History of Norfolk County, Virginia : and representative citizens, 1637-1900, Part 31

Author: Stewart, William H. (William Henry), 1838-1912
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1054

USA > Virginia > City of Norfolk > City of Norfolk > History of Norfolk County, Virginia : and representative citizens, 1637-1900 > Part 31

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In 1789-91. Rev. James Whitehead appears in the several conventions, as minister of Eliza- beth River Parish, Norfolk; after this the Old Church was not again represented until the convention in Alexandria, in 1832. It was during the ministry of Mr. Whitehead that a most unfortunate controversy occurred in the congregation of the Old Church concerning the rival claims of himself and Rev. William Bland for the possession of the edifice. Mr. White-

head was a fine scholar, and had charge of the Norfolk Academy, was a leading Mason, and a gentleman of high social influence. He was also a man of property, if we can judge from the following squib in the Norfolk Herald, April 1, 1800: "It is understood that Parson W. owns some very valuable property in Water street, part of which is now a mere sink. If he will use his exertions to fill it up and make that part of the town passable, he shall have the prayers of his congregation." Bishop Meade said that from all accounts he had re- ceived, Mr. Whitehead was a worthy minister of the Gospel.

Parson Bland, as he was called, was a man of culture, an attractive preacher, very popular with some of the old families on account of his zealous patriotism during the Revolution. and an especial favorite with the sea-captains who frequented the borough, many of whom attended his week-day, as well as Sunday. services. He was unfortunately a man of strong passions, and not as temperate in his habits as he should have been while in Norfolk. It is said he would repeatedly exhort his con- gregation to do as he told them and not as he did. It is stated that the controversy between the rival parsons was carried on in the news- papers in Norfolk during the week, and also in the pulpit on the Sabbath, the same pulpit serving both ministers, the one in the morn- ing, and the other in the afternoon; each party had their separate vestries who had respective- ly elected them rector. I have searched the files of all the Norfolk papers I could obtain from 1794 to 1800, but found no allusion in them to any controversy. As the diocesan conven- tions of 1789 and 1790 are reported to have decided in favor of Parson Whitehead's vestry, it may be the newspaper controversy took place at that time, but I could find no Norfolk papers of those years. I have it from a reliable source that the rivalry for the possession of the Old Church did not altogether interrupt the social relations of the two Episcopal parsons. Al- though Mr. Whitehead had much the larger proportion of the Episcopalians with him, and

203

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

had the recognition of the diocesan convention in 1700. vet he was unable to get complete control of the Old Church, and therefore sometime prior to the fall of 1798, he and his supporters left the Mother Church of Elizabeth River Parish in the undisputed possession of Mr. Bland, his vestry and friends. Mr. Whitehead and his congrega- tion, after leaving the Okdl Church, wor- shiped in the Court House on East Main street. In the spring of 1800 he announced in the papers a subscription on foot for the building of an Episcopal Church, and the sup- porters of the new movement. after subscribing a sufficient amount for the purpose, erected a splendid building on the present site of the First Presbyterian Church. On St. John's Day. the 24th of June, 1800, the corner-stone of Christ Church was laid with Masonic cere- monies and a sermon preached by Mr. White- head in the Old Church, the proceedings end- ing with a sumptuous dinner at the borough tavern.

The establishment of Christ Church, Nor- folk, was one of the grand results of religious liberty in Virginia. After the Revolution, it was natural that those who dissented from the doctrines of the Church of England should set up for themselves their own forms of church government, but this was the first example of a church in the Diocese of Virginia, Protestant Episcopal in faith but Congregational in gov- ernment. It was an American idea, born of the principles of the great struggle for civil and religious liberty. Church and State had been divorced, but the men who projected this new movement were tired of the want of dis- cipline under the old regime; they demanded the right to choose their own spiritual advisers. and while true to the doctrines of the English Church. they carried into ecclesiastical matters the principle they maintained in temporal af- fairs, of opposition to taxation without repre- sentation, and ignoring the old custom of the election of a vestry to govern the parish, they appointed a minister. trustees and other of- ficers, by the votes of the pew-holders in gen- 12

