USA > Ohio > Jefferson County > Steubenville > The church in eastern Ohio; a history with special reference to the parishes of St. Paul's, Steubenville, St. James's, Cross Creek and St. Stephen's, Steubenville > Part 2
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Mr. Doddridge continued his duties as traveling preacher until April, 1791, gaining that large experience of western manners and people which was to be useful to him in after years, and some of which he subsequently embodied in his "Notes on the Settlement and Indian
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Wars of the Western Parts of Virginia and Pennsyl- vania, from 1763 to 1783, etc." At the date given above he was called home by the serious illness of his father, who died on April 20, 1791, having appointed Joseph his executor. John Doddridge had married Elizabeth Schrimplin. on January 23, 1778, and the second Mrs. Doddridge had survived with a family of five young chil- dren. These, with the adjustment of property affairs re- quiring attention, the itineracy was given up, and, as the result proved, permanently. Having adjusted himself to his new environment, and finding that he had a small property at his disposal, Mr. Doddridge concluded to fur- ther perfect his education, and accordingly, together with his brother, Philip, entered Jefferson Academy at Can- nonsburg, Pa., the only institution of the kind in that section. Here they remained about a year, and it was a turning point in the lives of both. Philip afterwards be- came very prominent as a lawyer, and represented the Virginia Pan Handle district in Congress from 1830 to 1832, dying suddenly in Washington while serving on a committee preparing a code of laws for the government of the District of Columbia. A letter by Rev. Robert Patterson, a Presbyterian minister, dated Green Tree, near Pittsburgh, June, 1850, gives a glimpse of how the Doddridges were regarded by their schoolmates :
From 1791 until 1794 I was a student in Jefferson Academy. During a portion of this time Dr. Doddridge was there. We were roommates, boarding in the family of Rev. Mr. Mercer. David Johnson, the principal, and the students generally, as is usual in literary institutions, soon determined the grade of his intellect, his moral character and his personal worth; and none, during my connection with the Academy, stood higher than he in the estimation of those who knew him. Being his senior in years and science, it was sometimes my privilege to give him explanations and help him through knotty passages in his les- sons, in doing which I soon discovered that it was not neces- sary to tell him the same thing twice, so retentive and compre- hensive was his mind. His brother, Philip, was a student with
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him at the same time. Both of them were remarkable for orig- inal genius, intellectual strength and close investigation of any subject that came before them. These qualities, combined with ingenuous, amiable dispositions and uprightness of deportment. endeared them to all who had the pleasure of knowing them.
Joseph Doddridge remained at Cannonsburg less than a year, but during this period a change occurred which radically altered his whole subsequent career. He does not give us the details of how this change came about, in fact, while he was most observant of all the characteristics of this then western country, and faith- fully recorded those observations, he is singularly reti- cent regarding his own life and work. The change re- ferred to was his determination to withdraw from the Wesleyan Society and prepare himself for orders in the American Church. His daughter, Narcissa Doddridge, to whose memoir we are chiefly indebted for what is known of this part of her father's life, says :
This determination was not, we presume, the result of any diminution of his regard for the society with which he had previously been connected, for through life he manifested a warm attachment to that people, treated their ministers with the greatest courtesy and hospitality, and was ever ready to testify to their zealous and self-denying labors in the cause of their Lord and Master. In the absence of any direct informa- tion as to the cause of his withdrawal, we have grounds to con- clude that as his mind became more matured, and his reading more extended, his confidence in the episcopacy of that body was lessened. We are, furthermore, well assured that his judg- ment and preferences were decidedly in favor of a precomposed ritual of public worship.
