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 8
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The General Conventions which Bishop Ives attended during the course of his Episcopate were at the following places and dates : At Philadelphia in 1832, at the same place in 1838, at New York in 1841, at Philadelphia in 1844, at New York in 1847, and at Cincinnati in 1850. He also took part in the fol- lowing consecrations: George Washington Doane, as Bishop of New Jersey, October 31, 1832; Stephen Elliott, as Bishop
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of Georgia, February 28, 1841; John Johns, as Assistant Bishop of Virginia, October 13, 1842; and Carlton Chase, as Bishop of New Hampshire, October 20, 1844. The above Bishop Elliott, of Georgia, was succeeded (after his death) by the Right Rev- erend John Watrous Beckwith, a native of North Carolina, who had been ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Atkinson.
Before a Diocese had been established in Florida, the Diocese of North Carolina had a parish (Christ Church) at Pensacola, in that State. For many years the Rector of Christ Church, in Pensacola, was the Reverend Joseph H. Saunders, who regu- larly reported the state of his far southern parish to the Dio- cesan Conventions of North Carolina. In 1838, his report says that Bishop Kemper, of the Missionary Jurisdiction of Missouri and Indiana, had visited Pensacola and had consecrated Christ Church-adding that Kemper was the only Bishop who had visited the middle and western sections of Florida. "In January last," says Saunders, referring to the year 1838, "a meeting of the clergy and laity of the Church in Florida was organized, the primary convention thereof held, and the necessary meas- ures adopted to obtain admission into union with the General Convention." The Reverend Mr. Saunders, just mentioned, was father of the great North Carolina historian, William L. Saunders, LL.D., another one of his children being Miss Anne Saunders, a most estimable lady who was connected with Saint Mary's School in Raleigh at the time of her death in 1906, and for twelve years prior thereto.
In his address to the Diocesan Convention of 1844, Bishop Ives stated that the Reverend R. H. Wilmer, late of Virginia, had become Rector of Saint James's Church in Wilmington, with the Reverend George T. Wilmer, a deacon, as Assistant Rector. The first of these was afterwards the famous Bishop of Alabama, who enjoyed the distinction of being the only . Bishop consecrated under the authority of the "Protestant Epis- copal Church in the Confederate States of America." He was the author of a delightful book of reminiscences entitled The
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Recent Past from a Southern Standpoint, and his biography was afterwards written by the Reverend Walter C. Whitaker, a native of North Carolina. Bishop Wilmer's father was a noted clergyman of the American Church, as were many other members of his family connection, including the Right Reverend Joseph P. B. Wilmer, Bishop of Louisiana. The above-men- tioned pastorate, in Wilmington, of the Reverend Richard H. Wilmer was not of many months duration.
The present writer has seen a statement that Bishop Ives did much religious work among the slave population of North Caro- lina, and that his personal popularity greatly suffered thereby. The first part of this statement cannot be denied, yet the second is far from true. It has never been the policy of the Church in North Carolina to withhold spiritual enlightenment from the negrocs, either before or after their emancipation; and, instead of being a pioneer in the work, Bishop Ives only continued a course of action which had been followed by his Church from the beginning of its existence in North Carolina, as has already been shown. When addressing the Diocesan Convention of 1841, concerning work among the plantation negroes, Bishop Ives voiced his sentiments as follows : "Lest any should misap- prehend the character and tendency of our efforts in this direc- tion, I wish it distinctly understood that everything is conducted with strict regard to the legal enactments on the subject and under the constant supervision, in each case, of the planter him- self. In reference also to our exertions hitherto, so far as we can discern it, we feel warranted in affirming it to be decidedly favorable to subordination." The wealthiest slave-holders among the laity of the Church in North Carolina, some owning con- siderably more than a thousand negroes, were almost always deeply impressed with the obligations resting upon them as masters, and among these we may enumerate the heads of such families as Collins, Pettigrew, Burgwyn, Skinner, Cameron. Smith and Bennehan. Time and again did Bishop Ives place on record his approbation of their labors. The Colling and