eral meeting assembled. And the experiment resulted in the establishment of a congregation, which has been an ornament and an honor to the Episcopal Church in Virginia for more than three-quarters of a century, abounding in exemplary piety and good works. But while cheerfully according our admiration, we cannot admit the claim of this congregation to be the Mother Church of Elizabeth River Parish. No! That belongs to our Old Church, who, although for awhile sleeping as deathlike as the dead around her, has now risen from her shim- ber to be our mother still. Had Mr. White- head's congregation left the old parish building under protest, and elected a vestry according to the canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Virginia, it might have had a strong claim to the title of the Mother Church, but it seems to be a thing impossible. that a congregation without a vestry, electing its minister and trus- tees contrary to canon law, could be the legal successor of the parish church, organized and governed strictly in accordance with the laws and. customs of the English Church. What constitutes a parish church? Parishes under the colonial government had metes and bounds. established by civil as well as ecclesiastical law, but the Act of the General Assembly of 1798 wiped out the last vestige of Church and State in Virginia, and with it the legal existence of parish divisions, except so far as their organ- ization was preserved by the canons, customs and traditions of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Virginia. How then could a con- gregation ignoring all obedience to those can- ons, customs and traditions, so far as they re- lated to parish government, justly claim to be the successor of a congregation which had never departed from them? This principle we think was recognized by the congregation of Christ Church in May, 1866, when by a vote of 36 ayes to 14 noes, they adopted the follow- ing resolutions, offered by Tazewell Taylor. Esq., viz:

Resolved. * ** * that the care and manage- ment of the Church be hereafter confided to a vestry of the Church, so to be chosen, and this Church shaft

204

HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY

be hereafter governed as all other Churches of the Diocese similarly situated, according to the canons and laws of the Church, etc.

Resolved, that the pew-holders now proceed to elect nine vestrymen, pew-holders, who with the min- ister of the Parish shall be the vestry of the Church ( Christ Church Parish), for the ensuing year until Easter Monday, 1867, or thereafter until their suc- cessors are elected and qualified to act.

Mr. Taylor was one of the ablest lawyers who ever adorned the bar of Norfolk, and no one more fully comprehended the use of the English language, and these resolutions from his pen show that he regarded his congrega- tion as independent of Elizabeth River Parish, although within its bounds. for in these reso- lutions amending the constitution of the church, so as to make it conform to the canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Dio- cese of Virginia, he gives the congregation the name of "Christ Church Parish." A few days after. May 7th, the newly chosen vestry se- lected him to represent this parish in the State Council. It is clear then from its own records, that Christ Church was never considered a parish, but a Congregational or Independent Episcopal Church in the diocese until May. 1866, when it called itself Christ Church Par- ish, and hence has no shadow of a claim to the title of the Mother Church of Elizabeth River Parish.

The services connected with the commem- oration of the death of Washington were held in the Old Church on the 22nd of February. 1800. a full and interesting account of which I found in the Norfolk Herald of February 25 of that year. The procession, consisting of the military and civic societies of the borough and neighborhood, was the largest ever seen here up to that time, and filled the church to over- flowing, so that a great concourse had to re- main outside. There were no galleries in the church, those erected prior to the Revolution having been destroyed, and the present ones built subsequent to 1832, the sittings were con- fincd to the ground floor. A sentinel admitted none butt ladies in the church up to the arrival of the procession. Prayers were offered by Rev. Mr. Whitehead, an oration delivered by

Dr. Read, the mayor, an original monody pro- nounced by Mr. Blanchard, an address made on behalf of the soldiers by Mr. Hiort of Cap- tain Myers' company. After which the bier was deposited in the grave amid a solemn dirge by the band, and three volleys fired over it by the troops.

After the formation of the new congrega- tion, Rev. William Bland continued his minis- trations in the Old Parish Church until the 20th of May. 1803. when he died. Upon his deatlı the congregation seems to have been scat- tered like a flock that had lost its shepherd. For a while the Old Church was occupied by our Baptist friends, until their new church was built on Cumberland street, and then by a col- cred congregation of the same denomination. and subsequently it was used as a Bible class and Sunday-school room for Christ Church, the trustees of that body holding the property by sufferance. July 1, 1831, at a meeting of the trustees of Christ Church, a communication was handed in by Mr. Steed from Rev. Dr. Ducachet on the subject of getting up another Episcopal congregation for the Old Church.