Some twenty years after a Rev. John Waterman, while conducting a Methodist camp meeting, sent a writ- ten invitation for Dr. Doddridge to attend, hinting that if he did not do so it would be inferred that his absence was due to his extreme views on the apostolic succession. To this letter Dr. Doddridge replied :
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Dear Brother: Your letter inviting me to attend your camp meeting is before me. I should be pleased to meet with you one day at least. But even this is uncertain. You live by the altar. I do not. I must depend on my medical profession for a support. You are aware that the time of a physician is not at his own disposal. * * * I certainly would not do anything that would bring me into collision with a clerical brother, but not from a feeling of fear. I value consistency of character. * * * The first Christian service I ever heard was that of the Church of England in America. When I was a minister in your society a Prayer Book was put into my hands with an order to use it every Sunday, Wednesday, Friday and Holy-day, also on baptism and sacramental occasions, which I did. So I may say, that in the main the forms of worship I now use have been those of my whole life, and I think I shall end as I began. If you have left the venerable church of your ancestors, and built an episcopacy on the priesthood; if you have laid aside the Prayer Book and become presbyterial in your forms of worship, the faults, if any, are not mine. I am truly sorry that these events have happened. Glad should I be if we were still one people.
As to the apostolic succession of the bishops, to which you refer. it is a subject to which I have not devoted much atten- tion, and probably never shall. The subject, for reasons I have mentioned to you, is not agreeable to me; yet I respect the claim and feel satisfied that my ordination has descended through so valid and respectable a channel. From this claim, however, I will not conclude against the efficacy of the minis- try in other hands. It is enough for me to know and feel that other societies are Christian too. Therefore. I will not curse whom God hath not cursed; and I am willing to join in wor- ship with them, so far as I can do so consistent with the duties which I owe to the Church of which I am a member.
Other correspondence both before and after the above letter indicates the stress which Dr. Doddridge laid on the necessity of an apostolic ministry, and there is no doubt that the Prayer Book of which he became possessed indicated the path of duty towards "that system of Chris- tian doctrine, those forms of worship, and that form of ecclesiastical government, which bear the impress of the primitive ages, and which, of course, are best for this world as for the next." [Letter to Bishop White.] It was the same influence which, seventy years earlier, had induced the professors at Yale College to sacrifice their
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comfortable positions and future worldly prospects and follow the teaching of the spirit into the Church, and which, a few months later, was to lead another New Englander, the pioneer Bishop of Ohio, along the same path.
If sometimes Dr. Doddridge and other pioneer clergymen in their writings failed to emphasize the divine side of the Church's episcopate, account must be taken of the condition of affairs. . From the settlement at Jamestown to the organization of the American Church as an autonomous body there had been a lapse of nearly two centuries. Nominally the parishes in the Colonies were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, but, with the exception of a "Commissary" sent over occa- sionally to look after affairs, the different congregations were left pretty much to their own devices. No bishop had ever visited the parishes, there were, of course, no confirmations, and not a native American except the in- significant few who visited England had ever seen a bishop. Other religious bodies had their organization, such as it was, complete, and were able to adjust them- selves at once to their environment, while the Church must either import its ministry from over seas, or send its candidates for the priesthood on a long, expensive and hazardous journey to England for ordination. This is not the place, even were it possible, to detail the numer- ous irregularities which crept in and weakened the Church to such an extent as to threaten its very existence on this continent. In fact there were Churchmen, espe- cially in Virginia, who doubted if the fragments remain- ing after the Revolution could be patched together, others who argued that as they had gotten along for nearly two centuries without a bishop they might try it at least awhile longer. Puritanism did not exist outside the Church alone, it exercised a strong influence inside. Sal-
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THE DODDRIDGE FAMILY.
vation finally came, not from those sections where the Church of England had hitherto been strongest, but from the persecuted Churchmen of New England, who, with- out waiting for the factions to come to an agreement, cut the knot by electing Samuel Seabury for their Bishop, and sent him to England for consecration. And when coldness and legal obstacles prevailed there he turned to the ancient Church of Scotland, which had also been nearly crushed by persecution, and there secured the suc- cession for the American episcopate. This was in 1784, and it was over two years before any bishops were con- secrated in the direct English line, and nearly three years later before the Church in all the American colonies, now states, became one. It is a striking commentary on the spirit of those times that South Carolina refused to be- come a part of the American Church except on condition that no bishop be sent her, which inversion of the old Ignatian proverb, "No Church without a Bishop," she retained until 1795, and it is said there were no confirma- tions in that diocese until 1811.
