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OLD ST. DAVID'S RADNOR 1906 1700
David O. Mc Kay Library
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Old St. David's at Radnor.
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971,81. a22h
THE HISTORY OF
OLD ST. DAVID'S CHURCH
RADNOR, IN DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
WITH A COMPLETE ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WARDENS AND VESTRYMEN, AND OF THE INTERMENTS IN THE GRAVEYARD 1700-1906
PREPARED AT THE REQUEST OF THE
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DELAWARE COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY PHILADELPHIA
Souvenir Edition of 1000 Copies.
No. 44ª.
Copyright, 1907, by THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.
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"Non tibi, eheu! Sed caræ memoriæ tua."
Prefatory.
St. David's, or Radnor, Episcopal Church is beyond question one of the most interesting historical land- marks of Pennsylvania. Its situation in a little val- ley at the junction of three of the oldest townships- Radnor, Newtown, and Easttown-is extremely pic- turesque, and although yet remote from the principal avenues of travel, it is so reasonably accessible as to claim almost daily the attention of visitors to the eastern shores of the United States.
Historical accounts of the place have so often ap- peared during the past fifty years-in sermons, news- paper articles, magazines, and pamphlets-that few Pennsylvanians of even moderate historical informa- tion are unfamiliar with its name, or indeed with many of its most interesting associations. Within a few months, however, much of the original correspondence between the early missionaries at Radnor and the Eng- lish Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, as well as many parts of the minutes of the Society during the eighteenth century ( which were kept by their secretaries in unusual detail), have been copied, and a very large amount of new and
Prefatory.
valuable material has thus been made available for his- torical research.
It is the object of this history, prepared at the instance of the Historical Society of Delaware County, to incorporate these fugitive articles (containing valut- able and interesting traditions) with other available data into a comprehensive and systematic narrative of church history, accompanied by copies of such letters and documents as may add value and interest to his- torical and religious study, with a view to extend and deepen the influence which old Radnor Church should justly exert on present and future generations.
Contents.
PAGE
Prefatory
V11
Old St. David's at Radnor .
·
1X
History .
I
Appendix
145
Alphabetical List of Church Wardens and Vestry-
men, 1716 to 1906
147
Alphabetical Lists of Names of Early Communicants
and Special Contributors
155
Alphabetical List of Interments in Radnor Church
Burial Ground, 1716 to 1906.
164
Extracts from the Private Journal Kept by Rev.
Samuel C. Brincklé, 1822 to 1832.
198
List of Illustrations.
PAGE
Old St. David's.
Frontispiece
Doorway and Judge Moore's Grave
20
An Early Audit. 37
The Gallery Subscription List.
69
Within the Sanctuary 99
Photography in the Fifties
I30
Awaiting I43
OLD ST. DAVID'S CHURCH RADNOR, IN DELAWARE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
The History of Old St. David's Church.
In the "Holy Experiment" with which Delaware County became so intimately associated in October, 1682, William Penn did not seek to confine his fellow- settlers to those of his own creed, but welcomed prac- tically all creeds and all nationalities to enjoy with his own peculiar sect that almost absolute religious toleration, in early colonial history, in which Pennsyl- vania more than any other State is privileged to glory. To members of the Church of England, however, Penn's charter secured the special privilege, "That if any of the inhabitants of the said pvince, to the num- ber of Twenty, shall att any time hereafter be desir- ous, and shall by any writeing or by any person de- puted for them, signify such their desire to the Bishop of London, that any preacher or preachers to be ap- proved of by the said Bishop, may be sent vnto them for their instruccon, that then such preacher or preach- ers shall and may be and reside within the said pvince, without any Deniall or molestacon whatsoever." "A privilege," says Anderson, "neither arrogantly claimed by (Bishop) Compton, nor grudgingly conceded by Penn." The Church of England, indeed, would seem to be fairly entitled to share with the Friends some of the honor for that admirable policy towards the Indians, which contributed so largely not only to the
(1)
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Old St. David's Church.
safety and success of the Pennsylvania settlement, but also to the glory of the Christian Church. This asser- tion is fully warranted by the language of Penn's letter to Lords of Plantations dated "Philadelphia the 14th of the Sixth Month 1683," wherein he says: "I have followed the Bishop of London's counsel by buy- ing and not taking away the natives' land ; with whom I have settled a very kind correspondence."
