USA > Virginia > King and Queen County > King and Queen County > King and Queen County, Virginia (history printed in 1908) > Part 7
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In 1852 Locust Cottage was sold to John N. Gres- ham, who lived there for several years, until fire de- stroyed all the original buildings. A small two-story cottage is all that now stands by the beautiful grove
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which in the old days sheltered beneath its grateful shade so many girls who, in after years, looked back with pleasure at the joyous times spent there. Desola- tion supreme marks this once lovely seat of learning, and naught remains to tell of its former greatness and beauty. Time has wrought many changes in this neigh- borhood, one of the happiest and most refined in the county for the happy years of which we write. After removing to Norfolk, Mrs. Southgate's health failed, and she ceased to teach. She died peacefully and calmly near Norfolk, on August 20th, 1862, and her remains now lie buried in Norfolk, by the side of those of James S. Southgate; who died, as he had lived, with a heavenly smile upon his face, at the home of his son James, in Durham, N. C., September 19th, 1877, nearly seventy- three years of age. Though dead, these two yet speak in the lives of thousands who have come under their influence. " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them."
A seminary for young ladies was conducted by Mrs. M. L. Fleet at Green Mount near Dunkirk. It was well patronized and did excellent work. She was largely aided by her accomplished daughters, Misses Lou, Flor- ence, and Bessie. Mrs. Fleet is lovingly remembered by her numerous pupils.
HIGH SCHOOL AT STEVENSVILLE
In October, 1907, a high school for higher students was opened at Stevensville. This was done largely by the enterprise and earnest interest of Robt. N. Pollard and A. C. Eubank, trustees, and a band of earnest women cooperating with them. It is considered to be a very great success.
CHAPTER VII
RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS
There are two native qualities which have charac- terized our people perhaps more than any others; one the conservative spirit, the other the religious. The established church of the mother country had the right of way here as elsewhere; but already before the Revo- lution Methodists and Baptists began to appear, and in some cases were fined and imprisoned, or bonded. In order to have a fair and authentic representation, 1 have engaged one gentleman from each of the denomi- nations to represent his own people in the county. Dr. B. H. Walker writes for the Disciples of Christ, Rev. J. W. Shackford for the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Rev. G. W. Beale, D. D., for the Baptist. Presby- terians have been represented here only by a few scat- tered members; Congregationalism and Lutheranism never had a footing in the county. A small number of persons near Little Plymouth identify themselves as Christadelphians," under their leader, Dr. John Thomas.
The influence of certain ministers of the Gospel has been and is pronounced in the lives of the people. We name a few of these, but they are not exceptional cases. Revs. Shackelford, " Parson Mitchel " Shackford, R. Y. Henley, R. B. Semple, Andrew Broaddus, Sr. and Jr., R. H. Bagby, Thomas B. Evans, William and William B. Todd. These men have left a profound impres- sion upon their respective communities-indeed their influence for good is still recognized, both within the limits of the county and beyond its borders. Eternity alone will disclose the splendid work which these men of God have accomplished. They are not dead, but only sleep, " and their works do follow them."
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THE BAPTISTS
By REV. G. W. BEALE, D. D.
The frail barks which were wont to bear over the ocean our forefathers to these Western shores were wafted by winds of which it might be said none knew whence they came or whither they went. Often, per- haps, currents of air having separate and remote origins, and moving for long distances along different lines, united, and filling the sails of the adventurous craft, im- pelled them the more swiftly and surely to their desti- nation. In like manner the agencies which brought at first the faith as held by the Baptists into King and Queen County, may not in every case be distinctly trace- able. Different instrumentalities, starting in separate and remote quarters and entering the county from dif- ferent directions, combined, it is believed, in sowing here the seeds of this faith and reaping fruits of its first harvest.
