USA > Pennsylvania > Chronicles of Pennsylvania from the English revolution to the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1688-1748, Vol. II > Part 13
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We here now freely surrender to you all those lands about Conestoga which the Five Nations have claimed, and it is our desire that the same may be settled with Christians, in token whereof we give this string of wampum." It might be said that this report needed something "to give verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing statement;" and this it had in Keith's further quotations from the speech to the effect that Brother Onas was to order, that, if any of these Indians came to Philadelphia to trade, they were to have goods as cheap as possible, and that the sachems desired some provisions to help them on their journey. To these last points, Keith replied-remember his statement that Livingston and Claese were present- that Philadelphia was far out of the way, Albany well supplying goods, and that all he could do as to the pro- visions was to give them some bread. To their gift of land, he said: "You know very well that all the lands about Conestogoe, upon the River Susquehannah, be- long to your old friend and kind brother William Penn; nevertheless I do here, in his name, accept of the offer and surrender which you have now made to me, because it will put an end to all other claims and disputes if any should be made hereafter." Logan writes in 1729 that he suspected at the time that the gift, or surrender, had not been made. The evidence is not before us as to whether Keith or the interpreter jumped at con- clusions, or whether the Cayugas lied, when, in 1727, they maintained stoutly that all that had been done was to grant permission "to make a fire" for the pur- poses of a copper mine (see next chapter) of which Keith spoke. Before Keith's return, his Councillors allowed his report to be printed, and therefore credited, Hill, Norris, and Logan being present.
Governor Spotswood had secured the passage by his Assembly of an Act whereby any Indian of the Five Nations found south of the Potomac or east of the
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great Ridge of Mountains-without a pass from some Governor ?- could be put to death, or transported be- yond seas as a public enemy, and any Southern Indian passing north of the Potomac, or west of the said Ridge, could be put to death by any one finding him there. The terms of this Act were ratified at the afore- said meeting in Albany between him, as representing ten Indian nations living east of the Ridge, and the sachems representing the Five Nations and the Tusca- roras, and professing to represent the Conestogas, the Shawnees, the Octatiguanannkroons, and the Ostagues. The Five Nations further agreed that they and those subject to them would not receive or harbor any negroes, but would take them up, if found in the woods, and deliver them to the Governor to be returned to their masters. Several negroes had run away, and were supposed to be with some Shawnees on the north- ern side of the Potomac.
In October, 1722, on the way home from Albany, Spotswood stopped in Philadelphia, with the purpose of meeting the Indians of Pennsylvania, to treat with them for their ratification of the aforesaid boundaries and the return of the fugitive negroes. The majority of Keith's Councillors present when he laid before them Spotswood's design, were averse to Spotswood's treat- ing with the Pennsylvania Indians, also disapproved of the law passed in Virginia, and opposed the Pennsyl- vania Indians subjecting themselves to its penalties. Keith sent the written opinion of these Councillors to Spotswood, but, having summoned the Indians to Con- estoga to meet the latter, offered to do what the latter should think best, to attend him thither, or to undertake himself to bring the Indians to the measures proposed. Unwilling to put Keith in such opposition to the Coun- cillors, Spotswood went home, much surprised as their attitude, and chagrined at having lost time in Phila- delphia, and at having spent money for horses for the
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abandoned journey to Conestoga. He left, however, with Keith belts of wampum, to be used upon any opportunity for treating with the Indians for what Virginia desired. With the belt on the subject of the negroes, a message drafted by Logan, and revised in Council, was soon sent by the Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsylvania to the chiefs at Conestoga, making ex- cuses for the failure of Spotswood and Keith to visit them. The message notified the Indians of the treaty between Virginia and the Five Nations, and of the Vir- ginia law, and promised to deliver one of Spotswood's belts when the chiefs would meet to receive it in token of agreement to the treaty, and announced that Col. Mason on the Potomac in Virginia would give a gun and two blankets for every negro delivered to him for return to the master. The Indians replied that they were disappointed at losing their liberty of passing the boundaries, but would observe them; and the Shawnee King promised to go himself to Oppertus, and possess himself of the negroes, and carry them to Virginia in the Spring.
