Colonial churches; a series of sketches of churches in the original colony of Virginia, with pictures of each church, Part 18

Author:
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Richmond, Va., Southern churchman co.
Number of Pages: 404


USA > Virginia > Colonial churches; a series of sketches of churches in the original colony of Virginia, with pictures of each church > Part 18


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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 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30


The parish of Martin's Brandon, in which Merchant's Hope church lies, was, says Meade, "a very early parish in Charles City." From it Bristol parish was cut off in 1642. Bishop Meade mentions that Mer- chant's Hope and old Brandon were the only churches in the parish. Their history he dismisses with very few words.


Probably the site of the oldest church of the parish is to be found at Brandon. The suggestive name of Church Pastures clings to a small farm on the estate, where there is a churchyard with a few still decipherable tombstones. Here are buried some of the Tookers (or Tuckers), of Devonshire, and John Tirrey, Gent., who died in 1700. Near here is the grave of John Westhrope's wife. The will of John Westhrope, of London, Merchant, made in 1655, after his return to England, and proved in 1658, leaves "to the church of Martin Brandon, in Virginia, 2,000 lbs. of Merchantable Tobacco and Caske, toward the Repairing or the building up of a new Church; provided, always, the said church be built upon the same ground or place the said church now stands on; also 1,000 lbs. of Tobacco and Caske to contain the same, to bye a Communion Cupp, also my great Bible and a book called Bishop Andrew's sermons." "The Communion Cupp"


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is a cherished possession of the present church at Brandon. It was doubtless used by both churches as long as they remained in the same parish, for after the separation in 1857 we find an appropriation of $70 at Merchant's Hope for a Communion service, which is the one now in use there.


Another will of this period which contains a mention of the parish is that of John Sadler, above referred to. He leaves a portion of his cattle on "his plantations in Virginia in parts beyond the sea * * to the minister and parish there, and £20 worth of goods to be delivered to Master Charles Sparrowe and the chiefest of the parishioners of the parish of Martin's Brandon, to repairing the church and par- sonage." Of course, this church, about whose repair Sadler and Wes- thrope were concerning themselves, could not be a recently built brick edifice, but must refer to the earlier church of Brandon.


If the date 1657 is assignable to the present Merchant's Hope church, we may imagine its erection undertaken under the law passed in 1655, reiterating former decrees of Assembly and urging the laying out of parishes, the building of churches and the buying of glebes. In 1667, under Berkeley, there was granted to "the Parish of Martyn's Brandon 200 acres for a Glebe belonging to their church in the County of Charles City, between Captain Johnson's land and the 'Merchants.'" A farm still called the Glebe, and lying midway between the two churches, would seem to correspond to this grant. No other mention of it has come to my notice. It is a matter of record when the sale of many glebes was allowed at the request of the parish vestries, but no such request is to be found in the case of Martin's Brandon.


The first minister in the parish whose report we find is John Warden, who states that he came to Virginia in 1712. "In six months went to Waynoak and Martin Brandon, both which parishes were hardly suffi- cient to maintain a minister, therefore I removed to Lawn's Creek, Surry, January 30, 1717." In the meanwhile Peter Fontaine had come to the colony in 1716. He "preached at Weyanoke and Martin's Bran- don; some time after at Wallingford and Jamestown, all belonging to distinct parishes." After 1720, when changes were made in many parish lines, Fontaine was given the charge of Westover, which now lay entirely on the north side of the river, and we hear of no one at Martin's Brandon till the time of Alexander Finnie, in 1754-55. Bishop Meade mentions Coutts as incumbent from 1773-76. Ten years later Blagrove was rector, followed after an interval by Rev. John Jones


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Spooner. Then follows a silence in the parochial reports. Bishop Meade tells us that


these were not lost £


years, however. A consecrated man from Rhode Island worked among the people during this time, ably assisted by lay helpers. In 1828 Bishop Moore reports his intention to send a missionary to Prince George and Surry, "through whose labours I hope for a revival of the Church and the restoration of her excellent form of worship." Rev. John Cole was the man selected, but in 1830 we find him in Gloucester, and no report of Martin's Brandon reaches the Convention for another seven years. Then the Rev. R. E. Northam, rector of Brandon and Cabin Point (Surry) took charge of Merchant's Hope, repaired the church and formed a vestry. This is the beginning of more prosperous days, con- tinuous services and good attendance, with occasional visitations and confirmations. Rev. Aristides S. Smith came to the church in 1843. A parsonage was built, and work among the blacks received a new impetus. He reports a chapel built by two proprietors of adjoining estates for their slaves. He was followed in the rectorship by Rev. Henry Denison. The communicants now numbered thirty-four. His earnest energies were directed to the work among the slaves, and he reported encouraging prospects and large congregations. He was followed by Rev. Charles Minnigerode, under whose ministry the flock abundantly prospered. He was succeeded by the Rev. E. C. Murdaugh.


