USA > North Carolina > Craven County > New Bern > History of the Presbyterian church in New Bern, N.C. : with a resume? of early ecclesiastical affairs in eastern North Carolina, and a sketch of the early days of New Bern, N.C > Part 2
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An occasional minister of the Church of England was sent to Carolina, and remained a short time, but none before 1700. Several were so utterly unworthy that great harm resulted.
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NORTH CAROLINA.
Dr. Hawks, himself a New Bernian and an Episcopalian, says, that in the Proprietary times the Episcopal Church was a "helpless victim, dragged into an unnatural association with the dirty strifes of still dirtier parties, mixed up with the law- less deeds of clamorous and drunken partizans." Undoubtedly religion in Eastern Carolina was at a low ebb from lack of stated ministers, regular church services, and secular schools.
Judge Martin says that, at the opening of the eighteenth century, the population of the colony was composed of differ. ent nationalities and various sects-Scotch Presbyterians, Dutch Lutherans, French Calvinists, Irish Catholics, English Church- men, Quakers and Dissenters, emigrants from Bermuda and the West Indies. And while the first settlers preserved some sense of religion, the next generation, reared in the wilderness, where divine service was hardly ever performed, was lament- ably degenerate in religious principle and practice. At this juncture, Governor Johnston arrived, and under the influence of Lord Granville, now Palatine of Carolina, made the de- termined and partially successful effort-hereafter referred to- for establishing and sustaining by law the Church of England.
uakers.
To the honest Quakers belongs the high honor of holding the first formal religious service in this colony, and organizing the first religious government. Churchmen in Virginia and Puritans in Massachusetts had caused them to fly the pillory, the cart-tail and the bloody knout. Historians have generally affirmed that thus many Quakers early fled for a quiet retreat to Eastern Carolina. In 1709, they themselves claimed that they : were the first settlers. It is altogether probable that some Quakers were among the very first to enter Albemarle from Nansemond, Virginia. There is nothing, however, to show that large numbers came. Most information yet accessible is from the brief journals of Edmundson and Fox .* In 1672, William Edmundson, an eminent English Quaker, was sent by George Fox from Maryland, where they had recently arrived,
* Colonial Records, i., 215, 216, 226, 250, 571, 686, &c.
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QUAKERS.
to North Carolina. Accompanied by two friends, after a dis- tressing journey of two days through a wilderness, with no English inhabitants, and no path-ways, he reached "the place where we intended, viz., Henry Phillip's house, by Albemarle River" (Perquimon's River, says Martin). "He and his wife had been convinced of the truth in New England, and came here to live; and not having seen a Friend for seven years be- fore, they wept for joy to see us." Phillips and his wife were the only two Friends he mentions meeting in this brief visit of three days. Warmly welcomed, he here celebrated the first public rites of Christian worship in Carolina. Others now re- ceived the truth, and were enrolled at this meeting on the Lord's day, and another held on the morrow at Justice Tems. Many attended the services. They had little or no religion, or sense of the proprieties of divine worship, for they sat smoking their pipes ; but the Word of God was with power on their hearts.
In the Fall of the same year, the distinguished George Fox made a preaching tour of eighteen days in the Albemarle re- gion; but Edmundson was not with him, as Dr. Hawks states. Fox, the envoy of humanity, with the charming simplicity of Solon and Thales, travelled with Governor Stevens on foot through the ancient woods-the trees being blazed to mark the roads between the sparse settlements,-or was guided by others in canoes towards "the north part of Carolina," and making a little entrance for the truth there and among the Indians, returned to Bonner's (Bennet's) Creek, where the horses had been left. The people were "tender and much desired after meetings," "and they were taken with the truth." As he "opened many things concerning the light and Spirit of God that is in every one," his eloquence reached the hearts of these hermits of the woods, and impressed them anew with the value of their heritage of freedom of conscience, and of the truth of God with benevolent reason to guide them in the happy paths of hospitality, virtue and piety, that are still trodden by their children in the old North State. As this venerable apostle of humanity and equality was closing his exile on earth to go home, his vivid memory recalled such episodes of the forest
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NORTH CAROLINA.
glades, and his last words were, "Mind poor Friends in Amer- ica." How beautiful his brief epitaph by his peer, William Penn, "Many sons have done virtuously in this day, but, dear George, thou excellest them all !"
