USA > Virginia > City of Virginia Beach > City of Virginia Beach > The colonial vestry book of Lynnhaven Parish, Princess Anne County, Virginia, 1723-1786 > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15
For Reference Do Not Take From the Library
COLONIAL VESTRY BOOK OF LYNNHAVEN PARISH PRINCESS ANNE COUNTY VIRGINIA 1723 - 1786
Collectors' Old Book Shop RICHMOHO. VIRGINIA
BAYSIDE PUBLIC LIBRARY 936 INDEPENDENCE BLVD. VIRGINIA BEACH, VA. 23455
REFERENCE DO NOT REMOVE FROM LIBRARY
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from LYRASIS members and Sloan Foundation
http://www.archive.org/details/colonialvestrybo00lynn
-
CHESAPEAKE
BAY
CAPE HENRY
60
IST LYNNHAVEN CHURCH.L.
1639
RI
2ND LYNN HAVEN CHURCH-1692 3BP LYNNHAVEN CHURCH
IST )
(OLD /DONATION CHURCH) 1736
EASTERN SHORE CHAPE
1689,
VIRGINIA BEACH
2ND EASTERN BRANCH
58
CHAPEL
++1666
+
IST EASTERN BRANCH CHAPEL(SOUTHERN
CHUR CHES-1843
SHORE CHURCH?) 11642
AND 1946
1
165
PRINCESS
ANNE
PRINCESS ANNE
PUNGO
T2ND & 3RD PUNGO
CHAPELS- 17395
AND 1774
0
ATLANTIC
-A SCALE OF MILES-
O
1
2
3 4 5
FIST PUINGO CHAPEL 1692?
BACK BAY
| BLACKWATER
KNOTT'S
-
ISLAND
NORTH
CAROLINA
DSC.M .- 1949
Map of Princess Anne County, showing colonial church sites.
Z G OCEAN
KEMPSVILLE
2ND & 3RD EASTERN SHORE CHAPELS 1726 AND 1755
4ST & 2ND EMANUEL
LYNNHAVEN
The Colonial Vestry Book of Lynnhaven Parish, Princess Anne County, Virginia, 1723-1786
Transcribed and Edited by GEORGE CARRINGTON MASON Historiographer, Diocese of Southern Virginia.
GEORGE C. MASON, POST OFFICE Box 720, NEWPORT NEWS, VIRGINIA, 1949
R(C)-PA 929,3 m33. ciò
VIRGINIA BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM - DUP A18230 166904
V
PREFACE
The publication of this work, as the first of a projected series of several such publications, has been prompted by the realization that, out of more than fifty surviving parish records of colonial Virginia, only about fifteen have as yet been published in printed form. The rest of these invaluable manuscripts are unavailable to researchers generally, without a trip to the repositories in which they are kept.
Lithoprinting of a typewritten transcript of the original vestry book text has been adopted as the medium for this publication, in order to demonstrate that the historical and genealogical information contained in the text can be made available to students in this simple and inexpensive format, exactly as well or even better than in the more elaborate and costly one hitherto considered necessary for such volumes.
In order to facilitate the reader's use of this book for research purposes, all obscure abbreviations have been extended, thus doing away with the superior let- ters and special symbols used generally by colonial scribes to form such abbreviati- ons." To preserve to the full the antique flavor of the original text, no change was made in the spelling, capitalization, punctuation, or wording of the vestry minutes, of which this work is therefore a faithful transcript, with the exception noted above.
The choice of the Lynnhaven Parish vestry book as the first publication of this series is based on its exceptional interest and historical value among surviving Virginia parish records, and on the additional fact that it is the one most familiar to the editor, as the first manuscript of this kind to be examined by him, at the be- ginning of his extended study of the Virginia colonial churches, later published se- rially in the historical quarterlies and in book form.
Since further publications in this series are to be of the colonial period, the present volume includes only the colonial and post-Revolutionary portions of this long vestry record, which is actually continuous to the year 1892, with minor lapses due to war. The present publication covers the proceedings of the Lynnhaven Parish vestry down through its reorganization after the disestablishment of the Church of England in 1785, and its replacement by the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia, and terminates in 1786, when the vestry's duty of supporting paupers was surrendered to the Overseers of the Poor.
