USA > New Jersey > Monmouth County > Shrewsbury > A history of Seventh Day Baptists in West Virginia : including the Woodbridgetown and Salemville churches in Pennsylvania and the Shrewsbury church in New Jersey > Part 5
USA > Pennsylvania > Bedford County > Salemville > A history of Seventh Day Baptists in West Virginia : including the Woodbridgetown and Salemville churches in Pennsylvania and the Shrewsbury church in New Jersey > Part 5
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
"March 10, 1787, William Dennis was received into the church."
"May 13, 1787, Catharine Dennis was baptized."
"June 29, 1787, Anna Dennis was baptized."
"September 1, 1787, Anna Dennis was received into the church."
"June 14, 1789, Gideon Day and Samuel Newman were received into the church."
"September 6, 1789. Then did the body of this church remove I. McLafferty.
THE SHREWSBURY CHURCH. NOW AT GLENDOLA. ( From a photograph taken in 1903).
35
THE SHREWSBURY CHURCH
from Shrewsbury in order to settle in the state of Virginia. Names: Rev. Jacob Davis, with his family; William Davis, Senior ; John Davis; Ephraim Maxson; Thomas Babcock; Zebulon Maxson; Benjamin Thorp, with all their families.
"September 13, 1789. Also set out the following from the same place : Simeon Maxson; William Davis, Junior; William Maxson, with all their families."
The next date that appears in the records is May 13, 1792, after the church had settled at New Salem, Harrison County, Virginia. The church there became known as the New Salem Church, to correspond with the name of the new place of settlement.
MEETING HOUSE.
For thirty years the church had no meeting house; but met for worship in the homes of its members in the township of Shrewsbury near the Manasquan and Shark rivers; and in the township of Middletown in the vicinity of Clay Pit Creek. For a time, business meetings and communion services alternated between the two towns.
Upon the whole, however, meetings were more fre- quently held in Shrewsbury where the larger part of the membership of the church lived, between the Manasquan and Shark rivers. Here the church voted, March 3, 1775, to build a meeting house, which was to be located on the southwest corner of Zebulon Maxson's land, lying on one of the branches coming out of the branch commonly known as the Great Branch, "said Zebulon Maxson having given his free consent thereunto."
But progress was slow. On October 27, 1776, the building had advanced far enough for the roof, and this the church voted to put on as soon as possible. The records of the church also show that in January, 1778, a sum of money was raised for the building of the meeting house.
The building was thirty feet by thirty-two feet, built with a heavy white oak frame, which at the present writing is still in excellent condition.
On the 8th of August, 1789, the church sold the meeting house to a man by the name of Reed, to whom the members also sold their farms; and a few weeks afterward the majority
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
of the families of the church set out "in order to setle in the State of Verginey."1
The meeting house now passed into the hands of strangers, and for a period of forty years little is known of its history. About the year 1830, it was used by the Free Methodists as a house of worship, and not long after that date was moved from its original site on what is now known as the Kirby Farm, which is, at the date of this writing, owned by Bartine Newman, Esq., to a point about a mile and a quarter nearly due northeast towards the Shark River, up on top of the hill at the cross roads now known as Glendola, where it served as a Union Chapel, and was used chiefly by the Free Methodists, Baptists, and Universalists. Here it stood for several years without floor or plastering, with many of the clapboards (weather- boards) off, giving free access to the birds and squirrels. The seats consisted of heavy planks or slabs with two holes bored into each end, and into the holes were driven stout wooden pegs a foot and a half long, which served as legs.
In more recent years the meeting house was purchased by the Methodist Protestant Church, turned so that it faces the east instead of the north, and is now used as a house of worship by that church.
Since its last removal, three additions have been made to the meeting house. The first adds about ten feet to the main body of the church in front, allowing a third window to be put in on each side. The second is a tower about ten feet square starting from the ground, at the middle of the front of the main body of the building and terminating in a spire. The third addition, at the rear, not so wide as the main body of the structure, is about ten feet deep, and contains the pulpit and choir box. A gallery extends the entire length of the main part of the building on both sides and across the front.2
The original site of the meeting house and the adjoining graveyard is overgrown with briers and bushes. In the
1. Sic; verb. et lit.
2. A visit to the site of the old Shrewsbury Church August 2, 1903, by the author of this book, in company with the Reverend Boothe Colwell Davis, D.D., President of Alfred University, is described in the Sabbath Recorder, of August 17, 1903, PP. 524-525.
INTERIOR OF SHREWSBURY CHURCH. LOOKING TOWARD THE FRONT. (After a photograph taken in 1903).
