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975.502 St29ho 1513944
M.C
MCA
1750
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02397 5524
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/firstpresbyteria00stau
MRS. WILLIAM ELLIOTT BAKER Guest of honor at the Centennial Celebration of the First Presbyterian Church, Staunton, Va.
The First Presbyterian Church
Staunton, Virginia
MATERIAL GATHERED AND ARRANGED By ARISTA HOGE
Press of CALDWELL-SITES COMPANY STAUNTON, VIRGINIA 1908
Copyright 1909 by CHARLES RUSSELL CALDWELL Published March, 1909
1513944 The FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH STAUNTON, VIRGINIA
CHAPTER I
THE PEOPLE OF BEVERLEY MANOR, IN THE BACK PARTS OF VIRGINIA
T HE original settlers of Augusta County were natives of the Province of Ulster, Ireland, of Scotch decent, and therefore they and their descendants are called "Scotch-Irish." For a number of years a very few people of any other race came to the Valley. They generally landed on the Delaware river, and gradually pushed their way up the Valley, through the wilderness. They did not come to build towns, but to acquire lands and open up farms, and hence all the towns in the Valley are of comparatively recent date. No such place as Staunton was known until the courthouse was located here in 1745, at least thirteen years after the surrounding country was quite thickly settled.
With scarcely an exception, the immigrants were Presbyterians, as far as they professed any religion at all. Soon after they provided shelters for their families, they erected log houses in which to meet for the worship of God, first at Tinkling Spring and near the site of the present Stone Church. The latter was known from early times as "Augusta Church." The first settled minister of the two congregations mentioned was the Rev. John Craig. The Presbyterians at and near Staunton were connected with Tinkling Spring.
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In 1737 " a supplication" was laid before the Presbytery of Donegal, in Pennsylvania, "from the people of Bever- ley Manor, in the back parts of Virginia," requesting ministerial supplies. The request could not be granted immediately ; but in the next year the Rev. James Ander- son, sent by the Synod of Philadelphia, visited the settle- ment, and in 1738 preached the first regular sermon ever delivered in this section of the country at the home of John Lewis.
The Presbyterians of Augusta continued their "sup- plication " to the Presbytery of Donegal for a pastor to reside among them. In 1739 they first applied for the services of the Rev. Mr. Thompson, who came and preached for a time. Next they presented a call to the Rev. John Craig.
Mr. Craig was born in 1709, in county Antrim, Ireland, and was educated at Edinburgh. He landed at Newcastle, upon the Delaware, August 17, 1734, and was licensed by the Presbytery to preach, in 1737. The date of his arrival here is somewhat uncertain. In a narrative written by him, towards the close of his life, he says : "Being invited by Presbytery, I entered on trials, and was licensed by the Presbytery of Donegal, 1737. I was sent to a new settle- ment in Virginia of our own country people, near 300 miles distant." This would seem to imply that he came in 1737, or soon thereafter; but from the fact that the people applied for Mr. Thompson in 1739 and for Mr. Craig after- wards, the latter could not have come till several years after his licensure. The minute of the Presbytery, in September, 1740, is as follows: "Robert Doak and Daniel Dennison, from Virginia, declared in the name of the con- gregation of Shenandoah their adhesion to the call for- merly presented to Mr. Craig," and on the next day he was "set apart for the work of the gospel ministry in the south part of Beverley's Manor." He, therefore, could hardly have come here before September, 1740, unless, possibly
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on a visit in 1739, or early in 1740 ; and other circumstances indicate that he arrived about the first of October, 1740. On February 26, 1741, he appeared at Orange County Court (the Court of Augusta County not having opened) and qualified according to law to officiate as a dissenting minister.
Mr. Craig's residence was on Lewis' Creek, about four miles northeast of Staunton. As is generally known, he was the founder of the two congregations of Tinkling Spring and Augusta, and for some years ministered to both. His parish was about thirty miles long and thirty miles broad. Referring to the country to which he had come, he says : "The place was a new settlement, without a place of worship, or any church order, a wilderness in the proper sense, and a few Christian settlers in it, with numbers of the heathens traveling among us, but gener- ally civil, though some persons were murdered by them about that time. They march about in small companies from fifteen to twenty, sometimes more or less. They must be supplied at every house they call at with victuals, or they become their own stewards and cooks and spare nothing they choose to eat and drink."
It is said that Mr. Craig generally walked the five miles from his residence to the church. His morning service continued from 10 o'clock till after 12. The afternoon service lasted from 1 o'clock till sunset, and it was some- times so late at the close that the clerk found it difficult to read the last psalm. Many of the people came long dis- tances, and had to cross Middle River, coming and going, where the ford was somewhat unsafe. They petitioned the preacher to dismiss them at an earlier hour, so that they might make the crossing by daylight ; but he would not consent. His only printed sermon is from second Samuel, XXIII : 5-" Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure ; for this is all my salvation,
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FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, STAUNTON, VA.
and all my desire, although he make it not to grow." Being in the old-fashioned "exhaustive method," it con- tains fifty-five divisions and sub-divisions.
