User:WilyD/William Case/John Rhodes

John Rhodes was a Methodist circuit rider.

Rhodes was born in Northampton County, Pennsylvania on September 17th, 1783. His parents were Quakers, descended from settlers of Pennsylvania who had arrived there with William Penn. When Rhodes was 20, he moved to Carlisle, where he converted to Methodism, in 1804 or 1805. He soon began to feel it was his calling to join the ministry, and he gave into this in March of 1808, when he was accepted on trial by the Baltimore Conference as a circuit rider. He was sent to the Northumberland Circuit in the Philidelphia Conference, despite this. In 1810, he was ordained a deacon. He was then sent to the Seneca Circuit, within the Genesee Conference in New York. In 1811, he volunteered for assignment to the Canadas, and was sent to the Augusta Circuit. He remained on the Augusta Circuit in 1812. Official records of assignments during the War of 1812 do not exist, but Ezra Adam's journal records Rhodes as having been on the Long Point Circuit in 1813.

At the annual conference of the Genesee District, on June 29th, 1815, Rhodes was made an Elder. He was assigned to the Yonge Street circuit, which saw a decrease of seventy-one members. He married a local woman, a Miss Clubine, that year. In 1816 he was assigned to the Bay of Quinte Circuit with Thomas Madden. Despite the competition between the Methodist Episcopal Church, to which Madden belonged, and the Methodist Church of Great Britain, which had begun sending its own missionaries into the Canadas, the membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church on the circuit increased by one hundred six individuals. After the War of 1812 concluded, Rhodes was able to return to the United States, and was assigned to the Lycoming Circuit in Pennsylvania in 1817. He remained on the Lycoming Circuit in 1818. In 1819, he was reassigned to the Northumberland Circuit.

In 1841, he was superannuated. After his retired, he settled in Milton, Pennsylvania. He died 13 January, 1843, from a brain inflammation.