Elijah Embree Hoss

He also distinguished himself as a Methodist pastor, college professor, administrator, and editor.

Born on April 14, 1849, along Cherokee Creek, four miles from Jonesboro in Washington County, Tennessee, U.S.A., he was a son of Henry and Anna Maria (née Sevier) Hoss.

Elijah married Miss Abigail Belle "Abbie" Clark of Knoxville, Tennessee, on 19 November 1872 in Knox County, Tennessee, daughter of Edwin Reuben and Mary Ann (Sessler) Clark.

Hoss was honored in 1885 by his alma mater, Emory and Henry College, with the degree of Doctor of Divinity.

He was admitted on trial to the Holston Annual Conference on 29 September 1869, and was ordained in 1870.

In July 1872 he transferred to California to attend the Pacific Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (M.E.C., S.).

He then transferred to the Western North Carolina Annual Conference in 1875 and was appointed to Asheville.

Hoss was elected to the Chair of Ecclesiastical History, Church Polity and Pastoral Theology at Vanderbilt University, serving there until 1890.

Hoss was elected the editor of the Nashville Christian Advocate, the primary weekly newspaper of the M.E.

Dr. Elijah Embree Hoss was elected to the episcopacy of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, by the 1902 General Conference.

Bishop Hoss was a fraternal representative of his denomination to nearly every Methodist Church in the world.