James Osgood Andrew was born in Wilkes County, Georgia, on May 5, 1794, about 400 yards N.E. of this marker, the son of Rev. John Andrew and Mary Cosby Andrew. He was licensed to preach in the Ellam Methodist Episcopal Church, Broad River Circuit, ElbertCounty, in 1812. Recommended by Dr. Lovick Pierce he was received into the South Carolina Annual Conference that year. Elected bishop at the General Conference inPhiladelphia in 1832. The deepening problem of slavery involved him when his house servant, Kitty, chose not to be freed, declined to go to Liberia, and remained with the Andrew family. The 1844 General Conference passed the famous "Finley Resolution" asking Bishop Andrew to "desist" from exercising the office of Bishop as long as he was a slaveholder, though an unwilling one. This issue caused the Church to divided and in 1845 the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was organized. Bishop Andrew continued his effective ministry, was first president of the Trustees of Emory College, and, after his death May 1, 1871, in Mobile, Alabama, he was buried in the historic cemetery at Oxford, Georgia
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