Daniel Killian, Ashieville Methodist Pioneer

Here is something I compiled several years ago and came across it again, yesterday.  My genealogy program, Family Treemaker calculated that Daniel Killian is my one half  fifth great uncle.  It is sort of interesting because it talks of the beginning of Methodism in Asheville, North Carolina.

From:  "The History of Old Buncombe County, North Carolina #415 Page 249

THE DANIEL KILLIAN FAMILY:  THE GEORGIA LINES

     Daniel Killian, born ca 1757 in Lincoln Co., N.C., was the

ninth child of pioneer Andreas Killian who arrived at Philadelphia in 1732 from Rhinish Palatinate.  There is a marker at St. Paul's Church Cemetery near Newton, N.C., that lists the twelve children of the pioneer Andreas Killian and states that he settled in North Carolina in 1747 near Newston.

     Daniel Killian married Osly Baker January 15, 1787, in Lincoln Co., N.C., with his brother Samuel Killian as bondsman.

     On January 19, 1784, Phillip Smith married Nancy Baker with Daniel Killian as bondsman.  In Bishop Francis Asbury's Journal, in which frequent mention is made of Daniel Killian from 1800 to1810, on Wednesday, October 26, 1803, in Buncombe Co., N.C., he says, "We called a meeting at Killian's...sister Killian and Sister Smith, sister is in the flesh...are both gone to their

award in glory."

     After his marriage and prior to 1790, Daniel Killian moved from Lincoln County to that part of Burke that became Buncombe County in 1791, settling on Beaver Dam Creek.  Asbury states states in October 1801 that Daniel Killian's residence near Buncombe court house.  Daniel Killian was in Burke Co. on the 1790 military census, and first entered land on Beaver Dam Creek in 1792.  He died Feburary 22 1830/6 and is buried in Asbury Memorial United Methodist Cemetery , Ashville, N.C.

From Chapter 23 of "Old Buncombe County, North Carolina:

     Bishop Francis Ashubry, sent by John Wesley from England to America in 1771 was the historic promoter of promoter of the Methodist movement in America. Known as the "Prophet of the Long Road," he was a circuit- riding preacher who rode almost 300,000 miles in 45 years of ministry throught the colonies from New England to South Carolina and back, traveling ofter on the back of a horse.

     Asbury confirmed this Buncombe County area's wilderness state when he wrote ona visit in 1806:

          "We came to Buncombe; we were lost within a mile of Mr. Killon's (Killian's),  and were happy to get a schoolhouse to shelter us for the       night.  I had no fire, but a bed wherever I could find a bench; my aid, Moses Lawrence, had a bear skin, and a dirt floor to spread it out on."

     This particular visit was not his first one to the area for he had met the Killian family and neighbors and organized a Methodist Society in 1801 which was the nucleus of the current Asbury Memorial United Methodist Church whose present building is located on Beaverdam Rd and Kimberly Ave.  This was land deeded to the use of a "Church and burying ground forever" by Daniel Killian