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THE SHREWSBURY CHURCH
graveyard but a single tombstone remains, that of Hannah Davis, and that is not in its original position.1
DEATHS.
"This is a list of the names of them that have been removed out of the world by death :-
"William Davis, the Elder, died at Manasquan in the year 1745.
"Joseph Maxson and his wife died near at a time in the year 1747.
"Ruth Babcock died at Squankum, 1749.
"Elisabeth Davis, wife of John Davis, died at Squan, in April, the year 1751.
"Bethiah Davis died at Middletown, June the 18th, 1754.
"John Davis, the Elder, died at Manasquan, August 18, 1754.
"Elisabeth Davis, wife of William Davis, the Elder, died at Middletown, about the year 1760.
"Judith Davis, the wife of James Davis, departed this life May the 14th, 1773, being the sixth day of the week about 7 o'clock in the morning.
"May the 17th, 1776. Then deceased Brother John Parker.
"May the 20th, 1776. Then deceased Brother John Maxson.
"March, 1777. Brother Joseph Davis departed this life.
"Brother James Davis departed this life June 26, 1778.
"Brother Thomas Davis departed this life February 2d, 1786.
"Anna Havens, the wife of John Havens, departed this life May 10th, 1786.
"Brother Zebulon Maxson departed this life September 8th, 1787."
The following is an abstract from the records of the Church concerning its ministers :-
1745. William Davis, an aged minister at time of organisation.
Joseph Maxson, a ministering brother at time of organisation.
John Davis, a ministering brother at time of organisation.
June 19, 1746. John Davis was chosen elder. Arrangements were made at this meeting to send him to Westerly to be ordained as a minister, and Joseph Maxson was appointed to write a letter to the church at Westerly making known the wishes of the Shrewsbury Church. Five days afterward, John Davis took this letter and set sail for Westerly, where he arrived safely after a week's voyage. Here the letter was read at the Sabbath service on the 12th of July. The
I. The inscription on this tombstone is as follows: Hannah Daughr of Nathan & Anna Davis died March ye 3d 1788 aged 20 Years As you are now so once was I In health and strength now here I lie
As I am now so you must be Prepare for death and follow me
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38 SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
Westerly Church voted to accede to the request of the Shrewsbury Church; and in the afternoon of the following day, John Davis was solemnly ordained to the sacred duties of the Gospel ministry by Rev. Joseph Maxson, assisted by Rev. John Maxson, and Deacon Clarke.1
November II, 1758. Rev. Jonathan Dunham baptized Rebecca Brand.
- 1760. Joshua Maxson baptized Joseph Davis of Middletown.
June 27, 1773. Rev. Jonathan Jarman baptized and received into the church Mary, wife of Jacob Davis.
June 19, 1774. Jacob Davis called to the ministry (licenced) by the church. Called to ordination December 25, 1774, when the church voted to send to Piscataway for assistance at the ordination service. On the fourth Sabbath in February he was ordained by Rev. Jonathan Dunham and Rev. Jonathan Jarman.
December 4, 1774. Rev. Henry Dawson baptized John Parker and Mary Maxson.
September 24, 1775. Simeon Maxson, who had virtually been licenced by the church to preach, was silenced because of lack of har- mony between him and the church. On December 3d, 1775, he acknowledged to the church that he had been in error concerning certain of his views relating to the Eternal Judgment, but he declared that he would continue to preach despite the vote of silence on the part of the church.
September 8, 1776, Simeon Maxson was debarred from communion on a quadruple charge :
Ist. Of non-attendance at church. -
2d. The declaration that his brethren and sisters in the church "are the children of the Devil, and his works we do, and that the Devil is our father."
3d. His complaint that the pastor of the church taught carnal war.
4th. His assertion that a visitation of sickness upon the church was due to the fact that the members of the church joined with the carnal war-(the war of the Revolution was then in progress).
July 13, 1783. Simeon Maxson confessed his fault in having spoken against the pastor and thereby "gave satisfaction to the church."
September 14, 1788. A question rose as to whether Henry Lafferty should be silenced or given an extension of licence to preach .? It was decided to allow him to continue to preach.
I. Cf. Seventh Day Baptist Memarial, Vol. II., No. 1, p. 158. Clarke says: "I find by the church records of Hopkinton, that in June 25, 1746, one John Davis was ordained at Westerly by request of the brethren at Sbrews- bury, East New Jersey." History of the Sabbatarians, p. 27.
