USA > North Carolina > Lives of the bishops of North Carolina from the establishment of the episcopate in that state down to the division of the diocese > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22
The above is a fairly good showing of the virtue of patriotism for one Church-and especially so for one which has sometimes been charged with being so much wedded to English ideals and institutions as to render itself un-American.
* The Church for Americans, by the Right Reverend William Mont- gomery Brown (edition of 1899), pp. 378-379.
32
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
Of course a communion with so numerous a membership as was possessed by the Church of England in the thirteen colonies was not without active partisans on both sides in the Revolu- tion, and one Loyalist who rose to eminence in the Church after the war was the Right Reverend Samuel Seabury, Bishop of Connecticut and first in the succession of the American Episco- pate. At one time he had been Chaplain of "the King's Ameri- can Regiment," commanded by Colonel Edmund Fanning, form- erly of North Carolina. Doctor Scabury was elected Bishop of Connecticut by the clergy of that State on March 25, 1783, and was directed to proceed to England for the purpose of seeking consecration; in the event that his mission to England should be unsuccessful, he was instructed to go to Scotland and ask the successors of the Non-juring Bishops in that country to perform the rite. These Bishops in Scotland were of the same line of succession as were the Bishops of the Church of England; but the Scotch branch of the Church had no standing under the civil law because the Bishops, through whom its line came, had refused to swear allegiance to William and Mary after the Eng- lish Revolution of 16SS. For this reason it was also sometimes called the Jacobite Church. When Doctor Seabury appeared in England, the Bishops of the English Church were willing to comply with the wishes of their fellow-churchmen in America, and would have done so but for an act of Parliament which re- quired that a candidate for consecration to a Bishopric should swear allegiance to the King. Of course such an oath was out of the question with a citizen of an independent American State, even though this citizen may once have been a Loyalist; so Doctor Seabury went to Scotland, where he was made a Bishop at Aberdeen on November 14, 1784, by Bishops Kilgour, Petrie and Skinner, of the above-mentioned Church of Scotland. Shortly after Bishop Seabury returned to his Diocese of Connec- ticut, Parliament passed an act authorizing the consecration of foreign Bishops without requiring of them the oath of allegiance. This left the way open for other Americans who had been
33
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
elected to Bishoprics ; so the Reverend William White, of Penn- sylvania, and the Reverend Samuel Provoost, of New York, then crossed the seas to England, and in the Chapel of Lambeth Palace, on the 4th of February, 1787, were duly consecrated by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishop of Peter- borough, and the Bishop of Bath and Wells. A few years later, on September 19, 1790, in the same chapel at Lambeth, the Rev- erend James Madison was consecrated Bishop of Virginia by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the Bishop of Rochester. The first consecration in America, and the only one at which Bishop Seabury ever officiated, was when the Reverend Thomas John Claggett was raised to the Episco- pate as Bishop of Maryland, by Bishops Seabury, White, Pro- voost, and Madison, on September 17, 1792. Thus the two temporarily divided lines of apostolic succession-the English through White, Provoost, and Madison, and the Scotch through Seabury-were united in forming the present Episcopate of the United States, for every Bishop in the American Church of to-day traces his Episcopal descent from Bishop Claggett, as well as from the other Bishops above enumerated. White was one of the consecrators of Bishop Ravenscroft, on May 22, 1823; he also aided in consecrating Bishop Ives, September 22, 1831. Some years later, on October 17, 1853, visiting English Bishops were among the consecrators of Bishop Atkinson. So the Epis- copate in North Carolina has a very short descent from, and close relationship with, the Mother Church of Old England.
1910112
Bishop Ravenscroft.
#
JOHN STARK RAVENSCROFT, FIRST BISHOP OF NORTH CAROLINA.
On the roll of eminent prelates whose labors have gone far toward upbuilding the American Episcopal Church, few names stand out in bolder relief than that of the Right Reverend JOHN STARK RAVENSCROFT, S. T. D., first Bishop of North Carolina and twentieth in the succession of the American Episcopate. In his day and generation he was a strong power for promoting the spread of Christianity throughout North Carolina. Nor were his achievements confined to one diocese, for under his influence were raised up at least five future Bishops and innumerable other clergy whose evangelical labors bore rich fruitage in those earlier times, and are even now felt throughout countless locali- ties in the Southern and Western States of the American Union, as well as elsewhere. Hence in many quarters, where the name of this great Bishop is comparatively unknown, his labors are still indirectly having their effect, and will so continue till the end of time. How marvelously potent, for good or evil, can the influence of one man be made upon future generations !
