USA > Virginia > Spotsylvania County > Spotsylvania County > History of St. George's parish, in the county of Spotsylvania, and diocese of Virginia > Part 3
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" Besides Col. Willis, who is the top man of the place, there are only one merchant, one tailor, a smith, and an ordinary keeper; though I must not forget Mrs. Levistone, who acts here in the double capacity of a doctress and a coffee woman, and were this a populous city, she is qualified to exercise two other callings. It is said that the court-house and
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ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
e church are going to be built here, and then both ligion and justice will help to enlarge the place."* The Rev. Mr. Kenner had ceased to be regular inister of the Parish since October, 1730. He ;vertheless continued to officiate occasionally during e succeeding vacancy of two years and three months, did also the Rev. Francis Pearl, who preached even sermons.
In January, 1732-3, the vestry got rid of Mr. enner in a very unceremonions way, by giving him tice that he need not give himself any further ouble to come and preach in this parish. The ev. gentleman perhaps deserved his fate, if we are believe Col. Byrd, whose testimony is to be taken ith some few grains of allowance, as he seldom ffered an occasion to pass of cracking a joke at the pense of the clergy.
He tells us that during his sojourn in Fredericks- urg, as the guest of Col. Willis, " Parson Kenner lified us with his company, who left this parish for other, without any regard to the poor souls he had ulf saved, of the fleck he had abandoned."
1732-3. The Rev. Patrick Henry,t having pro- iced letters from the Governor and the commissary, as received as Minister of the Parish. Messrs. 'illis and Waller were deputed to return thanks to s honor.
1733, October. At a meeting of the Vestry in is month, Joseph Brock, Sheriff, presented an or- * COL BYRD's Progress to the Mines - a most entertaining book. t Uncle of the orator.
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A HISTORY OF
der of the Hon. Wm. Gooch, "his Majesty's I.t. Governor, and Commander-in-Chief of this dominion of Virginia," setting forth that the freeholders of the south side of the Parish objected to the location of a new church near the river Po, upon the ground of its inconvenience to those who were to bear the chief burden of its erection. The Governor required the Vestry to attend to him in comeil, at the gen- eral court, in October, for a full hearing of the alle- gations of the petitioners, and in the meantime or- dered all further proceedings towards building the church to be suspended. After a respectful con- sideration of the matters involved in the Governor's order, the vestry delegated Zachary Lewis, their at- torney, to attend his honor in council, and shew the reasons of their procedure in the premises, which reasons were, that the greatest number of parishion- ers who were not convenient to the church on Rap- pahannoek were most convenient to the site which they had chosen; that this site was near the glebe; that the church was nearly finished; and that the charge of building it had been levied upon the people.
This case is cited to show, that although the theory of the government was arbitrary and anti-republican, and the Church in law was subject to the state, yet that the popular clement often prevailed over the forms of law; so that in truth the people enjoyed a large amount of practical freedom both in Church and State.
At the same meeting of the Vestry, Col. Waller was desired to send to England for pulpit eloths and
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ST. GEORGE'S PARISHI.
cushions for each church in the parish, to be of crim- son velvet with gold tassels, each cloth having a cypher with the initials St. G. P. He was also di- rected to send for two silver chalices.
A. D. 1734. The year 1734 furnishes another instance of the triumph of the people over the Gov- ernor's prerogative. The Rev. Patrick Henry hav- ing resigned his charge in April, Sir William Gooch sent a Rev. Mr. Smith with a letter of commenda- tion to the Vestry. Mr. Smith preached two ser- mons in the parish, after hearing which, the Vestry appointed a committee to inform the Governor that Mr. Smith's preaching was so generally disliked in the parish that they could not receive him as their minister. Whether Mr. Smith's preaching was ob- jected to for its faithfulness, or the contrary, does not appear in the record, nevertheless the fact proves that the churchmen of that day were not in such a state of indifferentism, as to be content with any minister whom the Governor might please to send them.
1734-5. Mr. Zachariah Lewis was appointed to address the Governor, to permit the Rev. James Marye, of Goochland, to leave his parish and take charge of St. George's, he being anxious to do so, and being approved by the Vestry and people of the parish. Mr. Marye accordingly was inducted into the parish in October, 1735.
The reader may perhaps be amused and instructed by the following account, which is transcribed from the Vestry-book.
