USA > North Carolina > History of North Carolina: The Colonial and Revolutionary Periods 1584 1783, Volume I > Part 18
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Land and slaves were then, as they continued to be throughout the South until 1865, the chief form of wealth in Eastern North Carolina. Consequently the growth of towns was very slow and life in the colony was seen at its best on the great estates of the planters scattered along the banks of the rivers and their tributaries. Many of these planters counted from 5,000 to 10,000 acres in their estates, while not a few were lords of princely domains embracing from 30,000 to 50,000 acres, and were masters of as many as 250 slaves. In 1732 Thomas Pollock of Bertie County devised 22,000 acres of land, besides 10 other plantations, and 75 slaves; Edward Moseley, in 1749, mentioned in his will tracts embracing 30,- 000 acres, besides three other plantations, and 88 slaves;
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Thomas Pollock of Chowan County, in 1753, left 40,000 acres and 16 other plantations, and 75 slaves; Governor Gabriel Johnston's estate included more than 25,000 acres and 103 slaves; Cullen Pollock mentioned in his will 150 negroes; while Roger Moore of New Hanover County in 1750 mentioned 250 slaves. The prices of negroes of course varied according to time and the individual negro. In 1694 James Phillpotts of Albemarle County left 6,000 pounds of pork for the purchase of a negro. In 1680 the estate of Valentine Bird included 12 negroes valued at £310 sterling; in 1695 a negro man and his wife belonging to Seth Sothel's estate sold for £40; in 1745 an old negro woman belonging to James Winwright of Carteret County sold for £100, a negro boy for £150, a negro man for £200, and another for £250, these prices probably being reck- oned in proclamation money.
The river courses afforded the best sites for plantations not only because of the greater fertility of the bottom lands, but also because of the greater ease of transportation. Brick- ell tells us that "Both Sexes are very dexterous in paddling and managing their Canoes, both Men, Women, Boys, and Girls, being bred to it from Infancy." At the planter's wharf sloops, schooners, and brigantines were loaded with cargoes of skins, salt pork and beef, tallow, staves, naval stores, lum- ber, tobacco, corn, rice, and other products of the plantation to be carried away to the West Indies and exchanged for rum, molasses, sugar, and coffee, or to Boston where the proceeds were invested in clothing, household goods, books, and ne- groes. In 1734, Edward Salter of Bath, in his will, directs his executors to load his brigantine with tar and send it to Boston to be exchanged for young negroes. In 1753 the exports from North Carolina plantations were 61,528 barrels of tar; 12,052 barrels of pitch; 10,429 barrels of turpentine; 762,000 staves; 61,580 bushels of corn; 100 hogsheads of tobacco, and 30,000 deer skins, besides lumber and other commodities.
On an elevated site overlooking some river and generally approached through a long avenue of oaks, cedars, or poplars, stood the "Manor House," or as the negroes called it the "Big House." Brickell says that in their houses "the most substantial Planters generally use Brick, and Lime, which is made of Oyster-shells ; * * the meaner Sort erect with Timber, the outside with Clap-boards, the Roofs of both sorts of Houses are made with Shingles, and they generally have Sash Windows, and affect large and decent Rooms with good Closets, as they do a most beautiful Prospect by some noble
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River or Creek." These residences were often characterized by the huge white columns, broad verandas, wide halls, large and spacious rooms, which have become famous as the "colo- nial" style. Whether of wood or brick all were the seats of unbounded hospitality. John Lawson tells us that "the plant- ers [are] hospitable to all that come to visit them; there being very few housekeepers but what live very nobly and give away more provisions to coasters and guests who come to see them than they expend among their own families." Hospitality to strangers and travellers was regarded as a social duty which the wealthy planters, owing to the absence of inns and comfortable taverns, felt impelled to exercise for the honor of the province. Indeed, upon a lonely plantation, a gar- rulous traveller or a genial sea-captain who brought news of the outside world, was ever an honored and a welcome guest, for whom the housekeeper brought out her finest silver and china ware, her best linen and her most tempting morsels, while the planter regaled him with the choicest liquid re- freshments which his cellar afforded, for as Brickell assures us, "the better Sort, or those of good ŒEconomy" kept "plenty of Wine, Rum, and other Liquors at their own Houses, which they generally make use of amongst their Friends and Ac- quaintance, after a most decent and discreet Manner."
