USA > Virginia > Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 22
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* Governor Spottswood had his country-house near York, early in the last century, at Temple Farm, and, as will be seen, a Major Gooch, of York-Hampton parish, was buried at that place in 1665. It had probably been an old establish- ment, which the Governor selected for its beauty, and where he built a new and larger house, and where he was buried.
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the year 1771 or 1772, he still continued to be the minister of the parish until he left the College in 1777: how much longer I know not. Mr. Camm was succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Shield, who was the minister to some now living .* He was, it is believed, an intelligent and pious man. Some thought him rather too much of a Methodist. I have it from relatives of one of the party, that a lady of the old school, at a time when stiff brocades were the church dress of those who could afford it, would come home, after some of Mr. Shield's more animated discourses, and call upon her maid to take off her clothes, for she had heard so much of hell, damnation, and death, that it would take her all the evening to get cool. I have one of his sermons, which does credit to his head and heart, without being at all violent or extravagant. Mr. Shield had a correspondent in London,-a merchant, of good sense and apparent piety, to whom he shipped his tobacco,-a number of whose letters have been furnished me. In one of them there is allusion to the fact of Mr. Shield's retiring from the ministry, and engaging in political life by entering the Vir- ginia Assembly. Mr. Shield replies at length, and solemnly de- clares that preaching the gospel was the occupation of all others in which he delighted, but that loss of his voice had incapacitated him from either reading the service or preaching, and that he acted under the advice of Bishop Madison in discontinuing all efforts. The disease seems to have been what is now well known as bronchitis, though he is at a loss even to describe it, so rare was the complaint at that time. His correspondent-Mr. Graham Frank, a gentleman well known to the merchants of York-men- tions having seen Bishop Madison when he came to London for consecration, and that he was much pleased with the spirit and plans with which he was about to engage in his work. Mr. Frank had seen him some years before, on a visit to Virginia, and was not pleased with him on account of his political principles. As Mr. Frank was a man of zeal for the great doctrines of the Church, there can be no doubt but that the Bishop was in a good frame of mind, as may be seen in his address on entering upon the duties of the Episcopate soon after. Mr. Shield, in his letter to his friend, mentions that he had continued to perform his duties with great pain, and in part only, until he could get his place
* Mr. Shield was a friend of General Nelson, who recommended him to Bishop Porteus for orders, in 1774, and wrote to the merchant to advance him £50.
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supplied, which was now about to be done by the ordination of a son of a former rector of the parish and President of the College. If the son did enter upon this charge, I do not think he continued it long, but removed to a parish in York county, called Charles parish, and which had formerly been served by the Rev. Thomas Warrington, grandfather of Commodore Warrington, and by a Mr. Joseph Davenport afterward. York had not recovered from the ruins of the siege, and was now no longer the desirable parish it had been. The old families were deserting it, and the inhabit- ants around connecting themselves with other denominations. Nevertheless, we hear of three ministers occupying it,-a Rev. Mr. Scott, Mr. Henderson, and Brockenbrough, neither of whom were calculated to arrest its downfall. At length, in the year 1815, the old church was burned down. The material of the church was remarkable. The walls were made of blocks of marl, taken out of the bank of the river on which it stood, and which hardened by exposure. It was cemented yet the more by the fire, which caused it to melt somewhat and thus form one solid wall, which continued to stand until the roof and other parts were renewed a few years since, of which we shall speak more particularly here- after.
We sometimes turn aside from the succession and character of ministers and churches, to cast a glance over the scenery, or to call up recollections of departed friends. We have recently done this in the case of Jamestown and some of its inhabitants, the Jaquelines and Amblers. Surely, if there be any spot in Vir- ginia where we may be allowed to pause and look around us, re- membering the past and dwelling with tender emotions on the present, that spot is old York. To use the language of one who has furnished materials for much of what follows :-
" The river is full a mile wide at York, which is eleven miles from its mouth, and is seen stretching itself away until it merges itself into the Chesapeake Bay. The sun rises immediately over the mouth of the river, and the water is tinged with the rainbow-hues of heaven. We have watched with much interest the decline of day from the New York Battery, but we doubt if New York Harbour-compared, as it is, with the Bay of Naples-ever presented to the eye a more enchanting spec- tacle than York River in its morning glory. Beautiful for situation is Old York, stretching east and west on as noble a sheet of water as rolls beneath the sun. But painful is the contrast of what it now is with what it once was. It is only when we turn to the river, 'the work of an Almighty hand,' that the force of that Scripture is felt,-' I change not.'
