USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. I > Part 27
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Thomas Claytons, both of Christ Church College, Cam- bridge, were graduated from that University, one as A.B. in 1684 and A.M. in 1690, the other as A.B. in 1690 and A.M. in 1694. The younger of these was probably the one in whom we are interested, and who, being on his way to Maryland-he either was not originally sent to Pennsylvania, or was to serve there under the Mary- land Commissary or clergy-had order for the King's allowance on Jany. 11, 1697-8, and arrived in Philadel- phia before the end of the Summer. He started a movement for Church Unity, writing letters to the Baptists, and to both the Keithians and the Quakers who had disowned Keith, which Quakers Clayton calls
"Lloydians." In Bp. Perry's Collections, that name is printed "Hoytians," but the original letters have been examined for this present work. Clayton asked for each of the three sects to come over in a body, but he could hardly have expected those as aforesaid desig- nated as followers of Thomas Lloyd to accept such an invitation. Clayton had a long conference with some of the Keithians the night before a great meeting, per- haps their Yearly Meeting, and had hopes of something like a general union, which, however, were frustrated the next day. The reply of the Baptists is printed in Edwards's History: but Clayton reports on 9ber 29, 1698, that there was a considerable party among them working vigorously for union. After two letters from the Lloydian Quakers, and when Clayton was engaged on a further answer to them, he was, for some reason, stopped from going further by what he calls an "in- hibition from my brethren," apparently some of the Anglican clergy of Maryland. To the Rev. Jedidiah Andrews, the Presbyterian, who threatened to go home during the coming Spring, and whose flock could in- crease only by accessions from Clayton's, Clayton made a promise to confine himself to his own people so long as he saw himself in no danger of losing a congrega-
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gation. Not however sufficiently deferential to Mrs. Markham and her daughter, Clayton lost their atten- dance, which Andrews gained. Clayton, however, with the assistance of Arrowsmith, was quite successful in building up a congregation. Isaac Norris writes from Philadelphia, 7mo. 11, 1699: "Thomas Clayton, min- ister of the Church of England, died at Sassafras in Maryland, and here is another from London in his room, happened to come very opportunely."
The new-comer was Rev. Edward Portlock, who ap- pears to have been previously chaplain in the English forces serving in Flanders, Penn speaking in an un- dated letter to Sir Robert Harley of "the heat of a few churchmen headed by a Flanders camp parson under the protection of the Bishop of London, who, having got a few together," made it their business to inveigh against the Pennsylvania government, inveigh- ing in the pulpit against Quaker principles and such of the latter as concerned the State, as to oaths &ct. Port- lock seems to have come to America to take a church at Perth Amboy, but he called himself Minister of Christ Church, Phila., in his receipt to Robert Bradinham, dated March 9, 1699, in 12th year of Wm. III. Port- lock on July 12, 1700, wrote that in four years the Church of England had grown from a very small num- ber to 500 sober and devout souls in and about the city. Thomas Story in his Journal mentions the circulation, which he says was by "the clergy" of the colony or the neighbouring colonies, of the report of a miracle in Holland, whereby a letter had been unearthed warning to preparation for judgment, and telling parents to baptize their children. The account of this, he says, was read in the churches, and convinced some in favor of water baptism. It is not remarkable that the tale, whatever its source, was credited in an age when Fox, Penn, and others spoke of their marvellous experiences, Portlock left for Maryland before Dec. 31, 1700, but
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appears to have visited Kent County afterwards. Penn speaks of Portlock before this in the pulpit hypo- critically inveighing against him for leniency to pirates, when Portlock himself was intimate with Bradinham, Kidd's surgeon, and actually took a large amount of gold from Bradinham on deposit. It is sorrowful to see that there was often more politics than theology in the minds of adherents of the Church of England dur- ing the period of this history.
This chapter will not speak of the Church as a political party, but will deal with its organization, ex- tension, and domestic concerns. Already the reader has seen the clashing of the interests of Quary and Moore, as Crown officials, with the interests of William Penn, and later will find what feelings prominent men of this ecclesiastical affiliation had towards various measures of the civil government, and how, with the exception of the Mennonites and certain Germans, all the non-Quakers, of whom the Churchmen were in vari- ous ways the most important, and long the most numer- ous, opposed the binding of the public with the peace principles of the Society of Friends.
