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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 03118 6098
Gc 975.6 H6217 Reformed Church in the United States. Classes. Historic sketch of the Reformed Church in North
JEN
REV. J. C.CLAPP. D. D. - EDITOR -
REV. J.C. LEONARD, D.D ASSISTANT EDITOR
X HISTORIC SKETCH
OF THE
Reformed Church
IN
North Carolina ×
BY A BOARD OF EDITORS UNDER THE CLASSIS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE LATE GEO. WM. WELKER, D.D.
PHILADELPHIA, PA .: Publication Board of the Reformed Church in the United States.
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
COPYRIGHT 1908 By the North Carolina Classis of the Reformed Church in the United States.
-
DEDICATION.
TO THE LOVING MEMORY OF OUR DECEASED BRETHREN IN THE MINISTRY AND LAITY, PIONEERS OF THE REFORMED CHURCH IN THE SOUTHLAND, WHOSE LIVES AND SERVICE MAKE THIS RECORD POSSIBLE, THIS HISTORY IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
285 13 2.0
7
Preface.
N TO history of North Carolina, adequately setting forth her political, social, religious and indus - trial career, and her vast material resources, has yet been written. The various religious organizations have each made valuable contributions for such a work in their several denominational histories. These sketches are intended to add to these contributions, as well as to acquaint our own people with the lives and deeds of their ancestors. The Classis of North Carolina has for many years moved in this matter, and at her annual sessions at High Point, May 4, 1904, she resolved to commit the work to a committee, with Rev. Jacob C. Clapp, D.D., as editor-in-chief; Rev. Jacob C. Leonard, D.D., assistant, and Rev. John A. Foil, Ph.D., Rev. Paul Barringer, D.D., Rev. Calvin B. Heller, A.M., and Rev. Joseph L. Murphy, D.D., associate editors, and Rev. William B. Duttera, Ph.D., business manager. Further, it was resolved that all moneys accruing from the sale of the book, above the cost of publishing, shall be placed in the hands of the treasurer of Classis, and shall be used to assist mission charges within the bounds of Classis. The following pages are the fruit of this committee's efforts, assisted by the pastors of the various charges. It is peculiarly appropriate that an extract from Rev. Dr. G. William
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6
Preface.
Welker's account of "Early German Reformed Settlers in North Carolina," Vol. VIII., p. 727, Colonial Records of North Carolina, should introduce this work. Rev. Dr. Welker did more than all other men had done to rescue from oblivion the existence, piety and heroism of a people most worthy to live in the minds of com- ing generations. It is also equally appropriate that the book be dedicated to the pioneer preachers and laymen, to whose faith, zeal and constancy we are indebted for the founding and perpetuation in this wilderness of the "New World," those altars on which has been kept burning the fire of the Reformation for one hundred and fifty years.
-THE EDITORS.
Contents.
CHAPTER I. EARLY GERMAN REFORMED SETTLEMENTS IN PAGE
NORTH CAROLINA 11
CHAPTER II. PRIOR TO THE ORGANIZATION OF CLASSIS. . 22
CHAPTER III. FOLLOWING THE ORGANIZATION OF CLASSIS. 49
1. The First Meeting of Classis. 49
2. The Classis in Growth. 53
3. The Centenary Celebration. 59
4. Work Among the Colored People 61
5. The Church Paper and Literary Institutions. 62
6. Revival and Campmeetings and Moral Institutions 67
7. Withdrawal from Synod
69
8. The Civil War Period
72
9. Special Objects of Benevolence.
78
10. Catawba College
86
11. A Home Church Paper
12. The Records of Classis 96
98
13. Delegate Elders 100
14. The Ministers of the Classis 103
15. Annual Meetings of the Classis. 113
CHAPTER IV. THE EASTERN GROUP OF CHURCHES. 117
1. The Brick Church, Guilford County 117
2. Stoner's Church, Alamance County
3. Barton Church, Randolph County 134
4. Mt. Hope Church, Guilford County 136
135
5. St. Mark's Church, Alamance County 144
6. Burlington Church. 146
7, Fairview Church, Whitsett 149
8. First Church, High Point. 151
9. Bethel Church, High Point 153
10. First Church, Greensboro. 154
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8
Contents.
