USA > North Carolina > Sketches of North Carolina, historical and biographical : illustrative of the principles of a portion of her early settlers > Part 18
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 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55
The first notice we have of Mr. Alexander Craighead, as member of the Synod of Philadelphia, appears in the record of the Synod for the year 1736, September 16th : " the Presbytery of Donegal report that Mr. Alexander Craighead was last winter ordained to the work of the ministry, and at that time did adopt the Westmin- ster Confession of Faith, &c .; and also, both he and Mr. John Paul, lately from Ireland, having now heard the several resolutions and acts of the Synod in relation to the adopting said Confession, &c., did before the Synod declare their agreement thereunto." In this minute, reference is made to the proceedings of the Synod the previous year respecting the employing of ministers from abroad, requiring of them an express acknowledgment of the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, before the Presbytery, as con- dition of admission.
Being an exceedingly zealous man, of an ardent temperament, devoted to the work of the ministry, he was noted for preaching sermons peculiarly calculated to awaken careless sinners. Anxious for the salvation of men, and dreading the awful consequences of that stupidity on the subject of religion, so apparent around him, he favored those measures for bringing men to Christ which were
184
SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.
not so acceptable to his brethren in the Presbytery. He was ac- cused of irregularities before his Presbytery in 1740. No immoral- ities were alleged against him, or false doctrines charged on him ; the complaint was against various proceedings of his thought to be irregular. This was about the time of the great revival of religion, which in the course of a few years was felt all over the Protestant world, began to be seen in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and the neighboring counties-an account of which from the pen of Samuel Blair is read with unabating interest; and the commence- ment of those discussions which led to the dismemberment of the Synod of Philadelphia in 1745.
The Presbytery were unable to make any conclusion of the mat- ter ; for while the majority were against him, his vehement appeals to the public turned the sympathies of the community in his favor. The charge of irregularity he rebutted by the recriminating charge of Pharisaism, coldness and formality ; and in the ardor of his defence he was not very measured in his epithets and comparisons.
In the year 1741 the case was carried up to the Synod, and was debated with much earnestness. The great revival in Mr. Blair's congregation in Fagg's Manor had spread to many of the congre- gations that had previously been unmoved, and the whole commu- nity, both religious and irreligious, were agitated, not so much on the subject of doctrines, as of measures, not of orthodoxy in the creed, but of prudence and propriety in the conduct of church matters generally, and the peculiar manner of administering the Word of God, from which error in belief and practice might arise. The case of Mr. Craighead was lost sight of by the action consequent upon the protest brought in by Rev. Robert Cross, signed by him- self and eleven ministers and eight elders. The members of New Brunswick Presbytery withdrew, and Mr. Craighead withdrew with them. His name does not appear on the list of either Synod of New York or Philadelphia until the year 1753, when he appears upon the roll of the Synod of New York as an absentee. From the records for 1755, he appears as member of New Castle Presbytery. During the interval from 1745 to 1753, he was for a time an associate with the Cameronians. He was a great admirer of Whitefield's spirit and action; and like the first minister among the Presbyterians in the lower part of the State, James Campbell, drank deeply of the same fountain of truth and love. Like the man they admired, both these ministers possessed the power of moving men; and both left an impress upon the community in which they lived in Carolina, and stamped an image on the churches they gathered, which are
185
CHURCH OF SUGAR CREEK.
visible to this day. To all human appearance there has been a great amount of fervent piety among the churches gathered and watered by these men, which has been bequeathed to their descend- ants from generation to generation, as a precious inheritance of the covenant of faith.
Previous to the time that Mr. Craighead's name appears upon the roll of the Synod of New York, 1753, he removed to Virginia, pro- bably about the year 1749, and took his residence in the county of Augusta, on the Cow Pasture river, in the bounds of the present Windy Cove congregation. There is upon the minutes of the Phi- ladelphia Synod, in the year 1752, a mention of a Mr. Craighead, the Christian name not given, and the Presbytery with which he held his connection not mentioned.
