USA > Virginia > Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 10
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soil, climate, and navigation, to outstrip us in numbers, wealth, and political power .*
* I have been for the last fifty years, and more especially for the last thirty, tra- velling much through the length and breadth of Virginia, making observations for myself, conversing with intelligent farmers, politicians, ministers of the Gospel, and other Christians, on the subject referred to above. I have been not a little over other parts of our land, observing and conversing on the same, and I have read much of what has been written about it. Since the publication, in another form, of the few brief sentences referred to in this note, I have not only reconsidered them my- self, but freely conversed with many sound-minded persons concerning the views there presented ; and the result has been an increased conviction that they are cor- rect, and have been in times past, and still are, held by the great body of our citi- zens, Christians, and statesmen. There are some who seem to advocate slavery as though it were the only institution which is exempt from any of the evils incident to our fallen humanity, while others can see nothing but evil about it, ignoring the hand of a permissive Providence for good. We cannot agree with either of these classes, and are happy to think that but few belong to them. That the agriculture of Virginia has suffered in times past from the use of slaves we think most evident from our deserted fields, impoverished estates, and emigrating population, by com- parison with the condition of other parts of our land less highly favoured in natu- ral advantages. That a great improvement has already taken place, and is still going on, in many parts of the State, notwithstanding this system, we rejoice to know and declare; and, even if the future should show that agriculture may be as well conducted by slave-labour as by free, our remark is true as to the past. That we have fallen behind in our white population, and of course in the number of our delegates to Congress, and thus in our political power, will not be questioned. That Virginia has been the fruitful nursery of patriots and orators and statesmen, whether representing their own State or those to which they have emigrated, I re- joice to believe, and I acknowledge that the institution of slavery, by affording more leisure and opportunity to some for the attainment of the most thorough edu- cation, has contributed to this; but that our political power as a State has been reduced is a fact not to be denied; and that this has resulted from the preceding facts -viz. : the wasteful agriculture and consequent emigration-must be admitted. The effect of slavery upon our religious institutions has been a matter of remark and lamentation by some of the earliest writers on Virginia, beginning with the first century of her existence. They speak of the large estates cultivated by slaves, especially along the rivers, as preventing the establishment of villages, churches, and schools. To this day the ministers of religion deeply feel this in the distant abodes of their members. That slavery and its attendant-a supposed disgrace belonging to labour-has produced in many of the sons of Virginia gentlemen idle- ness and dissipation, who will deny ? On account of all the foregoing accompaniments of slavery, how long did our statesmen protest against the continuance of the slave- trade, making the "inhuman use of the royal veto" on an act prohibiting it one of the justifying causes of the Revolution ! And we all know that one of the first exer- cises of our independence was the entire abolition of it. But while thus satisfied, so far as Virginia is concerned, that slavery was attended by the above-mentioned evils, it is our privilege, as Christians, to view the whole subject in a higher and holier light and on a larger scale, and to be willing to suffer some loss for the sake of the greater good which Providence, through that loss, may bestow on a benighted portion of mankind. "The whole earth is the Lord's," and not ours. He who
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That an unfavourable turn had taken place in the affairs of the Church of Virginia, by reason of the massacre and other circum
drove out the Canaanites and gave their land to Israel for a possession has been pleased to drive out the Indians from Virginia and give it to white men and to the most amiable race of savages which I believe exists upon earth, and which is far more ready to receive the Gospel than the ferocious Indian. Though Virginia suf- fered some loss by the introduction of the Negro race, yet her advantages were, and still are, so great that she could and can afford to lose what God chooses to take in his own way. I trust that God will still be gracious to this race, and, when it shall overflow the first bounds which were set for it, will provide, in sufficient abun- dance, other and goodlier portions for her in our widely-extended territory. I trust that he will give wisdom and largeness of heart, even as the sea-shore, to our people and rulers in providing for this race, whether in bondage or in freedom. I am no politician to discuss the question of metes and boundaries in relation to their settlement. I do not plead for the extension of territory with any regard to the increase of wealth or political power to their owners; but I do trust that the Lord has a goodly and large heritage for them, in such parts of this continent as shall be most suitable, and that our