USA > South Carolina > Charleston County > Charleston > Two centuries of the First Baptist Church of South Carolina, 1683-1883. With supplement > Part 4
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But Mr. Screven did not at this time wholly withdraw from ministerial service. Having re- ceived a grant of land, on which Georgetown now stands, he removed thither, and as opportunity offered and his strength permitted, he preached to the destitute around him. In 1706 the Baptist church in Boston, which had in vain endeavored
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to secure a pastor in England, turned to Mr. Screven in its extremity, and earnestly entreated him to return to New England and take the pas- toral oversight of the church by which he was or- dained. Although so far advanced in years he was at first inclined to accede to this request; but just at this time his successor in the pastorate of the church in Charleston died, and receiving a call from the church to return and resume his pastoral labors with them, he felt that he could not decline, and he sent to the church in Boston, accordingly, the following letter, dated June 2, 1707 :
"Dearly beloved, this may inform you that I have many thoughts of heart about you, and am much concerned for you ; and hope I may say my prayers are to God for you. Though I am not with you, nor can I come as I was inclined to do, our help being taken from us: for our minister who came from England is dead, and I can by no means be spared. I must say it is a great loss, and to me a great disappointment, but the will of the Lord is done, and in his will I must be satis- fied. I have longed to hear that you were sup- plied with an able minister, who might break the bread of life among you ; but if the Lord do not please to supply you in the way you expect, your way will be to improve the gifts you have in the
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.church. Brother Callender and Joseph Russell I know have gifts that may tend to edification, if improved. I think you should call one or both of them to it."
The church in Boston acted upon this sugges- tion and called Mr. Callender, to whom Mr. Screven wrote, August 6, 1708, as follows :
"I rejoice that you are inclined to, and em- ployed in, the blessed work of the Lord for the support of his cause; " and the letter closes with these words: "I have been brought very low by
sickness, but I bless God I was helped to preach and administer the communion last Lord's day, but am still weak. Our society are for the most part in health ; and I hope thriving in grace. We are about ninety in all. I rest your affectionate brother and fellow-laborer in the best of services, for the best reward."
It is not thought that Mr. Screven removed his family to Charleston at this time; but his labors in behalf of the church which he had formed and to which he had given so much of the strength of the best years of his life, were con- tinued, as he was able, until his death, which occurred at Georgetown, October 10, 1713, at the completion of the eighty-fourth year of his age. Pure in life, affectionate in disposition,
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abundant in every good work, honored and re- vered of all, he commended the gospel which he preached, and came to the "grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in in its season." His tomb, on Screven Street, in Georgetown, is still to be seen, and his memory is lovingly cher- ished not only by a numerous posterity, (he had eleven children) but by the Baptists of South Carolina and of all the Southern States.
In the interest of bibliography I may add that Mr. William G. Whilden, of Greenville, South Caro- lina, one of Mr. Screven's descendants, to whom I am indebted for some of the material of this paper, informs me that Mrs. Schoolcraft, formerly a resi- dent of Beaufort, S. C., wrote a history of the Screven family, which was published. He had heard, however, of only a single copy, which was destroyed in Sherman's raid; and my own in- quiries with reference to the book have not as yet brought to light another copy.
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PAPERS AND ADDRESSES.
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HISTORY OF FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
FROM 1683 TO 1825.
BY BASIL MANLY.
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HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH.
W E are assembled to commemorate the organization, two hundred years ago, of the first Baptist Church, not only in Charleston, but in the whole South. It was constituted in the Province of Maine, September 25, 1682, by the aid of messengers sent for the purpose from the church at Boston, Mass., and migrated bodily soon after to South Carolina. In this celebra- tion, therefore, Massachusetts and South Caro- lina may join hands ; Old and New England have contributed the materials for our grateful recol- lections, and both shores of the Atlantic have share in the sacred memories of the hour.
We rejoice to renew and brighten the golden links of concord and fraternal affection between true servants of the Lord Jesus, who dwell in the North and in the South; and hence we gladly go back to speak of those early days when, in spite of distance and difficulties of intercourse, Christian love overleaped all barriers and bridged
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all chasms that tended to sever and alienate the great brotherhood of those that followed Jesus.
