USA > Maryland > Baltimore County > The Garrison Church; sketches of the history of St. Thomas' Parish, Garrison Forest, Baltimore County, Maryland, 1742-1852 > Part 4
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Mr. Andrews at this time went down to Baltimore- town and, with Mr. West, the Rector of St. Paul's, undertook to effect a union between the two newly organized bodies. With this view Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury were invited by Mr. West to tea. They came, bringing with them Mr. Goff. "I took occasion," writes Mr. Andrews, "to observe that we had seen Mr. Wesley's letter to Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury, as also a book entitled, ' The Sunday Service of the Methodists.'" He then followed this remark with statements respecting the hopes entertained of these gentlemen, "there being 110 real difference " between us; and explaining the plan of church government adopted at Annapolis, asked : " What occasion could there be for a separation from us of the score of church government?" Mr. Asbury said, " The difference between us lay not so much in doctrines and forms of worship as in experience and practice." But neither of them would accede to the sug- gestions then made. This was written on the thirty-first of December. A day or two after the above Mr. Andrews called on Dr. Coke at his lodgings, so earnest was he in the matter, but found that " the contempt and aversion, with which the Methodists had always been treated in England and in this country, was an effectual bar in the way of his accomplishing what he had desired," and thus ended his efforts with Dr. Coke and
Differences Between the Church and Metbodists. 47 his friends. But these relative differences between the Church and the Methodists have since that day materially changed.
According to Mr. Asbury, the difference between them lay not so much in doctrines and forms of worship as in experience and practice. But now, after seventy years have passed away ( 1784-1852), it is seen that the difference lies not so much in experience and practice as in forms of worship and government. It will not be questioned that conversions and lives of holiness,-for such it is presumed is the " experience " and " practice " referred to,-are as distinctly visible, if not as numerous as is desired, in the Church as among the Methodists. But as to the forms of worship the difference is entire. And yet, why he who would come to the Father by or through Christ should cast aside forms of prayer, invariably offered in His name,-and an extempore prayer is a form to all interests and purpose to every silent worshipper who prays it; why he should cast aside the repeating aloud the Creed, in which his blessed Lord is confessed before men, and thus actually preached by every one so repeating it ;- why he should cast aside the systematic reading of the Scriptures publicly ; or why he should cast aside the Psalms ; for a worship subject to the ever-varying frames and ability and sense of the individual officiating,-all this it is diffi- cult to perceive. And should each go on for seventy years to come in these matters, in the line of direction in which each has been tending, the difference will be
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vastly in favor of the Churchman, according to Mr. Asbury's own estimate.
Mr. Andrews, on his first coming into the parish, lived about two miles south-east of the Green Springs, where Mr. Stevenson now lives ( 1854), and then at Poplar Hill, east of the Falls Road, now Govanstown. At each of these places he had a flourishing classical school while in charge of St. Thomas'. His pupils, the number of which varied from twenty-five to thirty-five, lived in his own family, and for each he received $133 per . year.
On December 7, 1784, Dr. Thomas Cradock and Mr. Charles Carnan were appointed to employ a builder to repair the church. To what extent repairs were needed or were made the records do not state, but dur- ing the preceding twenty years, and especially during the Revolutionary War, the church had become much dilapidated. It is still remembered that the windows were so broken that the committee had to put new ones in their places, and not being able to replace the diamond glass in the lower to correspond with that of the upper sash, square lights were substituted as they are now seen. It seems, however, exceedingly desirable to restore the lower part of the windows to correspond with the upper both in order to take away the present unseemliness and continue the original appearance as far as possible.
At the end of his third year in the parish, in April, 1785, Mr. Andrews removed to Philadelphia and took
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Provost, University of Pennsylvania.
charge of the Protestant Episcopal Academy then just established and, subsequently, (1787) he became Profes- sor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the College and Academy of Philadelphia, and Rector of St. James', Bristol. In 1792 he became the Vice-Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, previons to which time he had received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. In 1810 he became the Provost of that University and so contin- ned till his death which took place October 29, 1813, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He was buried in Christ Church Cemetery, Philadelphia.
CHAPTER VIII.
THOMAS FITCH OLIVER.