Senators and delegates may ever deliberate on this sub- ject in a spirit of enlarged Christian philanthropy. If there was any plan by which their own character and condition could, by emancipation, be improved without greater injury to their owners than good to themselves, I am sure that God in his own time will reveal it unto us; but, all such attempts having hitherto failed, we should legislate for their good, as people in bondage and who may long continue so. Many of them will, I trust, go back, with something better than civil liberty, to the land of their fathers; but many must long remain in America,-probably to the end of time ; and cruel would be the policy which should seek to restrict them to limits too narrow for their comfort or that of their owners. Already the abundance of the South and West is attracting them, as it does their owners, and they leave many parts of Virginia with joy, in the hope of a milder climate, a richer soil, and am- pler provision for their bodily sustenance. While we admit and maintain that slavery has its evils, we must also affirm that some of the finest traits in the cha- racter of man are to be found in active exercise in connection with it. The very dependence of the slave upon his master is a continual and effective appeal to his justice and humanity, and the relation between them is generally a very different thing from what it is believed to be by many who have no opportunity of forming a correct estimate of the same. If the evil passions are sometimes called into exer- cise, the milder virtues are much more frequently drawn forth. If there be less of bodily labour, there is more of mental culture, among those who are not obliged to "hold the plough ;" and thus it is that among the upper classes there is far more of academical and collegiate education in Virginia than in any other State of the Union, and the whole South and West have felt and do feel the effect of it. Nor as to religion are we, as some have supposed, so destitute, though we might have abounded more under different circumstances. Irreligion, false doctrines, Unita- rianism, belong neither to slavery nor freedom. At a time when all Christendom was covered with slavery of every degree, the Unitarian heresy prevailed for a pe- riod in its greatest extension, and so did a swarm of other false doctrines. That the slave-holding States are now most happily free from this and other pestilential errors, and have much of true piety in them, must be acknowledged ; and it were to be wished that, for the sake of peace and union, criminations and recriminations would cease.
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stances, although the temporal condition of the Colony and the numbers of Colonists soon began greatly to increase, is evident from various acts of the Assembly, and from letters to and from England, which show the difficulty of procuring such ministers as those who first came into the Colony. Laws now seem to be re- quired to keep the ministers from cards, dice, drinking, and such like things ; and even to constrain them to preach and administer the communion as often as was proper,-yea, even to visit the sick and dying. It is true, the inducements as to earthly comforts, which might help to bring over respectable ministers, were very small. The Assembly, by various preambles and acts, declares that without better provision for them it was not to be expected that sufficient, learned, pious, and diligent ministers could be ob- tained, and admits that some of a contrary character did come over, while there were not enough of any kind to do the work required. From that time, until the close of the Colonial esta- blishment, Governors, Commissaries, and private individuals, in their communications with the Bishops of London and the Arch- bishops of Canterbury, all declare that such was the scanty and uncertain support of the clergy, the precarious tenure by which livings were held, that but few of the clergy could support families, and therefore respectable ladies would not marry them. Hence the immense number of unmarried, ever-shifting clergymen in the Colony.
With these general remarks, we proceed with the special history of James City parish. It was not until the year 1634 that it could fairly be considered a parish. The settlements were for some time called Plantations, Hundreds, Congregations, &c .; but in 1634, part of the State was divided into eight shires, as in England. They were James City, Henrico, Charles City, Elizabeth City, Warwick River, Warrosquijoake, Charles River, and Accawmac. Of these, all lay between York and James Rivers, and east of James City, except Henrico, Charles City, Accawmac, the latter being then all of what is now the Eastern Shore of Virginia. But in James City shire or county, a number of small parishes were at an early period established, for the convenience of the people, as Martin's Hundred, Chiskiake, Chippoax, Lane's Creek, and Har- rop parish, which in time were lost in James City parish, York Hampton, and Bruton parishes. The first minister of James City parish of whom we read, after Mr. Bucke, was the Rev. Thomas Hampton, in 1644, of whom we know nothing but the name, as no vestry-book or other document remains to tell who, if
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any, intervened between him and Mr. Bucke. Nor have we, for a long time after, any name of a minister of that parish; but an event occurred in the year 1675 or '76, by which the church and city, and probably all the church-records, were destroyed, which deserves to be mentioned .*
BACON'S REBELLION.