But, whatever may have been the variations of indi- vidual opinion, laxity of discipline, or irregularities in minor proceedings, fortunately the Church in her cor- porate capacity, whether during the troublous times of the English Reformation, the deadness of the Georgian period, or the travail of the American branch during post revolutionary era, has never permitted any compromise on this matter. If we are disposed to criticise our fore- fathers for some deeds of commission or omission, let us recall the enormous difficulties they had to encounter, the problems they were required to face, and thank God that so much has been preserved to us.
Having completed his course at Cannonsburg, at least as far as he desired, Joseph Doddridge prepared to carry out his desire of taking orders in the Church. For
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this purpose he went to Philadelphia, where he was or- dained deacon by Bishop White in March, 1792. He immediately returned to the west, and located in Charles- town (now Wellsburg), which had been laid out the previous year. This was merely a center for his work, which he now undertook with vigor on both sides of the river. It was a venture of faith worthy of the seventy whom our Lord sent forth with neither scrip nor purse. There were scattered families of Churchmen all through this region, but they were necessarily few in number, without organization of any sort, to bind them together or to the Church, and, of course, without sacraments, or religious ministrations of any kind save from each other or from the itinerant traveler of some other religious society .:
Although technically in the Virginia diocese, yet communication with the eastern part of that state wa; so difficult and affairs there were in such an unsatisfac- tory condition that Mr. Doddridge preferred to remain under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bishop White, which arrangement was adhered to until the consecration of Philander Chase as Bishop of Ohio in 1819. Alr. Doddridge's brother, Philip, and two sisters, Ann and Ruth, followed him into the Church.
The new deacon lost no time in entering upon his work, for in addition to services held at his home he at once began missions at different points in the neighbor- hood. One of the most important, if not the leading one, was at West Liberty on the head waters of Short ยท Creek, about seven miles southeast of Charlestown, which was then the most important town in that section, being the county seat of what is now the entire West Virginia Pan Handle. Services were held in the Court House, the situation being thus described by Hon. Thomas Scott, of Chillicothe, who wrote as follows :
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THE DODDRIDGE FAMILY.
At this early period of the settlement of the country the greater portion of the population of Western Virginia and Penn- sylvania consisted of emigrants from Maryland and Virginia, where many of them had been attached to the mother Church; hence the advent of a preacher of their own denomination was hailed by them as an auspicious event, filling their hearts with gladness. He was everywhere greeted with kindness, cheered and encouraged in his labors by the presence of large and at- tentive congregations; albeit in most places where they assem- bled for public worship, their only canopy was the umbrageous trees of the unbroken forest, whose solemn silence was, for the time being, rendered vocal by their devotions.
During the year 1793 I occasionally attended the ministra- tions of this zealous advocate for the cause of Christ at West Liberty, then the seat of justice for Ohio County, Va., and the residence of many respectable and influential families. At this place divine service was held in the Court House. . Although still a young man, Dr. Doddridge was an able minister of the New Covenant. When preaching there was nothing either in his language or manner that savored of pedantry or awkward- ness, yet he did not possess that easy, graceful action, which is often met with in speakers in every other respect his inferior; but this apparent defect was more than compensated by the arrangement of his subject, the purity of his style, the selection and appropriateness of his figures, and the substance of his dis- courses. He was always listened to with pleasure and edifica- tion. commanding the attention of his hearers not so much by brilliant flights of imagination or rhetorical flourishes, as by the solidity of his arguments, and his lucid exhibition of the impor- tant truths which he presented for their deliberate considera- tion.
In person he was tall and well proportioned. walking very erect. He possessed fine colloquial powers, was social, an agreeable companion, and highly esteemed by those who knew him, on account of his plain, unostentatious manners, courteous demeanor and rigid devotion to duty.
In September, 1793, Dr. Doddridge married Jemima Bukey, residing on Short Creek, Va., who proved a most valuable helpmeet to him during his entire career.
