Richard Whatcoat was the third bishop of the American Methodist Episcopal Church.
Background
Richard Whatcoat, the son of Charles and Mary Whatcoat, was born on Feburary 23, 1736 in the parish of Quinton, Gloucestershire, England. When he was still young his father died and his mother apprenticed him at the age of thirteen to Joseph Jones of Birmingham.
Career
At the conclusion of his apprenticeship of eight years, the greater part of which was spent at Darlaston, Whatcoat located at Wednesbury, where he engaged in business. From youth he was very religious: "I was never heard, " he wrote concerning the period of his apprenticeship, "to swear a vain oath, nor was ever given to lying, gaming, drunkenness, or any other presumptuous sin, but was commended for my honesty and sobriety, and from my childhood I had, at times, serious thoughts on death and eternity". Although he was reared as an Anglican, in 1758 he became a regular attendant at Methodist meetings and after 1761 began to hold such official positions as class leader, steward, and exhorter. In 1769 he entered the Methodist itinerancy and until 1784 was a preacher under the supervision of John Wesley in England, Ireland, and Wales. In 1784 Wesley selected him as one of three preachers to go to America to organize the scattered Methodists. He was ordained deacon by Wesley on September 1, 1784, and was made an elder the following day. In company with Thomas Coke and Thomas Vasey he arrived at New York on November 3. He aided in the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the Christmas Conference that same year, after which he gave much of his time to the administration of the sacraments to the American Methodists, who until then had had no ordained ministers. From 1785 to 1800 he served as an itinerant preacher and presiding elder, his appointments being to large circuits and districts in the territory between New York and North Carolina. Bishop Asbury also employed him as a traveling companion on his long episcopal tours. In 1786 Wesley asked that Whatcoat be ordained bishop, but the preachers that met in conference in 1787, fearful that Wesley might recall Asbury if Whatcoat was made bishop, refused. Thirteen years later, however, at the General Conference of 1800, he was elected bishop by a close vote over Jesse Lee. Whatcoat was sixty-four years old at the time, and during the first year of his episcopacy his travels, made mainly on horseback, took him from New England to Georgia and across the Allegheny Mountains to Kentucky and Tennessee, a distance of 4, 184 miles. The hardships of his office proved too much for him and after six years he died at the home of Richard Bassett at Dover, Del.
Personality
Although Asbury surpassed him in administrative ability Whatcoat excelled the senior bishop in patience and humility, and won the respect of the preachers and laymen by his kindness, his devotion, and his unique ability in settling ecclesiastical quarrels. He was a strong believer in the Methodist doctrine of sanctification and made holiness the topic for many sermons. Because of his exceptional knowledge of the Bible he was often called a "living concordance. " So little thought to secular matters did he give that at his death he did not leave sufficient funds to cover the expenses of his funeral.
Quotes from others about the person
"A man so uniformly good I have not known in Europe or America" was Bishop Asbury's final tribute to him.