The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Part 30

Author: Davis, W.W.H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Doylestown, Pa. : Democrat Book and Job Office Print
Number of Pages: 976

USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time > Part 30

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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

CHAPTER XIX.

HISTORICAL CHURCHES.

1710 TO 1744.

Population previous to 1710 .- Churches between 1710 and 1720 .- St. James' Epis- copal .- The graveyard .- Whitefield and Zinzendorf .- Churches established .- Whitefield at Neshaminy .- Second visit -- The "Great Awakening."-David Brainard .- The "old" and "new side."-Division at Neshaminy .- The Log college and William Tennent .- Samuel Blair .- Charles Beatty .- Neshaminy church founded .- Nathaniel Irwin .- Mr. Belville .- Southampton Baptist church. -John Watts, Samuel Jones .- Mr. Vanhorne, Mr. Montanye .- Deep Run church .- Francis McHenry .- James Grier .- Newtown church .- Hugh Carlisle. James Boyd .- Revolutionary .- Robert D. Morris .- New Britain Baptist church. -Child of a religious quarrel .- Growden gives ground .- Joseph Eaton .- Recon- ciliation with Montgomery .- Strength of church .- Ministers' names.

THE population of Bucks county was composed almost exclusively of English Friends previous to 1710, if we except the feeble settle- ment of Rhode Island Baptists, at Cold spring in Bristol township. Other sects and denominations came in at a later period ; in their order, the English Episcopalians, the Dutch Protestants, the Scotch- Irish Presbyterians, the Welsh Baptists, and the German Lutherans and Reformed. Each denomination marked a different people, and introduced a new element into provincial civilization. Between 1710 and 1720 three denominational churches were established, St. James' Episcopal, at Bristol, what is now the Bensalem Presbyterian church, and the Low Dutch Reformed church of Northampton and Southampton.

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The St. James' Episcopal church, built in 1711, and dedicated the 12th of July, 1712, owes its foundation to the "Society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts." The lot was the gift of " Anthony Burton, gentleman," and Queen Anne interested herself enough in the feeble parish to give it a solid silver communion ser- vice, which was stolen in after years. The first pastor was Reverend John Talbot, chaplain in the English navy, and attached to the ship in which George Keith first came to America. He and Talbot founded St. Mary's church at Burlington, and the latter used to come across the river to preach at Bristol before the church was built. He officiated until 1727, and was succeeded by the following rectors ; Robert Wyman, 1733, William Lindsay, 1739, Colin Campbell, 1741, Mr. Odell, 1768, Mr. Lewis, 1776, Henry Waddell, 1806, Richard D. Hall, 1813, Mr. Jacquette, 1822, Albert A. Miller, J. V. E. Thorn, William H. Reese. 1825, George W. Ridgely, Thomas J. Jackson, William S. Perkins, 1833, Mr. Bartow, 1855, Joseph W. Pearson, 1857, D. W. W. Spear, 1861, and the late rector, Doctor John H. Drumm, in 1863. Doctor Drumm was a chaplain in the army during the late civil war, and served in the campaign on the Peninsula, and is now rector of a parish in Rhode Island. The parish suffered during the Revolutionary war. The church was dismantled and turned into a cavalry stable, the graves trodden under foot, and the congregation scattered. After the war it was used for a barn. It was without a rector or regular service for thirty-one years, and until Mr. Waddell, of Trenton, was called to officiate twice a month, in 1806, for £50 a year. This venerable parish has passed through many tribulations, but survived them all. The gifts of its early patrons have been mostly squandered, yet it possesses valuable temporalities. The church edifice cost $13,000 in 1857, and the congregation owns a comfortable rectory, erected a few years ago. Anthony Burton was one of the most active in the organization of the church, and John Rowland gave a lot on Mill street, in 1715, to build a rectory upon. Some of the early rectors received but £100 a year. The grave yard is one of the old- est in the county, and in it lie the remains of some of Bristol's earliest inhabitants. Near the grave of Captain Green, who car- ried the first American flag to China, was buried Captain Sharp, Tenth United States infantry, who, while stationed just above Bristol, fell in a duel with the quarter-master of his regiment, in 1798. Sharp was courting Miss Sarah McElroy, whose father kept the

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Cross Keys hotel in Bristol many years. The duel grew ont of a difficulty in relation to the lady, and was fought on the farm now owned by Charles T. Iredell, just outside the borough limits. Sharp fell at the second fire. The lady never married.

