USA > Indiana > Contributions to the early history of the Presbyterian Church in Indiana : together with biographical notices of the pioneer ministers > Part 7
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"Father Dickey" was always an earnest anti-slavery man.1 For several years he cast the only ballot in his township for Free-soil principles. By and by his convic- tions became so strong that, though he never introduced politics into the pulpit, privately and in debating societies he discussed the question, and ultimately won over nearly all his people to anti-slavery sentiments.2 Living on the
1 See Mrs. Stowe's " Men of Our Times," p. 548. Cf. Reed's " Christian Traveller," p. 152; Johnston's " Forty Years in Indiana," pp. 12, 13, 15, and 17; and Crowe's " Abolition Intelligencer."
2 I have before me a thick, yellow manuscript, in the careful handwriting of Father Dickey, and entitled, " An Address to Christians on the Duty of Giving Suitable In- struction to Slaves." The argument is tender and convincing. It is dated December 20, 1822-a very early period for such an argument upon the Kentucky border.
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border where runaway negroes were numerous, he fear- lessly preached from such texts as, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee" (Deut. xxiii. : 15); and under his in- structions the better men of the community ceased the lucrative business of hunting fugitives, although the prac- tice had been thought innocent and necessary. The name of "the old abolitionist," which those "of the baser sort" gave him, rather pleased him. He said it would one day be popular.
I remember Father Dickey [writes Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe'] chiefly through the warm praises of my brother and my husband, who used to meet him at Synods and Presbyteries. They used to speak of him as an apostle after the primitive order -"poor, yet making many rich ; having nothing, and yet possess- ing all things." He advocated the cause of the slave in the day when such advocacy exposed one to persecution and bodily danger. My husband, to whom I have appealed, says he remem- bers him well and loves his memory, but that he was a man that "didn't make anecdotes"; always constant, steady, faithful, he inspired younger ministers by his constancy and faith, and the simplicity of his devotion to Christ.º In my novel of "Dred," now changed in title to "Nina Gordon," the character of Father Dickson was drawn from my recollection of this good man, as described to me.3
The services which Mr. Dickey rendered to the cause of education were also important. His own early opportuni- ties for study had been secured amidst manifold difficulties, and he sought the more earnestly to provide for his children and his neighbors' children an easier and better
1 From Mandarin, Fla., February 5, 1876.
2 A clergyman, who was at one time a pastor in southern Indiana, and went back to New England after a few years' trial of the frontier, relates that on a certain occasion he saddled his horse and rode fourteen miles to lay his discouragements before Mr. Dickey and obtain advice and sympathy. But when he observed how the latter was sup- porting a large family, without a thought of faltering, though in the midst of difficulties compared with which his own were trifling, he returned home without even mentioning the object of his visit.
3 See Stowe's " Nina Gordon," Vol. I., pp. 300, 301 and passim.
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way. In his first parish in Davies County he taught school. 1 Until the division of the Presbyterian Church in 1837 he was an active trustee of Hanover College.2 Chiefly through his influence a wealthy Englishman, Mr. Thomas Stevens, was induced to establish and maintain a female seminary on the Ohio River near Bethlehem. In a suitable brick building, erected by Mr. Stevens for that purpose, Mr. Dickey resided several years, providing a home for the teachers and securing educational privileges for his children. The first principal of the school was Miss Longly, who, after two years in the seminary, became the wife of the Rev. Dr. Riggs, of the Sioux mission. Much was accomplished by the school for the whole surrounding region.
It is not surprising that a life so variously useful and a character so strikingly symmetrical have elicited affec- tionate eulogies. "He was always spoken of with great reverence by my mother," says one who in childhood was accustomed to see him at her own home. "I met him first in Presbytery," wrote another, "and I well remember that the impression of his goodness derived from others was heightened in me by the first day's observation I was never with one whose flow of feeling savored so much of heaven."3 "He has left a name," said Dr. Martin M. Post, "which suggests a wise counselor, a true worker, a thoroughly honest and godly man. May a double portion of his spirit rest on his successors in the Synods of Indiana."
It is with this era of restored tranquillity and growing missionary activity that the territorial history of Indiana
1 The Presbyterian minister was almost inevitably the schoolmaster in the early days at the West. Scott, Baldridge, Robinson, Todd, Martin, Crowe-nearly all the earliest settled ministers taught schools.
