Henry Bidleman Bascom

Henry Bidleman Bascom (1796–1850) was an American Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, elected in 1850. He also distinguished himself as a circuit rider, pastor and Christian preacher; as chaplain to the U.S. House of Representatives; and as an editor, a college academic, and a denominational leader.

Of French Huguenot and Basque ancestry, Henry Bidleman Bascom was born 27 May 1796 in Hancock, Delaware County, New York. He was a descendant of Thomas Bascom, who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634 and who later founded Windsor, Connecticut. The name Bidleman came from the family of Henry's maternal grandmother, Rosanna Bidleman.

Henry Bascom joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in western Pennsylvania in 1811 after his family migrated to the frontier area.

Bascom married Eliza Van Antwerp on 7 March 1839 in New York City.

At a time of expansion of the Methodist Church on the frontier during the Second Great Awakening, new men were accepted into preaching. Although with little formal education, Bascom was found to be a good speaker with knowledge of the Bible; he was licensed to preach in 1813 at the age of seventeen and was received on trial by the Ohio Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Rev. Bascom worked hard as a frontier circuit rider, traveling to scattered settlements across a wide territory. For example, one year he preached 400 times, receiving a salary of $12.10. He soon became noted as a pulpit orator.

...
Wikipedia