Mr. Alexander Craighead's name was enrolled among the mem- bers set off for the formation of the Presbytery of Hanover, as ap- pears from the following extract from minutes of the Synod of New York for 1755 : " A petition was brought into the Synod set- ting forth the necessity of erecting a new Presbytery in Virginia, the Synod therefore appoint the Rev. Samuel Davies, John Todd, Alexander Craighead, Robert Henry, John Wright, and John Brown, to be a Presbytery under the name of the Presbytery of Hanover, and that their first meeting shall be in Hanover, on the first Wednesday of December next, and that Mr. Davies open said meeting by a sermon ; and that any of their members settling to the southward and westward of Mr. Hogge's congregation, shall have liberty to join said Presbytery of Hanover."
Owing probably to the troubles in the country, Mr. Craighead did not meet with the Presbytery for some two years after its form- ation.
The defeat of Braddock on the 9th of July, 1755, had thrown the frontiers of Virginia at the mercy of the Indians. The inroads of the savages were frequent and murderous. Terror reigned throughout the valley. Mr. Craighead occupying a most exposed situation, his preaching-place being a short distance from the present Windy Cove church, and his dwelling on the farm now occupied by Mr. Andrew Settlington-in a settlement on the Vir- ginia frontier, and open to the incursions of the savages, fled with those of his people who were disposed and able to fly, and sought safety in less exposed situations, after having lived in Virginia about six years. Crossing the Blue Ridge, he passed on to the more quiet regions in Carolina, and found a location among the settle- ments along the Catawba and its smaller tributaries, in the bounds
186
SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.
of what is now Mecklenburg county. Mr. Craighead first met with Hanover Presbytery at Cub Creek, Sept. 2d, 1757. At a meeting of the Presbytery in Cumberland, at Capt. Anderson's, Jan- uary, 1758, Mr. Craighead was directed to preach at Rocky River, on the second Sabbath of February, and visit the other vacancies till the spring meeting. At the meeting of the Presbytery in April, a call from Rocky River was presented for the services of Mr. Craighead. He accepted the call, and requested installation. " Presbytery hereby consent that Mr. Craighead should accept the call of the people on Rocky River, in North Carolina, and settle with them as their minister, and they appoint Mr. Martin to preside at his installation at such time as best suits them both." This ap- pointment Mr. Martin failed to fulfil, and in September, Mr. William Richardson, on his way to the Cherokees, was appointed to per- form the duty. This appointment was fulfilled, though the day of the services is not given. From this record it appears that the name of the oldest church in the upper country was Rocky River ; and it included Sugar Creek in its bounds. In 1765 the bounds of all the congregations were adjusted by order of the Synod.
In this beautiful, fertile and peaceful country, Mr. Craighead passed the remainder of his days, in the active duties of a frontier minister of the gospel, and ended his successful labors in his Mas- ter's vineyard in the month of March, 1766; the solitary minister between the Yadkin and Catawba.
In this retired country, too, he found full and undisturbed exer- cise for that ardent love of personal liberty and freedom of opinion which had rendered him obnoxious in Pennsylvania, and was in some measure restrained in Virginia. He was ahead of his minis- terial brethren in Pennsylvania in his views of civil government and religious liberty, and became particularly offensive to the Go- vernor for a pamphlet of a political nature, the authorship of which was attributed to him. This pamphlet attracted so much attention, that in 1743 Thomas Cookson, one of his Majesty's justices, for the county of Lancaster, in the name of the Governor, laid it before the Synod of Philadelphia. The Synod disavowed both the pamphlet and Mr. Craighead ; and agreed with the Justice that it was calcu- lated to foment disloyal and rebellious practices, and disseminate principles of disaffection.
In the State of Virginia to which he removed, the disabilities upon those who dissented from the established government, were ill-suited to the spirit of such a man as Mr. Craighead. To fight with savages, to defend the frontiers, and shield the plantations of
187
CHURCH OF SUGAR CREEK.
Eastern Virginia ; for men that could not yield to his congregation the privilege of being married according to the ceremonies of the church to which they belonged, and who required of them to sup- port a ministry on whose ordinances, public and private, they would not attend, could not be agreeable to a spirit that longed for all the freedom that belongs to man, and in his aspirations for what he had not seen, and scarcely knew how to comprehend, indulged in lati- tude of thought and expression alarming even to emigrants from Ireland, whose minds had not been restrained in their speculations about religious and civil liberty.
