USA > Virginia > Culpeper County > Culpeper County > A history of St. Mark's Parish, Culpeper County, Virginia, with notes of old churches and old families, and illustrations of the manners and customs of the olden time > Part 2
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ORGANIZATION.
eral parts of his tract of forty-five thousand acres of land, but that the mine he was at work upon was thirteen miles below Germanna. He raised the ore a mile from the furnace, and carted the iron, when made, fifteen miles to his plantation on Massaponax. He said that during his absence in England he had lost eighty slaves, his furnace was still the greater part of the time, and all his plantations ran to ruin. But he was rightly served for trusting his affairs to a mathematician (Mr. Graeme), whose thoughts were always ' among the stars.' The afternoon was dc- voted to the ladies, who conducted me through a shady lane to the river, and by the way made me drink some very fine water that issued from a marble fountain. Just behind it was a covered bench, where Miss Thecky often sat and bewailed her vir- ginity. The river is about fifty yards wide, and so rapid that the ferry-boat is towed over by a chain, and therefore called the Rapidan." The Miss Thecky above-mentioned was evidently the sister of Mrs. Spotswood, who married Mr. Benger, a cousin of the Governor, and from whom some of the Minors and Frenchs of Spotsylvania are descended.
Governor Spotswood, after whom Spotsylvania was called, fixed the seat of justice at Germanna, which was named after the German settlement. The history of these Germans deserves further investiga- tion. In 1717 they consisted of one hundred and thirty persons, in twenty-nine families, and antici- pated a large accession to their number. In a peti- tion to the Bishop of London and the English society for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign lands, they described themselves as very desirous of having the ministers of religion in their own tongue, " not
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ST. MARK'S PARISH.
understanding English well." They invoke the aid of the Bishops in England to procure for them and ordain a young German minister, to assist and to succeed their old pastor (Haeger), now seventy-five years of age, and to send with him the Liturgy of the Church of England translated into High Dutch, which they are desirous to use in public worship. They were exempted by the General Assembly from the payment of parish levies. Dr. Hawks- says that the parish of St. George was created for them. This is elearly a mistake. Colonel Byrd, in the passage quoted above, says he saw in 1732 " the ruinous ten- ements " which they had occupied at Germanna, and adds that they had moved higher up to the Fork of the Rappahannock, to land of their own, which must mean the juncture of the Rapid Ann (often called the Rappahannock in those times) and the Robin- son, which is now in the county of Madison. I believe I was the first to suggest that there was the nucleus of the German population in Madison county (see my History of St. George's Parish, 1747). Bishop Meade adopts this suggestion, and refers to an old gentleman in Culpeper who had told him that in his boyhood he had often seen the Lutherans from Madison, when they had no minister of their own, come to Buck Run Church, in Culpeper, to receive the Holy Communion. That old gentleman was the venerable vestryman and watchful warden, the late Samuel Slaughter, of Western View, in St. Mark's Parish. I have initiated inquiries which I hope will throw some light on this obscurity.
In May, 1730, the General Assembly, in view of the inconveniences arising to the parishioners of St. George's Parish by reason of the great length there-
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ORGANIZATION.
of, divided it by a line running "from the mouth of the Rapid Ann to the mouth of the Wilderness Run ; thence up the said run to the bridge, and thence southward to the Pamunkey River. All the terri- tory above that line to be called and known as St. Mark's Parish." The same Act directs the freeholders and housekeepers of the new parish to meet at the new church in Germanna, on the first day of the fol- lowing January, and elect twelve of the most able and discreet persons of the parish to be vestrymen of said parish. In pursuance of this Act, the free- holders and housekeepers did meet at Germanna on the 1st day of January, 1731, and elected Goodrich Lightfoot, Henry Field, Francis Kirtly (not Huntly, as in Bishop Meade's "Old Churches, &c."), William Peyton, James Barbour, Robert Slaughter, John Finlason, Francis Slaughter, Thomas Staunton, Ben- jamin Cave, Robert Green, and Samuel Ball. Robert Slaughter and Francis Slaughter were the first churchwardens, and William Peyton the first clerk.
These antique vestrymen were the fruitful germs of genealogical trees, which have scattered their prolific seeds from New York to Florida, and from Virginia to California. This is not a rhetorical flourish, but is literally true, and could be easily demonstrated, were "the play worth the candle." The progress of this narrative will furnish some sug- gestive illustrations of this truth.