The vestry record for many years after 1786 does not possess the same in- terest that is found in the minutes published herein, since the vestry had then been shorn of all its principal functions, except as trustees of the parish free school, and was seriously handicapped in the performance of the important duty of securing a rector for the parish by the lack of any practical means of paying his salary.
A brief history of the parish and its churches, based on the study already mentioned, precedes the actual vestry book text. The illustrations showing probable interior arrangements of the parish church and lower chapel at various periods of the vestry book record, are not fanciful, but based solidly on specifications, vestry minutes, and physical features of the existing buildings.
The text is followed by an appendix containing lists of the colonial rec- tors, churchwardens, vestrymen, and presiding officers of the vestry, as well as of the many county sheriffs mentioned in the vestry book. There is a thorough index, with nearly 5000 references, but no attempt has been made to distinguish between "Senior" and "Junior" persons of the same name, or to give military titles, because the juniors become seniors and the captains turn into colonels, later on in the book. Geographical names of the various precincts of the parish have generally not been in- dexed, since they occur so often in the vestry minutes as to have no significance.
Although the first syllable of the parish name is spelt with a single "n" throughout the entire vestry book text, the form "Lynnhaven" is used in the title of this work, as being the accepted modern spelling and the correct form of the name of the English locality after which this parish was named.
1This simplification of the original text was made at the suggestion of Dr. E. G. Swem, Librarian Emeritus, William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia.
vii
INTRODUCTION
The colonial parish vestry functioned in so many ways which vitally affec- ted the people's daily existence that the vestry book, recording as it does every transaction of the vestry, furnishes an unique cross section of the community life of the period.
Composed of the most prominent and able men of the parish, the vestry was first elected by popular vote at the formation of the parish, but thereafter was self-perpetuating, as it filled all vacancies due to death or resignation by elect- ing new members as required. Membership was so nearly hereditary that junior mem- bers of leading families were sometimes added to the vestry without a recorded elec- tion by that body, and always joined it without opposition. The vestry served with- out pay and the legal number of vestrymen was twelve, although the membership often stood below that number for several years at a time. Once elected, a vestry could only be dissolved by act of assembly, for misconduct sufficient to justify a petition by the parishioners to the colonial council.
The colonial vestry has been aptly termed "a government within a government", for the parish was an ecclesiastical unit of area within the county as a civil unit, and just as the county commissioners, or justices of the peace, had power to levy taxes to meet the expenses of civil government in the county, so the vestry "laid the levy" for the collection of tithes to meet the civil and religious expenses of the parish.
The resulting tithe, usually figured in pounds of tobacco per poll, as the colonial medium of exchange, had to be paid for every tithable person, or male aged sixteen years or over. A collector, often the county sheriff, was charged with the duty of collecting these tithes and had the legal power to "distrain" or levy on the goods of a delinquent, in order to do so.
There was the closest possible co-operation between the vestry and county court, for the leading men in the county were members of both bodies, and this was especially true in parishes that were coterminous with the county, like Lynnhaven. Although the various functions of court and vestry were prescribed by law, the ac- tual division between the civil duties performed by the two organizations seems to have been made by agreement between their memberships, or according to custom, and varied in different counties and parishes.
For example, the county commissioners were obligated to appoint surveyors of the county highways, while the vestry was legally required to designate the hands who should assist each surveyor in clearing and maintaining the roads, yet the Lynn- haven vestry did neither, and the Petsworth vestry in Gloucester appointed surveyors of the highways, but neglected the duty of supplying hands.
The most important duties of a vestry, in addition to levying tithes, were to employ a minister, purchase and maintain a "glebe" or parish farm, for his resi- dence and support, erect and repair the parish church and chapels, and appoint clerks (readers) and sextons for their operation and upkeep, but the obligation for which the most tithes were levied, after the minister's salary was paid, was the support of the parish poor.
Payments for this last purpose were designated by the modern-sounding name of "relief". Aged paupers and orphan children were assigned to various members of the parish to be supported for a sum allotted in the annual parish levy, and sons and daughters were paid to maintain their indigent parents and widows to care for their own children, apparently in preference to allowing such duties to be performed by strangers. The vestry's provision for care of the poor included large sums paid to doctors for treatment of constitutional disorders, "salivation" by administration of mercury compounds being the most costly of such treatments.
