David B. Mintz was an early-nineteenth-century minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in North Carolina. He was a revivalist of the Second Great Awakening, and published two collections of camp meeting songs, despite the official stance of the Methodist Church which prohibited popular folk hymns.[1]
Life
editVery little is known of Mintz' early life. His father may have been John Mintz, who owned land in Johnston County, North Carolina in 1761. He may also have had a brother, John Westley Martin Bryan Mintz, who bought land in New Bern in 1812.[2]
At the 1802 Methodist Episcopal Church annual conference in Virginia, Mintz was made a travelling circuit rider minister on a standard one year probationary trial,[3][4][5] and was stationed in the Amherst circuit. He was made a deacon in 1803, and was assigned the Gloucester, North Carolina circuit. In 1804, he was stationed in the Pamlico circuit, and in 1805 – only three years after becoming a minister – was made an elder, and took on the Tar River circuit with John French.[6][7] That year he published the Spiritual Song Book, his first collection of camp meeting hymns, printed by Abraham Hodge in Halifax.[1]
In 1806, he was assigned the New Bern circuit,[6] where he published his second collection Hymns and Spiritual Songs,[1] as well as books by Samuel Coate, and the famous preacher Lorenzo Dow.[8] In 1807, he gave up his ministry, settled in New Bern,[6][3] and married Susannah Armstrong née Bryan (born 1778) on January 28, 1807. Susannah was the daughter of Brigadier General William Bryan (c. 1730s – 1791) of the North Carolina militia, and had five children from her first marriage. Together they had a daughter, Hollon A. Mintz (c. 1810 – 1852), probably named after Susannah's sister.[2][9] Mintz bought land in New Bern "on the east side of Front Street and upon the Neuse River" in 1811,[2] and by 1812 had become a freemason of St John's Lodge, New Bern.[10] He continued to receive money from the estate of Susannah's first husband for the upkeep of their children until January 1, 1816, after which mentions of him cease,[11] and by the time of the 1820 United States census, Susannah was listed as head of the household.[2]
Hymns
editMintz became a Methodist minister during the Second Great Awakening, a Protestant religious revival. As part of this movement, camp meetings became very popular, with spontaneous improvised songs being a key element of their success. Despite the Methodists having a prohibition on these songs, George Pullen Jackson described them as an "adaptive denomination [who] had the practical sense ... while fighting off the religious folk songs officially and excluding them from their authorized collections, to allow their revivalists—from Mintz and Lorenzo Dow onward—to use them freely in swelling the ranks of Methodism."[1]
Mintz' Spiritual Song Book (1805), which collected many of these camp meeting folk hymns, claimed to be "for the pious of all denominations", but many of the songs were strongly pro-Methodist, part of their counter-offensive against the Baptists.[1]
Books
edit- As compiler
- As publisher
- A Guide to True Happiness by Samuel Coate (1806)[8]
- Lorenzo's Thoughts on Various Religious Opinions by Lorenzo Dow (1806)[8]
References
edit- ^ a b c d e f g Jackson, George Pullen (1975). White and Negro Spirituals: Their Life Span and Kinship. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 55, 135, 297.
- ^ a b c d Moore, Alan Gregg; Vogels, Bob Jackson (1992). Mintz Families of the Old South. pp. 674–677.
- ^ a b Lee, Jesse (1810). A Short History of the Methodists, in the United States of America. p. 337.
- ^ Bennett, William Wallace (1871). Memorials of Methodism in Virginia. p. 393.
- ^ Asbury, Francis (1958). Clark, Elmer Talmage; Potts, J. Manning; Payton, Jacob S. (eds.). The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury. Vol. 2. London and Nashville: Epworth Press and Abingdon Press. p. 329.
- ^ a b c Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the Years 1773–1828. Vol. 1. New-York: T. Mason and G. Lane. 1840. pp. 101, 105, 107, 111, 120, 124, 132, 140, 145.
- ^ Grill, C. Franklin (1979). Early Methodist Meeting Houses in Wake County, North Carolina. Raleigh, North Carolina: North Carolina Conference Commission on Archives and History. p. 134.
- ^ a b c Shaw, Ralph R.; Shoemaker, Richard H. (1961). American Bibliography: A Preliminary Checklist for 1806. New York: Scarecrow Press. pp. 42, 58.
- ^ "Died". The Newbernian and North Carolina Advocate. July 27, 1852. p. 3.
- ^ "List of Members: St. John's Lodge, No. 3, Newbern (1812)". Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of North Carolina for 1813. Raleigh: Alexander Lucas, Minerva Press. 1814. p. 16.
- ^ "North Carolina, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1665–1998 for Thomas Armstrong". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 2024-03-12.