Every great plantation was almost a complete community in itself. Each had its own shops, mills, distillery, tannery, spinning wheels and looms, and among the slaves were to be found excellent blacksmiths, carpenters, millers, shoemakers, spinners, and weavers, and other artisans. "The Cloathings used by the Men," Brickell tells us, "are English Cloaths, Druggets, Durois, Green Linen, etc. The Women have their Silks, Calicoes, Stamp-Linen, Calimanchoes, and all kinds of Stuffs, some whereof are Manufactured in the Province. They make few Hats, though they have the best Furrs in plenty, but with this Article, they are commonly supplied from New- England, and sometimes from Europe." In their homes the planters were supplied not only with all the necessities of a pioneer community, but enjoyed many of the comforts and luxuries usually found only in a long established society. An examination of their wills, inventories, and other documents shows among their household furniture an ample supply of those fine old mahogany tables, sideboards, bedsteads, couches, chairs, and desks which excite the envy of modern housekeep- ers and deplete the purses of modern husbands. That the Carolina housekeeper was prepared to play the hospitable
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hostess to the most particular guest or the most pompous colonial potentate who might chance to honor her board, is well attested by the excellent silver, china, and glassware which adorned her sideboard. The diamond rings, earrings, necklaces, and other jewelry which the colonial dame passed down as heirlooms to her children and grandchildren show clearly enough from whom the twentieth century dame in- herited her love of finery and personal ornaments; while a goodly sprinkling of silver and gold kneebuckles, shoebuckles, and other such trinkets betrays the vanity with which the colonial planter displayed his silk-stockinged calf and shapely foot.
Much of what has been written above applies only to the older communities in Eastern Carolina; some modifications are necessary in describing conditions in the back country. There farms were smaller, agriculture was less dependent upon slave labor, and the land, therefore, was better tilled. Industrial enterprises were more important. With the Scotch- Irish and German settlers industries which the eastern plant- ers usually left to negro slaves were conducted by skilled laborers. Among the most prosperous settlers in those com- munities were the weavers, joiners, coopers, wheelwrights, wagon-makers, tailors, blacksmiths, hatters, rope-makers, and fullers. The Germans in Wachovia early set up "a number of useful and lucrative manufactures, particularly a very ex- tensive one of earthenware, which they have brought to a great perfection, and supply the whole country with it for some hundred miles around." 4 What Doctor McKelway says of the Scotch-Irish applies also to the Germans in Carolina. Their chief wealth was "in their own capacity to manufacture what they needed. When the goods brought with them began to wear out, the blacksmith built his forge, the weaver set up his loom, and the tailor brought out his goose. A tannery was built on the nearest stream and mills for grinding the wheat and corn were erected on the swift water courses. Saw mills were set up, and logs were turned into plank. The women not only made their own dresses but the material as well, spinning the wool and afterwards the cotton into lindsey and checks and dying it according to the individual taste. * *
In other words the people were an industrial as well as an indus- trious people." 5
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4 Smyth : A Tour in the United States of America, Vol. I. p. 214.
5 The Scotch-Irish in North Carolina. (N. C. Booklet, Vol. IV. No. 11, pp. 15-16.)
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They were all farmers who owned few slaves and as a rule tilled the soil themselves. A traveller who had traversed the entire length of the State from Edenton to Wachovia makes this interesting observation: "The moment I touched the boundary of the Moravians, I noticed a marked and most fa- vorable change in the appearance of buildings and farms; and even the cattle seemed larger, and in better condition. Here, in combined and well-directed effort, all put shoulders to the wheel, which apparently moves on oily springs. We passed in our ride New Garden, a settlement of Quakers from Nan- tucket. They, too, were exemplary and industrious. The gen- erality of the planters in this State depend upon negro labor and live scantily in a region of affluence. In the possessions of the Moravians and Quakers all labor is performed by the whites. Every farm looks neat and cheerful; the dwellings are tidy and well furnished, abounding in plenty." }
As a rule the English planters of the East called them- selves Churchmen. In 1765 Tryon wrote, "Every sect. of religion abounds here except the Roman Catholic, *
% * though the Church of England I reckon at present to have the majority of all other sects." Its numerical superiority, however, was not the measure of its influence. The Church in North Carolina paid the penalty of all organizations which enjoy the legal support and patronage of government. Be- sides those who were Churchmen from religious convictions, the rolls of the Church included others, perhaps even more numerous, who called themselves Churchmen from political, business, or social reasons. Nominally members of the Estab- lishment, they were without serious religious convictions of any sort, and contributed nothing to the real welfare of the Church, to which their membership was rather a hindrance than an aid. On the other hand, those who became members of the dissenting denominations did so from genuine religious convictions and were fired with fervor and zeal in the propa- gation of their faith. Consequently the religious history of North Carolina in colonial times is of interest and significance less on account of the Established Church than for the growth and contributions of the dissenting denominations.
