The New International Encyclopædia/Hedding, Elijah

HED'DING, Elijah (1780-1852). An American clergyman, bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was born in Pine Plains, Dutchess County, N. Y., and began to preach in Vermont when nineteen years old. During most of the time between 1807 and 1824 he was presiding elder in New Hampshire, in Portland, Maine, and in Boston. In 1824 he was elected bishop, and during the formative period of the Church's growth he exercised a powerful influence. He was one of the founders of Zion's Herald, the first Methodist paper in the country, and author of a Manual of Discipline.