By Kevin Robbins

Staff Writer

Nearly 200 years ago Methodist preacher Francis Asbury trekked across the eastern United States to attend the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church in Monmouth, Maine. Along the way, Asbury stopped in Scarborough to tell his life story to his host family, the Bracketts.

At least that is how Monmouth resident Mark Alan Leslie’s new novel, “Midnight Rider of the Morning Star”, starts out.

Asbury sailed from England to the United States in 1771. Due to his constant preaching and leadership, the Methodist population grew from 600 to more than 200,000 worshippers during a period of 40 years. Asbury remained in the country even after most of the other preachers were recalled to England, Leslie said.

“If Asbury did not stay in the states during the American Revolutionary War, Methodism would not exist today in the states. In some cases he is even more recognized than George Washington,” Leslie said.

In truth, Asbury never stopped in Scarborough for any extended length of time, however, Leslie said he chose to begin and end the story for Scarborough for two reasons.

Leslie, 59, grew up in Scarborough before he moved to Brewer in 1959 when he was 10.  He said he enjoyed living in Scarborough because all of his relatives would come from northern Maine to visit and would go to the beach.

He used the 1703 Massacre Pond ambush on Prouts Neck as inspiration. During the ambush, more than 200 Native Americans killed the entire village of settlers at Prouts Neck. A mother and son with the last name Brackett, who happen to be the ancestors Leslie’s father-in-law, were the only two people who escaped the ambush in a canoe. The ambush is mentioned in the first scene of Leslie’s novel.

Leslie, who is a retired journalist, said he decided to write the novel on Asbury in 1990 after he saw the painting “Man on Horseback” by Harry Cochrane hanging at the Monmouth Methodist Church. 

  “The photo just grabs you. He was an extraordinary man. He was exposed to the ravages of nature,” Leslie said.

Asbury trekked more than 6,000 miles preaching Methodism across the Allegheny Mountains, which stretch from the southwestern tip of West Virginia to the center of Pennsylvania, Leslie said. He said Asbury crossed the Allegheny Mountains more than 60 times.

For 40 years Asbury “was hunted by Indians, chased by highway men and even Revolutionary War soldiers, stalked by wolves, defied yellow fever in Philadelphia, and spoke out against slavery and liquor long before the antislavery and temperance movements,” Leslie wrote in a press release about his book.

“A lot of people don’t know that he had such severe arthritis that he could not even stand or kneel later in life,” Leslie said.

Leslie said he decided to make the book more interesting to readers by writing a historical novel instead of a biography. A biography is a book entirely consisting of historically accurate information, while a historical novel is a book based on loosely accurate information. 

“If I wrote the book as a biography, the book would be a 1,000-page book. Who wants to read 1,000 pages? I know I don’t. By writing a narrative I can condense the book into 257 pages [which is the length of the book],” Leslie said.

Leslie said it took longer to research than to write the book. He said he began researching around 1995 when there was “no Google.” Leslie began his research with five books from the Maine State Library in Augusta about Asbury. He said Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Mass. also has a collection of materials on Asbury, but they were all enclosed in glass cases for preservation purposes and not available for public use.

“I also studied his journal where he recorded all of his daily activities and thoughts. He wrote in his journal nearly every day,” Leslie said. He said the journal is published and he found it at the Maine State Library and Eastern Nazarene College.

Leslie said it took him a year and a half to write the book. He said he was able to devote more time to research after he retired from journalism and opened his company, Leslie Media Consultants based in Monmouth, in 2000. 

“Midnight Rider for the Morning Star” is not the first book Leslie has written; however, none of his earlier books have been published. 

Leslie said he has done research and written a book about the Ku Klux Klan’s occupation of Maine in the early 1920s.

“When I was a sun editor of the Lewiston Sun [1976-1986], one of my reporters mentioned the Ku Klux Klan was in Rumford and Pittsfield in the 1920’s. I thought it was very interesting,” Leslie said.

Leslie has also written a self-help book and a devotional book, neither of which have been published yet.