A One-Name Study for the BARNUM/BARNHAM Surname
Joel W. McKee was a Methodist minister.
Joel W. McKee Quinlan’s History of Sullivan County, NY Page 617:
For several years previous to 1866, one of the habitues of Thompson, was Joel W. McKee, an insane Methodist preacher. In early life, he was of average abitlity and standing; but from inherent causes his mind ultimately became unbalanced, when a conflict arose between him and his ecclesiastical superiors--he believing that he should labor energetically for the conversion of sinners, and they knowing that he should rest. Proceedings were about to be instituted to silence him, when, with a shrewdness which often characterizes the insane, he denounced his old associates of the Church as “punkin-heads,” withdrew from the society, and joined the Independant Methodists, of which Rev. John Newland Maffit and others were the founders. After this he had no followers and no rivals in Sullivan. He was the only member of his Church in the county, and got into as many delemmas and scrapes as he pleased. A hundred anecdotes could be related of his queer sayings and acts. He was zealous in preaching; but his hearers generally were limited to a few irreverent young men and mischievous boys. After being incarcerated twice in the insane asylums, and wasting a comfortable sum of money, which he had saved in his better days, he found a home in the poor-house, where he died.
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