Not imbued with the idea of heading an anti-Penn party, however, was the Bishop's appointee or licensee to succeed Clayton, viz: Rev. Evan Evans, native, it is said, of Wales. Order was issued to him for the royal allowance on July 5, 1700, and he arrived in Philadelphia before November 1 following, and de- voted himself not only to the care of the Philadelphia
congregation, but also to visiting various points in the country, as Chichester, Chester, and Radnor with the district, northwest of Radnor, spoken of as Mont- gomery, and one or more points in West Jersey, preach- ing sometimes in private houses, and baptizing in about three years and a half about five hundred per- sons. Many of such as were adults had been brought up as Quakers.
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Christ Church, Philadelphia, had adopted before Dec. 31, 1700, the plan, growing into use in England, of choosing a "select vestry," instead of all the atten- dants or all the parishioners managing affairs at meet- ings in the "vestry," or vesting-room. The number of selected vestrymen, which in most churches has been twelve, has been altered for Christ Church from time to time. In 1717, with which the extant minutes begin, there were twelve besides the two wardens : but at first, although James Logan speaks in a letter as if the gov- erning body amounted to twenty, which would corre- spond with the number of petitioners specified for toleration in the royal patent, it is doubtful if attention was paid to that, in view of the religious freedom in Penn's dominions, and it seems unlikely that the signers of the following letters from the Vestry were a decided minority. The first, dated Jany. 28, 1700-1, was signed by Evans the Minister, and Robert Quary, Joshua Carpenter, J. Moore, Charles Sober, Edwd. Smout, and Samll. Holt: the second, dated Oct. 27, 1701, was signed by Evans, the Minister, John Thomas, the clerk, and by Holt and Sober, the wardens, and by Quary, Carpenter, Moore, William Hall (who was a physi- cian), Edward Smout, John Crapp, and Thomas Tench (who was some time one of the Council in Maryland).
Following King William's letters under the privy seal of Jany. 31, 1701, Queen Anne, under the privy seal, issued a warrant, dated July 15 in 1st year of her reign, to pay £50 stg. per an. to "such protestant minister as shall be residing within the province of Pennsylvania," and £30 stg. per an. "to such school- master there," out of the duty of 1d. per l. upon tobacco exported thence to other British plantations in America, from the time to which they had been paid under King William's letters, or, in case no payment had been made, then from the date of residence, and to continue during her pleasure.
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George Keith, mentioned in a previous chapter, was admitted to deacon's orders by Bishop Compton on May 12, 1700. In the following year, largely through the efforts of Rev. Thomas Bray, D.D., who had spent a short time in Maryland as the Bishop's Commissary, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was incorporated by patent dated June 16. Keith was the first missionary appointed by the Society, and, in the Spring of 1702, was sent to America as an itinerant to investigate the opportunities, and to awaken a sentiment for religious ministrations by the Church of England. Thomas Story's Journal, before quoted, says that the Bishop of London was unwilling to ordain as priest any one who had fluctuated in opinion like Keith, and so the latter came over unable to administer the communion. Contradicting this are the words of that Bishop's recommendation of Keith to Gov. Nicholson of Virginia, dated Apr. 3, 1702: "He is in the full Orders of our Church, so that you may permit him to preach when & where you please within your Government" (Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biog., Vol. XXIII, p. 145). With Keith was Rev. Patrick Gordon, appointed as missionary to Jamaica on Long Island, but who died a few days after his arrival there. Rev. John Talbot, formerly Rector of Fretherne, Gloucester- shire, but at this time Chaplain of the man-of-war "Centurion," in which Keith sailed, joined him in his travels, which extended from Piscataway River in New England to Currituck, North Carolina. They arrived in Philadelphia on Nov. 5, 1702, and preached in Christ Church on the Sunday following, and several times afterwards, at intervals between visits to other places, joining Rev. Evan Evans in having prayers and ser- mons every day during the Friends Yearly Meeting held in Philadelphia in September, 1703. The work of the two itinerants was very active and very successful. They brought many throughout the middle provinces
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into the fold of the Church. They saw in Penn's do- minions, partly as the result of Evans's labors, the establishment of congregations at Chester, Frankford (the church since called Oxford) in Philadelphia County, New Castle, and Appoquinimy. Talbot preached on Jany. 24, 1702-3, the first sermon in the newly finished St. Paul's Church at Chester. Rev. Henry Nicolls, a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, sent to Chester by the aforesaid Society, arrived there on Mch. 1, 1703-4, and, on April 18, a vestry consisting of him and eleven laymen was elected. Keith preached, on Aug. 22, the first sermon in the newly finished St. Mary's at Burlington. Keith's last sermon in Phila- delphia was on Sunday, April 2, 1704, after which he went to Virginia to take passage for England. If, in- deed, he had not been previously ordained priest, he must have been in the course of a year following, for, in 1705, he received the small living of Edburton, Sussex, which he held until his death in 1716. For a while, at least, his wife had remained a Friend; but his daughters turned with him. He appears to have left no son. From a daughter who married in Virginia was descended George Wythe, a Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Talbot about 1705 settled down to the charge of St. Mary's, Burlington.