2. His name was really McLafferty. He was born in Ireland. He came to America when a boy as a "redemptioner." He spent his time of service at the mouth of the Manasquan River with a salt manufacturer, probably Thomas Bab- cock, whose daughter Elisabeth afterwards became his wife. He did not accompany or follow the Shrewsbury church to Virginia. He remained at Shrewsbury for a few years and subsequently became the pastor of the Piscataway Seventh Day Baptist church.
INTERIOR OF SHREWSBURY CHURCH.
LOOKING TOWARD THE REAR. ( From a photograph taken in 1903).
39
THE SHREWSBURY CHURCH
July 12, 1789. Gideon Day confessed that a letter of licence to preach, purporting to have been issued by a people on a "branch of Wyoming," which he had presented, was a counterfeit, and that he had told falsehoods concerning it. He was placed under the censure of the church.
RULING ELDERS.
The belief and practise of the church regarding ruling elders varied from time to time. The action of the church on that question at various times was as follows :-
December 25, 1774. "The first thing in consideration is whether it is not thought necessary that there should be ruling elders appointed to take charge in part, of this church, and to endeavour to go to any brother or sister out of the way, to admonish them; and likewise it was thought necessary that some persons should be appointed to this office to assist the person [sic; parson is doubtless meant], or minister, and accordingly Brother Joseph Maxson of Middletown, and Thomas Babcock of Shrewsbury, is appointed to this work."
May 14, 1786. Henry Lafferty and John Davis were appointed ruling elders.
DEACONS.
The following record appears concerning deacons of the Shrewsbury Church :-
February, 1752. Thomas Babcock and Thomas Davis were appointed deacons by the church.
June 19, 1774. Ephraim Maxson was chosen deacon.
December 25, 1774. William Davis was chosen deacon.
May 19, 1786. It was voted by the church that Ephraim Maxson be ordained deacon.
October 27, 1786. Ephraim Maxson was ordained deacon, with the assistance of Rev. William Bliss, of Rhode Island.
MODERATOR.
But one moderator of the church is named in the records of the church before it left Shrewsbury, and that is Thomas Davis, who was elected moderator March 3, 1775.
CLERK.
The records of the church do not contain the name of the church clerk until after the church had left Shrewsbury and settled at New Salem, Virginia.
CHURCH MEETING AND COMMUNION SERVICE.
March 3, 1775. The church voted that church meeting
40
SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
should be held the last First Day of the week in every month, and that communion service should occur on the last Sabbath in November, February, May, and August, respectively.
March 3, 1776. The Quarterly Meeting was changed to the third Sabbath in February, May, and August, respectively ; and the Yearly Meeting to the first Sabbath in November.
FAST DAYS.
A day of fasting and prayer was appointed about the year 1750 to relieve William Brand from the gout.
May II, 1777. The church voted that the Fifth Day of the week preceding communion service, should be a public fast day. This action was doubtless inspired by the troublous times of the American Revolution, which was a very trying period to the Shrewsbury Church.
£
III.
WESTERN VIRGINIA.
"HAT part of Western Virginia, now the state of West Virginia, which is occupied by the Seventh Day T Baptists, previous to its occupation by white men, had been the home of the Mound Builders and of the Indians. It lies but a few miles southeast of Moundsville, now one of the prominent towns of West Virginia, which takes its name from a large conical mound at that place. This mound is one of the noted pre-historic monuments of America. When it was opened in 1838, there was found a sculptured stone covered with unknown characters, which J. W. Powell, director of the United States Bureau of Ethnology describes as follows :-- "Four of the characters correspond to the ancient Greek, four to the Etruscan, five to the Norse, six to the Gaelic, seven to the old Erse, and ten to the Phoenician." While these characters are generally accepted as the same as those of the Pelasgi and other early Mediterranean people, it is not unlikely that ultimately they will be accepted as a highly refined type of the pictorial or ideographic characters common to the early inhabitants of North America.
This mound is two hundred and forty-five feet in diameter at the base, seventy-nine feet in height, in shape like the frustum of a cone, with a flat apex fifty feet across. Other similar mounds of smaller dimensions have been found in the more immediate vicinity of the Seventh Day Baptists in West Virginia.
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
XXXX4X
163
INSCRIPTION ON STONE TABLET FROM GREAT MOUND AT MOUNDSVILLE.