Amongst those specially entitled to this charter privilege were included numerous Welsh Churchmen emigrating from Radnorshire, Wales, who settled in the neighborhood of 'Newtown and Radnor Town- ships, within a few years of Penn's landing.
This congregational settlement, though probably centering around Darby Creek in the vicinity of Tryon Lewis' mill, also included families scattered over "The Welsh tract," and located within the area extending from the neighborhood of Paoli to the neighborhood of Bryn Mawr, and from the neighbor- hood of Newtown Square northward almost to the Schuylkill; yet, so completely have time and circum- stances changed the face of the locality, that the physical evidences of the original settlement are now virtually confined to fragments of débris marking the sites of early mills along the bank of Darby Creek and its tributaries, or an occasional pile of stones, or a local depression marking the site of a settler's chim- ney stack or cellar, and even some of these are inevi- tably confused with those of more recent date.
3
Earliest Organization.
Oldmixon, who published his "British Empire in America," in 1708, distinctly recognized this settle- ment in the following statement :
Within land lies Radnor or Welshtown, finely situate and well watered, containing about fifty families; in this place is a congregation of Church of England-Men; but no settled minister.
This record, freely augmented by tradition, is no doubt the authority in Sherman Day's "Historical Col- lections of Pennsylvania," and in early newspaper articles, for reference to a log church standing on or near the site of the present building; but that such log church was, as traditions tell, ever garrisoned by settlers against apprehended attacks from Indians, or indeed ever existed, is most unlikely.
While there can be little doubt that the Welsh Churchmen of this neighborhood brought with them to their western homes a loyal devotion to the Epis- copal Church government, which needed but the fos- tering care of the early missionaries to develop, yet (excepting such inferences as may be drawn from a vague note in Dr. George Smith's History of Dela- ware County, to the effect that Edward Hughes, whose name appears in the oldest epitaph in the graveyard of St. David's Church, "it is said was Rector of the Church as early as 1704"), there is no indication that any Episcopal services were established or even held at Radnor either by The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge through their missionary, Rev.
4
Old St. David's Church.
Thomas Clayton (who as early as 1695 ministered at Christ Church, Philadelphia), or by the Swedish mis- sionaries at Wilmington or at Wicacoe; and the earliest record of Episcopal organization amongst these Welsh settlers appears in a certificate from the Church Wardens and other members of Radnor Church, furnished in June, 1719, by Rev. Dr. Evan Evans, missionary at Christ Church, Philadelphia, to The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in For- eign Parts, to the effect, "that the Rev. Dr. Evans hath preached the Gospel at Radnor at the House of Mr. Wm. Davis one of the subscribers once a Fort- night from Novr in the year one thousand seven hun- dred all the time he was resident at Philadelphia" (a period of some six years) "without any reward from us." This record, while disproving Radnor's seven- teenth century establishment, clearly indicates that the settlement was one of the first and most important mission fields in Pennsylvania to receive the attention of the organizers of the old Propagation Society, even before their incorporation.
The year 1700 being thus authoritatively fixed as the earliest date of holding organized Episcopal worship at Radnor, it will be of interest to note very briefly the conditions existing elsewhere at that time in the history of civilization.
In Italy, Cardinal Albani, elevated in this year to the Papal Chair, yet retains there, as Clement XI, much
5
Contemporary Review.
of the temporal power which has so long disturbed Europe, and which is but entering upon its period of decline.
In France, Louis XIV is yet in the height of such despotic power as enables him to declare with verity, "L'etat c'est moi."
Peter the Great is yet on the throne of Russia, and the foundations of his imperial city, St. Petersburg, are not to be laid until three years later.
Philip V, as the first Spanish Bourbon, has not yet entered Madrid to receive his crown and inaugurate the wars of the Spanish Succession.
It will be more than a decade later, before Frederick II of Prussia begins the eventful life which justly gave him the title of Frederick the Great.