R. CRUMP 4sb, 5 .. "
.
BACK VIEW OF GEN. NELSON'S HOUSE, YORK.
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"' Here's nothing left of ancient pride, Of what was grand, of what was gay; But all is changed, is lost, is sold : All, all that's left is chilling cold.' "
A few venerable relics of the past are all that may now be seen. The old York House is the most memorable. The corner- stone of it was laid by old President Nelson, when an infant, as it was designed for him. He was held by his nurse, and the brick laid in his apron and passed through his little hands. The bricks were all from England,-the corners of hewn stone. It was long the abode of love, friendship, and hospitality.
" Farewell: a prouder mansion I may see, But much must meet in that which equals thee."
As one said of modern Italy, "Our memory sees more than our eyes in this place." What Paulding says of Virginia may em- phatically be said of York,-
" All hail, thou birthplace of the glowing West! Thou seem'st the towering eagle's ruin'd nest."
Let us, by the aid of well-attested tradition and history, speak a few words concerning it and some of its old inhabitants. It was established as a town and laid out in the year 1705. The founder of it was a Mr. Thomas Nelson, the first of the name in Virginia. He came from Penriff, near the border of Scotland, and was called Scotch Tom on that account. He set up a mercantile establish- ment in this place, as the first of the Amblers did soon after. He married a Miss Reid of the neighbouring country, and had two sons and one daughter. At her death he married a widow Tucker, whose husband was from Barbadoes, where, and in Bermuda, that name abounded. His two sons settled in York. His daughter married Colonel Berkeley, of Middlesex. His eldest son, Thomas, is the same who was called Secretary Nelson, because a long time Secretary of the Council. He had three sons in the American Revolution, whose descendants are all over Virginia. The other son of old Thomas Nelson was named William, and has always been called President Nelson, because so often President of the Council, and at one time President of the Colony. He married a Miss Burwell, grand-daughter of Mr. Robin Carter, called King Carter. He had many daughters, but none lived beyond the twelfth year. He had many sons also, the eldest of whom was General Thomas Nelson of the Revolution. One of his sons was burned to death, and another became an idiot by a fall from an
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upper story. These afflictions contributed to make Mrs. Nelson a "woman of a sorrowful spirit." She had been also educated religiously by her aunt, Mrs. Page, of Rosewell. She was a truly pious and conscientious woman. Her private and public exercises of religion, her well-known frequent prayers for her children and pious instruction of them, and exemplary conduct in all things, established this beyond all contradiction .* Mrs. Nelson was not alone in her personal piety, nor in her wishes and endeavours for the religious welfare of her children. President Nelson performed his part most faithfully. His eldest son, afterward General Nelson, was placed under the care of the Rev. Mr. Yates, of Gloucester, afterward President of William and Mary College, in order to prepare him for an English University. At the age of fourteen-sooner than was intended-he was sent thither. The circumstance which hastened his going was the following. On one Sunday afternoon, as his father was walking on the outskirts of the village of York, (for it was then but a village, and never much more,) he found him at play with some of the little negroes of the place. Feeling the evil of such associations, and the difficulty of preventing them, he determined to send him at once to England, and, a vessel being ready to sail, he was despatched the next day to the care of his friends,-Mr. Hunt, of London, and Beilby Porteus, then Fellow of Cambridge University. He went for some
* The two following hymns have come down in the family as her morning exer- cises :-
HYMN I.
"Preserved by thee another day, Another song I'll raise ; Accept, I pray, for Jesus sake, My gratitude and praise.
" Then take me underneath thy wing, My God, my guardian be ; That in the morning I may sing Another song to thee."
HYMN IL
" Thanks to my Saviour for a bed On which to lay my drowsy head ; Oh, may my weary spirit rest As sweetly on my Saviour's breast.
" Jesus, the sinner's precious friend, On Thee alone will I depend : Thou art my refuge, and to Thee My spirit shall in safety flee."