Besides furnishing strong pickets against threaten- ing Iroquois, the Scotch-Irish immigration enabled the Pennsylvania land officers to make some sales. As early as 1722, some even of those members of the race who had bought Maryland titles took confirmations from the representatives of the Penns, or acquired from them tracts in the same neighbourhood. When Indian hostility had not culminated in anything but incidental marauding, and even the misunderstanding arising from the proceedings at Albany seemed capable of settlement by a purchase, and when the quantity of land ready for immediate sale was becoming much re- stricted, the number and neediness of the persons arriving from Ireland was overwhelming. Much bus- iness was done by sea-captains and merchants in bringing at their expense persons who contracted
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to repay them by labor for a term of years, and in the said importers selling and assigning the labor so contracted for. These "redemptioners," as such laborers were called, were sure of food and lodging during their temporary slavery. Those Scotch-Irish who paid, or whose relatives paid, for their passage, were of the agricultural class, and could be only farm hands or pioneers. They furnished the rural free labor of southern Pennsylvania for nearly one hundred years; and, appropriately, the law of the Commonwealth abolishing negro slavery was chiefly the work of a native of Ireland, George Bryan. Employ- ment could not be found for all in the early years, and when, in the Fall of 1727, eight or nine ships discharged at New Castle, probably most of the passengers had to find some spot in the wilderness on which to put up a cabin. On one day in November, 1727, application was made to Logan asking where four hundred could settle. They declared that they intended to purchase, but, in Logan's opinion, not one in twenty had any money. This state of affairs was probably true for many years. When, impelled by necessity, members of this race took possession without paying, they could not be rigorously treated; the kinsmen far and wide might make their displeasure felt. The Penns undoubtedly lost the price of some land. On the other hand, these men who landed in Pennsylvania or the Territories Annexed, adopted the cause of the Penns, and the latter might consider, that, with all losses, there was a net gain, in having a population of henchmen, those who did not pay money seeming to hold by military service. A great result of the Scotch-Irishmen's location in the disputed region, instead of its purchase by the Quakers, was, that, by the Irishmen fighting, as civil officers, or as members of a posse, the jurisdiction of the Penns was enforced over so much of the region until the final settlement.
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According to Robert Proud's History of Pennsyl- vania, 6000 had come by 1729, and 12000 arrived annually for several years before the middle of the century. It has been stated that 1000 families, not merely individuals, sailed from Belfast in September, 1736. Some of the vessels may not have come to the Delaware.
The distribution of the Scotch-Irish in what is now Pennsylvania or northeastern Maryland, has its best evidence in the Presbyterian records of the appoint- ment of places of worship. The immigration was not in congregations, or under pastors. As shown in the chapter on the Church of England, already in the Middle Provinces were Calvinists governed according to the Scotch model; and to their clergy, among whom were natives of Ireland, the faithful of the Synod of Ulster entering the field had recourse for spiritual ministration. Poor as these immigrants were, there were among them those who were informed in the the- ology endorsed by that Synod, and this may be said generally of those who became ruling elders. When in great numbers the race joined the aforesaid Amer- ican branch of the communion embracing the Estab- lished Church of Scotland and the brethren in Ireland, the history of the race in America and the history of that branch became blended.
It is possible that the claims that Octorara and Done- gal congregations were organized in 1720, may mean that Irishmen gathered for worship in both neigh- bourhoods alternately in that year. J. Smith Futhey, in his Historical Discourse on the 150th Anniversary of Upper Octorara Church, says that the Pastor at the Welsh Tract, Rev. David Evans, was the first who preached at Octorara. A house of worship was put up not later than 1721, and the people about this time were directed by the Presbytery of New Castle to "gratify" those who supplied the pulpit, i.e.