The Lynnhaven vestry also maintained a workhouse and poor farm to reduce the expense of pauper care. Some vestry books contain evidence of schooling given to poor children at the poorhouse or elsewhere, but the Lynnhaven vestry's only recorded project of this sort was not undertaken until the close of the colonial era, and then only as the result of a liberal bequest to the parish by its last colonial rector, the Reverend Robert Dickson. The post-Revolutionary vestry record, for many years, is largely concerned with the vestry's efforts to operate this school, called Dickson's Free School, the bequest being known as Dickson's Donation.
Duties periodically performed by the vestry were the designation of persons to count tobacco plants, as required by early crop-control legislation, and the ap- pointment of "procession-masters" to oversee the "processioning" of every man's land,
viii
INTRODUCTION
legally required to be performed every four years, the parish being first divided by the vestry into convenient precincts for this purpose.
Having "warned in" the inhabitants of his precinct to be at home on the date set in the vestry's order, the procession-master with the neighboring land-owners then walked around the boundaries of each property, renewing tree-blazes and other landmarks, and in case of dispute the testimony of the oldest inhabitants was usually accepted. Results of this processioning and the reason for any failure to accomplish it were re- ported to the county court and recorded in an official register book.
An unusual feature of the Lynnhaven Parish vestry's organization was the ap- parent recognition of one of its senior members as presiding officer, who signed the vestry minutes and orders as entered in the vestry book, which were then attested by the vestry clerk. This presiding officer sometimes served also as a churchwarden, but usually continued to sign the minutes long after ceasing to hold that office. In his absence, the minutes were signed by some other senior vestryman, and when this was done in 1783 by Anthony Walke, Jr., the note was added "John Ackiss being absent".
The rector was ex officio a member of the vestry and legally entitled to pre-
side. The first of Lynnhaven's rectors to assert this right was the Reverend James Simpson, who took office in 1785. Since the minutes designate him as "President" of the vestry, it may be assumed that the previous presiding officers also had that title.
It speaks well for the faithful performance of their duties by Lynnhaven vestrymen that when the vestry was dissolved, under general legislation enacted in 1783 and 1785, the majority of the old vestry was elected to membership in the new body in both cases. It will be noted from the list of vestrymen appended to the text that continuous service records of twenty years, more or less, are not uncommon among members of the Lynnhaven vestry.
The most remarkable of such records are those of the Anthony Walkes, father and son, who served 46 and 22 years, respectively, on the vestry and shared a combined service of 27 years as churchwardens. It is no wonder that this family was awarded a pew in the chancel of the new Donation Church in 1736, as "a benefit for gifts and ser- vices". There are actually only a dozen pages of the vestry text on which the name "Anthony Walke" does not occur.
No less than six different members of the Moseley family served at various times on the Lynnhaven vestry during the period of this vestry book, and this record earned them also a chancel pew. Distinguished records of long service on the vestry were also made by members of the Ackiss, Bonney, Boush, Cornick, Dawley, Ellegood, Keeling, Kempe, Land, Nimmo, Sayer, Walker, Whitehead, Whitehurst, and Woodhouse fam- ilies and many others.
1x
CONTENTS
Page
Preface
V
Introduction vii
Acknowledgments 1x
History of Colonial Lynnhaven Parish x1
The Vestry Book of Lynnhaven Parish, 1723-1786 1
Appendix - Lists of Parish and County Officers, 1640-1786 126
Index
129
ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Map of Princess Anne County, showing Churches Frontispiece
Old Donation Church and Communion Silver xiv
Old Donation Church, Interior Arrangements xv1
Eastern Shore Chapel and Communion Silver; Pungo Chapel Site xx1
Eastern Shore Chapel, Interior Arrangements xx111
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made of the editor's indebtedness to the State Library Board and the State Librarian for their generous approval of the publication project and for the extended loan of a photostatic copy of the original manuscript vestry book, which has im- mensely reduced the labor of its transcription. His thanks are also due to the rector and vestry of Lynnhaven Parish for their ready per- mission to publish the parish's colonial vestry record.
George Carrington Mason. George Carrington Mason Editor
x1
HISTORY OF COLONIAL LYNNHAVEN PARISH, PRINCESS ANNE COUNTY, VIRGINIA.