11. Pilgrim Church, Davidson County PAGE
156
12. Beck's Church, Davidson County 169
13. Bethany Church, Davidson County 172
14. Beulah Church, Davidson County. 176
15. Emanuel Church, Davidson County . 178
16. Hebron Church, Davidson County 179
17. Mt. Carmel Church, Davidson County 184
18. Mt. Tabor Church, Davidson County. 184
19. Jerusalem Church, Davidson County 185
20. Hedrick's Grove Church, Davidson County 185
21. Calvary Church, Davidson County 186
22. Heidelberg Church, Thomasville. 188
23. First Church, Lexington 189
24. Second Church, Lexington. 191
CHAPTER V. THE CENTRAL GROUP OF CHURCHES. 193
1. Grace Church, Rowan County 193
2. Cold Water and Gilead Church, Cabarrus County. 202
3. Mt. Zion Church, Rowan County 210
4. Bethel Church, Stanly County. 215
5. Shiloh Church, Rowan County 219
6. St. Paul's and Mt. Hope Church, Rowan County 226
7. St. Luke's Church, Rowan County. 228
8. Trinity Church, Concord 230
9. St. Paul's Church, Enochville 232
10. Bethany Church, Crescent 233
11. St. James' Church, Mt. Pleasant 235
12. Faith Church, Salisbury 237
13. Ursinus Church, Rockwell 239
14. Boger Church, Rowan County 240
15. Keller Church, Cabarrus County 241
CHAPTER VI. THE WESTERN GROUP OF CHURCHES 243
1. St. Paul's Church, Catawba County 243
2. Daniel's Church, Lincoln County 248
3. Grace Church, Catawba County. 264
4. Emanuel Church, Lincolnton. 273
5. Salem Church, Lincoln County 278
Contents. 9
PAGE
6. St. John's Church, Catawba County
285
7. Smyrna Church, Catawba County. 287
8. St. Matthew's Church, Lincoln County 288
9. Grace Church, Newton.
303
10. Friendship Church, Alexander County
310
11. Bethel Church, Catawba County. 312
12. Corinth Church, Hickory
315
13. Mt. Bethel Church, Blowing Rock
321
14. Memorial Church, Maiden.
323
15. Trinity Church, Conover
326
16. Zion's Church, Lenoir
326
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Editor and Assistant Frontispiece
Associate Editors and Business Manager. 17
Early Ministers . 63
Nazareth Orphans' Home 85
Catawba College
91
Brick Church 119
Pilgrim Church 157
St. Matthew's Arbor 171
Beck's Church 171
Lower Stone Church. 199
St. Paul's Church 245
Daniel's Church
255
Claremont College
321
Historic Sketch of the Reformed Church in North Carolina.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY GERMAN REFORMED SETTLEMENTS IN NORTH CAROLINA.
BY REV. G. WILLIAM WELKER, D.D.
(THE GERMANS IN NORTH CAROLINA .- From the "Colonial Records of North Carolina.")
TT has been the misfortune of the Germans who at an early date settled in North Carolina, not to have an historian at a time when it was yet possible to collect the facts relating to their immigration into this colony. Records there are few, and only such as may be found in patents and deeds for land, in the Department of State at Raleigh, and in the several oldest county records where they located their homes. It seems as if they never supposed that it would be of any interest to any of their posterity, or the general public of the State, to know who they were, whence they came or what part they had in laying the founda- tion for the future character and greatness of the State. Even the records of their several churches are so scant and imperfect, or by neglect have been lost, to a de- gree that they afford but little material at this time
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The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
from which to collect any satisfactory account of their origin, or the names of those who were astir in this work. Most that now can be ascertained is gleaned from the lingering tradition that still hovers about the old houses of worship and over the graves of the venerable dead who in the wilderness reared these . monuments to God and their faith. To the work of collecting facts and dates years have been given with only limited success. All diligence has been given as to the correctness of the statements, and traditions have been compared to get the truth, yet it is possible some errors may be found in this record of a people whose character and work should be rescued from oblivion.
The German immigration to America grew out of the fearful results of the thirty-years war, that had desolated their native land and made existence there intolerable. After this came the French invasion of the Rhine territory. By this the grand home of the Palatines, who were Protestants, was made a home- less waste. For these sufferers the new world opened up an asylum. William Penn gave the heartiest and freest invitation to his colony. Queen Anne, of Eng- land, offered a refuge and means of succor. Thousands left their native land by way of England to reach a home in the wilderness. Most of these were aided to reach the colony of Pennsylvania, which, for a time, seemed to become largely Germanized. Among them were also Huguenots (French Protestants), who, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, had fled to Germany, and now came with their co-religionists to America.