Jamestown having been the most prominent theatre of Bacon's rebellion, and the greatest sufferer thereby,-the place being de- stroyed by fire,-it becomes us to take some brief notice of it. Writers on the subject trace the beginnings of this movement to an enterprise against the Indians by Colonel Mason and Captain Brent, of Stafford county, in 1675, who, on some cruel murder committed by the former, collected troops and followed them over into Maryland, putting great numbers to death, bringing a young son of one of their kings or chiefs back a prisoner. t These wars with the Indians continuing to harass those who lived on the frontiers and in the interior, while the Governor and those living at or around Jamestown were quite secure, the former began to complain that they were not protected, and that they must fol- low the example of Mason and Brent, and take care of themselves. Among the dissatisfied was Bacon, a man of family, talents, cou- rage, and ambition. After applying in vain to Sir William Berke- ley for a commission to raise men for the purpose of assailing the Indians, he, urged by his own genius and the wishes of others, collected a considerable troop and spread terror around him, destroying a number of the hostile natives. The Governor pro- claimed him a rebel, but the people sent him back to the House of Burgesses, and the Governor thought it expedient even to admit him into the Council, where he had been before. But it did not end here. Bacon again raised a troop and sallied forth against the
* The Rev. William Gough was also its minister, and died in 1683-4. He was buried in the old graveyard, near the church, at Jamestown.
+ Of him a circumstance is related, showing that there was not only religion in those days, but superstition also. The boy lying for ten days in bed, as one dead, his eyes and mouth shut but his body warm, Captain Brent, who was a Papist, said that he was bewitched, and that he had heard baptism was a remedy for it, and proposed the trial. Colonel Mason answered that there was no minister in many miles. Captain Brent replied, "Your clerk, Mr. Dobson, may do that office;" which was accordingly done by the Church of England Liturgy. Colonel Mason and Captain Brent stood godfathers, and Mrs. Mason godmother. The end of the story is, that the child, being eight years old, soon recovered.
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Indians. Again the Governor pronounced him a rebel, and raised „an army to subdue him and his followers. But Bacon, with an inferior force, besieged Jamestown, drove out the Governor and his men, and, lest he should regain this stronghold, burnt city, church, and all to the ground. The Governor had twice to seek refuge on the Eastern Shore. Whether Bacon's rebellion was a lawful one or not, I leave civilians to decide. Sir William Berkeley certainly gained no credit to himself, either for his military talents, or his truth, or humanity, for, in spite of all his assurances to the con- trary, and the express orders of the King, he did, after the sudden decease of Bacon, put to death a number of his followers. For this, and other high-handed acts, his memory is not dear to the lovers of freedom.
Although a new and better church, whose tower still remains, was built at Jamestown, yet the city never recovered from this blow. The middle Plantation, or Williamsburg, was already be- ginning to rival it, and by the beginning of the next century the seat of government was removed to Williamsburg, where the Col- lege, State-House, and Governor's palace quite eclipsed any thing which had ever been seen at Jamestown. The Governor's house, at Green Spring, which Sir William Berkeley built, a few miles off, answered for a time in place of the State-House at Jamestown ; the Council and Burgh holding their meetings there.
Proceeding now with the succession of ministers in Jamestown, we have been unable to ascertain any other until the Rev. James Blair, the Commissary, who came to this country in 1685, and set- tled in Henrico, whence, after remaining until 1694, he removed to Jamestown, and remained until 1710, preaching there, and at a church eight miles off, in the adjacent parish, and then moved to Williamsburg. Who succeeded him, and who ministered there until the year 1722, I know not. In that year the Rev. William Le Neve took charge of it. He reports to the Bishop of London, in the year 1724, that the parish is twenty miles long, twelve wide, has seventy-eight families in it, and usually twenty or thirty com- municants. He also preached every third Sunday at Mulberry Island parish church, lower down the river, where he had double the number of communicants, and a larger congregation. The congregation at Jamestown must have been small. There never was but one church in it ; and that was not a large one. The seventy- eight families must have been the whole flock of James City parish at this time. The salary of James City parish was only £60.
