USA > Maryland > Cecil County > History of Cecil County, Maryland, and the early settlements around the head of Chesapeake Bay and on the Delaware River, with sketches of some of the old families of Cecil County > Part 36
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"They did not, generally, discover any religious zeal, or concern themselves either with the principles or morals of the people; they were regarded very little in these respects
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even by their own hearers; and what influence they pre- tended to, they maintained rather as scholars, gentlemen and men of affluence, than as Christian divines. When any of their hearers became seriously thoughtful about religion, one would suppose it natural for them to consult their stated pastors ; but when they remembered that these pastors in the course of so many years had not administered them any sufficient instruction, they resented the imposition, and ne- glected them in turn. They found the way they were in was not likely to issue in anything like the design of the gospel, and therefore did not hesitate to take the chance of a change. One circumstance that argues this defect in the Episcopalian clergy, even to this day (1795), is the disrespect that they are treated with in many parishes, even by their own people. Ministers of other denominations are suffi- ciently censured or ridiculed by people of a different pro- fession; ours are chiefly calumniated and harassed by their own. Churchmen not only exclaim against the impositions of the late establishment, whereby parsons were erected into little popes about the country, but they still see nothing sacred in the clerical character, and pass sentence upon the religious and moral principles of their own pastors with as much petulance as they would upon those of an infidel."
In a sermon preached at the ordination of Mr. Asbury, at Baltimore, in 1784, by Thomas Coke, then superintendent of the Methodist Church, he uses this language :
" The churches (Episcopal) had, in general, been filled by parasites and bottle companions of the rich and great. The humble and importunate entreaties of the oppressed flocks were contemned and despised. The drunkard, the forni- cator, and the extortioner, triumphed over bleeding Zion, because they were faithful abettors of the ruling powers."
Rev. Hugh Jones, who was rector of North Sassafras Parish for many years, there is reason to believe, was both aristocratic and haughty. He was a strong partisan of the lord proprietary, and died possessed of so much of this
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world's goods that, to put it as charitably as possible, he must have occupied much of his time in accumulating them. The records of North Sassafras parish disclose a lamentable want of virtue and morality among the people. Of the condition of St. Augustine parish at that time very little is known; but it certainly adds nothing to its credit that so much of it was characterized by the name of Sodom! This name may have been misapplied, or it may not have been deserved ; so let the veil of obseurity that has hidden the moral deformity that the name implies, remain and cover it from sight.
The spiritual condition of the people of North Elk parish is better known, and has been sufficiently noticed in a pre- ceding chapter .*
The Presbyterian churches, as before intimated, were in a weak condition at this time, caused by the emigration of many of their members to the South and West. Their in- fluence had also been lessened by the unhappy dissensions that arose among them from the preaching of Whitefield and his adherents. Another cause that lessened the religious influence of the clergy of this denomination was the part that many of them felt constrained to take in the contro- versy between the colonies and the mother country. Their form of church government was eminently democratic, and most, if not all of them, were the descendants of those who, in some form, had suffered for conscience sake on the other side of the Atlantic. Hence, it was not strange that they joined the crusade for liberty, and denounced the encroach- ments of the British Parliament with an eloquence and vehemenee that would have done credit to their founder.
By this it is not to be understood that either the Presby- terian ministers or their congregations sacrificed their god- liness upon the altar of their patriotism, but that the commotion and turmoil which at this time shook society to
* See pages 221 and 222, ante.
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its very foundation, was not conducive to a high develop- ment of religion or morality. Their fault, if fault it can be called, was not that they loved the gospel less, but that they loved their country more; and it is some consolation to know that if society lost a little in morality, it gained much in patriotism.
