USA > Virginia > Culpeper County > Culpeper County > Genealogical and historical notes on Culpeper County, Virginia > Part 5
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In 1791 St. Mark's was represented in Convention by David Jameson as lay delegate, in 1796 by Mr. Woodville and Robert Slaughter; in 1797 by J. Woodville and John Jameson; in 1805 by William Broadus; in 1812 by J. Wood- ville and Robert Slaughter; in 1814 by William Broadus. The Convention ap- pointed Robert Slaughter, Peter Hansbrough and Garland Thompson to col- lect funds in Culpeper for resuscitation of the church. In 1815 J. Woodville represented St. Mark's Parish, and the Rey. William Hawley and Samuel Slaughter represented St. Stephen's Church, which is the first appearance of the latter upon the record.
And now a new era begins to dawn on the church in Virginia. The black cloud of despair is spanned by the bow of hope. The Good providence of God
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sent Bishop Moore to lead the "forlorn hope," and never was there a man het- ter fitted for the special crisis. Baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, his heart was a gushing spring of emotion, which overflowed his eyes, and streaming from his eloquent tongue and trembling hands, melted his hearers to tears. He wept over the ruins of the old churches and the scattered sheep without a shepherd, like the lamentation of Jeremiah over the desolation of Zion.
In St. Mark's Parish the first fruit of this new movement was St. Stephen's Church at Culpeper C. H .. and its first heralds were Rev. Wm. Hawley and Mr. Samuel Slaughter, all making their first appearance on the record in 1815. There is no record that I can find of the building or consecration of St. Steph- en's Church. It connects itself with history at this point, but when and how it came into being has eluded all my researches in print and in the memories of living men.
Bishop Moore reported having visited Culpeper during the past year, and confirmed sixty persons: This was the first and the largest confirmation ever hold in the parish. In August of this year Bishop Moore preached in four places in Culpeper, and confirmed eighteen. He also reports having ordained Mr. Hawley to the priesthood. Mr. Hawley was elected a delegate to the General Convention. He extended his labors to Orange C. H., and after a ministry of two years he was called to St. John's Church, Washington, where he spent the remainder of his days, beloved by all men. Of his ministry in Culpeper and Orange, Bishop Meade said he " preached and labored with much effect." And Rev. Mr. Earnest, in his sketch of St. Thomas, Orange, says :- When Mr. Hawley began his labors in Orange the Episcopal Church had wellnigh died out. But three or four communicants remained. Under his ministry there began to dawn a brighter day for the Church. Some of the communicants added by him still remain. During Mr. Hawley's adminis- tration Bishop Moore made his first Episcopal visit to Orange, and preached with great effect, and administered the rite of confirmation to a goodly num- ber. It was the first confirmation ever held in St. Thomas's Parish. Amnong the goodly number was the aged mother of President Madison, who had never before had an opportunity of ratifying her baptismal vows. The ministry of Rev. Mr. Hawley was evidently blessed in this parish ; but having been called to a larger field, he took charge of St. John's Church, Washington, which soon became a centre of much influence. In the course of Mr. Hawley's min- istry there he numbered among his parishioners many Presidents of the Uni- ted States, and other persons of the highest social and political position, be- fore whom he went in and out for more than a quarter of a century, " an Is- raelite indeed in whom is no guile.". He was among the originators and most earnest supporters of our Education Society, and of the measures which led to the establishment of our Theological Seminary. Of the tributes to his meino- ry by Dr. Tyng and others, one of the most loving was by the Rev. Dr. Lawrie, of the Presbyterian Church between whom and Mr. Hawley there prevailed an intimacy like that between Bishop Johns and Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, and between the Episcopal Buchannon and the Presbyterian Blair, of Richmond. When the prayers for the sick were read at the bedside of Mr. Buchannon, he said, with childlike simplicity, "Pray for Blair, too " There is an anecdote of Mr. Hawley among the traditions current in Culpeper which, whether true or not, is too good to be lost. The story is that Mr. Hawley wore ruffles on his shirt-bosom, as was common among gentlemen of that day, and that some la- dies asked him to have them removed, as they were thought not becoming a clergyman. To this he gracefully assented. But he wore whiskers also, and
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was told that these were an offence to the weak brethren. To this he is said to have replied, with a gleam of mischievous good-humor playing on his face, "Oh no! ladies. I must keep my whiskers to save my ears."
