This week I’ve made several trips to the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscripts Library housed at Duke University. My intentions have been to locate original documentation of the early Methodist church and its existence along the Rocky River in Anson, Stanly, Union, and Cabarrus Counties in North Carolina. Two times boxes of records have been requested after which the following day I made the trip to Durham with fingers crossed. Both times I came up empty handed with one more box coming in from storage hopefully tomorrow or Monday. Oh, the anticipation!
I’ve learned that Methodists were not efficiently organized in terms of their reporting to the central body of the church. The Methodist church was born in the American experience. Though they were crib mates to many in the founding of our country, their approach to record keeping was much different than their German brethren. Constantly changing as did the state, so did the look of the Methodist conference and its circuits. So, a note to the researcher …be warned that the church reshaped itself in ways that makes no sense to us today. For instance, there are Methodist churches in present day Union County that once belonged to circuits located in Lincoln County within the South Carolina Conference.
Surviving church minutes are filled with mundane operational business with little genealogical information on specific churches and their congregations. It’s really boring stuff. However, and as was used for annual reporting, a few surviving but broken books and folders of papers provide membership rolls during specific years. I’ve not plowed through the various circuits within our state but hope sometime to abstract such roll books for the churches along Rocky River.
And, I can’t move on before writing something about the Methodist records housed at Duke University. You’d hope that the Church itself, the mother of the organization, would have held or recorded all those lists and records documenting the life of each congregation. It did not happen that way. In your visit to the manuscript library realize that much of what’s there came through donations. Maybe a grandfather or other ancestor represented a church and in that responsibility came upon records that somehow fell into his hands. Whether given in such way by individuals or given though the wisdom of individual churches, such records came to Duke piecemeal reflecting very little in terms of an overarching organization. It’s a big deal in understanding the collection to which even the helpful librarians concede to be a huge hurdle.
With that said and out of the way, I was surprised today to find several pieces of paper documenting “Baptisms” in the early 1880’s. Though not labeled, several of the pages, I’m sure, represent the congregation of Bethel UMC in Midland NC. There is another for Mill Creek. Later I’ll share roll books adding in Zion UMC in Union County. Enjoy for now!
They Lived Along a Rocky River 
Thanks for sharing these.. Interesting to see the Bogers listed. Most of the Boger family were either reformed, or Lutheran… Although my Grandfather, and father were both Methodists near Rockwell.
I don’t recognize the names as being a direct part of my family tree, but we were all from the Mt Pleasant area, so it wouldn’t be too far off for them to have moved the Midland.
David, my 4th great grandfather is Daniel Boger who lived on present day Mt. Pleasant Rd at Rocky River. His daughter Elizabeth married Peter Pless, my great. Are you from that family?
Geothos….
My apologies for not replying….
The generation of Bogers that were in Mecklinburg (now Cabarrus) has been difficult for me to sort though. The number of Daniels, Jacobs and Peters (not to mention Mary and Elizabeths) make it tough to sort through.
My 3rd great was Daniel N Boger (b. 1828) , married Elizabeth Misenheimer, and later died in the Civil War..
My 4th great was Peter Boger (b. 1800) who married Catherine and are buried at Lower Stone. Their kids were Nancy, Lawrence, Daniel N and Peter Alexander.
Peter’s dad appears to be Daniel Boger, though this is the generation I’m hung up on… I assume Daniel’s dad to be Jacob…
If you have any thoughts on that I’d really be appreciative to hear them.
David
I do not know anything about the descendants of Peter Boger(1798). He was the son of Daniel Boger(1748-1832). That Daniel was the son of John Philip Boger who emigrated from Germany on the ship Samuel arriving Philadelphia 1732. There was an Elizabeth Misenheimer married to Daniel, a brother to Peter. I do not have a name for the wife of Daniel, Peter’s father; I have seen places where she was a Wilhelm.
All this is the best I have, no guarantees.
Bud,
Thanks for that… After sorting through the Bogers for several months, below is what I believe to be correct for my line..
Johann Phillip was the ancestor that the Cabarrus County Bogers descended from.
His 3 sons, Peter (b 1742), Jacob (b. 1745) and Daniel (b 1747) all moved to the Cabarrus county area in the mid 1760s.
I believe my line came from Jacob, who was the brother of Daniel that Geothos was asking about. Jacob’s sons were Daniel (b 1773), Jacob (1777) and George (b 1782, the minister)…
(^ However, that is the generation that has had me hung up… Because the Boger brothers named their kids after each other, from 1750 to 1800 there were 6 Daniels, 3 Georges, 7 Jacobs, and 3 Peters born that I have found..)
Assuming that to be true, I think the Peter that was born 1798/1800 was my 4th Great, and was the son of Daniel (b 1773)
I also think there was another generation between the Daniel that was born in 1747/1748 and the one who was born in 1798…
Elizabeth Misenheimer was kind of a mystery. Some researchers have had her married to the Daniels that were born prior to 1828, but I have the marriage bonds that show she married my 3rd Great ~ Daniel N… It’s possible that there was an earlier Elizabeth Misenheimer married to an earlier Daniel, or possible that the wrong information was found years ago…
So lots of confusion and information to sort through in the years 1750-1800 in the Boger clan…
One of the entries from 1877 was for Anna Bell Boger, my great aunt, the daughter of Franklin Pierce Boger and Rebecca Matilda White Boger. All are buried at Boger’s Chapel UMC. Franklin
Pierce is the son of Allen Boger who is buried at Bethel.
Thanks guys for your conversation. Does me good to see that posts stir interest. And being a distant Boger myself, I’ve learned the probable lineage back a few more generations. Question: do the Bogers in Cabarrus relate to those in early Stokes NC?
So far I’ve only been tracing my line… I believe that our line from Johann Phillip all came directly to Mecklenburg/Cabarrus…. And following my direct line, I think we’ve all stayed within 35 miles of where we started.. If I branched that search out I’m sure I could find the movement to other parts of the state later, and also other States. (I know that some moved to IL)…
Johann Phillip had 5 brothers ( i think).. One stayed in Germany, and two died as infants.
The other two stayed in PA when Phillip moved down here… Later one of the others lines seemed to move South towards VA….
That’s as far as I’ve gotten…….
Thanks, I really haven’t looked into at all but see the names in Stokes and wonder as it’s in the road coming to Cabarrus. Maybe DNA will one day clearly determine that one.
On another note, how was the trip to Durham? I had thought about going up because they house all the Cannon Mills records, and a lot of my family had worked there through the early years. Was the process of getting the records you needed pretty simple, or was it fairly involved>
Thanks!
It was a bit odd but found out what I needed after three trips. The Methodist collection of records are not organized in an order I understood. In the same box were records from NC, VA, KY and WS …go figure. I had to order records which took ten minutes and then came back the next day or when called. You can order from home all online and it’s waiting for you when you get there. Anyhow, they were very helpful. After two trips from Raleigh to Duke the lady understood what I was looking for. She found it, scanned and emailed it to me. Duke Divinity and the manuscripts are good along with Wilson Library at UNC. Both
are worth researching.