Services were maintained at West Liberty for a number of years, but after 1797, when Brooke County was set off from Ohio County, with Charlestown as the. seat of justice, and the Ohio County Court moved to Wheeling, the village lost its importance and became a sleepy little hamlet with probably less population by the last census than it had over a hundred years before. No
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services have been held there for many years. In 1800 there were thirty-three subscribers paying $98 per year.
Previous to his ordination to the priesthood in 1800 Dr. Doddridge appears to have depended for his liveli- hood on chance offerings of his flocks, either in money or kind, which, as may be supposed, were generally pretty scanty. His wife gives some testimony on this point by the information that he was generally too poor to pur- chase a second suit of clothes, and he was not infrequent- ly obliged to remain incognito on Saturday afternoons while she endeavored to make his habiliments presenta- ble for the following Sunday.
St. John's parish, originally three miles east of Steubenville in Brooke County, was possibly Dr. Dod- dridge's first organization. It was started in 1792, and the next year a log church was built. This was replaced shortly by a frame structure a mile farther east on the north side of the present churchyard. The present brick structure was built in 1849. In 1800 the parish had forty-three subscribers, whose names may be found in Miss Doddridge's memoir. Dr. Doddridge rendered faithful service in this parish for nearly thirty years, and worship has been maintained here with more or less reg- t'arity ever since by clergy from Wellsburg and Steu- bonville.
Another organization was formed about this time under the name of St. Paul's Church. It was also located in Brooke County about five miles east of Charlestown. The church edifice was built of logs, and the "God's Acre" surrounding it was covered by the primeval forest. The congregation was evidently small, there being only seven subscribers in 1800. After being conducted for a number of years as a separate parish, it was finally merged into St. John's.
The first services in Charlestown were doubtless held
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THE DODDRIDGE FAMILY.
in Dr. Doddridge's residence. By 1800 they had been moved to Brooke Academy, and the list of subscribers at that time numbered twenty-seven, among whom were Charles Prather, founder of the town; Hon. Philip Dod- dridge, Nicholas Murray, Oliver Brown and other lead- ing citizens. Trinity appears to have been the original name of the parish, afterwards changed to Christ Church, and the congregation does not seem to have pos- sessed a permanent place of worship until 1848 when, mainly through the efforts of Danforth Brown, a neat brick structure with a Grecian portico was erected near the site of the present P. W. & K. depot, which was equipped with a small pipe organ. The congregation did not increase, and in a few years services were abandoned, the parish being seemingly dead. About the year 1867, however, Rev. W. E. Webb, who then had charge of St. John's parish, and St. James's in Jefferson County, Ohio, having gathered together the few who had always re- mained faithful, renovated and reopened the Church and once more the service of the Prayer Book was heard within its walls. He was succeeded by Rev. J. W. Cowp- land, who for a series of years did excellent work in these three little parishes: An interesting incident occurred during his rectorship. Bishop Whittle was to make a visitation to Wellsburg (as Charlestown had been re- named in 1816), and the choir and congregation of St. Paul's, Steubenville, were invited to participate in the service. It was on Sunday evening and there being no service at St. Paul's, a local steamer was engaged, and a goodly number went down, which packed the little church to its full capacity. Present day readers may be sur- prised to learn that Mr. Cowpland took advantage of the occasion to don the surplice, which, if it had ever been used there, was so far back that everybody had forgotten it. About this time the surplice was restored in St.
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James's and St. John's Churches, the "advanced" move- ment not creating any agitation.
The site of the Wellsburg church proved unfortu- nate, as it was on low ground, which was overflowed in high water, and the flood of 1884 so damaged the church and destroyed the furniture, including the organ, that it was decided to sell the site and seek another locality. A desirable lot was secured on upper Charles street, where a neat frame church and rectory were built, and where services have since been maintained in a dignified and churchly manner.
It would be beyond the scope of our work to detail the services of Dr. Doddridge at Wheeling; Grave Creek (now Moundsville), and other points cast of the Ohio River, the above having been related as preliminary to the better understanding of his more extensive and im- portant work north and west of the Ohio.
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CHAPTER III.
THE CHURCH COMES TO OHIO.