In Carolina, he found a people remote from the seat of authority, among whom the intolerant laws were a dead letter, so far divided from other congregations, even of his own faith, that there could be no collision with him, on account of faith or practice ; so united in their general principles of religion and church government, that he was the teacher of the whole population, and here his spirit rested. Here he passed his days; here he poured forth his principles of religious and civil government, undisturbed by the jealousy of the government, too distant to be aware of his doings, or too careless to be interested in the poor and distant emigrants on the Catawba.
Mr. Craighead had the privilege of forming the principles, both civil and religious, in no measured degree, of a race of men that feared God, and feared not labor and hardship, or the face of man ; a race that sought for freedom and property in the wilderness, and having found them, rejoiced,-a race capable of great excel- lence, mental and physical, whose minds could conceive the glorious idea of Independence, and whose convention announced it to the world, in May, 1775, and whose hands sustained it in the trying scenes of the Revolution.
About the time the emigration from Ireland, through Pennsylva- nia, began to occupy the beautiful valley of Virginia, and the waters of the Roanoke, some scattered families were found follow- ing the Indian traders' path to the wide prairies on the east of the Catawba, and west of the Yadkin. From the similarity of names, in the absence of other proof, it is very probable that these settle- ments, in the beautiful Mesopotamia of Carolina, were formed from emigrants from the same parts of Ireland that nurtured the youth of the ancestors of the congregation on Opecquon, in Frederick county, in Virginia, and the congregation of the Tripleforks of Shenandoah, in Augusta. These in Virginia were commenced about the year 1737 ; those in Carolina must have been soon after. By means of the memoranda preserved by the Clark family, that have
188
SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.
lived more than a century along the Cape Fear river, it is ascer- tained that a family, if not a company, of emigrants went to the west of Yadkin, as all the upper country was then called, as early as the year 1746, to join some families that were living sequestered in that fertile region. This, the oldest positive date that is now known, indicates a previous settlement, the time of whose arrival cannot be found out, as the records of courts are all silent, and the offices of the foreign landowners were not then opened for the sale of these remote fields and forests.
The emigrants from Ireland, holding the Protestant faith, the first to leave the place of their birth, for the enjoyment of freedom, in companies sufficient to form settlements, sought the wilds of Ame- rica by two avenues, the one, by the Delaware River, whose chief port was Philadelphia, and the other, by a more southern landing, the port of Charleston, South Carolina. Those landing at the southern port, immediately sought the fertile forests of the upper country, approaching North Carolina on one side, and Georgia on the other ; and not being very particular about boundaries, extended southward at pleasure, while, on the north, they were checked by a counter tide of emigration. Those who landed on the Delaware, after the desirable lands east of the Alleghanies, in Pennsylvania, were occupied, turned their course southward, and were speedily on the Catawba : passing on, they met the southern tide, and the stream turned westward, to the wilderness long known as " Beyond the Mountains ;" now, as Tennessee. These two streams, from the same original fountain, Ireland, meeting and intermingling in this new soil, preserve the characteristic difference, the one, possessing some of the air and manner of Pennsylvania, and the other, of Charleston. These are the Puritans, the Roundheads of the South, the Blue-stockings of all countries ; men that settled the wilderness on principle, and for principle's sake ; that built churches from prin- ciple, and fought for liberty of person and conscience as their acquisition, and the birthright of their children.
Passing along the upper stage route from South Carolina, through the " Old North State," to the " Old Dominion," the traveller is conducted through the pleasant villages of Charlotte, Concord, Salisbury, Lexington, Greensborough, and then either through Hillsborough to the capital of North Carolina, Raleigh, or through Danville or Milton, on to the River of Powhatan. This is the line of settlements of the emigrants from Ireland, as they sought a residence in this beautiful upper country. After passing Charlotte, the first ob- ject of importance that meets the eye of one searching for localities, is the plain brick meeting-house, of the Sugar Creek congregation,
-
189
CHURCH OF SUGAR CREEK.
about three miles north of the village. This is the present place of worship of part of the oldest Presbyterian congregation in the upper country, in some measure THE PARENT OF THE SEVEN CONGREGATIONS that formed the Convention in Charlotte, in 1775. The Indian name of the creek, which gave name to the congrega- tion, was pronounced Sugaw or Soogaw, and in the early records of the Church, was written Sugaw ; but for many years it has been" written according to the common pronunciation, ending the word with the letter r, instead of w. This brick church is the third house of worship used by the congregation ; the first stood about half a mile west from this, and the second, a few steps south, the pulpit being over the place now occupied by the pastor's grave.