From what has been said, it is apparent that the spiritual condition of the people was quite as deplorable as had been that of the people of the mother country when Wesley and Whitefield commenced their crusade against the formality and wickedness of the Established Church, and there was quite as much need of a revolution in church affairs as there was in the administration of the government. Much of the credit of effecting a reformation in the spiritual con- dition of the people belongs to the early Methodist mission- aries, though it must not be forgotten that Whitefield, whose doctrine differed but little from that proclaimed by Wesley, had in some measure prepared the way. Richard Wright was the name of the first Methodist missionary who preached the gospel in this county. He had been received as a travel- ing preacher by John Wesley in 1770, and the next year came to Philadelphia, and shortly afterwards found his way to Bohemia Manor, where he was kindly received. Whitefield had been there a quarter of a century before, and there is no doubt that the impression he made by the fervent manner in which he proclaimed the gospel had much to do with the success of Methodism. Mr. Asbury, long after this time, spoke of his followers on Bohemia Manor as Whitefield Methodists, and remarked that "the Wesleyan Methodists were heirs to them according to the gospel."
Mr. Wright organized the first Methodist society in this county at the house of Solomon Hersey, in 1771, and it is a singular coincidence that its place of meeting was within the bounds of the Labadie tract, Mr. Hersey's house being near the mill that was then called Sluyter's and had
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formerly been called Van Bibber's mill, on a branch of the Bohemia River, called Mill Creek, a short distance south- west of St. Augustine. This society was the first organized on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Its members afterwards worshiped at Bethesda chapel, which stood some distance west of where the present Manor church stands. The Methodists at this time, or very shortly afterwards, had an- other appointment at Thompson's school-house, which was quite near where Bethel church now stands. This latter society was the germ that produced the Bethel church.
The first Methodist preachers were rigid disciplinarians, and very austere in their manners. They denounced slavery as being contrary to the law of God and an infrac- tion of the golden rule. They considered it their duty to " rise at four in the morning, and if not then, yet at five, and that it was a shame for a preacher to be in bed till six in the morning." They required their followers to observe the Friday preceding every quarterly meeting as a day of fasting. They discountenanced the manufacture of distilled liquors and threatened to disown their friends who persisted in making them. They were enjoined to avoid superfluity in dress themselves, and to speak frequently and faithfully against it in all the societies. Until 1785, the Methodists were under the spiritual guidance and direction of John Wesley, who lived and died in full communion with the Church of England, and whose original intention was only to effect a reformation by infusing more godliness and piety into the daily lives and conduct of the members of that church. Ac- cordingly, at the meeting of the first conference, which was held in Philadelphia, in June, 1773, it was agreed by the ministers that they would strictly avoid administering the ordinances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, and would earnestly exhort all those among whom they labored, par- ticularly those in Maryland and Virginia, to attend the church and receive the ordinances there. Seven years after- wards the conference, which met in Baltimore, granted the
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privilege to all the friendly clergy of the Church of Eng- land, at the request or desire of the people, to preach or ad- minister the ordinances in their "preaching houses or chapels." This was four years after the connection of the church and state had been severed and it shows that the Methodists at that time, if they acted in good faith, which there is no reason to doubt, desired to live in amity and friendship with their brethren of the late establishment. This good feeling was largely reciprocated by the better and more pious part of the members of the established church. Owing to this the new sect for some years after its first in- troduction flourished best in the strongholds of the episco- pacy, while it made little or no progress among the Presby- terians until many years afterwards, when the first ex- pounders of its doctrine had been succeeded by others, whose zeal was more according to knowledge, and whose motives were better understood. For the reasons before alluded to, the growth of Methodism was slow, and it is manifest that those who joined the new sect were actuated by pure motives and a sincere desire to improve their spiritual condition.
Rev. Francis Asbury arrived in Philadelphia in October, 1771, and the next April visited Bohemia Manor to look after Mr. Wright, but met him near Wilmington on his way northward, and proceeded on to the Manor alone. Under the date of April 10th, Mr. Asbury states that some mis- chievous opposers had thrown the people on the Manor into confusion. The next day he notes in his journal that he had visited and conversed with an old man who was sick, but was prevented from praying with him, by the fact that two men came in, whose countenances he did not like. He probably met with two of the residents of that part of the Manor called Sodom. The next fall Mr. Asbury visited the Manor again on his way to Western Maryland. Hle speaks of preaching at Hersey's and at the school-house on the Manor, and probably in going west crossed the Elk River at the ferry at Court-house Point.