In 1676, Edmundson " was moved of the Lord to go to Car- olina " on a second visit. His short journal of the trip ends thus: "I had several precious meetings in that colony, and several turned to the Lord. People were tender and loving, and there was no room for the priests, for Friends were finely settled, and I left things well among them." . While in 1672, neither of these preachers met all the Quakers in the province, it seems certain they were not numerous. Considerable growth had occurred before Edmundson's return. In the Shaftesbury papers, in the British Public Record Office, is a remonstrance, sent to the Lords Proprietors, and signed by twenty-one Quakers, some of whom were prominent men, members of the Assembly. Most of them had been living in Carolina since 1663 and 1664, and they were vindicating themselves as "a separated people, who are in scorn called Quakers," but had " stood single from all seditious actions in Albemarle," in 1677. They and others may have entered Carolina as Friends. In later years, Thomas Story, an English Quaker, and Gover- nor Archdale, also one, increased greatly the influence of the body. Henderson Walker, who was at different times member, clerk and President of council, Attorney-General and acting Governor, says, in a letter to the Bishop of London in 1703, "We have been settled near fifty years in this place" (Caro- lina), "and, I may justly say, most part of twenty-one years, on my own knowledge, without priest or altar, and before that time, according to all that appears to me, much worse. George Fox, some years ago, came into these parts, and, by. strange in- fatuations, did infuse the Quaker principles into some small number of people, which did and hath continued to grow ever since very numerous, by reason of their yearly sending in men to encourage and to exhort them to their wicked principles." They fortunately continued to grow, and formed the nucleus around which gathered mainly friends of liberty and foes to a
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GENERAL CHARACTER.
Church establishment. In these early days Dissenters outnum- bered Episcopalians. There are not many Churchmen recorded as coming to the communion of the Lord's Supper-even Colonel Pollock was sluggish about it. In 1708, Rev. James Adams an- grily wrote that the Quakers, " though not the seventh part of the inhabitants," in conjunction with the Presbyterians, controlled the government, and absolutely turned out patriots, because they were Churchmen, that "shoemakers and other mechanics should be appointed in their room, merely because they are Quaker preachers and notorious blasphemers of the Church !" Dr. Hawks estimates that, in 1710, the Quakers composed about one-half of the Albemarle settlement, and that the whole popu- lation of the province was not seven thousand. From these Quakers has come valuable Presbyterian stock.
Martin (I., p. 155) says that before Edmundson left, he es- tablished a quarterly meeting in Berkley for proper govern- ment and discipline. Of the eight Quarterly Meetings, which constitute the present North Carolina Yearly Meeting, four were established, as follows: in 1689, 1759, 1780 and 1790. The others arose in this century. At present the Quakers in this State number about 5,000, and are most valuable citizens. In colonial days they were not as quiet as their principles re- quired, and doubtless troublous times brought insincere acces- sions to their ranks. They were not perfect, neither were the Churchmen or others who roundly abused them. At first their strength lay chiefly in Perquimons and Pasquotank; but they multiplied and spread. When Judge Iredell, as a young man, came from England to North Carolina, in 1768, he was com- mended by his relative, Henry E. McCulloch, to a prominent and substantial Quaker merchant, named Williams, in New Bern, "who will supply you with what money you want, and show you every civility."*
General Character.
Of the settlers for the first hundred years, it may be said, there were many highly educated citizens scattered throughout
* Life of Iredell, Vol. I., 21.
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NORTH CAROLINA.
