Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 2.djvu/368

from twenty to less than fifty dollars. In the great revival of those years, out of which grew the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, he was a directing spirit, and it is claimed that he, more than any other man, saved that great work from degenerating into a wild and ruinous fanaticism. He continued to preside over this work till the spring of 1808, when he was elected and ordained bishop. His first episcopal tour of fifteen hundred miles extended through Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri and Illinois. At the general conference of 1816 he found himself left, by the death of Bishop Asbury, the only bishop of the church, but two additional bishops were then chosen. He continued to labor till 1835, when his health failed. He was never married, never received a collegiate diploma, nor left even a brief record of his eventful life. He died in Sumner county, Tennessee, March 5. 1835.

Lee, Jesse, born in Prince George county, Virginia. March 12. 1758; at the age of nineteen he removed to North Carolina, entered the ministry of the Methodist church, and preached his first sermon in 1779. In 1780 he was drafted into the militia to repel the British in South Carolina, and, refusing to do military duty, was made to serve as a chaplain. His first pastoral appointment was near Edenton, North Carolina; in 1783 he was received into the conference; was appointed to the Salisbury circuit in 1784, and accompanied Bishop Asbury on a tour extending from Norfolk, Virginia, to the extreme southwest of North Carolina.Together they reorganized the various circuits that nearly had been destroyed by the war. After three years in North Carolina, Virginia. New Jersey, and Maryland, he went to Stamford circuit, Connecticut, visiting and establishing classes in Norwalk, New Haven, and elsewhere. He reached Boston in 1790, and preached his first sermon on the common. For six years he traveled throughout New England, preaching in barns, private houses, and on the highway, forming new circuits and directing the labors of his assistants. He became an assistant to Bishop Asbury in 1796, and held conferences and superintended churches. His later life was passed in the South as pastor and presiding elder. In 1808 he advocated a delegate general conference plan that he had urged fourteen years before, and on its adoption the general conference became the supreme authority of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was chaplain of the United States house of representatives in 1807-12-13, and from 1814 until his death was chaplain of the United States senate. His labors earned him the title of the "Apostle of Methodism." He published "A History of Methodism," which was the first work on the subject. He died in Baltimore, Maryland, September 12. 1816. The will of John Lee, dated June 17, 1800, and proved at Petersburg, December 7, 1801, mentions his brother, Jesse Lee, to whom he gives all "my library of books." and his brothers, Edward, Nathaniel and Abraham Lee, and his sister, Nancy Perkins.

Leftwich, Joel, son of Augustine Leftwich, who died in Bedford county, Virginia, about 1795. born in said county, Virginia, in 1759. During the revolutionary war he fought at Germantown and at Camden, and was wounded at Guilford Court House. In the war of 1812 he commanded a brigade under Gen. Harrison. He was afterward