On Aug. 14, 1706, Evans gave Gov. John Seymour of Maryland a receipt for the old great seal of that Province, promising to deliver the seal, on safe arrival in England, to Col. Nathaniel Blackiston, Agent of the Province, to carry to the Lords for Trade. David Humphreys's History of the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, printed in London in 1730, speaks of Evans's coming to London upon private concerns in 1707. Quary had represented him as too friendly to his namesake John Evans, Penn's Deputy, and to Penn, and to the Quakers. Rev. Mr. Evans was well received, and came back about the be-
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ginning of 1709, having received the royal order of £20 on Aug. 9, 1708, and bringing silver communion pieces for Christ Church from Queen Anne. In 1711, the church building was considerably enlarged, the con- gregation worshipping for some weeks in the Swedish church, although offered the use of the Presbyterian (Dorr's History of Christ Church). Evans went again to England about 1714, and appears then to have re- ceived the degree of D.D., as he is called "Dr." after- wards. He returned about the end of 1716 (O. S.), when, in addition to Christ Church, he took charge of Radnor and Oxford, preaching at those country churches alternately on Thursdays. Finding the work too much for him, he retired in June, 1718, to accept a living in Maryland. Visiting Philadelphia in October, 1721, he read prayers and preached in Christ Church on Sun- day, the 8th, in the morning. At the afternoon service, he was taken with an apoplectic fit, and sank down immediately in the desk, and was carried to his lodg- ing, where he remained speechless until about two o'clock on Wednesday, when he died. He was buried in the church on the 12th, the register giving also the date of his death as if it happened on Tuesday, and his age as sixty years. Rev. John Vicary was at that time the Rector, being the minister licensed for Christ Church next after Evans, and serving about three years from Sep. 4, 1719, and dying in office.
The interest of Governor Gookin in Church affairs will be spoken of in a later chapter. His successor, William Keith, who, by the way, was not a near rela- tion of George Keith, at first did much to facilitate the preaching of the Gospel by Anglican clergymen, tak- ing them with him on his visits to certain points. As Gookin had been, so he was he a member of the Vestry of Christ Church. Keith was defeated for re-election after one year's service, because, said Peter Evans, he
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took upon him to overrule the other members, and en- tirely deprived them of their just freedom.
With the Swedish clergy, the Anglican at this period in Pennsylvania were in full communion. Rev: Andreas Rudman, former Pastor of Gloria Dei Church, Wec- cacoe, was put in charge of the congregation at Oxford in 1705 by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel aforesaid, and, after Evans left for England, served Christ Church, dying before Evans's return. Rev. Andreas Sandel, Pastor of Gloria Dei, attended meetings of the Anglican clergy in 1713 and 1715, as well as being present at the dedication or opening of the present edifice of Trinity Church, Oxford, on Nov. 5, 1713, and the laying of the corner stone of the present edifice of St. David's, Radnor, on May 9, 1715 (see Penna. Mag., Vol. XXX). Between these dates, a church edifice for St. James's, Bristol, was finished and opened on St. James's Day, with sermon from Rev. Francis Phillips. Of that unworthy clergyman some- thing will be said in connection with Lieut. Gov. Gookin.