William Mullen, a native of Middlesex, who had made a temporary home in that part of Amelia that is now Nottoway County,-where, under the preaching of "Father " Samuel Harress and Jeremiah Walker, he had become a convert to their beliefs and a preacher of the same,-on a visit in 1769 to his kindred on the lower Rappahannock, passed through King and Queen, where he tarried for some days with his relatives. Here, in conversation with his brother, John Mullen, and James Greenwood, his brother-in-law, he satisfied them of the Scriptural warrant for his belief in regeneration. They soon afterwards professed their faith in Christ, and were immersed in witness that they had died to sin and risen to newness of life in Him. Both of them be- came Baptist ministers, and began to hold meetings, warmly exhorting their hearers to repent, believe, and be baptized.
In 1771, John Waller of Spottsylvania, accompanied by John Burrus, visited the county and preached the doc- trine of the "New Lights," as the Baptist ministers were then derisively called. Under a sermon on the " New Birth," Ivison Lewis, who soon afterwards also
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became a preacher, was converted, with numerous others. Waller's preaching was powerful in demonstration of the Spirit, and many flocked to hear him. On February II, 1773, a church was constituted, containing seven- teen members, and called Lower King and Queen Church. This was the earliest Baptist church formed in the county.
The coming of Waller and the success of his preach- ing, particularly in the adjoining county of Middlesex, became the signal for a violent outbreak of persecution, which led, during the years 1771, '72, and '73, to the imprisonment in jail of a number of ministers for pro- claiming the Gospel without having a license from the General Court. These severities were practiced more in several contiguous counties than in King and Queen; but here, in August, 1772, James Greenwood and John Lovall, while conducting a meeting (under a tree, prob- ably) near where Bruington meetinghouse now stands, were arrested and confined within prison bounds for sixteen days. These indignities and hardships endured by the early preachers intensified their zeal, drew to them much popular sympathy, and greatly increased the effectiveness of their ministry.
An active colaborer with John Waller in these days of persecution was Lewis Craig, also of Spottsylvania. His itinerant labors were greatly blessed in that part of this county which lies nearest to Caroline, and there, in 1774, Upper King and Queen Church was organized with twenty-five members. The year following, at a place popularly known as " The Axle," a church called by that name was constituted with thirty members. This body has since been styled Exol.
These three churches-Lower King and Queen, Upper King and Queen, and Exol-had respectively as their first pastors, Robert Ware, Younger Pitts, and Ivison Lewis. Elder Pitts was, in 1780, succeeded in Upper King and Queen Church by Theodrick Noel, who served it as pastor for forty years, or until death released him from his charge. Ware and Lewis also retained their charges until dismissed by death, both of them having served for full thirty years.
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Two of these persevering and faithful pastors lived to see two other Baptist churches organized in the county, Bruington in 1790, and Poroporone in 1807, the former with one hundred and fifty members and the latter with one hundred. Robert B. Semple began his useful and distinguished ministerial career by becoming the first pastor of Bruington at the time of its constitu- tion, and he served in this capacity for forty-one years.
Elder James Healy was chosen an under-shepherd to the Poroporone flock, and continued as such until his decease in 1820. The Lower King and Queen Church, having been called to mourn the departure of their first pastor, Robert Ware, chose Elder William Todd as his successor in 1804 or 1805. His pastoral care of this body-the longest in the annals of King and Queen- covered a period of over forty-five years, continuing until interrupted by the infirmities of age which fore- shadowed his death, bringing it to pass in 1855. The popular and eloquent ministry of the Elder Andrew Broaddus began in this county in 1827, when he suc- ceeded Dr. Semple in the care of Upper King and Queen Church, and here his labors were enjoyed for full twenty years, or until his death in 1848.
The long terms of pastoral service which have been thus particularly mentioned, betokening as they do the harmonious and loving relations that subsisted between the churches and their pastors, exerted a powerful in- fluence in inculcating Baptist beliefs and practices in the minds and hearts of at least two generations in this county. Beginning in 1772 with seventeen members, in less than sixty years, or at the time of Semple's death in 1831, they had increased to 1,314.
The fifth church among the Baptists formed in King and Queen was named from the river which flows near to it-Mattapony. It was gathered through the labors of Elder William Todd, who at its constitution in 1828 became its pastor, and so continued for twenty-seven years. The church soon after its constitution repaired and remodeled the " Old Brick Church," a substantial colonial edifice of St. Stevens parish, built and used under the Establishment. This structure, it has been
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said, was probably at the date of its erection " the largest and best-built church in Virginia." Reared by Henry Gaines, the architect, at the contract cost of £1300, its dimensions were thirty by eighty feet, the walls being twenty-seven feet high and of "the thickness of five bricks at the foundation and four at the top." The building remains a commodious and comfortable house of worship.