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B
time to a preparatory school of Dr. Newcome, at Hackney, and then to the especial care and tutorship of Dr. Porteus. The letters of Mr. Nelson to Mr. Hunt and Dr. Porteus, copies of which I have, and the answers to which are acknowledged, evince deep anxiety for the improvement of his son in all things, but especially in morals and religion. He is evidently uneasy about the spirited character of his son, fearing lest it might lead him astray, and begs his friends to inform him if his son shows a disposition to idleness and pleasure. In order to avoid the temptations incident to young men during the vacation, especially such as are far away from friends, he requests Dr. Porteus to place him, during those seasons, with some eminent scientific agriculturist, and thus pre- pare him for dealing with the soils of America. After seven years, he returns home, being delayed several months beyond the time he intended, by a circumstance which showed the religious character of his father. In a letter to his friend Mr. Hunt, he alludes to the fact that two young Virginians, whose habits he feared were not good, were coming over in the ship in which he expected his son, and he must request that he be not sent with them ; that he would rather his coming be postponed six months than have them as his com- panions, though they were sons of some of the first families of Virginia, and of those who were on terms of intimacy with his. His return was accordingly delayed for some months. On his ar- rival, Mr. Nelson writes to his friends in England that he is much pleased with the general improvement of his son, but regrets to find that he has fallen into that bad practice, which most of the young Virginians going to England adopt, of smoking tobacco,-adding, emphatically, "filthy tobacco;" also that "of eating and drinking, though not to inebriety, more than was conducive to health and long life." Still, he was rejoiced to see him, such as he was, with good principles. In proof of the respect in which President Nel- son was held, and the hopes entertained of his son, we state that, though having been absent seven years, and being just twenty-one years of age, he was elected to the House of Burgesses while on his voyage home. If it be said that even immoral and irreligious parents sometimes wish to see their sons moral and religious, we further add, that President Nelson gave most varied proof of great uprightness of character. One such is furnished in a letter to some relatives in the North of England. He had redeemed an estate in that region by paying off its debts, by which it became his own. It proved to be much more valuable than was expected, and, discovering that some other relative had a better right to re-
.
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deem it, voluntarily offered to surrender the estate or all the profits. His commercial character was of the highest order. He imported goods for merchants of Philadelphia and Baltimore, which places were then in an incipient stage. By this means he acquired a large fortune, leaving landed estates and servants to each of his five sons,-Thomas, Hugh, William, Nat, and Robert,-and all of his other property, amounting, according to the statement of the elder St. George Tucker, to forty thousand pounds, to his oldest son, General Nelson, who had been engaged in business with him .* His interest in the affairs of religion and the Church was mani- fested by his taking the lead in the parish. The parish, though narrow, was long, and many, especially of the poor, must come some distance to church. On Church-Sundays he always had a large dinner prepared, to which rich and poor were indiscriminately invited. After having been President of the Council for a long term of years, on the decease of Lord Botetourt there was an interregnum, during which he, as President of the Council, was Acting Governor of the State, the civil and ecclesiastical repre- sentative of the King. By two letters to Lord Hillsborough now before me, in the years 1770 and 1771, he displays his determina- tion to do his duty in relation to unworthy clergymen, of whom there were some needing discipline, and asks full and undoubted authority for so doing, as such authority required to be renewed from the throne. I conclude what yet remains to be said of Pre- sident William Nelson by a few extracts from a printed sermon on his death, by Mr. Camm, the minister of York and President of William and Mary College. He ascribes to him "a rational and firm piety, an active and constant affection for the well-being and best interests of mankind;" speaks of him as "constant in his attendance at the ordinary service of God and the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and exhibiting unaffected and fervent devo- tion." He was-
" The kind and indulgent father, without suffering the excess of fond- ness to take off his eye from the true and best interests of his children; the tender husband, the affectionate brother, the useful and entertaining
* Judge Tucker, on reaching this country from Bermuda or the West Indies, landed at Yorktown, and being invited to General Nelson's house, where he spent some days, a warm friendship commenced between them, which continued during the life of General Nelson, and was, at his death, transferred to the surviving family by Judge Tucker. The latter wrote a brief biography of General Nelson, of which I have a manuscript copy. Whether it was ever published or not, I am not able to say.