HERE WAS no Rector from April 10, 1785, to June 3, 1793, a period of eight years and two months; and the Parish Records show only an annual election of the Vestry. Occasional services were held through the interest of the Rector of St. Paul's Church, Dr. West, who, himself, sometimes officiated, and who at other times provided a lay-reader, Mr. Edward Langworthy. Mr. Langworthy afterward was a member of Congress from Georgia, but again returned to Baltimore and became Deputy Naval Officer in that city, where he died, Novem- ber 2, 1803, aet. 63. Dr. West died in 1790, but his successor, Mr. Bend, took a warm interest in St. Thomas' Church, and occasionally officiated. The Rev. Mr. Coleman, the Rector of St. James', also extended his services to the parish.
On April 10, 1792, after service held by Mr. Bend, there was a congregational meeting, and the pews were resigned to the Vestry. In addition to the resolution resigning the pews, another resolution was passed requesting the Vestry at its next meeting to fix the
THOMAS FITCH OLIVER.
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Che Dews Re=rented.
price of the pews. On the following Easter Monday, May 9th, the Vestry met and called a parish meeting for the next day. The meeting was held, and the reso- lutions of April 10th were reaffirmed and ordered to be entered on the records.
On May 30th, Maj. or James Howard was appointed Registrar, the first since the downfall of the establish- ment in 1776. He was also appointed delegate to the convention. The Vestry numbered the pews, and fixed the rent on them at [ 145, or $386.60.
The parish continued vacant during the year. No clergyman could be obtained to take charge of it.
On Easter Monday, April, 1793, a letter was laid before the Vestry from Rev. George Ralph" making application for the parish. The Vestry of St. Thomas' replied that he " would not answer as a clergyman for that parish." The vacancy had now continued more than eight years.
On the twenty-seventh of May, 1793, Mr. Oliver brought to Rev. Mr. Bend a letter from Dr. Benjamin Moore of New York, subsequently Bishop of that State, in the following words :
My Dear Sir : This will be delivered you by the Rev. Mr. Oliver whom I would beg leave to recommend to your fraternal attention as a sensible and worthy clergyman, of which character I know you entertain just, that is, very exalted, ideas. With much esteem, I am ever your affectionate friend and brother-B. Moore.
11 For sketch of his hie se Bast III.
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This letter is still among the papers furnished from St. Thomas' Vestry and shows that Mr. Oliver was introduced into the parish by Mr. Bend, and also the estimation in which he was held by his respected brethren of the ministry.
He came here from Marblehead, Massachusetts, in which place he had been Rector of St. Michael's Church. Mr. Oliver was the eldest son of the Hon. Andrew Oliver, Jr., of Salem, and grandson of the Hon. Andrew Oliver, one of the last Lieutenant-Governors of Massachusetts under the Crown. He was born in Boston, 1758, and graduated at Harvard College, 1775. After this he studied law, but not liking the profession, he became lay reader in the church in Providence, Rhode Island, 1778 or 1779, and continued there till his ordination by Bishop Seabury of Connecticut, August 7, 1785, when he received Deacon's orders. From Providence he went to Marblehead, September 3, 1786, and from there came here.(1) He appears from the records of the Vestry to have come to the parish on the second of June, 1793, and to have officiated in St. Thomas' that day. He was encouraged to stay with the expectation of $400 per annum and a house. On the seventeenth of June the Vestry met and resolved to open a subscription for building a parsonage. This was
(1) While Rector of St. Michael's, Marblehead, he introduced chanting, beginning on Christmas Day, 1787. He writes to his father the Hon. Andrew Oliver, under date of February 11, 1758: "Will it give you any pleasure to learn that our quire at St. Michael's do constantly chant the Venite, the Te Denm, and in the afternoon the Cantate and the Nunc Dimittis to just acceptation. I believe mine is almost the only church on the continent in which this is done " | For whole account see Dr Andrew Oliver's letter in Appendix,
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"Old ffrank."
done, and on a paper which still remains, is found sub- scribed the following donations :
Samuel Owings, four acres of land to build the parsonage on. (The agreement dated August 14, 1793, signed by Samuel Owings and witnessed by William Owings, "in consideration of five shillings current money " makes over to the Vestry "four acres of land for the purpose of building a parsonage house upon ; the same land to be laid off near where old Frank now lives."
" WHERE OLD FRANK LIVES." (1793.)
"Old Frank," it appears from the records, was the sexton of the church, and probably a slave of Samuel Owings.) James Howard £12, Thomas Cradock f10, Charles Walker £5, Thomas Harvey £4. Joseph Jones £3, William Stacy £3, Jolin Bond f3, Jolin Cockey of Thos. £3; Thomas B. Dorsey £3, and other small sums, in all about $125. With
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this subscription the parsonage was at once begun.