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The minister received £30 for preaching at Mulberry Island, and £20 for lecturing in Williamsburg on Sunday afternoons. In the year 1758, we find the Rev. Mr. Berkeley the minister. In the year 1772, the Rev. John Hyde Saunders was ordained for this parish by the Bishop of London. In the year 1785, the Rev. James Madison, afterward Bishop of Virginia, became its minister, and continued so until his death in 1812, long before which the congregation had dwindled into almost nothing,-the church on the Island having sunk into ruins, and the little remnant of. Episcopa- lians meeting at a brick church a few miles from the island, on the road from it to Williamsburg. That has also entirely disappeared. A young friend of mine, who was in Williamsburg about the year 1810, informed me that, being desirous of hearing the oratory of Bishop Madison, he had once or twice gone out on a Sabbath morning to this church, but that the required number for a sermon was not there, though it was a very small one, and so he was dis- appointed. It might be expected that I should in this place say something about Bishop Madison, in addition to what may be found in my first article of Reminiscences of Virginia; but, though I have endeavoured to procure some of his papers for this purpose, I have thus far been disappointed. I can only say that in the year 1775 he was ordained deacon and priest by the Bishop of London. In the year 1774 he became Professor in the College of William and Mary, in the year 1777, President of the College, and in the year 1790 was consecrated Bishop of Virginia. His addresses to the Convention breathe a spirit of zealous piety, and his recommendations are sensible and practical. Although agree- ing in political principles with those who were foremost in the State for the sale of Church property and the withholding from her and other Societies any corporate privileges, he steadily and perseveringly, though ineffectually, resisted their efforts. I again repeat my conviction that the reports as to his abandonment of the Christian faith in his latter years are groundless; although it is to be feared that the failure of the Church in his hands, and which at that time might have failed in any hands, his secular and philosophical pursuits, had much abated the spirit with which he entered upon the ministry.
The old church at Jamestown is no longer to be seen, except the base of its ruined tower. A few tombstones, with the names of the Amblers and Jaquelines, the chief owners of the island for a long time, and the Lees, of Green Spring, (the residence and pro- perty, at one time, of Sir William Berkeley,) a few miles from
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Jamestown, still mark the spot where so many were interred during the earlier years of the Colony. Some of the sacred ves- sels are yet to be seen, either in private hands or public temples of religion. The first I would mention are a large silver chalice and paten, with the inscription on each,-
"Ex Dono Jacobi Morrison Armigeri, A.D. 1661."
Also a silver alms-basin, with the inscription, "For the use of James City Parish Church." When the church at Jamestown had fallen into ruin and the parish ceased to exist, probably at the death of Bishop Madison, these vessels were taken under the charge of the vestry in Williamsburg. During the presidency of Dr. Wilmer over the College, and his pastorship of the church in Williamsburg, in the year 1827, they were placed in the hands of the Rev. John Grammer, to be used in the church or churches under his care, on condition of their being restored to the parish of James City, should it ever be revived. In the year 1854, Mr. Grammer thought it best to surrender it into the hands of the Episcopal Convention, with the request that it be deposited for safe-keeping in the Library of the Theological Seminary of Vir- ginia, where it now is. The second is a silver plate, being part of a communion-service presented to the church at Jamestown, by Edmund Andros, in the year 1694, he being then Governor. The history of this is singular. In one of our Southern towns, about twelve years since, a gentleman, wishing something from a jeweller's shop, was directed by the owners of it to look into a drawer for the thing wanted, in which drawer was kept old silver purchased for the purpose of being worked up again. This piece of plate was noticed, being much bent and battered. It was pur- chased, and, being restored to its original shape, was discovered to be what we have stated; this appearing from the Latin inscription upon it. This also has been presented to the Church of Virginia. The third and last of the pieces of church furniture-which is now in use in one of our congregations-is a silver vase, a font for baptism, which was presented to the Jamestown Church, in 1733, by Martha Jaqueline, widow of Edward Jaqueline, and their son Edward. In the year 1785, when the act of Assembly ordered the sale of Church property, it reserved that which was possessed by right of private donation. Under this clause, it was given into the hands of the late Mr. John Ambler, his grandson. The following lines in relation to it are from the pen of Mr. Edward Jaqueline's grand-daughter, the late Mrs. Edward Carrington, of
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Richmond. They have been furnished by one of her descendants, and I take pleasure in placing them on record :-
" Dear sacred vase! do I indeed behold This holy relic of my church and sire, Not basely barter'd, or profanely sold, But pure and perfect, still preserved entire ?