St. Stephen's and Olivet, both constituted in 1842, organized the same year, complete the list of Baptist churches in King and Queen.
The year which witnessed the formation of these two churches was that also in which Richard Hugh Bagby, who had been ordained at the call of Mattapony, en- tered upon his labors as the successor of Elder Richard Claybrook in the pastoral care of Bruington. Early in his ministry the substantial brick meetinghouse of this church was erected, and here, under his consecrated and earnest labors, remarkable no less for his power to win souls to Christ than for his skill to train them for service after they were won, the church attained a de- gree of efficiency, influence, and prominence second to none other in the rural parts of Virginia.
Elder Bagby's labors on this field extended through twenty-eight years, and terminated only a few months before his death, which occurred October 29, 1870. His life, which had been eminently marked by holy zeal and consecration, rendered his dying hour almost seraphic. Among his last thoughts he reverted to the scene of his long labors, and said: " I would like to be buried at Bruington." Again he said: "Oh, in a few hours what indescribable brightness and glory shall I behold-never, never to leave it any more." A little later he exclaimed: "Give me one more draught of that cool water before I begin to taste the cool and pearly water of life, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the New Jerusalem.
Tell the brethren that I never realized as I do now the glories of the heavenly world. I am happier, ten thousand times happier, than I ever was before in my life. My trust is in God." Summoning his fast-
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failing strength, he said to his dear companion, " Kiss me, my wife, kiss me "; and then his spirit gently de- parted to be with Christ and to behold the pearly foun- tain which he had already seen in beatific vision.
His dying wish as to the place of his burial met with loving and reverent compliance; his remains rest in the Bruington cemetery, not far from those of the sainted Semple, and, like Semple's, are fittingly commemorated with a marble gravestone.
In the lower part of the county, Elder John Spencer, who had the pastoral care of Poroporone Church, ended his career about the time that Richard Hugh Bagby's began. His labors in that field left an abiding impres- sion for good. Elder Thomas B. Evans, at one time pastor of Exol Church, and for thirty-three years in a like relation to Olivet, rendered faithful and efficient service, of inestimable value, in lower King and Queen. Elder Alfred Bagby, for nearly thirty-five years the prudent and efficient pastor of Mattapony Church, was a recognized and potent factor in the support and prog- ress of Baptist interests in this county.
If space allowed, it would adorn the annals of King and Queen to recount here the labors of the men who have in later years occupied in the ministry the fields where those earlier pastors, the pioneers, toiled so long, so patiently, and so successfully. Their record would embrace such names as W. B. Todd, Isaac Diggs, An- drew Broaddus, Jr., Southwood, Garlick, Land, S. C. Boston, J. W. Ryland, Moncure, Henning, W. A. Street, Fleet, Long, O. D. Loving, Crews, and F. B. Beale-all redolent of pious devotion and godly and useful service. The ministry of Andrew Broaddus, Jr., in connection with Upper King and Queen Church, where he labored for over forty years, was-when viewed in all its important aspects-one of the most successful and useful ever rendered by a pastor in Vir- ginia. The large and well-constructed brick meeting- house of this church was reared in 1860, under Elder Broaddus' ministry, and it has sheltered as large, effi- cient, and cultivated a spiritual body as can probably be found in any hamlet in the State.
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Any sketch of the Baptists of King and Queen would be too imperfect and inadequate that failed to notice the godly men and devout women among the private members of its churches, who have in their lives illus- trated the doctrine of godliness and proved themselves influential in promoting the cause of truth and right- eousness. Of such useful and honored members every church has had its quota. Benjamin Faulkner, Thomas Spencer, Robert Garrett, Thomas Jeffries have been among the names loved and cherished in Exol. The Eubanks, Webbs, Courtneys, Rylands, Bagbys, Fleets, Latanes, Joneses, Hayneses, and others have, by their zeal and piety, spread the name of Bruington afar. The Boulwares, Garnetts, Dews, Broadduses, and others, have borne the burdens and ennobled the annals of Upper King and Queen. Alexander Fleet, J. C. Coun- cil, and other colaborers have been pillars of moral and religious strength in St. Stephen's. The Pollards, Walkers, Greshams, Hundleys, and a list besides too long to enumerate here, have been prominent among the religious forces of this county at large in the Baptist ranks.
