USA > North Carolina > Rowan County > Salisbury > The history of St. Luke's Parish and the beginnings of the Episcopal Church in Rowan County : address, delivered in St. Luke's Church, Salisbury, N.C., on October 19, 1924, in commemoration of the centennial of the union of St. Luke's Parish > Part 1
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Centennial Address
THE HISTORY OF ST. LUKE'S PARISH
BY PROFESSOR ARCHIBALD HENDERSON PH.D., D.C.L., LL.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
ARS ET SCIENTIA
ARCHIBALD HENDERSON
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ST. LUKE'S CHURCH, SALISBURY, N. C.
THE HISTORY OF ST. LUKE'S PARISH AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN ROWAN COUNTY
For the Luke Universal - Library with the auction compliments
Address by ARCHIBALD HENDERSON Delivered in St. Luke's Church, Salisbury, N. C., on October 19, 1924, in Commemoration of the Centennial of the Union of St. Luke's Parish with the Diocese of North Carolina
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A CENTENNIAL PRAYER
ALMIGHTY GOD, the God of our Fathers, in whose Name others have labored and we have entered into their labors, we give Thee hearty thanks for the grace and virtue, the forethought and liberality of Thy servants in this parish through a hundred years of Thy mercies and blessings. And we pray Thee that we of our day may be inflamed to leave to those who come after us a similar record of fruitful lives by being obedient to Thy will and by giving freely of ourselves and of our substance to the enlighten- ment of the ignorant, the conversion of wrongdoers and the building up of Thy Kingdom here and everywhere. Increase our labors and our laborers, multiply our givers, enlarge our gifts, that we may honor Thee and magnify Thy Holy Name, now and evermore, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
An Historical Address
The history of St. Luke's Church, the centennial of which we celebrate today, is a theme which might well inspire any churchman-especially one who, like myself, for more than a quarter of a century has made a diligent and loving study of this great and historic county of Rowan. In order to realize the missionary labors and devoted services which laid the foundations for this holy institution, I must ask you to go back with me in fancy, three quarters of a cen- tury before 1824, to the earliest days of Salisbury. A wealth of documents, hitherto unknown or unused, together with the rich depository of the Colonial and State Records of North Carolina, will enable us to gain a "close-up" view of the difficult beginning of the Episcopal church in Rowan.
On April 12, 1753, Matthew Rowan, the acting governor, approved a bill for the erection of a county and parish, by the name of Rowan County and St. Luke's Parish. The following year, however, this act was revoked by George II, on the ground that the Assembly had begun to exercise more power than was entirely agreeable to the royal government in England and that by the establishment of new coun- ties the Assembly was increased in membership too rapidly. Two years later, however, with the consent of the king, Rowan was re-established with the same
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boundaries and limits as formerly, and all deeds and conveyances of land made during the period of the revocation were declared valid.
It is the year 1755. This town, named after the cathedral town of Salisbury, England, is but just laid out, the court house built, and 7 or 8 houses erected. In the entire county of Rowan, which was bounded to the westward in the charter only by "the South Seas," there are only about 1250 taxables. Thirteen years later this number had trebled. At the beginning of 1766 Governor Tryon ventured the opinion that North Carolina was being settled faster than any other province, and that in the preceding autumn and winter about one thousand wagons with accompanying families had passed through Salisbury. When George Washington passed through Salisbury a quarter of a century later (1791) he recorded in his diary: "Salisbury is but a small place altho it is the county town and the district court is held in it; . there is about three hundred souls in it and tradesmen of different kinds." Whether the Father of his Country meant to intimate that the tradesmen represented "soulless corporations" is not clear; but we will charitably give both Washington and the tradesmen the benefit of the doubt.
The many acts on the statute books of these early times clearly demonstrate the efforts of the royal government of the province to make the Church of England the established church of North Carolina. We must recall that the freeholders, that is men
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owning fifty acres of land or a lot in some town, were required, under penalty of twenty shillings, to elect twelve vestrymen to serve three years. The vestry- men so elected had to subscribe on oath that they would "not oppose the doctrine, discipline and liturgy of the Church of England as by law established." If a dissenter was elected and failed to qualify, he was liable to a fine. The vestry was authorized to levy a tax of ten shillings on each taxable in the parish for the erection of churches or chapels, the payment of ministers, purchasing a glebe and erecting a parson- age. According to an act of 1765, the minister of a parish was to receive an annual salary of one hundred and thirty-three pounds, six shillings,' and eight pence, and a fee of twenty shillings for every mar- riage solemnized in the parish, whether he performed the services or not, provided he did not neglect or refuse to do so.