Whereupon it was unanimously "Resolved. That the trustees, so far as they are individ- nally concerned, will rejoice to see the measure carried successfully into effect, and as individ- uals of the congregation of Christ Church, it shall receive their hearty concurrence and pe- cuniary support. As a body acting as the rep- resentatives of a very large portion of the Epis- copalians in this Parish, they are willing. so far as their authority may extend. to grant the use of the Old Church for so desirable a pur- pose. not doubting but it will be approved by every Episcopalian among us. They trust. how- ever, that suitable arrangements may be made to manage the temporal affairs of the Church and support of its minister. entirely inde- pendent of and free from any interference with the fiscal concerns committed to their charge ; in other words, that the two churches and con- gregations in money matters must be kept en- tirely distinct, each depending on its own re- source, and cach to have a separate board of

205

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

trustees or wardens to attend to its interests." "Resolved, That a copy of the foregoing be handed to Rev. Dr. Ducachet."

Two things are very apparent from this ac- tion of the trustees of Christ Church; first, that they were unwilling to see the Old Church revived as a missionary effort, for which Christ Church would be in the least degree pecuniarily responsible, while they would be pleased to see a new and independent congregation of Epis- copalians organized : secondly. that the trustees did not claim to represent all the Episcopalians within the bounds of Elizabeth River Parish. nor the ownership of the Old Church, but could only grant the use of it, so far as their author- ity might extend. April 24. 1832. 10 months after the above proceedings, we find a meeting of the Episcopalians of Norfolk convened, in accordance with a public notice in its news- papers, at the Old Church for the purpose of electing vestrymen, taking suitable measures for repairing that building and organizing a new congregation. George Newton, Esq .. was called to the chair, and Charles W. Skin- ner appointed secretary.

Rev. Henry W. Ducachet then, by request. addressed the chair, and explained the purpose and object of the meeting. It was then, on motion, "Resolved, That the meeting proceed to the election of five vestrymen : whereupon the following gentlemen were elected by ballot to serve as vestrymen until Easter Monday next, viz: William H. Thompson, Richard B. Maury. George Rowland. Alpheus Fobes and Alexander Galt" : and upen motion, no further business offering, the meeting was dissolved and adjourned sine dic.

This was the resurrection of the Mother Church! A parish without a vestry is not ex- tinct, but is in a state of quasi or suspended animation until another vestry is elected, as was this Elizabeth River Parish from 1803 to 1832. And whether the Episcopalians who formed that meeting were aware of the re- sponsibility and result of their action or not. when in pursuance of a public call they met. and in accordance with the canons, customs and

traditions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, elected five vestrymen for the Old Church, they ipso facto elected the legal successors of the former vestry of Elizabeth River Parish, which vestry, from the moment of election, were invested with all the rights, privileges and immunities of their predecessors.

Previous to the Revolution, there being no bishop in Virginia. our church buildings were not consecrated, and were generally called af- ter the parish in which they were situated. or from some other geographical name. The Mother Church of Elizabeth River Parish was generally called the "Old Church," and by some the "Borough Church." As it was neces- sary to ask readmission into the diocese under some distinctive name, the vestry of the Old Church, May 7. 1832, resolved that a name should be given it and it was unanimously agreed that it be called St. Paul's Church, and from that day to this the ancient edifice has borne that name.

At the same meeting a petition to the con- vention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the State of Virginia, assembled at Alexandria, was adopted. It recited that. "The great in- crease of worshipers at Christ Church, in the Borough of Norfolk, having rendered it im- possible for all to be accommodated there who are attached to the doctrines and worship of the Episcopal Church, it has been deemed ad- visable to organize another congregation with- out delay. In pursuance of this design, sub- scriptions have been raised to repair the Old Church belonging to the Parish, and a vestry after dve notice elected. The said vestry. therefore, pray to be recognized by the Con- vention of the Diocese as representing the new congregation under the style and title of 'St. Paul's Church,' Norfolk, and also that our del- egate to the convention. Richard B. Maury, be admitted to a seat in that body." Our con- gregation was duly admitted as St. Paul's Paul's Church, Norfolk, Elizabeth River Par- ish, by the diocesan convention, assembled in Alexandria, May. 1832.

It is not my purpose to speak of the Rev.

206

HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY

Ebenezer Boyden, the first rector of St. Paul's. or any of his worthy successors, the most of whom I have known to love and esteem ; but I shall conclude this lecture with a few recollec- tions of my boyhood associated with the Old Church.