" It is evident that in the first struggles of the school at Hanover, he, with Johnston, was Crowe's "brother beloved."
3 Henry Ward Beecher, in Sprague's " Annals," Vol. 1V., p. 519.
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, terminates. The population is about eighty thousand. William Henry Harrison, the first governor of the terri- tory, had in 1813 been succeeded by Thomas Posey, a senator in Congress from Tennessee, an officer of the revolutionary army, and a Presbyterian ruling elder.1 The last regular session of the territorial legislature is held at Corydon in December, 1815. On the 19th of April, 1816, the president of the United States approves the bill pro- viding for a state government, and on the roth of the following June a constitutional convention assembles. At the first state election, August, 1816, Jonathan Jennings is chosen governor. There are three settled Presbyterian ministers in Indiana at the opening of the year 1816, and four churches, with a membership of possibly one hundred. But good and wise men are laying the foundations for steady and substantial progress.
1 October 9, 1817, " General Thomas Posey, an elder from the church of 'Indiana' appeared in Synod and took his seat."-" Minutes Kentucky Synod," Vol. I., p. 115.
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CHAPTER VI.
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ISI6, ISI7.
AGAIN appeared, early in 1816, tremendous McGready. Possibly he crossed the Ohio just before the year began. The next year his earthly career was to close, and it seems that these last labors1 for the Indiana church were peculiarly energetic and useful. He established the Blue River congregation in Washington County, February 6, and the Pisgah church, Clark County, February 27. Thomas Cleland and Joseph B. Lapsley were also sent again by the General Assembly to the state, together with William Wylie and Samuel Brown. It is not certain that either of them performed the duty assigned.
But, apparently at his own charges, came, simultane- ously with McGready and possibly in his company, another notable Kentuckian, who may claim especial attention since subsequently his hard service in Indiana was to cost him his life.
SAMUEL SHANNON was a graduate of Princeton College while under the presidency of Dr. Witherspoon. He was admitted a member of Transylvania Presbytery, as a transfer from the Pres- bytery of Lexington, Va., April 28, 1789, and was the third Pres- byterian clergyman who settled north of the Kentucky River. He lived till the year 1806 in the lower part of Woodford County, and had the charge of a small church called Woodford church. He then moved across the Kentucky River into Franklin County, where his family remained and where he had his home till his death.
1 The Assembly of 1817 commissioned him to Indiana, but there was a higher call awaiting him.
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The last years of his life were spent in missionary labors, chiefly in the destitute parts of the state of Indiana. In the summer of IS22, while engaged in one of these missionary excursions, he caught the fever of the season and of the place. Apprehensive of the consequences he made the best of his way home. His family met him a few miles from home, but were unable to move him any further. They had just an opportunity of expressing their affection toward him, and of receiving his departing blessing, when he expired.1
In the War of IS12 he volunteered to accompany the northwest- ern army as a chaplain. He was a man of great physical strength. His fist was like a sledge-hammer, and he was said to have lopped off a stout bough at a single stroke of his sword, when charging through the woods. Notwithstanding his strength he was one of the best-natured men in the world, and nothing could provoke or ruffle him. He had also a mechanical turn, and invented a piece of apparatus called " the Whirling Table."?
But in the pulpit he was awkward and his utterance was slow and stammering. His zeal, however, was untiring and his usefulness was unquestioned throughout the new settlements. 3
It will be seen how exclusively thus far the foundations have been laid by Presbyterian agencies. We may have the pleasure now of observing the friendly alliance with other instrumentalities. In New England home missionary operations were carried on chiefly through the ordinary ecclesiastical organizations. Among these the missionary society of the Connecticut Association' was eminent for zeal and for the number and intelligence of its emissaries. Penetrating at last to Indiana they seem to have had no thought of establishing Congregational churches, but with all their strength aided the Presbyterian movement, now for more than twelve years under way. It is not difficult to explain their policy. Finding here a Kentucky and
1 Bishop's " Memoir of Rice," p. 286.
2 Davidson's " Kentucky," p. 83.
3 He established the important churches of Livonia and Salem.
4 See Appendix A. Cf. Dickey's " Brief History," p. 18.
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Tennessee and Virginia population, descended from a Scotch-Irish ancestry and bound by prejudice, habits, con- victions, and affection to the ancestral church, it would not require a Yankee's shrewdness to detect the hopelessness of an attempt to proselyte them. But these missionaries from New England had no desire to make proselytes. They came in the service of Christianity. They seem indeed in many cases to have been unconscious of any line whatever dividing them from Presbyterians. They adhered to the Westminster standards and raised no question about the Presbyterian form of government. In many instances they received ordination from Presbytery. The type of New England piety they brought to the West was that of Con- necticut, among whose Puritan founders those of Presby- terian preferences balanced almost evenly the Independent element. 1 The period was one of beautiful harmony and signal success, and may be reviewed with unmingled satis- faction.