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Pettigrew families, being near neighbors, worshiped at Petti- grew's Chapel; and another chapel was built not far distant for the use of the slaves, both houses of worship being under the care of the same clergyman. It would require too much space here to re-print the numerous references by Bishop Ives to the efforts of Josiah Collins for the betterment of the religious condition of the hundreds upon hundreds of slaves on his extensive planta- tions. In 1846, in an address to the Diocesan Convention, Bishop Ives described a recent visit to that gentleman in the following glowing language: "I went by the request of my friend Josiah Collins, Esq., directly to the estate on Lake Scup- pernong, which had been without stated ministerial services for the greater part of the year. Here, and in the neighboring parish of Pettigrew's Chapel, I passed the remaining part of the season of Lent-holding daily services, delivering lectures, and commencing a new course of oral catechetical instruction to the servants. This course is to embrace the prominent events and truths of the Old and New Testaments, as connected with man's fall and redemption; and is designed to follow the oral catechism I have already published. The services here were of the most gratifying and encouraging character, fully justifying all that has been said and anticipated of the system of religious training hitherto pursued on these plantations. When I saw master and servants standing side by side in the holy services of Passion Week, when I saw all secular labor on these plantations suspended on Good Friday, and the cleanly clad multitude thronging the house of prayer to pay their homage to a crucified Saviour, and when I saw, on the blessed Easter morn, the mas- ter, with his goodly company of servants, kneeling with reverent hearts and devout thanksgivings to take the bread of life at the same altar, I could not but indulge the hope that, ere long. my spirit might be refreshed by such scenes in every part of my Diocese-while I could not help believing that, had some of our brethren of other lands been present, they would have been induced to change the note of their wailing over imaginary
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suffering into the heartfelt exclamation : 'Happy are the people that are in such a case; yea, blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God.' Often, at such times, have I wished for the presence of my friend the good Bishop of Oxford, as I have felt assured that could he but once witness what it was my happiness to witness, though in too imperfect a state, his manly heart would prompt him to ask instant pardon of the American Church for his having spoken so harshly upon a subject which he so imperfectly understood, and that he would perceive his Christian sympathy would find a more natural vent in efforts to remove the cruel oppressions of the factory system in his own country, and his Christian indignation a much more legitimate object of rebuke in the English Churchmen who have helped to rivet that system upon their land." Of a visit in 1836 to Salem Chapel, in Orange County, adjoining the plantation of Judge Duncan Cameron (and built by that gentleman), Bishop Ives wrote: "I performed service and preached to a congregation, chiefly of colored persons, from the plantations of Judge Cam- eron and Mr. Bennehan." In April, 1849, after speaking of a visitation to Saint Paul's Church in Edenton, the Bishop says: "I officiated in St. Timothy's Chapel, on the estate of Joshua Skinner, Esq., whose interest in the Christian instruction of his slaves deserves every encouragement. Here I confirmed eleven persons." On the same page of the Bishop's journal he says: "I officiated at the house of Henry K. Burgwyn, Esq., and con- firmed seven colored persons. Mr. Burgwyn is making very laudable efforts to christianize his slaves, which thus far have proved eminently successful." During the Episcopate of Bishop Ives first began to be felt the labors of three brothers, William Ruffin Smith, Richard Henry Smith and James Norfleet Smith, of Halifax County, religious workers, church builders and in- structors of their slaves. Nor was the work in the cities behind that in the rural districts in behalf of the religious instruction of the negroes. In 1832, the Reverend William D. Cairns, Rec- tor of Saint James's Church in Wilmington, reported that
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eighteen of his communicants were negroes. To the Diocesan Convention of 1833 the same clergyman stated: "A colored congregation has been organized with more than anticipated success. The church edifice is relinquished to their use on the night of Sunday, and the average attendance has been near three hundred. The intelligent of the community approve the effort." To the convention last mentioned the Reverend John R. Good- man, Rector of Christ Church in New Bern, reported that a colored congregation had been formed in the parish and weekly services were regularly held. Another report, at the same time, from the Reverend Jarvis B. Buxton, Rector of Saint John's Church, in Fayetteville, ran as follows : "An exemplary sobriety of deportment, observable within the African congregation, af- fords pleasing evidence of the adaptation of our Scriptural liturgy to the wants and apprehensions of this particular popu- lation." Seven years later (to the Diocesan Convention of 1840) the last quoted clergyman said : "The colored population continue to manifest the liveliest interest in the visitations of the Bishop, and in the special