To make it plain how the earliest church in the South was constituted so far North as Maine, we shall have to go back a little in the history.
Two rills of influence, which affected in no small degree the origin and formation of these two mother States, Massachusetts and South Caro- lina, took their rise not far apart in Old England, until separated there by the same cause which had driven both out of the old country-persecu- tion because of religious convictions.
Love of the truth, and persecution for belief, were the two contending and impelling forces which produced migration to New England, and then drove asunder the emigrants to people new wilds and found flourishing communities in them. Among those who personally experienced the pressure of these impulses was the man who be- came, under God, the founder of this church, the Rev. William Screven.
WILLIAM SCREVEN, OF SOMERTON.
In 1656, the Baptist churches in Somerset and adjoining counties of England, where the prin- ciples of dissent and of believer's baptism had been spreading for about fifteen years, published
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a "Confession of Faith," subscribed by twenty- five persons, ministers and laymen, on behalf of the whole. Among these names is that of Wil- liam Screven, of Somerton .* Why or when he left England we know not; but in 1681 we find him settled at Kittery, on the Piscataqua River, York County, in the Province of Maine, and habitually holding religious meetings in his own house. He had united with the First Baptist Church in Boston June 21, 1681 ; and several of his neighbors, through the good hand of his God upon him, being brought to the knowledge of the truth, joined the same church that year. He was licensed regularly to preach January 11, 1682, by the church, as is attested by Isaac Hull and John Farnum, signing in behalf of the rest. The document has been preserved in Ivimey's History, and is interesting as one of the ear- liest specimens of that kind among modern Bap- tists.
This step seems to have roused the same spirit of persecution at Kittery under which the Baptists about Boston had been already suffering ever since their organization into a church in 1665 .. The people who attended Mr. Screven's meetings were summoned to answer for their conduct, and
*Ivimey's Hist. of Eng. Baptists, II. 521.
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threatened with a fine of five shillings should they repeat their offense. Mr. Screven himself, con- tinuing to preach Christ to all who came, was apprehended and taken before the General Court, on whose records is found the following entry, dated August 17, 1682, which, with one following, may be repeated here, though presented in a pre- vious paper of this volume.
" William Screven appearing before this Court, and being convicted of the contempt of his Majes- ty's authority, and refusing to submit himself to the sentence of the Court prohibiting his public preaching, and upon examination before the Court declaring his resolution still to preach therein, the Court tendered him liberty to return home to his family, in case he would forbear such turbulent practices, and amend for the future; but he refus- ing, the Court sentenced him to give bond for his good behavior, and to forbear such contentious behavior for the future, and the delinquent to stand committed until the judgment of the Court be fulfilled."
The same day their Executive Court took ac- tion as follows: "This Court having considered the offensive speeches of William Screven, viz., his rash and inconsiderate words tending to blas- phemy, do adjudge the delinquent for his offence
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to pay ten pounds into the treasury of the county or province. And further, the court doth forbid and discharge the said Screven, under any pre- tence, to keep any private exercise at his own house or elsewhere, upon the Lord's Days, either in Kittery or any other place within the limits of this province, and is for the future enjoined to observe the public worship of God in our public assemblies upon the Lord's Days, according to the laws here established in this province, upon such penalties as the law requires upon such neglect of the premises." *
So far was he from yielding to such sentences, or being discouraged by them, that about four weeks afterwards, September 13, he with the rest sent a request to Boston that Elder Hull and others might visit and form them into a church, which was granted; so that a covenant was sol- emnly signed September 25, 1682, by William Screven, Elder; Humphrey Churchwood, Deacon ; Robert Williams, John Morgandy, Richard Cutts, Timothy Davis, Leonard Drown, William Adams, Humphrey Azell, George Litten and a number of sisters. +
The little church thus begun was able to main-
* Backus' History, pp. 502-505.
t Backus' History, p. 505.