1731. St. Mark's Parish now begins its indepen- dent career at Germanna, without a shepherd to seek after the flock scattered in the wilderness bounded by the Blue Mountains, which look so enchanting in the distance, when their summits are lighted by the B
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ST. MARK'S PARISH.
setting sun. There were three churches in the new parish-one of them at Germanna, one in the Little Fork, and one in the S. W. Mountain, in the neigh- borhood of Messrs. James Barbour and Benjamin Cave, vestrymen. For the several years in which they had no pastor the vestry employed occasionally the Rev. Mr. De Butts and the Rev. Mr. Purit, two adventurers who were seeking parishes, and paid them three hundred pounds of tobacco per sermon.
In the absence of regular ministers, the churches . and chapels were served by Lay readers, or clerks, as they were then called, whom the vestries seem to have preferred to inefficient clergymen. The vestry went vigorously to work, by ordering the churches to be repaired and vestry-houses built; buy- ing two hundred acres of land for a glebe, of Wm. Ashley ; contracting for a glebe-house, with all the appurtenances of barns, stables, meat-houses, dairies, &c. William Peyton was made Lay Reader at the Little Fork; John McMuth had the double office of clerk and sexton at Germanna; and William Philips and David Cave, alternating clerks at the Southwest Mountain Chapel. The church wardens settled with the old vestry of St. George's and bought parish books. The parish lines were surveyed. Zachery Lewis was chosen as their attorney. Robert Turner was made collector of tithes. A. Chambers was engaged to keep the church clean at Germanna ; John Carder to do the same office at the Fork, and William Stevenson at the Mountain Chapel. Col. Waller was employed to bring up a copy of the oaths of allegiance to the British Crown, and of conformity to the Church of England, and the test oath against Popery - all of which the vestry had to take. Some
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ORGANIZATION.
idea may be formed of the state of the country, from the fact that Augustine Smith, Jr., was paid 200 pounds of tobacco for piloting the minister to the Mountain Chapel, which was not far from Cave's Ford in Orange.
The vestry seem, too, to have been animated by a laudable spirit of church extension. Within two years (1732-1733) two churches and two chapels were projected. The first church was seated on what is now the road from Germanna to Stevensburg, " con- venient to the springs above Major Finlason's path." This church, or one on the same site, was standing within the memory of men now living, and was used by the venerable Mr. Woodville. It is called, in the vestry book, the Lower or Great Fork Church. Mr. Spotswood, of Orange Grove, now in his 77th year, says he remembers when the Spotswoods, Gordons, Grymes, and Thorntons, near Germanna, used to attend this church. The other church was built "con- venient to the Southwest Mountain road, on the first run below the chapel"; and John Lightfoot and John Rucker were ordered "to pitch on the place near to some good spring." This was the old church near Ruckersville, in the county of Green. Its age is left uncertain in Rev. Mr. Earnest's interesting article on St. Thomas's Parish in Bishop Meade's " Old Churches, &c." The old minister who first preached in this church, and whom Mr. Earnest could not identify, was either De Butts or Becket; both of whom were discharged by the vestry of St. Mark's. The first place of worship on the Southwest Mountain was a chapel, which James Barbour and Benjamin Cave undertook " to have kept clean." At the chapel, De Butts preached until 1732, at which date I find this
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ST. MARK'S PARISH.
entry in the vestry book -" Ordered, that the Rev. Mr. De Butts be paid 9000 pounds of tobacco for thirty sermons." In December, 1733, a new chapel was ordered, only twenty feet square, at Batley's, or Bradley's, Quarter, " convenient to the best spring that Benjamin Cave can find." Rev. Mr. De Butts, who had been employed by the sermon, was now discharged, and St. Mark's had its first elected minister in the Rev. John Becket.
FIRST MINISTER OF ST. MARK'S.
May 11th, 1733, " ordered, that the Rev. J. Becket, being recommended by the Governor and Commis- sary, bc entertained as Minister of the Parish ; and that he receive the glebe and what is on it, and the house when finished, and be paid as the law directs; and that he preach at the Southwest Chapel every other Sunday until further orders." At the next vestry (1733) it was ordered that the churchwardens offer the Hon. Col. Alexander Spotswood the choice of a seat for himself and family in the church on the Germanna road. In 1734, Major G. Lightfoot was ordered to wait on Major John Taliaferro, to bring up the surplice for Germanna Church. It was also ordered that the church be painted and tarred, and that S. Wright put four barrels of tar on the roof of the glebe-house. In 1735 it was ordered that "a chapel of ease " be erected and built between Shaw's Mountain and the Devil's Run and the river ; and that Francis Slaughter, Robert Green, and Henry Field, gentlemen, "pitch on the place most convenient to the best spring that they can find, on one of the branches of the run or river." Our fathers kept as
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FIRST MINISTER.
close to the rivers as if they had been amphibious, and kept as sharp a look-out for a good cool spring as Arabs do in the desert. They had ladles chained to the church-springs, and were careful to have good framed horse-blocks and bridle-hooks for those who went to church en cavalier.
