Snethen, Nicholas

Snethen, Nicholas, an influential minister of the Methodist Protestant Church, was born at Fresh Pond (now Glen Cove), L.I., Nov. 15, 1769. Removing to Belleville, N.J., he there experienced religion, and began to speak and pray in public. In 1794 he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and preached for four years in Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine. In 1798-99 he preached in Charleston, S.C., and in 1800 was chosen as travelling companion to bishop Asbury. He was elected secretary of the General Conference of 1800, and was also a member in 1804 and 1812. He took a prominent part in favor of limiting the episcopal prerogative, a delegated General Conference (his plan for which was adopted in 1808), and was an early advocate of anti-slavery principles. He located in 1806, and removed to his farm on Longanore, Frederick Co., Md. By his marriage he became the holder of slaves, whom he emancipated as soon as the law would permit (1829). In 1809 he reentered the itinerancy, and was stationed in Baltimore, Georgetown, and Alexandria, and while at Georgetown was elected chaplain of the House of Representatives. He located again in 1814. In 1829 he removed to Indiana, and upon the formation of the Methodist Protestant Church (q.v.) he united with it, and in connection with it continued to travel and preach till within a short time of his death. In 1834 he became one of the editors of The Methodist Protestant, in Baltimore. In 1836 the Methodist Protestants started a college in New York, of which Mr. Snethen took charge. The enterprise did not succeed, and in 1837 he returned to the West and took charge of a Manual Labor Ministerial College at Lawrenceburg, Ind., but that institution also failed. Much of his subsequent labor was performed in Cincinnati. He died May 30, 1845. Mr. Snethen was a clear and forcible writer and an eloquent minister. He became a contributor to The Wesleyan Repository in 1821, and afterwards to its successor, The Mutual Rights. In 1800 he wrote a Reply to O'Kelly's Apology, and in 1801 his Answer to O'Kelly's Rejoinder: — Funeral Oration on Bishop Asbury (1816): — Lectures on Preaching (1822): — - Essays on Lay Representation (1835): — Lectures on Biblical Subjects (1836): — Sermons (1846), edited by W. G. Snethen.