Matthew Simpson, an eminent Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church, was born on June 21, 1811, in a log house which then stood on the north corner of Market and Main Streets in Cadiz. Simpson spent most of his youth in Cadiz where he gained a thorough Classical education, learned the trade of reedmaker, taught school, and began the study of medicine. In 1828 young Simpson attended a camp meeting held in a grove near the present Dickerson Church, 3½ miles southeast of Cadiz, and was moved to become active in church work. Later he gave up his medical career and entered the ministry. Shortly thereafter he preached his first halting sermon in a small frame church on Buffalo Street in this village.
After leaving Cadiz, Matthew Simpson served as President of Indiana Asbury (De Pauw) University from 1839 to 1848. In 1852 he was elected a Bishop of the Methodist Church. In later years Simpson became a close friend of Abraham Lincoln. It was Simpson who urged the President to prepare and issue the Emancipation Proclamation. In 1865 the Bishop had the sad duty of giving the Oration at Lincoln's funeral in Springfield. Bishop Simpson died on June 18, 1884, and is buried in Philadelphia.
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