Then came the formal division of the parish. Brandon church and Cabin Point became united in a parish, to be known as Martin's Brandon and Southwark. The parsonage was ceded to Merchant's Hope, and Rev. R. L. Johnson was called. He was followed by Rev. John S. Hansborough. The war came on, and the church building suffered desecration. It was used as a stable, while the high pews were torn out to furnish flooring for the enemy's tents. For these damages the Court of Claims has now allowed satisfaction, and the vestry is about to receive indemnity. After the war Mr. Hansborough returned to the desolated parish, and ministered there till 1870, fol- lowed by Rev. Wm. F. Gardner and E. Valentine Jones. During a ministry of eleven years Mr. Jones saw his charge prosper greatly. The old places near by still sent their representatives whenever the church doors were opened-the Cockes, of Tar Bay; the Blands, of Jordan's Point; the Willcoxes, of Flower de Hundred, and the Ruffins, of Beechwood.


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The last rector to serve the church was Rev. F. G. Ribble, now of Petersburg. During his stay of a few months last spring and summer the Bishop visited the parish twice and confirmed twenty persons. Un- fortunately the church has been closed since last September. The field is full of promise. Whenever the doors are opened the church is filled with eager, interested listeners, but it is impossible for the congrega- tion, in existing circumstances, to support a minister. The building is in perfect repair, due to the untiring zeal of its small congregation. It has stood in its integrity through all these years witnessing to the undying religion planted in our land by its early settlers. After years of prosperity the Civil War came, working ruin to the whole region. The tide of life swept out and left it stranded. No county in the State, perhaps, has felt changed conditions more keenly. In some portions the solitude is wonderfully like desolation, and the pines in the old corn rows have almost reached maturity. Perhaps the awakening will some day come. When it does it will find the living Church of Christ standing to testify that, in the arrestment of material progress and the long sleep which looked like death, her influence went out unfalter- ingly, whereby many hearts have been quickened.


THE FORK CHURCH, HANOVER COUNTY, VA.


THE FORK CHURCH, HANOVER COUNTY, VIRGINIA.


BY ROSEWELL PAGE.


T HERE is a record in the county of Louisa, Virginia, according to a letter in my possession, a copy of a petition sent by certain taxpayers of that newly-formed county to the house of Bur- gesses in 1740, praying to have refunded to them a certain to- bacco tax that had been levied on them to build a large, new and convenient church in St. Martin's Parish, Hanover county.


That this church was The Fork church, or "The Old Fork Church," as it is generally known, is asserted by two eminent Virginians who formerly lived in the respective counties of Louisa and Hanover.


This petition bears date two years before the cutting off of Louisa from Hanover, and of Fredericksville Parish from St. Martin's Parish, which appear from Henning's Statutes (Vol. V., pp. 21 and 208) to have been so separated in the year 1742.


It may add to the value of this paper to state that the boundary be- tween the two parishes was a line drawn from the mouth of Gladys creek, on the south side of the Northanna river, a course south 20 degrees west, till it intersects the Goochland line. And when Fred- ericksville Parish was divided, that part which adjoined St. Martin's was called Trinity (Hen. Sts., Vol. VII., p. 428).


St. Paul's Parish in Hanover was divided in 1726, six years after the county of Hanover was cut off from New Kent, and to the parish was given the name St. Martin's, after St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London. For it was in that very year that that London church was built by Gipps (See Brit. Enc., Title "London").


The church was no doubt called St. Martin's, but was soon known as "The Fork Church," from its position with reference to the two forks of the Pamunkey, as the Northanna and Southanna were called in many of the legal documents of that time. In the last twenty-five years the name has been applied to the neat little church at Doswell, five miles away from the mother church. Two other churches in the western end of the parish, Allen's Creek and Hollowing Creek, in the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the parish, have passed away, and no trace of their


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existence survives. In the place of these, two other churches have been built in the parish, but The Old Fork church survives as a noble monument to the Colonial Churchmen.


