Saturday, March 27, 2010

Other Books about Lydia Sexton

Some Wild Visions: Autobiographies by Female Itinerant Evangelists in Nineteenth-Century America by Elizabeth Elkins Grammer

http://www.amazon.com/Some-Wild-Visions-Autobiographies-Nineteenth-Century/dp/0195139615

(I have this book too.)

Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845 by Catherine A. Brekus

http://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Pilgrims-Preaching-1740-1845-American/dp/0807847453/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

Historical Sketch of the Congregational Church in Belchertown, Mass. by Mark Dolittle

http://www.amazon.com/Historical-Sketch-Congregational-Church-Belchertown/dp/1152294261/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269714422&sr=1-6

Historical collections relating to the Cossart, Cossairt, Cosart, Cosat, Cassat, Cassatt, Cozatt, Cozart, Cosad, Casad, Cozad family in France, Holland, and America by Joseph Arthur Cossairt

http://www.amazon.com/Historical-collections-relating-Cossart-Cossairt/dp/B0008BIHG0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269714541&sr=1-2
Rev. Lydia Casad Sexton


A Mother in Israel

Rev. Lydia Sexton, who was so well known in many in the Church, passed peacefully away at the residence of her late son, Joseph Z. Sexton, in Seattle, Washington, on the evening of December 15, 1894, aged 95 years, 8 months, and 3 days. Mrs. Sexton was born in Sussex (now Rockport) County, N. J., in 1799. She was the daughter of Rev. Thomas Casad, a Baptist minister, and was a cousin to Bishop Matthew Simpson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Her father died when she was nine years old, and for six years thereafter she lived with relatives or strangers respectively, and earned her own living amidst many trials and hardships. When in her sixteenth year she went with her brother Anthony to Ohio. The journey of eight hundred miles was made with a horse and cart. In 1820 she married Joseph Sexton, of Jacksonborough, Ohio, and with him lived happily for more than fifty years.

Mrs. Sexton was converted, and joined the church of the United Brethren I Christ, near Germantown, Ohio, in 1834, under the labors of Rev. Jacob King. Soon after her conversion she felt that it was her duty to preach the gospel, but from a sense of her inability to perform such a responsible duty, and because there were so few women in the Church, she resisted the divine call for some years. Finally, yielding to the judgment and advice of the leading ministers and the leading of the Holy Spirit, she began to exhort sinners to flee from the wrath to come. In 1851 she was licensed by a quarterly conference, held on Iroquois Circuit, in Illinois, to peach, Rev. Josiah Terrill being the presiding elder. Mrs. Sexton was eminently successful in promoting revivals of religion.

She, in company with her husband, traveled extensively in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas holding revival meetings and organizing societies. Everywhere her labors were blessed of the Lord, and thousands of souls were converted and led to Christ through her instrumentality. At a session of Upper Wabash Conference, in 1850, she was most heartily recommended to all the churches as a successful helper in Christian work. This recommendation was signed by Bishop Edwards and Secretary Cougill. The invitations that she received to hold revival meetings far exceeded both her time and her strength.

In 1870 Mrs. Sexton was appointed to the chaplaincy of the Kansas State Penitentiary. Very marked success attended her labors among the prisoners, many of whom, by her presence, were reminded of their own mothers. At the close of her term of service as chaplain she counted ninety-five among the number of the inmates of the prison who had been converted under her labors. The last years of her life were spent with her two sons, David F. and Joseph Z. Sexton, in Washington. Her last sermon was preached at the First Methodist Protestant Church, in the city of Seattle, Wash., when she was ninety-three years old.

Her son, Joseph Z. Sexton, with whom she spent the last days of her life, preceded her to the glory world just one month and ten days. Mother Sexton became blind toward the close of her life, but although deprived of her natural sight she was cheerful and happy in possession of that spiritual vision which beholds the beauties and glories unseen by mortal eyes. She retained consciousness to the last, called her grandchildren by name, and spoke of the many loved ones who had gone before. She was buried from the First methodist Protestant Church in Seattle, Rev. Clark Davis, the pastor preaching the funeral sermon.