Mr. Craig was succeeded at Augusta Church by the Rev. William Wilson, and at Tinkling Spring by the Rev. Dr. James Waddell. The latter came to Augusta from Lancaster county, in May, 1776, and resided till 1784 on his plantation, called Springhill, south of Waynesboro. He preached occasionly in Staunton, but whether in the courthouse or the Parish Church, otherwise vacant and unused, is not known. At the close of the war, he was formally invited by people living in Staunton to officiate regularly there ; but, having determined to remove east of the Blue Ridge, he declined the call. His successor at Tinkling Spring was the Rev. John McCue, who also preached now and then, if not at stated intervals, in Staunton.
"THE BLIND PREACHER"
The following graphic account of the pulpit eloquence and forensic power of the Reverend James Waddell, D. D., is given by William Wirt, in "The British Spy." Mr. Wirt's distinction as a writer is largely based upon this famous passage, although, among his other literary works, he was the author of a "Life of Patrick Henry."
It was one Sunday, as I traveled through the County of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous, old wooden house, in the forest, not far from the road side. Having frequently seen such objects before, in travelling through these states, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship.
Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the congregation; but I must confess, that curiosity, to hear the preacher of such a wilderness, was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance; he was a tall and very spare old man, his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy, and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind.
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The first emotions which touched my breast, were those of mingled pity and veneration. But ah! sacred God! how soon were all my feelings changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees, than were the lips of this holy man! It was a day of the administration of the sacrament, and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times; I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose, that in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sub- lime pathos, than I had ever before witnessed.
As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver.
He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour; his trial before Pilate, his ascent up Calvary, his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole history, but never, until then, had I heard the cir- cumstances so selected, so arranged, so coloured! It was all new: and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable, and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews: the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet; my soul kindled with a flame of indigna- tion; and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched.
But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meek- ness of our Saviour; when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven; his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"-the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handker- chief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation.
It was sometime before the tumult had subsided, so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situa- tion of the preacher. For I could not conceive, how he would be able ยท to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But-no; the descent
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was as beautiful and sublime, as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic.
The first sentence, with which he broke the awful silence was a quotation from Rousseau, "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ, like a God!"
1 despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole manner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before, did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher; his blindness, constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian and Milton, and associating with his performance, the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses; you are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enuncia- tion, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody, you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the congregation were raised; and then, the few minutes of portentous, death-like silence which reigned throughout the house; the preacher removing his white handkerchief from his aged face (even yet wet from the recent tor- rent of his tears) and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, "Socrates died like a philosopher"- then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing them both clasped together, with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls" to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice -"but Jesus Christ-like a God!" If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine.
Whatever I had been able to conceive of the sublimity of Massillon, or the force of Bourdaloue, had fallen far short of the power which I felt from the delivery of this simple sentence. The blood, which just before had rushed in a hurricane upon my brain, and, in the violence and agony of my feelings, had held my whole system in suspense, now ran back into my heart, with a sensation which I cannot describe-a kind of shuddering, delicious horror! The paroxysm of blended pity and indignation, to which I had been trans- ported, subsided into the deepest self-abasement, humility and adora- tion. I had just been lacerated and dissolved by sympathy, for our Saviour as a fellow creature; but now, with fear and trembling, I adored him as-"a God!"
If this description give you the impression, that this incomparable minister had anything of shallow, theatrical trick in his manner, it does him great injustice. I have never seen, in any other orator, such a union of simplicity and majesty. He has not a gesture, an attitude or an accent, to which he does not seem forced, by the senti-
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ment which he is expressing. His mind is too serious, too earnest, too solicitous, and, at the same time, too dignified, to stoop to artifice. Although as far removed from ostentation as a man can be, yet it is clear from the train, the style and substance of his thoughts, that he is, not only a very polite scholar, but a man of extensive and pro- found erudition. I was forcibly struck with a short, yet beautiful character which he drew of our learned and amiable countryman, Sir Robert Boyle: he spoke of him. as if "his noble mind had, even before death, divested herself of all influence from his frail taber- nacle of flesh;" and called him, in his peculiarly emphatic and im- pressive manner, "a pure intelligence: the link between men and angels."