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WESTERN VIRGINIA
All that part of the state which lies between the Little Kanawha River on the south, and the present site of the city of Wheeling on the north, and bounded on the east by the water-shed which divides the streams flowing west directly into the Ohio River, from those flowing east into the waters of the Monongahela, belonged to the Mingo Indians. The valley of the Monongahela was occupied by the Delawares. Both of these tribes had been subdued by the Six Nations, so that when the Seventh Day Baptists settled here a century and more afterward, they found themselves amid an Indian domination which covered the whole of western New York, western Pennsylvania, and western Virginia as far south as the Tennessee River and westward to the shores of Lake Superior.
The mountainous character of the country with its heavy forests and abundant streams of water, invited game in abundance and made it a favourite hunting ground for many tribes of Indians. Many of the streams, both large and small, retain to this day, names given them by hunters both dusky and pale face, on account of the game which was to be found there. The Tis-kel-wah of the Shawnees, which meant "River of Fat Elk," became the Elk River of the white hunter. The Great Kanawha, as the Delawares called it, meant "The Place of The White Stone." The Delawares called the river on which they lived Monongahela, meaning "The River of Caving Banks." Of the smaller streams we have Meat House Fork, Buffalo Calf, Bear Track, Turkey Track, Turkey Run, Snake Run, Wolf Pen Run, Black Lick, Beach Lick, Raccoon, Hunters Fork, Lick Run, Georges Camp, Turtle Tree, etc. Curiously enough, Wheeling Creek, which gives its name to the principal city of the state, the Indians called "Weeling," or "The Place of the Skull," from the spherical shape of the adjoining hill.
Into this wild region there came settlers from the colonies of Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and even from New England.
The first white men who saw the territory of the present state of West Virginia were John Lederer in 1660, and La Salle in the same year. They were followed by an expedition of Governor Spottswood of Virginia, across the Blue Ridge in
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
1716; and in 1725 John Van Matre, a Dutch trader from New York, visited this region as a fur trader.
The first white man to make his home within the borders of the state was Morgan Morgan, who settled on Mill Creek, in what is now Berkeley County, in 1720. He was followed within a very few years by a large number of other settlers, who very soon found it necessary to make satisfactory arrangements with the Six Nations, upon whose grounds they were encroaching. Accordingly, negotiations were initiated at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on June 22, 1744, and concluded on July 4, of the same year, whereby the territory lying between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River was peaceably ceded to the English for four hundred pounds sterling.
The first white man to explore that part of western Virginia with which we are immediately concerned, was Christopher Gist, a distinguished surveyor of North Carolina, who was sent out on November 4, 1751, by the Ohio Company to explore lands lying between the Monongahela and the Great Kanawha rivers. On the basis of the survey made by Gist, who reported to the Ohio Company in October, 1752, the Ohio Company petitioned for a grant, which was to include the whole of the territory afterward settled by the Seventh Day Baptists of western Virginia. By the terms of this proposed grant, the Ohio Company was to erect two forts at once and to put three hundred families within its limits; but the French and Indian War put a stop to this.
About 1764 John Simpson, a trapper from the South Branch of the Potomac River, visited the West Fork River at the mouth of Elk Creek, where he erected a cabin and became the first settler in this part of the country. This cabin was the first home of a white man on the present site of the city of Clarksburg, fourteen miles east of the village of Salem in Harrison County. . This was but twenty-five years before the Shrewsbury Church abandoned their homes in New Jersey for western Virginia.
In 1770, Colonel George Washington visited the region of the Ohio River for the purpose of locating lands for the veterans of the French and Indian War, who were entitled to land patents under Governor Dinwiddie's proclamation of 1754. He spent a month in surveying upwards of one hundred
THE GREAT MOUND AT MOUNDSVILLE.
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WESTERN VIRGINIA
thousand acres, when he completed his work and returned home. There exists to-day in the office of the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Harrison County at Clarksburg, a letter, or surveyor's memorandum, of George Washington's, which was offered as evidence in a suit in which the title of some of these lands was in dispute.
When the War of the Revolution broke out in 1775, the first body of troops enlisted for service south of the Potomac River, was a company of western Virginia pioneers. This company was assembled under the command of Captain Hugh Stevenson at Morgans Spring, in what is now Jefferson County, West Virginia. Their flag bore the name of their company, "The Minute Men," and the traditional rattle-snake coiled ready to strike, under which was inscribed the motto "Don't Tread On Me." The centre of the flag was marked in huge letters with the legend "Liberty or Death."
They wore buck tails in their hats and carried tomahawks and scalping knives in their belts. They assembled for departure to the scene of action on the 17th of July, 1775. After attending religious services, and partaking of a repast, they began their march to Boston.