In England, William III is yet on the throne he has but recently wrested from his unfortunate father- in-law in the bloodless Revolution of 1688; and con- stitutionally or politically, the nation has not yet en- tered on the era of its greatest achievements; while in the world of English literature Isaac Newton, Joseph Addison, Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope, and Jonathan Swift are yet in, or approaching, the progress of their great careers.
On the North American continent, none of the provinces are yet advanced wholly beyond the period of a struggle for actual existence, and between and around all important white settlements yet impends the terrible menace of the Indians.
6
Old St. David's Church.
The State of Pennsylvania is still practically an un- broken forest, and the settlements outside of Philadel- phia and Chester are universally of the rudest and most primitive type. The ignorance, bigotry and fanaticism which characterized the closing years of the seven- teenth century in England and in Europe, still char- acterize the settlements in North America. The witch- craft executions at Salem have been committed within a decade of this date, and the entire history of the new world's settlement bears evidence of a condition primitive and undeveloped in the extreme.
In Proud's History of Pennsylvania (published in 1797) appears the following graphic description of the conditions confronting the early settlers on their arrival in the Province :
Their first business after their arrival was to land their property, and put it under such shelter as could be found, then while some of them got warrants of survey for taking up so much land as was sufficient for immediate settling, others went diversely further into the woods to the different places where their lands were laid out, often without any path or road to direct them, for scarce any were to be found above two miles from the water side; not so much as any mark or sign of any European having been there * So that all the country further than about two miles distant from the river (excepting the Indians' moveable settlements) was an entire wilderness producing nothing for the support of human life but the wild fruits and animals of the woods. * x
The lodgings of some of these settlers were at first in the woods; a chosen tree was frequently all the shelter they had against the inclemency of the weather. This sometimes hap-
7
Evan Evans and John Clubb.
pened late in the fall and even in the winter season. The next coverings of many of them were either caves in the earth or such huts erected upon it as could be most expeditiously procured till better houses were built. * *
But the soil was fertile, the air mostly clear and healthy, the streams of water were good and plentiful, wood for fire and building in abundance; And as they were a pious and religious people, knowing their views in this their under- taking to be good, they cheerfully underwent all difficulties of this nature, and divine Providence blessed their industry.
Of the condition of the Welsh Churchmen when Mr. Evans instituted the first services at Radnor in 1700 and for the next few years, almost nothing is known. From meagre references in the correspondence of the missionaries, however, it seems quite certain that while no missionary was specially appointed to a charge at Radnor, religious services were maintained there with some measure of regularity, not only by Rev. Mr. Evans, but by Rev. John Clubb, an Episcopal clergy- man who, after establishing a school at Philadelphia as early as 1705, and assisting Mr. Evans in his exten- sive field, had been induced to abandon his school, and had subsequently held a charge at Trinity Church, Oxford, and later at Appoquiminy, near New Castle, Delaware.
Dr. Sachse's monograph on "The Seventh Day Bap- tists of Chester County" refers to a visit early in 1702 of Rev. George Keith to the Radnor congregation in company with Mr. Evans, during the missionary tour of the Quaker churchman after his ordination. But
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Old St. David's Church.
Keith's journal does not refer directly to such a visit, and as his "Account of the State of the Church in America" mentioning the congregations under the care of Mr. Evans, refers to Radnor as "a Welsh Church," it would seem more probable that the language of the Radnor congregation was a bar to ministerial visits from him.
Some evidence of this early organization at Radnor is also suggested by the record of births from June, 1706, to November, 1712, entered in the oldest record book of the church which seems to have been kept as a general register for important events in the parish, in- cluding vestry minutes, parochial and financial state- ments and memoranda.
Both Mr. Evans and Mr. Clubb were Welshmen, and therefore especially qualified to minister to the wants of the Radnor churchmen, for at that early date English was not generally understood in the Radnor settlement, and all religious services were conducted in the Welsh language. Indeed as early as 1707, in his report to the Propagation Society, Mr. Evans refers to the fact that "The Welsh of Radnor and Merioneth in the Province of Pennsylvania have addressed my Lord of London (having a hundred hands to their Petition) for a minister to be settled amongst them who understands the Brittish language, there being many ancient People amongst those Inhabitants that doe not understand the English," and suggests that such a minister "might be capable by the blessing of
9
Mr. Clubb's Petition, 1712.
