SOURCE: http://biographiks.com/pleasant/mcginnis.htm

The Rev. Edmund McGinnis (32), the father of Rev. David AllenMcGinnis and a circuit rider in his own right, was born on November 25, 1798. He said that he was first convicted of sin when he was about six years old. He moved west with his parents to Guyandotte in 1811, when he was 13. He was converted four years later at a camp meeting on the Guyandotte River. Tradition says he met his wife while doing religious work in Ohio and they were married in 1821. Twice a day he prayed with his family, besides having private prayer alone.

Edmund was licensed to exhort in 1822, and licensed to preach at a quarterly Methodist Episcopal meeting at Adam Black's onAugust 11, 1827, five years after his son David was born. H ebegan riding and preaching on the Logan circuit in 1828, the first of seven circuits he would travel during his lifetime. It was hard work. Edmund preached the first Methodist sermons in the West Virginia counties of Logan, Raleigh, Fayette, Wayne and Braxton, where his circuits were located, and in many other places. In 1834 he gave bond to celebrate the rites of matrimony, taking an Oath of Allegiance to the Commonwealth ofVirginia.

An earlier West Virginia Methodist preacher covered 3,000 miles in one year, visited 400 churches and was paid $12.10.

Edmund was a farmer and storekeeper too, and after about 1840 his son David Allen McGinnis filled up the rest of his father's ledger book with his own journal. Cousin Herbert McGinnis repeatedly made the odd claim that Rev. Edmund McGinnis once owned 9,000 acres where Huntington, WV now stands (it may have been his uncle Edmund, the legislator) and that along with the Beuhring family he gave part of it for the campus of Marshall College. Edmund received a 144 acre land grant west of "Guyandotte Source." He bought Lot 13 in Guyandotte for $600 in1838, and sold it for $1050 in 1840. But by 1854, they had divested themselves of even the property they had inherited from John Houghland, and owned no more land in Virginia. They moved to Texas in 1856.

Except for David Allen McGinnis, who resisted all pleas to join him, all of Edmund's surviving children came to Texas in the 1850's, including Oliver, Melville, Fletcher and Melcena. Oliver had fought in the Mexican War where he got the "Texas fever" and encouraged his family in an 1854 letter to join him in striking it rich on Texas land deals. (In fact, according to Cousin Herbert, bad land deals in Texas wiped Edmund out financially.)

After Edmund had arrived in Texas, he wrote a letter to his son David Allen McGinnis ,"We left Virginia on 29 April 1856, with an eight day layover in New Orleans which made the trip 20 days 8+12=20 We came by water by (via) New Orleans & thinse acrofs the Gulf to Galveston on board of a ship from there we took a steamer up the Buffalow Bayou to Harris Burgh there we took the steam car for Richmond a distance of 30 miles then stage 60 miles which brought us in 6 miles of Olivers.... cost $40 each =$120." Edmund was pleased with his decision to relocate toTexas. He described his property, "...800 acres at $1750... back 20 acres fenced... peach trees... good well..."

"The land I have here is rich and good enough for me..."

Edmund McGinnis, 1856

Edmund told his son David that he had many opportunities for ministry: "I had 4 sabbaths appointments 2 in a town and 2 in the Country. I can go from home to any one of them and return the same day My camp meeting is to embrase the first sabbath in Oct we have among the pretyest camps grounds up on the Globe in the senter and before the stand a frame shed in which 1500 people could be seated I am trying to serve god in good earnest and find I have lost mutch the Last 2 or 3 years of my stay in Virginia here I have many friends and no enemies save the devel & the pilage of my own heart My love to Sarah and the littel ones pray for us and write soon."

Three years later, Edmund wrote to his ailing daughter Melcena, still in Virginia, advising her "to come to this country if possible it mite save your Life.... you speak of your pretty home in your letter to Oliver and so it is But then my dear child think of that home above that Lieth 4 square where we shall not need the Light of a candle for the glory of God will light in it and those that are saved shall walk in the light of it think then of the mansions above and Let not your heart be troubled for this is not our home here we have no continuingcity But should seek one to come then think of meating your Little ones there enjoying the shady bowers above How hapy youall will be then where parting is no more." He continued, "This world is all a fleeting show nothing sure But heaven there fore lay all up on Gods alter and concecrate yourself to him and be assured you have the prayers of a Father & Mother that Loves you..." Melcena did move to Texas after her husband's death, but on the verge of death herself, soon passed away leaving her children in Edmund and Polly's care.

On March 5, 1865, Edmund became ill while preaching his last sermon five miles from home, and the sickness lingered for months until he died on June 9, 1865. At the last, he told his family that he was dying happy, gave his hand to everyone present, and told them, "Be good and serve God and meet me in heaven." In his will, he left his theological books to his son David. His wife Polly died eleven years later. Descendants of Melcena, Fletcher and Melville still live in Texas, including Pat Marburger, Pearl Brack and Peggy Pike Gordon among others. His son Oliver, an attorney and sheriff, fought for the Confederacy and may have fled to Cuba later in his life.

SOURCE: Pleasant Places: A Family History

Illustrated family histories of the ancestors of Michael David McGinnis, from Ireland, Germany, Bohemia, England, Massachusetts, West Virginia, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, including Edmund McGinnis, Polly Houghland, Christopher O'Bryan, Thomas Berwick, Robert Perry, Rebecca Nurse, Hiram Langdon Nourse, Christoph Ashorn, Carl Findeisen, and James Harvey Kidd. http://biographiks.com/pleasant/pleasant.htm