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The next society organized in the county was the one at Johntown, in Sassafras Neck, which, as stated by Mr. Led- mum in his history of Methodism, was in 1773. This was seven years after the first society of Methodists had been organized in New York, and the whole number of Metho- dists in the several conferences of New York, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, is put down in the minutes of the conference for this year at one thousand one hundred and sixty, five hundred of whom were said to be- long to the Maryland Conference. At this time there was only ten Methodist preachers belonging to these conferences. Previous to this time the new sect had made considerable progress upon the Peninsula, and had several appointments in Kent and New Castle, as well as in Harford County.
The people of this county, as before stated, were much more loyal than their neighbors in Delaware, and the course pursued by Mr. Wesley, who strongly favored the royal cause, was not calculated to add anything to the popularity of the ministers who then labored in this country under his direction, and all of whom, except Mr. Asbury, went back to England in 1777. Mr. Asbury was fined £5 for preach- ing in a private house in Anne Arundel County, in the autumn of that year, and the next spring took refuge in the house of Judge White, in Kent County, Delaware, where ho remained in seclusion for nearly a year. He states in his journal that he left Maryland because he could not con- scientiously take the oath of allegiance to the State. This oath was as follows: "I do swear that I do not hold myself bound to yield any allegiance or obedience to the King of Great Britain, his heirs or successors, and that I will be true and faithful to the State of Maryland, and to the utmost of my power support, maintain, and defend the freedom and independence thereof, and the government as now estab- lished, against all open enemies and traitorous conspira- cies, and will use my utmost endeavors to disclose and make known to the Governor, or some one of the judges or
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justices thereof, all treasons or traitorous conspiracies, attempts, or combinations against this State or the gov- ernment thereof, which may come to my knowledge." This oath, much to the credit of the vestry of North Elk parish, was taken and subscribed to by them.
Mr. Wesley, in a letter dated January 11th, 1777 (quoted in Tyreman's Life of Wesley), says: "I have just received two letters from New York. They inform me that all the Methodists there are firm for the government, and on that account persecuted by the rebels, only not to the death; that the preachers are still threatened, but not stopped; and that the work of God increases much in Maryland and Vir- ginia." Some of the native preachers on the peninsula were not as prudent as Mr. Asbury and his coadjutors. One of them, Chauncey Clowe by name, in August, 1777, which the reader will recollect was the time when the British fleet sailed up the Elk River, raised a company of three hundred tories in Kent County, Delaware, for the purpose of making their way to the Chesapeake Bay and joining the British fleet. But they were all captured, and Clowe was hanged. Others of the native ministers on the peninsula were ac- eused of circulating the king's proclamation, which, no doubt was the proclamation issued in the king's name by Lord Howe in Elk Neck.
Another cause that retarded the growth of the new sect, was the violent opposition it met with from the ungodly and wicked part of the population, who were, in many cases, encouraged by those whose rank in society should have induced them to have used their influence in favor of peace and good order, rather than to have encouraged the spirit of lawless persecution that prevailed. Mr. Duke states in his pamphlet, before quoted from, that at one time a tra- veling Methodist preacher could hardly show his face in a little tobacco port or court-house village, without running the risk of being ducked or mobbed or ludicrously set at nought. For this treatment, he says there could be no
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actual reason given, but his being a stranger or his re- proving them for swearing. Another difficulty under which the new sect labored, was that of unworthy traveling preach- ers, who probably were led astray in many cases through ignorance. A few years after this time (in 1782) the con- ference took action in regard to disorderly preachers, and, in order to keep them in subjection, resolved to write at the bottom of each certificate thereafter issued: "This conveys authority no longer than you walk uprightly and submit to the direction of the assistant preacher."
