OBITUARY:  Rev. Levi R. Dennis, 26 Apr 1873 - Anderson Co, TX

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P. O. Box 6967, Tyler, TX 75711

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TEXAS CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, May 21, 1873, p. 6, c. 1

A Preacher Fallen!

Rev. Levi R. Dennis, Presiding Elder of the Palestine District, East 
Texas Conference, died in peace on the 26th day of April, at 11:30 
o'clock P.M., after an illness of two weeks.

His wife and daughter, Maggie, had been dangerously sick, and he had 
been heavily taxed—nursing, waiting, and watching in the family 
chamber for weeks; and, as they convalesced, he fell sick.

He was born in Overton county, Tennessee, January 9, 1820; converted 
to God when about eighteen years old, and was licensed to preach 
October 3, 1841, at Ebenezer campground, Rev. F. E. Pitts being 
presiding elder. He entered the traveling connection in the Tennessee 
Conference in 1842; was ordained deacon by Bishop Janes November 1, 1844, 
and an elder by Bishop Soule, at Nashville, November 9, 1846. After 
traveling six years as a single man, he was married to Martha L. 
Hughes, of Bedford county, Tennessee, November 14, 1848. After twelve 
years of active itinerant life in the Tennessee Conference, he 
responded to the Macedonian call from Texas, and transferred to the 
East Texas Conference. He landed at Dallas on the 25th day of December, 
1854, after the conference had adjourned, to learn that he was 170, 
or more miles from Marshall, to which place he had been assigned. It 
was midwinter; deep mud, streams high, and but few bridges, the 
family sighing for a little repose and relief from the wintry winds, 
falling snows and drenching rains; but that indomitable energy and 
unyielding purpose, which was a prominent trait in our fallen 
brother's character, through an itinerant career of thirty-one years, 
was commensurate with the emergency. No time was lost, difficulties 
were overcome, and in the shortest possible time he was at his new 
post in Texas. The beginning was a true augury of his Texas life. He 
had an iron will, and although he was hardly medium in size, his 
physical stamina was superior. He was capable of great endurance. 
It was his custom on reaching home to change his apparel and hasten 
to labor; the plow, the hoe, the ax, the spade, any implement of 
industry, was wielded with an astonishing energy and skill. This 
habit had been formed, and was continued to the very close of a 
useful and eventful life, as a means of splicing a short, inadequate 
salary, and thereby to keep himself in the itinerant ministry. It 
was not that Brother Dennis loved manual labor above others; it was 
not that he undervalued studious habits and books; no indeed; with 
many it amounted to an objection that, when on the circuit or 
district away from home, his words were too few, and his devotion 
to books made him appear unsocial. When at home, night was the 
season for books and study, and neither family nor visiting brothers 
could divert him from his repose, long at a time, for merely social 
enjoyment. He might have lived to the age of seventy years, and have 
done efficient service to the last, had the church he so faithfully 
served relieved him from excessive toil by a liberal support.

I watched his symptoms from the beginning to the close of his 
sickness, and endorse the statement of his enlightened physician: 
he died of the exhaustion of the nerve power. That power had been 
shocked and taxed to tension too often; the last assault was fatal. 
He died as sweetly as an infant goes to sleep. He leaves a sadly-
bereft family—wife and three daughters—though comfortably provided 
for.

Brother Dennis was a true man, a faithful friend, a good preacher, 
an efficient presiding elder, always at the post of duty and ready 
for every good word and work. The news of his untimely demise will 
sadden many hearts. It will be felt most keenly in his own 
conference and by his companions in the ministry.

. . . R. S. Finley.
Tyler, Texas, May 2, 1873. 

TEXAS CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE, July 16, 1873, p. 13, c. 2-3

Dennis.—Departed this life in Tyler, on the 26th of April, 1873, in 
the full triumph of Christian faith, Rev. Levi Richardson Dennis, 
presiding elder of Palestine district, East Texas Conference.

A good and noble man has gone. In all the relations of life, beyond 
reproach; he was an itinerant of peculiarly consistent devotion to 
his work. Levi Dennis was called to the ministry, and in it lived 
and died at his post with armor on, his shield unharmed, his sword 
unbroken, and in hand. Taken with a chill while reading his Bible, 
(as was his habit when in the house,) he laid down, with the book 
beside him, upon the bed from which he never arose. A slow, nervous 
fever setting in, he lingered on, his family unconscious of the 
deep-seated danger, till Saturday night, just ere the Sabbath was 
beginning on earth, the spirit departed to the Sabbath of God. As 
he lived Bible in hand—that death might not separate them—they laid 
them away, preacher and Bible, together in the grave.

Levi R. Dennis was born in Overton county, Tennessee, 
January 9th, 1820. Converted at eighteen, he was licensed to preach 
at Ebenezer camp-ground October 3d, 1841, by Rev. F. E. Pitts. 
Entering the traveling connection in 1842, he was ordained deacon at 
Columbia, Tennessee, November 3d, 1844, by Bishop Hanes; and elder 
by bishop Soule at Nashville, November 8th, 1846. He died in the 
fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the thirty-second of his 
ministry. Married to Martha L. Hughes November 14th, 1844, he 
removed to Texas, reaching Dallas the 25th of December, 1854. The 
wife and three promising daughters survive, all following the pious 
footsteps of the departed.

The first two years of his ministry in Texas were spent with the 
church in Jefferson, where, by genial disposition and singleness of 
devotion to the work, he won to himself many true and lasting 
friends. Thence North, South and East, afterwards, lay the fields 
of his labor, till he had well night traveled the greater part of 
the East Texas Conference. Duty to him was the omnipotent call—to 
whatever field assigned. Business, weather, distance—nothing, save 
sickness, was excuse for failure to meet appointments. Who that 
knew him as we did ever failed to see that the one obligation to 
him above and beyond all others was the work of the itineracy? To 
it he clung with pride and unfaltering devotion. All else was made 
to subserve the Master's call. His preaching was lain, fervid and 
evangelical; and under it many a wavering heart has been strengthened 
and hundreds brought to a saving knowledge of the truth. 
Undemonstrative in manner, he was true and biding in his attachments 
and friendships; with a tender and kindly heart ever running out in 
sympathy toward the poor and the suffering. Of this, not a few in 
East Texas who read this notice will bear witness. Many are they in 
Tyler who, with tears in their eyes, will recall how, last winter, 
when that terrible scourge, meningitis, prevailed, blighting the 
happiness of so many households, he went night and day, through 
sleet and snow, to minister Christian comfort to the bereaved and 
the dying. But his work is done. We who remain thank God for the 
pious, exemplary life of Levi Dennis. What a harvest he shall some 
day gather in the glory land while his works do follow him! These 
seeds of purity, so often sown by him in tears, shall mature and 
are now ripening all along the itinerant path of his life to be 
garnered after awhile over in the celestial Canaan.

As a family, as a community, as a church, we are bereaved; but shall 
endure on, hoping that we, too, after a few more years, may be 
permitted to join the company of the redeemed beside the stream and 
under the tree of Life.

W. H. Scales.
Dallas, Texas, June 5, 1873.