James Hunter Mcfarland
James Hunter Mcfarland [1]
a Methodist Episcopal minister, was born in Harrisburg, Pa., March 10, 1809; was converted in 1827, and soon after licensed to preach, and admitted to the Philadelphia Conference in 1830. His ministerial charges were Trenton Circuit, Essex, Bergen Neck Mission, Plainfield, Westchester, Bustleton, Dover, Elkton, Agency for Dickinson College, Newcastle, Columbia, Eighth Street, Philadelphia, presiding eldership of Reading District, Frankford, Bordentown, and Haverstraw, N. J. In 1852, while a member of the New Jersey Conference, his health failed, and he was transferred to the Philadelphia Conference as a supernumerary. In June, 1862, he was appointed chaplain of the United States Hospital in Philadelphia, and in this relation he prosecuted his ministry to the close of his life, March 23,1863. His last words were addressed to his wife: "Mother. I am dying! Lord Jesus, take me!" McFarland was for more than twenty years a corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and was also a member of the Entomological Society. "He was a very faithful and devoted minister of Christ, and did the work of an evangelist successfully. He was warm in his friendship, faithful to the demands of duty, and above everything that looked like a compromise of Christian principle." — Conference Minutes, 1863, p. 47.