The royal authorities were even more determined upon a legal establishment than the proprietary authorities had been. It was, indeed, difficult for statesmen of the eighteenth century to think of a monarchy without an established church; the
6 Watson, Elkanah : Men and Times of the Revolution, p. 293.
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epigram of James I, "No bishop, no king," seemed to them to express the true relation between the Church and the State. Consequently we find that under the royal administration emphatic instructions were issued to each governor command- ing him to secure the necessary legislation for the support of the Church. Burrington failed in his efforts, not because of the influence of the dissenting interests, which were small at that time, but because of his utter inability to act harmoni- ously on any public matter with the representatives of the people. His successor, Johnston, was more successful. In 1739, Johnston reported that there were but two places in the province at which divine services were regularly held, and as a zealous Churchman he lamented "the deplorable and almost total want of divine worship throughout the province," which he thought was "really scandalous" and a reproach which the Assembly "ought to remove without loss of time." The As- sembly in 1741, therefore, passed a vestry act which proved, however, to be ineffective. In 1748 Governor Johnston wrote that "a Multitude of children are unbaptized" along the Cape Fear for "the want of a Minister [which] is very sensibly felt in that large District;" while about the same time Rev. James Moir declared that many people were becoming Baptists for lack of clergymen of the Church of England to minister to their religious needs.
In 1754 Governor Dobbs secured a more satisfactory act, but the Crown repealed it by proclamation because it con- ferred the right of presentation upon the vestries. "This was the beginning," says Doctor Weeks, "of a triangular fight between Dissenters, democratic Churchmen, and supporters of the rights of the Crown. The ecclesiastical history of the next ten years is of interest chiefly because of the stubborn resistance to the enforcement of church laws by the Dissent- ers, the stubborn determination of the Churchmen to have an establishment with the right of presentation, and the steady opposition of the Crown to both parties."7 The Crown re- pealed vestry acts passed in 1758, 1760, 1761 and 1762 on the ground that the right of presentation by vestries was "incom- patible with the rights of the Crown and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction." These quarrels were of course injurious to the real interest of the Church. They left the clergy without sup- port, and their number began to decrease. In 1764 Dobbs stated that there were only six orthodox clergymen in the
7 Church and State in North Carolina, pp. 32-33.
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colony, "four of which," he added, "are pious and perform their duty." Under Tryon and Martin the situation showed a marked improvement. The number of clergymen increased to eighteen; the vestry act passed in 1764 for five years was renewed in 1768 for another five, and in 1774 for ten years, "the longest existence that ever was allowed to any vestry act in this province." Commenting on this renewal, Rev. James Reed, the missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at New Bern, said: "I sincerely wish the period had been shorter, or indefinite for there is the greatest prob- ability that in ten years the dissenting interest will be strong enough to carry everything in the Assembly, and that the Vestry Act will then receive its quietus." But the vestry act, and with it the Established Church, was not to receive its "quietus" from the dissenting interests in the Assembly. Both went down along with other monarchical institutions, before the revolutionary movement of 1776, for when the con- vention of that year came to adopt a constitution for the newly independent State, Churchmen joined with Dissenters in inserting a section prohibiting the "Establishment of any one religious Church or Denomination in this State in Prefer- ence to any other."
In 1760, Rev. James Reed lamented the fact that a "great number of Dissenters of all denominations" had settled in North Carolina, mentioning especially Quakers, Presby- terians, Baptists and Methodists. First in point of time were the Quakers. Since the visits of Edmundson and Fox to North Carolina, the Quakers had grown rapidly in numbers. Prior to 1700 their efforts were directed chiefly to securing a foot -. hold; their growth came after that date. In the eastern sec- tion of the colony it was the result of expansion among the native population, in the back country it was due to immigra- tion. In 1729 Governor Everard attributed the growth of Quakerism to the absence of clergymen of the Established Church. Four years later, Governor Burrington gave another reason,-"the regularity of their lives, hospitality to strangers, and kind offices to new settlers," he wrote, "induc- ing many to be of their persuasion." To these causes may be added the zeal of their missionaries who in 1729, wrote Everard, were "very busy making Proselytes and holding meetings daily in every Part of this Government." Doctor Weeks records the visits to North Carolina between 1700 and 1729 of seventeen missionaries, three of whom were women.
