The bronze equestrian statue in front of Mead Hall depicts Bishop Francis Asbury (1745-1816), who was the first episcopal leader of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. It celebrates the role and mission of Asbury in the itinerant preaching tradition that was central to early American Methodism. The statue was donated by William S. Pilling, a trustee of the school, in memory of his brother, Edward S. Pilling, Drew class of 1885. The statue was dedicated in 1926. At the dedication, President Ezra Squier Tipple said that the statue's "first mission was to give students faith, zeal, and devotion."
For many years, the statue was a focus of student Pranks, including anatomically-applied paint and fake scatological deposits near the horse's hindquarters, but no such japes have been reported recently.
Asbury at Drew?
Francis Asbury died in 1816, long before the founding of Drew. However, Frank Mason North traced how Asbury's travels would have brought him past the place where his statue now stands:
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(from an article by Frank Mason North in the Drew Gateway, January 1935, as condensed in The Building of Drew University, Charles Fremont Sitterly, 1938.)
Sources:
Cunningham, John. The University in the Forest: The Story of Drew University. (Afton Publishing, 1990)
Sitterly, Charles Fremont. The Building of Drew University. (Madison: Drew University, 1938)