The vestry-room, as I first remember it, oc- cupied nearly the whole of the head of the cross. From a door in the center the minister ascended into the plain, white parallelogram pulpit, with reading desk and communion table immediately below. On either side of the pul- pit hung a tablet, on one the Ten Command- ments : on the other the Lord's Prayer and i Apostle's Creed. Those tablets were first as- sociated in my mind with the descent of Moses from Mount Sinai, and I imagined them the exact counterpart of the original ones which the meekest man in the world had destroyed in a fit of hasty temper at the backsliding of the children of Israel. My crude theology had not then taught me that the inscription on the left hand tablet was from the new dispensa- tion.

I well remember going into that vestry- room before service on one Sunday morning long ago, and being allowed to sit in the cush- ioned arm-chair that was used by John Han- cock, when president of the Continental Con- gress, when the Declaration of Independence was declared in 1776. I had not then any very distinct ideas of Mr. Hancock or his Declaration, but I felt the dignity of the posi- tion, although my feet could not reach the floor. This chair had been given to Rev. Mr. Miller. our pastor, by a descendant of General Bayley. a member of Congress from the eastern shore of Virginia, who had purchased it in Phila- delphia when the furniture of old Independ- ence Hall was sold, and it is still preserved in our vestry-room as a valued relic.

are generally larger than we find them in af- ter years, and therefore I am sure our first organ was very small. I was an honorary member of the choir, by virtue of one of my household being one of its number. Although I never sang, on two occasions I supplied the place of the absent bellows-boy. If my memory serves me, the organ sounded louder on those two Sundays than usual, although I noticed the congregation did not seem to be sensible of the fact.

We had fairs for the benefit of St. Paul's in those days. Church fairs were somewhat different then from what they are now. Nor- folk was a much smaller place, less metropoli- tan and they were more like social gatherings ; the crowds that attended were less promis- cious, indeed it was not everybody who could gain admittance. Then children were ad- mitted at half-price during the day, but after "bell ring" it was a great privilege to be al- lowed to remain and it was with the admoni- tion that they were to be seen and not heard. Now. as a rule, children cram the fair rooms in the evening, filling up the interstices be- tween the grown people, and wearying visitors by their importunities to buy. From being most pleasant gatherings they have become quite a burden to the fair exhibitors, and by 110 means as attractive as they should be to visitors.

Norfolk was a social old place in those times, and in summer evenings it was a cus- tom for the good people to take tea on their front porches. Old Catharine street, now called Bank, after sunset on a pleasant even- ing was a perfect tea party, from the Exchange Bank to the Bell Church, every porch being redolent with the aroma of the Chinese herb. It was a great wrong in the Councils to have changed the name of Catharine street; it had been so called for more than a century, was immortalized in verse, and referred to in let- ters of distinguished European tourists.

The organ gallery was opposite the pulpit, in the foot of the cross, and it was not more than half the size of the present gallery. The organ was a diminutive one, painted white, A fair at St. Paul's was a great event in be consultations and meetings of committees with paneling. and reminded one of a child's , my home. For weeks beforehand, there would coffin. Our childish recollections of objects

HOSPITAL ST. VINCENT DE PAUL, NORFOLK, VA. before it was destroyed by fire.

ST. PAUL'S PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORFOLK, V'A. (The cannon-ball from the British ship "Liverpool." which lodged in the wall, may be seen under the eves, at the right of the picture.)

209

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

on ways and means, culminating in sewing circles in the mornings and evenings, first at one house and then at another, and finally there would arise the most savory smells from the kitchen and store-room. No fear of the pendent dishcloth could keep me from the kitchen at those times, and no jackal ever hor- ered around a moving immigrant train with more pertinacity than I hung around the store- room door to get a taste of the viands or the liberty to scrape the emptied icing dishes, 1 remember one fair in particular .- it was the first. It was held in the old Arcade building. which stood where Johnson's Hall now stands. and took its name from extending over the ad- joining lane by an archway. The lane is still known as ".Arcade Lane." Our pastor, Rev. Mr. Miller, was there, and in my eyes a more important personage than the door-keeper him- self. 1 can see his beaming, honest, counte- nance as he smiled blandly on the scene, sug- gestive as it was of a replenished treasury for Old St. Paul's, paying particular attention to the dignitaries of other communions who had come to aid the Old Church. Some lordly looking gentlemen with gold seals and gold- headed canes walked around with an air of im- portance and wealth, which made me expect to see them march suddenly up to a table and sweep its whole contents, slippers, mats, pin- cushions and all, in one purchase, but I noticed before the evening was passed, that these gold- headed men, as a rule, bought nothing but their suppers, of which they seemed to get quite their money's worth.