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The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
This influx of Germans, Swiss and French into Penn- sylvania began about 1707. Many had come over previous to this, and as early as 1682. During the period from 1725 to 1775 the archives of the colony of Pennsylvania record the names of more than 30,000 males over the age of sixteen who landed at the port of Philadelphia. It is from this colony that the Ger- man immigrants to North Carolina, to a great extent, came. A colony of Palatines and Swiss founded New Berne, in 1710, whose history may be had in any North Carolina history. We shall confine ourselves to the immigrants from the colony of Pennsylvania to the Carolinas. The most valuable lands in Pennsyl- vania east of the Alleghenies were taken up. The Proprietors of Carolina offered very advantageous terms to settlers. The resources of salubrious climate and unrivaled fertility of soil, that made it a very paradise, soon attracted these industrious people hither. At this time one-third of the population of the province of Pennsylvania were Germans. Their overflow into North Carolina was so profuse that in 1785 the Germans from Pennsylvania alone numbered upward of 15,000. Of the 30,000 names given in the State Archives of Pennsylvania, a very large number can be found to-day among the Germans of North Carolina, and one who goes from the region populated by Germans in North Carolina to Eastern Pennsyl- vania will find almost every familiar name in the counties of Berks, Schuylkill, Northampton, Lebanon, Dauphin, etc., in that State.
The territory in which the Germans settled in North
14 The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
Carolina was largely that which is now embraced in the counties of Alamance, Guilford, Randolph, David- son, Forsyth, Stokes, Rowan, Cabarrus, Stanly, Lin- coln, Gaston, Catawba and Burke. Pennsylvania cer- tainly contributed, in her German and Scotch-Irish emigrants, a valuable population to this colony. They were a widely different people from those that Ger- many now sends to our large cities. Morse, in his "American Universal Geography," in the edition of 1789, in speaking of the Germans of Pennsylvania, says: "The Germans compose about one-quarter of the inhabitants of Pennsylvania. They are most numerous in the northern part of the city of Philadel- phia, and in the counties of Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Dauphin, Lancaster, York and Northampton. They consist of Lutherans (who are the most numerous sect), Calvinists or Reformed, Moravians, Catholics, Mennonites, Tunkers and Zwingfelters, who are a species of Quakers. These are all distinguished for their temperance, industry and economy. The Ger- mans have usually about a fourth of the members of the Assembly, and some of them have arisen to the first honors of the State and now fill a number of the higher offices. Pennsylvania is much obliged to the Germans for improvements in agriculture." Rupp quotes Governor Thomas as saying: "This Province has been for some years the asylum of distressed Protestants of the Palatinate and other parts of Ger- many, and I believe it may with truth be said that the present flourishing condition of it is, in a great meas- ure, owing to the industry of these people; it is not
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The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
altogether the goodness of the soil, but the number and industry of the people that make a flourishing country." These are the people who have given a valuable population to the several counties named, and to this day the characteristics of their ancestors are still found in their descendants.
It could be asked, why is it that such valuable citi- zens should make so little show in the affairs of the State? One reason is given above-their unob- trusive character, their devotion to agriculture, their industry in making a home. Their ambition did not lie in the direction of public affairs. The ambition to lead, to rule, to mingle in the conflicts of politics did not move in their hearts. But another cause was that they were incapacitated for such public service by their want of facility in the use of the English language, which was necessary for command in the field as well as for efficiency in civil and political offices. They were ready in those stirring times for any duty of the citizen whenever the exigency of affairs called for their services. When the Cherokee Indians rose in mur- derous revenge, they met the call to repel and drive them back. Even from Guilford they marched to the aid of the West in that emergency. In the war of the Regulation they were in full sympathy with those who resisted the oppression, and the Germans of Orange and Guilford were in that disastrous fight on the Alamance. Yet their common use of a language not used in the public business of the State always depressed them to subordinate positions. Those who came from Pennsylvania all came from schools and
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The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
churches where the German language was heard. Many could neither read nor speak English, or under- stand it when spoken by others, and even to-day, in the rural districts of those counties from which the Germans came to Carolina, they have German schools; preaching is in German. In the homes, a species of German, called "Pennsylvania Dutch," is yet spoken, and it was this the German ancestors spoke who came to Carolina, and was in the eighties used in the homes of Davidson and Rowan. Perhaps this, after all, was no heavy loss-not to be able to aspire to office and direction-but it had a serious effect to weaken the churches of German origin, by depleting them of the rising generations who were learning to speak and understand English. Nevertheless, a few Germans, before and during the war of the Revolution, were able to make themselves felt in the events happening about them: Barringer, of Mecklenberg; Forney, of Lincoln, and Cortner (Goertner), of Guilford.