In 1700 the Society was confined largely to Perquimans and
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Pasquotank precincts. It began to cross the Albemarle Sound about 1703 and by the middle of the century had planted itself in many of the precincts of Bath County. When the colony was transferred to the Crown, the Quakers were "consider- able for their numbers and substance." Under the royal government the Society continued to grow in Eastern Caro- lina, but not very rapidly. Missionaries came in, held meet- ings wherever they could secure a group of people, and or- ganized several monthly meetings. Monthly meetings were established in Carteret in 1733, in Dobbs in 1748, and in North- ampton in 1760. In Northampton and other counties.border- ing on Virginia the growth was due chiefly to the overflow from Virginia, but in the other counties it was the natural expansion of the native element. "For as this country was at first settled in a great measure by Baptists and Quakers," wrote William Orr, a missionary of the Society for the Propa- gation of the Gospel, in 1742, "so their descendants (though they come to church now and then) yet they still retain, and are more or less under the influence of their Fathers' Prin- ciples."
The planting and growth of Quakerism in the back coun- try was due not to expansion from within but to immigration from without. Quaker immigrants, chiefly from Pennsyl- vania, began to come about 1740 and soon spread over the territory now embraced in Alamance, Chatham, Guilford, Randolph, and Surry counties. They were a strong and healthy race and their presence added to the population of the colony a stable element characterized by thrift, industry and energy. In 1751 the Cane Creek Monthly Meeting was organ- ized in what is now Alamance County. Three years later the famous New Garden Monthly Meeting, the mother of many others, was organized. From New Garden most of the meet- ings in that section of the State took their rise. Although the Quakers increased in numbers after the transfer of the colony to the Crown, comparatively they lost ground. Says their leading historian, Doctor Weeks: "The promise of an aggressive and rapid growth in the youth of Quakerism was not fulfilled in its maturer years. This promise was particu- larly clear in North Carolina. During the seventeenth century the records show that the Society in that colony was quietly but steadily extending its outposts and was being strength- ened by immigration and conversion. To such an extent was this true, that in 1716 Rev. Giles Rainsford writes to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel that the ‘poor Vol. I-13
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colony of North Carolina will soon be overrun with Quakerism and infidelity if not timely prevented by your sending over able and sober missionaries as well as schoolmasters to reside among them.' But this almost phenomenal growth of the native element ceased soon after the Established Church be- came well organized. Quakers never played in North Caro- lina under royal government the part they had played under the government of the Proprietors. The Revolu- tion, like the Civil War, was a time of suffering to the Quakers. Many left their ranks and were disowned to take part in the struggle for liberty, and the Society was much depleted." 8
"The Presbyterians," wrote Tryon in 1765, "are settled mostly in the back or westward counties," that is to say in the sections of the colony settled by the Scotch-Irish and Scotch-Highlanders. Presbyterianism as an organized reli- gion was introduced into North Carolina by the Scotch and a brief account of its introduction has been given elsewhere in this volume. The earliest Presbyterian settlements in North Carolina were those made in 1736 on the McCulloh grants in Duplin and New Hanover counties. More than twenty years passed before a Presbyterian clergyman was regularly settled in the colony, but Presbyterian missionaries began to make periodical visits as early as 1742, and in 1744 sup- plications were sent from North Carolina to the Synod of Philadelphia. In 1755 came Hugh McAden, a truly great mis- sionary, who did more, perhaps, than any other person to establish Presbyterianism on a firm foundation in North Carolina. Traversing almost the entire length and breadth of the province, from the Catawba on the west to the Neuse and the Pamlico on the east, from the Roanoke on the north to the Cape Fear on the south, he visited places on the extreme fron- tier where not only "never any of our missionaries have been," but where the voice of a Christian minister had never before been heard, and preached in private houses, in court- houses, in churches and chapels, under the trees of the forest, wherever, indeed, he could gather two or three together. Scotch, Germans and English, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Quakers and Churchmen, and "irregular" people who knew "but little about the principles of any religion," all flocked eagerly to hear him. He began his great missionary tour in North Carolina on April 3, 1755 and brought it to a close on
8 Southern Quakers and Slavery, pp. 124-25.
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May 6, 1756, and all along his route left Presbyterian com- munities firmly established.