The first tower to Old St. Paul's, within the memory of man, was put on the foot of the cross, by order of the vestry, by Isaac Smith, a skillful mechanic, some 36 years ago. The reader of Howe's "Pictorial Ilistory of Vir- ginia." will remember it in the picture of the Old Church. in the chapter on Norfolk County. Its proportions were in keeping with the rest of the building, but was at the wrong end. It had a base fitting over the gable, with a square tower above, having a blind window on each side, and surmounted by a short spire at each

corner. The architect, following the crucial form of the Old Church, surmounted each of these with a modest, gilded Latin cross. Never was there a greater tempest in a tea-pot than was created by those four innocent crosses. The poor pastor, Rev. Mr. Miller, blameless of the work, was suddenly discovered to have Pusevite tendencies. A large portion of the congregation was outraged, and some of the influential members of Christ Church, who felt a spiritual responsibility about St. Paul's, as the weaker congregation, were moved beyond measure. Whether the souls of our neighbor- ing Methodist brethren, our Baptist friends, or the sterling Covenanters across the way, were disturbed in their Sunday worship by the sud- den apparition under their windows of the quadrupled emblem of Rome, we do not re- member, but we shall never forget that one good Catholic, our friend Eli Barrot, was re- ported to have solemnly protested against the innovation, as on his way to and from busi- ness to his home, as he passed the Old Church, he was forced to cross himself four times.

Never did Jewish custom more speedily re- move that unsightly cross for the coming holi- day, than did those emblems of faith disappear from that tower by order of the vestry. . And for the want of some unobjectionable substitute four gold balls were placed in their stead, as if some celestial planets of the smaller sort had fallen from space and been impaled on the points of the spires. What a sensible change has occurred in the intervening years! Now the Greek and Latin cross not only adorn our Old Church, but scarcely a Christian home in our city but is beautified by a representation of that cross, to which we are taught in simple faith to cling. Among the manifold changes which have come in the progress of time, the world has learned that the worship of the Creator in spirit and in truth is not incom- patible with the cultivation of the love for the beautiful.

Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of those little flowers that bursting from the dust through the mysterious pro-

210

HISTORY OF NORFOLK COUNTY

cesses of nature in spring-time, in this ceme- tery, teaches us the sublime lesson of the resur- rection from the dead.

I was attending Mr. Galt's school, in the old frame building, known as the Old Acad- emy, which stood on Church street, just across the way, when Captain Seabury, one of the vestrymen of the church, after employing a servant to dig away the sod and debris in the angle formed by the southeast corner of the church and street wall, discovered the cannon- ball fired during the Revolution by the British frigate "Liverpool," and which had become dislodged and fallen from its position in the wall. With others I witnessed the resurrec- tion of that ball which on New Year's Day, 1776, was one of those missiles of death fired in a bombardment which inaugurated the most momentous year in our American history. That relic of the past was carefully preserved until replaced in the wall where it first lodged, and I have regretted that scepticism, the fruit of ignorance, has made it common in this day, to doubt the authenticity of this fact. I verily believe that some people are born iconoclasts : they break their rattles when babies, destroy their dolls with infinite zest before they can walk, and when grown, seem to delight in dis- crediting the traditions of their fathers. There are some degenerate Virginians who tell you that the thrilling story of the rescue of Capt. John Smith by the Indian heroine Pocahontas is all a romance; when it is a fact as well es- tablished in the colonial history of Virginia, as the ducking of Grace Sherwood in Princess Anne County, for witchcraft, or the more cruel burning of poor weak-minded women upon the same charge on the common in Salem town, in the Colony of Massachusetts. Bishop Meade correctly states, in his "Old Churches of Vir- ginia." that the identical ball fired into the church by the British man-of-war was found and preserved, and that a governor of Vir- ginia applied to have it sent to the State Li- brary for safe keeping.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Norfolk County, Virginia : and representative citizens, 1637-1900, Part 31

Author: Stewart, William H. (William Henry), 1838-1912 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1054

Author: Stewart, William H. (William Henry), 1838-1912
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1054