The list of men added to the Baptist ministry of this and other States from King and Queen has been both large and weighty. It includes, amongst those born and reared in the county, or else ordained at the call of one of its churches, such names as these: James Green- wood, Ivison Lewis, Henry Toler, John Courtney, Wil- liam Hickman, William Todd, Robert B. Semple, An- drew Broaddus, John W. Hillyard, Robert Ryland, I. Lewis, John Bird, John Spencer, Edward S. Amory, William B. Todd, William Pollard, Thomas W. Sydnor, R. H. Bagby, Alfred Bagby, George F. Bagby, T. B. Evans, John Clark, George Schools, E. P. Walton, William Hill, R. F. Stubbs, Richard H. Griffith, Edward Gresham, James A. Haynes, John W. Hundley, Charles H. Ryland, William S. Ryland, John W. Ryland, Rob- ert S. Jones, H. H. Jones, John Pollard, T. R. Boston, W. T. Hundley, George T. Gresham, R. R. Acree, Alexander Fleet, John R. Powers, and J. R. Murdock,
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If regard be had to the long list here named and the high positions many of them have attained in de- nominational councils and service, it may well be ques- tioned if any county in Virginia has made a larger or more influential contribution to our Baptist ministry.
The Baptists of King and Queen were among the foremost in the State in availing themselves of the ad- vantages of organized efforts in the churches in behalf of reformatory, educational, and missionary aims. Temperance, tract, and missionary societies were early in existence. Female missionary societies were started as early as 1843, perhaps earlier, and are in active operation in all the churches to this day; their annual missionary days, observed with appropriate services and instructive and inspiring addresses, have enlisted a great degree of public interest, and accom- plished an untold amount of good. These vigorous and aggressive factors of church life have not only fos- tered missionary and benevolent zeal, but also contrib- uted largely to the excellent associational reports which have so long and so signally characterized the churches of this county.
A commendable zeal in the matter of education has all along been shown by the Baptists of King and Queen. Dr. Semple conducted an academy in early manhood, and later, in his relations to Columbian College, proved himself one of the truest and staunchest friends to col- legiate training Virginia has ever had. Robert Ryland, as president of the Virginia Baptist Seminary, and later -for thirty-two years-of Richmond College, rendered inestimable service to the cause of sound learning. Al- fred Bagby, as principal for three years of Stevensville Academy; James A. Haynes, as twice principal of Fe- male Seminaries; Col. J. C. Councill, in his lifelong work at Fleetwood and Aberdeen Academies; Dr. John Pollard, as professor of English in Richmond College; Dr. Charles H. Ryland, as financial secretary of the same institution; Dr. Joseph R. Garlick, as principal of Bruington Seminary; Col. A. F. Fleet, as superintend- ent of large military institutes in both Missouri and Indiana; Garnett Ryland, as professor of Greek in
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Georgetown College, Kentucky; Alexander Fleet, whose entire manhood, so far, has been devoted to the care of schools, while also laboring efficiently in the ministry ;- these all have exerted a salutary and helpful influence on the Baptist households of King and Queen in behalf of the liberal training of their sons and daughters; and that for more than three-quarters of a century.
As a result of their influence, along with cooperating causes, the families of the county have, to an extent quite unusual, long exhibited a singularly beautiful refinement of manners, elevation of thought, progressiveness of spirit, and charm of mental and moral culture. Civic virtue and private worth have seldom, if ever, found truer exemplifications than in the men of this county; and its daughters, whether viewed as adorning their stations with their accomplishments and graces in the domestic, the social, or the religious fabric, well fulfill the poetic, but none the less practical, ideal of the Psalm- ist, " As corner stones polished after the similitude of a palace."
