USA > Virginia > A history of Bristol Parish, Va. : with genealogies of families connected therewith, and historical illustrations > Part 7
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No one, we think, can join in or witness the worship at St. Stephen's church, without admiring the decency and order of its conduct, and the unanimity and hearti- ness of its ringing responses, and wishing it (in the words of the Psalmist) "Good luck in the name of the Lord."
Rev. Giles B. Cooke, Rector. Communicants, 117. Vestrymen-J. J. Cain, Senior Warden; Thomas W. Cain, Treasurer; Alfred Pryor, Registrar; George F. Bragg, J. S. Russell, J. J. Campbell, James K. Knight.
TOWN OF BLANDFORD.
Its Rise and Fall-Centre of Commerce, of Society, of Religion -- Scotch merchants and Tobacco trade with Glasgow-Merchant Princes in scarlet robes, &c .- Lines addressed to the village of Blandford in its decay.
Petersburg and Blandford were raised to the rank of towns in the same year (1748). But the latter was the elder sister, if the younger has overshadowed and ab-
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sorbed her. The tide of population which flowed up the Appomattox from its mouth, was checked by the bluffs of Blandford, and settled upon its present site. William Poythress, on hose land it was planted, was a vestryman of 1727, a died in 1768, in the 63d year of his age. It was probably named before it was in- corporated. There is a natural curiosity about the origin of the names of places which have become his- torical. It is a received tradition that it was named after the family of Bland. This is plausible, and may be true, but it does not account for the last syllable (ford), the river never having been fordable between its mouth and the falls, except by some adventurous rider on a fox-chase or like exigency, when, "sink or swim," bold men plunge into deep water or more inex- tricable mire. Until bridges were built, there were fer- ries all along the river. But for the uniformity of the foregoing tradition, we would have conjectured that it might have been named after the town of Blandford in England, seated upon a bend in the river Stour, which was famous for its fairs for horses and as a gathering place for the gentry of the vicinity at the annual races upon a neighboring down. In this respect it was like our Blandford. The English town, too, gave the title of Marquis to the Duke of Marlborough ( Marquis of Blandford). Many towns in England and America were named after him, and as thanksgiving days for his victories were ordered to be observed in every parish of her Majesty's great colony and dominion of Virginia, our Blandford might have been named for him. This historical reminiscence occurs to us in passing, but we do not oblige ourselves to defend it. Sve Palmer's Calendar, p. S.)
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In 1737, the Brick church, now become historical as Blandford church, was opened on Well's hill, overlook- ing Blandford, and became the religious centre of the Parish.
In 1752, the general assembly passed an act reciting, that whereas the town of Blandford "has greatly im- proved, and would improve more, and trade be in- creased, if trustees were appointed for carrying it on," Sir William Skipwith (baronet), Robert Bolling, Sam. Gordon, Wm. Poythress, Jr., Patrick Ramsay, Peter Bland and John Bland, gentlemen (all vestrymen but two), are appointed trustees for regulating the placing of houses and carrying on the town, with authority to impose fines, and appropriate them to building and keeping in repair the wharves, &c. The owners of lots were required within three years to build upon each lot a dwelling house, containing four hundred fect superficial measure upon the ground plot. (7th Hening 608.)
In 1757 a significant event occurred in the history of the town, indicating its growing importance and those relations with Scotland which had so much influence in the development of its prosperity.
Shalto Charles Douglas (Lord Aberdeen), Grand Master of the Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland, with the brethren of the Grand Lodge thereunto sub- scribing, granted a charter to Blandford Lodge, in Prince George county, province of Virginia, of which the following were constituted officers, viz: Right Worshipful Hugh Miller, Master; the Worshipful Peter Johnson, Senior Warden, Samuel Gordon, Esq., Junior Warden, and James Anderson, Esq., Secretary. These, and such other brethren as they shall upon en-
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quiry and trial find to be duly qualified, and their suc- cessors, are constituted a free and regular Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons for all time. This charter was given in St. Mary's chapel, Edinburgh, on 9th September, in the year of Light, 5757. Miller and Gordon were also wardens of Bristol Parish.
In 1759, twenty acres of land adjoining the town, belonging to Patrick Ramsay, gentleman, were added by act of assembly to Blandford, so soon as the same shall be laid off in lots, and the lots shall be "built on and saved," agreeable to the directions of a former act appointing trustees, &c.