Now let us take a retrospective glance at the history of the Episcopal churches. In 1771 the vestrymen of North Elk parish gave notice that they intended to petition the Legislature for a sum not exceeding £900, to be levied in three years for building a chapel of ease near where the old chapel stood, and for making some alterations in the church. Ten years before this time Rev. John Hamilton and two of the vestrymen had reported that the chapel was not worth repairing. The next year notice was given of the intention of raising £500 for the chapel; but owing to the unpopularity of the church and the other causes that have been already fully set forth elsewhere, the money was not levied. Rev. John Hamilton, who had been connected with the parish since 1746, died in April, 1773, and was succeeded by the Rev. William Thompson, who was appointed curate by Gov- ernor Eden on the first of the following May. Mr. Thomp- son was to receive the whole amount of the poll-tax levied for the support of the rector, and was to continue until his successor was appointed. He appears to have been popu- lar, and the vestry soon afterwards sent an address to the governor, "thanking him for his kind, fatherly, and tender care of them, and entreating him to perfect his pious and fatherly intentions towards them, by inducting Mr. Thomp- son into the parish," which was accordingly done on the 23d of June, 1773. Mr. Thompson seems to have been an eminently pious and practicable preacher, and disposed to
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do all in his power for the spread of the gospel among his parishioners, for the next year he was ordered to pay An- drew Barrett fifty-nine shillings for building a tent at the place where the chapel stood. This is the chapel not far from Battle Swamp. Tradition says that he preached there in a tent with some success for several days. He was pro- bably incited to make this extraordinary effort by the ac- tivity of the Methodists, but the war came on, and the con- nection of the church and State being severed, the vestry, in 1777, were obliged to raise his salary by subscription, and the same year gave him permission to preach at the Manor Church or somewhere in St. Augustine parish, every third Sunday. This subscription list is yet extant, and contains the names of Jacob and Zebulon Hollingsworth ; Benjamin and William Mauldin ; Jacob and Michael Lumm ; Phredus Aldridge; William, James, and John Crouch ; Abraham Mitchell ; Stephen, Isaac and Nicholas Hyland; Thomas Russell ; John Ricketts; Samuel and Joseph Gilpin ; James Pritchard ; Nathaniel Ramsay, and many others, some of whom, a few years later, became identified with the Metho- dists. The amount of the subscription was £202 18s., 6d.
Mr. Thompson removed to North Sassafras parish in 1779, but the vestry of North Elk seem to have been loath to give him up, and wrote to him, proposing to raise £100 by sub- scription in silver, or its equivalent in continental money, if he would preach for them one Sunday in each month, and find a lay reader to officiate one Sunday in each month. But nothing came of the offer, and the next year they em- ployed one Collin Furguson as a lay reader in the parish, every Sunday, and agreed to pay him £120 specie per an- num during the time he acted as such, Mr. Thompson agreeing to officiate once a quarter during said time. It is worthy of remark that twelve years afterwards Collin Fur- guson claimed that £40 of his salary as lay reader for the years 1780-81, was in arrears, and placed his claim in the hands of William Barroll, an attorney, for collection ; and
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that an order was given on Mrs. Coudon, the widow of the Rev. Joseph Coudon, for that amount.
On Easter Monday, 1781, Mr. Joseph Coudon was ap- pointed lay reader, and continued to serve in that capacity with so much acceptability that he was chosen as their rec- tor in September, 1785. Meanwhile, in 1784, Mr. Coudon and Henry Hollingsworth had been chosen to represent the parish in a convention held at Annapolis that year, to take into consideration the distressed condition of the church.
