At age 12, Louisa Jane “was converted and joined the [Methodist] Church at . . . [Smyrna] Camp Meeting, Abbeville County.” 16 According to a Methodist historian, in addition to changing inner feelings, conversion “was a voluntary act that . . . collectively could transform the character of whole communities.” 17 Louisa Jane’s brother James Wesley probably introduced her to future husband L.D. Merriman at church or camp meeting. He and L.D. were business partners in Merriman & Clinkscales in Cokesbury, a village in the county. They broke up the business in 1848. 18 If Louisa Jane and L.D. lived where he worked this breakup may have led them to leave Cokesbury for nearby Greenwood. In Cokesbury, Louisa Jane left behind an idealistic village that appealed “strongly” to Methodists, 19 exchanging it for a newer village whose future was to be determined. Confronting Louisa Jane in the newer village was a spiritual landscape completely devoid of churches. “. . . no church building or church organization of any kind [existed] in the little village of Greenwood.” Baptists mainly attended Mt. Moriah Church. Presbyterians attended Rock Church. Methodists attended either Tranquil Church or Mt. Lebanon Church. 20 All were three to four miles from the center of the village. A circuit-riding pastor who preached at the village’s public meeting hall offered worship services to Methodists who wanted to worship in the village. Preaching was not weekly or even on Sunday because Greenwood village was part of a very large area that the pastor was expected to visit regularly. 21 Clinkscales, 15 January 1838; Series S108093, microfilm 9, reel 4, frame 605; digital image, South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Online Records Index (http://scdah.sc.gov : 12 July 2020). 16 “Merriman,” obituary, Southern Christian Advocate (Columbia, South Carolina) , 11 June 1891, p. 6, col. 4, South Carolina United Methodist Collection, Wofford College, Spartanburg. 17 Jones, “What It Was Like To Be a Methodist.” 18 “Notice,” The (Abbeville, South Carolina) Banner , 2 September 1848, online archives (https://www.newspapers.com) : accessed 26 July 2020), p. 4, col. 2. 19 E. Don Herd, Jr., Mount Ariel-Cokesbury, South Carolina: A Biography of an Upcountry Utopian Community (n.p.: privately printed, 1979), 43. 20 “Our Old Roads, No. 288,” The Greenwood, South Carolina) Index-Journal , 6 July 1946, online archives (https://www.newspapers.com) : 5 November 2020), p. 4, cols. 1-2. 21 Harry R. Mays, The History of Main Street United Methodist Church, Greenwood, South Carolina (Franklin, Tennessee: Providence House Publishers, 1992), 22-26.
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