Up to 1734-5, St. Mark's Parish was in Spotsyl- vania. At that date Spotsylvania was divided by the line between St. George's and St. Mark's Parishes. Spotsylvania was limited to St. George's Parish. All above that line, bounded sontherly by old Hanover county, and to the north by the Lord Fairfax grant (the Rappahannock river), and westerly by the utmost limits of Virginia, was made the county of Orange. In 1738 John Catlett was added to the vestry in place of Goodrich Lightfoot, deceased. The Rev. J. Becket now came to grief for some scandalous conduct, and was discharged. In 1739 the church- wardens were instructed to agree with Mr. McDaniel to serve the parish, or with some other minister, except Mr. Becket. In 1738, Augusta and Frederick counties and parishes were separated from Orange and St. Mark's, by a line from the head-spring of Hedge- man's river to the head-spring of the Potomac, to take effect when there were people enough in the Valley for erecting courts of justice ; and in the mean- time, the people there were exempted from levies by Orange and St. Mark's. In 1740, St. Mark's was divided by a line from the Wilderness bridge up the mountain road, to the head of Russel Run; thence down the said run to the river Rapidan ; thence up the Rapidan to the Robinson river; thence along the ridge, between the Robinson and Rapidan, to the top of the Blue Ridge. All north of said line to retain
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ST. MARK'S PARISH.
the name of St. Mark's, and all south of said bounds to be the new Parish of St. Thomas. This division threw the Southwest Mountain Church and Chapel into St. Thomas; and with them Messrs. James Bar- bour and Benjamin Cave, vestrymen. William Trip- lett and William Russell were elected to fill the vacancies. We now reach the incumbeney of the first respectable minister in St. Mark's Parish.
REV. JOHN THOMPSON.
June 10th, 1740. Under this date is the following entry in the Register :- " At a vestry in the vestry house at the Fork: it is ordered, that the Rev. John Thompson, being recommended by the Governor and Commissary, we do entertain him as Minister of our parish ; and that he be paid as the law directs." Mr. Thompson was a Master of Arts of the University of Edinburgh. He had been ordained Deacon by the Bishop of St. David's in the year 1734, at West- minster; and Priest in November of the same year, in the Chapel Royal of St. James. It must have been very pleasant to the gentlemen of the vestry and of the parish, to have exchanged the former disreputable incumbent for the accomplished gentleman. It seems also to have been agreeable to one of the ladies of the parish (if one may venture to say so, after all parties have been so long dead); for the new minister was not only a scholar and a literary gentleman, but he was a very handsome man. The vestry testified their pleasure by ordering a study to be added to the glebe-honse; and the widow of Governor Spotswood presented a velvet cloth and cushion to the church in 1741; and on the 9th of November, 1742, she vowed
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REV. JOHN THOMPSON.
to obey and to serve him in the holy estate of matri- mony. Governor Spotswood's castle at Germanna, with its fair commander, did not surrender to the consummate address of the clerical besieger without a severe struggle, as the following letter will testify. I procured the original of this letter from Mrs. Murray Forbes of Falmouth, a lineal descendant of Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, and published it for the first time in my History of St. George's Parish, from whence it was copied by Bishop Meade in his " Old Churches and Families." Mrs. Spotswood's chil- dren and connections were so opposed to the match that she begged to be released from her engagement, and was answered thus :
MADAM,-
By diligently perusing your letter, I see that there is a mate- rial argument, which I ought to have answered, upon which your strongest objection to completing my happiness seems to depend, viz .: That you would incur ye eensures of ye world for marrying a person of my station ; by which I understand that you think it a diminution of your honour and ye dignity of your family to marry a person in the station of a clergy- man. Now, if I can make it appear thst the ministerial office is an employment in its nature ye most honorable, and in its effects ye most beneficial to mankind, I hope your objections will immediately vanish, yt you will keep me no longer in suspense and misery, but consummate my happiness. I make no doubt, Madam, but yt you will readily grant yt no man can be employed in any work more honorable than what immedi- ately relates to the King of kings and Lord of lords, and to ye salvation of souls immortal in their nature and redeemed by ye blood of the Son of God. The powers committed to their care cannot be exercised by ye greatest princes of earth, and it is ye same work in kind and ye same in ye design of it with yt of the blessed angels, who are ministering spirits for those who shall be heirs of salvation. It is ye same business yt ye Son of God discharged when he condescended to dwell among
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ST. MARK'S PARISH.
men, which engages men in ye greatest acts of doing good in turning sinners from the errors of their way, and by all wise and prudent means in gaining souls unto God. And the faith- ful and diligent discharge of thia holy function gives a title to ye highest degree of glory in the next world; for they yt be wise ahall shine as ye brightness of ye firmament, and they yt turn many to righteousness as the stars forever.