services he affords them. On these occasions, and for their accommodation, all the pews are re- linquished by their proprietors." In May, 1832, a congregation of negroes was organized at Washington, in Beaufort County, by the Reverend William N. Hawks, a native of New Bern, who did much missionary work in the surrounding country. About twelve years later the free negroes of Washington built a chapel at their own expense, and Mr. Hawks there ministered to them. As heretofore stated (in the sketch of Bishop Ravenscroft), the Reverend Mr. Hawks was a brother of the Right Reverend Cicero Stephens Hawks, Bishop of Missouri, and of the Rev- crend Francis L. Hawks, D.D., LL.D. We cannot better close this account of the earlier efforts to better the religious condi- tion of the negro race in North Carolina, during the Episcopate of Bishop Ives, than by quoting from a report on the State of the Church, which was made to the Diocesan Convention of 1848. This report says: "The religious wants of this part of
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our population claim strongly the attention of both clergy and laity. Our duty to our servants is not done by barely allowing them to receive some religious instruction in whatever quarter they may choose to find it. The sober piety that is inspired by the services of the Church-the transforming and renewing power of Christ's Sacraments, conveying Divine grace in and through the ministrations of the Church-furnish reason enough to induce every member of it to desire and endeavor to bring them into 'one fold' under the 'one Shepherd.' And surely the master who calls himself a Churchman falls short of his duty if he neglects to have his servants duly baptized and cate- chized, and trained in all the methods of the Church by her appointed ministers, for her communion. So much he may do, for they are especially entrusted to him-so much he must do, for on what he does depends the salvation of their souls."
An account of the Episcopate of Bishop Ives would be far from complete if we failed to record what was done during that period in the interest of Christian education. The most im- portant of all educational work was that carried on at Saint Mary's School in Raleigh by the Reverend Aldert Smedes, D. D., formerly a resident of New York, whom Bishop Ives had encouraged in his inclination to come South. Through the instrumentality of Doctor Smedes the doctrines of the Church were spread to thousands during the decades which afterwards elapsed, both under the management of himself and that of his no less zealous and consecrated son, the Reverend Bennett Smedes, D.D., together with their worthy successors. the Reverend Messrs. Theodore D. Bratton (now Bishop of Mississippi), McNeely DuBose, and George W. Lay. But this institution, which is now the Church's most prized educational possession in North Carolina, grew out of an unsuccessful effort to establish a church school for boys, and a review of the whole matter may be studied with both profit and interest. Nor shall we omit mention of the mountain mission of Valle Crusis; for (though strange doctrines may for a while have been proclaimed
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therein) that, too, though on a smaller scale, has been the means of extending Church doctrines. So, also, for a while, was Trinity School in the western section of Wake County. Ravens- croft School, in Asheville, was established at a later period, dur- ing the Episcopate of Bishop Atkinson.
The school for boys, out of which grew the female seminary now famous as Saint Mary's School, was called the Episcopal School of North Carolina. Almost immediately after his arrival in the State, Bishop Ives began to bestir himself in the matter of Christian education. To the Diocesan Con- vention of 1832 he declared that, though the General Theologi- cal Seminary was cherished by the Church throughout the United States, it was desirable to establish within the Diocese of North Carolina a school for the instruction of young men who intended to prepare for the ministry, and also a school for boys, under the auspices of the Church. It was suggested that the latter should be modeled after a successful educational insti- tution at Flushing, Long Island, in the State of New York. On motion of Mr. Gavin Hogg, this recommendation was referred to a joint committee, composed of clergy and laity, as follows : the Reverend Messrs. William. M. Green, George W. Freeman, Jarvis B. Buxton and Joseph H. Saunders ; and Judge Duncan Cameron, Judge George E. Badger, Mr. Charles P. Mallett, and Mr. Thomas P. Devereux. This committee was instructed to report to the next Diocesan Convention a plan for the establish- ment of a Church school, to suggest a place for its location, and make any other recommendations which should be deemed advisable. On December 6, 1832, on April 3, 1833, and proba- bly at other times, Bishop Ives met this committee, but no im- portant action was taken. On May 31, 1833, while the Dio- cesan Convention was in session at Warrenton, a resolution was passed, providing that the institution should be located at Ra- leigh and should be called the Episcopal School of North Caro- lina. At the same time, the Convention pledged itself to fulfill any contracts or agreements which the above committee should
