The Circuit Riding Preacher

Rev. William Gurley, my fifth great-grandfather, was a circuit riding preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His life stretched from the fields of Wexford, Ireland, to the Firelands of northern Ohio, and the record of his story comes to us from two sources: his memoir, written by his son Rev. Leonard Beatty Gurley, and his obituary. Together they tell how one man, armed with little more than a Bible and a willing heart, carried the gospel to families scattered across a young land.

William Gurley was born in Wexford, Ireland, on March 12, 1757. His father, John, worked in the naval department, and his mother, Sarah Chamberlin, came from a Quaker family. William grew up in a plain home where prayers were said morning and evening, and where the Scriptures were read at the family table. He later recalled how, on his deathbed, his father laid a cold hand on his head and gave him a final blessing, urging him to obey his mother and follow God. That memory never left him.

At the age of sixteen, William was apprenticed as a silversmith. He learned to shape metal with care and precision, producing ornaments and vessels that would later be known for their beauty and detail. This trade not only gave him skill but at one point preserved his life. In the years of unrest that swept across Ireland, his ability to craft silver for churches spared him from execution when others around him perished. The prophet Isaiah once wrote, “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10). For William, both silversmithing and suffering became part of God’s refining work.

As a young man, William heard the preaching of Methodists in his homeland. These were men stirred by the revival led by John Wesley, the English clergyman who founded Methodism. Wesley preached tirelessly across Britain and Ireland, riding thousands of miles on horseback to call people back to the Bible, to repentance, and to holy living through faith in Christ. His message reached miners, farmers, soldiers, and prisoners. Crowds sometimes mocked him, but thousands were converted. Among those moved by this great revival was William Gurley.

In 1787, William stood before John Wesley, the Anglican clergyman who led the great Methodist revival across England and Ireland. When William came before him, Wesley examined him with simple but searching questions: Did he know he was saved by grace through faith in Christ? Would he preach Christ with a clear tongue and a clean life? Would he care for souls? When William answered yes, Wesley placed a license in his hand. It was not an honor for pride but a trust to carry the gospel. That license marked the beginning of his ministry.  

His path, however, was not easy. In 1798, Ireland was torn by a violent uprising. Wexford became one of the centers of the rebellion. William was arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. His obituary records that he narrowly escaped execution, spared in part because of his silversmithing skill and the work he had done for churches. Many around him were not so fortunate. Looking back, his survival seems providential. As Joseph once told his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). William was spared, not for ease, but for service.

In 1795, William had married Susanna Beatty at Ballycanew, Ireland. Together they would raise eleven children, though their first son died young in England. In 1801, William, Susanna, and their children left Ireland behind. After two years in Liverpool, they sailed across the Atlantic, enduring a six-week voyage before arriving in New York. From there they moved to New London and Norwich, Connecticut, where William worked as a silversmith and preached in homes, shops, and small gatherings. His ministry was plain and direct. He opened the Bible, read a psalm and a passage, spoke of the cross and resurrection, prayed with families, and promised to return.

By 1811, the Gurleys moved west to the Ohio frontier. They settled first near Bloomingville, on land known as the Firelands—granted to families whose homes had been burned during the Revolutionary War. Life was rough, the country thinly settled, but William began gathering believers into societies for prayer and worship. During the War of 1812, the family relocated for a time to Zanesville, where William used his trade to make silver eagles worn on the caps of local soldiers. When peace returned, so did the Gurleys, and by 1819 they were established near Milan, Ohio.

There William’s ministry deepened. He organized the first Christian society at Bloomingville, preached across Huron and Erie counties, and became the first minister to live in that region. As a circuit rider, he traveled from cabin to cabin, sometimes across miles of wilderness, to bring the Word of God. His “circuits” were not grand tours but humble loops: a family here, a small settlement there, a handful of believers in a log cabin. He carried no pay and faced no small hardship, yet he kept at it, month after month, year after year. His obituary said he preached for more than sixty years, often without earthly reward, enduring hunger, cold, and the dangers of the road. Like Paul, he could have said, “I have become all things to all people, so that I may by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22).

Those who knew him remembered not only his preaching but his presence. He was cheerful, full of stories, and socially warm. He loved to recall European history and tell how God had spared him. People said his piety was “unaffected,” meaning it was real, not put on. His walk matched his words. He did not aim for fame, but for faithfulness. He lived out Paul’s charge to Timothy: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction” (2 Timothy 4:2).

William and Susanna lived to old age. Their children married, their grandchildren grew, and their home remained open. In November 1847, William’s health began to fail. Even at ninety-one, he prayed that his mind would remain clear to the end, and God granted his request. On February 10, 1848, surrounded by family, he raised his eyes and said, “What a beautiful country is heaven. I see God.” A few moments later, he passed peacefully. He was laid to rest beside Susanna in Perkins Cemetery near Sandusky.

The Milan Tribune wrote that he had “gone to his reward,” and that the memory of his worth and the example of his life would long remain. His son’s memoir confirmed the same: that he left not wealth or books but a living testimony written in the lives he touched. His story echoes Paul’s own words near the end of life: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).

For the communities of northern Ohio, William Gurley was more than a preacher—he was their circuit rider. He organized churches, lifted the weary, taught the young, and planted seeds of faith that still bear fruit. For his descendants, like me, he left an inheritance of faith that cannot be measured. And for all who hear his story today, he remains an example of what God can do through one life surrendered to Him.

As the book of Revelation describes those who endure, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14). That verse could be written over William Gurley’s grave. Out of fire, out of prison, across the ocean, through wilderness and war, he rode the circuits faithfully. And now, having kept the faith, he has entered the country he saw with his eyes in his last moments—the beautiful country of heaven.