A few scattered incidents which may be mentioned strongly attest the high character and influence of the Baptist denomination in King and Queen. In Cath- cart's Baptist Encyclopædia sketches are given of twelve or more of her sons,-more than find admission from any other Virginia county. During the eighty-one years the General Association has been in existence, eight of the sons of this county have been chosen to fill the president's chair in this body, and have done so for eleven years. The annual sermon before this distin- guished assemblage has also been preached ten times by resident ministers or sons of this county. The Rap- pahannock Association in their annual meetings have been entertained sixteen times in King and Queen, of- tener by four times than in any other county within their bounds; and during the sixty-one years of the associa- tion's existence (down to 1903) there has never been a year in which some worthy and efficient brother of King and Queen has not been chosen to fill one or more of their three offices.
The tide of prosperity has not flowed evenly for the
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Baptist churches in this county during the past half-cen- tury. St. Stephen's has, during this time, increased fivefold; Exol has doubled its membership; Upper King and Queen has become one-third more numerous than it was, and Lower King and Queen has made consider- able gains in numerical strength. Bruington has re- mained nearly stationary as regards numbers, whilst Mattapony, Olivet, and Poroporone have each fallen off in their membership.
The losses and want of growth thus indicated, how- ever, are in no small measure due to the annual removal of members to the cities and other fields of service. The impoverishment of these churches has been the en- richment of others in Brooklyn, New York, Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk, Petersburg, Richmond, Dan- ville, Lynchburg, Buchanan, Pine Bluff (Ark.), At- lanta (Ga.), and other places, to which the sons and daughters of this county have carried a rich inheritance of moral virtue and high attainments in religious train- ing, and where, like hardy plants planted in new soil, they have taken root and flourished. These unforced exiles from the communities hallowed by the memories of Semple, Todd, Broaddus, Bagby, and other revered names, look back from their distant homes to the hearth- stones and altars of this county with emotions as fond and loyal as ever the devout Moslem knew as he turned his face towards "The White Mountain " at Mecca, and with a pride and joy as humble and pure as ever the captive of Israel felt when in Babylon he opened his window towards the temple of his fathers and sang:
" If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth : if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy."
THE DISCIPLES, OR CHRISTIANS
By B. H. Walker.
It is natural and right that anyone commencing to read the history of any people or county or religious body should wish to know what brought them into ex-
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istence, and the reasons for their existence, and what claims they have to the notice of the reading public. Appreciating the reasonableness of such inquiry, I pro- ceed to give the causes which brought the people known as Disciples of Christ, or Christians, into existence.
Some time between the years 1825 and 1828 The Christian Baptist, published by A. Campbell, by some means found its way to eastern Virginia, and some per- sons, who had been dissatisfied with certain prevalent doctrines of the churches,-such as special election, final perseverance of the saints, and special operation of the spirit of conversion independent of the Word of God,- were attracted by the sentiments expressed in that paper, began to talk and canvass them, and soon to question the scripturality of such doctrines, thus starting a warm discussion. Dr. John Duval became an ardent advo- cate of the views which Mr. Campbell insisted on; on one occasion he preached a sermon in Bruington Baptist Church, proving from the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit operates only through the Word of God, and was promised as an indweller and comforter only to those who believed and obeyed the Gospel. When he concluded his discourse, he asked Mr. Josiah Ryland, Sr., to offer prayer, and the latter prayed that the Church might be delivered from the false doctrine which had been preached them on that occasion. Soon some of the members insisted that there was no scrip- tural authority for the so-called Christian experience which those offering to come into the Church were re- quired to tell, nor for the practice of members sitting in judgment on the spiritual condition of the candidate, and whether or not they were ready to be received into the Church. Another principle they insisted on was that only obedient believers could claim the promise of the forgiveness of sins, or, in other words, only those who, professing faith in Jesus, had repented of their sins and turned from them and been baptized, had the answer of a good conscience, the assurance of the pardon of their sins. They also insisted that such churches only were scripturally organized as had a plu- rality of elders and deacons and celebrated the Lord's
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