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tain its ground but a short time. The power of their enemies was so great and so unscrupulously exercised, the magistrate, Mr. Hucke, combining with the minister, Mr. Woodbridge, for the pur- pose, that they were soon obliged to flee to some more favored part of the country where such "turbulent practices" as the quiet preaching of the Gospel in his own house to those that desired to hear him might not excite the rage and the interference of the public authorities. Accordingly William Screven, already fifty-eight years of age, and "his Baptist company" removed to South Carolina, and settled on the Cooper River, not far from the site of the city of Charles- ton, and called their settlement Somerton, evidently in allusion to his well-beloved English home in Somersetshire. This removal occurred in 1682, or early in 1683, and seems simply to have been a transfer of the seat of worship of the persecuted flock (or a majority of it) which had been gath- ered on the Piscataqua.
Morgan Edwards, writing nearly a hundred years later (1772) from the traditions of old peo- ple, dates the immigration from Piscataqua and the origin of the Charleston church in 1664; but that must be erroneous. Charleston was not then in existence even as a village. Besides, all agree
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that Mr. Screven was the first pastor and the founder of the church. He was still in Maine in 1632 and a member of the church at Boston ; and the church at Kittery was certainly organized September 25, 1682. To that body the Baptist church in Charleston traces its origin.
Let us look a little at the surroundings of the infant church. They had left a region which had but recently, in 1675, been devastated by King Philip's war, the most fearful of the early struggles with the natives. It spent its first rage partly in the region known as Maine, between the Piscata- qua and the Kennebec, which had been cut off from the original grant to the Plymouth Com- pany and bestowed upon Gorges. In 1677, how- ever, Massachusetts had bought it for {1200, and was asserting its claim and exercising its au- thority ; and a part of this parental control was the religious persecution which we have described. Though our immigrants to South Carolina from Maine are still in a region where wild Indians prevail, they find now no molestation, but rather a welcome from the white race.
Early in 1670, the first colony that made per- manent settlement in South Carolina arrived. The recent researches of Mr. Courtenay, the honored Mayor of Charleston, have brought to
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light facts and details as to this original settle- ment which cast a flood of light on the early his- tory of the city. He has given us the names of the ninety-three passengers on the three vessels which finally left the British isles, September 18, 1669, after some two years of preparation and an expenditure of {12,000 by the proprietors. They were under the charge of William Sayle, of Ber- muda, as Governor. He is described by the old narrator, somewhat unkindly, as a "Puritan and Nonconformist, whose religious bigotry, advanced age and failing health promised badly for the dis- charge of the task before him." After various adventures, losing two of their vessels, making some stay at Bermuda and, procuring an addi- tional sloop there, they landed on the 15th of March, 1670, at a place called Sewee, near Port Royal, which Mr. Courtenay thinks was probably what is now known as Bull's Bay. After several changes, they finally settled in April, 1670, on the western banks of the Ashley, and there laid the foundation of old Charlestown, which was named in honor of King Charles. This settlement is be- lieved to have been on a plantation which be- longed in 1809, when David Ramsay wrote, to Elias Lynch Horry. The site was some distance up the river and is now scarcely traceable, except
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by the remains of an old ditch. It could not be approached by vessels of large burthen.
On the 19th of April, Sir John Yeamens entered upon his duties as Governor of Carolina, having brought with him from Barbadoes the first negro slaves who were seen in Carolina. Under his orders, July 20, 1677, a town was laid out at Oys- ter Point, at the junction of the Ashley and Cooper rivers, and thither ere long the town of Charlestown, name and all, was moved down the river. In 1680, in some official papers, the place was called New Charles-Town ; in 1682, Charles- Town; and so it continued till 1783, when it was formally incorporated by the name of the City of Charleston, an event of which the centennial has lately been most worthily celebrated.
Mayor Courtenay has given a graphic picture of "these earliest emigrants-pioneers in the set- tlement of an immense hunting-ground, filled with wild animals, overgrown with forests, partly cov- ered by swamps, and roamed over rather than in- habited by a great number of savage tribes, sub- sisting by the chase, and accustomed to war among each other. In the midst of such condi- tions, these colonists laid the foundation, and their descendants reared this noted city, enduring hard- ships, facing the Indian and the wild beast, and at
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times pestilence and famine. They were plain, earnest, hard-working people, who had left na- tive land and crossed the ocean, their com- pelling motive the enjoyment of civil and re- ligious liberty, their hope to secure a larger opportunity of life and work for themselves and their children." *
In 1674, many of the Dutch from New Amster- dam or Nova Belgia, which had just been con- quered by the English and named New York, dissatisfied with their new circumstances, removed to Carolina, and settled in Jamestown, on the southwest side of the Ashley, believed to be on James' Island, a settlement which was subse- quently abandoned, and the people were gradu- ally blended with the other colonists.