On the ninth of August, it is recorded that at the last vestry day Mr. Oliver proposed to the Vestry to engage with them as the Rector of the parish at the rate of $400 per annum and a house. His salary to begin on the third of June then passed. But not- withstanding what had been before held out to him, the Vestry now declined it. They offered, however, to pay him $266 per annum, and as much more as the pews would rent for, but stated that a house could not be ready before the next June. He had been officiating more than two months under the encour- agement as first given him and now the slender offer was reduced one-third. (It is to the credit of Dr. Cradock that he alone voted to pay Mr. Oliver the full amount which had been originally offered.) With a family dependent upon him, his means exhausted by the distance of his removal, and now his expectations disappointed, no wonder he was discouraged; but he was not able to get away and he acceded to their offer, and then at their next meeting, September 2nd, as the record is, Mr. Oliver was unanimously elected Rector of St. Thomas' Parish, the Vestry agreeing to provide a house early in the spring. There was certainly a sad falling off in the willingness or ability of the parish to support the ministry of the church. When Dr. Andrews first took charge he was pledged $500 for one-half his time-now there could be pledged to Mr. Oliver only $266 for his entire services. But perhaps it was felt
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The Burying Ground of the Groralls.
to be a sufficient apology that they were building a parsonage.
The ministerial records show Mr. Oliver to have been an active and industrious minister. Little, how- ever, of the Vestry's doings during his rectorship are recorded. The records show that they were annually elected, and from time to time met together, and that is all.
A letter still on file under date of February 25, 1795, addressed by Mr. Oliver to the Register, shows that he supported himself and family mainly by a school in which gentlemen's sons were instructed, and were boarded in his own family. Mr. Oliver continued in his parish till his death which took place January 26, 1797. He was buried at his own request in the private family burying ground of the Croxalls, where Mr. Thomas Beale Cockey now lives ( 1852), two miles south-east of the Green Spring. No marble, however, points out the spot where he was laid. Does this tell well of the parish ?
He left behind him, it is stated, a widow,"" five sons, and three daughters. Of the youngest there is the following memorandum in the book of ministerial records : " Elizabeth Digby Belcher, daughter of Thomas F. Oliver, and Sarah his wife born May 2,
(1) His wife was Sarah Pynchon, daughter of the Hon. Williams Pynchon, of Salem. Hischildren were Thomas Fitch, (married Margaret Brown, removed to Louisiana. no known descendants; Mary Lynde Fitch, married Judge Joseph Story no children . William Pynchon, tdlied unmarried :) Andrew, (thed unmarried ; Daniel, (married Maty R. Pulling ,, Benjamin Lynde, married Frances Briggs, no children , Sarah Pynchon, died unmarried ; Elizabeth Digli Belcher, (married Jonathan Freeman, no children)
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1795, and was baptized by the Rev. Mr. Bend, June 27, 1795." His widow and orphans returned to New Eng- land. One of his daughters married the late Judge Story of Massachusetts, eminent in his profession and one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.
CHAPTER IX.
JOHN COLEMAN.
HERE IS no record of any vestry meet- ing, or of any election of a Vestry, from June, 1796, to March, 1799. October 7, 1798, the Rev. Mr. Bend, Reetor of St. Paul's Parish, wrote to Mr. James Howard urging the Vestry to elect to their parish the Rev. John Coleman of St. James. He said that Mr. Coleman had then an opportunity of renting his farm in Harford County where he resided, and might be induced to come to St. Thomas' provided the vestry would pur- chase a glebe. Mr. Bend took great interest in the parish, and was beyond question instrumental in keeping it from going entirely down. He had a few days before submitted a plan to the gentlemen of the parish, by which they might accomplish the purchase which he so much desired. It was a long, elear headed, business- like communication.
1799. THE REV. JOHN COLEMAN. 7th Rector .- The parish had now been vacant eighteen months. But urged, as we have seen, on Easter Monday, March 25, 1799, a Vestry was elected under the new Vestry
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Act of the General Assembly at its last session, and at their meeting, on the eighth of April, the Rev. John Coleman was elected Rector. They voted him $400 per ammim from the rent of the pews and the overplus, if any, of such rent, with the use of the parsonage and property; to commence on the twenty-eight day of April. The Rev. Mr. Coleman accepted.
