Reverend George Pickering

The Rev. George Pickering, was, at his death, the oldest effective Methodist minister in the world, having been a preacher for Fifty-seven years. Inheriting from his father a considerable fortune, principally in slaves, he refused to receive them, or any profit from their sale or labor, and they were freed. He also declined to be made a Bishop. He was one of the pioneers of Methodism in New England. At his death there were but two members of American Conferences who had preceded him in the ministry, and but fourteen in England. Born in Talbot Co. Md. brought up in Philadelphia, and converted in that city at St. George's Church, at the age of eighteen; he began preaching immediately and continued to do so almost till he died, a period of fifty-nine years. When he entered the ministry there were but eighteen Methodist preachers in the New England conference, when he died, he was at the head of six hundred and thirty-six, most of whom had been raised up by the instrumentality of his colleagues and himself. The church had risen from a membership of 500 to 66,000.

His wife Mary Bemis was converted in her seventeenth year. His marriage gave to the Rev. Mr. Pickering a home with his wife's father at Waltham, such as few Methodist ministers enjoyed, and free from the financial cares of life, he was at liberty to pursue his vocation as a minister of the Gospel. The old house descended to him at Abraham Bemis's death.

THE BEMIS HISTORY AND GENEALOGY being an account, in greater part of the descendants of Joseph Bemis, of Watertown, Mass. ... By Colonel Thomas Waln-Morgan Draper ... Published 1900, San Francisco, California, p. 92