While the majority of the " Proprietors " of the colony were of the Established Church of Eng- land, the large majority of the immigrants were from the beginning dissenters from that church. Says David Ramsay: "Liberty of conscience, which was secured to every one by the charter, proved a great encouragement to emigration. The settlement commenced at a period when con- formity to the Church of England was urged with so high a hand as to bear hard on many good
* Mayor Courtenay's Centennial Address.
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men. Dissenters labored under many grievances. They felt much and feared more."*
Thus it happened that Carolina received a con- siderable number of its early settlers from men who sought the prospect of securing religious liberty. Though not allowed to live in peace in Britain, they were from motives of policy encour- aged to emigrate to the colonies, and were pro- mised freedom and protection there-a promise which was not faithfully kept. They sometimes met with much annoyance. Their friends pro- tested earnestly against the intolerance. "Can- not dissenters," said they, " kill wolves and bears as well as churchmen, and also fell trees, and clear ground for plantations, and be as capable of de- fending them as churchmen are?" The argument availed, so far at least as to allow their coming freely, though not to secure them. the grants of land bestowed on the favorites of the royal family, or to obtain for them entire equality of privi- leges.
To quote the language of James Grahame, LL.D., an English writer of high character on the colonial history : + "Strong symptoms of mutual jealousy and dislike began to manifest themselves
*"Ramsay's History of South Carolina."
t "Grahame's Colonial History of the United States," I., p. 369.
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between the Dissenters and Puritans on the one hand, who were the most numerous party in the colony, and the Cavaliers and Episcopalians on the other, who were favored by the proprieta- ries in the distribution of land and of official power and emolument: and although the firmness and prudence of Governor West prevented the discord of these parties from ripening into strife and confusion, it was beyond his power to eradi- cate the evil, or to restrain his own Council, which was composed of the leading Cavaliers, from treat- ing the Puritans with insolence and contempt. The Cavalier party was reinforced by all those persons whom debauched habits and broken char- acter and fortune had conducted to the province, not for a cure but a shelter of their vices, and who regarded the austere manners of the Puritans with as much dislike as the Cavaliers entertained for their political principles. The adversaries of the Puritans, finding that it was in their power to shock and offend them by a social behavior op- posed to their own, affected an extreme of gay and jovial license. Each party, considering its manners as the test of its principles, emulously exaggerated the distinctive features of its appro- priate demeanor; and an ostentatious competi- tion ensued in which the ruling party gave coun-
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tenance and encouragement to practices and habits very unfavorable to the prevalence of in- dustry and the acquisition of wealth."
The years 1682 and 1683 were marked by con- siderable immigration. One body came from Ire- land under Ferguson, another from Scotland, which was groaning under the barbarous adminis- tration of Lord Lauderdale. "But," says Mr. Grahame, "the most valuable addition to its popu- lation, which the colony now received, was sup- plied by the immigration of a considerable num- ber of pious and respectable Dissenters from Somersetshire in England. This band of emi- grants was led by Humphrey Blake, the brother and kin of the renowned Admiral Blake. . . . Humphrey Blake was a worthy, conscientious and liberal man ; and willingly devoted his fortune to facilitate the retirement of a number of Dis- senters, with whom he was connected, from the persecutions they endured in England, and the greater calamities they apprehended from the probable accession of the Duke of York to the throne." *
Among this number of " substantial persons," as they are called by Hewit, t was also Joseph
* Grahame's "Colonial History of the United States," I., 372. t Hewit's History of South Carolina and Georgia, I., 140.