To gather up the remnants of the Church of England in North Carolina and transmit its doctrines unimpaired to future times was the great work of Bishop Ravenscroft's life-a life of heroic self-sacrifices and toilsome privations throughout his en- tire ministry, and one which is well worthy of study by those who admire the virtues he exemplified. He was born on the 17th day of May, 1772, in Prince George County, Virginia, and belonged to a family of high social station and some wealth. He himself states (in an unfinished autobiography) that all of his progenitors as far back as he could trace, with the exception of his maternal grandfather, were natives of Virginia. In his work on Old Churches and Families in Virginia, Bishop Meade alludes to the Ravenscrofts as "an ancient Virginia family, to be found about Williamsburg and Petersburg, according to the
38
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
records of the House of Burgesses and the vestry-books." Though Bishop Green, of Mississippi (who prepared a brief memoir of Bishop Ravenscroft in 1870*), believed that the name Ravenscroft was of Germanic origin-the contraction of a German surname, Ravenscrofdt-he was undoubtedly in error. The name Ravenscroft, just, as the Bishop wrote it, is not un- common in Great Britain, being found in the records of Flint- shire, Cheshire, Lancashire and Sussex.
Various persons of the name of Ravenscroft lived in New England and Virginia at a very early period. The ancestors of Bishop Ravenscroft were residents of the Old Dominion for about three-quarters of a century prior to the War of the Revo- lution, but Massachusetts was their first home in America. Samuel Ravenscroft came to Boston in 1679, and almost imme- diately after his arrival became a member of the artillery com- pany, later holding a commission as Captain in the troops of the colony. He married Dionysia Savage, a daughter of Major Thomas Savage, and was the father of five children, viz., Diony- sia, born April 12, 1681; Samuel, born April 12, 1682; George, born March 20, 1683; Sarah, born November 20, 1686; and Thomas, born June 29, 1688.
There being no house of worship of the Church of England in his new home, Captain Samuel Ravenscroft attended Con- gregational services for a while in the Old South Meeting House. On June 15, 1686, he was one of eleven persons who took steps to found King's Chapel, for services of the Church of England, and was later one of its Wardens. He was held in high favor by Sir Edmund Andros, the Royal Governor, who was a ruler greatly hated by the Puritans. In the Spring of 1689, John Winslow, a young New Englander, returned from a voyage to the Island of Nevis, bringing with him the news that William of Orange had taken possession of the throne of Great Britain in the preceding year. Thereupon the inhabitants of Massachu- setts rose up on April 18th and imprisoned Andros, with many
* American Church Review, January, 1871. Vol. XXII., p. 526.
----
39
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
of his adherents, including Captain Ravenscroft. It would seem, however, that Ravenscroft was not a very pronounced Jacobite; for, in his capacity as church-warden, he afterwards united in a loyal address to King William. Like men of nearly all religions in that day, however, the New Englanders were not disposed to view with friendliness those who differed with them in ecclesias- tical matters; so Captain Ravenscroft decided to seek a new home. "Ravenscroft talks of removing to Virginia," wrote Jus- tice Francis Foxcroft, of Boston, in 1691 .* Probably the Cap- tain was strengthened in this desire by the knowledge that his old friend Andros was about to be entrusted with the governor- ship of Virginia, to which office he was appointed in 1692.
Thomas Ravenscroft (the youngest son of Samuel) was a resi- dent of Wilmington Parish, in James City County, Virginia, at a later period. As already stated, he was born in Boston on June 29, 1688. After his arrival in Virginia, he became a Colonel of the militia forces of that province. He was also High Sheriff of James City County in 1722. In the year following, he purchased a tract of land in Prince George County, called Maycock's Plantation-sometimes written Maycox-and after- wards removed his family to that locality. This estate took its name from Captain Samuel Maycock, one of its former owners, who had been killed by the Indians in 1622. An account of the place will be found in The Cradle of the Republic, by Doctor Lyon G. Tyler.
The above-mentioned Colonel Thomas Ravenscroft was at one time a representative in the Virginia House of Burgesses, and died about the end of the year 1735. He had a son, John, and this young man he sent on a visit to New England early in 1735. With him young Ravenscroft carried a letter of intro- duction (February 20, 1735) from his friend and neighbor, Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, to Chief Justice Lynde, in
* New England Historical and Gencalogical Register, Vol. XXXIII., p. 410.
