The Life of Bishop Richard Whatcoat

Richard Whatcoat has long impressed me as being one of the neglected heroes of early American Methodism. He was fortunate in his personal relations to Bishops Coke and Asbury and especially to the latter. But he was somewhat overshadowed by both of them. Even as Barnabas was more or less concealed by St. Paul, so was Whatcoat hidden by the Asbury to whom he was truly devoted. When the time came that our Church printed some tiny classic volumes about our Pioneers, Richard Whatcoat was not included. If this exclusion may have harmonized with his modesty, it certainly does not represent complete justice.