With these thoughts rushing upon me, it is not a matter of surprise that
I was quite overwhelmed with feeling, and found utterance almost
impossible. How I passed through the prayer and the ceremony that
followed, has never been quite clear to me, but I was told that nothing
was omitted that could be deemed essential to the occasion. The wedding
party was soon after dismissed with our blessing, and we at once began
the preparations for our own trip to the cars, to occur in the afternoon
of the same day.
We reached Fond du Lac at nightfall, and were kindly entertained by Rev.
J.T. Woodhead and his family. The following day we were invited to the
pleasant home of our old friend, C.O. Hurd, who, with his most excellent
family, gave us a kindly greeting and cared for us until the arrival of
our goods.
My predecessor on the District was Rev. Theron O. Hollister, a man "full
of faith and the Holy Ghost." Brother Hollister was received into the
Conference at its session in Baraboo in 1853, and his first charge was
Summit. His subsequent fields of labor were Fort Atkinson, Lake Mills,
Greenbush, Sheboygan Falls, and Fond du Lac, where he succeeded to the
District. At the close of his term on the District he was appointed to
Oconomowoc, next to Waukesha, and the year following to Hart Prairie.
Here his health utterly broke down, and at the following session of the
Conference in 1868, he was compelled to take a superannuated relation.
He now removed to Salem, in Kenosha County, where he died March 13,
1869, aged forty-seven.
Brother Hollister was a man of robust frame, and, generally, good
health. He was an earnest man, and whatever he did was done with all his
strength, of both mind and body. With limited early opportunities, and
too intensely occupied in after years with the practical labor of the
Ministry, to retrieve the loss he had sustained, he did not aspire to a
knowledge of books. But in all the active labor of leading souls to
Christ, he was a workman who needed not to be ashamed.
He swept over the District like a storm, "instant in season and out of
season," laying his strong hand on every part of the work, and pushing
it forward. And no doubt it was the work that he did on the District
that laid the foundation of the disease which terminated his useful
life. An overtaxed brain fell a prey to mental disability, and our good
brother went to his reward.
Fond du Lac was under the pastoral care of Rev. J.T. Woodhead. This
excellent brother entered the Conference in 1858, and before coming to
Fond du Lac, had been stationed at Greenbush, Berlin and Ripon. He was
now on his third year in his present field.