the province, who lived with considerable style and refinement. Sturdy, honest and hospitable agriculturalists gathered around themselves elements of large future development, and their premises showed industry and care. Yet there was a vast amount of ignorance, and perhaps even prejudice, against learn- ing. Many were very lazy and shiftless, and there were some transported criminals, and some fugitives from justice. But so scattered was the population that it was extremely difficult to organize either churches or schools, and there were few of either .* Ignorance and lack of religious culture and social in- tercourse ensure narrow views and dangerous degeneration. It is not surprising that we read such contemporary statements as this, written by Rev. Peter Fontaine in a private letter, 17th April, 1754, about North Carolina: "They have no established laws, and very little of the Gospel, in that whole colony." He had two married nephews living then in New Bern, with whom he was in communication, and whom he was begging to move "where they may be under the protection of the laws as to property, and have their children educated in the fear of God." The nephews did not emigrate, but bought considerable pro- perty in New Bern, which I have traced out and identified, as that in part, upon which now stand the residences of Messrs. James Bryan and C. E. Foy, and the Roman Catholic Church. Middle and Western North Carolina were filling up, and the stock, though neglected, was good, and improvement was be- ginning. "Sombre enthusiasm and iron-hearted ambition," royal looseness and luxury, and too large a measure of religious narrowness, had characterized the past age, and yielded a strange medley in public and private history. Yet in these secluded plains and sylvan retreats, a subtle transformation was going on, and a light kindling, whose result was a people cau- tious, but not stolid, with simple tastes, but clear and inflexible opinions, with no fabulous wealth, but comforts and self-re-
* In 1736, Governor Johnston deplored before the Legislature in Edenton the sad lack of schools and churches. Some of the wealthy citizens sent their sons to be educated in England, or at William and Mary in Virginia, or Princeton in New Jersey.
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RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
liance, with unquenchable love of liberty, unflinching bravery, and tender hearts freely opened to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus, whenever brought to them in public by the godly, though in- frequent herald of the cross.
Religious Liberty.
Some misunderstanding has existed, through a spirit of con- troversy or otherwise, about the posture of ecclesiastical af- fairs in colonial times. With a great blare of trumpets, the Lords Proprietors professed, in settling North Carolina, to have pious zeal for Christ's cause in the conversion of the heathen natives. But Oldmixon, a distinguished English au- thor, who died in 1742, says that the only instruction which the Indians received, previous to 1701, was from a French dancing master, who settled in Craven County, and taught the natives to dance and play upon the lute. Certainly very little attention was given to the conversion of the Indians. A few were taught in Chowan parish. This illustrates the complexion of the charter piety. Religious liberty, or rather toleration as to conscience and worship, was guaranteed to all comers, even heathen, but under restrictions-not expressed in the charters- but to be regulated by the Lords Proprietors, with the Parlia- ment and Crown, however, still holding supervisory power. So it may be denied that the Episcopal Church ever was fully es- tablished here in exactly the same manner as in England, or that it was pecuniarily supported by the English. Parliament. Yet English funds, through the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel," and from private sources in England, were en- listed in its maintenance. Further, it seems to be certain, from the best authorities, that, unless for a short time in the early proprietary period, the Episcopal Church was never in the nu- merical majority in the colony as a whole, but it had prominent and zealous adherents and leaders, like Mosely, Gales, the Pol- locks, and generally the deputies of the Lords Proprietors, and the Governors, and this naturally gave many advantages and increased influence and power to the weaker party.
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NORTH CAROLINA.
An Established Church.
The Church of England was the established Church of the colony. It is folly to fence against this fact by alleging that the only effective act establishing the Church was that of 1765, under Governor Tryon. That act would probably have fared worse than its predecessors in a few years. Now, unquestion- ably both charters of Charles II., and Locke's Constitutions, in section 96, added by the Lords Proprietors, regarded the Church of England as the establishment in the Carolinas .* Indeed, there was apparently a common sentiment among Christians, that there ought to be some legal establishment of the Christian religion in any State, as to its fundamental prin- ciples, and as against the Papal claims; and the Thirty-nine Articles of the English Church, with a few excluded, were generally considered as a satisfactory exposition. But outside of Episcopalians and Papists, there was just as unanimous op- position to establishing any special church with any peculiar privileges. This is clear from the instructions given to the Mecklenburg delegates to the Provincial Convention in 1775, that they were to "consent to the establishment of the Chris- tian religion, as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and more briefly comprised in the Thirty- nine Articles of the Church of England" (with specified ex- clusions), "and clearly held forth in the Confession of Faith compiled by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster," etc. They were further "instructed to oppose to the utmost any particular church, or set of clergymen, being invested with power to decree rites and ceremonies," etc .; . . . "to oppose : the establishment of any mode of worship to be supported," etc. ; . "to oppose the toleration of Popish idolatrous worship." By this time Episcopalians themselves were uniting with their fellow Christians of other churches in determination to secure both civil and religious liberty. So it is said that Churchmen joined with Dissenters in the Halifax Convention
* Hawks, Vol. II., pp. 166, 190, 357, 506, &c. ; Bancroft, II., 150; Colonial Records, Vol. I., 202, &c.
