Bishop Pierce Historical
Marker
Located on Ga. 15 one block west of downtown
Greensboro
33.5759, -83.1844
(Text)
BISHOP GEORGE
FOSTER PIERCE
(1811-1884)
Born February 3 in 1811 near
Greensboro, George Foster Pierce was converted while at the University
in Athens; in 1830 he followed his father, Dr. Lovick Pierce,
into the Methodist ministry. He was first assigned twenty-two
preaching stations on the Oconee Circuit, later he served pastorates
in Augusta, Savannah, Charleston, and Columbus. He may have preached
ten thousand times. His life with his family on his farm "Sunshine"
near Sparta was idyllic.
He was in 18343 the first
president of Wesleyan College, also editor of the "Southern
Ladies' Book", then president of Emory (1848-1854). In 1844
at the New York Conference he defended Bishop Andrew as a slaveholder;
and in 1845 at Louisville, Kentucky he helped organized the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South. Elected Bishop in Columbus, Georgia,
1854.
He was without a peer as an
orator. As a Methodist Bishop, he suffered with his people the
hardships of the Civil War. He died in 1884 in Sparta and is
buried there. |