P. C. Hetzler

Note: found in a scrapbook in Roswell, New Mexico by Nancy Harvey while going though her mother's things after her death. "The scrapbook is one which my great grandmother, Amanda Bryan Wetzel, or perhaps my grandmother, Nettie Wetzel Dean, pasted lots of obituaries of family and friends. These families were from around McDonough, Fulton and Schuyler Counties, IL. These obits are probably around a hundred years old or may be more."

http://genealogytrails.com/wash/king/death/death.html#sexton,rev

David Sexton

SEXTON, David F. - born Montgomery, OH 1 Apr 1838; son of Joseph (b OH, 16 Feb 1808, son of Zadok SEXTON and Nancy ENOCH) and Rev. Lydia (known as "Mother Sexton"); served in 135 IN Vol Inf; charter member of Morton Post 10; married 19 Nov 1867 to Orra J. DOWNING (b Tippecanoe Co, IN 30 Aug 1842, daughter of John H DOWNING and Sarah KNIGHT; lived Wilson Co, KS in 1870; farmed near Snohomish (1879) (from 1926 History of Snohomish County - much information about his mother, Rev. Lydia SEXTON). Listed as officer of Morton Post in 1893 Polk Directory of Everett and Snohomish County.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wasnohom/scgarmor.htm

(There's a portrait of him but Blogger isn't letting put in a picture at the moment.)



Lydia Sexton 1799-1894

The First Woman to be Voted Recommendation as a Pulpit Speaker by the General Conference of The United Brethren Church - 1851

The Reverend Lydia Sexton was born in Rockport, New Jersey on April 12, 1799 to a Baptist preacher named Thomas Casad and his wife Abigail Tingley Casad. At age 20, Lydia married Isaac Cox, two years her junior. Together they had one son John Thomas, who was born February 7, 1821 in Fairfield, Ohio. A year later, her husband Isaac went to seek work in Indiana, where he was severely injured in a fall. He died in November, 1822. In 1824, Lydia married Moses Moore - a United States surveyor who had traveled extensively. He became a school principal in Middletown, Ohio. Their son, Finley Moore, was born January 28, 1825. Within eight months the family again met tragedy - Moses Moore died. Lydia then met Joseph Sexton. Though he was eight years her junior, they were finally married on September 12, 1829; she was to live with him for fifty years. Together they had three more sons, Thomas, Zadok, and David. They moved with the frontier - from Ohio, to Indiana, to Illinois, and finally to Kansas.

Convicted by remembrances of her own early family home, she began to take an interest in religion. She visited a meeting of the United Brethren Church in Germantown, Ohio. There she found fostering fathers and nursing mothers - a church home.

After hearing her speak at a love-feast, an elder in the church offered her a preaching license at once. Thus began a long struggle with her call. She refused the license, though she continued to preach. After a year of preaching she was again offered a license and again she refused. Finally, in 1851, her class meeting took the matter into its own hands and voted to license her. They presented their decision to the quarterly meeting of the United Brethren Illinois Conference, and she was licensed.

After renewing her license quarterly from 1851-58, Lydia asked that it be made an annual license, saving her a great deal of travel in renewing it. The General Conference, however, had decided to license no woman, for fear that they would ask to be elders and even bishops! Yet they could not deny Sexton's gifts and the validity of her ministry, so they "recommended" her as a preacher for life and gave her "credentials" as an approved "pulpit speaker" and a "useful helper in the work of Christ."

At age seventy, when most people's life work is complete, Sexton moved to Spring Hill, Kansas, in 1869. There she became the first woman prison chaplain at Kansas State Prison, serving from January 29, 1870 to February 5, 1871. By November 1870, she had developed a class system using inmates: two "exhorters," four class leaders, and five studying for the ministry, from a congregation which numbered only twenty in April. Though she resigned a year later, she continued to preach and minister there until her death, baptizing and giving communion to a class that eventually numbered nearly one hundred.

http://www.gcah.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=ghKJI0PHIoE&b=3637669&ct=4505983

I borrowed this biography from the United Methodist Church website and I've included their URL above.

The Autobiography of Lydia Sexton


Lydia Sexton was the sister of my great grand father (x6) Anthony Wayne Casad. She was a well known evangelist in her time and she was one of the first female evangelists.

I became fascinated with her when I discovered that she wrote an autobiography toward the end of her life and I set out on a quest to find a copy of the book. Several major libraries in my area had a copy listed but they all were "missing" or "lost." It took me over two years and many web searches before I finally found one for sale.

Now that I have the book, my goal is to transcribe it and post it here on the web so that anyone who wants to read it can find it. The book is too fragile to bend the spine and lay it flat to be scanned. I could do it but I would no longer have an intact book and I'd like to keep the book.