Christopher Stamp was an early convert to Free Methodism. About ten years after the denomination was founded in 1860, he heard Free Methodists preach in Seattle. As a teenager, he was greatly influenced by two Free Methodists, Rev. Peter Griggs and Hiram Pease, who were actively preaching in the Northwest United States. According to his 1930 obituary in The Free Methodist, he first converted to Free Methodism, and shortly after, during the same revival, he experienced sanctification.

Since Seattle lacked an established Free Methodist Church, Christopher traveled to San Francisco to join there. By the early 1880s, he was ordained and appointed to Lawrence, Kansas, where he met and married Blanche on January 25, 1882.

Family Life and Challenges

The couple had six children, but only three lived to adulthood. Their oldest son, Dudley Stamp, was born around December 1882. Named after Christopher’s older brother, Dudley was a very energetic and outgoing child. At a Colorado camp meeting the family attended, he wandered off and got lost, miraculously surviving overnight in the Rocky Mountains by himself. Christopher Stamp later wrote a children’s book in 1912 about this experience titled Dudley Stamp Lost in the Rocky Mountains. (You can read it by clicking on the hyperlink.)

After Dudley, the Stamps welcomed a daughter, Maudella, followed by two more sons, Paul and Eastus, and finally two daughters, Ada and Ruby. Tragically, the Stamps lost all three boys at a young age. Dudley and Paul both succumbed to scarlet fever while the family lived in Pueblo, Colorado, and Eastus died soon after birth.

Christopher recounts in his book that the neighbor’s children had mild cases of scarlet fever but were still playing outside. Unaware of the illness, Christopher and Blanche allowed their kids to play with them. Maudella caught scarlet fever first and recovered, but six-year-old Dudley and Paul did not. In Dudley Stamp Lost in the Rocky Mountains, Christopher writes about the heartbreaking experience of losing both boys. For much of the children’s illness, Blanche was left to care for all three children alone, as Christopher was traveling and could not be reached by telegram. He arrived home just before Paul died, and Dudley was critically ill. In his obituary, the article notes that Christopher Stamp’s last words referred to Dudley: “I will soon be with Dudley boy.”

Ministry and National Recognition

After their time in Pueblo, the family moved to Colorado Springs, where Christopher served as the district elder and Blanche was appointed to the Husted Circuit. By the early 1900s, the couple transitioned into evangelistic work and became well-known national revivalists. (I still need to track down the exact years Christopher Stamp served as a General Conference evangelist.)

Christopher Stamp became a General Conference evangelist around 1904, and the Stamps’ speaking engagements garnered media attention wherever they went. While Christopher was the official General Conference evangelist, Blanche often preached alongside him. The advertisement at the start of this article exemplifies how the Stamps’ revival services were promoted. When the couple was preaching in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1910, the local Free Methodist Church published an outline of their revival services in The Lawrence Daily World. Although this engagement was part of the quarterly conference meeting, it provides a typical overview of their topics and how they conducted their services.

₁ Zoe von Ende Lappin. (2011) “Lost in the Rocky Mountains: Long Ago Preacher Never Lets Go of His Little Son’s Ordeal.” Colorado Genealogist vol. 72 no.2, pp. 33-43.

² ibid.

₃ Wilson T. Hogg, August 22, 1899, “Educate Women for Higher Womanhood,” The Free Methodist, 1.

One such advocate was Edward Bok, who Hogue favorably highlighted on the periodical’s front page in 1899.  The first page of The Free Methodist usually was the editor’s summaries of important current events and opinions of interest to readers. Hogue summarizes Bok in a section entitled “Educate Women for Higher Womanhood” where he lambastes women pursuing college education citing Blok’s statement that “If the instinct of daughter, sister or wife dies out in the college-bred woman, even in the course of the most brilliant career, the world will forget to love her; it will scorn her justly.” Hogg goes on to suggest the solution for women is to be cheery and tidy wherever they went, making their environment always “home-like” lest she forgets her role as the primary nurturer. Bok’s writings regularly touted this “natural moral superiority” of women as justification for maintaining separate spheres for the sexes.

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