In 1817 St. Mark's Parish was represented by the Rev. Mr. Woodville and Win. Broadus, and St. Stephen's Church by Samuel Slaughter and Isaac Winston. In 1818, the saine lay delegates, St. Stephen's is reported without a minister, notwithstanding most strenuous efforts to get one. In 1819 St. Mark's was represented by Col. John Thom, who reported twenty-five bap- tisms, four marriages, nine funerals, and forty-five communicants, five of whom were additions since the last convention. In 1820 the Rev. Herbert Marshall came to Culpeper and took charge of the school at Capt. Philip Slaughter's, of which John Robertson, the father of Judge Robertson of Char- lottesville, and the Rev. Samuel Hoge, father of Dr. Moses Hoge of Richmond, had been masters. Mr. Marshall was ordained Priest by Bishop Moore at Wal- ker's Church in Albemarle, and officiated very acceptably for several years as pastor of St. Stephen's Church. His name only occurs in 1822 in the Journals of the convention, with Win. M. Thompson, father of present Secretary of the Navy, as lay delegate. His wife was the sister of the present venerable presid- ing Bishop. His brief and promising ministry was cut short by ill-health and a premature death. He, like Mr. Hawley, officiated at Orange C. H.
Mr. Woodville continued his modest ministry as rector of St. Mark's, offici- ating chiefly at the Lower Church and at the Little Fork, and occasionally at Stevensburg and the Courthouse; but St. Stephen's Church seems to have been in a state of suspended animation, until it was revived by the coming of the Rev. G. A. Smith in 1826. Mr. Smith having been in charge of Christ Church, Norfolk, and finding it a too heavy burden for his delicate health, came to rusticate and to renew his strength in this Piedmont parish. His name appears in the convention journal as representing, with Samuel Slaught- er, St. Stephen's Church, and with Peter Hansbrough as delegate from St. Mark's Parish in 1827. From that time till 1830 Mr. Smith officiating alternate- ly at St. Stephen's Church and at Orange C. H., with occasional ministrations at Stevensburg and elsewhere. He established a Bible class, and societies in aid of mission and other Church charities. He gave an onward impetus to the church, reporting an accession of nine members by confirmations in 1828; and Bishop Meade reports eleven confirmations, in 1830, when Mr. Smith, from physical infirmities, resigned his charge, an event deeply deplored in the re- port of the lay delegate, Dr. Winston, to the next convention.
Mr. Smith is one of those mysterious instances, so trying to our faith, of a man thoroughly furnished for the work of the ministry, and with an eye so single to the glory of God, and yet, for the want of organs through which to reveal the light that is in him, has passed much of his life in the shade, com- paratively unknown and unsung. while men of far feebler powers and scantier furniture, but with stronger physique and more self-assertion, have worn the mitre and yielded the sceptre of influence. But he has not lived in vain. As editor of the Episcopal Recorder and of the Southern Churchman, and master of the school at Clarens, he has make his mark and will leave his,impression upon many minds. He still lives, the patriarch of our alumni, and the fitting president of their society. May Providence prolong his years: that though his voice be hushed, the graces of his daily life, like angels trumpet-tongned, may plead the cause he loved so".well. In this brief tribute I have de parted from a rule laid down by Bishop Meade, and which I have prescribed to my- self, not to sound the praises of living men, leaving that to those who may come after them and see their end. But as the case is unique, this single ex-
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ception must prove the rule; which by the way, Bishop Meade did not always follow himself.
In 1831-32, Isaac Winston and P. Slaughter, Jr., represented St. Stephen's Church. Mr. Woodville, though ot present, reported St. Mark's Parish as gradually improving, the congregations as visibly increasing, and there being in many persons a greater anxiety to encourage "pure and undefiled religion." In June, 1832, the Rev. A. H. Lamon took charge of St. Stephen's Church in connection with Madison C. H .; and in 1833 he reported an accession of eight communicants to St. Stephen's, and twenty four at Madison, to the six whom he found there. In reference to the revival at Madison, Bishop Meade said :- "We had services four times a day for three days. It was a joyful season for the church at Madison. Fifteen months before, I scarcely knew a place which promised less to to the labors of a minister of our church. At this visit I con- firmed twenty-three warm-hearted disciples of Christ, and saw a new brick ed- ifice rising for their place of worship. God had signally blessed the preach- ing of his word by ministers of different denominations. He had sent to our communion an hunble and faithful man, who, going from house to house, in season and out of season, was the instrument of gathering an interesting lit- tle band, with whom I spent some of the happiest days of my ministry. 1 al- so admitted their minister Mr. Lamon to Priest's orders."