III
40
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
Salem, Massachusetts, in which the writer said: "He is the son of one of your own countrymen, Mr. Ravenscroft, who, having some relatives there, has sent his son to make them a visit."* After returning to his home in Virginia, John Ravenscroft mar- ried Rebecca Stark.t In 1738 he was a Magistrate in Prince George County. He left a son, also named John, who became a physician. The descent of John Ravenscroft, the younger (father of Bishop Ravenscroft), from Colonel Thomas Ravens- croft is shown by a deed, recorded in Brunswick County, Vir- ginia, from "John Ravenscroft, late of the town of Petersburg, son and heir of John Ravenscroft, late of Prince George County, deceased," for a tract of land, therein described, which had been "patented 26 December, 1734, by Thomas Ravenscroft, grand- father of the said John."
Doctor John Ravenscroft (mentioned above as the father of Bishop Ravenscroft) lived on Maycock's Plantation, his pater- nal estate, and there engaged in agricultural pursuits for a short while. Having determined to become a physician, he studied medicine in the University of Edinburgh, and graduated there in 1770, his thesis (on the subject of jaundice) being entitled De Ictera. Early in 1771, immediately after returning to his home in Virginia, he married his cousin, Lillias Miller.# He
* Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. IX., p. 242. # After the death of her first husband, Mrs. Rebecca Ravenscroft (born Stark) married George McMurdo, who died in Galloway, Scot- land, in 179S. She left several children by her second husband, and one or more settled in Virginia, among these being Charles J. Me- Murdo. The last named had a daughter (wife of Patrick Gibson) whose son, the Reverend Churchill J. Gibson, married a sister of Bishop Atkinson, and was father of the Right Reverend Robert Atkin- son Gibson, Bishop of Virginia.
# As to degree of blood relationship between Doctor John Ravens- croft and his wife. Lillias Miller, he was her first cousin once removed. Colonel Robert Bolling (among other children) had two daughters: Mary Bolling, who married William Stark; and Jane Bolling. who married Hugh Miller. Rebecca Stark, daughter of William Stark and his wife. Mary Bolling, married John Ravenscroft and was mother of Doctor John Ravenscroft, the Bishop's father. Lillias Miller, wife of Doctor Ravenscroft, was a daughter of Hugh Miller and his wife, the aforementioned Jane Bolling.
41
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
did not remain in America, however, but carried his wife and his son John Stark Ravenscroft (the only child who had been born to him up to that time) to Great Britain in 1772, when the son was less than a year old. Doctor Ravenscroft first settled at Popcastle, in Cumberland County, on the northern border of England. After remaining there about a year, he removed his family to the Scottish side of the Solway Firth, and purchased an estate called Cairnsmore, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, a part of the District of Galloway. He died at Cairnsmore in July, 1781, while the American Revolution was in progress, and when his son was nine years old. In the meantime other chil- dren had been born to him-two sons, who died young, and sev- eral daughters, to whom reference will be made later on. By a deed of settlement, executed January 8, 1781, a few months before Doctor Ravenscroft's death, Cairnsmore was conveyed to his eldest son. In the course of a few years, Doctor Ravens- croft's widow married Patrick Stewart of Borness, being the second wife of that gentleman. About the year 1793, Mr. Stew- art purchased Cairnsmore from young Ravenscroft, his step-son, and the consideration therefor was no doubt liberal; for, in a letter to his mother, dated June 15, 1794, the young Virginian "rejoiced that the sale put it in his power to insure the independ- ence of his sisters." The full sisters of Bishop Ravenscroft were Jean, who married William McKean, and died without issue; and Anne, who married Alexander Craig, and left two daugh- ters, both of whom died unmarried. He also had two brothers, George and Peyton Ravenscroft, but both of these died in in- fancy. In addition to these, he had three half-brothers (chil- dren of his mother by her second husband, Patrick Stewart), as follows: James Stewart of Cairnsmore (born April 2, 1791- died September 19, 1877), who married Elizabeth Mcleod, and left descendants; Keith Stewart, Lieutenant-Commander in the Royal Navy, who was born October 4, 1792, and died unmarried February 23, 1822; and Stair Stewart, who was born in 179S and died at the age of seventeen. To Gilbert MeLeod Stewart,
42
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
Esq., a son of the above James Stewart of Cairnsmore, the pres- ent writer wishes to make acknowledgments for valuable data relative to the maternal connections of Bishop Ravenscroft; and is similarly indebted to Doctor William Scot, formerly of Edin- burgh and now of Cape Colony in South Africa, who is a son of the late Lieutenant-General Patrick George Scot and a grand- son of James Stewart of Cairnsmore. Among the thirteen chil- dren born to the aforementioned James Stewart of Cairnsmore have been several officers in the military and naval service of Great Britain, and two clergymen of the Church of England, viz., the Venerable Ravenscroft Stewart, Archdeacon of Bristol, and the Reverend Henry Holmes Stewart, Rector of Porthkerry, South Wales. An account of the Stewart family of Cairnsmore will be found in Burke's History of the Landed Gentry, edition of 1900, page 1503.
