Bishop George Foster Pierce

Born on February 3, 1811, near Greensboro, George Foster Pierce was converted while at the University in Athens and in 1830 followed his father, Dr. Lovick Pierce, into the Methodist ministry. He was first assigned twenty-two preaching stations on the Oconee Circuit and later served pastorates in Augusta, Savannah, Charleston, and Columbus. He may have preached ten thousand times. His life with his family on his farm “Sunshine” near Sparta was idyllic. In 1834 he became the first president of Wesleyan College, also served as editor of the “Southern Ladies’ Book,” and then was president of Emory from 1848 to 1854. At the New York Conference in 1844 he defended Bishop Andrew as a slaveholder, and at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1845 he helped organize the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He was elected Bishop in Columbus, Georgia, in 1854. Without a peer as an orator, he suffered with his people the hardships of the Civil War as a Methodist Bishop. He died in 1884 in Sparta and is buried there.

Greensboro, Georgia · United States