As a result of McAden's labors many supplications went up from North Carolina to the Synod of Philadelphia. In 1757 came Rev. James Campbell, the first Presbyterian min- ister to serve a regular pastorate in North Carolina. He set- tled on the Cape Fear, a few miles above Cross Creek, where for a decade or more he served three churches. In 1758, Rev. Alexander Craighead, the first Presbyterian minister in West- ern North Carolina, accepted a call to Sugar Creek Church in what is now Mecklenburg County, and from 1758 to 1766, was the only minister in all the region between the Yadkin and the Catawba. Following McAden, Campbell and Craighead, came Henry Patillo, who in 1765 accepted a call to Hawfields, Eno, and Little River churches in Orange County; David Caldwell, more famous as a teacher than as a preacher, who in 1765 became pastor of Alamance and Buffalo churches in Guilford County ; and others scarcely less distinguished in the religious history of North Carolina. In 1776 the Presbyterian churches of the Carolinas had been organized into the Orange Pres- bytery, with eight members in North Carolina and four in South Carolina. Foote records the names of eight ministers who were then regular pastors of Presbyterian congregations in North Carolina.
Perhaps the most aggressive of the colonial missionaries were those of the Baptist faith. Individual Baptists were found in North Carolina as early as 1695, but whence they came, or in what numbers is not known. The first Baptist congregation organized in the colony was at Shiloh in what is now Camden County. It was organized by Paul Palmer in 1727. Governor Everard writing in 1729, says: "Quakers and Baptists flourish amongst the No. Carolinians * OW- ing to the want of Clergymen amongst us. * Both Quakers and Baptists in this vacancy are very busy making Proselytes and holding meetings daily in every Part of this Government. when I first came here, there was no Dissenters but Quakers in the Government and now by the means of one Paul Palmer the Baptist Teacher, he has gained hundreds." By this time too Joseph and William Parker had organized the Meherrin Church. Fired with missionary zeal and finding a fertile field for their work, the Baptists pushed it with vigor and success. In 1742 William Sojourner or- ganized the Kehukee Association in Halifax County, and from this center radiated influences which were quickly ex-
6
1755
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tended into all the counties along the Roanoke from Bertie and Hertford on the east to Granville on the west, and as far south as Bladen County. In 1775 came Shubal Stearn of Bos- ton, who erected a meeting-house on Sandy Creek in Guilford County. Under Stearn's pastorship the congregation flour- ished, great crowds coming for many miles and from all direc- tions to hear him preach. Within less than three years the membership of his congregation had grown to more than nine hundred. By 1776 the Baptists had become a power in the colony, having established at least one church in every county. It is estimated that they then had forty congregations with many branches which afterwards developed into independent churches.
The introduction of the German Reformed, the Lutheran, and the Moravian churches into North Carolina was coinci- dent with the coming of German settlers. It is strange that, except the Moravians, none of these German immigrants, although of a deeply religious nature, brought regular pastors with them, and that many years passed before congregations were regularly organized and pastors installed. The Re- formed and Lutheran churches were closely allied and many of their early churches were union churches. Missionaries of course came and went, but it was not until 1768 that a regular German Reformed pastor came and not until 1773 that the Lutherans had a regular pastor. In 1768, Rev. Samuel Suther, a Reformed preacher, settled in Mecklenburg County. He was an indefatigable worker and to him is chiefly due the organiza- tion of most of the Reformed congregations prior to 1776. The mother churches of the North Carolina Lutherans are St. John's, established in 1768 at Salisbury, Zion, commonly called "Organ Church," on Second Creek in Rowan County, and St. John's, founded in 1771, on Buffalo Creek in what is now Cabarrus County. "The pioneer minister of the Luth- eran Church in the province of North Carolina" was Adolphus Nussman, who came thither from Germany in 1773. Nuss- man was accompanied by J. Gottlieb Arndt who came as a . schoolmaster, but on August 22, 1775, at "Organ Church," was ordained to the ministry. He was "the first Lutheran minister ever ordained in North Carolina." Suther, Nussman and Arndt worked in practically the same territory, from Mecklenburg and Rowan on the west to Orange on the east, ministering to Reformed and Lutherans alike. Unlike the other German settlers the Moravians brought ministers with them. First in the list of the twelve brethren who came in
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