Previous to the year 1750, the emigration to this beautiful but distant frontier was slow, and the solitary cabins were found upon the borders of prairies, and in the vicinity of canebrakes, the immense ranges abounding with wild game, and affording suste- nance the whole year, for herds of tame cattle. Extensive tracts of country between the Yadkin and the Catawba, now waving with thrifty forests, then were covered with tall grass, with scarce a bush or shrub, looking at first view as if immense grazing farms had been at once abandoned, the houses disappearing, and the abundant grass luxuriating in its native wildness and beauty, the wild herds wandering at pleasure, and nature rejoicing in undis- turbed quietness.
From about the year 1750, family after family, group after group, succeeded in rapid progression, led on by reports sent back by the adventurous pioneers of the fertility and beauty of those solitudes, where conscience was free, and labor all voluntary. By the time that Mr. McAden visited the settlements in 1755 and 1756, they were in sufficient numbers to form a congregation in the centre spot. Many of the early settlers were truly pious, many others had been accustomed to attend upon and support the ordinances of God's house. Intermingled were some that delighted, in these solitudes, to throw off all restraint, and live in open disregard of the ordinances of God, and as far as was safe, in defiance of the laws of man. The pious and the moral united in the worship of God, and formed the congregation of Sugaw Creek, which knew no other bounds than the distance men and women could walk or ride to church, which was often as much as fifteen miles, as a regular thing, and twenty for an occasional meeting.
At the time of the settlement of Mr. Craighead, the county of Anson extended from Bladen indefinitely west, having been set off
190
SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.
in 1749, as a separate county. In the year 1762, the county of Mecklenburg was set off from Anson, and took its name in honor of the reigning house of Hanover ; and the county seat, in the bounds of Sugaw Creek congregation, and about three miles from the church, was called Charlotte, in honor of the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg.
About the year 1765, by order of the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, the congregations that surround Sugar Creek were organized by the Rev. Messrs. Spencer and M'Whorter, as appears from the Records of Synod as follows :- viz., Elizabethtown, May 23d, 1764,-" Synod more particularly considering the state of many congregations to the southward, and particularly North Caro- lina, and the great importance of having those congregations pro- perly organized, appoint the Rev. Messrs. Elihu Spencer and Alexander M'Whorter, to go as our missionaries for that purpose ; that they form societies, help them in adjusting their bounds, to ordain elders, administer sealing ordinances, instruct the people in discipline, and finally direct them in their after conduct," &c. On the 16th of May, 1765, this committee reported to the Synod that they had performed their mission; this report, however, has not been preserved. But we are not left at a loss for the names of part of the congregations whose bounds they adjusted, as, in that and the succeeding year, calls were sent in for pastors from Steel Creek, Providence, Hopewell, Centre, Rocky River, and Poplar Tent, which entirely surrounded Sugar Creek, besides those in Rowan and Ire- dell.
These seven congregations were in Mecklenburg, except a part of Centre which lay in Rowan (now Iredell),-and in their exten- sive bounds comprehended almost the entire county. From these came the delegates that formed the celebrated convention in Char- lotte.
A visit to the localities of this congregation will reward the tra- veller.
Turning westward from this brick church, about half a mile through the woods, you find on a gentle ascent, the first burying ground of this congregation, and probably the oldest in Mecklen- burg county. A few rods to the east of the stone wall that surrounds it, stood a log church where Craighead preached, and where were congregated from Sabbath to Sabbath many choice spirits, that having worshipped the God of their fathers, in this wilderness, far from their native land, now sleep in this yard. The house, to its very foundation, has passed away, and with it the generation that
191
CHURCH OF SUGAR CREEK.
gathered in it, upon the first settlement of the land. Their deeds remain. The children of that race are passing away too; scarce a man or woman lingers in the flesh ; and with them is passing, fast passing to oblivion, the knowledge of things, and men, and deeds, which posterity will fain dig from the rubbish of antiquity, and shall dig for in vain. The generation has passed, without a history, and almost without an epitaph.