From the beginning of the German settlements in North Carolina, the Reformed and Lutherans were very closely allied, and nearly all their churches were union churches, where, on alternate Sabbaths, they wor- shiped, and this is still the case in a number of con- gregations. The members of these churches were also greatly intermarried, so that passing from one communion to the other never was a difficult question. Indeed, they did not make any account of the confes- sional differences, and really knew no difference. In a paper before the writer, when the two confessions agree to unite in the building of a house of worship,
C
REV.J.L.MURPHY, D.D.
REV.J.A.FOIL, PH. D.
REV.C.B.HELLER
REV. PAUL BARRINGER. D.D.
REV. W.B. DUTTERA, PH.D
ASSOCIATE EDITORS AND BUSINESS MANAGER.
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The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
they give as a reason for such union that, "Since we are both united in the principal doctrines of Christi- anity, we find no difference between us except in name." So little account in early days was made of any differ- ence that Boger, a student for the ministry in the Reformed Church, studied theology under Storch, .a Lutheran minister. It is also known that this same Reverend Storch indoctrinated a class of catechumens in the Heidelberg Catechism (the doctrinal symbol of the Reformed Church) and confirmed them as members of that Church. Our plan is to notice the Reformed congregations organized by the German settlers, who have aided in giving North Carolina her sturdy and honest character. It may be proper to say that, in the title deeds for church property, the Reformed Church is known as the "Calvin Church"-"German Presby- terian Church"-as the "Reformed Evangelical Church," as "Dutch Presbyterian" and "Calvinist Congregation." These Reformed churches were com- posed of members of the Reformed Church in Switzer- land, Germany and France, who dissented from Luther's doctrine on the Lord's Supper, and were fol- lowers of Zwingli and Calvin on this point of sever- ance, and held to the Presbyterial (not Presbyterian) form of government in the church. Their doctrinal symbol is the Catechism of Heidelberg. That these Swiss, Palatines and Huguenots were ardently and intelligently attached to their faith and religious customs, admits of no doubt. There can yet be found in old Reformed families the Bibles, catechisms, hymn- books, prayer-books and sermons that bear the imprint
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The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
of publishers in the Fatherland, as also Sauers, of Ger- mantown, who so long was the only printer of German books in this country. The early German settlers in North Carolina not only brought their religious books with them, but they had scarcely reared a log cabin and cleared a few acres of land, when there was built in some accessible place a school-house, that also served as a place of worship. After better days, a more comfortable house of worship was reared, but hard by it the school-house still held its place, where the children and youth were by the school-master (that ever essential character in every German com- munity) taught the rudiments of education in Ger- man, the Fatherland tongue. In those early days, this people were better supplied with school teachers than with ministers of the Gospel. In many cases the teacher did duty also as a minister. The immigrants from Pennsylvania, in few cases, if any, brought their ministers with them, for such was the paucity of German ministers in Pennsylvania that none could be spared as missionaries from the pressing needs of the home field. In this case, those sturdy people were wont to meet in their places of worship on the Sab- bath, when, after joining in one of those grand and inspiring German melodies, some more gifted one led them in prayer, then the school teacher read a sermon, selected from those of some eminent divine of their faith of Colonial or Fatherland fame. The great scarcity of ministers among the Germans of North Carolina was a great source of anxiety to them, for they placed great value upon the sacrament of
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The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
baptism for their children and on the Lord's Supper as a sanctifying means of grace for themselves. This opened the way for adventurers and impostors among them, and no doubt such turned up among them in those early days to preach, catechise and administer the ordinances. The Reformed Church in North Carolina, so few and so distant from their co-religion- ists, were much neglected in this respect. Time and again they sent deputations to the Synod in Penn- sylvania, but it was only to get temporary aid. How- ever, in all these days, and during the war of the Revolution, they preserved their identity and main- tained their organization until they were received as an organized body by the Synod of the Reformed Church in the United States, under the title of the "Classis of North Carolina."