It is apparent from what has been written, that North Elk parish was not in a prosperous condition during this time. The condition of St. Augustine parish was no better. The Rev. Joseph Mather, who had succeeded Rev. Hugh Jones, was rector of that parish at the time the Methodists came to the Manor, and remained there until 1774, when he resigned. He was succeeded by the Rev. Philip Reading, who was presented to the parish by Governor Eden, in 1774. He was an Englishman, and had been a missionary at Appoquin- imink (now St. Anne's, near Middletown), and is said to have been very successful there. He remained in charge of this parish, in connection with Appoquinimink, until 1776, when his churches were closed, and he is said to have died of grief. The parish was vacant for three years previous to 1781, when it was taken in charge by Rev. William Thomp- son, who had charge of it in connection with North Sassa- fras, until the time of his death, which occurred in 1786. Mr. Thompson, unlike nearly all his brother ministers, was loyal to the cause of the colonies. This added to his popu- larity, and enabled him to maintain the supremacy of the Episcopal church during his life, in those parts of the county where the church people were most numerous, in consequence of which Methodism made little progress in this county until some years after his death.
From the time of its introduction up to the year 1785, Methodism made great progress in Virginia and North Carolina, and in the lower part of the Peninsula as well as
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in Eastern Pennsylvania and Western Maryland, but seems to have made comparatively none in this county. Mr. Asbury, who was constantly employed in traveling from place to place, supervising the work of those under him, speaks of visiting Robert Thompson's, near Bethel, in the spring of 1780, and says he "spoke close to him, who had fainted in his mind, being now left alone." Mr. Asbury visited Mr. Thompson again in October of the same year, and remarks in his journal that " the old man is stirred up." From which it may be infered that Methodism had proba- bly retrograded, rather than advanced, in the southern part of the county, which was the only part of it into which it had, at that time, been introduced.
The conference of 1785, agreeable to the wishes of Mr. Wesley, formed themselves into an independent church ; but this event, whatever may have been its effect upon Methodism elsewhere, seems to have had no perceptable ef- fect upon the few detached appointments in this county.
In May, 1787, Mr. Asbury visited Elkton, upon which oc- casion he preached to a large congregation. He states that he was received by the Rudulph family with great respect. This family were probably at this time members of the Episcopal church, for the next year Tobias Rudulph was appointed delegate to represent North Elk parish in a con- vention in Baltimore Town. They lived in the old brick house now standing on Main street three doors east of the court-house, which was built by Tobias Rudulph, in 1768.
The name of the Cecil Circuit appears for the first time upon the minutes of the conference in 1788, but its exact bounds are unknown. There is reason, however, to believe that, in connection with the appointments in this county, it embraced much of the territory of New Castle County, and probably some of the northern part of Kent, in Maryland. John Smith and George Wells were the first preachers in charge. They were succeeded the next year by George Moore and Benjamin Roberts. That year the number of
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members in all the societies in the circuit is put down in the minutes of the conference as follows: Two hundred and fifty-seven white and two hundred and fifty-two colored.
Seventeen years had now elapsed since the introduction of Methodism on Bohemia Manor, and it is probable that there was preaching regularly in Elk Neck andFat North East ; for Mr. Asbury states, under date of October 15th, 1794, that he preached at Hart's Meeting-house on that day, and the fact of a house being there at that time seems to indicate that there had been preaching in that neighbor- hood sometime before. This is the first reference that has been found to this meeting-house, though there is a tradi- tion that the early superintendent preachers, when passing back and forth from the southern part of the county to their appointments west of the Susquehanna, preached to the people in that neighborhood under the shade of some large walnut trees that stood about two miles south west of where the meeting-house now stands. Many of the first settlers in Elk Neck had been zealous churchmen, and an effort had been made to erect a chapel of case in that part of the county while it was a part of North Sassafras parish.
The descendants of the first settlers still adhered to the re- ligion of their fathers, which accounts for the alacrity with which they embraced the new faith. Owing, no doubt, to their strong predilections for the manners and customs of the Episcopalians, the Methodists of Elk Neck, until a com- paratively recent period, observed the Whitsuntide holidays, and every year had services upon Whit-Sunday and Mon- day, which were largely attended by their brethren from Delaware and other places many miles distant.
Ilart's meeting-house was the first one erected in the county north of the Elk River; and though it was in exist- ence as early as 1794, the society, there is reason to think, did not have a deed for the land on which it stood until seven years afterwards; for the land records of the county show that, on the 21st of August, 1801, Samuel Aldridge and
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