Built of the glazed end brick, so familiar in Colonial buildings, its birthday is fixed at 1735, two years after that of the courthouse some twelve miles to the east, which sheltered the throng assembled there in 1763 to hear Patrick Henry in the "Parsons' Cause." It is a matter of great satisfaction to all lovers of the history of the community to know that both of these noble buildings are in an excellent state of preservation. Tradition says that these buildings were built of brick brought from England, as it says of many other of our Colonial buildings; but, thankless as the task is to destroy such a tradition, I am compelled to state that neither these, nor the brick for any other of our churches, were brought from England. I am confirmed in this statement by the answer of the learned Dr. Philip Slaughter, to whom some years ago I propounded the question.


The Fork church is a solid structure, whose length, 75 feet, is about three times its breadth, with a door at the southern end, and another on the side, near the northeastern corner. Over each door there is a portico on brick columns, whose proportion and entasis are the admiration of lovers of architecture.


Although the records of Hanover county and of St. Martin's Parish have been lost or destroyed, the history of the old church is safe in the tradition and life of the people.


In 1886 the Rev. Dr. Philip Slaughter published in the Southern Churchman an account of his recovery of what he called "The Rec- tory Book" of St. Paul's Parish, without which, he says, even Bishop Meade had been unable to give a full history of that-parish. Among the names he mentioned as figuring in the vestries in St. Paul's Parish, which as we have seen embraced St. Martin's, Trinity and Fredericks- ville Parishes until 1726, were the Crawfords, Merewethers, Winstons, Henrys, Grymeses, Bickertons, Jones, Andersons, Rylands, Garlands, Merediths, Pages, Pendletons, Timberlakes, Lipscombs, Goodalls, Ab- botts, Macons, Skeltons, Pierces, Taylors, Darracotts, Chapmans, Streets, Crosses and Pollards.


An entry of some interest is the following: "September, 1708, Mr. Thomas Sharpe having offered to be our minister, it is agreed that he preach in both churches till the last day of December come twelve months, and if at the end of that time he likes us and we like him, to continue. Otherwise each party to provide for themselves." It


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is a satisfaction to know that preacher and people liked each other, for he continued to "be hired" from year to year until 1720, when St. Martin's was cut off as we have seen.


The Fork church is rich in historic associations. Hither came Patrick Henry in his early infancy, and in later life while living at "Scotch Town," the interesting old hipped roofed structure some five miles away, through whose wide hall, in spite of the stone steps, Tarleton and his raiders rode. For Patrick Henry, with all of his zeal and enthusiasm for the liberty of his country, and with all of his feeling in behalf of the people which burst forth in their defense against the Parsons when they demanded more than was thought their due, always revered the Episcopal Church in which he was baptized and in which his father, John Henry, had been vestryman, and his uncle, the Rev. Patrick Henry, for whom he was named, was a parish minister for forty years. (Records of St. Paul's Parish ante.) To the Fork church from "Scotch Town" came Henry's cousin, Dorothea, better known as Dolly, little dreaming, perhaps, as she sat in the high-backed pew over which she could hardly see when stand- ing on tiptoe on a cushion, that she was one day to be the wife of James Madison, President of the United States.


There preached in this parish, and at a church called The Fork, near "Ground Squirrel Bridge," Samuel Davies, the great Presbyterian preacher and president of Princeton College, as well as founder of the Hanover Presbytery, that virile body, whose staunch stand against the Establishment has been well described by Cooke, the Virginia historian.


St. Martin's Parish still owns the beautiful communion service, the paten and chalice inscribed with the following legend: "For the use of the churches in St. Martin's Parish, in Hanover and Louisa counties, Virginia, 1759."


The history of this service is lost. There are two traditions about it. One that it was presented by St. Martin's church, London, and the other that it was presented by William Nelson, president of the Coun- cil, and brought over by his son Thomas (afterwards Governor Nelson) upon his return from England that year, upon the completion of his education.


The following incidents are also related of this old service, in each of which Mrs. Berkeley, of "Airwell," is the heroine: 1st, that she defied General Tarleton and his raiders when they demanded the ser- vice; and 2d, that she defied the overseers of the poor who demanded


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it after the glebe lands were taken from the church. Bishop Meade is authority for the last statement. (Vol. II., Old Churches, p. 26.) It is of interest to note that this same service is now kept at the same place by the descendants of that redoubtable Churchwoman.