This man has been before my imagination almost ever since. A thousand times, as I rode along. I dropped the reins of my bridle, stretched forth my hand, and tried to imitate his quotation from Rousseau; a thousand times I abandoned the attempt in despair, and felt persuaded that his peculiar manner and power arose from an energy of soul, which nature could give, but which no human being could justly copy. In short, he seems to be altogether a being of a former age, or of a totally different nature from the rest of men. As I recall, at this moment, several of his awfully striking attitudes, the chilling tide, with which my blood begins to pour along my arteries, reminds me of the emotions produced by the first sight of Gray's introductory picture of his bard:
"On a rock, whose haughty brow, Frowns o'er old Conway's foaming flood, Robed in the sable garb of woe, With haggard eyes the poet stood; (Loose his beard and hoary hair Streamed, like a meteor, to the troubled air:) And with a poet's hand and prophet's fire, Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre."
Guess my surprise, when on my arrival at Richmond, and mention- ing the name of this man, I found not one person who had ever before heard of James Waddell! Is it not strange, that such a genius as this, so accomplished a scholar, so divine an orator, should be per- mitted to languish and die in obscurity, within eighty miles of the metropolis of Virginia? To me it is a conclusive argument, either that the Virginians have no taste for the highest strains of the most sublime oratory, or that they are destitute of a much more important quality, the love of genuine and exalted religion.
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A tablet, containing the following inscription, in com- memoration of the Rev. James Waddell, was erected in the Courthouse of Lancaster County, Virginia, in 1905:
IN MEMORIAM
REV. JAMES WADDELL, D. D.
Son of Thomas and Janet Waddell, of the County Down, Ireland. Born on the Atlantic Ocean, in 1739, when his parents emigrated to America. Died in Lousia County, Virginia, Sept. 17, 1805.
Licensed as a Probationer April 2, 1741, by the old Presbytery of Hanover.
Resided on Corratoman River, Lancaster County, Virginia, in 1762, and had three preaching places, viz: Lancaster C. H., the Forest Meet- inghouse, and the Northumberland Meetinghouse.
In 1768 married Mary Gordon, daughter of Col. James Gordon, of Lancaster County, an elder in the church, and a member of the Court, and the maternal grandfather of Gen. William F. Gordon, of Albemarle.
Taught Meriwether Lewis and Governor James Barbour.
Was at one time minister of the Tinkling Spring Church, Augusta Co., Va., and as a patriot, in the Revolution, addressed Tate's Com- pany at Midway, Rockbridge County, Virginia.
Immortalized in Wirt's British Spy, when in a sermon of thrilling oratory and magic eloquence on the passion of our Saviour, he electri- fied his hearers by the beautiful and sublime quotation from Rousseau: "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God."
This tablet is presented to Lancaster County through the Circuit Court, by Capt. Geo, P. Squires, Ocran, Lancaster, County, Virginia.
REV. JOHN McCUE
Rev. John McCue graduated at Liberty Hall, studied Theology under the blind preacher and succeeded him as pastor at Tinkling Spring. He founded the Church at Lewisburg. Dr. McIlhaney was his immediate successor there. He was the first man, who ever, as an ordained min- ister, preached the Gospel in the Valley of the Mississippi. He traveled on horseback to the meetings of the Synod of Philadelphia. He was present at the first meeting of Lex- ington Presbytery, which was held at Timber Ridge, Rock- bridge County, Virginia, September 26, 1786 ; and was
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Moderator of six of its stated meetings, between the years 1790 and 1817.
In the records of Staunton Lodge No. 13 A. F. & A. M. we find that the Rev. Jno. McCue preached a sermon to the Craft, Dec. 27, 1791. In 1792 he was made a Mason and became a member of the Lodge and there- after preached special sermons at their celebrations to their satisfaction, as evidenced by the following resolu- tion adopted June 24, 1793: "Ordered that Brothers, Jas. Perry, Humphreys, Bowyer, O'Neil, Christian and Kinney form a committee to meet at the Hall on Thurs- day next to draw up a Bill of thanks to the Rev. Jno. McCue for his truly pertinent and Masonic sermon de- livered this day and that they fix upon a premium to be paid him out of the funds for the same not exceeding ten dollars." On June 27, $8.00 was appropriated for this purpose. Finally on Sept. 21, 1818 we, find the following resolution:
RESOLVED, Unanimously, that the Church of Christ, society at large and the fraternity of Free and Accepted Masons in particular, have suffered and incalculable loss in the death of our much esteemed and highly respected friend and brother, Rev. Jno. McCue, and that in commemoration of departed worth, the members of this Lodge will wear crepe on their left arm for thirty days, and that a copy of these resolutions be published for two weeks in the "Republican Farmer," of Staunton.
His tombstone records his death on the Sabbath morn- ing of September 20, 1818, in his 66th year ; and bears the further testimony that "having served his generation in dignified and faithful discharge of all relative duties, he was suddenly removed from labor to rest." It contains the additional inscription that " his relations, numerous friends, and the church at large deplore the loss of his talent, erudition, eloquence, and evangelical ministrations, especially the Church of Tinkling Spring, amongst whom he had arduously labored in the ministry for twenty-seven years."