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make some present to them, and not let them go away unpaid. Among them was Rev. Daniel McGill of Maryland, who appears to have preached at other points thereabouts. On 6mo. 20, 1724, Joseph Water- worth complained to the Pennsylvania Board of Property that divers Scotch-Irish were busy settling about Octorara Creek, and that this was making those neighbours who had settled on regular grants very un- easy. Yet the congregation of the upper part of the Creek included men of some money, and a call on its behalf to Adam Boyd was presented by Arthur Park, a native of Ballylagby, Co. Donegal, before mentioned as taking up land on the Susquehanna, and Cornelius Rowan, whose son and heir-at-law is described as of Grey Abbey, Co. Down, "gentleman." Adam Boyd, a native of Ballymoney, Ireland, was ordained Pastor of Octorara and Pikquæ on Oct. 13, 1725, and a couple of years later the Presbyterians down the western side of the Octorara were strong enough to form another congregation, called Middle Octorara, and obtain part of his time. Those at Donegal seem to have been em- braced in an application made in 1722 to the New Castle Presbytery on behalf of the settlements towards the Susquehanna by Rowland Chambers. Rev. James Anderson, previously minister at New York and New Castle, accepted a call to Donegal in 1726, and then se- cured an entry in the minutes of the Land Commis- sioners in his favor for 300 acres, and made this plan- tation his residence. About this time, it is said, John Harris, who, however, was from Yorkshire, settled on Paxtung Creek, and several persons from Ireland named Chambers, on the Swatara; and there soon followed into these upper localities enough Presby- terians, or would-be Presbyterians, to make another congregation. Swatara, since called Derry, obtained one fifth of Rev. James Anderson's time in 1729, and the people at Fishing Creek, since called Paxton
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Church, asked for ministerial supplies in the following year. The warrant before mentioned to Renick in 1730 allowed him and three sons and a son-in-law, Robert Polke, to enter upon 1000 acres on the Susquehanna between "Sohataroe" and "Pextan," two miles at least above "Sohataroe" (Swatara). The Presby- terians in the neighbourhood of Chestnut Level were sufficiently numerous before 1730 to have a place of worship about a mile below the present village.
At Fagg's Manor, a congregation was formed about 1730, originally called New Londonderry. Efforts were made to obtain a minister from, strange to say, the Associate Presbytery of Scotland, but without success. Naturally, after this, assistance was sought from the ecclesiastical association of the neighbourhood.
The Scotch-Irish congregations were covered by Donegal Presbytery, when, in 1732, that Presbytery was taken from New Castle Presbytery, Anderson, Thomson, Boyd, Orr, and Bertram being made the con- stituent ministers. In 1733, the people of Pequea were erected into a distinct congregation, and in 1734 mem- bers of Boyd's congregation residing in or near Brandy- wine Manor asked liberty to erect a separate house of worship for him to preach in occasionally, thus start- ing the Falls of Brandywine Church. We need not further pursue the multiplication of congregations : be- fore the year 1748 there were some west, as well as east, of the Susquehanna.
Before the faithful of Irish birth had become nu- merous, the ministers reared in Scotland or Ireland became alert for the American Synod to which they belonged to conform to the practice of the Synods at home. Gillespie had a resolution passed in the Synod of Philadelphia of 1721 authorizing an overture to be offered by any brother the following year for an Act of Synod for the better carrying on of government and dis- cipline. This caused a protest from some who thought
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that the Church had no authority to make laws, or to alter or add to what was prescribed in the Bible; and the Synod of 1722 declared satisfactory the statement of these protesters allowing of acts and directories only so far as not imposed upon those conscientiously dis- senting. The Presbytery of New Castle expressed ad- herence to the Westminster Confession in 1724. The majority of the Presbyterian divines in Ireland now became more strict. After, for a short time, allowing a Presbytery to pass upon the soundness in faith of a man who scrupled at and modified phrases in the Con- fession, the Synod of Ulster determined to adhere to the Confession, and, in 1726, required every minister and elder, before voting in a Synod, to subscribe to the Confession; which action resulted in the non-sub- scribers forming a schismatic Presbytery, and in the latter's development as the Unitarian organization of Ireland. Thomson, who had come from Ireland in 1715 as a probationer, and was Pastor at Lewes, Delaware, introduced in the Synod of Philadelphia in 1727 an overture to adopt the Westminster Confession, Cate- chisms, &ct., and, furthermore, to direct the Presby- teries to require subscription to the Confession, and a promise not to teach contrary to it, from every candi- date, and from "all actual ministers coming among us, no minister to teach contrary to such articles unless the subject were first discussed in Presbytery or Synod."