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A HISTORY OF
St. George's Parish, Dr.
Lbs. of Tobacco. 16,000
To Rev. James Marye, his salary per year
To George Carter, Reader at Mattapony 1,000
To R. Stuart, Reader at Rappahannock 1,000
To Readers at Germanma and the Chapel 2,000
To Zachary Lewis, for prosecuting all suits for parish,
per annum . 500
To Mary Day, a poor woman
350
To Mrs. Livingston, for salivating a poor woman, and promising to cure her again if she should be sick in twelve month 1,000
To James Atkins, a poor man 550
To M. Bolton, for keeping a bastard child a year 800
To Sheriff, for Quit-rents of Glebe laud
350
To John Taliaferro for three surplices
5,000
To Win. Philips, Reader at the Mountain 325
To John Gordon, sexton at Germanna 5,000
To Jolm Taliaferro, for keeping a poor girl six months 1,000
To Edmund Herndon, for maintaining Thomas Moor 800
('r. 1,500 tythables, at 22 lbs, of tobacco, per poll . 33,000
175 tythables employed in Spotswoods iron works, ex- empted by law from paying tythes.
The history of the parish for the next twenty years is unusually barren of interesting events. Those worthy of being noted may be summed up in a few words, viz., the building of two chapels; one at the best spring, near Col. Moore's ridge-quarter, and the other at Win. Lee's old field, places not very easy to be identified at this day.
In 1751, the first bell was put in the church at Fredericksburg; it was the gift of John Spotswood.
In 1753, additions were made to the churches in Fredericksburg and at Mattapony.
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ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
In 1754, dials were provided in the church-yards, to regulate the times of going into church, which was 11 o'clock from the 10th of March to the 10th of September, and 11} from the 10th of September to the 10th of March.
In 1755, the Legislature passed an act, directing the vestry of each parish to purchase or rent a tract of land for the maintenance and employment of the poor, each of whom was required to wear, in an open manner, a badge, with the name of the parish to which they belonged, ent in blue, red, or green cloth.
In obedience to this order, the Vestry of St. George's rented a house with one hundred acres of land attached, and this was the first "poor house " in the county of Spotsylvania .*
1762. Roger Dixon was permitted to have choice of any pew in the church, except the two already granted to Benjamin Grymes, upon condition that ' he should pay to the parish fifteen hundred pounds of tobacco, and agree not to raise the pew higher than the other pews.1.
1767. The Rev. James Marye, who had been rector of the parish for thirty-two years, departed this life in 1767. This gentleman was a French Protestant, who took refuge in England in 1726, and sought the protection of the Bishop of London. The Bishop of London, who, at that time exercised episco-
* This was the old Glebe house, which had been sold to Benja- min Grymes.
t It was the custom in some of the old churches in Virginia, to raise the pews so high, that the occupants were not visible.
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A HISTORY OF
pal jurisdiction in the colonies, sent him to Virginia. During his residence in London he married in 1728 Miss Letitia Staige, the daughter of an English clergy- man, and soon after embarked for America. From the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, a large number of Protestants fled to England. A number of these were sent to Virginia by the Government of Great Britain, and settled upon the upper James River. In the years 1700 and 1705, the House of Burgesses passed acts for their relief, erecting them into a distinct parish, exempting them from parish levies, and allowing their own ministers to lead their devotions in their own language. "And never," in the language of Dr. Hawks,* "did any people better repay the hospitable kindness of the land which af-
forded them a refuge. No man in America need ever blush to own himself their descendant; for , among these are to be found, in Virginia and the Carolinas, some of the brightest ornaments of the It pulpit, the bench, and the halls of legislation." was upon James river, in the county of Goochland, that the Rev. Mr. Marye had his first parish, St. James' Northam. From thence he moved to Spot- sylvania, and officiated as Rector of the parish of St. George's for thirty-two years. From his first com- ing to the county until the death of his wife, he re- sided at the Glebe, and then he moved to the vicinity of Fredericksburg, where he died in 1767, and where his remains now repose, without even a stone to in-
*History of the Church in Virginia, by the Rev. F. L. HAWKS, D. D.