NATHAN B. DERROW appears to have been the earliest of all these devoted laborers from New England. Coming from Connecticut to western New York in 1802, on the 2d of February, 1803, he was ordained and installed over the Homer church," which he happily served until 1807. He then moved westward again to "New Connecticut" (what is now known as the Ohio Reserve), and settled at Vienna, Trumbull County.3 In 1815 he spent "eighteen weeks in various parts of New Connecticut," "publishing the gospel, reproving error, and strengthening the weak."4 It was in 1816 that he came to Indiana, commissioned by the Connecticut society. "He traveled extensively through the state, and besides the church of Graham he consti-
1 Hodge's "History," pp. 33, 34.
2 Hotchkin's " History of Western New York," pp. 47, 421.
3 Cillett's " History," Vol. II., p. 140.
4 Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, Vol. V.
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tuted a church at Brownstown"1 which soon became extinct.
"In July 1817 CLEMENT HICKMAN, from the Presby- tery of Geneva, N. Y., settled with his family at Princeton, where a small church had been previously formed by Mr. McGready."? A few months later, while visiting New Harmony, he was taken ill and died. He rests there in an obscure grave. A child of his lies buried in a field near Princeton. He had previously been a minister in the Methodist Church ; but in the year 1810, coming to Painted Post, N. Y., and employed by the inhabitants to preach for them, he applied to the Presbytery of Geneva, and April IS, ISII, was duly licensed. The subsequent year, August 25, he was ordained and installed, but was dis- missed, September 10, 1816, to journey westward, and to end his days soon after in Indiana. 3
It was at this same period that WILLIAM DICKEY, an- other kinsman of "Father Dickey," for a month or two took his place among the frontiersmen ; and DANIEL C. BANKS, settled at Henderson, Ky., near the border, rendered valuable service in organizing4 and for a time preaching to the congregation at New Albany, who also, in 1821, under the Assembly's appointment, effectively aided the church at Evansville. 5
Now occur two historic names, John Todd and James Balch, names that recall some of the most honorable national and ecclesiastical traditions. They arrived in the same year ( 1817), and both strikingly illustrate the fugi- tiveness of the most brilliant family distinctions.
1 Dickey's " Brief History," p. 13.
2 Dickey's " Brief History," p. 13.
3 Hotchkin's " Western New York," p. 452. Cf. p. 107.
4 In Dickey's " History " McGready is named as the founder of the New Albany society, but the error is corrected by the author in the margin of his own copy of the pamphlet.
5 McCarer's " Memorial Sermon," p. 7. The Evansville church was organized by Mr. Banks, in June, 1821.
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The name of JOHN TODD belongs to a classic region in American church history and introduces us at once to a courtly company. It was in old Hanover Presbytery, Virginia, and associated with James Waddel, David Rice, and Archibald Alexander 1 that John Todd of Indiana passed his early years.
His father, John Todd, was the companion of Samuel Davies, and before the latter's transfer in 1759 from Virginia to the presidency of Princeton College "was called to wear the mantle of Davies"" and "was for many years the leading man in the presbytery east of the Blue Ridge." 3
The senior Todd immigrated to America about A. D. 1740+ from the province of Ulster, Ireland, where his ancestors had taken refuge more than a century before from the persecution of Presbyterians in Scotland by Charles I. He is said to have been a weaver.5 He grad- uated from Princeton College in 1749, a member of the second class admitted to a degree, and was taken on trial by the New Brunswick Presbytery May 7, 1750. About ten days after Mr. Davies "represented before the Synod of New York the great necessities of the people in the back parts of Virginia, where multitudes were remarkably awakened and reformed several years ago and ever since