:
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AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
of 1776, which established the State of North Carolina, in throttling a proposition, introduced by an Episcopalian, to re- cognize in some form Episcopal doctrines.
Now, though in a large minority, the Episcopal faction suc- ceeded, by astute management, as early as 1701, in passing an act, regarded as oppressive and tyrannical, establishing by ex- plicit colonial legislation their church. This act was in force only two years, having been repealed on an appeal to England. In 1704, the famous, or rather, the infamous, act establishing the Church of England in South Carolina, was obtained by Governor Johnston, according to Dr. Hawks, by "political trickery " and "dexterous management of the rulers," against the wishes of the people. Governor Johnston's deputy, Daniel, following his instructions, " by his address and skilful political manipulation," secured the passage of a similar law by the Al- bemarle Legislature for North Carolina. It is only necessary to examine, in a revisal of the laws of North Carolina by Davis or Martin, the Acts in 1715, 1741, 1754, 1759, 1764-'5, to learn the unquestionable fact, that a fixed and persistent effort was never relaxed to fasten on an unwilling people, by effective legislation, an Episcopal establishment with an adequate sup- port by taxation. How often was the endeavor made by va- rious legislation to estop the divers evasions of the Vestry Acts ! Taxes were imposed for purchasing ample glebes, building comfortable churches, and paying stipends to ministers, all of the establishment. By a bare majority-obtained with dif- ficulty-dissenters were disfranchised by requiring members of the Legislature to conform to the worship of the Church of England, and to receive the communion after its rules .* In the "Collections of the Historical Society of South Carolina," is this illustrative statement, from an address by James Lewis Pettigru: "The elective franchise was liberally diffused; but the test and corporation acts guarded with jealousy the steps of the provincial assembly, as they did those of the imperial par-
* Some, however, think this provision prevailed in South Carolina only ; but in Daniel's time all holding any place of trust or profit were required to take certain purging oaths. Bancroft, iii. 21; Martin, i. 217-223 ; Hawks, ii. 166, 190, 358, 506-512 ; Williamson, i. 158, 167, etc. ; Moore, 51.
2
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NORTH CAROLINA.
liament; and the avenues to office were closed to all but the dominant sect. This state of things existed until 1778,-a le- gislative fact strangely ignored in the voluminous collection of Cooper." A similar spirit was abroad in this province.
Through the kindness of Col. W. L. Saunders, Secretary of State of North Carolina, I have carefully examined the advance (proof) sheets of the invaluable "Colonial Records," now in press under his care, as far as November, 1718. The records of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, addresses and memorials to Parliament and to others, the minutes of the Chowan Vestries from 1701, Col. Pollock's letter-book, records of courts, and a vast variety of other heretofore hidden docu- ments, all confirm these statements. Here we get the exact date of the early and, perhaps, first act of Assembly for estab- lishing religious worship, vestries, churches, and glebes, by public taxation, viz .: November 12, 1701 .* An insight is ob- tained into the spirit and character of the colonists, and the working of the early Proprietary legislation before we have public official records. The support for the clergy was both meagre and reluctant; often withheld. Their complaints were loud, lacking in grace, frequently bitter and unreasonable be- cause of their own conduct. One writes: "I never received the value of a Bushel of Corn since I was concerned here, but what I got by weddings. . .. The difficulties I have gone through are almost inexpressible, and one distemper or another, like the Thunder and Lightning, continually disturbing me." Another says: "I did once hope to have Pork and Bacon of my own, but shall not have a morsel save wheat I feed with In- dian Corn, which is very scarce with me. I have not enough to keep me with Bread six months-no Beef, Butter or Cheese, no fat to butter one nor make soap, no Tallow to make me a few candles, so that we shall have a tedious winter long and Dark nights, hungry bellies, and dirty linen. I have nothing to buy with, let one's wants be what they will; swamp water goes down worse in Winter than in Summer. . . . 'Tis strange living when a man is continually cracking his Brains how to get a Belly full of meat." Again, "I have had no
* Vol. i., 543.