The next thirty-five years were marked by unusual religious excite- ment and activity. It was during this period that the celebrated Whitefield visited America, and stirred up the hearts of the people to their lost condition, and Zinzendorf and his disciples from Hernhutt settled in the wilderness on the beautiful Lehigh. The religious fervor prevailing throughout the provinces manifested itself in this county, and churches multiplied rapidly. The Neshaminy Presbyte- rian church was founded about 1720, possibly before, Southampton Baptist church in 1730, the Presbyterian church at Newtown in 1734, the church in the midst of the Scotch-Irish settlements along the Deep run in Bedminster about the same time, and the New Bri- tain Baptist church, an offshoot of Montgomery, and the child of a religious quarrel, in 1744. In the establishment of these early churches, the parents of denominational religion in this county, we read in plain characters the history of the immigration of the period, for places of religious worship only kept pace with the spiritual wants of the population. It was during this period that the Brainards, with courage and self-denial equal to the early Jesuit missionaries, labored among the Indians in the Forks of Delaware, and now and then came down into the more settled parts of the county to preach, at Neshaminy, Newtown, and elsewhere. In 1726 Reverend Wil- liam Tennent, one of the great lights of his generation, was called to the Neshaminy church, and the same year he established the Log college on the York road, half a mile below Hartsville, which for years was the only school south of New England at which a young man could be fitted for the ministry.

The visit of Reverend George Whitefield to America, in 1739, gave a new impetus to the religious enthusiasm already prevailing. He landed at Philadelphia the 2d of November, and a week after- ward Mr. Tennent rode down from Neshaminy, on horseback, to welcome the great evangelist, who writes in his diary, that he was " much comforted by the coming of one Mr. Tennent, an old gray- headed disciple and soldier of Jesus Christ, who keeps an academy about twenty miles from Philadelphia." On his return from New York, near the close of the month, Mr. Whitefield came by way of Neshaminy, to visit Mr. Tennent. Leaving Trenton on the morn-

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ing of November 22d, he traveled across the country on horseback, in company with several friends, arriving at the church about noon He was announced to preach there, and on his arrival found about three thousand people gathered in the meeting-house yard. He addressed them in words that melted the great audience down, and caused many to cry aloud. The meeting was closed by an exhorta- tion by Gilbert Tennent, the singing of a psalm, and a blessing. Mr. Whitefield went home with Mr. Tennent and staid all night, of whom he writes in his diary : " He entertained us like one of the ancient patriarchs. His wife to me seemed like Elizabeth, and he like Zachary ; both, as far as I can find, walk in all the ordinances and commandments of the Lord, blameless." In the morning he started for Philadelphia, where he arrived that afternoon, stopping long enough at Abington to preach to two thousand people from a porch window of the meeting-house, and " although the weather was cold they stood very patiently in the open air." He returned to Abington in April, and preached to between three and four thou- sand people. 1

The 23d of April, 1745, Mr. Whitefield made a second visit to Neshaminy. Leaving Philadelphia about eight A. M., accompanied by several friends, he arrived at three, having " baited at a friend's in the midway." That afternoon he preached in the meeting-house yard to about five hundred people, and " great numbers were much melted down." That evening he rode to Montgomery, eight miles, where he staid all night, and the next morning continued on to Skippack, sixteen miles further, where he preached to two thousand persons, passing through what "was seemingly a wilderness part of the country." The 7th of May Mr. Whitefield again came into the county, crossing the river to Bristol, where he preached to about four hundred people, and then returned to Philadelphia. At this time Whitefield is described as " of middle stature, slender body, fair complexion, comely appearance, and extremely bashful and modest. His delivery was warm and affectionate, and his gestures natural, and the most beautiful imaginable." Franklin, who attended his sermons, said : " He had a loud and clear voice, and articulated his words so perfectly that he might be heard and understood at a great distance. I computed that he might well be heard by thirty thousand."

1 He says, in his journal, there were near a thousand horses tied about the meeting- house when he preached at Neshaminy, and it struck him favorably that the people did not sit .on their horses as in England.