The offer of the Presbyterian edifice to Christ Church congregation recalls our attention to the non- Quaker religious denominations in Pennsylvania be- sides the two National Churches. The dispute before mentioned between the Baptists and Presbyterians of the union congregation in Philadelphia, ended, ac- cording to the Baptists' story, in the Presbyterians failing to keep to the offer to hold a conference. On the second Sunday of December in 1698, nine Baptists, viz: John Holmes, John Farmer and wife, Joseph Todd, Rebecca Woosencroft, William Silverstone, William Elton and wife, and Mary Shepherd met at the Barbados store, and "coalesced into a church for the communion of saints, having Rev. John Watts for their assistance." Of these, John Farmer and wife were from the congregation of Rev. Hanserd Knollys
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in London, and Joseph Todd and Rebecca Woosencroft were from that at Limmington, Hampshire; while the others, with the possible exception of Holmes, had been immersed by Rev. Thomas Killingworth after coming to America. Shortly after this "coalescing," Thomas Bibb and Nathaniel Douglas were members of the Philadelphia congregation. The Presbyterians contending for the place of worship, the Baptists aban- doned it to them, and went to Anthony Morris's brew- house. There the Baptists remained until Mch. 15, 1707, and then, by invitation of the Keithians, moved to the latter's building in 2nd street below Arch. Hav- ing perfected their title to the lot, as shown in the chapter on Religious Dissension, and having the ad- joining lot, formerly owned by John Holmes, the Bap- tists, in 1731, replaced the wooden structure with a brick one, used until 1762, when they built a larger edifice, probably partly covering both lots. In the said year 1707, the various Baptist congregations of Phila- delphia and vicinity, having, it is thought, previously had annual reunions, formed, or gave disciplinary power to, an Association composed of their delegates. The Baptists were reinforced by the arrival of a num- ber of ministers and ruling elders from South Wales and the West of England in 1710 and afterwards. Rev. Thomas Selby, an Irish minister, who came to the Phila- delphia congregation, was excommunicated by the Asso- ciation in 1712. About this time, all the ministers of the Association had accepted the rite of laying on of hands. Terms of association were adopted in 1742, adding Articles XXIII and XXXI to those published in Lon- don by one hundred congregations in 1689, and called the Century Confession. The treatise of discipline has been "The Glory of a true Church and its Discipline," published in London in 1697; and the catechism has been that published in London in 1699.
Contrary to the threat, or, rather expectation, re-
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ported by Clayton, the Rev. Jedidiah Andrews did not leave his flock in the Spring of 1699, nor, in fact, until his death in 1747, except during a few months in old age by suspension for "indiscretions," on repentance for which he was restored. There is mention in Rev. Dr. Wm. B. Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit of a notion held by some that Andrews gave up the Independent theory in 1729; but his support of the measures of Irish Presbyterians, and other facts men- tioned by Rev. William H. Roberts, D.D., LL.D., in the Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society, Vol. V, No. 5, are inconsistent with his clinging to Indepen- dency, or Congregationalism, so late, if he ever clung to it after leaving New England. Moreover, there al- ways were a number of divines in New England, who wholly or largely inclined to the opinion that the true scheme of Church government was that set forth in those chapters of the Westminster Confession which the Synod at Cambridge, Massachusetts, changed in 1648, and the Rev. Peter Hobart, Pastor at Andrews's native town in Andrews's childhood, was one of those called Presbyterians by those who distinguished such from Congregationalists. It is said that Andrews was ordained in Philadelphia, and probably in 1701, when the record of the baptisms performed by him com- mences. Talbot may have heard of this ordination by Apr. 24, 1702, when he wrote: "The Presbyterians here come a great way to lay hands on one another, In Philadelphia one pretends to be a Presby- terian." This seems to mean claiming the office of presbyter by Apostolic succession through presbyters. The Virginia shores of the Chesapeake and the neigh- bourhood of New York were in those days "a great way" off from Philadelphia, and nobody who thought the congregation competent to ordain would have made a longer journey. It would seem, therefore, that those taking part in the ordination of Andrews were two
