Simonides, an ancient Greek poet, said, “the city teaches the man.” How true. It is equally true that the times teach the man. No one will deny the effect upon character of the environment and time in which a man was born, the circumstances in which he was reared. Eugene Hubert CASSIDY was born in the days of the Southern Reconstruction, June 12, 1868. Those were not easy times. The man, who kept his head, maintained a philosophical calm needed to be very rugged. The man who kept his balance in those days was moved by stern motives and was restrained in the expression of his judgment by a Christian spirit. Eugene H. Cassidy was taught by his times, but he also helped to teach the times and to make his environment.
Brother Cassidy was born in Morristown, Tennessee. His parents were J. A. and Matilda Jackson CASSIDY. In the vicinity of Morristown, he spent his childhood and youth. There he received his formal schooling; there he worked and made his living. They were not easy times: they were days of struggle and hardship. In the struggles of his childhood and the hardships of his youth, he was making that strong, rugged character which was his to the end.
He was married June 16, 1897, to Miss Mima Kate PHILLIPS, daughter of Dr. N. F. and Leanah Cobb PHILLIPS, of St. Clair, Tenn. This marriage was blessed with seven children: Eva Pease, Jacksonville, Fla.; Eugenia, who married Jack McNULTY, of Dalton, Ga., and lived but a brief three years after her marriage; Eugene Hoss, of Chattanooga, Tenn.; Catherine Ruth, of Daytona Beach, Fla.; Wily, of Johnson City, Tenn.; Virginia and Betty, of Bluefield, W. Va.
Brother Cassidy was licensed to preach on September 12, 1885, at the age of seventeen years and three months, by the Quarterly Conference of the Tate Springs Charge, Rev. T. C. Carroll, Presiding Elder and Rev. W. L. Jones, Preacher in Charge. He joined the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in the autumn of 1885, at Cleveland, Tennessee, with Bishop John C. Keener, President and Rev. W. C. Carden, Secretary.
The appointments Brother Cassidy received in his early years in the itinerant ministry called for strength of character and great physical energy. His first appointment, Sneedville, was made up of eleven preaching places, namely: Sneedville, Mt. Lebanon, Liberty, Starnes School House, Dotson Camp Ground, Friendship, Hawk’s Chapel, Alders Chapel, Dry Valley, Independence and Brown’s School House. His next appointment was Tazewell (Tennessee) Circuit, composed of Hodge’s, Howard’s Quarter, New Salem, Ritchie’s School House, Thomas Chapel, Gibson Station, Woodson Chapel, Gap Creek, Lonesome Valley, Thompson Chapel, Cedar Grove. His appointments thereafter were: Cumberland Gap, Rogersville, St. Clair, Blountville, Spring City District, Big Stone Gap District, Bluefield District, Radford District; then for two years he served as Commissioner of Education for Martha Washington and Emory and Henry Colleges; then to the Morristown District; First Church, Princeton; then for two years he was connected with the Centenary Commission as a special agent; then to Rossville, Erwin, Grace Church, Bluefield; and his last earthly appointment was Dayton, Tennessee.
The foregoing is an impressive record, but it is merely a summary of Eugene H. Cassidy’s life and labors. Impressive as it is, it tells but a small part of the story of his life. Brother Cassidy “was no ordinary man. He lived to purpose, and put as much into the movements of his Church as any man could. He never shirked a duty, spared himself, or shifted to other shoulders burdens he was supposed to bear. The material out of which he was made was the kind that entered into the making of heroes, wrote Dr. E. E. Wiley. Dr. Eugene 13. Hawk said that in a conversation with a mutual friend “Brother Cassidy’s name was mentioned as one of those rather exceptional men who had something of vision and ability so to plan as to be creative and helpful.”
That he was not an ordinary man is further attested by the fact that he was admitted on trial into the Holston Conference when only seventeen years old. In the class with Brother Cassidy were James A. Burrow, William M. Dyer, Edmund Tilley, E. F. Kahle, Frank Alexander, John W. Coffman, Dayton C. Horne, Thomas F. Gibson, John B. Simpson, Francis H. Farley, and Thomas E. Wagg. Eugene Cassidy was not an ordinary boy. He came to maturity when other lads of his age were still floundering in uncertainty and indecision. He had heard the call to preach and immediately responded, “Here am I; send me.” His call to the ministry was so clear and so plain that he wasted no time in futile objections and vain delays.
As a pastor on large circuits, town and city stations, he tried always to carry out the program of his Church, but never in a stereotyped manner. To the work of the ministry, he brought originality. He loved people, liked to be with them, talk with them, and become acquainted with them. He was acquainted with more persons than any man I have known. He was interested in public affairs, in all the movements of his Church, and in the lesser activities and interests of the people whom he was sent to serve. He was a diligent pastor, visiting from house to house, inquiring into the spiritual well-being of his people.
