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McMahon, William

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McMaster, Algernon S.D.D.

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a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, was born in Dumfries, Prince William County, Va., about 1785; was converted at a camp-meeting held near Oldtown, Md.; was appointed class-leader by Peter Cartwright, and afterwards licensed to exhort by the Rev. James Quinn, and soon after to preach, and was received into the traveling connection in 1811. His first appointment was Silver Creek, in the territory of Indiana; in 1812 he was sent to Kentucky, where he remained four years, and traveled the Lexington, Shelby, Jefferson, and Fleming circuits. Under this four years' ministry thousands were awakened and converted. In 1816 he was transferred to the Mississippi Conference to take charge of a district. He started on his journey with bishop Roberts, but was taken sick at Nashville, and there transferred by bishop McKendree to the Tennessee Conference, and was appointed to Nashville Circuit. After that time he became one of the leading minds of the Tennessee and Memphis Conferences. His health having failed, he located, and removed from North Alabama to De Soto County, Miss., in December, 1835; was readmitted into the traveling connection at the second session of the Memphis Conference, held in the fall of 1841, and was appointed to Holly Springs District, where he remained four years. He continued in the regular work, preaching with a power and success such as but few men ever had, until his health gave way. For several years before his death he sustained either a supernumerary or a superannuated relation. He died about 1867 or 1868. "Few men, during the present century, have exerted a greater influence upon Methodism in the South. For fifty years he held up the cross and preached the doctrines of Christianity in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, leaving holy foot-prints, and winning votaries to Christ. He was in many respects a most remarkable man. No one ever had the reputation that he had in North Alabama and Mississippi." — Conference Minutes of the M. E. Church South, 1870, s.v.; McFerrin, Methodism in Tennessee, 2:426; Redford, Hist. Meth. in Kentucky, 2:252.