These little breaches you see in the time defying wall, reared by the emigrants around the burial place of their dead, were made by gold diggers, when the excitement first spread over the land upon the discovery, that these adventurous people had lived, and died, and were buried here, ignorant that there was, or could be, in their place of worship and sepulture, any deposit more dear to posterity than the ashes of their ancestors. Entering by the gateway at the north-western corner through which the emigrants carried their dead, a multitude of graves closely congregated, with a few scattered monuments, meet the eye. You cannot avoid the impression, as you move on, that you are walking upon the ashes of the dead; and as you read some of the scanty memorials, reared by affection to mark the burial-places of friends, that you are among the tombs of the first settlers who lie in crowds beneath your feet, without a stone to tell whose body is resting there in expectation of the resurrection.
The first head-stone, a little distance from the gate, on the right, is inscribed,-" MRS. JEMIMA ALEXANDER SHARPE ; born Jan. 9th, 1727: died Sept. 1st, 1797 : a widdow 38 years." An elder sister of the secretary of the convention, one of the earliest emigrants to this country, she used to say, that in the early days of her residence here, her nearest neighbor northward was eight miles, and south- ward and eastward, fifteen; that the coming of a neighbor was a matter of rejoicing ; and that her heart was sustained in her solitude by the Doctrines of the Gospel and the Creed of her Church.
In the southwest corner is an inscription to-JANE WALLIS, who died July 31st, 1792, in the eightieth year of her age,-the honored mother of the Rev. Mr. Wallis, minister of Providence, some fifteen miles south of this place,-the able defender of Christianity against infidelity spreading over the country at the close of the Revolution, like a flood. His grave is with his people.
Near the middle of the yard is the stone inscribed to the memory of DAVID ROBINSON, who died October 12th, 1808, aged eighty-two, -an emigrant, and the father of the late Dr. Robinson, who served the congregation of Poplar Tent about forty years, and ended his course in December, 1843. It was at a spring on this man's land,
192
SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.
and near his house, that the congregation of Sugar Creek and Hopewell used to meet and spend days of fasting and prayer to- gether, during the troublesome times of the early stages of the French Revolution. From the peculiar formation of the ravine around the spring, the pious people were willing to believe that it was a place designed of God for his people to meet and seek his face.
The oldest monument, but not the monument of the oldest grave, is a small stone thus inscribed.
Here Lys the Body of ROBERT McKEE, who deceased October the 19th,. 1775, Aged 73 years.
Around lie many that were distinguished in the Revolution, without a stone to their graves, and not one with an epitaph that should tell the fact of that honorable distinction. Perhaps the omission may have arisen from the circumstance honorable to the country, that, with few exceptions, the whole neighborhood were noted for privations and suffering, and brave exploits in a cause sacred in their eyes.
The most interesting grave is at the southeast corner, without an inscription or even a stone or mound to signify that the bones of any mortal are there. It is the grave of the REVEREND ALEX- ANDER CRAIGHEAD, the first minister of the congregation, and of the six succeeding ones whose members composed the entire conven- tion in Charlotte, in May, 1775. Tradition says that these two sassafras trees, standing, the one at the head, and the other at the foot of the grave, sprung from the two sticks on which, as a bier, the coffin of this memorable man was borne to the grave in March, 1766. Being thrust into the ground to mark the spot temporarily, the green sticks, fresh from the mother stock, took root and grew. Was it an emblem ? Were we as superstitious as the people of Europe a hundred years ago, we might read in this and the sur- rounding congregations, the fulfilment of this mute prophecy. The aspirations for liberty, which were too warm for the province of Pennsylvania or even Virginia, were congenial to the spirits here. When the hearts around him beat with his, Craighead ceased to be " tinged with an uncharitable and party spirit" charged on him in Pennsylvania ; and the community which assumed its form under his guiding hand, had the image of democratic republi- can liberty more fair than any sister settlement in all the south,
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.