Mr. Coleman was a native of Bath Parish, Dinwid- die County, Va., and was born in 1758. He was educated by the celebrated Deveraux Jarratt, the Rector of that parish. Under Mr. Jarratt's direction and instructions he prepared for the ministry, but the war of the Revolu- tion prevented his repairing to England for orders, as all candidates were then compelled to do or remain without them. In his preface to the life of Mr. Jarratt, written by himself, Mr. Coleman says: "I lived with him several years under his tuition, and when the Governor of Virginia left the seat of government and called the loyalists (tories) to join him, many of Mr. Jarratt's parishioners, and even his pupils, turned out as volunteers in defence of their country. I remember the circumstances well, being myself out in 1776." His first public service thus at eighteen years of age was that of a soldier in securing his country's independence. He was a Whig of '76. In the fall of 1780 he came with Mr. Asbury, who had been on a visit at Mr. Jarratt's, to Delaware, "either to take charge of Dover School or to preach."-(Mr. Asbury's Journal, volume 1, page 319). Instead of teaching he was earnest to be
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Leaves the Methodists.
engaged in the work he had chosen, and it appears that for a while he traveled with Mr. Asbury. The Metho- dists had not then separated from the Church, and unable while the war lasted to obtain orders, with Mr. Jarratt's advice he continued to travel and preach in connection with the Methodists, and in 1781, he was received as a preacher among them and stationed in Kent County, Maryland. In 1782 he was stationed in Pennsylvania, and in 1783 in Baltimore. In 1784 he is mentioned on the minutes of the Methodist Conference of that year as having " desisted from traveling."
In a letter from Mr. Coleman to the Rev. Mr. Jarratt, July 22, 1784, dated from Baltimore County, he men- tions " that the clergy of Maryland had lately held a meeting at Annapolis, [June 22nd] and formed an ecclesiastical constitution," and adds "it is probable I may spend my days in Maryland, (there is a prospect of a vacancy in a parish here) if there should be any way of ordination. Religion, I fear, is at a stand here." He concludes by saying, and it is quoted as showing what the mail arrangements then were, " if you should write to me and have an opportunity of sending it to Richmond the stage goes from there twice a week to this town " [Baltimore.]
At the Methodist Conference in Baltimore, at Christmas, in 1784, by Mr. Asbury's invitation, Mr. Coleman was present. But when the vote was taken and announced declaring the Methodists an independent Episcopal Church, Mr. Coleman and his friend Mr.
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The Garrison Church.
(subsequently Reverend) William Duke, who had also been a preacher among them, took up their hats and left.
About this time, 1785, Mr. Coleman married Miss Pleasant Goodwin, whose mother was sister to Capt. Charles Ridgely of Hampton, and settled in Harford County. As soon as Dr. Seabury of Connectient had been consecrated Bishop of that Diocese, in November, 1784, Mr. Coleman designed to have applied to him for orders. With this view he received from Mr. Jarratt, addressed to Bishop Seabnry, the following testimonial, which is copied from the original : "From a long and intimate acquaintance with Mr. Coleman, I am able to recommend him to you as a person of unblemi- ished morals, and whose reputation for piety, integrity and uprightness is well established in this part of the country where he was born and brought up. Indeed, I can speak of him with a greater degree of confidence than of any other man because he lived in my family several years and was under my tuition. I can, with the greatest sincerity, declare that I never saw any- thing, or heard anything of him, mworthy of the gospel of Christ. But on the other hand, piety and zeal for God and a concern to promote the best interests of mankind have uniformly marked and distinguished his character. Deveraux Jarratt, Bath County, Va., 1786."
The delay, however, of getting ready, and Dr. White meanwhile (February, 1787) being consecrated
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The Rectory Enlarged.
Bishop of Pennsylvania, led Mr. Coleman to apply to Bishop White for orders. From him, therefore, he received Deacon's orders July 1, 1787, and it is believed that this was Bishop White's second ordination. On the twenty-third of September following he received Priest's orders from the same.