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In 1745 a religious revival and excitement, called the "Great Awakening," broke out in various parts of the country, and extended into this county. It was noted for several marvelous instances of persons being thrown into contortions, called "jerks," while under the influence of preaching. Some fainted, others saw visions, and many were moved in various ways. It broke out in the Neshaminy congregation in the spring of the year, and in June David Brainard, the great missionary among the Indians, came down from the Forks to assist Mr. Beatty, the pastor. He tells us, in his journal, that on Sunday there were assembled from three to four thousand persons, and that during his sermons many were moved to tears.

During this period a spiritual skeleton introduced itself amid the revivals and awakenings that stirred the religious world. Things were far from harmonious. Presbyterians became divided, and for forty years the Old Side and New Side stood bristling at each other across an imaginary line. It was the ancestor of the war of "schools" that came a century later. In a word the division was here. The Old Side believed that all should " be regarded and treated as regenerate who did not give evidence to the contrary, by manifest heresy or immorality," and that all baptised persons should be com- municants. This doctrine was held by what was called the strict Presbyterians from Scotland and Ireland, with few exceptions. The New Side, principally persons from New England, held that all, in whom no evidence of regeneration could be found, should be ex- cluded from communion, and the ministry. The Log college 2 was a New Side seminary, and the New Brunswick Presbytery leaned the same way. The division cansed great trouble in the synod from 1728 to 1741, when the schism, which separated the New Brunswick Presbytery from the rest of the body, was consummated. The Ne- shaminy church was not a unit. That part of the congregation adhering to the Old Side worshiped in the old church, in the graveyard, under the pastoral care of Reverend Francis McHenry, of Deep Run, while the New Side held service in the new church, on the site of the present one on the bank of the creek. This con- tinued until about 1768, when the synod having become united the two sides came together and worshiped in the same building.

The religious fervor of the period probably led to the establishment of the Log college. William Tennent, its founder, and in fact its everything, took a leading part in all the discussions of the day, and

2 William Tennent renounced the authority of the Presbytery in 1739.

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exerted himself to advance the cause of religion. Whether the school he taught in Bensalem was theological is not known, but that near Neshaminy soon assumed this character, and has now become historic. He made a clearing in the timber, on a fifty-acre tract given him by his kinsman, James Logan, and erected a log building about twenty feet square.3 It was one of the earliestclassical schools in the province, and was called "Log college" in derision. Mr. Tennent was assisted in the school, for a year, by his son Gilbert, who was licensed to preach in 1725. As this was the only school within the bounds of the Presbyterian church at which young men could be fitted for the ministry, he soon had as many scholars as he could re- ceive. The Log college prepared for the pulpit some of the ablest divines of the last century. Mr. Tennent was born in Ireland about 1673, and was a distant relative of the Laird of Dundas and the Earl of Panmure. He was educated for the Episcopal church, and ordained in 1704. In 1702 he married the daughter of Mr. Ken- nedy, a Presbyterian minister, came to Americain 1718, was licensed by the Philadelphia Presbytery, called to East Chester first, to Bensalem in 1721, and to Neshaminy in 1726, where he died in 1746. His widow died in Philadelphia in 1753. He was a man of very fine education, and spoke the Latin language with elegance and purity.

We know but little of the Log college beyond what can be said of its distinguished founder and the eminent men educated within its log walls. Its story of usefulness is told in the lives of its alumni. Mr. Tennent had four sons, all born in Ireland, but three of them educated at the college ; Gilbert, born 1703, died 1764, William, born 1705, died 1777, John, born 1706, died 1732, and Charles, born 1711. They all became distinguished ministers in the Presby- terian church, and William was the subject of the remarkable trance that attracted universal attention at the time. Gilbert accompanied Whitefield to Boston in 1740, where his preaching was received with great favor. He was largely instrumental in bringing about a division in the church. Whitefield said that the Log college had turned out eight ministers before the fall of 1739, including Tennent's four sons, but many more were educated there. All traces of this early cradle of Presbyterianism have long since passed away, and its exact loca- tion is hardly known. A piece of one of its logs is preserved as a me-

3 He probably commenced the school in his own dwelling, for the land was not deeded to him until 1728. Mr. Logan frequently sent provisions to Mr. Tennent.