Bishop Ravenscroft's maternal grandfather, Hugh Miller, of Greencrofts, Prince George County, Virginia, was a Scotchman by birth and a gentleman highly esteemed in his adopted home. He was a member of the Church of England, and served as a vestryman of Bristol Parish from August 25, 1746, until his removal from Virginia. On December 8, 1760, he was succeeded as vestryman by Roger Atkinson, grandfather of Bishop Atkin- son. Mr. Miller is said to have secured from the Masonic Grand Lodge of Scotland the charter (September 9, 1757) for Bland- ford Lodge, now No. 3, of Petersburg, Virginia. The original charter of this lodge is still preserved, and shows that its first officers were: Peter Robertson, Worshipful Master; Samuel Gordon, Senior Warden; and James Anderson, Junior Warden. Finally Mr. Miller went to England, and died in London on the 13th of February, 1762. His wife was Jane Bolling, daughter of Colonel Robert Bolling, of Farmingdale, Prince George County, a member of one of the oldest families in Virginia. The founder of the Bolling family in America married (his first wife) Jane Rolfe, a granddaughter of Pocahontas, the Indian princess ; but it was from his second wife, whose maiden name
2
43
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
was Anne Stith, that Mrs. Miller was descended. Doctor John Ravenscroft himself was descended from the same line, as al- ready shown. One of Hugh Miller's daughters, Anne (an aunt of Bishop Ravenscroft) married Sir Peyton Skipwith, seventh Baronet of Prestwould; and, after that lady died, her sister, Jean Miller, became the second wife of Sir Peyton. Several successive Baronets in the Skipwith family resided in Virginia, and they have many descendants now living in America, though the present Baronet is a British subject.
The Ravenscroft estate in Virginia, owing to bad manage- ment by an attorney, did not result as advantageously to its owner as had been hoped; and hence, while in Scotland, Doctor Ravenscroft was financially embarrassed for a while. Never- theless, he left his wife and children in good circumstances. John Stark Ravenscroft was given a fine academic training in both Scotland and the north of England, thereby laying the foundation of some further education which he later received in America. A part of his school course was the study of Holy Scriptures, and so well did he apply himself that in later years, when he again turned his attention to these Sacred Writings, after long neglect, his task was made casier by the knowledge he had acquired in boyhood. While at school in England young Ravenscroft had a strange experience which he afterwards re- lated to the Reverend William Mercer Green, in later years Bishop of Mississippi. He was living with an aunt, who was apparently in perfect health when he left her home one morning to attend school. During a recess at midday he was playing with some companions near a hedge, when he saw what appeared to be his aunt approaching, walking on top of the hedge. Struck with amazement at this latter circumstance, he gazed at her, and as she approached her form melted into air. While pondering on this apparition a servant came with the hurried message that his aunt had died a short while before. 'On another occa- sion during his school days, when only eight or nine years old, young Ravenscroft had a narrow escape from death, an infuri-
44
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
ated bull tossing him up in the air and attempting to gore him, when he was rescued by some servants.