Western Virginia was the scene of many bloody acts in this war, and suffered from the depredations of both the Indians and the British. A careful historian writes,
"How many West Virginians served during this war we do not know, but certain it is that the founders of our state [West Virginia] were represented on almost every battlefield of the Revolution . . . Of all the American States, West Virginia stands, in point of service, next to the original colonies."
Two years after the close of the Revolutionary War, the village of Clarksburg was established at the junction of Elk Creek with the West Fork of the Monongahela River. Morgantown was established in the same year. In this year began a renewal of hostilities on the part of the Indians, which continued for ten years afterward, until General Wayne, popularly known as "Mad Anthony," was put in command, and waged a vigorous campaign, which was known in local annals as "Wayne's War." General Wayne's command included Captain Coburn's company, recruited, partly at least, from Harrison county, Virginia, which carried upon its roll some of the members of the Seventh Day Baptist Church at New Salem.
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SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN WEST VIRGINIA
General Wayne engaged the Indians in a final desperate struggle at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, on the Maumee River, August 20, 1794, where he triumphed over them. Indian bar- barities soon ceased in western Virginia, but not until the mortality from their atrocities had reached an appalling total. It is claimed that as many as one thousand families of western Virginia alone were destroyed by savage barbarities.1
The first literary work that related in any way directly to the present state of West Virginia, was that entitled Notes On The State of Virginia, by Thomas Jefferson, first published in Paris, France, in 1784; a work which to this day is regarded as an authority.
By a noteworthy coincidence, the year in which Jefferson's Notes on The State of Virginia was published, the first steamboat in the world was built by James Rumsey of Shepardstown (now in West Virginia), on the Potomac River.2 Rumsey was a blacksmith, and possessed no other tools than those of his craft. In 1786, Rumsey gave an exhibition of his boat on the Potomac. He afterward went to London, where he built a steamer, and where he died on September 20, 1792. He was buried in St. Margaret's, in Westminster Abbey.
At the time of the ratification of the Federal Constitution, the territory of the present state of West Virginia was comprised in seven counties. Those of Harrison and Monongalia included the subsequent boundaries of the Seventh Day Baptist churches.
At this period Daniel Boone was a familiar figure in western Virginia, and some fifteen or twenty years ago an old flint-lock rifle barrel, inscribed with the name of Boone and marked with a number of notches supposed to represent Indians whom Boone had scalped, was found in the shop of a local gun maker, S. Todd Sherwood, of Blandville, in
I. A writer in the West Virginia Historical Magasine, Vol. III., No. 4, PP. 303-304, enumerates twenty-two separate instances of Indian depredations in western Virginia, after 1789. The last was in 1794, when four occurred, one of which was on Hackers Creek, and one on the West Fork.
2. It was not until three years afterward, 1787, that John Fitch launched his first steamboat on the Delaware. Robert Fulton built his first steamboat on the Seine in France in 1803, four years before he launched the Clermont on the Hudson River.
LAKE ERIE
..
.
LAMBERTS RUN
WOODBRIDGE TOWN
+ WHITE DAY
$
SALEM
CLARKSBURG
OLOST CREEK
/
[WEST FORI RIVER CHURCH]
PISCATAWAY
FITZ RANDOLPH ......
SAMUEL
SHREWSBURY.
SHREWSBURY CHURCH
BOND-
BEE AUDKELLER
CECIL COUNTY
SALEM
. SHILOH
MAP IN WHICH
FINE DOTTED LINES ... SHOW CURRENTS OF EMIGRATION FROM NEW JERSEY AND MARYLAND TO SALEM AND LOST CREEK, IN WESTERN VIRGINIA
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WESTERN VIRGINIA
Doddridge County, almost within the sound of the bell of the Middle Island Church.1
In 1789, when the Shrewsbury Church started for New Salem, the number of counties comprising the present state of West Virginia had increased to nine, which, at the time West Virginia was organised as a state and admitted into the Union in 1863, had reached fifty in number. At the present time there are fifty-five counties in the state. The counties in which Seventh Day Baptist churches are now located, or have been located, number six as follows :- Braxton, Doddridge, Gilmer, Harrison, Lewis, and Ritchie ; but the church membership has extended into the counties of Barbour, Lewis, Monongalia, Roane, Upshur, Webster, and Wood, besides.
As previously stated, the territory occupied by the Seventh Day Baptist churches of West Virginia all lies between the Ohio River on the west, and the Monongahela River with its branches on the east. A deed for this territory was made by the Six Nations of Indians to William Trent and others, November 3, 1768, twenty-one years previous to the setting out of the Church from Shrewsbury, Monmouth County, New Jersey, for the state of Virginia, in September, 1789.2
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