"Samuel A. Webster" - Early Pentecostal Preacher

Anyone looking for this volume please contact the Library Director at Southwestern Christian University in Bethany, Oklahoma. It was part of their collection as of 2012.

A recent volume of note titled simply, "This is the record of the life and ministry of SAMUEL A.WEBSTER as transcribed from his handwritten diary."  It was spiral bound in October of 1992, (78 pg.; 5x8).  No other information was on the booklet.

Biographical information from the work:

Samuel A. Webster (b.29 May 1875 - d. 21 June 1941, Ky) was the son of Alice Jones (b. 2 Feb.1854) or Hones and Thomas Jefferson Webster.  They married 8 December 1872.  Samuel married Evelyn Erickson 14 December 1898 in Doud, Iowa.  They had two daughters , Gladys Esther and Wilma Leona.  In September 1902, the family with extended members moved to Monrovia, California. In 1906 a third daughter, Alberta was born to them and in 1908 a son Paul.

Alice Jones was the daughter of Eliza Pugh (b. April 24, 1830) and Atha Hones.

Eliza was the daughter of Annias Pugh and wife Rachel.  They were natives of Ohio and settled west of Des Moines,  Iowa in 1842 settling along the Chequert Creek in Chequart Township.

Originally associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, and desiring to minister he was assigned to Newport Beach in 1905.  He embraced the Pentecostal experience in 1906 when he attended the Asuza Street revival and found the more fulfilling experience he had been seeking. 

Webster spent the next nearly forty years criss-crossing the country - Washington, California, Oregon, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Iowa, and other places in between.

He frequently mentions the "apostolic" work and various "apostolic missions".  He mentions the following names of ministers and workers in his journeys:  Elder R.J. Scott, Frank Small, Pastor Kneeves, Pastor Ewart,  Pastor Smith (Tulakes, CA), Pastor Henry Morse (Oakland), Pastor Tabor, Pastor Marling (Oregon), Pastor Millie Smith (Turlock, CA), Pastor Morris (who went to a P.C.I. Convention in St. Louis), Brother Knudsen,  Brother Crow, and Pastor Edward Smith (Apostolic Temple, 3550 Whittier Blvd., LosAngeles, 1940)

Additional Information
Additional historical research uncovered he had been residing in 1910 in Rohnerville, Humbolt Co., California, in 1920 Santa Cruz, California, and in 1930 in Los Angeles, California where the family lived at 812 1/2 Mariposa Street.  The census record also indicated Evelyn had been born in Iowa and her parents in Sweden.  Also, that the family included a Wilma, b. 1908, Naomi, b. 1910, and Paul, b. 1908.   Samuel was listed as a "clergyman" with the notation "no denomination."

During WW1 as a 43 year old he registered for the draft and listed his residence as 24 West S. Grant (Stockton, California?). He was employed as a minister with the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, 733 S. 3rd Street, Portland, Oregon. This was a Pentecostal group which formed in 1914and was  made up of people who held to the baptismal formula of using only the name of Jesus rather than the trinitarian "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."

He died in Bullit County, Ky 27 June 1941 (according to the death certificate) of a heart attack while attending a camp meeting in Sheperdsville, KY.

The small ministry memoir is packed with travel, recounts of the move of the Holy Spirit, and 'burial' of people in 'Jesus' name.'   All in all a fascinating account of a very active, and very traveled, minister in the broad canvas of early Pentecostalism.