he was readmitted to the Conference, and reappointed to Pulaski; in 1852 to Havanna; in 1853 to Athens; in 1854 to Edgar; in 1855, his health not being very good, he took a transfer to Kansas, which at that time was just opening for settlement. His first appointment was Topeka Circuit, where he labored with great acceptability, and laid foundations upon which others have since largely built. In 1857 he was sent to Big Springs Circuit, where he did a good work, organized classes and Sunday-schools, attending to all the duties of a Methodist preacher. In 1858 he was appointed to the Auburn and Tecumseh Circuit, where he labored the earlier half of the year with some success; but the long rides between appointments, the many exposures to storms, swimming swollen streams, with only such accommodations as new settlements often afford, and sometimes wandering over the wide prairies until morning, broke him down completely, and at the Conference in 1859 he took a superannuated relation, after which he resided at Baldwin City, Kansas, highly respected and most beloved by those who knew him best. He died there May 15, 1869. See Minutes of Annual Conferences, 1870, p. 94.