It was the tobacco trade which gave such impulse to Blandford, and Virginia's chief market was Glas- gow, so soon as the American trade was thrown open to Scotland by her union with England (1707). From this era dates the prosperity of Glasgow itself. Up to the middle of the last century the foreign trade of Glasgow was conducted by joint stock com- panies. A Glasgow vessel of sixty tons first crossed the Atlantic in 1718. The first adventure to Virginia (says Dugald Valentine's Diary) was under the sole charge of the captain acting as supercargo. When he was asked on his return for a statement of his ac- counts, he replied that he had no statement; but here were the proceeds, throwing upon the table a large hoggar (stocking) stuffed to the top with coin. As an unlettered man had been so successful, they thought a trained accountant would do better, and so they sent one, and he came back with a beautiful statement, but no hoggar. The trade so increased, that, about 1735, the Scotch merchants sent factors to live in Virginia and buy tobacco to the best advantage. Hence Scotch
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merchants poured into Dumfries, on the Potomac, Fal- mouth, on the Rappahannock, and many other towns, including Blandford. In 1772, out of ninety thousand hogsheads of tobacco imported into Britain, Glasgow imported forty-nine thousand, and one of her mer- chants (Glassford) owned twenty-five ships in the trade. The tobacco lords were the magnates (great folks) of Glasgow. They promenaded the Trongate in long scarlet robes and bushy wigs, and other men gave way as they passed. Virginia street, and Jamaica street, in Glasgow, still perpetuate the memory of the trade which enriched her merchants and gave such great im- pulse to her prosperity and changed her social physi- ognomy. Blandford shared in this prosperity, and the Scottish Gordons, and Ramsays, and Murrays, Mackies, Maitlands, Mckenzies, Brydons, Robert- sons, Colquehouns, and others, too numerous to men- tion, were leading men on change in the church and in society, and, intermarrying with our Virginia maidens, have transmitted their blood to many of the best peo- ple of this generation. It is worthy of note that Scotch families, such as the Dunlops, Tennants, Ma- gills, Camerons, &c., are, to this day, leaders in the tobacco trade of Petersburg, which has grown so great as to swallow up her sisters, Blandford and Pocahontas, which were merged in one corporation in 1784.
The medical men who figured in the last century were Doctors Goldie and Thompson, McCartic, Bland, Hall and Shore, whose shop still stands a monument to his memory.
Among the earliest lawyers, who were of counsel to the vestry, were Thomas Eldridge, Stephen Dewey and Augustine Claiborne, whose receipts for fees are still of
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record in the register. Among those who illuminated the bar, in later days, were Colonel William Davies, son of the great president of Princeton college, and grand- father of the present bishop of Virginia, and George Keith Taylor (who married the sister of Chief Justice Marshall), whose eloquence was said to rival that of Patrick Henry, and whose only visible monument, now in Blandford, is his dwelling-house, lately pointed out to the author by Robert B. Bolling of Centre Hill, a gentleman brimful of antique memories and traditions.
Blandford too, though geographically in the east, was yet at one time socially the west end of the two sis- ter cities. There are those still living who have dim memories or shadowy traditions of the merry mar- riages, the sumptuous dinners, the brilliant balls, and the shining equipages which made Blandford the centre around which society was revolved. But a change has come over her,
" And many a change, Faces and footsteps, and all things strange."
The song of the sailor is no more heard on the wharves of Blandford; nor the voices of her tobacco merchants at the "breaks;" nor the hum of industry in her streets; nor the sounds of revelry in her halls; nor the pleadings of lawyers at her bar: nor of preachers in the old pulpit. The Old Court-house is gone; the Mason's Hall is no more; Walter Boyd's (the Old Raleigh of the town) is closed; the Rising Sun (another inn) has gone down, and a poet of Pe- tersburg thus sings her dirge:
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BLANDFORD.
A jolly place, said he, in days of old, But something ails it now .- Wordsworth.
Darkness is dropping o'er the lonely hills The mantle of the inter-lunar night, And every sound is hushed, save such as fills The startled fancy with vague dreams of fright. From thy deep vale imbosked in mystery, Some viewless goblin seems to wail aloud for thee. A chill, as of the charnel-house, comes o'er
My shrinking bosom, aad the distempered mind Yields to wierd thoughts, as from the river's shore The sailor's ery comes up the gusty wind ; While from some haunted hollow hoots the owl, In answer to the trusty watch-dog's wakeful growl. At such a moment, and in such a mood, I love to view thee; lo! the distant fire Whose column flares above the eastern wood, A solemn thought and feeling doth inspire; Thus like that pillared flame, from meanest things Doth oft arise, methinks, our high imaginings.