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ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
· dicate the place where they lic. He was succeeded by his son, who was born in Goochland, in the year 1731. In an old commentary upon the Bible, which belonged to the Rev. James Marye, senior, and now in the possession of Yeamans Smith, Esquire, who married his granddaughter, there is a register of birthe, from which I copy the following notice of the birth of the present subject of my narrative:
"1731, Sept' ye 8th, at 29 minutes after 11 o'clock in the night, was born James Marye, the son of James and Letitia Mary Anna. He was baptized Octo. ye 10th, by me, his father, William Randolph and James Holeman god-fathers, and the widow Randolph god- mother."
The Rev. James Marye, junior, was educated at William and Mary College; he went to England for ordination, and when he returned, took charge of a parish in the county of Orange, where he resided at the death of his father, whom he succeeded as minis- ter of St. George's in Jan., 1768 .*
1768. The collector was ordered to pay Dr. Hugh Mercert one thousand pounds of tobacco, for services rendered.
Joseph Broek # and Edmund Herndon were in-
* For the most of the above facts, I am indebted to Mrs. YEA- MANS SMITH, who, as also her sister, the widow of the late vener- able and Rev. Mr. Dunn, were daughters of the Rev. James Marye, Jr.
+ Afterwards General, and who fell at Princeton, June 12, 1777. # Col. Joseph Brock married Mary Beverley, daughter of John Chew, and from them was descended Capt. Joseph Brock, U. S. Army.
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A HISTORY OF
structed to contract for building a church, fifty-six feet long, and twenty-six feet wide, near Burbridge's bridge. This church is still standing, and for a num- ber of years after the revolution regular Episcopal services were held in it. It is now, we believe, oc- cupied exclusively by other denominations of Chris- tians.
1772. The church-yard at Fredericksburg, as originally laid out by law, extended from the Main street to Princess Anne street. The ground on the Main street proving unsuitable for a place of burial, application was made to the General Assembly by the vestry, for power to dispose of that part of the lot. Accordingly, the Legislature passed an act, in the year 1772, empowering the vestry to sell so much of the church-yard as had not been used for a burying-ground, and directing that the money aris- ing from the sale should be applied towards purchas- ing a more convenient piece of ground in the town of Fredericksburg, for the purpose aforesaid. This sale was effected, but it is believed that the money arising from it was lost to the church in the troub- lous times of the revolution .*
1769-70. In March, 1769-70, the parish was again divided by the river Po, where it is intersected by the line of Caroline County, thence up the said river to the month of Robinson run, thence np the said run until it intersects the line of Orange county. All that part of the parish lying between the rivers Po and Rappahannock to retain the name of St.
* See Dr. McGUIRE's Centennial Sermon.
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ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
George, and the remainder to be a distinct parish, and called Berkley.
In 1770, the church in Fredericksburg was re- paired, and a gallery erected.
In 1776, an act of Assembly was passed, repealing all the laws of Parliament, requiring conformity to the Episcopal Church, and exempting dissenters from contributing to its support.
In 1784, a bill was enacted by the Legislature, entitled a bill making provision for teachers of the Christian religion. Under this law, each denomina- tion of Christians had the privilege of being incor- porated. The Episcopal church immediately ap- plied for an act of incorporation. Accordingly, a bill for its incorporation was introduced by Patrick Henry, and passed.
1785. Agreeably to the law incorporating the Episcopal church, the members of the church in this parish elected, by ballot, on the 28th of March, the following persons to serve as vestrymen, viz .: John Chew, John Steward, Mann Page, Thomas Colston, Thomas Crutcher, Daniel Branham, Thomas Sharp, and James Lewis.
1787. In consideration of donations made to the church in Fredericksburg by the father of Col. Lewis Willis, it was unanimously agreed in the Vestry, that the pew which Col. Willis formerly held should be vested in him.
At the same time, a committee was appointed to choose a minister for the parish, which had been va- cant for seven years, and also to devise ways and
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means for his support. Accordingly, on the 1st of December, the Rev. Thomas Thornton was unani- mously elected rector of St. George's Parish, and entered upon his duties upon the first of January following.
