Joseph Wigle, Gosfield, 1792-1864 Obit.
I saw this online and thought someone may find it usefull. Jim.
Carroll, John. Case and His Cotemporaries, Vol. 1, Toronto, 1867, p. 188-191.
Joseph Wigle 1791-1864
In the winter of 1818-9, the writer took a tour through those parts, and formed the acquaintance of several gray-haired office bearers in the Church, who claimed to be Mr. Case’s spiritual children. Two of these, Messrs. Joseph Wigle and Joseph Malott – the one, we should think, of German origin, and the other of French – have gone to their reward recently; and as they now belong to history we subjoin their brief but elegant obituaries from the pen of the Rev. Mr. Cleworth: - “Died, in the Gosfield Circuit Joseph Wigle, and old veteran of the cross, who passed to his reward on the 23rd of July, 1864. Soon after I cam to the Circuit I was informed of his sickness, and visited him. He was very ill, but cheerful and happy. There was a frankness and heartiness about him that challenged attention and commanded esteem. His complaint – congestion of the lungs – restrained his conversational powers. He was one of the early trophies of grace gathered in by the pioneers of Methodism along the shores of Lake Erie. He believed and held fast his hope to the end. For nearly fifty years he had been telling to others the story of the cross. He had traversed the wilderness day and night, enduring much to preach Christ, and enduring joyfully. Now the end was approaching. The religion he loved to preach sustained him gloriously in death. Not long before he died, he said to me, ‘If I have any desire to remain here, it is only that I may preach Christ more faithfully than ever.’ Thus he died, glorying in the cross, in the 73rd year of his age.