EDWIN RUTHVEN SHAPARD (Chapter 20) 1889, The End of the Journey, Fort Smith, Arkansas

CHAPTER 20

THE END OF THE JOURNEY - FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS

1889

        Rev. Shapard wrote of his experience after the Annual Conference of 1889; “As soon as Conference was over, I prepared to move to Fort Smith, Arkansas. We remained for three days in Eufaula before starting. Mrs. S [Shapard] dropped down to Muskogee to spend a day with friends there before bidding farewell to the Territory. Leaving Muskogee on Monday October 14th, we reached Ft. Smith that same day. Entering the house where we lived once before, we unpacked and adjusted everything that we had in its proper place. We are a wearied, broken down family.
   Now what are we to do? A dilapidated Methodist preacher, without physical strength enough to work. Dr. S. [E.H. Stevenson], friends and others say that I must not study hard, still a living must be made for wife and children. 30 years have been spent in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 17 of the 30 were spent in working the Indian Mission Conference. I never asked for an appointment in my life and always tried to fulfill whatever work was signed to me.
   The hardest duty which I ever attempted to perform was to ask the Conference to refer my case to the committee on Conference Relations. Not so much to ask them as to get the consent from my heart that I could work no more. Once satisfied on this point I wanted to be out of the way.
   With my experience I say the life of a Methodist preacher is a happy life. The hardships of it are visionary, when the soul is in the work. My desire was to die in the active work the Lord seems to will otherwise, I submit, I cannot say that I submit cheerfully to the providence of God in this case. I would have preferred to die with the close of ministerial work. I love the church, the ministry and more especially the ministry of the Indian Mission Conference. What I shall do I do not now know. I hope to get into some business that will not hinder me from attending to some duties as a preacher.
   My family I suppose will have their headquarters here all of the time. I have gotten too weak to be moving them about as I have done for several years. Besides this, my children can here be in the public schools and thus will have the advantage of other places. There is nothing that I appreciated higher than the universal and hearty sympathy of the brethren. This though could not supply the desire to have shoulder to the wheel and to be a co-worker with them. I hope to be able to write often, though my future work is altogether in trust in God, not knowing now what a day may bring forth.”
   The Shapard family attended church, their first Sunday in Fort Smith, at the Central Methodist Church (South) and heard a sermon from the pastor, J.L. Massey. The pastor announced the presence of Rev. Shapard and his family in the city and they were extended a hearty welcome. Their second Sunday in Fort Smith, the Shapard family attended the First Methodist Church (South), where J.A. Anderson was pastor. 
         

      In the late 1840s, the Methodists constructed their first church in Fort Smith. It was a brick structure located at 110 North Fifth Street and, named the Harrell Chapel, in honor of the serving pastor, Rev. John Harrell. During the Civil War in 1861, the church was used as a hospital, due to it being the most suitable building in town for such a purpose. In the autumn of 1863, when the Southern army evacuated Fort Smith, the Federal army confiscated the building for its own purposes. After several years, the Methodist recovered the edifice through litigation, but the congregation was so greatly weakened and it took years of effort to rebuild it to a flourishing condition. Eventually, the congregation out grew the walls of the little church and a more spacious building was needed, but, the membership failed to agree on the location; one faction favoring the location on North Seventh and A Street and the other favoring  the location on at North Thirteenth and B Street. So the church divided, each faction building in its own location. The cornerstone of the First Methodist Church on North Seventh Street was laid in 1887, with Rev. J.A. Anderson as the first pastor. Also in 1887, the congregation of the Central Methodist church erected a wood frame building on North Thirteenth and B Street, with Rev. J.L. Massey as the first pastor. Central Church was destroyed by a tornado that hit Fort Smith in January of 1898, and a brick church was erected in its place. These two congregations survived independently until 1916, when Bishop Edwin D. Mouzon united the churches under the name of First Methodist Episcopal Church, South and a new church was built on North 15th Street. 

       The Shapard’s were provided some form of income through their rent houses in Fort Smith, as well as their three shares in the production of the undivided Neely Farm in Tennessee. However, Rev. Shapard felt the need to further support his family, and about November 1, 1889, he accepted a job as a Field Canvassing Agent for The New York Life Insurance Company for Indian Territory. Though still physically weak, he did a little business and made one trip to Muskogee and Tahlequah. At the latter place he became very ill and hurried home, reaching Fort Smith on Thursday afternoon. His health declined and on Saturday morning the Mayor of Fort Smith, Daniel Baker, sent a telegram to Rev. T.F. Brewer and other ministers of the Indian Mission Conference, informing them of his perilous health and asking for their assistance in Fort Smith. His health continued to fail and on Saturday, November 16, 1889, at 11 p.m., Rev. Edwin Ruthven Shapard died at his home, among the love, tears and comfort of his family. 

    The Shapard family doctor, Elam H. Stevenson, found that, after an illness of seven days, his cause of death was from a “softening of the bronchioles” which resulted in “capillary pneumonia.” Funeral services were conducted over his remains at the Central Methodist Church on Monday afternoon at 3 o’clock p.m. The following persons took part in the burial service as pall-bearers: Mayor Daniel Baker, Dr. E.H. Stevenson, J.W. Patrick, Joel McKenna, B.F. Gannaway and D.N. Weaver. The Rev. J.A. Anderson of First Church, conducted the introductory service; the Rev. J.L. Massey of Central Church, read the funeral Psalm, and the Rev. S.H. Babcock the lesson in the 15th chapter of First Corinthians. After prayer by Brother Massey, the Rev. T. F. Brewer addressed the audience giving a brief history of the life and death of his departed friend and co-laborer. His body was laid to rest at Oak Cemetery in Fort Smith, Arkansas. 
               The official announcement of the death of Rev. E.R. Shapard to the Indian Mission Conference was conducted at the 45th Annual Indian Mission Conference, which was held at Muskogee, in the Creek Nation, on October 22, 1890. Rev. Shapard’s obituary was read to all the members of the Conference and was entered, by the Secretary, into the official Minute Book of the Indian Mission Conference. His epitaph read, “Thus ended the life of a noble, true man. We will miss him greatly, but no other man will be called upon to do in this

Conference the kind of work he did. The times and the work have changed. Hereafter our work and sufferings will be different. Railroads, legislation, and change in customs and habits have ushered in a new order of things and we look back upon the old as a thing of the past. ‘Servant of God, well done! Rest from thy loved employ; The battle fought, the victory won, Enter thy Master’s joy.’”   Ten years later, Rev. F.M. Moore, who wrote the book, Brief History of Missionary Work in the Indian Territory of the Indian Mission Conference, remarked that Rev. Shapard “could do any of the work our Conference had to do and do it well. He was successful in the educational work. As a preacher he was logical, his themes were suggestive to the thoughtful. In his manners he was inclined to be distant and reserved, unless with persons with whom he was intimate… Brother Shapard was a spiritually minded man, and in his life was blameless; there was no reproach ever attached to his personal conduct or to his official administration of church business.” 
               The body of Rev. Edwin Ruthven Shapard lay undisturbed until May 4, 1912, when, by decision of his children, the remains of he and his wife were exhumed from Oak Cemetery and reinterred in the Shapard family plot located at Forest Park Cemetery in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Currently, he resides next to his wife, Jennie, and two of his sons, Edwin Jr. and David.