All nations, whether learned or ignorant, whether civil or barbarous, have agreed to this, as a dictate of natural reason, to express their reverence for the Deity and their affection for religion, by bestowing extraordinary privileges of honour upon such as administer in holy things, and by providing liberally for their maintenance. And that ye honour due to the holy function flows from ye law of nature appears from hence, yt in the earliest times the civil and sacred authority were united in ye same person. Thus Melchisedech was King and Priest of Salem, and among ye Egyptians ye priesthood was joined with ye crown. The Greeks accounted the priest- hood with equal dignity with kingship, which is taken notice of by Aristotle in several places of his Politicks. Among the Latins we have a testimony from Virgil yt at ye same time Æneas was both Priest and King. Nay, Moses, who waa Prince of Israel before Aaron was consecrated, officiated aa Priest in ye solemn sacrifice by which ye covenant with Iarael was confirmed. And ye primitive Christians always expressed a mighty value and esteem for their clergy, as plainly appears from ecclesiastical history. And even in our days, as bad as ye world is, those of ye clergy who live up to ye dignity of their profession are generally reverenced and esteemed by all religious and well-disposed men. From all which it evidently appeara yt in all ages and nations of ye world, whether Jews, Heathena or Christians, great honour and dignity have always been conferred upon the clergy. And therefore, dear Madam, from hence you may infer how absurd and ridiculous those gentlemen's notions are who would fain persuade you yt mar- rying with ye clergy ye would derogate from ye honour and dignity of your family, whereas, in strict reasoning, the con- trary thereof would appear, and yt it would very much tend to support the honour and dignity of it. Of this I hope you will be better convinced when you consider the titles of honour
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REV. JOHN THOMPSON.
and respect that are given to those who are invested with ye ministerial functions, as are amply displayed in ye Scriptures. Those invested with that character are called the ministers of Christ, ye stewards of the mysteries of God, to whom they have committed the word of reconciliation-ye glory of Christ, ambassadors of Christ in Christ's stead, co-workers with Him, Angels of the churches. And then it is moreover declared that whosoever despiseth them despiseth not man, but God. All which titles shew that upon many accounts they stand called, appropriated to God himself. And therefore, if a gentleman of this sacred and honorable character should be married to a lady, though of ye greatest extraction and most excellent personal qualities (which I am sensible you are endowed with), it can he no disgrace to ber nor her family, nor draw ye cen- sures of ye world upon them, for such an action. And, there- fore, dear Madam, your argument being refuted, you can no longer consistently refuse to consummate my happiness.
*May, 1742. JOHN THOMPSON.
A reconciliation was effected between Mr. Thomp- son and Mrs. Spotswood's family some years after- wards, by the kind offices of that remarkable man, Rev. R. Rose, who was one of Governor Spotswood's executors, and had much to do with his estate, and with his widow and children after Governor Spots- wood's death, which happened in 1740, at Annapolis, on his way to command the army against Cartha- gena. Mr. Rose, in his journal, speaks of having visited Mr. Thompson in Culpeper, as he seems to have done every other man of note in the colony. Mr. Rose's journal, a great desideratum to antiqua- ries, and which was supposed to have been lost, was seen by Bishop Meade in the possession of Mr. Henry Carter, of Caroline, and is now in the possession of Mr. Brock, of Richmond .*
*Since writing the above I bave been permitted by the kindness of Mr. Brock to make the following extract from Mr. Rose's journal :
.
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ST. MARK'S PARISH.