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Blake, the nephew of the Admiral, and the friend and trustee of Lord Berkeley, one of the Lords Proprietors. His wife, Lady Blake, and her mother, Lady Axtell, were valuable accessions to the infant Baptist Church, and it is likely that coming from Somersetshire, Mr. Screven's early home, they were specially pleased to find in their pastor an old neighbor. Mr. Joseph Blake him- self, if not a communicant, at least entertained the sentiments of the Baptists and favored their cause. He was subsequently twice Governor of the col- ony, 1694-5 and 1696-1700. His sister was the wife of Gov. Morton, who was Governor 1682-4 and 1685-6, and the mother of Joseph Morton, who signalized himself in 1703 in the upper House of Assembly as the friend of religious liberty, by voting against the establishment of the Church of England as the religion of the State, though he was not allowed to record his protest .*
Joseph Blake, together with Paul Grimball, (who was a Baptist) and five other persons, was a member of the committee for raising the cele- brated "Fundamental Constitutions " prepared for the proprietors by John Locke. It was dur- ing his second period of office in 1696, after the return to England of Archdale, the judicious
* Hewit, I. 166.
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Quaker Governor, that the French Huguenot re- fugees, who had come in large numbers about ten years before, in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantz, 1685, and the renewal of Romanist persecutions, received equal rights with those born of English parents. " By the advice of the Governor and other friends," says Ramsay, " they petitioned the Legislature to be incorporated with the freemen of the colony." * Their request was granted and " the same law conferred liberty of conscience on all Christians, with the exception of Papists." If our better developed feelings of charity or clearer views of human rights lead us to condemn even this exception, let us not forget that the Papacy was then a political, more than a religious power, wielding not only the sword of warfare, but the dagger of treachery, and assign- ing the dungeon, the fagot and the flame for obstinate heretics.
It may not be improper to add that Lady Ax- tell, whose plantation was in Colleton, was not only a member but a benefactress of the church. She gave the glass chandelier, which used to hang, when I was a boy, in the old Baptist Church, then and still known and used as the Mariners' Church. I hope it is still preserved. Frail in its nature,
* Ramsay's History of South Carolina, I., 51.
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and simple in its construction, it has survived, if still in existence, a succession of changes and wars and revolutions, which make it a truly venerable relic. It is thought by one of her kindred, Rev. S. J. Axtell, Jr., of West Medway, Mass., that this Lady Axtell may possibly have been the widow or some near connection of Daniel Axtell, cele- brated in the history of Cromwell's times, as one of the judges, who condemned King Charles. Mrs. Blake besides contributing to aid her own denomination, gave largely to adorn the first St. Philip's Church.
Among the families thus united under the pas- toral care of Mr. Screven, Morgan Edwards has enumerated a few, and their names are recogniz- able and honorable in the subsequent history of the State, such as Atwell, Bullein, Elliott, Raven, Baker, Barker, Blake, Child, Cater, Whitaker, Bryant, Butler, Chapman and others.
About this same period, Lord Cardross, after- wards Earl of Buchan, a nobleman from the North of England, brought with him to Carolina a col- ony of North Britons, who, it is said, were chiefly Baptists. They settled at Port Royal Island, and at first claimed co-ordinate authority with the Governor and Grand Council of Charlestown. But this claim being disallowed, Lord Cardross re-
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turned to England; and the place being insecure by reason of the hostility of the neighboring In- ยท dians, and especially of the Spaniards at St. Aug- ustine, they removed before 1686 to the mouth of the Edisto River .* The Baptist part of this company attached themselves to Mr. Screven's Church, still worshipping at Somerton. Thus, in the land whither he had fled for refuge, he had the happiness of finding himself soon surrounded by a considerable number of intelligent and pious Christians, and a still greater number of influen- tial adherents and friends. -
REMOVAL OF THE CHURCH FROM SOMERTON TO CHARLESTON.
In the course of a few years the superior ad- vantages for commerce of the tongue of land at the mouth of the Cooper and Ashley Rivers had attracted the colonists thither, so that before the year 1693, the greater part of the members of the Baptist church at Somerton had transferred their residence to Charleston. It was the natural result then to transfer thither also the ordinary seat of their public worship. Leaving Somerton, then, they " held their worship at the house of one Wil- liam Chapman in King Street, until they built" a
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