Toward the end of the year 1788 John Stark Ravenscroft (then only sixteen years old) determined to return to Virginia and see what could be saved from the wreck of his father's estate. In this he was successful to such an extent that he was thereby placed in affluent circumstances and so remained until toward the end of his life, when he met with reverses in fortune in consequence of having become surety for the payment of a friend's debts. It was on New Year's day, 1789, that he again reached Virginia. Being under age, his business affairs were entrusted to the control of a guardian; but the gentleman who filled this position made his ward liberal allowances-too lib- eral, in fact, for a young man of not over-sedate habits-and young Ravenscroft soon became addicted to the fashionable sins of his day, though not more so than was usual with the gener- ality of young men of his station in life. Being advised to study law, he entered William and Mary College to obtain instruction from the celebrated jurist, Chancellor George Wythe, formerly a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In that same year Chancellor Wythe was succeeded as Professor of Law at Wil- liam and Mary by St. George Tucker. One of Mr. Tucker's step-sons, John Randolph, of Roanoke, knew Ravenscroft at this time, and afterwards said that the future Bishop was known among his college-mates as "Mad Jack." Mr. Randolph added that this sobriquet was well given, in consequence of his vehe- mence of temper, speech and manner. Another one of Ravens- croft's college-mates was John Hall, afterwards a Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina at the same time that Ravenscroft was Bishop. We are unable to state with exactness how long Mr. Ravenscroft remained at William and Mary, as the records of that institution, together with its buildings, have twice been burned since 1790-once in 1857 and once by the Federal troops in 1862.
-
45
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
After leaving college it was some time before Mr. Ravens- croft was moved to mend his way of living. He was not an infrequent attendant at horse races, then a favorite form of outdoor sport; and afterwards confessed to a friend, with ex- pressions of deep contrition, that on one occasion he had gone to the race-course with the determination to horsewhip a fellow- sportsman who had offended him; and, if resisted, to shoot him down. The object of his resentment was unexpectedly detained from the race, and his would-be assailant ever regarded this cir- cumstance as a merciful restraint by the hand of God upon the terrible purpose he had formed. But all these experiences gave Bishop Ravenscroft one advantage-an insight into the evil ways of mankind. To one of his clergy in North Carolina he said: "Brother Green, I have one advantage over you; while you were brought up in the fear of God and in ignorance of the great wickedness that is going on in the world, I know all about the ways of sinners, and can therefore track the scoundrels into all their dens and hiding places and strip them of their self- conceits and refuges of lies."
One of the many absurd stories which went the rounds of the press during the lifetime of Bishop Ravenscroft was to the effect that his conversion was brought about by overhearing one of his slaves, whom he had unmercifully beaten for attending church, pray long and earnestly for the master who had so despitefully used him. Upon having this story called to his attention, the Bishop said there was not one word of truth in it-that while, in his young manhood, he had been terribly negligent of his own obligations to God, there never was a time when he could bring himself to interfere with the religious rights of others.
In his twenty-first year Mr. Ravenscroft was united in mar- riage (September 29, 1792) with his first wife, Anne Spots- wood Burwell. This lady belonged to an old and extensive fam- ily, being the daughter of Lewis Burwell, who resided on an estate called Stoneland, in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. Mrs. Ravenscroft is said to have been a woman of great personal
46
BISHOPS OF NORTH CAROLINA.
beauty, possessing the strongest endowments, both mental and moral; and she exerted a potent influence for good over her hus- band's life. Though Mr. Ravenscroft was always a man of honor, the vices of his day were fast gaining a hold on him when his union with this good woman arrested their course. In later years her husband spoke of her as follows: "She was a woman of high principle and of a very independent character; what she did not approve of she would not smile upon, yet she never gave me a cross word or an ill-natured look in her life, and in the twenty-three years it pleased God to spare her to me, such was her discretion that, though I often acted otherwise than she could have wished me to do, and though she was faithful to re- prove me, there never was a quarrel or temporary estrangement between us." Mrs. Ravenscroft died in the year 1814. To the second Mrs. Ravenscroft (who came with her husband to North Carolina and died in that State) later allusion will be made.
About the year 1792, shortly before he became of age, Mr. Ravenscroft re-visited Scotland for the purpose of selling his paternal estate and winding up his other business affairs in that country, after which he came back to Virginia, having deter- mined to spend the remainder of his life in America. It was shortly after returning to Virginia that his first marriage took place. At the solicitation of his wife he removed to Lunenburg County, and there purchased an estate of about 2,500 acres, which was nearer her father's home in the adjacent county of Mecklenburg. In his new home Mr. Ravenscroft led the life of a country gentleman for many years-happy and contented for a time with a course which was then considered highly respect- able, yet ever neglectful of religious obligations. In after years, while mournfully contemplating the sins of omission which had marked his early manhood, Bishop Ravenscroft said he let eighteen years pass without once opening his Bible; and that, between the years 1792 and 1810, he attended public worship not more than six or seven times-and then through force of circum- stances instead of choice.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.