The marriage, parish and vestry acts of the prov- ince were so unpopular in the west, of which Salis- bury was the center, that little attention was paid to them by the inhabitants. Various petitions were pre- sented to the Assembly asking for their repeal, one such petition (Mecklenburg County, 1769) actually stating that if Rowan, Mecklenburg, and Tryon "were wholly relieved from the grievances of the marriage act and the vestry acts, it would greatly encourage the settlement of the frontiers, and make them a stronger barrier to the interior parts of the province against a savage enemy." The dissenters,
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who constituted a majority of the population of Rowan, particularly objected to the marriage act, under which no minister or magistrate could perform the rite of marriage without a license or the publica- tion of banns-an act which the Presbyterian minis- ters in the west consistently disregarded. In Salisbury and environs, according to my father's estimate, the members of the Church of England amounted to from one-fourth to one-third of the population. On one occasion, probably between 1764 and 1768, sun- dry inhabitants of the county of Rowan petitioned for a "lawful vestry," complaining that the dissent- ers "from dread of submitting to the national church, should a lawful vestry be established, (would) elect such of their own community as evade the Acts of Assemblyand refuse the oaths-whence we can never expect (i. e., without a lawful vestry) the regular enlivening beams of the Gospel." These churchmen prayed that means be taken for compelling persons chosen vestrymen to take the oaths prescribed, or such other means as may produce a regular lawful vestry.
Difficulties arising from dissatisfaction with these acts, especially in a county populated by inhabitants of almost all the nations of Europe, professing relig- ious tenets of every sort, from the beginning con- fronted the Church of England in Rowan and finally reached a dramatic crisis. Yet we must not conclude that the Church was wholly neglected by the provin- cial authorities. The first stronghold of church people in Rowan was not here in Salisbury, but in the Jersey
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Settlement, in the neighborhood of present Linwood. As the result of an exhaustive investigation, I con- clude that a settlement was made there by people from New Jersey, probably from the neighborhood of Scotch Plains (now Plainfield) some time prior to 1754. This was perhaps the colony referred to by the Moravian Bishop Spangenburg in his diary of 1752- 53. The Rev. Benjamin Miller, who was the pastor of Scotch Plains Baptist Church, visited Rowan County in 1754 and conducted services for the inhab- itants of all denominations at their "meeting house" in the Jersey Settlement as early as September 3, 1755. The Rev. Hugh McAden, the Presbyterian missionary, in his diary complains of the activities of Miller; but after making Miller's acquaintance, he spoke favorably of him and in company with him preached at the Jersey "meeting house" on January 11, 1756. In his report to the Secretary for the Colonies (March 29, 1764), Governor Dobbs says there are six clergymen of the Church of England in the entire province. Regarding one of these, named Miller, he speaks in unfavorable terms as to his manner of living, stating: "I had the misfortune to recommend (Miller) to be ordained upon my first coming over (1754-5) upon a petition of many in- habitants of Rowan County." There were, then, two preachers named Miller-one Baptist, one Church of England-preaching in Rowan County at the same time-unless indeed these two Millers were one and the same person. We do know that in 1767
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a Rev. Mr. Miller, of the Church of England, was the incumbent by presentation of St. Patrick's, Dobbs Parish, which had been cut off from St. Luke's.
In 1755 or 1756, a Baptist preacher, the Rev. John Gano, of New Jersey, who had formerly visited the Jersey Settlement twice, settled there in response to repeated solicitations.' Soon after his arrival, a meeting house was built, which was attended by the inhabitants of various denominations. "In order that all might be concerned upon various occasions," says Gano in his autobiography, "we appointed a board of trustees, some of each denomination. They continued to be united while I remained there."-which was until the spring of 1769. A deed for the land on which this meeting-house had been standing since 1755 or 6 was not executed until some twenty years later (1775) to the trustees of the United Congrega- tion of the Jersey Meeting-House: to James Macay, Esq., Benjamin Rounceville, and Herman Butner, described respectively as professors of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and the Baptists. In the Moravian Diary preserved at Salem, this set- tlement around present Linwood is described in 1756 as the "Jersey (Irish) Settlement." The great grand- father of James Macay, the leading man in the Jer- sey Settlement, was, however, an emigrant from Scotland, as stated in the will of his son, Spruce Macay, famous jurist, and preceptor in the law here, of both Andrew Jackson and William Richardson Davie.
