 Methodist preacher and later bishop John Early became one of Lynchburg's civic leaders; unlike early Methodist preachers who had urged abolition of slavery during the Great Awakening; Early was of a later generation that had accommodated to this institution in the slave societies of the South.On December 3, 1840, the James River and Kanawha Canal from Richmond reached Lynchburg.It was extended as far as Buchanan, Virginia in 1851, but never reached a tributary of the Ohio River as originally planned.