Edward Joseph Hamill

While Edward was still a child his parents came to New York City and it was here that he grew to manhood. He was educated for the Romanish Priesthood. When a young man, he went South and found employment as a cabinet maker in Columbus, Georgia. In an old-fashioned Methodist camp meeting, he was converted and later called to preach the Gospel. He joined the Methodist Church and was received into the Alabama Conference in 1842. Up until the beginning of the Civil War, he was "foremost among its members in influence and position."

Edward was sympathetic to the cause of the North during the War of the Rebellion and because of this, incurred much animosity. He was frequently assailed, was imprisoned, and several times was in peril of his life. Notwithstanding this hitter hostility from those who had once been his devoted friends and admirers, he persisted in denouncing secession and the Confederate cause, and when brought to trial in 1864 by his conference, upon charge of disloyalty to the Confederacy, he boldly declared his sentiments, and was saved from expulsion by the conference and rough military treatment by army officers, through the kindly intervention of Bishop McTyre, who was his close personal friend. He left the Alabama Conference in 1869.

In 1871, he was admitted to the East Genesee Conference, later to the Missouri Conference, and in 1878, joined the Illinois Conference.

During his Southern pastorate, he served in Livingston, Alabama, in 1842-43, and held many other pastorates until he was appointed, in 1856, as Methodist Agent for the Eastern Alabama Male College at Auburn. In 1863-64, he served as a Missionary in the Confederate Army with Breckenridge's Corps and with Cheatham's Corps.

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