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It must not be thought that the Church of Eng- land people in Rowan were wholly neglected by the colonial authorities. Governor William Tryon, who had close family affiliations with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel-two of its treasurers being presumably his father and uncle, Charles and William Tryon respectively-was a devoted church- man, and labored unceasingly for the furtherance of the Established Church in the Province of North Carolina. Rev. George Micklejohn, the minister of St. Matthews Parish, Orange County (1766-1776), writes of Tryon, presumably before the days of Regulation troubles: "He rules a willing people with the indulgent tenderness of a common father." Writ- ing to the Secretary of the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel, October 1, 1776, shortly after the arrival of Parson Micklejohn in the Province, Governor Tryon says: "I have great expec- tations from Mr. Micklejohn; he is lately gone into Rowan County." In addition to this visitation of the Rev. George Micklejohn, the Rev. Richard Sankey, said to have been of Virginia, visited Rowan County in very early times; and he was afterwards called to Rowan County (prior to 1767), but presumably did not accept the call. My father believed that, although said to be a Presbyterian, Mr. Sankey had probably received Episcopal ordination. In the summer of 1769, the Rev. Charles Cupples, St. John's Parish, Bute, made a tour through Rowan and baptized many persons.
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With the arrival of the Rev. Theodorus Swaine Drage in Rowan in 1769 begins the most dramatic struggle in the history of the Church of England in St. Luke's Parish, and indeed in the entire colony. On May 29, 1769, he was "licensed for the Planta- tions" by the Bishop of London. The transcripts made by the late Dr. Murdoch from the records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel enable me to tell in much greater detail than has been hith- erto possible, the story of this bitter religious struggle. On November 12, 1769, Governor Tryon addressed a letter to the Gentlemen of the Vestry of St. Luke's Parish, as follows:
"The Reverend Mr. Drage, who is lately arrived from England, warmly recommended to me, waits on you to officiate in your parish for the space of two or three months, at the expiration of which time, should he give satisfaction in his sacred calling, and his situation prove agreeable to him, I purpose to give him letters of Presentation and Induction to your parish, agreeable to the petition of sundry of the inhabitants of your county, delivered to me when I was in Salisbury. "
The religious struggle which now began was as revolutionary in character as the civil uprisings of the people against the royal authority, which event- uated in the American Revolution. The Dissenters boldly said, according to Drage, (1770) "that as they have opposed England in endeavoring to intrude on their civil rights, they also shall, and have a right,
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ST. LUKE'S CHURCH, SALISBURY, AS FIRST ERECTED
to oppose any Intrusion on their religious rights" --- a maxim, I presume, says Drage, prophetically, "dangerous in itself, not only with respect to this country and the neighboring counties, but to the whole back frontier of America, principally settled with Sectaries, and is deserving of the attention of govern- ment, before power is added to inclination." Writing to Governor Tryon from Salisbury, March 13, 1770, Drage says that he has done everything in his power to accommodate and pacify the Irish Dissenters, claiming only the office of Curate, and agreeing to ratify without fee the marriage licenses issued by the Dissenting Clergymen or Magistrates. Although two-thirds of the population of Rowan County, ac- cording to Drage, were of the Church of England, surely an overstatement, the Dissenters held the upper hand, by reason of a very curious state of affairs. The Irish Dissenters, for the most part, had come into the county before the closing of Lord Granville's land offices and had become possessed of patents; whereas many of the Church of England people had come in after the closing of the land offices and so had been unable to obtain titles to their land, for which they held only bonds. As a vestry- man was required by law to hold title to 50 acres of land, the Dissenters constituted the majority of the freeholders. In 1769 they elected a vestry who, they were assured in advance, would not qualify-and, according to Drage, made up a "corruption fund," as we would say nowadays-to pay their fines for not
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qualifying, not only for that year, but for years to come. On April 16, 1770, they planned to do this again-declaring they could keep out the Church by this means, had done so, and always would. "I plainly perceive," says Drage, "if I lose my hold it would be such a discouragement to the present members of the Church of England they would never rally again, many of them would quit and go into Provinces where they could have a free exercise of their reli- gion, others would become absorbed up in and become of the same principles, as the people they staid amongst." These were indeed words of prophecy; for the Dissenters, by their resolution not to pay taxes to the Established Church of their oppressors, not only helped in their way to precipitate the Amer- ican Revolution: they virtually throttled the Protes- tant Episcopal Church in Rowan County for half a century.
