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Welcome to the first weekly installment of Senter Stage, an engaging snapshot of Keith Memorial UMC history as we prepare to celebrate our Bicentennial on September 15, 2024. And no, “Senter” is not a misprint… keep reading to learn about the first Methodist preacher assigned to what we now call Keith Church.
William Tandy Senter, 1824
In 1824, when Methodism came to Athens, Tennessee, the small southeast Tennessee community could still be called a frontier town, its land wrested form the Cherokee Indians only five years before through a treaty devised by Secretary of War John C. Calhoun. Born at Bean Station in 1801 and admitted at the first session of Holston Conference, William Tandy Senter was the first preacher assigned to Athens when it was part of the Hiwassee
District in the brand new Holston Conference, also founded in 1824. In those days, our church was known simply as the Methodist Church or Athens Methodist Church. Senter served as the Athens circuit riding preacher for one year.
In the early years, pastors traveled on horseback to preach in towns and settlements. In Athens, they occupied the pulpit in the first Methodist log church anecdotally located on Washington Avenue in downtown, but their sermons were also heard in barns, homes, brush arbors, or even under trees. The messages they brought were pleas for people to exercise their free will and turn away from sin. All men are alike in the sight of God, they urged, and He would save all who would confess their sins and call upon Him for mercy.
This kind of appeal touched the souls of many settlers, creating a stronghold of Methodism. Senter had a strong and handsome physique and possessed a richly endowed and versatile mind. He spoke with a clear and resonant voice. He gave great promise as an itinerant Methodist preacher, but he traveled for only three years before choosing to locate. He married Nancy T. White, the daughter of a local preacher at Rogersville. They had seven children. Provisions for married preachers at that time were quite inadequate, but he continued to preach as a local preacher and was popular and useful in that capacity.
In 1842 the Whig political party chose Senter as its candidate for Congress. He was elected and served as Congressman from the Second Congressional District for the U.S. House of Representatives for two years, March 1843-March 1845. He occasionally preached in Washington, D.C., and his listeners were astonished at the eloquence of the man from the backwoods of East Tennessee. When his term was completed, he refused reelection saying that Congress was no place for a Methodist preacher. He returned to farming and preaching and died at his home in Panther Springs, Hamblen County, Tennessee, on August 28, 1848. He is interred at Senter Memorial Church.
One of Senter’s sons, DeWitt Clinton Senter, who was born in McMinn County on March 26, 1830, entered politics and was Governor of Tennessee from 1869-1871, filling the vacancy created by another former Keith UMC circuit riding preacher, the firebrand William Gannaway “Parson” Brownlow, when he left the governorship to become a U.S. Senator (more on Pastor Brownlow in a future column).
(This column is based on Sally Ealy’s research and writing on William T. Senter in A History of Keith Memorial United Methodist Church, 1824-1984, and further research conducted by Amy Sullins.)
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