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Presbyterians properly so called, viz: Revs. Francis Makemie of Accomac County, Virginia, and Josias Mackie of Norfolk County, Virginia, and also two neighbours of doubtful ecclesiastical antecedents, viz: Revs. Samuel Davis (who had long been in Delaware) and Nathaniel Taylor (perhaps of Maryland, but whose being in New Jersey is suggested in Rev. Dr. William Hill's History of American Presbyterianism). Ma- kemie was an Irishman, said confidently in Sprague's Annals to have been ordained for colonial work sine titulo by his native Presbytery of Laggan, after appli- cation, in 1678, for a minister in Barbados, and, in December, 1680, for one in Maryland, in both of which places we find Makemie preaching. If his ordination in Ireland or that of Davis or Taylor in the British Isles is doubted, there were a number of Scotch or Irish Presbyterian ministers in New Jersey or Mary- land for several years previous to the English Revolu- tion, who might have ordained each of the three, among such Scotch or Irish ministers being Rev. William Traill, the former Moderator of the aforesaid Laggan Presbytery, who, after that body was broken up, went to Maryland. Rev. Dr. Robert Ellis Thompson, D.D., in his History of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States, gives 1682 as the date of Traill's ar- rival, and 1683 as that of Makemie's. The last named went to Europe in 1704, and, in 1705, brought back Revs. George Macnish and John Hampton, and gath- ered together the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the Mother Presbytery of the United States. The minutes of the body are preserved from the meeting in Phila- delphia in 1706, when Makemie was Moderator, and Andrews, Davis, Wilson, Taylor, Macnish, and Hamp- ton were the other ministers, with John Boyd, a licen- tiate from Ireland, whom they ordained for Freehold, New Jersey. Andrews and Wilson and possibly Davis were the only ones stationed in Penn's dominions. The
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congregation in the capital city is seen from the sur- names in the early records to have been made up of English Nonconformists, New Englanders, and New York Reformed Dutch, and never in times following could be classified as Scotch Irish, although including persons of that race. It is likely that an important early Presbyterian of Philadelphia, William Allen, a sea captain who married into the Budd family, and was father of the rich Chief Justice of the name, was a Scotch-Irishman, as this sea captain mentions in his will a sister Catherine Cally living in Dungannon in Ireland, and an uncle William Craig at that place. In 1714, a congregation was started in the Great Valley, i.e. in Tredyffrin Township, Chester County, and, in the same year, some Independents formed one at Abing- ton, then in Philadelphia County, and accepted Presby- terianism, calling as Pastor a Welsh Presbyterian, Rev. Malachi Jones, who, on arrival, was admitted to the Presbytery as an ordained minister.
In 1716, the Presbytery agreed to divide into three or four presbyteries, which should unite annually in a Synod. Six ministers were to compose the new Presbytery retaining the name of Philadelphia, viz. Andrews and Jones and Howell Powell or ap Howell, who had been ordained in Wales, and was settled at Cohansey, N. J., and John Bradner, a Scotchman, recently ordained for Cape May, and Joseph Morgan, born and ordained in Connecticut, then at Freehold, N. J., and Robert Orr, then at Hopewell, N. J., who was the only Irishman, he having come from "the old country" as a probationer. Another Presbytery was to bear the name of New Castle, which Isaac Norris in a letter in 1700 called "that Frenchified, Scotchified, Dutchified place," and in this Presbytery were James Anderson, ordained by Irvine Presbytery in Scotland, and who was the minister at New Castle, Daniel Mc- Gill, sent from London to a Scotch congregation at
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Marlborough, Md., Robert Wotherspoon, who had come as a probationer from Scotland, and was minister at Appoquinimy, Del., David Evans, a Welshman, preaching to his countrymen at the Welsh Tract in New Castle Co. and in the Great Valley, Chester Co., Hugh Conn, a native of Ireland, and graduate of Glas- gow, minister at Patapsco, Maryland, and George Gillespie, a native of Glasgow, also educated at the university there, and licensed by Glasgow Presbytery, ordained for the White Clay Creek congregation, and serving that vicinity. Three ministers were to compose a Presbytery of Snow Hill, viz: Davis, who was preach- ing at Lewes, and Hampton, who was minister for Snow Hill, and John Henry, ordained by Dublin Pres- bytery, minister for Rehoboth and the lower part of the Eastern Shore: but this Presbytery did not go into operation. To bring the Northern Calvinists into a Presbytery of Long Island were Macnish, then at Jamaica, Long Island, and Samuel Pumry at Newtown, Long Island, a New Englander, ordained by New Eng- landers, and admitted to the "Mother Presbytery" only a year before. Anderson was soon sent to be the first minister of the Scots congregation in the City of New York. Communion with many of the Connecticut min- isters, and some accessions to the Presbytery of Long Island, and accessions of Nonconformists in Maryland and Virginia to the Presbytery of New Castle, seemed to promise a large religious denomination based upon opinion, and drawing strength almost equally from dif- ferent races. In connection with the Irish, or Scotch Irish, immigration, the further history of Pennsylvania Presbyterianism will be given in a later chapter.
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