The attempt of the Royal Government to thrust an Established Church upon people of opposite religious convictions resulted in complete failure. On Easter Monday, 1770, as anticipated by Drage, the Dissenters elected a vestry, all of whom were Dis- senters, and two of them elders. These vestrymen assured Drage that, if he would take up a subscrip- tion, they would subscribe liberally and retain him as minister on those terms. Drage declined, on the just technical ground, that for him to do so would be a direct violation of the law. The Dissenters- protestants of the classic type, imbued with those
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principles of civil and religious freedom, for the preservation of which they had come to America, principles which gave rise to the Revolution-"said it was their opinion, every one ought to pay their own clergy, and what the law required was a constraint, the other would be a free act." The second list of twelve persons, who were supported by the church people, was defeated; but these defiantly challenged those elected to qualify. The Sheriff of Rowan County, Morgan Bryan, whose brother Samuel was the father-in-law of the great hunter and scout, Daniel Boone, called upon the elected vestry to qualify on the Monday following, and on that day again argued at length with them in the interests of the county, in the effort to induce them to qualify. After the dissenting vestry refused to state whether or not they would qualify, the members of the second list, representing the church people, went to the court house, and entered their names down as a vestry. Mr. Drage then read to the assembled company the letter from Governor Tryon given above, whereupon the two members of the Dissent- ers' list who were the representatives in the assem- bly, Griffith Rutherford and Matthew Locke, were "alarmed," says Drage, and "fired away freely scandal to the church and contemptuous expressions as to the power of the Crown and of the Parliament of England." Here indeed were fire-eating revolu- tionists in Rowan, five years before the "Mecklen- burg Declaration of Independence." Drage took up
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the cudgels and a memorable altercation thereupon ensued from which Drage declared that he emerged victorious, according to the verdict of the auditors. Drage had the law on his side; but the Dissenters had the right on theirs-even although their pro- cedure was a dog-in-the-manger act and over a long period of time worked great damage not only to the Established Church of England, but also to the spiri- itual progress and welfare of the parish and county. After the altercation, listened to in deep silence by the people, was at an end, the nominal vestry of the second list adjourned to another place, whereupon they drafted a letter to Governor Tryon, thanking him for sending them a minister and requesting him to give Mr. Drage an immediate Presentation of In- duction. When May 15th, the last day to qualify, came, the Dissenters' vestry walked up and down the streets of Salisbury all day long; and that night occupied the court house as if it were a fortress, actually remaining there the entire night of the fif- teenth, to prevent the second vestry from entering and qualifying.
Letters and petitions now flew thick and fast. Drage wrote a long, able, and in many respects extra- ordinary letter to Governor Tryon giving a history of the controversy. He did not hesitate to employ modern slang, denominating those voters who chose a Dissenting vestry in order to keep out the Church of England people, as "rotten nuts." Tryon replied, deploring the opposition of the Dissenters to the
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Established Church, a religion, he declares, that "was engrafted upon and grew up with the Constitution of this Colony, a religion that has ever since been recognized and upheld and was by the act of the Legislature in 1765 established upon most solid foundations." Unwilling to offend the Presbyterians, who had strongly supported him in his administra- tion, the Governor recommended that the church people memorialize the next General Assembly, by enclosed letters of Presentation and Induction. This was accordingly done, considerably more than a thou- sand people signing a petition to the Assembly to remove their incapacity for voting for want of deeds. The Dissenters also petitioned the Legislature not to be required to pay towards the support of the Parish Minister, and to be permitted to publish banns and marry by their own clergy-a petition which Drage characterized as "an act directly levelled at the Con- stitution." For the sake of historic record, I give here the names of the members of the nominal vestry, who, according to Drage, were all "members of the Church of England, men of respect and character, except one": John Ford, John Kimbrough, Morgan Bryan, James Macay, William Fields, Samuel Bryan, George Magoun, John Cowan, Roger Turner, Evan Ellis, William Giles, and William Cowan, Sen'r. The Dissenters' list consisted of nine magistrates, two of whom were representatives in the Assembly (Rutherford and Locke), one a Captain of Militia,
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and two senior elders (one of whom was named Allison)-all Dissenters.