Hence naught in nature is despised by those
Within whose soul-wrought shrines the worshipped light Of universal truth and beauty glows,
Redeeming even the wilderness of blight, And wakening into life, 'mid utter wreck, Sweet flowers of feeling which the humblest objects deck.
And who be they, who in a scene like this, No tender shade decry-no darkened charm? Base souls! that only count their own vile bliss -- Whom Pity can not reach nor fancy warm; Who read not Nature's volume oft, or well, But merely their own little -- selfish lessons spell.
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For them-the night wind hath no spirit voice They only feel, if warm or bleak it blow, Careless whom it may grieve or whom rejoice- Whence it may come, or whither it may go : Earth's secrets and the mysteries of Ileaven A closed book all, whose clasps by them shall ne'er be riven. " If ignorance be bliss"-how truly blest Must be their deep, indissoluble trance ! Can scorn from such a source e'er stir thy breast ? Then from the pall, fling back a scathing glance, Reminding them as the great ones bow, So even their littleness at last must lie low.
There was a lonely cedar on the hill,
That from thy valley shuts the western ray, A mournful tree ! would it were standing still, For clustering round its stem at close of day, A fair and guileless group I oft have seen Resting at length beneath its graceful branches green.
- A sentient thing, it almost seemed to me Sad as a weeper o'er a loved one's grave, And all its silent sorrow was for thee,
Towards whom its melancholy boughs did wave In loneliness and beauty-but the hand Of ruthless man hath rooted it from the land.
From thence oft have I watched thy sombre heights In shadow massed against the midnight skies, Till early dawn hath mocked the scattered lights That flit through thy abodes, as to mine eyes They paled like spectres, leaving thee forlorn And unrejoicing in the rosy flush of morn.
I still remember when thine aspect smiled, Though sorrow-smitten long before my day, Yet hospitality's warm cheer beguiled
Thy dream of sadness, and the young and gay With laughter filled thy bright saloons by night, And music lent to mirth more exquisite delight.
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Alas! are all thy joyous children gone, All gathered to their fathers, that decay Hath thus with wreck thy places high o'erstrown ? Lo! unrestrained the straggling cattle stray Through thy down-trampled gardens, where in bowers Of beauty, careless Love once twined his votive flowers. Thy portals now are desolate ! the grass
Is growing o'er thy thresholds-thy old halls With dust and stain defiled ; the shattered glass From many a mouldering easement daily falls, As flaps the shutters in the fitful blast, For cold are now the careful hands that made them fast. Fled are the fairy forms that once made glad Thy pleasant mansions in the days of yore, The hearts humane that never shunned the sad, Nor 'gainst the poor way-farer closed the door, And mute the tongue of fire whose matchless flame * From dark oblivion yet hath snatched thy dying name.
Thou seem'st a haunted spot ! no sound of mirth Is heard amid thy desecrated homes -- Pale penury beside the frozen hearth Unpitied shivers, or unsheltered roams Along thy silent streets, where once was seen The equipage of wealth and fashion's glittering sheen. None visit thee-save he whose journey lies Beyond, to other regions less forlorn- When some long sable funeral's obsequies Up to the citadel of tombs is borne, Where death hath reared himself a throne on high, Amidst his marble court all open to the sky.
For thee the Sabbath brings no holy calm; The solemn bell that summons all to prayer, The voice of worship and the fervid psalm, Wake not one blessed echo in thine air,
* George Keith Taylor, tho eminent juri-t.
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O'er-burdened with the oath and hideous whoop Of wild Despair, or Vice's foul inebriate group.
The prophet's curse of old * seems writ again In thy deep desolation ! and thou art A question and a marvel unto-men :
While from the up-torn fountains of thy heart A voice is heard like that of Lebanon,
Lamenting for her tall, her stately cedars gone.
WM. MURRAY ROBINSON. Petersburg, July 20, 1846.
THE BRICK CHURCH, ITS HISTORY AND LITERA- TURE.