Near the Fork church were grants of land made by the crown to Thomas Nelson, grandfather of General Nelson, upon a part of which his descendants now reside. The Marquis de Chastellux, who served in America as Major-General under Rochambeau, describes his visit to the "Offley," the home of General Nelson, a few miles above the Fork church. (Howe's Miscellanies, p. 295.) It was at Mont Air, the home of his son Francis, who so long represented the parish in the councils of the Church, that General Nelson died; and it was within a few miles of the old church at "Springfield" that his widow lived, having survived him nearly forty years. Beneath the shadow of the old church her remains lie buried along with those of a great number of her descendants. It may be safely asserted that from this sainted lady the Church has had as many adherents both clerical and lay, as have ever sprung from one stock in the same length of time. With the aid of one of her granddaughters, I have counted up twenty-four clergymen of the Episcopal Church among her descendants. When during the war the vestrymen were unable to raise the minister's sal- ary, a daughter of hers sent them word that she would guarantee it personally.


Among those ministers furnished by this parish, Bishop Meade mentions the Rev. W. N. Pendleton, Washington Nelson, Robert Nelson and Farley Berkeley. To these may be added the names of the Rev. G. W. Nelson, late rector at Warrenton, and the Rev. Frank Page, of Brooklyn.


It was to this parish, and to the home of Dr. Carter Berkeley that Bishop Meade came to choose his second wife, Thomasia Nelson, step- daughter of Dr. Berkeley. She, too, is buried at the Old Fork church.


To the neighborhood of this old church came Lewis Minor Coleman, with his Hanover Academy and his influence for good hardly second to that of Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, which school and influence were well maintained by his successor, Colonel Hilary P. Jones, who had, however, to yield to the inevitable, and this great school is now but a memory.


The picture of this old church will recall many recollections to the former students at Hanover Academy, many of whose names may now be found on the backs or seats of the solid heart-pine pews.


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In. the early part of the last century that demon of architecture, which Mr. Jefferson said had spread its maledictions over the land, broke loose, and the high-backed pews were taken out, and the pulpit which had been at the side of the church, was put at the end.


An old Bible in the parish, that of the Fontaines, shows that in 1787 the Rev. Robert Barrett was in charge. It was he of whom Bishop Meade (Vol. II., p. 43) says he received 320 pounds of tobacco for each sermon preached in Louisia county, where he preached twenty-four times a year during days of labor.


The list of clergy who have ministered in the parish since Mr. Barrett includes the Rev. Messrs. Peter Nelson, who became a Baptist; Boggs, Phillips, Wydown, Cooke, Bowers, Stringfellow, Isaac Gibson, Wm. A. Alrich (whose first wife, a lovely woman, the sister of James M. Love, Esq., of Fairfax county, lies buried at the Fork church), R. Douglas Roller, Edward S. Gregory, R. Roane Claiborne, Curtis Grubb, Anselem Buchanan, S. S. Hepburn and Alexander Galt. To all these godly men the parish and this church are greatly indebted. Per- haps to Mrs. Hepburn more than any other person is due the present excellent condition of the Fork church, and the grounds surrounding it.


The present wardens of the church are Nathaniel Burwell Cooke and Joseph F. Grubb.


Within the last few years two funds of $3,000 and $200, respectively, have been established for the benefit of the church, the larger fund subject only to the maintenance of the Nelson-Page burying ground.


Bishop Meade gives the list of the true friends of religion and of the Episcopal Church in the parish as Fontaines, Nelsons, Morrises, Wickhams, Taylors, Winstons, Pollards, Robinsons, Pages, Prices, Shepherds, having already mentioned the Berkeley family, and made note of Dr. Carter Berkeley, "whose name may be so often seen on the Convention journals of the last and present century."


Among the names on the vestry since Bishop Meade's time, in ad- dition to those mentioned by him, many of whom are related to those so mentioned, are Minor, Noland, Fleming, Hunter, Jones, Cooke, Dos- well, Terrell, Thompson, Grubb and Duke. There are many other families about the church whose love and affection for it are exhibited in the fact that though members of other churches, their attendance is regular, their aid efficient and their pride in the old church as marked as if they were members of the Episcopal Church. Thither they bring their dead to be buried, and often their young people to enter this old church of their forefathers.


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The only monument inside the church is a beautiful tablet to three of its faithful sons:


"The Rev. Robert Nelson, Missionary to China during thirty years- of whom it is alleged, 'He followed the Holy doctrine which he taught, comforting many.' "


"William Nelson, late Colonel of Artillery C. S. A., who in this parish served God and helped his fellowmen for over sixty years."


"John Page, late Major C. S. A. who in this parish through a long and honorable life did his duty to God and his neighbor."