In 1834 Mr. Lamon reports the addition of eight persons to the communion of St. Stephen's, the establishment of the scholarship in the seminary, and measures for the purchase of a parsonage, and the permanent establishment of a minister among them. Bishop Meade, in his report of 1834, said :- "On the 4th September. 1834, I preached to a large congregation, and confirmed eight persons at the Little Fork in Culpeper. The congregation,was then, and had been for a long time, under the care of the Rev. Mr. Woodville. At this place he most conscientiously and patiently met with his people for many years; here had I often met him in my travels during the last twenty-two years, and here it was that I saw him on the occasion just mentioned for the last time. Prov- idence has removed him from a seene of sincere obedience on earth to one of glorious enjoyment in heaven. He has left an affectionate family to mourn the loss of a kind husband and tender father, and many friends to cherish, with sincere respect, the memory of a conscientious Christian." Such was the tribute of the evangelical Wm. Meade to the childlike John Woodville, and it does as much honor to the author as it does to the subject of his praise. It is too comnon in these days of cant to disparage these old-time Christians, be- cause their religion was not in our style. Such censures are as irrational as it would be to find fault with an antiqne statue because it is not arrayed in modern fashionable costume, or to disparage St. James because he did not give the same prominence to the doctrine of justification by faith as did St. Paul, but presented chiefly the moral phase of the gospel-there being in truth, no more incongruity between the doctrines and the morals of Christi. anity than there is between the root of a tree and its fruit.
Mr. Woodville left a son. the Rev. J. Walker Woodville, who for some years followed in the footsteps of his father. He was a good and guileless man. His other son, James, was a lawyer in Botetourt, and Woodville Par- ish perpetuates the name. Of his wife and daughters, Fanny and Sarah, Bishop Meade said, " I do not expect to meet purer spirits on . this side of heaven." The sainted women. I learn from their relative, Senator Stevenson, of Kentucky, both died in Columbus, Mississippi. Dr. J. W. Payne, a promi- nent citizen of Tennessee, a grandson of Rev. John Woodville, and a great- grandison of the Rev. Mr. Stevenson, is probably the owner of the family rel-
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ies and traditionary mementoes of his ancestors of St. Mark's. Mr. Woodville was buried at Fredericksburg, with the service of the church and of his broth- er Maisons, on the 10th of May, 1834. He desired, says Dr. Hugh Hamilton, to be laid near the body of Mr. Littlepage.
Dr. Payne has also furnished me with some very pleasant reminiscences of his grandfather Woodville, and enables me to supply what was wanting in the foregoing sketch of Mr. Woodville. Dr. Payne was born at St. Mark's glebe, and educated and fitted for college by his grandfather. In his boy- hood he used to attend him in his visitations, " carrying the communion ser- vice in his saddle-bags," after the death of Mr. Woodville's body-servant, "Uncle Jimn." He speaks plaintively of the old churches in the Little Fork & Big Fork(Lower Church.)Of the latter he says it was a plain structure of wood. The gallery (called Lady Spotswood's gallery) was in ruins. The only thing of taste about the church was a marble baptismal font, the gift, he thinks, of Mrs. Spotswood, and the monument of Mr. Dowman. He had seen the com- munion administered by Mr. Woodville to old Robert Slaughter and old "Un cle Jim," and perhaps sometimes to one other servant belonging to some Episcopal family. On such occasions he sometimes omitted the sermon, but never a word of the service. Of the old brick church in the Little Fork, he says the long, square, high-backed pews, the sounding-board, the pulpit, reading desk and clerk's stand, its transverse aisles, its chancel in the east, the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments elegantly painted upon the com- munion table, carried you back to a past generation. The congregations here were generally large; and there were many Episcopal families in the neighbor- hood-Gen. M. Green, the Porters, Picketts, Farishes, Wiggintons, Freemans, Spilmans, Withers, Paynes, &c. But you had to see it filled, when the Bishops came, to conceive what it was in days of old. " I hope," he adds, "it was spared during the war, for I saw at that time in the newspapers that a sermon was found beneath the pulpit, preached near fifty years ago by Mr. Woodville, ' whose classic elegance,' &c., surprised its captors."
From the same authority we learn that Mr. Woodville was born at White Haven, Cumberland County, England, in 1763, came to America in 1787, lived as tutor in the family of Rev. J. Stevenson, who sent him with commendatory credentials, and a letter from the Rev. Mr. Scott, Principal of St. Beno School, and testimonials countersigned by the Bishop of Chester, to the Bishop White who ordained him Deacon on the 13th, and Priest on the 25th of May, 1788, in Christ Church, Philadelphia. He took charge of the Academy in Fredericks- burg in 1791, and of the church in 1792, became Rector of St. Mark's in 1794, and spent the remainder of his life at the glebe. He was a great sufferer in his last years from dropsy of the chest, but never murmured. He spoke of his death with perfect composure, saying that his only reliance for salvation was upon the merits and righteousness of Christ; often saying in his last ill- ness, I DIE HAPPY. His last words were " God bless you all." (See obituary in Episcopal Recorder, January 25, 1834.)