The next year, this overture was recommended by all Scotch and Irish members at the Synod. Although the English and Welsh, who were unanimous against it, succeeded in having it postponed, it carried dis- may to those opposed to authority in matters of be- lief. Some saw in it a design to drive out the Amer- ican born preachers, or, at least, the New Englanders, they differing with the Irish on disciplinary questions. There was a willingness to adopt the Confession, but
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not to make it an essential term for ministerial fellow- ship. This plan obtained general acceptance in the Synod of 1729, from which there were some members absent, but such seem to have afterwards shown their adherence. Except Rev. Daniel Elmer, who expressed himself as unprepared, but subsequently gave in his ad- herence, all the ministers present announced the solu- tion of all scruples against any expressions in the Con- fession or Catechisms of the Westminster Assembly, and declared the said Confession and Catechisms to be the confession of their faith, excepting some clauses in the 20th and 21st chapters as to the Civil Magistrate. The Directory for worship, discipline, and government, commonly annexed to the Westminster Confession, was acknowledged to be agreeable in substance to the word of God, and founded thereon, and was recommended to all members to be observed as near as circumstances would allow, and Christian prudence would direct. In the various Presbyteries, this settlement was carried out faithfully.
After the Synod of 1733 had urged upon ministers the duty of instructionally visiting the families under their charge, and of seeing that household worship took place, and after the next Synod had not received satis- factory reports from the Presbyteries on this subject, Gilbert Tennent, on Sep. 20, 1734, introduced an over- ture for due care in examining candidates for the Lord's Supper, and for the ministry, on the evidences of God's grace in them, as well as their other qualifi- cations. The Synod unanimously adopted an admoni- tion of this kind, with a recommendation to the Presby- teries to examine into the life and work of the minis- ters, and whether their preaching insisted upon the great articles of Christianity, upon the Saviour being the only foundation of hope, upon the necessity of divine grace for accepting Him, and upon the lost and miserable state of those unconverted.
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In an age when all degrees of skepticism as to the Westminster faith were manifesting themselves, Ar- minianism, Unitarianism, Deism, and Atheism, it was inevitable that some of the men who came from Ireland should differ with the majority. Samuel Hemphill, who had, as a probationer, excited the disapproval of Rev. Patrick Vance, was ordained by the Presbytery of Strabane, and admitted to the Synod of Philadel- phia, accepting the Confession and Catechisms. A letter from Vance to his brother-in-law, John Kirk- patrick, elder at Nottingham, caused an examination of Hemphill's teachings by the Presbytery of New Castle, resulting in an expression of satisfaction from the same. After he had been made assistant to Andrews at Philadelphia, the ideas expressed in some of Hemp- hill's sermons were at such variance from generally re- ceived Christianity that Andrews had him tried by a commission of the Synod, and suspended. In the pam- phlet war that followed, it was shown that several of the sermons were from the published works of well known Arians; which plagiarism, apparently rather than the thoughts expressed, at once chilled the enthu- siasm for him, and soon scattered his admirers.
The behavior of Hemphill made the American Pres- byterians less ready to accept ministers on the mere endorsement given by Irish Presbyteries. Some Irish Presbyteries had been conferring the "preaching eldership" sine titulo, i.e. without appointment to a definite field, so ordaining persons about to depart for America, but who nevertheless were without a call from a particular congregation. In fear that this would be done without sufficient examination of the candidate, the Synod of Philadelphia made a rule in 1735 that no European minister or probationer preach in any vacant congregation before subscribing the Westminster Con- fession, and satisfying as to his attachment to it a com- mittee of the Presbytery examining his credentials,
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that no call be presented until he had preached half a year within the bounds of the Synod, that a call be moderated by a minister appointed by the Presbytery of the district, and that a minister ordained in Ireland to no particular charge do not exercise his ministry be- fore submitting to such trials as the Presbytery having jurisdiction over his intended residence should appoint. The Synod sent a message to Ireland asking that ordi- nations sine titulo be not made, and also suggesting that a minister coming over bring not only credentials, but letters from brethren well known to be attached to the "good old principles and schemes." From before this until this history closes, few New Englanders would be candidates for vacant pulpits under the Penn- sylvania Presbyteries, or would stay long, if they did accept. One Englishman only found employment in Penn's dominion from the formation of the Synod until its disruption; and only a few Scotchmen. The great majority of the ministers were from the North of Ire- land, and had been educated at Glasgow.
