ALDERSON, EUGENE WEBSTER (1854-1939). Eugene Webster Alderson, Methodist preacher, was born on October 15, 1854, in Hart County, Kentucky, the son of Rev. and Mrs. A. L. Alderson of the Louisville Conference. He was licensed to preach at nineteen and went to Texas in 1875. There he taught for a few years and founded North Trinity College at Gainesville. He was ordained a deacon in 1878, and in 1879 he joined the North Texas Conference and became a popular leader. He debated vigorously in defense of Methodist theology and polity. He was a delegate to four general conferences of the church. At the 1910 general conference he was chairman of the Committee on Revisals (of the Methodist ritual). He died on March 9, 1939, and was buried at Bonham.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Journal of the Northwest Texas Conference, 1939. Macum Phelan, History of Early Methodism in Texas, 1817-1866 (Nashville: Cokesbury, 1924); A History of the Expansion of Methodism in Texas, 1867-1902 (Dallas: Mathis, Van Nort, 1937).

Walter N. Vernon