In the civil and political history of North Carolina, for reasons already given, the Germans have not been prominent in the past, and are only now looking up in this respect, as the entire German population have outgrown the use of the German tongue-in their pulpits no longer is it heard, nor have they German schools. With their use of the English language they are taking a more important part in the affairs of the State. Nothing better shows the character and patriotism of the Germans of the Reformed Church than their conduct when the rally to arms was made by the Continental Congress. In all the colonies, a full proportion of this people swelled the ranks of the patriot army. There were but few who, from a sense of mistaken loyalty, refused adhesion to the patriot
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The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
cause. This spirit of liberty was characteristic with those Germans, who, in Switzerland, the Palatinate or in France, had suffered for conscience sake, wherever they settled in the new world. The instinct of free- dom was an inheritance with them. It was the teach- ings which those German immigrants to North Caro- lina had heard from their ministers ere they left their homes in Pennsylvania. There were German regi- ments in the Continental army. Baron Steuben was an elder in the Reformed Church in Nassau Street, New York. Of the Reformed ministers, Weikel, of Boehm's Church, in Montgomery County; Weyberg and Schlatter, of Philadelphia; Helfenstein, of Lan- caster; Hendel, of Lyken's Valley, were ardent patri- ots; they led and taught their congregations. Some were watched and imprisoned for their outspoken love of liberty and the cause of rebellion. General Wash- ington made his home with Dr. Herman, the Reformed pastor in Germantown, Pennsylvania, for several months while his army lay in that. vicinity. When General Montgomery fell at Quebec, and the friends of freedom were filled with profound sorrow for his loss, and divided sentiment in the Quaker city made it difficult to find a suitable place, the new and beau- tiful Race Street Reformed (German) Church was opened to Dr. William Smith to pronounce an eulogy on his life and services. When General Washington was elected President of the United States, the Re- formed Coetus (Synod), the highest judicatory of that Church in the country, passed resolutions congratu- lating him on the event, at their annual meeting in
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The Reformed Church in North Carolina.
Philadelphia, in 1789, and a copy being sent to him, the General replied, expressing his great gratification at this expression of good will, and invoked on it the most earnest wishes for the prosperity of the Reformed Church. It could not be that citizens who had been trained under such ministers, who had imbibed such sentiments, would not, when transferred under the liberty-loving influence of North Carolina, be found true to their ancestry, and the brethren of a common faith. A people that had forsaken all and fled to the wilderness, with the hope to enjoy freedom to worship God, could not be made the creatures of tyrannical government such as that of George III. of England.
At this date, the descendants of these men are asserting themselves in all the walks of life in their native State. The thousands of this race are to-day scattered south and west over this great country, and wherever they go, their honesty, industry, law-abiding character tell on the character of the community. Here at home, too, their names are found now among the alumni of the university and our colleges. Among those who represent the State in the Congress of the United States and in the Legislature of the State, quite a number whose descent is from these German immigrants may be found. In the roll of the Confed- erate army, too, were thousands of these sons of the Germans, and among them were those who by bravery rose to eminence as Generals, as Hoke, Ramseur and others.
Of these Reformed Churches in North Carolina we propose to gather what we can of the founders and their history.
CHAPTER II. PRIOR TO THE ORGANIZATION OF CLASSIS.
THE first immigration of the Reformed people to T North Carolina from the Old World of which we have any account was that of the French Protest- ants who fled from persecution in their own country. They first came to Virginia, and then down into the Pamlico section of North Carolina, and located at Bath in 1690. Bath was the first town in North Carolina, but it never amounted to much, though the Legislature met there several times. These people did not have a minister with them, and no congregation was organized. They were members of the Reformed Church of France.
In 1710 Christopher Graffenreid led a colony of Palatines and Swiss to Carolina. He purchased from the Lords Proprietors a large tract of land on the Neuse River. Under the feudal constitution of the time he was made Landgrave of Carolina, and hence is known in history as Baron de Graffenreid. The town which he founded he called New Berne, in honor of Berne in Switzerland. Graffenreid was not educated for the ministry, but he was licensed by the Bishop of London to read the service to the colonists. The colony, unfortunately, came to grief through the treachery of the Indians. The town was sacked, a large number of the colonists were cruelly murdered,
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