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Liberty Hall, where Rev. John McCue graduated, was the successor of a school founded by the first settlers of Augusta County, about fifteen miles southwest of Staunton, and called the Augusta Academy. After several times changing its name and location, it became in 1780, Liberty Hall, near Lexington. In 1782 it was incorporated as "Liberty Hall Academy"; and two years later Gen. Wash- ington endowed it with a number of shares in a canal company, given him by the Legislature of Virginia, in recognition of patriotic services. In 1798 it became Wash- ington Academy, and afterwards Washington College and Washington and Lee University.
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CHAPTER II
A SERMON BY REV. A. M. FRASER, D. D., PREACHED AT THE DEDICATION OF A NEW HOUSE OF WORSHIP FOR HIS NATIVE CHURCH IN SUMTER, S. C.
[ The local application in this sermon was prepared for this volume as a substitute for that in the original sermon, which referred only to Sumter].
"Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls."-JER. VI:16.
WI ITHOUT explanation or introduction, let us go directly to that part of the text which commends the "old paths" and calls them "the good way." For if we travel the right road we shall infallibly reach the right destination. Why does the Lord exhort us to ask for the old paths and in what sense does he call them the good way? I answer first that he certainly does not do so because old things are always better than new. Mere old age is never a virtue in itself. The old is never to be preferred to the new unless it is intrinsically better when it is considered on its own merits. If it were other- wise, we would cease to study, abandon all the results of in- vention, discovery and progress, and confine our attention to the effort to find out the oldest things in every depart- ment of life. We would discard the modern methods of agriculture which both experiment and experience have proved to be the best and return to the most primitive methods. The steel plow would have to give way to the
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sharpened forked stick with which the servants of Abra- ham broke the ground, and the steam threshing machine that disposes of the year's harvest in a few hours would yield to the hand flail, or to the driving of oxen to and fro across the grain, or to some other equally tedious and wasteful process. In medicine, we would abandon the successful treatment of disease that has been taught us by enlightened science and revert to the ancient theories that those medicines which are costliest and most ill tasted are the best. In religion, we would all believe in witch- craft and burn the witches, and we would consider doc- trinal differences as a crime against the State to be treated with physical penalties, extreme cases to be cured by tort- ure or punished by death. Such illustrations are sufficient to show how absurd it is to imagine that everything old is good just because it is old. When, therefore, the Lord says, "Ask for the old paths" we are not to understand Him as laying down a general law that whatever is old is good, but He is referring to something definite in the laws, customs or experiences of the past that in some satisfac- tory manner has been proven to be superior and to which His people are urged to return.
A consideration of the circumstances will reveal very clearly what that reference is. In this passage God is addressing the Jews through Jeremiah. God had dealt with his chosen people as he has never dealt with any other people. He had called Abraham out from the heathen to be the founder of a consecrated race, and for this purpose had given to him the garden spot of the world for a possession. His descendants had gone down into Egypt and there had fallen into a bondage so severe that Abraham by prophetic vision had called it a "horror of great darkness," and one that has passed into history as the extreme instance of degrading servitude and cruel oppression. From this bondage they had been delivered by the outstretched arm of Jehovah, which all the sur-
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rounding nations saw and remembered and feared for many generations. Having brought them out of Egypt He led them to Mt. Sinai, in the desert, and there He taught them what all men in all ages have supremely needed to know, and what in their darkness they have groped after and have striven to know. He taught them how to wor- ship the Most High acceptably. He revealed the true re- ligion with a clearness and fullness such as no other nation has ever known unless it has derived the knowledge in some way from Israel. He taught them how their sins might be forgiven and they might be at peace with God, how they might themselves become holy, how they might live aright with their fellow men, how they might be noble, useful and happy throughout the earthly life and how after death they might have everlasting holiness and bliss. This revelation was accompanied by such a dis- closure of the ineffable glory and authority of God as was suitable to command their reverence and win their loving confidence. Subsequent revelation in that age and in after ages, more fully unfolded what the first revelation contained, by precept, by prophecy, by promise, by ob- ject lesson. There was scarcely a generation that did not have a prophet of its own, Joshua, the Judges, Samuel, David and the prophets of the kingdom period. There was scarcely a generation that did not witness some miracle, the pledge of God's presence and His purpose to guide, to protect, to sanctify. While the commands of Jehovah were respected there was peace and prosperity, and when that religion was forgotten or neglected there was trouble. Jeremiah lived in a time of the greatest de- parture from the old religion which God had so graciously given to them. Idolatries, unmentionable immoralities, crimes, and oppressions abounded and awful calamities overhung the nation. In their high carnival of irreligion, of lust and cruelty, in their alarm and confusion and despair, there comes this voice to them from the skies as if to a
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