1 Cf. " Life of Alexander," p. 210.
2 Gillett, Ist ed., Vol. I., p. 94. Cf. Briggs's "American Presbyterianism," pp. 296-7. ·
3 Foote's " Sketches of Virginia," second series, p. 47.
4 In " John Todd, the Story of his Life," Harper's, 1876, occurs (p. 526) the follow- ing: "There are in this country three distinct families of Yorkshire Todds. One of these sprung from an ancestor of unknown name who settled in Virginia, whence his descendants have spread into Kentucky. Thomas Todd, associate justice of the United States court, was one of them. He married the widow of Major George Washington (a nephew of General George Washington) and sister of Mrs. President Madison. James Madison Todd, of Frankfort, Ky., is a son of Justice Todd, as was also Col. C. S. Todd, aid to General Harrison and the first minister of our government to the United States of Colombia." The elder Todd of this narrative is the "ancestor of unknown name " above alluded to. Cf. Davidson's " Kentucky," p. 67, foot-note.
6 Webster, p. 608.
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have been thirsting after the ordinances of God."1 There- upon the Synod recommended " to the Presbytery of New Brunswick to endeavor to prevail with Mr. John Todd, upon his being licensed, to take a journey thither." He was licensed November 13, 1750, and from a report made to Synod in the autumn of that year it appears "that Mr. Todd is preparing speedily to go." It was at first designed that he should locate in Prince Edward or in Charlotte County, but the objections raised by the General Court, in sympathy with the Church of England, made it impossible to obtain houses of worship there. Mr. Todd was accordingly invited to occupy four of the places licensed for Mr. Davies.2 A call was laid before New Brunswick Presbytery, May 22, 1751, and on his ac- ceptance of it he was ordained. The civil license ob- tained as required by law in such cases curiously illustrates the difficulties in the way of "dissenting" preachers
I See letter of Jonathan Edwards, November 24, 1752, in which he also alludes to a recent interview in New Jersey with Mr. Davies, who told him then "of the probability of the settlement of Mr. Todd, a young man of good learning and of a pious disposition, in a part of Virginia near to him."
2 Seven such places had with difficulty been secured. Foote's "Sketches of Virginia," second series, p. 45. In 1618 a law had been passed in Virginia which enacted that "every person should go to church on Sundays and holy days, or lie neck and heels that night, and be a slave to the Colony the following week." For the second offense he was to be a slave for a month, and for the third, a year and a day. Cf. Stith's " History," p. 148. In 1642 a law was passed providing that "no minister shall be permitted to officiate in the country but such as shall produce to the governor a testi- monial that he hath received his ordination from some bishop in England ; and shall then subscribe to be conformable to the orders and constitutions of the Church of Eng- land; and if any other person, pretending himself to be a minister, shall, contrary to this act, presume to teach or preach, publicly or privately, the governor and council are hereby desired and empowered to suspend and silence the person so offending ; and, upon his obstinate persistence, to compel him to depart the country with the first con - venience." Cf. Bishop's " Memoir of Rice," p. 38, foot-note. Mr. Samuel Morris and his friends who were accustomed to meet at his house, known as Morris' Reading- House, for the purpose of reading on the Sabbath " Luther on the Galatians," Boston's " Fourfold State," Whitefield's "Sermons," etc., were called upon by the court to assign reasons for their absence from the parish churches and to " declare to what de- nomination they belonged." Happily it occurred to them to suggest that they were Lutherans, and as no law or precedent was discovered to direct the court how to proceed against the Lutherans the suspected persons were released. Bishop's " Rice," pp. 43, 44.
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in those days. The following is a copy of the record :
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22, 1752.
Present, the Governor, William Fairfax, John Blair, William Nelson, Esqrs., William Dawson, D.D., John Lewis, Thomas Nelson, Philip Grymes, Peyton Randolph, Richard Corbin, Philip Ludwell, Esqrs.
John Todd, a dissenting minister, this day in Court took the oath appointed by the Act of Parliament to be taken instead of the oath of allegiance and supremacy and the abrogation oath, and subscribed the last-mentioned oath, and repeated and subscribed the test. And thereupon, on his motion, he is allowed to officiate as an assistant to Samuel Davies, a dissenting minister, in such places as are already licensed by this Court for meeting of dis- senters.