In obedience to instructions, the committee of " Ways and Means" published in the Virginia Her- uld, an appeal to the friends of the church, of which the following is a copy : "As nothing can be more instrumental in, promoting morality and religion than a constant attendance at church, especially in towns where there are a number of unhappy, idle, and profligate people, who may be influenced by the good example of their neighbors, and thereby be re- claimed from idleness; and as the benevolent inhabi- tants of this town, and the friends of the Episcopal Church in the vicinity, have hitherto liberally con- tribnted to the support of a worthy and assiduous clergyman, a good clerk and sexton, they are humbly requested to sign notes, payable quarterly, for the ensuing year, which notes are deposited by order of the Vestry in the hands of the church-wardens, ready for their signature. It is hoped that many who have frequented the church this year, and have neither contributed to the repairs of the church nor the sup- port of the minister, will subscribe liberally for the ensuing year.
" CHARLES MORTIMER,* ) Church- " THOMAS COLSTON, 1 Wardens."
* Dr. Charles Mortimer was one of the signers of the Westmore- land resolutions against the Stamp Act, Feb. 27, 1766.
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ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
The result of this appeal was the collection of £169 1s. 6d. The document is curious, as being one of the earliest devices of the voluntary system, after the breaking down of the establishment by the revolution.
The ministry of Mr. Thornton seems to have given an impulse to the prosperity of the parish, as, soon after his accession, an application was made to the corporation of the town for leave to build an addition to the church, for the reason that the con- gregation had become too large for the edifice. By reference to the records of the common council, I find that this petition was granted in 1789, and that the addition was ordered to be made on the south side of the church so as to form the church into. a cross.
During Mr. Thornton's ministry, General Wash- ington visited his mother at Fredericksburg. On Sunday, in accordance with the uniform habit, he at- tended the Episcopal Church, and so great was the crowd drawn together by his presence, that some of the timbers in the gallery which had not been well adjusted, settled into their places with a slight crash, which excited great alarm for fear the church was falling, and the congregation made their escape through doors and windows in great confusion. The aların was at last quieted by Mr. Callender the clerk, who explained the cause of it .*
*This incident is related upon the authority of Judge Lomax, of Fredericksburg, who was present, and though but a boy at that time, has a distinet remembrance of the seene.
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A HISTORY OF
Four pews in the gallery were appropriated to the use of the professors and students in the Fredericks- burg academy, which for many years was in high re- pute as a classical institution, and still maintains its reputation under the care of its present amiable and able master, Thomas H. Hanson.
As an example of the manner in which all notices of Episcopal visitations were given in these times, the following is republished from the Virginia Herald.
"On Saturday last I received a letter from the Right Reverend Father in God, James Madison, Bishop of Virginia, signifying his intention of visit- ing the church in this town, on Sunday the 11th of September, when all persons who desire to be con- firmed, may have an opportunity of receiving that pious and necessary institution from his hands."
"THOMAS THORNTON. " August 15th, 1791."
Mr. Thornton soon after left the parish, and died ultimately at Dumfries. The obituary below is taken from a cotemporary newspaper.
" Died, in Dumfries, on the 25th ult., in the 76th year of his age, the Rev. Thomas Thornton, late Rector of this parish. He possessed steady faith, rational benevolence, and unaffected piety. With the dignity of the minister he associated the familiar- ity of the man, and was truly an ornament to human nature. In his sermons he was accurate and persua- sive, more attentive to sense than to sound, to eleva- tion of sentiment than loftiness of style, expatiating on the evidences of Christianity when infidelity pre-
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ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
vailed, and strongly urging the practice of Christian morality when vice predominated. His amiable qualities secured him universal respect, and his death is now the theme of universal lamentation."
1792. We have now to record the first instance of a popular election in the history of St. George's Parish.
When the church had become vacant by the resig- nation of Mr. Thornton, an advertisement was in- serted in the Virginia Herald, inviting the subscrib- ers to the Episcopal Church, to meet at the town- house and elect a clergyman to fill the vacancy.
We learn from the same source, that ninety-six votes were cast for the Rev. John Woodville, and thirty-four for the Rev. Thomas Davis: whereupon Mr. Woodville was proclaimed by Benjamin Day, the Senior Church Warden, to be duly elected. His connection with this Parish was but of short dura- tion, and we regret that we have no record of his ministrations. The only two notices of him which we have been able to find, are in the Virginia Her- alı. In a description of a masonic procession on the 28th of June, 1792, from their lodge to the church, his name is mentioned, and he is said to have de- livered a well adapted discourse on the occasion. In a poem of this date, apparently written by a clergy- man in apology for levity of conversation with which he had been reproached, these lines occur, which give the Rev. Mr. Woodville credit for a quality of which his whole life was a beautiful illustration.