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AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH.
Beef in my house these six months nor anything else save fat pork and that almost gone. I got by chance a barrel which has been in salt 18 months; it is profitable victuals, a little goes a great way : I have no other eatables; Peas and Beans I am like to have some but neither Bacon or Butter to eat with them-Jovial living. . . If I must linger out my days here I must have a couple of Negroes and a woman all born among the English, the woman used to house-work. . . I went this winter 7 times to the Church in the neighborhood (¿ e that is four miles distance) and met not a congregation ; so indifferent are our Gentry in their Religion they had rather never come to church than be obliged to pay me anything, they cannot endure the thoughts of it."* Yet the Rev. William Gordon says himself, in 1709, that troubles arose from the "ill example and imprudent behaviour of the ministers."
The Church of England was claimed emphatically and com- monly as established by law, and entitled to support by the general public. While some of these preachers of Proprietary days were good men, and did, or meant to do, a fair work in a hard field; yet the general impression about their labors, from extant documents, is not very favorable. They were im- pelled by a burning agony to baptize the children, that the people might be kept from becoming heathens and infidels. One would almost infer that infant baptism was the prime ob- ject of Christ's mission on earth. Sharpest comment is made on the people's "obstinate aversion to god-fathers and god- mothers; neither sense nor reason could prevail with them." What reprobates! What reason could they give? "There- fore, in anywise will not have their children baptized others think nobody more fit than their parents; to tell them of the orders of the Church avails not they'll not hearken to the or- dinances of man but will have express scripture for all they are to do or observe." This looks like the people were sensible, and that the preacher thought of something else more than of God's Word. Governor Eden, in 1716-'17, testified that the people "are not so black as they have been painted," but would be
* Vol. ii., 54, 248, 279, etc.
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NORTH CAROLINA.
found well enough inclined if the ministers "are gentlemen of good lives and affable behaviour and conversation." Here was another proof that the majority of the population was opposed to the Established Church, as is positively declared in a formal address to the Parliament in England in 1705 .*
In Rowan County, about 1764-'5 probably, a petition was sent to the Governor, Council and Burgesses, in which "the pe- titioners complain, that his majesty's most dutiful and loyal sub- jects in this county, who adhere to the liturgy and profess the doctrines of the Church of England, as by law established, have not the privileges which the rubrick and canons of the Church allow and enjoin on all its members." They recite the fact that the inhabitants hold a "medlay of most of the religious tenets" in the world, and "from dread of submitting to the na- tional Church," refuse to elect a lawful vestry, who will take the oaths; "whence we can never expect the regular enlivening beams of the Holy Gospel to shine upon us." So they pray for compulsion of this unwilling multitude, that the godly seed may get an Episcopal Church, under the provision of what William- son terms a "shameful law," (Vol. ii., 118,) and a system which Hawks characterizes as "infatuated folly," and kindling "the torch of discord" (ii., 506). Now, Williamson says, "There were thirty-four subscribers to this petition; six of them made their marks, and some of the other signatures are hardly legi- ble. When thirty-four such persons could propose that six or seven hundred should be taxed for their accommodation, they certainly hud need of the Gospel that teaches humility." The largest supposition made by a recent historiant of Rowan . County is, that the adherents of the Established Church may have been one-third of the whole population. Evidently Dr. Williamson, writing within a few years of the time when the petition was presented, did not estimate them as so many.
Continual resistance was made to these acts. Appeals were sent to England, and time and again, after long delays, they were pronounced illegal, and quashed; but the attempts were
* Colonial Records, Vol. i., pp. 543, 559, 571, 601, 636-'9, 714, 767, etc.
t Rumple's Rowan, p. 383 ; Williamson, ii., 258.
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1
NORTH-CAROLINA, ff.
Måns
gryon,
John. Nawho
HIS EXCELLENCY
WILLIAM TRYON, Efq; Captain-General, Governor and Com- mander in Chief, in and over his Maj- efty's Province of North-Carolina.
To any Orthodox MINISTER of the Church of England, or for Want thereof, to any regular licenced Minifter of the diffent- ing Presbyterian Clergy, or lawful Magiftrate within the fame. Greeting ..
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