Brother Willerup
organized a Society and subsequently erected a Church edifice. From this
small beginning has since grown a family of charges and a line of able
Ministers, constituting a Presiding Elder's District.

The Conference year had now come to a close. Many changes had occurred
in Spring Street Station. In consequence of the cholera, and the
consequent stagnation of business, large numbers of the people went into
the country. But notwithstanding this depletion, such had been the
number of accessions, one hundred and seven in all, that I was able to
report one hundred and fifty-seven members and sixty-three probationers,
making a total of two hundred and twenty.

The financial plan, adopted at the beginning of the year, that of
collecting the funds in the classes, had proved a success. At the close
of the year, the Pastor was fully paid, and the Society was out of debt.

CHAPTER XII.

Conference of 1851.--Presiding Elder.--Presentation.--Give and
Take.--Fond du Lac District--Quarterly Meeting--Rev. J.S.
Prescott.--Footman vs. Buggies--Fond du Lac.--Two Churches.--Greenbush
Quarterly Meeting--Rev. David Lewis--Pioneer Self-Sacrifice.--Finds a
Help-Meet.--Sheboygan Falls.--Rev. Matthias Himebaugh.--Oshkosh--First
Class.--Church Enterprises.

The Conference for 1851 was held June 25th, at Waukesha. The Sessions
were deeply spiritual, and were characterized by general harmony among
the preachers. At this Conference the Committee on Periodicals, of which
I was a member, reported in favor of the establishment of a North
Western Christian Advocate, and the report was unanimously adopted.

In the arrangement of appointments I was assigned to the Fond du Lac
District. The appointment was a great surprise to myself, and doubtless
to others. Besides, it was not in harmony with my judgment or wishes. It
seemed to me to be an unwise measure to take so young a man, only
twenty-nine, from the companionship of books and the details of the
Pastoral office, and place him on a District where both of the
Departments of labor, so essential to success in the Ministry, must
necessarily be abridged. And in the next place, it appeared to me that,
since there were so many other men in the Conference, who were better
qualified than I for the position, my appointment was but doing violence
to the work. But I soon came to the conclusion that when an appointment
has been made there is no further need to debate the question. In such