"No sordid act could change thy sacred use, No impious tongue condemn a gift so rare, While plate and chalice felt the dire abuse, That echoes loud in heaven's offended ear.
"But thou, most precious vase, remain'st the same, Still waiting to perform the donor's will; And, when to men thou giv'st the Christian's name, Come thou, O God, and grace divine instil !"
I have also been permitted to make use of the papers of this excellent lady in presenting some sketches of the members of her family who were in connection with the old church at James- town. Nor can I do this without first making a brief reference to herself. Mrs. Carrington was a sincere and pious member of our Church in Richmond, from the beginning of its resuscitation in 1812,-how much longer I know not. Being infirm, from the time of our first Conventions, she was unable to attend public worship, but was not ashamed to convert her house into a place of prayer and exhortation, inviting her neighbours and friends to assemble there. Some pleasant and edifying meetings have I been privileged to attend and participate in, under her roof, during the last years of her pilgrimage on earth. The paper from which I extract the following was drawn up in the year 1785, on a visit to one of the Amblers, at a residence called the " Cottage," in Hanover county, Virginia, and where were the portraits of the older members of the family :-
" The first was Edward Jaqueline, who was descended in a right line from one of those unfortunate banished Huguenots whose zeal in the good Protestant cause has made their history so remarkable. He was of French extraction, and, from his buckram suit and antique periwig, (alluding to his portrait on the wall,) must have arrived in this country in its early settlement. The costume of the young ladies and gentlemen bespoke more modern fashion; amongst whom (and she was the youngest) stood my highly-respected aunt Martha, who, I well remember, told me she was born in the year 1711. She died at the age of ninety-three. From her I learned that the old gentleman, Edward Jaqueline, her father, settled in Jamestown, on his first arrival in this country, where his tomb- stone still remains ; that he married in the Carey family, in Warrick county; that he had three sons and three daughters; that the daughters
7
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only survived him; that the eldest of these, Elizabeth, married our grandfather, Richard Ambler, a respectable merchant in Yorktown; that the second, Mary, married John Smith, of Westmoreland, from whom have descended our kinsfolks John and Edward Smith, of Frederick county. The third was our dear aunt, Martha Jaqueline, who choose to take upon herself the title of Mrs. at the age of fifty, this being the cus- tom with spinsters in England at that day. Richard Ambler was an honest Yorkshireman, who settled, as we have said, as a merchant in Yorktown, and married Elizabeth Jaqueline, and thus inherited the ancient seat in Jamestown, which was thus transmitted through several generations, being enlarged in size until the whole island came into the possession of the late John Ambler, of Richmond. Mr. Richard Ambler had a number of children, only four of whom reached maturity,-Edward, John, Mary, and Jaqueline, the latter of whom, after being educated in Phila- delphia, entered into business with his father in Yorktown, and mar- ried Rebecca Burwell, daughter of Lewis Burwell, and niece of Pre- sident Nelson, who, having no daughter, took charge of her, she being left an orphan at ten years of age. Jaqueline Ambler and Rebecca his wife were the parents of Eliza, who married Mr. William Brent, of Stafford, and, at his death, Colonel Edward Carrington, of Cumberland .*
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