God to bring in a Plentifull Harvest of Welch Quakers that were originally bred in the Church of England but were unhappily perverted." And after Mr. Clubb's removal from Oxford to Appoquiminy, by letter of October 28th, 1711, to the Secretary of the Propaga- tion Society, he earnestly asks that they would restore him to Oxford:
Or if it seem not good to them to grant me this my request yet it would please them to place me among my countrymen the Welch at Radnor (being not above 17 or 18 miles distant from Oxford), among whome likewise I have great hopes of being usefull and doing good, haveing been to preach to them of late in our Native Language as often as my attendance in the church (wherewith I was more immediately concerned) would give me leave. I find a numerous Body of them all desirous of the Benefit of a Minister duly ordained to Read and Preach the Word of God and to Administer the ordinances of Christ to them as you'll find by their Addresses to my Lord of Lon- don and the Honble Board.
Within a year later (July, 1712) another petition was forwarded to the Society signed by the mis- sionaries Evan Evans, John Talbot, John Clubb, George Ross, John Humphreys and Jacob Henderson reciting the position and services of Mr. Clubb at Rad- nor, and again urging his appointment as the mission- ary at that field.
To this petition (formulated, there is some reason to believe, on the occasion of the consecration of Trinity Church, Oxford, so far as such rites could be observed in the absence of a recognized Bishop) no reply is
IO
Old St. David's Church.
preserved ; but a little more than a year afterwards the minutes of the Propagation Society of September II and 18, 1713, indicate that Mr. Clubb appeared in London, inferentially in obedience to a summons from that body, who seem to have given most careful con- sideration of his case through a special committee. Here it is recorded that he "Produced his orders which the committee allows of," besides a certificate of good character from four of the missionaries in Penn- sylvania, and "a petition signed by fifty of the inhabi- tants of Radnor, being Welsh desiring he might be the Society's Missionary among them * he understanding Welsh and being capable of reading Prayers and Preaching to them in their native language", "Whereupon the Committee agreed as their opinion the said Mr. Clubb is qualified to be the Society's missionary to Radnor." This action of the Committee was approved by the Society, and a few months later (April 23, 1714) Mr. Clubb was appointed as the Society's first Missionary to Radnor, and to supply the cure at Oxford "till such time as the Church at Radnor is built," at an allowance of sixty pounds per annum from the Society.
The details of Mr. Clubb's entrance on his new charge are best told in his own letter to the Society as follows :
OXFORD, Pennsylvania, Oct. 6th, 1714. May it please your Honr.
My safe arrival at port of Philada was (thanks be to God)
1
II
Mr. Clubb's Report, 1714.
upon the 24th of Augst. after a long passage of 13 weeks and the bearing of several difficulties. *
In a few days after when my effects were delivered me, I entered upon my charge at Radnor and Oxford where the people were well satisfied and ready to receive me, and Mr. Humphreys as willing to go to Chester as the Society were pleased to appoint him their Missionary in that place. The people of Radnor were very thankful to ye Honble Corpora- tion that you were pleased at last to consider them and send them the Minister they desired for ye welfare of their Souls. Their promise is now much after the same rate with that mentioned in their address by me vizt. of making what Pro- vision they are able for their Minister tho. no certain yearly stipend.
They met me unanimously upon the day appointed, vizt. the 7th of the last month, and at the same time heartily engaged themselves to build a handsome stone Church. They sub- scribed that day a tolerable sum to the carrying of it on, and obliged themselves to make it good, and for the rest I shall use all the means I am able to effect it by collection. Indeed they are a large Congregation of well-affected people to the principles of the Church and deserved your charitable con- sideration long before.
That Mr. Clubb did not overestimate the character of these Radnor Welshmen is evident from the fact that within a year after this first meeting the present church was erected; and when are appreciated the great difficulties with which such a work under such conditions must have been prosecuted, every thoughtful mind must be filled with admiration for the lofty spirit animating those carly settlers in their work; and the old Church must ever be a place singularly suggestive of the sentiments which prompted the great rustic poet
I 2
Old St. David's Church.
to exclaim of the impressive ruins of Lincluden Abbey :
Ye holy walls, that, still sublime, Resist the crumbling touch of time; How strongly still your form displays The piety of ancient days !
