The service proceeded, and at its close the Quarterly Conference was held.  We tarried, and after the opening services, my father arose and addressed the Elder, stating that we had recently settled at Waupun, and supposed we were outside of the boundaries of any charge.  Yet such was the flexibility of Methodist institutions, he had no doubt the boundaries of Fond du Lac Circuit could easily be thrown around Waupun.  If so, we would like to be recognized as members of the church.  We were received on our credentials, my father as an ordained Local Preacher and I as an Exhorter.  Before we left the Quarterly Meeting, it was decided that Brother Lewis should establish an appointment and form a class at Waupun.  But of this further mention will be made in a subsequent chapter.

Rev. Wm. H. Sampson, the Presiding Elder of the District, had been a member of the Michigan Conference.  On invitation, he was transferred to the Rock River in August, 1842.  His first appointment was Milwaukee, of which mention will be made in another place.  The next year he was sent to Kenosha, then called Southport, to save the church property which had fallen under financial embarrassment.  Having accomplished this task, he was, in July, 1844, appointed to the charge of Green Bay District.

A better selection for the position could not well have been made.  He was just in the strength of his early manhood, an able preacher, a sound theologian, a wise administrator, and a man of agreeable presence.  The country was new, society in a formative state, and the material limited.  Under these embarrassments, it required no little skill to lay the foundations wisely and successfully rear the superstructure.

The District extended from Green Bay on the north to Whitewater on the south, and from Sheboygan on the east to Portage City on the west, and included eight charges.  To encompass the labor of a single year required the travel of four thousand miles.  The roads were almost impassable, especially in the northern and eastern portions of the District.  During certain seasons of the year, the buggy and sleigh could be used, but, in the main, these extended journeys were performed on horseback.  A wagon road had been cut through the timber from Fond du Lac to Lake Michigan, but only one family, as yet, had found a home between the former place and Sheboygan Falls.

Between Sheboygan and Manitowoc, a distance of twenty-five miles, there was no house.  The road, if such it might be called, was an unbroken line of mud of uncertain depth, and any amount of logs, stumps, roots and stones, to give it variety.  The northern portion of the district was a wilderness, and the few points that had been invaded by settlements, were almost wholly inaccessable.  In the southern portion the roads were better, but even here, and especially through the Rock River woods, they were not inviting.

The position of Presiding Elder on the Green Bay District at this time was no sinecure.  The long journeys, the great exposure and the meager accommodations among the people, were trying in the extreme.  But it was found that Brother Sampson was equal to every emergency.