Brother Cassidy was an excellent preacher, always definitely evangelistic. He held revivals in scores of churches, schoolhouses, camp meetings. From notations in his Bibles, it is conservatively estimated that more than five thousand persons were converted to the Lord under his preaching, an average of more than one hundred a year while he served as pastor and Presiding Elder. He preached the great themes of the Christian Faith, such as Conviction of sin, Conversion, Regeneration, Justification by Faith, the Witness of the Holy Spirit, the Atonement, and the Resurrection of our Lord. He never wasted time in his pulpit on trivialities and the passing fads and whims of the day. His preaching arrested attention, challenged action, and, accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, produced conviction, repentance, which led to conversion.
Perhaps his most distinctive work was in the Presiding Eldership, in which office he served for twenty years. In this capacity, in the judgment of many who knew him well, he was without a peer. He built new churches, opened mission fields, went into “the regions beyond,” and raised thousands of dollars for the various enterprises of the Church. As pastor and presiding elder he was always busy, driving himself to a point which seemed to be beyond human endurance. His energy was almost without limit.
Brother Cassidy was a student of men and movements, likewise of the Bible and other good books. He enjoyed reading great biographies and history, world history and ecclesiastical history. He knew the developments within the Methodist Church as few men whom I have known knew them. He had not only a keen mind, but a remarkable memory. Time and again, I have been amazed at his ability to keep in memory so many different persons, events, dates and facts. He knew something about every Bishop the Methodist Church has produced.
He was a man of strong, deep-seated convictions, and very positive in expressing them. To be in a small minority was no deterrent when to him a matter of principle or of conscience was involved. He was not moved by every wind that blows. He was made of sterner stuff than such a policy would indicate. He was so positive and abrupt as, times, to create an impression that he was of a grouchy nature. But we who knew him knew that he was not a grouch. He was a very friendly man, genuinely sympathetic, and at times deeply emotional. He had found it necessary in the circumstances and exigencies of his work and office to make his decisions quickly; this gave rise to the feeling that sometimes he was a grouch. He knew how to rejoice when men rejoiced, how to weep when they wept. That is the essence of real sympathy, a fellow-feeling.
Eugene H. Cassidy was my friend. I met him for the first time while he was Presiding Elder of the Bluefield District, during one of my summer vacations from college. Though not a Methodist at that time, I was invited to speak at an Epworth League meeting one Sunday evening. Brother Cassidy came to the meeting that night, listened patiently while I talked. After the service, he introduced himself to me and spoke some words of encouragement. Thus began a friendship that lasted for and ripened through thirty years. Four years after I met Brother Cassidy I decided to seek membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and to ask for license to preach in it. At that time, Brother Cassidy was Presiding Elder of the Radford District. I sought him out, renewed my acquaintance with him. He and Rev. J. E. Wolfe, then pastor of First Church, Princeton, W. Va., advised me, told me what course to pursue, brought me into the Church. On June 12, 1914, on Brother Cassidy’s birthday, (forty-sixth) I was licensed to preach. My licensed bears the signature of Eugene H. Cassidy, President and of Joseph E. Wolfe, my future. It was one of the most profitable nights of my life, one that lingers when others have passed from memory. Brother Cassidy brought me into the Holston Conference, obtained for me my first appointment, retained his very active interest in me through the years. He did much for me, and what he did for me he did for many others. It was his nature and disposition to be helpful in a practical way.
Brother Cassidy was diligent to the very end. He was going about the business of his Church while in the City of Chattanooga, and died suddenly on the street, on April 4, 1940. His funeral was conducted by the writer and Dr. W. M. Morrell and Rev. R. L. Stapleton, in his church in Dayton, Tenn., and was attended by a large congregation of sorrowing friends who had come from other States and from many communities, towns, and cities in the Holston Conference. In point of service he was the senior member of the Holston Conference, having served fifty-four and one-half years. In spirit and outlook he was young as the lads received on trial a year ago.
Eugene Hubert Cassidy was a most useful man, beloved by his family, a large number of devoted friends and a multitude of acquaintances. He will be missed; his place will be difficult to fill. In faith he was a believer; in knowledge, a disciple; in influence, a light; in conflict, a soldier; in communion, a friend; in progress, a pilgrim; in relationship, a child of the King; in expectation, an heir. He was a Christian. — M. A. STEVENSON.
Source: Methodist Episcopal Church. Official Journal of the Holston Annual Conference of the Methodist Church. 1940.