On the fly-leaf of his wife's devotional manual are the following lines:
His mind was of no common order, and under the immediate and habit- ual influence of the strongest religious principles; such was my dear and ever lamented husband. SARAH WOODVILLE. GLEBE, March 8th, 1834.
The following is the inscription on his tombstone :- " Underneath, the body of John Woodville, a true believer in the Holy Scriptures, an earnest minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church, a diligent and faithful teacher
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of youth, a meek, contented sojourner on earth, a pious probationer and hum- ble candidate for heaven, In Anglia natus die Martii undecimo MDCCLXIII; obiit Virginia undecimo die Januarii MDCCCXXXIV."
His wife, Mrs. S. S. Woodville, died at Buchanan, Va., April 6th, 1849, calm in mind and pure in heart, meekly resigned to the will of heaven, at peace with God, and in charity with the world.
Thus lived and died the last Rector of St. Mark's Parish. Other churches with other pastors, had sprung up and flourished within his cure. He bade them all " God speed" but we note that in his private diary he called them all chapels.
Among the many early pupils of Mr. Woodville were the Hon. Andrew Stevenson and the Rev. George Hatley Norton, Sr. Of the latter, Mrs. Wood- ville was often heard to say, " He was the best boy ever in the school." He was a Virginian, but lived most of his life, and died in Geneva, New York. He was the father of Dr. Norton. the great church-worker of Louisville, Ken- tucky, and of Dr. George H. Norton, the able and efficient Rector of St. Panl's Church Alexandria.
REV. JOHN COLE.
Mr. Cole was born in Wilmington, Delaware. He conceived the idea of studying for the ministry in 1822, and after concluding his course in the Theo- logical Seminary of Virginla, was ordained by Bishop Moore, in Petersburg, on the 18th of May, 1828. He preached his first sermon at the Lower Church, in Surry county, Virginia, on the 23rd of May of the same year. He spent the first two years of his ministry in missionary work in Surry and Prince George, endeavoring to revive the fires upon the altars of the old churches, which had nearly gone out. From a diary of his ministry I infer that he was diligent in preaching the Gospel in the pulpit and from house to house, in es- tablishing Sunday schools, and such like good works. He preached his last sermon in this county, January 16, 1830, at Cabin Point. Soon afterwards he took charge of Abingdon and Ware Parishes, in the county of Gloucester, where he ministered usefully until 1836, when, with a view of seeking a more bracing climate he resigned his charge.
The author of this history, being then rector of Christ Church, George- town, D. C .. was visited by Mr, Cole, and advised him of the vacancy of St. Stephen's Church, Culpeper. I being about to go to Culpeper to solemnize several marriages, introduced Mr. Cole to the people of St. Stephen's, by whom he was invited to fill the vacancy. He accepted the invitation, and took charge of St. Stephen's in conjunction with two churches in Madison county. In 1838 he made his first report on his new field of labor, reporting at St. Stephen's thirty female and five male communicants, af Madison Court- house twelve communicants, and at Trinity twelve. Of the last he says quaintly :- " This church is significantly called a free church, which, in coun- try parlance, means free to everybody and everything, for winter and summer, snow and storm, heat and cold." His services, he adds, in these parishes, in- cluding Standardsville, are twelve sermons a mouth, besides a Bible class, a lecture, and prayer mecetings weekly. Rev. J. Walker Woodville, in the same year, reported seventeen communicants of St. Mark's Parish.
In 1840 Mr. Cole resigned the churches in Madison to Rev. Mr. Brown, and took charge of the new congregation of St. James, Culpeper. In 1841 the St. James congregation applied for admission into the Convention. The Conven- tion reported against the application, as not being in conformity with the re- quisitions of the canon. The report was recommitted to an enlarged com-
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mittee, and Dr. Winston and Dr. Hamilton came before them and testified that " St. Mark's for several years had not been in an organized state, but had gone into decay, and that the canon could not be complied with." Upon this testimony St. James was admitted as a separate congregation. Mr. Cole reported thirty communicants at St. Stephen's and eleven at St. James, with a neat and comfortable church ready for consecration. In 1842 St. James was reported as having been consecrated by Bishop Meade, who had also confirm- ed twelve persons. The communion at St. Stephen's, after rising to fifty-three in 1845, fell to thirty-one in 1847; while at St. James it arose from fifteen in 1843 to twenty-seven in 1848. In 1849 Rev. Walker Woodville reports St. Mark's with regular services at Little Fork, Flat Run, and the Germanna woolen factory, which probably were the only Episcopal services at German- na for one hundred years. In 1850 Mr. Cole reports the completion of the " Lime Church " (St. Paul's), at a cost of only about $1000.