First Services in Steubenville-Home of Mary McGuire-Agree- ment with Dr. Doddridge-Beginning of St. James's, Cross Creek-A Western Diocese Proposed in 1810-Meetings in 1816-Diocese of Ohio Created.
That the first settlers of Eastern Ohio should be largely of the same type which had occupied Western Pennsylvania and the Virginia Pan Handle was natural. In fact, the territory just east of the Ohio River was fre- quently used merely as a temporary halting place in their westward movement until it should be safe for the set- tlers to move on to their permanent home. Among these people were many solid citizens of Maryland and Virginia, who brought with them their Bibles and Prayer Books, and love for the Church of their fathers. But there was no church for them in the wilderness, and even had clergymen been obtainable, as they were not, the scarcity of money and the scattered condition of the pion- eers was not equal to their maintenance. Jefferson County had been permanently settled as early as 1785, and when the erection of Fort Steuben was begun in the fall of 1786, there was both here and on Mingo Bottom, three miles below, a busy little community, the germ of the great state of Ohio. With the western advance of the frontier the troops were moved from Fort Steuben in 1787, but the setlers remained, using the structure as a place of refuge whenever there were Indian alarms. ..
The destruction of the fort by fire in 1790 made no ma- terial change, as the Indian peril was no longer imminent, besides there was probably enough of the material of the
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fort left to be useful in an emergency. Hence it was natural that when Young Deacon Doddridge came west after his ordination in 1792 his eyes should soon turn to- wards the flock without a shepherd on this side of the river. The exact date at which he held the first service here is uncertain, but it must have been very soon after his settlement at Charlestown. Judge Scott, whom we have already quoted as attending Mr. Doddridge's serv- ices at West Liberty in 1793, says: "We have been credibly informed that Dr. Doddridge was the first Christian minister who proclaimed the gospel of salvation in the now flourishing town of Steubenville in this state, and that some years previous to the close of the last cen- tury (eighteenth) he officiated there monthly, the place at that time containing but a few log cabins and a portion of Fort Steuben."
When Miss Doddridge was preparing the memoir of her father, David Moody, one of the early settlers of Steubenville, furnished her with the following statement : "The Rev. Dr. Doddridge was the first Christian minis- ter who preached in our little village. As early as 1796 he held monthly services in it, his congregation meeting in a frame building which stood on the south side of Market and Water streets. In 1798 the first Court House for the county was built, in which an upper room was reserved for religious purposes, free to all denomi- nations. In this room the Episcopalians met for worship. With some intervals this early missionary of the Church continued to officiate in Steubenville until Dr. Morse took charge of the parish in 1819."
It will be observed that 1796 is not given as the date of the first services, which, as we have stated, were no doubt very soon after Dr. Doddridge returned from Phil- adelphia in 1792, and the encouragement seems to have
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THE CHURCH COMES TO OHIO.
been such that at least by 1796 they were held regularly at stated intervals.
The assertion that Dr. Doddridge was the first Christian minister to hold religious services at what is now the city of Steubenville, has been questioned by the claim that there was some Methodist preaching here in 1794-5. But, as we have said, it is altogether probable that Dr. Doddridge began his work here as early as 1792-3, and by 1796 at least it was carried on regularly, by him alone, so that the statement has by no means been disproved.
Details are lacking as to the progress made by this little germ of the Church in Eastern Ohio, but now and then we get a glimpse of it from some passing traveler. Fortesque Cumming, an English traveler who journeyed down the Ohio River in July, 1808, notes of Steuben- ville that "it contained four or five different sects of Christians, but no established ministers, except a Mr. Snodgrass to the Presbyterians, and a Mr. Doddridge, who comes up from Charlestown in Virginia every other Sunday to officiate to the Episcopalians in the Court House."
The old log Court House which had stood since 1798 was torn down in 1809, and what was then consid- ered quite an imposing brick structure erected in its place. Here services continued to be maintained until the erec- tion of the city market house with a room above for Council Chamber and other purposes in 1816. For some reason the place of holding services was changed to this apartment, where we will leave them for the present.
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