The colonial parish of Lynnhaven included the whole of the existing coun- ty of Princess Anne, Virginia. This county had its origin in the early corporation of Elizabeth City, one of the four "ancient boroughs" which, together with the Eas- tern Shore settlement, comprised the colony of Virginia in 1618.1
Upon the colony's division into eight shires or counties in 1634, this a- rea became a part of Elizabeth City County,2 but was cut off in 1636 with New Norfolk County, the first county created after the original subdivision. New Norfolk was subdivided, a year later, into Upper Norfolk (now Nansemond) County and Lower Norfolk County. 3 Princess Anne County was formed in 1691 out of the eastern part of Lower Norfolk, whose western part became the present county of Norfolk. 4
The formation of Lower Norfolk County in 1637 carried with it the creation of a coterminous parish of the same name, but by 1640, there had developed within this county two distinct church bodies, one in the upper part of the county, near Elizabeth River and Hampton Roads, and the other in its lower section, near Lynnhaven River and Chesapeake Bay. The former became Elizabeth River Parish and the latter Lynnhaven Parish, and a first vestry was appointed for each parish, respectively, at the county court sessions of July5 and August, 6 1640. Since this court held quarter- ly sessions, a month apart, in the two sections of the county successively, this amounted to simultaneous organization of the two parishes by the county court.
At the petition of its own inhabitants, boundaries for the new parish of Lynnhaven were set by an act of assembly in 1642.7 This boundary act refers to a third church body in Lower Norfolk County under the i.Line of Southern Shore Parish. This third parish in the county appears to have been named for its location on the southern shore of the Eastern Branch of Elizabeth River, and it was probably of small area, extending only to the contemporary limit of settlement. The county records show that Southern Shore had ceased to exist as a parish by 1645,8 and no further documentary reference to it has been found.
When Princess Anne County was formed out of the eastern section of Lower Norfolk in 1691, a part of Lynnhaven Parish was left in Norfolk County until four years later, when an act of assembly of 1695 made the new county coterminous with the parish. 9 These boundaries remained unchanged for exactly two centuries, or un- til 1895, when East Lynnhaven Parish was formed out of the eastern portion of the county.
Lynnhaven Parish derived its name from Lynnhaven River, which was called
xii
VESTRY BOOK OF LYNNHAVEN PARISH
Chesopeian or Chesapeake River in the earliest records, but is believed to have been renamed by Adam Thorowgood after his early home at Lynn, England, about 1635, when he patented ten square miles of land upon its shores.
The county records reveal that there were no churches in service in Lower Norfolk County in 1637, since court orders of that year require certain penances, customarily performed during services at the parish church, to be carried out at pri- vate homes "during the time of divine service" on the Sabbath. The houses at which these first church services were held were those of Captain Adam Thorowgood at Lynn- haven10 and of Captain John Sibsey at Seawell's Point, IL both places being near the sites where the first churches for the county's two parishes were soon afterward erected.
A later county record proves that there was a "Parish Church at Lynnhaven" already in existence in 1639.12 This first Lynnhaven Church was built on Adam Thor- owgood's land, at what has ever since been known as Church Point, 13 on the west side of Lynnhaven River and only a mile from Chesapeake Bay. The remains of this building were still visible as a mound of old brick in 1850, so that it seems probable that it was a brick church and one of the earliest of its type in Virginia.
The churchyard of this first Lynnhaven Church was gradually washed away by heavy waves admitted through enlargement of a narrow channel cut by fishermen to re- open the original Lynnhaven Inlet, shortly before the Revolutionary War.14 This in- let had been open at the time of first settlement, as proved by early maps, 15 but had long since been closed by sandbars, compelling fishermen to use a roundabout channel, connecting with Little Creek, in order to pass from Lynnhaven River to their fishing grounds in Chesapeake Bay, on the opposite side of the bar. -
The old first church had become ruinous by 1691, and the vestry then ordered it to be replaced by "a good and Substantiall Brick Church". This building was spec- ified to be "forty five foot in length and twenty two foot in breadth between the walls", which were to be thirteen feet high. It was required to be completed by the end of June, 1692, under penalty of 100,000 pounds of tobacco, so that this may safely be taken as its date of erection. 16
The new church's site lay about two and a half miles southwest by south of the first church and was sold to the parish in 1694 by Ebenezer Taylor, who deeded to the vestry two acres of land "whereon the new brick church of Lynnhaven now stands"!7 The building was erected by Jacob Johnson on Taylor's land "neare the road towards the ferry".