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make. After these resolutions were adopted, Bishop Ives de- livered a special charge, of some length, on the importance of Christian education. In 1833, the same year in which this con- vention was held, the Bishop visited the school at Flushing, Long Island, and also one at Northampton, Massachusetts, to familiarize himself with the workings of those institutions. The Northampton school-called Round Hill Academy-was oper- ated by George Bancroft (afterwards so celebrated as a histo- rian), in partnership with Joseph G. Cogswell. The latter was prevailed upon to come to Raleigh as principal of the Episcopal School, and he accordingly arrived in Raleigh, in company with the Bishop, November 25, 1833. In the same year, the Reverend Joseph H. Saunders (then stationed in Warrenton) came to Raleigh to become Chaplain of the school. On Monday, June 2, 1834, the school was opened. During the session of 1835-'36, Mr. Cogswell resigned the office of principal, assigning ill health as his reason, and was succeeded by the Reverend Adam Empie, then President of William and Mary College, in Virginia, but formerly a clergyman of the Diocese of North Carolina. He it was, as will be remembered, who was secretary of the Convention of 1817, when the Diocese was organized, and he was president of the Convention of 1823, which elected John Stark Ravens- croft to the Bishopric. The return of Doctor Empie was a source of great pleasure to his old associates and acquaintances, and the Convention of 1836 passed the following resolution rela- tive to his again becoming a clergyman of the Diocese :
"RESOLVED, That this Convention entertain and hereby express a sincere satisfaction at the appointment. to the Rectorship of the Episcopal School, of the Reverend President Empie; and do welcome his return to the Diocese and to the Convention, of which he was so long a zealous and efficient member."
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At the time of the arrival of Doctor Empie in Raleigh (July. 1836), the faculty of the Episcopal School consisted of the fol- lowing members: John DeBerniere Hooper, Acting Principal; the Reverend Joseph H. Saunders, Chaplain; Nathaniel Rich-
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ardson, Instructor in Mathematics; Frederick W. Shelton, In- structor in Ancient Languages ; and George Hood, Writing Mas- ter and Instructor in Sacred Music. Through the instrument- ality of Bishop Ives, this school received a gift from England of a full set of the publications of both the Society for the Promo- tion of Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
The Episcopal School was first incorporated by an act of the General Assembly which was deemed defective, and another enactment (Chaper 32 of the Laws of 1835) was passed, vesting the government of the school in the following Board of Trustees : the Right Reverend Levi Silliman Ives, the Reverend Messrs. George W. Freeman, William Mercer Green, and John Single- tary, and Messrs. William Norwood, Jr., Duncan Cameron, Frederick J. Hill, M. D., Simmons J. Baker, M. D., Thomas P. Devereux, George E. Spruill, Edward L. Winslow, William H. Haywood, Jr., and Charles Manly. After remaining in Raleigh less than a year, the Reverend Mr. Empie returned to his old home in Wilmington, and was succeeded as Rector of the Epis- copal School by the Reverend Moses Ashley Curtis. The latter gentleman not only possessed good attainments as an educator and theologian, but was an author of high rank on botanical sub- jects.
The Trustees of the Episcopal School, in 1839, reported to the Diocesan Convention the erection of three buildings which in the course of a few years became a part of the group of houses which, ever since 1842, has been used by Saint Mary's School. This report was as follows: "By the use of funds contributed by individuals, and other sums borrowed for the purpose (in the whole amounting to $30,000), the Trustees of the Episcopal School have purchased a beautiful site nigh to the city of Ra- leigh, and have erected on it one large and handsome brick house, three stories high; and two spacious wings of stone, two stories high, with all necessary out-houses, offices, &c. The buildings are very substantially built and are sufficient for the
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comfortable accommodation of two hundred students and the number of professors necessary for a seminary of learning of the highest grade." Before these buildings could be fully com- pleted for use as a school, a bank, to which the trustees owed $14,000, called for payment, and it was necessary to sell the property to meet the indebtedness. Mr. George W. Mordecai was first appointed a commissioner with power to execute .the necessary deeds, etc., but did not succeed in effecting a sale. The matter was then referred to the Honorable John H. Bryan and the Honorable William H. Haywood, Jr., as commissioners; but those gentlemen declined to serve, and were succeeded by Mr. Edmund B. Freeman, who closed out the property as directed, Judge Duncan Cameron becoming the purchaser.