This was a curious conflict-for, according to Drage, the numbers of those of the Church of Eng- land and those desirous of its establishment (most of whom were disqualified for want of deeds) outnum- bered the others by five to one; and on Feb. 28, 1771, there was only one Dissenting clergyman in the St. Luke's Parish. The Assembly on January 25, 1771, delayed determination upon the nominal ves- try's petition until the next session of the Assembly. `The struggle continued unabated; and early in 1772 Drage protested to Governor Josiah Martin that the Clerk of Court encouraged the people who obtained marriage licenses to have the rite performed by the magistrates instead of by him and concealed the num- ber of licenses granted. The Dissenters, according to Governor Martin, writing to Earl Dartmouth on March 31, 1773, "actually expelled Mr. Drage, the Rector, a very worthy clergyman, by withholding his salary, the only means of his subsistence, and forced him to retire to an Asylum, to which he was invited in South Carolina." Mr. Drage petitioned the Assem- bly for relief, and Governor Martin, February 7, 1773, ventured the hope that the "peculiar hard cir- cumstances" of the late Rector of St. Luke's will rec- ommend him to the benevolence of the House. The Church's effort met its death blow when John Har- vey, Speaker, reported to Governor Josiah Martin (February 20, 1773) regarding the Rev. Mr. Drage's
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petition that in the opinion of the House "the Laws of the Province now in force are sufficient to remove the grievances complained of." Shortly after Drage's departure, be it noted, eighty-five Dissenters united in a petition praying that the Presbyterian ministers be allowed to marry members of their own congrega- tion by the publication of banns.
One of the most remarkable episodes, indicating the broad spirit of the Established Church and its sympathetic attitude toward the German Lutherans, who at this time employed almost identical forms of service with the Episcopalians, was occasioned by the trip of two prominent Lutherans, Christopher Layrle of Mecklenburg and Christopher Rintelman of Rowan, to England, Holland, and Germany, in 1771, to secure a Lutheran minister and a school- master who spoke German to preach to the German congregation, and to teach the German people of Rowan, Orange, Mecklenburg, and Tryon, who understood no English. Dr. Drage officially recom- mended their mission, so too did Governor Tryon, so too did the Society for the Propagation of the Gos- pel; and so too did the official secular head of the Church of England, that good German, George III, who contributed to the support of the minister and schoolmaster: as King of England and as Elector of Hanover.
For four long years, as we have seen, the Rev. Mr. Drage labored unceasingly, under the greatest difficulties, for the advancement of the Established
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Church. Two years before he came to St. Luke's Parish, 1767, the number of taxables of Rowan is given as 3,000-and the inhabitants are officially described from Governor Tryon's office as "very able; mostly Presbyterians." During the year from December 20, 1769, to December 20, 1770, Mr. Drage organized about 40 congregations, consisting of 7,000 souls or 900 families, inhabiting a country of 180 miles in length and 120 miles in breadth; and baptized in all 802 persons between the ages of one and sixty. Two-thirds of the people were of the Church of England, the others a "motley mixture," so Mr. Drage reported on February 28, 1771. The Irish Dissenters, he declared, "had the whole power of government, as to these parts, invested in them by the late governor," Arthur Dobbs. During his stay in St. Luke's Parish Drage founded a chapel in the Jersey settlement-near the present house of Mr. Willie Mears. A sincere tribute is due the Rev. Mr. Drage for the indefatigable efforts he put forth and the sacrifices he made in behalf of the Church of England. In his letter to the Society for the Propa- gation of the Gospel, February 28, 1771, he says: "I am greatly obliged to the Honorable Society for the honor that hath been done my draughts, as I have received but few fees, taking nothing for Baptisms, no burial fees allowed, and excepting their assistance entirely at my own expense, as there is a year's salary now due from the parish, and no vestry to assess it, and have but little expectation but it will be the same
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