The ferry mentioned had been established a few years earlier across the
xii1
HISTORY OF COLONIAL LYNNHAVEN PARISH
Western Branch of Lynnhaven River, near the point since named Witch Duck, after the historic witchcraft trial of Grace Sherwood in 1705. Near this ferry was the 50-acre Ferry Plantation, still known as the Ferry Farm.
The association between the colonial church and court-house was always very close and they were frequently built on adjoining sites. In accordance with this old custom, a court-house for the new Princess Anne County was, on the 12th September, 1695, ordered to be erected "Upon the land belonging to the Brick Church", 18 referring to the two-acre site just purchased from Ebenezer Taylor for the second Lynnhaven Church.
This court-house was not the first one in service for Princess Anne County, since it succeeded an earlier frame court-house ordered on 17th September, 1689, to be built on the Eastern Shore of Lynnhaven, 19 near the southern end of Great Neck, as a local court building for Lower Norfolk County, which in 1691 became the first Prin- cess Anne County Court-house.
The building ordered in 1695 was nevertheless the first court-house built for the new county after its creation in 1691, and it was largely constructed out of the timbers of the earlier building, which were shipped by boat across Lynnhaven Riv- er to the new site beside the brick church. 20 This earlier court-house itself had been erected near a church, as described later in this account.
With the rapid increase of wealth and population that took place in colonial Virginia at the beginning of the eighteenth century, this little second Lynnhaven Church was soon outgrown and in June, 1733, the vestry ordered a new church to be erected on a one-acre site at the Ferry Plantation.
Colonial government reports show that the county's population, as indicated by the number of tithables, or taxable persons, had more than doubled since the erec- tion of the previous church building. The new church was therefore specified to be 65 feet long by 30 feet wide, inside, with walls 15 feet high, giving more than twice as much interior space as its diminutive predecessor afforded.
The customary close connection between church and court is evident in the vestry's choice of a church site at the Ferry Plantation, since a two-acre lot at the ferry had already been deeded to the county in 1730, "in order that a court house may be there erected",21 and the vestry seem to have desired to maintain the previous close connection between church and court.
In September, 1733, only three months after the vestry had selected a site at the ferry for their new church building, they nevertheless reversed themselves and "unanimously agreed that the New Church be placed where the old one now stands". The
xiv
3
OLa Donation Church
Suggested exterior appearance of Donation Church in 1776, at the close of the colonial era.
Communion silver service of Old Donation Church, with flagon of 1716, cup of 1712, and paten of 1711. The paten was the gift of Maximilian Boush and bears his arms.
Old Donation Church as it appears today.
XV
VESTRY BOOK OF LYNNHAVEN PARISH
later vestry record shows that this order was not followed too literally, since it was evidently carried out by erecting the new structure adjacent to the old one on the two-acre site deeded to the parish in 1694, for only thus could church services be maintained during the long construction period.
Since this adjacent position was already occupied by the old frame court- house of 1695, the vestry's change of front could only have been prompted by this old county building's actual removal from the church property, upon the approaching completion of the new brick court-house at the ferry. It therefore follows that the new church of 1736, which was the same historic structure that is now known as 01d Donation Church, was erected upon the exact site of this old court building, the first constructed for the new county of Princess Anne.
No trace of the second Lynnhaven Church of 1692 is visible above ground at the site, but the sounding rod reveals the outlines of its foundation, parallel to the existing church and about 70 feet south and a little west of it, as marked by brick rubble in the soil. These remains lie due west of the present graveyard, which, although stripped of tombstones, is an ancient burial ground, and this would have been the most probable location for an earlier church.
We are by no means dependent upon the sounding rod, however, for evidence that the second church of 1692 was not torn down to make room for its successor, since we have definite proof of this fact in a vestry order giving the old church "as a con- venient place to make a public School off for instructing children in learning" and dated 2nd March, 1736/7, when the new church must have been practically complete.
The third Lynnhaven Parish Church was received by the vestry from its build- er, Peter Malbone, on the 25th June, 1736. Its identity as the existing Old Donation Church is sufficiently evident from the exact agreement between the present church's dimensions and those specified for the third church, and from the date 1736 cut in a brick to the right of its west doorway.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.