On May 25, 1839 (before the above sale took place), the Dio- cesan Convention of North Carolina had elected Bishop Ives, Judge Duncan Cameron, and the Honorable William H. Hay- wood, Jr., a committee to go to South Carolina and ascertain whether that Diocese would be willing to join North Carolina in establishing a Theological School in the place then occupied by the Episcopal School in Raleigh. In 1840, Bishop Ives reported that the committee had not gone on this mission, as affairs were unsettled in South Carolina, owing to the death of Bishop Bowen; furthermore, that letters had been received which indicated that the. latter Diocese would not be likely to join in this educational undertaking. This movement to secure the co-operation of South Carolina was the final effort to save the school at Raleigh; and, upon its failure, nothing remained but to proceed with the sale of the grounds and buildings.
Reporting the sale of the Episcopal School, Bishop Ives, as President of the Board of Trustees, said : "The Honorable Judge Cameron, making the highest bid, became the purchaser of the property at an amount covering the original purchase of the land, with the interest thereon, and also the sum loaned from the Episcopal fund, with the back interest. This amount having been paid to the said agent [Mr. Edmund B. Freeman] and ap-
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plied to the removal of the aforesaid incumbrances, the proper deeds were executed and the property duly conveyed to Judge Cameron."
About the year 1840, the Reverend Edwin Geer and the Rev- erend John A. Backhouse taught for a short while in the "East Rock House" of the defunct Episcopal School.
Not long after the sale of the land and buildings of the Epis- copal School, Bishop Ives was in New York, and there met the Reverend Aldert Smedes, a young clergyman with whom he already had some acquaintance, and who was seeking a location in the South for school work. Mr. Smedes had been compelled by bronchial trouble to abandon his work as a parish priest. He was not unknown to fame as an educator, having conducted a girls' school in New York; but physicians had advised him that a milder climate would be beneficial to his health. Bishop Ives eagerly seized this opportunity for securing his services in North Carolina, and told him of the vacant buildings of the Episcopal School at Raleigh which Judge Cameron wished to rent for educational purposes. The result was that Mr. Smedes came to Raleigh and opened up a school for girls, recitations beginning on the 12th of May, 1842. Immediately upon the establishment of this school, he gave it the name of SAINT MARY's, wishing that the pure life and religious humility of the Blessed Virgin might be an example to its students in the years to come. On the first Sunday after Trinity in 1842 (May 29th), a few weeks after Mr. Smedes began this work, it is recorded by Bishop Ives that he "preached to an interesting assemblage of young ladies at St. Mary's School, Ravenscroft Grove, Raleigh." As space will not permit us to trace the his- tory of Saint Mary's from its foundation to the period (nearly sixty years later) when the Church purchased it from the heirs of Judge Cameron, we may well close our present reference to it with a quotation from the Bishop's address to the Convention of 1844, when he said: "Its prosperity and promised benefit to the Church, while they call for our prayers and encouragements,
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go far to show that God's ways are best-that, while we were mourning for the Episcopal School, He designed in that failure a greater good to the Diocese."
The failure of the Episcopal School did not prevent further efforts toward male education at Raleigh; for, in 1847, the Reverend Aldert Smedes also undertook to establish a school for boys, in addition to the school for girls which he was then so successfully operating. In the Bishop's address to the Conven- tion of 1847, the undertaking was described as follows: "A new classical school for boys, under the patronage of the Diocesan, is about to be opened within six or seven miles of the city of Raleigh; and this through the instrumentality and zeal of the present Rector of St. Mary's School in that city." This new male academy was called Trinity School. It was west of Ra- leigh about six miles; and, after the War Between the States, was purchased for agricultural uses by Major William Augus- tus Blount, who named his plantation Stony-lonesome. Though Trinity School was an educational venture financed by the Reverend Aldert Smedes, it was under the immediate con- trol of the Reverend Fordyce M. Hubbard, as Rector. Mr. Hub- bard was a native of Massachusetts, where he had been a teacher under Doctor Cogswell in the Round Hill Academy at North- ampton, heretofore alluded to. He came to Trinity School from Christ Church in New Bern, North Carolina, of which he had been Rector for some time. Trinity School was recognized as a parish in itself, and the first report of its Rector, in 1848, stated : "This school was opened nearly twelve months ago, and its con- stant and gradual growth leaves in the minds of those who have charge of it no doubt of its permanence and prosperity. The aim of its teachers has been to combine thorough instruction and the highest attainments in learning, with strict discipline and careful training in the doctrines and duties of religion. In the former respects their efforts have been rewarded with all the success they anticipated. The religious education of those com-
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