This picturesque ruin, now widely known as Bland- ford Church, never appears on the vestry books with any other title than "The Brick Church on Well's (not Will's) hill." The Parish Church, to which it suc- ceeded, was on the river, as its name, "The Ferry Chapel," implies. This chapel being in a state of de- cay, the vestry resolved (1733) to build a new church on Well's hill, and bought an acre of land from Jolin Low for fifty shillings. On May 4, 1734, they con- tracted with Thomas Ravenscroftf to build it for £485 current money of Virginia. The style, dimensions, materials, and other details of the contract, will be found in the text. The building committee was Colo-
* I will make thee waste and a reproach among the people that are round about thee, in the midst of all that pass by .- Ezek. v: 14. + This gentleman was probably of the same family with Rt. Rev. John Stark Ravenscroft, Bishop of North Carolina, who was born near Blandford in 1772. The bishop's father was Dr. John Ra- venscroft, and his mother was the daughter of Hugh Miller, ves- tryman of Bristol Parish, and the first Master of Blandford Lodge.
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nel Robert .Bolling, Major William Poythress, and Captain William Starke. It has been said, in prose and in poetry, that the materials were brought from the " father-land." This saying is probably not true, except as to the white Bristol stone with which the aisles were paved. It may be true as to some churches, but we have never seen any proof of such fact. It cer- tainly is not true, as has been affirmed, as to the bricks used in this church or others, since the signs of brick- kilns are found near a majority of them. There was no occasion for it, as brickmakers were among the earliest importations, and the bills for moulding and burning the brick for the capitol at Williamsburg are still extant. (Palmer's Calendar of State Papers 125; Ist Hening 208.)
The first vestry was held at the Brick Church, Au- gust 13th, 1737. In 1742 Robert Bolling, William Stark, Theodrick Bland, and Stephen Dewey, got leave to build for each of their families a pew in the gallery at their own expense. In 1750, Colonel Bland having proposed to build three pews in the gallery at his own expense, the vestry requested him to reserve one of them for his own family. In 1752 it was resolved to make an addition to the north side of the church, thirty by twenty-five feet in the clear, and to enclose the church with a brick wall, one-and-a-half brick thick, five feet from the highest part of the ground to the top of the coping; length from east to west one hundred and sixty feet; from north to south one hun- dred and forty feet in the clear; one gate at the west end, and one on the south side. James Murray, Alex. Bolling, and Theodrick Bland, were granted leave to build a gallery in the south end of the addition at
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their own expense for the use of their families, and their heirs and successors. Colonel Richard Bland contracted to build the addition for $400, current money. This is one of many instances on the vestry books of men of wealth and high social position con- tracting for buildings, which has led to the erroneous conclusion that they were mechanics, and did the work with their own hands. It was a part of the contract that the addition and wall about the church should be of brick, "of statute size," and that the church should be merely painted, and the addition to it once primed and thrice painted.
In November, 1754, Colonel William Poythress had leave granted to enclose a piece of ground as a bury- ing place for his family within the walls of the church- yard: "provided, that he enlarge the same, so that the yard should include the same superficial measure (ex- clusive of said piece of ground) as the present church- yard (to be walled) is to include."
1760. Notice was given to Col. Bland that if he did not proceed to finish the work upon the addition and enclosure the contract would be given to another per- son.
In 1770 this minute is found, viz: "It appears to the vestry that the acre of land purchased by the Par- ish of Jolin Low, in 1735, is not entirely included within the wall of the church yard, and it being neces- sary that the boundaries thereof should be ascertained, it is ordered that the church wardens do lay off the surplus of said acre, from the west side of the wall, square with the same, giving Lewis Parham, present proprietor of the adjoining land, notice of the time when said line is to be run; and the quantity of land
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included in Col. Poythress' burying-place is to be laid off over and above the said acre according to the agree- ment of said vestry, with said Poythress in 1754."
In 1771 Peter Parsons was paid for railing in the oak and the benches around the church.
Lewis Parham having asserted a claim to the acre of land on which the Brick church on Well's hill is situ- ated, and demanding (500 for it, the vestry rejected the claim, he having, in their opinion, no right to it.
In 1773 Col. Theodrick Bland obtained leave to build side windows in the Brick church adjoining his family pew
In 1785 the church wardens were ordered "to let the making of proper gates to the church wall and to have them properly fitted and the church repaired, and that the Rev. Mr. Cameron employ a sexton who shall have six shillings for each grave opened, and shall re- ceive three shillings for each privilege. After the re- pairs of the church shall be made, the church wardens are directed to number the pews and let them to the highest bidder; reserving two pews 'for the students,' and 'four pews for the poor.'"