On the outside of the church lie buried many of those already mentioned and not mentioned. Among the latter may be named Captain and Mrs. Charles Williams Dabney, whose names are honorably associated with the history of the county and parish, and over whose remains a handsome monument has been erected by their children.


A strong iron fence surrounds the church grounds, and this noble old church, with its massive walls and slate roof, bids fair to stand for generations as a lasting monument to the zeal and good taste of its builders. That its history should be lost is a great misfortune. It is, indeed, one of the pathetic things about our Church's past, no less than about many of the cherished possessions of our State, that any adequate history thereof is entirely lacking. Nineveh and Karnac are hardly less known.


ST. MARY'S WHITE CHAPEL, LANCASTER COUNTY, VA.


ST. MARY'S WHITE CHAPEL, LANCASTER COUNTY, VIRGINIA.


BY MRS. ELIZABETH LEWIS NEALE.


T HE earliest records of Lancaster County Parish, when Lancaster and Middlesex were one, go back to 1650. In that year the court. appointed Rev. Samuel Cole the minister of the whole county, on both sides of the Rappahannock river. This minister's name appears on a Vestry Book of Middlesex county, Va., in 1664. The court also appointed church wardens and sidemen, as in the English Church, for each side of the river; they were John Taylor, William Chapman, John Merryman, Edmund Lurin, George Kibble and William Leech. Other names on the record are Thomas and Cuthbert Powell, Edward Digges, William Berkeley, Robert Chowning, Henry Corbin, David Fox and John Washington, of Westmoreland county.


In the year 1661 a general vestry was formed, and John Carter, Henry Corbin, David Fox and William Leech were appointed, from both sides of the river, to take up subscriptions for the support of a minister. Many of our county records and the Vestry Book of St. Mary's and Christ churches were destroyed during the war "between the States," and we find no one who can tell us just the year old St. Mary's White Chapel was built; but of this we are sure, that it was sometime in the middle of the sixteenth century. This is assured by dates on the Communion plate, still in the church, and on tombstones to be found in a good state of preservation in the churchyard. Bishop· Meade, from whom notes are herein taken, states in his book of "Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia," that "the first church was torn down and the present one built in 1740." One might infer from this that the whole church "was torn down," which was not the case at all. It was first built, like her contemporary, Old Christ church,. in the lower part of the county (or rather Old Christ was built like St. Mary's, for we are assured that St. Mary's is the older) in the form of a cross, with three galleries, one owned by Major James Ball and Mr. Joseph Ball; one by the Downmans, of Belle Isle, and one was for the slaves of the Churchmen.


In 1739 the old church was in great need of a new roof and other


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repairs, and the congregation being at that time unable or unwilling to raise the large sum of money required, determined to take down two arms of the church and restore the rest. This was done in 1740, the contract being awarded Mr. James Jones. The structure was then made into an oblong square, 60 feet long, 30 feet broad, walls 24 feet to roof, which has an oval ceiling. The pulpit is in one end of the long aisle, facing the south door, over which is the one remaining gallery. In the center of the long aisle is a broader one leading to the double doors facing the west, towards the county road, which is the main entrance. These doors are fastened now, as in olden time, by an iron thumb latch.


The high pews and the pulpit, which had a stairway leading up to it, with a banister rail, were allowed to stand until prior to the Civil War, in the middle of the eighteenth century, when the pews were cut down, the high pulpit not being removed until 1882. In that year the old tablets were brought down from the gallery, where they had been laid in the dust, and restored at a cost of one hundred dollars. Rev. H. L. Derby, then rector of the parish, was very active in having this done. They are four in number. Two contain the Ten Command- ments and were the gift of David Fox in 1702. The other two were given by his son, William Fox, and contain the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer. There is no date inscribed on these, but they were given in 1717, as shown by the will of Captain William Fox, dated 1717, and in which he directed: "My wife shall send for the Lord's Prayer and Creed, well drawn in gold letters, and my name under each of them, set in decent black frames, as a gift to St. Mary's White Chapel"; and he also left by his will to that church "the font that came in that year." That the wife carried out the will to the letter is proven by the tablets and font in the church, in splendid preservation to this day. The tablets are of solid walnut wood and the letters are hand-carved, cut in, and heavily gilded in gold gilt. They are oval at the top, with the square base, in keeping with the deep- seated windows and oval ceiling. The font, of unpolished marble, stands on a square base, which is exceedingly heavy, from which a round marble pedestal supports on its top the very large, round marble basin, all of which stands four feet six inches. The chalice is a solid silver goblet inscribed: "The gift of David Fox, 1669."




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