Item #6017 Sold to Thos. G. Gooch my negro man Gabriel. Sarah Carneal.
Sold to Thos. G. Gooch my negro man Gabriel.

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Sold to Thos. G. Gooch my negro man Gabriel.

Logan County, Kentucky, 17 October 1831. 1 p. of manuscript, 6.5: x 7.5”. Docketed on verso, “Carneal to Gooch Bill of Sale.”.

A bill of sale recording the purchase of a slave by a Methodist minister in Kentucky, prior to a schism in the Church over the issue of slave ownership.

The document reads in full:

Know all men by these presents that I Sarah Carneal of the county of Logan & State of Kentucky have this day sold to Thos. G. Gooch my negro man Gabriel supposed age fifty five years for the sum of $230. Now I warrant the good health and soundness of sd. Gabriel and the tell[?] to the said Gooch from all and every person whatsoever in witness where of i have here unto let me hand this 17th day of October 1831.

Born in Shelby County, Kentucky, Methodist minister Thomas Grubbs Gooch (1800–1874) moved to Logan County, Kentucky in 1821. In 1823 Gooch became licensed to preach and "opened his house at once for Methodist preaching. A Society was soon formed beneath his roof. Circuit preaching was continued in the house of Mr. Gooch for about four years, when the congregation became so large that the church was built known as Red Oak Grove" (Redford, The History of Methodism in Kentucky). He was ordained as deacon in 1839. Gooch is recorded as participating in administration of the allotment of some eighteen slaves in Logan County, Kentucky in 1852.

The early period of the Methodist Episcopal Church was marked by strong opposition to slavery—the 1784 Christmas Conference resolving, "We view it as contrary to the Golden Law of God." However, during the early nineteenth century Southern Methodists began embracing slavery in order to gain support among planters and yeomen. While Northern Methodists increasingly opposed slavery during this time and were often active in the abolitionist movement, southern Methodists largely came to accept slavery as part of the social and legal order; their clergy did not oppose the ownership of slaves. In 1844, Rev. James Osgood Andrew—a Georgia bishop—married a woman who owned a slave she had inherited from her mother—making Andrew a slave owner. As bishop, Andrew was beholden to both the North and South, and in turn was criticized for holding slaves. The 1844 Methodist General Conference voted to prevent Andrew from exercising his Episcopal office until he dispensed with his slave—while Southern delegates to the Conference disputed the authority of the General Conference. The 1844 dispute led Methodists in the South to form a separate denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, while other anti-slavery Methodist clergy and laymen left to form the Wesleyan Methodist Church. This document provides evidence of slave ownership by a Methodist minister more than a decade prior to the schism.

REFERENCES: Elliott, Charles, History of the Great Secession from the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Year 1845 (Swormstedt & Poe, 1855); Redford, Albert Henry. The History of Methodism in Kentucky, Vol. 3 (Nashville, Tenn.: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1870), pp. 278-279; Smith, Jonathan Kennon Thompson. Death Notices from the Christian Advocate (2001) at tngenweb.org; Abolition and the Splintering of the Church at pbs.org; Methodist History Mixed on Abolitionism at umnews.org.

CONDITION: Good, two old vertical folds.

Item #6017

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