Rev. William LeConte
Missionary in Campinas and Recife
William LeConte was born in Savannah, Georgia, on February 17, 1846. He was the firstborn son of Louis LeConte (Liberty County, Georgia) and Harriet Nisbet (from Athens, in the same state). His father died in October 1852, the family moved to Washington, DC, residing there until January 1858. Mrs. LeConte took her children to Europe and for six years educated them in schools in Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium. William excelled greatly in his studies and in 1863 was baptized into the Church Free of Brussels, in the pastorate of Rev. Annet. In the same year, the family returned to the U.S. In early 1864, William obtained placement on a Confederate ship that had been fitted out in England and headed for one of the southern ports of the United States. The ship was detained for a long time in the vicinity of Bermuda, due to an epidemic of yellow fever on board, but William was preserved from the dangerous disease. He then attempted to join the Confederacy by land across Virginia, but when he did, Richmond had fallen before the northern troops. Going to Augusta, Georgia, he worked for a few years as a bank clerk and joined the First Presbyterian Church.
Devoting himself to studies in his spare time, LeConte prepared for higher education. He entered the University of South Carolina in 1868 and graduated the following year, enrolled in the second semester at the Columbia Seminary, where he completed his studies in May 1872. He volunteered for the foreign missionary work of the Church of the South (CPSU) in 1871, being named on March 7. In April 1872 it was licensed by the Athens Presbytery and worked that summer in churches in Clarksville and Nacoochee.
Nacoochee. His ordination occurred in September 1872, at the Church of Gainesville. It was the first missionary Church of the South to come to Brazil after the pioneering couples Morton and Lane and educator Arianna Henderson. Before going to Brazil, he attended the Synod of Virginia, meeting in Baltimore. Declined an invitation to speak to that council on the mission, limiting himself to asking for prayers in favor of his work in the mission field to which God had called him.
He left for Brazil on November 23, 1872, and arrived in December, arriving at Campinas the following month. On September 14, 1872, Rev. Edward Lane had written the Nashville Committee urging the sending of a teacher, with a good classical background, who could speak and write fluently in French and German, widely used by the upper classes of Brazilian society. LeConte was listed by the primitive Presbytery of St. Paul, affiliated with the Church of the South, on 17 June 1873, at a meeting held at the "Hopewell Church" in Santa Barbara. He attended the inauguration of the temple of the Church of Rio de Janeiro, in late March and early April 1874, preaching on one of the nights. Due to his strong desire to devote himself to preaching, He did not want to be a permanent teacher at the College. International or Institute of Campinas. He, therefore, urged transfer to the mission station in Pernambuco, where pioneer John Rockwell Smith had been working alone since January 1873.
At the initiative of Dr. John Leighton Wilson, Secretary of the Nashville Committee, who visited Campinas, LeConte went to Recife in February 1875, exchanging place with Rev. John Boyle, who had not adapted well to the climate. He collaborated with Rev. Smith in the Salvation of Grace newspaper, the first evangelical newspaper in the north of Brazil, whose number of debuts came to light in October of 1875. The newspaper, out of which twelve numbers came out, came to be suspended with the removal and death of the missionary Smith. LeConte taught various subjects, including theology, to the future pastor, João Batista de Lima. He became seriously ill and went back to the United States in July 1876, arriving in his country on 11 August. He died at his mother's house in Washington on November 4 of that year, at 30 years of age.
His contemporaries say that LeConte was a neat man, and he generally enjoyed good health. Very intelligent and cultured, he stood out in a special way in the linguistic area. In addition to knowing French and German, he was a scholar of Greek and Hebrew. Although had a reserved temperament, had a great passion for missionary work, and was inflexible in the sense of doing what he considered his duty. A former missionary in Brazil commented: "Except for his thin physique, no man came to Brazil with the greater promise to be useful. " Whether as a student of the Portuguese language, teacher, religious articles, or gospel preacher, the general opinion was that his work was always very well done and that he was a true martyr, having given his life for the cause of missions. His name was perpetuated in a missionary society of the Synod of Virginia.
Bibliography:
• Lessa, Annaes , 113.
• Ferreira, History of IPB , I: 167, 169s, 182, 214, 247.
• "Rev. William LeConte ", The Missionary (December 1876).
• "Rev. William LeConte, " Minutes of the Synod of Virginia (1877), 446s.
• Memorial Volume of the Semi-Centennial of the Theological Seminary at Columbia,
South Carolina (Columbia: Presbyterian Publishing House, 1884), 315-317.
• Bear, Mission to Brazil , 14s, 33-35.
• McIntire, Portrait , 7/22