"Deny him not those aids within his reach,
But let him laugh, and modest Woodville preach."
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Mr. Woodville resigned his charge in 1793, and removed to Culpeper, where he lived to a good old age, as Rector of St. Mark's Parish, and principal of a grammar school. Some of the author's earliest re- collections are associated with this good old man, whose pure character, and modest, blameless man- ners, made him an object of universal veneration and respect .*
1794. On the sixth of January, 1794, the people assembled at the market-house, and the Rev James Stephenson was unanimously elected minister of the parish. It was during Mr. Stephenson's administra- tion that those two excellent institutions, the male and female charity schools, were established. The first meeting of subscribers to the former, was held at Benson's hotel, on the twenty-fifth of January, 1795, at which Benjamin Day, Charles Yates, Elisha Hall, William Lovell, Fontaine Maury, George French, and Daniel Henderson were present.
This institution was incorporated in 1796, and in the following year it was invested by act of Assembly with certain property which had been devised by a benevolent gentleman named MePherson, for the use of the poor, and in 1799, it received a further accession to its means of usefulness in the funds of the Fredericksburg academy, which, upon the petition of the trustees of the same, was conferred upon the charity school.
* Mr. Woodville was Professor of Humanity in the Fredericks- burg academy when Mr. Gilbert Harrow was Professor of Matho matics. These gentlemen were required to undergo an examina_ tion by Bishop Madison in the classics, and in the sciences.
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ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
The female school had its origin in the counsels of a few benevolent ladies of Fredericksburg, in the year 1802. It was incorporated in 1808, but was dependent chiefly on the yearly contributions of the humane, until it received the benefactions of Miss Sophia Carter, of Berea, in the connty of Prince William, who devised to it the munificent legacy of ten thousand dollars.
The chief design of these institutions is to instruct their pupils in the rudiments of an English educa- tion, and in the principles of the Christian religion. Among the excellent arrangements for their religious culture, they are required to go regularly to Church, and to be catechised by the minister, for which they are to be prepared by their teachers.
The successive pastors of the church seem to have taken a landable interest in these schools, and were in the habit of preaching annual sermons in their be- half. By a notice in a newspaper of that date, we observe that the annual sermon in May 1799, was preached by the Rev. James Stephenson, on which occasion the collection was £37. The laity, too, were not without sympathy in this noble charity, for we learn from the newspaper of the day, that it was the favorite theme of the young orators when taking their first flight. Accordingly in 1808, we are told that an impressive and eloquent oration was delivered by L. L. Lomax in its behalf. In 1827, the Rev. Mr. McGuire, in his report to the convention, says, "that the charity schools connected with the church, are of a highly interesting character. About forty-five
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children are educated in them, some of whom are clothed and boarded. These excellent institutions share largely of the spiritual care and pecuniary as- sistance of the congregation, while, as objects of general favor and of general good, they derive from other sources a part of their support."
It is a grateful office to record the names and re- connt the deeds of those who founded, and of those who have cherished, institutions, which have poured the light of sacred knowledge into the minds of hun- dreds of immortal beings, who, without this blessed agency, had perhaps lived and died in ignorance and degradation. May their memories be ever green and fragrant in the minds of those who survive, and may he, the sign of whose office was, that he preached the Gospel to the poor, keep ever open, and freshly flowing, for the use of generations yet unborn, these streams of mercy, which make " glad the city of our God."
1802.' There is but one more incident in the his- tory of Mr. Stephenson's connection with the parish which we have been able to collect, and for that, we are indebted to the Virginia Herald of 1802.
"The anniversary of St. John the Evangelist was celebrated on Friday last by the masons of Fred- ericksburg. About eleven o'clock, they moved in grand procession to the church, where an appropri- ate discourse was delivered by Brother James Steph- enson, after which the procession moved to Brother Win. Herndon's, where the day was spent in the ut- most harmony and brotherly affection." This was
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ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
probably the last official act of Mr. Stephenson, as shortly afterwards he was confined by protracted ill- ness in Culpeper, from which, it is believed that, he was never sufficiently restored to resume his official duties.
1803. Upon petition of the subscribers to the Rev. Mr. MeConochie (a Presbyterian minister), he was permitted to occupy the church when not wanted for Episcopal services.
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