FrancisAsbury.590 Published November 15, 2011 at 590 × 786 in Morning Prayer 11.15.11: Francis Asbury & George Whitefield, Evangelists, 1816, 1770 Francis Asbury, a circuit-riding preacher, was the only Methodist minister to remain in the 13 colonies when the War of Independence broke out in 1776. Later he became the first Methodist bishop in the U.S.A.