In 1859 Mr. Cole resigned St. James Church, that it might be united with a new church in Fauquier. In 1850 the communicants at St. Stephen's had risen to fifty-three, and those at St. Paul's to twenty-seven. In 1869 R. H. Cunningham, lay delegate, represented St. James, and reported a parsonage as being in progress there. In July of the same year Mr Mortimer a student at the seminary, began lay reading at St. James. S. S. Bradford represented St. Stephen's and P. P. Nalle St. Paul's, which latter applied for admission into the Convention as a separate congregation for the third time, as they al- lege. Mr. D. Conrad, for the committee questioned the constitutionality of establishing separate congregations in one parish, with the power to elect lay delegates, as destroying the equilibrium between the clergy and laity in Con- vention; but having been assured by Mr. C. and the petitioners that the con- gregation be admitted as a parish, and intended so to make application, the committee recommend that the said separate and petitioning congregation be admitted as a parish, to be called St. Paul's Parish, in the county of Culpep- er, according to the boundaries set forth in said petition. This report does not seem to have been voted upon, and is not found in the record ; yet in 1861 Mr. Cole reports St. Paul's Church in ST. PAUL'S PARISH. In 1862-3 there were no Conventions. In 1864 none of the Culpeper churches were represent- ed. In 1865 Mr. Cole reports St. Stephen's and St. Paul's churches in ST. MARK'S PARISH. ! [In 1866 St. Paul's is reported as having been destroyed ; but in 1868, the last year of Mr. Cole's life, he again reports St. Paul's Church in ST. PAUL'S PARISH, as having been rebuilt by the generosity of a Virginiau by birth (Mr.John T. Farish), but residing in New York. The new St. Paul's was consecrated by Bishop Whittle Nov. 8th, 1833. It is impossible now to unrav- el this tangled skein of facts. In 1869 there is no report, and in 1870 St. Paul's Church reappears in ST. MARK'S PARISH, and we hear no more of ST. PAUL'S PARISH.
But we have anticipated the chronological order of our narrative, and must return to 1861, when Mr. Mortimer reports St. James Church, St. Mark's Parish, with twenty-eight communicants and the contribution of $3000 for a parsonage. Mr. Cole reports in the same year the enlargement of St. Stephen's church edifice, with a steeple of fine proportions, and a fine-toned bell, at a cost of $2500, nearly the whole of which was raised within the congregation.
And now the " war clouds rolling dun " over-shadowed the land. The peaceful parish became an intrenched camp, and a highway for the march ing and counter-marching of grand armies. The churches, so lately resonant with anthems of praise, are torn down or converted into barracks and hospi- tals and stables, and the roar of artillery and the blast of the bugle supercade
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the songs of the sanctuary. Mr. Cole in his report of 1865-66, tells the tale with bleeding heart and bated breath. He says: " Since my last report of 1861 cruel war has raged. Pen cannot write or words utter the trials of mind and heart, and the privations endured. All the Episcopal churches in this county. and every other place of worship within the lines of the Federal army (except the Baptist and Episcopal churches at the Court-house), were utterly destroy- ed by it during the winter of 1853-64. The whole country is a wide spread desolation. The people, peeled and poor, are struggling for a living. During the occupation by the Federal army we were not permitted to use our church. We worshipped God, like the primitive Christians, in private houses, and nev- er did the services of the Church seem sweeter or more comforting. I visited the sick and wounded, and buried the dead of both armies alike-the number of funerals being 490. It is a record for the great day, and not for the Conven- tion. There were twenty churches of denominations destroyed within a com- paratively small area. Among these in this parish were St. Paul's and St. James, and Calvary Church, under the care of Rev. P. Slanghter, at the foot of Slaughter's (Cedar) Mountain. The last named church was built by Mr. Slaughter on his own place when by ill-health he was constrained to retire to the country. This church was consecrated by Bishop Johns in June, 1860, and Mr. S. officiated for the benefit of his neighbors and servants, without fee or reward. other than that arising from the consciousness of trying to do some good, under the burden of many infirmities. That only relic of th is church is a beautiful stained window, which was spared at the intercession of a young lady, who kept it under her bed till the war was over. The window now lights a chancel in Mr. Slaughter's dwelling, which also contains a desk, the only relic of another of his old churches which was burned. The chancel, with its relies has in it the seeds of an nuwritten poem, whose melody is only heard in the heart."
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