W. M. (William Marion) Weekley

Born in 1851, W. M. Weekley—William Marion Weekley—was a minister in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ who later became a bishop. He studied at Asbury Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and spent many years in church work before writing about his experiences.

His best-known book, Twenty Years on Horseback; or, Itinerating in West Virginia (1907), grew out of his years as an itinerant preacher. In its preface, he explains that he did not mean it to be a full autobiography so much as a series of incidents from twenty years of service in the mountains, giving readers a vivid picture of frontier ministry and everyday life in an earlier West Virginia.

Weekley also wrote other religious works, including Getting and Giving and From Life to Life. He died in 1926, leaving behind a record of practical faith, endurance, and the rough realities of pastoral life in rural America.