In an article appearing in the Philadelphia Ledger in the summer of 1891, Dr. Julius F. Sachse has given an interesting statement of the arrangements for the building of the church. He says:
The congregation at Radnor at once set to work to redeem their promise to erect a suitable house of worship. A lot of ground was secured, stone prepared for the superstructure, limestone quarried and hauled from the Great Valley, prepar- atory to burning into lime, sand obtained, timbers felled, hewn and squared, shingles split and shaved, while by aid of a pit- saw, scantling was prepared for the frames and doors. The magnitude of this undertaking will appear when the fact is taken into consideration that most of this work was done during the inclement months of the winter, and that every- thing devolved upon the fifteen families which composed the congregation.
This statement, though predicated upon legitimate inferences rather than established occurrences, presents an historical picture as interesting as it is impressive.
Of interest in this connection, as indicating the loca- tion of the congregation at Radnor Church, is the lan- guage of the following letter to the Propagation So- ciety, dated "Chester in Penna., June 17, 1730," from Rowland Jones, a schoolmaster :
The County is not divided into Parishes as yet but only into small Townships, and Radnor Township has as few
I3
Selection of Church Site.
people in it as any, but the Congregation of the Church de- pends on other Townships more than upon Radnor *
-X- for Radnor Township has very few church people in it, but East Town and Newtown and others adjacent thereunto has more belonging to the Church than Radnor, and indeed the Church itself does not stand in Radnor Township, but in Newtown, only as I heard say by some, they design to have it Radnor Parish when the County is divided so.
Tradition maintains that before the present site of the church was selected, sharp debates were held to determine its location. Many of the settlers desired it to be erected on a large lot of some fifteen acres in Easttown township at the northwest corner of Waterloo and Sugartown roads. This is said to have been at that time a cemetery, and in the memory of some of the old residents was known as "the graveyard field." As was not infrequently the case, however, the proximity of water is said to have determined the present location for the church, and the request for a piece of ground upon which to build their church was answered by a laconic permission from the owner to "fence off five acres in one corner" of his land.
No deed or other evidence of a grant seems ever to have been obtained, although that such was contem- plated appears from the following anonymous entry, without date, in the old parish register, viz. :
We ye underneath subscribers, do by these Presents own and acknowledge ourselves indebted for ye several sums by us hereunto subscribed, & promise to pay ye same towards ye discharging ye debt due upon St. David's Church to be paid ye hands of ye Commissary at Philadelphia, then Being,
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Old St. David's Church.
& to be disbursed by ye said Commissary, wn. he can have a firm deed from ye prsons concerned in ye building of St. David's Church, and no otherwise.
Like many other Colonial philanthropies-stand- ing in marked contrast with modern ones-the donor was the mere vehicle of the donation, and figured in- conspicuously, and there is no certainty from whom the grant of the land was obtained. A careful exami- nation of Smith's Atlas of Early Titles in Delaware County, supplemented by valuable information and deductions suggested by that author, shows from re- citals in deed from Anthony to Isaac Wayne, dated August 19th, 1774, and recorded at West Chester in Deed Book W, page 275, that some time prior to 1716, William Davis. and Thomas Edwards acquired title to a considerable tract in the northwardly corner of Newtown Township, where the church stands, be- , ing part of the original tract acquired by William Wood, containing some two hundred and seventy acres. In addition to this evidence of the title of Davis and Edwards to the land around the church, there appears in one of the Vestry books what purports to be a copy of an unrecorded deed for thirty-five and three-fourths acres adjoining "the corner of the church land" from Owen Ellis (weaver) and wife to Robert Elliot, dated June 20th, 1763, wherein is also recited a deed for twenty acres in Newtown (part of the thirty- five and three-fourth acres conveyed), dated March 27th, 1722, from 'William Davis, Thomas Edwards and
15
Title to Church Land.
Evan Hughes, Executors, et al. of Edward Hughes, to Richard Hughes. No will of Edward Hughes can be found of record, but the coincidence of the name with that in the oldest epitaph, supplemented by Dr. Smith's vague note already referred to, also arrests attention.
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