The Westminster Directory had required candidates for the ministry to show a college diploma, before being taken on trial; and this had been followed by the Scottish Kirk and the body under the Synod of Ulster. Poverty making it impossible for Pennsylvania Pres- byterians to go to Europe for a college education, and very difficult even to go to New England, the acceptance of men without such training became necessary. To those, like the Tennents, concerned over the lethargy or formalism in the older communities, and over the shepherdless state of the groups of pioneers, as well as the irreligion outside of the fold, it was all important to get exhorters, who, thoroughly in earnest, could move the hearts of ordinary people. Alexander's book on the Log College says that the Tennents secured the setting off of New Brunswick Presbytery with the aim of getting an ordaining body which would ordain those
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taught at old Mr. Tennent's school. The ministers assigned to the new Presbytery were Gilbert Tennent and William Tennent Jr. and Samuel Blair, who had studied under their father, besides John Cross, who had carried on a revival in the mountains of New Jersey, and two graduates of Yale, Eleazar Wales and Richard Treat of Abingdon, near Philadelphia. On the other hand, some ministers were not satisfied to trust to the instruction at what they laughingly called "Log Col- lege," where there was only one teacher, or to other private education ; so the Synod of 1738, the same which established New Brunswick Presbytery, appointed standing committees to examine all students with or without diplomas, and to give certificates of approval, which should be accepted as equivalent to a degree in arts.
The Presbytery of New Brunswick licensed a Ne- shaminy student, John Rowland, without complying with this, and sent him to Maidenhead, which was under the Presbytery of Philadelphia, despite the warning by the latter, permitted as a veto by regulations made in 1737, that the congregation would be disturbed. The congregation was in fact divided, and the Philadelphia Presbytery said that Rowland could not be treated as an orderly candidate. On this subject, involving the authority of the Synod, the Presbyterians of Pennsyl- vania and adjacent colonies separated, as will now be mentioned, into two bodies. There was no question as to the Westminster Confession, for both sides professed adherence to it, but the controlling object with one was the prosecution of awakening methods like White- field's. To the Synod of 1739, the New Brunswick Presbytery sent a lengthy vindication, setting forth that no church judicatory had power to bind those who conscientiously dissented from the regulations. Row- land's friends at Maidenhead asked to be a separate congregation attached to the New Brunswick Presby-
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tery, to which transfer the Philadelphia Presbytery had not agreed. The Synod refused to transfer, and declared the licensing of Rowland to have been dis- orderly, and forbade him to preach until he should pass the examination, which they again made necessary, only allowing, as an alternative, that it be before the whole Synod. The Tennent family protested, Rev. Samuel Blair and Rev. Eleazar Wales and some elders joining them. The New Brunswick Presbytery or- dained Rowland as an evangelist in November follow- ing.
The coming of Whitefield to the Middle Colonies in the Fall of 1739 created enthusiasm for the Tennents, with whom, as pioneer revivalists, he associated him- self, while he gave considerable endorsement of Row- land as a worthy minister. Contempt was felt for the preachers forming the majority in various tribunals, as persons of no religion at heart. To break down their authority became part of a warfare which Whitefield likened to that of "Michael against the dragon." Gil- bert Tennent preached at Nottingham on March 8, 1739-40, a sermon upon An Unconverted Ministry, pretty plainly calling upon people to withdraw from attending upon such. John Cross, being refused the use of the Nottingham place of worship, elicited "amazing manifestations of distress" in the woods. Whitefield, coming to Nottingham on his second visit to Pennsylvania, had thousands to cry out, so as almost to drown his voice. The "awakened" started a new Presbyterian congregation, beginning to build across the highway from the old house of worship. While the Synod of 1740 was in session, those who agreed with Tennent, and on whom, as it were, the mantle of White- field had fallen, preached fourteen sermons on Society Hill, Philadelphia, besides several in the Baptist church. Those not of Whitefield's principles, like Rev. Jonathan
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