Immediately upon his being ordained he took charge of St. James' Parish in Baltimore and Harford Counties, and the next year the Rev. Mr. Heath having left St. John's Parish, which was also in the same counties, he united that also under his pastoral care. In 1792 he was placed by the convention on the standing com- mittee and appointed a delegate to the General Conven- tion. As a member of the standing committee he was commissioned by Bishop Claggett the visitor of the district embracing the churches of Harford County as well as those under his own pastoral care. In 1795 he was appointed to preach the convention sermon of that year. He was now thirty-seven years of age. He was residing on his own farm in St. John's Parish, which was about two miles north-west of what is now Fallston, in Harford County. There he continued until April 28, 1799, when as already stated he came into the charge of this parish.
At a meeting of the Vestry, on the third of Sept- ember, 1799, it was determined to make an addition to the parsonage-putting up a room to connect the main building with the kitchen. To accomplish this Sammel Owings and Charles Walker agreed to haul the
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The Garrison Church.
stone ; Dr. Thomas Cradock to pay the mason ; Samuel Owings, Jr., to find the shingles ; John Bond and Joseph Jones to find nails; Nathan Chapman, the plasterers ; and Mr. Hunt, the doors and windows. The addition was accordingly made. It was stated also at the meeting that Mr. Samuel Owings, Sr., had offered the V'estry about thirty acres of land adjoining the parson- age at $20 per acre, which would be of great advantage to the said parsonage. It was resolved to open a sub- scription for purchasing the land. This was done and the land purchased. Thus, a minister was called with one-third more salary than the former Rector received, an addition made to the parsonage, and a glebe purchased. This was progress, and so far all seemed to promise well.
On the third of November, 1800, it was resolved that the pulpit be moved to the east end of the church and three single pews be made, [probably in the place where the pulpit and reading desk before stood], and that a collection be taken up to defray the expenses. At this time the pulpit stood on the north side of the church, directly in front of the church door, and, before it, the reading desk. This was their usual position in the churches in that day, so that the majority of the hearers was on each side of the minister. The arrange- ment was calculated rather for worship than for preaching ; but a change was now coming over the churches. The influence of the Methodist movement was making itself felt very widely outside of their own
"ULM," WHERE SAMUEL OWINGS LAVED.
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The Pulpit Moved.
class, and preaching-which was felt to be an equally prominent part of the Apostolic Commission with any- thing else, if not the superior part-was now to be made more prominent, and the hearers to be brought in front of the preacher. Accordingly, as directed, the pulpit was removed to the east end of the church and placed in the circular projection within the chancel, and pews placed where the pulpit had before stood, thus giving room for the seating of some twenty worshippers, and additional income from the pews.
At a meeting of the Vestry, August 3, 1801, a clerk was appointed with a salary of $16 per annum. It was then common to have a clerk to make the responses in the service. This led to a great neglect of the congre- gation in taking part in the worship,-as if God could be worshipped by proxy.
1803. During this year died Mr. Samuel Owings, Jr. He was often a member of the Vestry. He gave, as we have seen, the land on which the parsonage stands. He was the son of Samuel and Urath Owings, born 1773. He lived at Owings' Mills, and was the owner of large tracts of land in the neighborhood. He married Deborah Lynch, October 6, 1765."
There is not much during Mr. Coleman's charge of the parish on the Vestry's records worthy of any par- ticular notice. Things seemed to have held "the even tenor of their way."
December 11, 1803, the Vestry ordered a census of
11; For list of his children and their marriages see Samuel Owing- Part III
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the Protestant Episcopal inhabitants according to the Canon. The Canon did not precisely require this, but the 15th Canon of the General Convention, as published by the Convention of Maryland, 1793, did require that every minister shall make out and continue a list of all adult persons within his eure; and to this the 4th Canon of Maryland responded and required the list to be returned to the Convention, as well as the baptisms, marriages, etc.
In May, 1804, Mr. Coleman returned to his farm in Harford County, and gave one-half of his services to St. James' Parish ; and in a letter to the Vestry he writes, "I regret much that the congregation should pay such little attention as to render it doubtful whether they will not let the church fall in this parish."
He continued to give the parish one-half his time, though living more than twenty miles distant, until December, when he gave it up.
March 14, 1808, Mr. Coleman again writes to the Vestry, saying, "I continued to officiate from April, 1799, to December., 1804. I proposed resigning more than once, informing the Vestry I did not wish to be a burden to them, or any other Vestry, and they expressed a wish for me to have patience and continue, hoping that things would get better. In May I re- moved to my farm in Harford, but still continued to officiate, as I had not given over the thought of return- ing, had there been an amendment in the attention of
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