MORGAN'S HISTORY OF THE NEW JERSEY CONFERENCE Page 205
The committee on obituaries beg leave to report the following as the result of their labors:
By the dispensation of a wise providence, Revs. George E. Boyer, Alfred Dudley and James Morris Williams, co-workers with us and earnest laborers for the upbuilding of the A. M. E. Church, have gone from the church militant to the church triumphant.
Rev. George Emory Boyer was born a slave and was sold when an infant, his mother standing in a cart body holding him up, in Smyrna, Delaware. He was bid in or bought by a Quaker, whose name was Michael Laughley, and by him raised. He was converted at the age of fifteen in the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was the first to make a move to come out of the mother church and assist in the organization of the A. M. E. Church. He was a brick moulder by trade, and made the bricks to build the first A. M. E. Church in Smyrna, Delaware. He was taken up by our present Presiding Bishop (then Elder J. M. Brown) in June, 1858, and appointed to Lewistown, Delaware. He labored in the Baltimore Conference until 1868, when he was transferred to the Philadelphia Conference and stationed at Camden, New Jersey. He served several charges in the Philadelphia Conference, and was transferred in May, 1871, to the New York Conference and stationed at Newark, N. J., and Morristown, where he served for three years. He was next appointed to Bridgeton. After remaining there two years he was appointed to Burlington, where he had just entered on his third year. He was taken sick on the 11th of May and departed this life on the 15th of the same month. He worked very earnestly for the upbuilding of the church wherever he went. He said to his wife that he saw many children over yonder. "The gospel I preached saves me now." Then said to his wife, "stand firm on the rock."
Rev. J. M. Williams, an elder and member of the New Jersey Conference of the A. M. E. Church, departed this life in the wise dispensation of God's providence, on the 10th of July, 1880, at
Previous Page in Book ****************************** Next Page in Book
|