The reason why I wept: Finding the Rev. Jesse W. Devine

(The photo depicts members of the 1868 General Conference. These were contemporaries of Jesse W. Devine and it is possible that he is in the picture.)

When I accepted my call to preach some 20 years ago (time really flies!), one of the first questions people began to ask was, “Are you the first preacher in your family?” As far as I knew, I was the first. However, my late grandmother Iowa Milan put the record straight (somewhat). She informed me that sometime in the late 1800s, one of my ancestors had also been a preacher in the AME Church. The only information I gleaned from her before her passing a couple of years later, was that he was a full blooded Native American with a head of white hair, that he served as a Presiding Elder in Arkansas, and that his name was Joe Divine.

Over the past 20 years, I have periodically searched the records of the AME Church in hopes of finding the Rev. Joe Divine, but with no success. That is, until late last year. While conducting research for something totally unrelated (which is often the case in historical research-most success comes when you’re NOT looking for it), I saw the name J.W. Devine. “Hmmmm,” I thought to myself, “could this be the person I’m looking for?” Well, it didn’t make much sense. This person was a pastor in the Ohio Annual Conference, not Arkansas. Also, his named turned out to be Jesse W. Devine, not Joe Divine. He also seemed to be too old to be the same person that fit my description.

But I followed the lead, anyway and what I discovered blew my mind. It turns out that this in fact, was the relative that had come down through family lore. Jesse Devine (which was often misspelled Divine, even in US Census records) was in fact the father of Joe Devine. Joe was the father of Hattie Devine, who was the mother of Georgia Moore, who was the mother of Iowa Milan, my maternal grandmother. It turns out that Jesse W. Devine was a mulatto, which might account for the description of his being a Native American. He also served as the pastor of the Monticello Circuit from 1874 until his death in 1876, which might account for the story that he was Presiding Elder.

Jesse W. Devine was born in Pennsylvania in 1818 and married Elvira (last name unknown), who was born in 1823 in Louisiana. They were property owners, buying their first home in Xenia, Ohio in 1848, where they lived until 1864. It appears that he entered the ministry of the AME Church in 1851 under the leadership of Bishop William Paul Quinn. So affectionate were they of the venerable old bishop, they named their last child after him, William P. Q. Devine. In fact, my mother reminded me that the use of that name continued into the 20^th century with a cousin known as Quinny.

He served as the pastor of the Hamilton Circuit (Ohio), the Columbus and Delaware Circuits (Ohio), the Washington Circuit (Pennsylvania), and Brown Chapel in Allegheny City (modern day Pittsburgh). He was a delegate to the 1864 General Conference; he served on the board of the Connectional Missionary Society alongside the Rev. Henry McNeil Turner; and he served on the board of trustees for Wilberforce University. In addition to serving under Bishop Quinn, he also received appointments from the hand of Bishop Daniel A. Payne. In 1869, he and his family moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he set up practice as an attorney. During this period, until he served a church again in 1874, he served as a Class Leader at Bethel AME Church in Little Rock under the Rev. J.T. Jennifer.

Jesse Devine also found himself mixed up in the world of national politics. He served as an election official during the controversial election of 1870. During that election, allegations were made that John Edwards (can you believe it?), the Democrat who won the seat in the House of Representatives, had stolen the election by way of voter fraud. It was alleged by the loser, Republican Thomas Bowles, that Black voters had been illegally disenfranchised at the polls. Jesse’s depositions are found among the records in this case. When the dust settled, the courts agreed that Mr. Edwards had stolen the election and the seat was given to the rightful winner, Mr. Bowles.

This is a great story and it may provoke some to question why it would make me weep. But the reason why I wept was two-fold.

First, I wept because of the joy of finding a long, lost relative. At a certain point, I realized that this was not just some scholarly, academic pursuit or just another part of my research agenda. It was personal, deeply personal. As I read through the pages of the Christian Recorder articles that mentioned the various activities he did during his day, I came across his own words. It was just a thank you note, showing his appreciation for the way in which his congregation had taken care of Mrs. Devine. But when I “heard” his voice, it touched me in such a way that the tears were uncontrollable.

But the second reason that I wept was not so joyful. I wept because of the pain in knowing that somewhere along the way, we dropped the ball. Somewhere, we stopped telling this story. No “White man” did that to us, we did that to ourselves. We somehow arrived at a point where the only thing we could say about our roots in Arkansas was that our family came from “somewhere back East.” Unfortunately, ours is not the only family that has forgotten and when I think about that tragic fact, it makes me weep all over again. I wept for joy and I wept because of a sense of loss. But mostly, I wept because I was just happy to have found my great, great, great, great grandfather, the Rev. Jesse W. Devine.