Clark County IL Archives News.....Wamsley, Rev ES ca 1934
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Cindy McCachern Dec 2000

From newspaper clipping with no date.  Probably about 1934.
 
Has Preached 3,380 Sermons in 65 Years
 
The following article appeared in an Indianapolis newspaper recently
and will be of interest to many of the older residents in Marshall
and surrounding community as Rev. Wamsley was pastor of the Marshall
Methodist church many years ago:
 
Imagine a "barrel" bulging with 3,380 sermons!  That really would be
a "barrel"--and think of all the "amen" those sermons would
bring.

The Rev. E. S. Wamsley, eighty-six years old Saturday, knows how big
such a "barrel" is and how much work is involved.  He probably has
preached that many sermons if not more in his sixty-five years in
the Methodist ministry.

Members of North M. E. church Sunday forenoon will hear the Rev. Mr.
Wamsley preach his birthday sermon, "A Great Man and Why."  Women of
the church will sponsor a dinner in honor of the veteran minister
after the service.
 
In his career, the Rev. Mr. Wamsley, who lives at 548 East thirty-
ninth street, has served thirty pastorates, most of which were in
Illinois.  In 1901 he resigned from active duty but found it
impossible to be inactive.  As a result, he has continued his work
in the church thirty-three years.
 
Born in Adam county, Ohio, in 1848, the Rev. Mr. Wamsley entered the
ministry in 1869 with a class of twenty-three candidates.  Today he
is the last of that class.
 
In 1859, he, with his family passed through Indianapolis on his way
to Illinois, his future home.  Although he remembers little of the
Indiana capital at the time, he says, "the city was a little
different then."
 
Reminiscing, the Rev. Mr. Wamsley said his first assisgnment
included nine churches.  The poorer the preacher the more churches
he received.  The Rev. Mr. Wamsley rode through raid and snow many
times.  He received a salary of $200 a year, believed adequate in
those days.
 
However, the parishioners were generous with foodstuffs, it seems.
Feed for his horse and frequent invitations to dinner aided in
making the $200 last throughout the year.

Weddings and funerals were not very lucrative in his early days of
preaching, the Rev. Mr. Wamsley asserted.

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