The next few years are rather barren of known incidents. The following small items from the par- ish register serve to fill the gap. (1741) Goodrich Lightfoot came into the vestry, took the oath of allegiance, signed the test, and subscribed to be con- formed to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, in the place of Thomas Stanton, deceased. (1742) Ordered, that notice be given in church and chapel that a vestry will meet first Monday in March, to place a church convenient to the inhabitants of the upper part of the parish, and that workmen come and agree for building the same. At a vestry held in Tenant's old field, a contract was made with J. Kincaid to build a church fifty-eight feet by twenty- four. Benjamin Roberts is chosen vestryman in place of Captain William Triplett, removed. Robert Slaughter places a dial at the church door. (1743) Vestry contracted with J. Eve for an addition to Little Fork Church. (1744) "Ordered, that the Rev. J. Thompson erect, fabricate, and build (sic) divers additions to the Glebe house." William Peyton is directed to view the church three times. (1745) Captain Abraham Field chosen vestryman, in place of F. Kirtley, removed, and Philip Clayton in place of John Catlett, deceased. (1746) B. Roberts and Coleman Brown are lay readers at the two churches, James Pendleton at the chapel, and Thomas Dillard
"1746, Feb. 18, I aat ont for Germanna, called at Capt. Taliaferro's, lodged at Newport.
"19th, went in the rain towards Germanna ; met Mrs. Spotswood Dandridge and Taaac Campbell, who waited for na at the Bridge quarter ; got to Ger- manna at night. 20th, apent In aettling anndry accounts. 21at. went at night to Major Finlason's. 2!d, went to church, heard Mr. Thompson preach on the words, "Your life ia bid with Christ in God ;" went to the Glebe. 23d, settled I hope all differencea in the family, and laid a plan for preventing any. 24th, came early to Germanna, where found Col. B. Moore and bia lady ; aettled Mr. Thompson's account with aoma nthers. 26th, went from Newport to see Mr. Benger'a plantation."
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CULPEPER COUNTY.
at the Little Fork. (1747) Robert Slaughter vestry- man, in place of Major Finlason, deceased. Dr. James Gibbs is paid " for doing his best to cure the widow George." (1748) At this date Orange was divided, and the county of Culpeper (comprising what is now Madison, Rappahannock and Culpeper) was formed. It was named after one of the proprie- tors of the Northern Neck, Lord Culpeper, from whom it descended to Lord Fairfax, who married his daughter. The original county of Culpeper cov- ered all the "debatable land" between the Crown of England and Lord Fairfax east of the Blue Ridge, and was for a long time the subject of a very curious controversy, a synopsis of which will be found in the next chapter.
CULPEPER COUNTY.
1748. Culpeper county begins its career on histo- rical ground. Its territory originally embracing what is now Culpeper, Madison and Rappahannock, was the subject of a protracted controversy, involving the title to several million acres of land. The entire tract of land " within the heads of the rivers Tappa- hannock, alias Rappahannock, and Quiriough, or Potomac, the courses of those rivers, and the Bay of Chesapayork, &c.," was granted at different times, by Kings Charles I. and II., to Lord Hopton, the Earl of St. Albans, and others, and subsequently by King James to Lord Culpeper, who had purchased the rights of the other parties. Lord Fairfax, who married the daughter of Lord Culpeper, became the proprietor of this princely domain, commonly known as the North- ern Neck. In 1705 Governor Nott, of Virginia,
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ST. MARK'S PARISH.
in the name of the King, granted 1920 acres of land to Henry Beverly, in the forks of the North and South branches of the Rappahannock River. Robert Carter, commonly known as King Carter, who was Fairfax's agent, objected to the grant, as being within the limits of Lord Fairfax's grant. The question then arose whether the South (the Rapidan) or the North branch of the Rappahannock was the chief stream. The Rapidan, named after the English Queen, contested the supremacy of the Indian Rappa- hannock. The Governor and Council of Virginia appointed commissioners to meet those of Fairfax, and survey the said rivers. The joint commission reported in 1706 that the streams seemed to be of equal magnitude. In 1733 Lord Fairfax complained to the King that patents had been granted, in the name of the Crown, in the disputed territory. Mr. Carter himself, the agent of Fairfax, had taken grants from the Crown to two tracts within the forks of the Rappahannock River. The King, in council, ordered the Governor of Virginia to appoint another commission. On the part of the Crown he appointed William Byrd, of Westover, John Robinson, of Piscat- away, Essex county, and John Grymes, of Brandon, Middlesex county, Virginia. The commissioners of Fairfax were Charles Carter, William Berkley and William Fairfax. Omitting the survey of the Poto- mac, as outside of our subject, we confine ourselves to the survey of the Rapidan. Mr. Graeme, with Mr. Hume as assistant, was commissioned on the part of the Crown, and Mr. Thomas on the part of Lord Fairfax, " to survey and measure the South Branch of the Rappahannock (the Rapidan), from the fork to the head spring, and return an exact map of the
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