This official paper looks more like a restraining order than a license, and doubtless was intended as such. But the compulsory arrangement, says Foote,
proved very agreeable to the seven congregations, as it left them all in connection with Mr. Davies; and equally pleasing to Mr. Davies, as it gave him more frequent opportunities for those mis- sionary excursions in which he delighted, the influence of which is felt to this day ; and no less acceptable to Mr. Todd, who enjoyed the experience and council of his friend, with the privilege of missionary excursions.
Mr. Todd was accordingly installed, November 12, 1752, by Hanover Presbytery, "into the pastoral charge of the Presbyterian congregation in and about the upper part of Hanover County, Va."' The discourse was by Samuel Davies, and was afterward published "at the desire of the hearers and humbly dedicated to the reverend clergy of the established church in Virginia, by S. Davies, V. D. M."?
1 At Davies's suggestion Jonathan Edwards had previously, when dismissed from Northampton, been called to this field. See " Bellamy Papers," and Webster, p. 609.
2 Extracts from the "Dedication " will be found in Foote. By a happy fortune the manuscript of this remarkable discourse has found a place of security in the region whither Todd's descendants migrated, and where many of them have been laid to rest.
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Todd was now established in the work which he was per- mitted to prosecute in Virginia for nearly forty-two years. The field was soon visited, and a remarkable impulse given to religion, by Whitefield. To him Todd writes, June 26, 1755 :
The impressions of the day you preached last here, at my meeting-house, can, I believe, never wear out of my mind ; never did I feel anything of the kind more distressing than to part with you, and that not merely for my own sake, but that of the multi- tudes that stood longing to hear more of the news of salvation from you. I still have the lively image of the people of God drowned in tears, multitudes of hardy gentlemen that perhaps never wept for their poor souls before standing aghast, all with signs of eagerness to attend to what they heard, and their signifi- cant tears, expressive of the sorrow of their hearts that they had so long neglected their souls. I returned home like one that had sustained some amazing loss ; and that I might contribute more than ever to the salvation of perishing multitudes amongst us, I resolved I would labor to obtain and exert more of that sound fire which the God of all grace had so abundantly bestowed upon you for the good of mankind. To the praise of rich grace be it spoken, I have had the comfort of many solemn Sabbaths since I saw you, when, I am persuaded, the power of God has attended his word, for sundry weeks together ; and in my auditory, which was more crowded through your means than it had been before, I could scarce see an individual whose countenance did not indi- cate the concern of their souls about eternal things. And blessed be God those appearances are not yet wholly fled from our assembly.
I was by orders of Presbytery to attend the installation of Mr. Henry, the 4th of the month, at Lunenburg, about a hundred miles southwest of this place, and we administered the sacrament of the Lord's Supper the Sabbath following. We preached Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sabbath, and Monday. There was comfortable evidence of the power of God with us every day ; believers were
After a day in the library of Wabash College I was recalled by the president to examine a case of relics, where I discovered this very MS. of Davies, thick, firmly sewed, yellow, but perfectly preserved. The penmanship is precise, the wide margin crowded with scriptural references, the Greek mottoes from Clemens Alexandrinus and Chrysostom beautifully transcribed, points and all, and the psalm to be sung at the close written down entire.
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more quickened and sinners were much alarmed. Many of them talked with Mr. Henry and me with great desire to know what they should do to be saved. One I remember came to me trem- bling and astonished, the nearest image I ever saw of the trembling jailor, crying, "What shall I do to get an interest in Christ?" In my return home I made an excursion to preach to a number of people who had never before heard a "New Light," as they call me. I hope the word of God was attended with divine power to many of their hearts. 1
The negotiations which had already been opened to send Davies to England in behalf of Princeton College, and which resulted in his transfer to the presidency of that institution, alarmed the Virginia Presbyterians, who looked up to Davies as their father. No one was quicker to take the alarm than Todd, on whom the change would impose new and grave responsibilities. Of him Davies thinks when con- templating the Atlantic voyage. "I also am encouraged," he says, "from the reflection that my congregation will not probably suffer in my absence, as Mr. Wright, I expect, is well accomplished for the place ; and my cautious and pru- dent Rev. Mr. Todd will be so near at hand to assist in cases of difficulty.'' 2 Afterward, when the invitation to Princeton came, he was at first disposed to decline it,3 but when he finally concluded to go Todd became the superin- tendent of affairs and bishop for our church "in the back parts of Virginia."
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