In 1790 the church wardens were ordered to get a deed for the church from Charles Duncan, and have it recorded.
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In ISOI additional land was bought for a burying- ground, and 646 appropriated for enclosing the same, and it was ordered that no grave be opened hereafter, within the old walls, except for persons, a part of whose family is already buried there. In 1815 the south gate of the old Brick church was repaired.
Many of the foregoing items will be found scattered through the body of this book, but the author has
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thought it well to collect and group them here, to save the curious reader the trouble of doing it for himself. The vestry in the latter part of the last century met, by turns, at the globe-house (still standing opposite the western entrance of the church yard ) and at Byrd's, and Armistead's, in the town of Blandford; and at Brewer's, in Petersburg, until pastor and people mi- grated to the latter city, in which services had been held alternately with the brick and the outward church. And, finally, the old church was left alone in her glory.
There is a sense in which it may be said that the glory of the latter day exceeds the glory of the for- mer. Although the fire upon her altar has gone out, yet not before it had kindled fires upon other altars, which are now burning brightly upon the neighboring hill, and among other radiations, reflecting light upon Blandford, in the form of a mission chapel, in which the gospel is preached upon the site where once the law only was expounded. *
"Time, which the ancients fabled to be a god, not only " With his effacing fingers, Sweeps the lines where beauty lingers,"
but he also "adorns the ruins and beautifies the dead." Thus has he crowned the old deserted church with a -
diadem of moss, and clothed her with a mantle of ivy.
Upon her naked outer walls A graceful ivy mantle falls, Clinging with its soft caresses Like a young girl's glossy tresses, When round her mother's neck she twines Iler loving arms like winding vines.
* The Mission Chapel is upon the site of the Old Court-house.
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As our Virginia Old Mortality (Charles Campbell) long ago said, "Blandford is chiefly remarkable for the melancholy charm of a moss-velveted and ivy-em- broidered, ante-revolutionary church, (whose yard is the Petersburg Cemetery) at present in the most pictur- esque phase of dilapidation." And we add that, it is the pride of Petersburg, and the most attractive of all her historical surroundings. The pilgrim and the stranger who tarry but a night, is sure to wend his way and pay his homage at this shrine. Time, too, in its revolvings, "brings in other revenges." The chil- dren, and the children's children, of the scattered wor- shipers who were baptized at this Font or knelt at this Shrine, when they have finished their course on earth, are borne back in solemn procession, and laid in the bosom of old Mother Church, which invests her with a charm, in the eyes and hearts of the whole com- munity. Scarcely one of them can come here without in his fond fancy seeming
To recognize, The loving and familiar eyes, Of husband, wife, or father, mother, Son or daughter, sister, brother, Or little babes with dimpled chin And golden wings of cherubim. *
For ourselves we are glad that there is one spot where all men of all creeds can come, leaving their Shibboleths behind them, and within whose gates, no voice of discord is heard, to mar the music of the
* These lines, and those preceding, are from an unpublished and indeed an unwritten poem, delivered by the author at the centen- nial anniversary of Old Christ Church, Alexandria.
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birds, which sing among the branches, and of the wail- ing winds playing their requiems upon the evergreen harps of holly and of yew.
"BLANDFORD CHURCH LITERATURE."
Besides the many "who have paid their silent homage at this shrine," there are some who have re- corded their impressions in prose, in poetry, and in pictures. Among these, a stranger has sung it in strains, written in pencil upon the inner walls of the church, which, having won a unanimous verdict of ap- plause from the grand jury of the people, deserves the first place. These lines have been ascribed to different writers, living and dead. Campbell and Simpson be- lieve them to be the work of Tyrone Power. They have even been said to have been seen in old charac- ters in an old magazine. We will not presume to de- . cide a question which has so vexed the critics. Here are the lines :
Thou art crumbling to the dust old pile ! Thou art hastening to thy fall; And round thee in thy loneliness, Clings the ivy to the wall ; The worshippers are scattered now, Who knelt before thy shrine, And silence reigns where anthems rose In days of "Auld Lang Syne."
And sadly sighs the wandering wind, Where oft in years gone by, Prayer rose from many hearts to HIM, The HIGHEST of the HIGH. The tread of many a noiseless foot That sought thy aisles, is o'er,
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