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mento, in a cane which the late Reverend Robert Belville presented to Doctor Miller, of Princeton, New Jersey. The school was main- tained for twenty years, but did not long survive the retirement and death of its founder. Among the distinguished pupils of the Log college, we are able to mention the following :

Samuel Blair, born in Ireland in 1712, came to America while young, was one of the earliest pupils, and licensed to preach and ordained 1733. He was called to the pastorate of the New Lon- donderry, Pennsylvania, church, where he died. President Davis -

called him "the incomparable Blair ;"

Charles Beatty, son of an officer of the British army, born in Ire- land about 1715, and came to America in 1729. He began life as a peddler, but stopping at the Log college with his pack, Mr. Ten- nent discovered he was a good classical scholar, and advised him to dispose of his goods and study for the ministry. He succeeded his preceptor at Neshaminy in 1743, married a daughter of Governor Reading, of New Jersey, in 1746, was present at the coronation of George III., and presented at court, in 1758, and died in the West Indies, in 1772. He was the ancestor of John Beatty, of Doyles- town ;

William Robinson, the son of an eminent Quaker physician near Carlisle, England, was born the beginning of the last century. He came to America when a young man, studied at the Log college, was ordained in 1741, settled at Saint George, Delaware, where he died in 1746. He was stationed for a time at Craig's and Hunter's settlement, north of the Lehigh. He was considered one of the most effective preachers of his day ;

Samuel Finley, born in Ireland in 1715, came to America in 1734, was ordained in 1742, was pastor at Milford, Connecticut, and Not- tingham, Maryland, and in 1761 was elected president of the college of New Jersey, where he died in 1766. The degree of D. D. was conferred on him by the University of Edinburgh ;

John Roan, born in Ireland in 1716, came to America in his youth, studied at the Log college, and was settled over the united congregations of Paxton, Derry, and Mount Joy, Pennsylvania, where he died in 1775 ;

Daniel Lawrence, born on Long Island in 1718, was licensed in 1745. He preached at the Forks of Delaware until 1751, when he removed to Cape May, where he died in 1766 ;

James McCrea probably came from Ireland. He was licensed in

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1739, and ordained in 1741 ; was pastor over several congregations in New Jersey, and died in 1769. He was the father of the un- fortunate Jane McCrea, who was murdered by the British Indians in 1777 ;

John Rowland, a native of Wales, was licensed to preach in 1738, and died about 1747. He preached in New Jersey and Pennsyl- vania, and was a man of commanding eloquence. He was known as "hell-fire Rowland" among the irreligious. In personal appear- ance he closely resembled a noted scoundrel, and was once arrested and prosecuted for him, and was acquitted with difficulty ;

William Dean, born about 1719, but it is not known where, was probably educated at the college. He was licensed to preach in 1742, and officiated at the Forks of Delaware and elsewhere until 1745, when he was sent missionary to Virginia, where he died in 1748;

David Alexander came from Ireland, and is thought to have been educated at the Log college. He was ordained and installed at Pe- qua in 1738, but passed out of sight in 1741.

Probably John Roan and Doctor John Rogers both assisted in teaching, or possibly took charge of the school when infirm health, toward the close of his life, interrupted the duties of Mr. Tennent. Of the Log college pupils, fourteen became Presbyterian ministers. This institution was the pioneer school of those which made Harts- ville an educational centre for fifty years in the present century.

The churches, founded during the period of which we write, were properly the pioneers of denominational religion between the Dela- ware and the Lehigh, and form a cluster of great historical interest. The history of the religious movements of the first forty or fifty years of the last century will not be complete without a brief sketch of these societies. First in order is the Neshaminy Presbyterian church, of Warwick township.+ The date of its foundation is not known, the loss of early records breaking its chain of history, but it was probably as early as 1720, possibly before.s The first known

4 The historians of the Presbyterian church have erroneously claimed Paulus Van Vleck as the pastor at Neshaminy in 1710, which carries its founding back to that date. Van Vleck was pastor at Bensalem and at the North and Southampton Dutch Reformed churches at that time, and never had any connection with the Warwick church. This correction in the early history of the Neshaminy church throws great uncertainty over the date of its foundation. This was never a Dutch congregation. In 1743 it was known as "the congregation of Warwick, in ye forks of Neshaminy."

5 This powerful sect in this state had a small beginning. The visit of Francis Ma-

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pastor was Reverend William Tennent, called from Bensalem in 1726. He likewise preached at Deep Run, called the "Upper con- gregation," and in 1734 the newly-formed church at Newtown asked for one-fourth of his time, but Deep Run refused her consent.

In 1740 the Reverend Francis McHenry was chosen his assistant. Mr. Tennent was never regularly installed, but the people met and chose him for their pastor, and the Presbytery afterward ratified their action. He was an active, thorough-going pastor, but not guiltless of stirring up strife in the church, and his crusade against the Old Side, his pastoral duties, and the management of the col- lege kept him fully employed. A new church edifice was erected on the site of the present building in 1743, the last year of his pas- torate.

On December 1st, 1743, Reverend Charles Beatty was ordained "to the congregation of Warwick in ye forks of Neshaminy," on a salary of £60, increased to £100, or $260 at the end of twenty years. Here Mr. Beatty spent his life, absenting himself from his charge only on three occasions, on a missionary visit to the frontiers in 1766, when chaplain to Franklin's regiment in 1755,6 and a visit to the West Indies in 1771, to collect money for Princeton college, and where he died. In 1745 Neshaminy and "adjacent places" raised £14. 5s. 10d. to build a school-house and buy books for Brainard's Indians. The division in the church was consummated during his pastorate. The old church was in the present graveyard, where it stood for several years after the new one was built. Mr. Beatty

kennie to Philadelphia, in 1692, is thought to have led to the gathering of dissenters at the Barbadoes store-house. John Watts, a Baptist minister, preached for them for a time, but in 1698 they ealled Jedediah Andrews, of New England. In 1704 they built a meeting-house on Market street, enlarged it in 1729, when they adopted the Presbyterian form of church government. With this exception the early churches of this denomination in Pennsylvania were Seoteh-Irish.

6 Franklin says: "We had for our chaplain a zealous Presbyterian minister, Mr. Beatty, who complained to me that the men did not generally attend his prayers and exhortations. When they enlisted they were promised, besides pay and provisions a gill of rum a day, which was fortunately served out to them half in the morning and half in the evening, and I observed they were punetual in attending to receive it, upon which I said to Mr. Beatty : 'It is perhaps below the dignity of your profession to act as steward of the rum, but if you were to distribute it out only just after prayers, you would have them all about you.' He liked the thought, undertook the task, and with the help of a few hands to measure out the liquor, executed it to satisfaction, and never were prayers more generally or more punetually attended. So that I think this method preferable to the punishment inflicted by some military laws for non-attend- ance on divine serviee."

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was succeeded by Reverend Nathaniel Irwin in 1774, who was in- stalled May 18thi, and remained until his death, in 1812.7 He be- gan on a salary of $346, which was raised to $452 in 1798. He was a man of varied and extensive information, possessed great scien- tific knowledge, and was passionately fond of music. He ex- ercised a wide influence in church and state, and for several years he controlled the politics of the county. He was instrumental in hav- ing the county seat removed to Doylestown. As a slur upon the clergy and church for interfering, some one made a charcoal sketch on the walls of the old court-house at Newtown, which represented Mr. Irwin in his shirt sleeves with a rope around the building and his body, and he pulling in the direction of Doylestown with all his might. During his pastorate, in 1775, the church was enlarged. In his will he left $1,000 to the Presbyterian theological seminary, on condition that it be located on the site of the Log college, and $500 to the "American Whig society" of Princeton college, of which he was one of the founders in 1769. He rode to church on an old mare called " Dobbin," and composed his sermons as he jog- ged along the road and across the fields.

The Reverend Robert B. Belville succeeded Mr. Irwin, and was ordained and installed October 20th, 1813, and remained in charge a quarter of a century, resigning in November, 1835, on account of ill-health. He was an eloquent and able preacher, and during his pastorate there was a large increase of members. After the resig- nation of Mr. Belville the pulpit was filled by supplies until January, 1839, when those claiming to be the majority called the Reverend James P. Wilson,s a young man teaching a classical school in the neighborhood, who was installed the 26th of February. This gave. great offense to the rest of the congregation, who organized a new church, and erected a board "Tabernacle" in the woods on the Bristol road, at the top of the hill above the church. This congre- gation identified itself with the Old School organization, and Mr.

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The history of Bucks County, Pennsylvania : from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Part 30

Author: Davis, W.W.H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910 Publication date: 1876 Publisher: Doylestown, Pa. : Democrat Book and Job Office Print Number of Pages: 976

Author: Davis, W.W.H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Doylestown, Pa. : Democrat Book and Job Office Print
Number of Pages: 976