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friend, the kind and generous master. His hospitality was extensive and liberal, yet judicious, and not set free from the restraints of reason and religion. It was not a blind propensity to profuseness, or a passion-for a name, by which he corrupted the morals of his friends and neighbours. He was no encourager of intemperance or riot, or any practice tending to injure the health, the reputation, the fortunes, or the religious attainments of his company. His charities were many, and dispensed with choice and discretion, and so as to be most serviceable to the receivers and the least oppressive to their modesty. As one of the first and most respect- able merchants in this dominion, he had great opportunity of being ac- quainted with the circumstances of many people whose cases otherwise would have escaped his knowledge. This knowledge was often turned to their advantage whose affairs fell under his consideration. I think I shall have the concurring voice of the public with me, when I say that his own gain by trade was not more sweet to him than the help which he hereby received toward becoming a general benefactor. He was an instance of what abundance of good may be done by a prudent and conscientious man without impoverishing himself or his connections,-nay, while his fortunes are improving. An estate raised with an unblemished reputa- tion, and diffused from humane and devout motives in the service of mul- titudes as well as the owner's, it may reasonably be expected will wear well, and have the blessing of Providence to attend and protect it from generation to generation."
This last remark has certainly been in a good degree fulfilled in the descendants of President Nelson. Though they have not been rich in this world's goods, yet they have not suffered through want. Many of them have held respectable offices in the State and General Government. Almost all of them have been enabled to obtain a good education,-the best fortune in a country like ours,-so as to associate with the most respectable portion of the community. Many of them have obtained the highest of all honours,-the honour which cometh from God only. It is true that the first son, to whom the birthright of those days-the amplest fortune-was given, spent it in his country's service, leaving his widow and children in comparative poverty. But he spent it nobly, as his father would have done had he lived to see the mighty struggle for our liberties. Although that father was the first in the Govern- ment only a few years before, and was the right hand of George III. in this Colony, addressed in his commission as "My well- beloved and worshipful, greeting," yet at that very time the letters to his merchants and friends in London show that he had the soul of a patriot as well as a Christian within him,-that he was indig- nant at the imposition of the British Parliament,-and leave none to doubt where he would have been found when the trumpet sounded to arms. The thousands which General Nelson cast upon the waters were not lost, but soon sprung up in a plentiful harvest
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of rich blessings to his country, on which let his latest posterity reflect with delight, and enjoy as a richer inheritance than thou- sands of silver and gold .*
This leads me to add a few words concerning that patriot him- self, confining my remarks as nearly as possible to the special character of the work I have in hand. I mean the moral and religious character of the persons treated of. Whether General Nelson was ever in full communion with the Church, I am not able to say.f That he was a believer in the Gospel in that age of blas- phemy with so many, and that he was the friend of religion, cannot be doubted. In writing to his own and his father's friend in Lon- don, Mr. Samuel Martin, the 27th of January, 1773, he says :-
" It falls to my lot to acquaint you with the death of my father, who departed this life the 19th of last November. His life was exemplary, being blessed with both public and private virtues. His death was such as became a true Christian, hoping through the mediation of our blessed Saviour to meet with the reward promised to the righteous. But I must stop here, lest prejudice should lead me too far."
His friendship to God's ministers may be seen, about that time, by the introduction of Mr. Samuel Shield to his friend in London, with a request that he would pay him £50 on his account. Hitherto there was a king's bounty of £50 to all who came over for Orders. But this was in the year 1774, and probably Mr. Nelson appre- hended some difficulty, for, only two years after, Orders were refused, such was the state of things between the Colony and Great Britain. We have seen that in the year 1775 the College
* Although it does not come strictly under the character of this work, I cannot help referring to a circumstance which occurred just at the opening of the war, which shows that the citizens of little York were a valiant race. On a certain occasion, a Captain Montague drew up a ship-of-war before it, and threatened that, in a certain event, he would fire upon the town. Though full of helpless women and children, the committee of the place, on meeting to receive his message, " Re- solved, unanimously, that Mr. Montague had manifested a spirit of cruelty unpre- cedented in the annals of civilized times, and that it be recommended to the inha- bitants of the town and of the country in general, that they do not entertain, or show any other mark of civility to Captain Montague, besides what common de- cency and absolute necessity requires."
+ I have since heard that General Nelson was certainly a communicant of the Church,-at any rate, during the latter part of his life.
į In a letter to one of his friends a year or two afterward, he says, "What think you of the Right Reverend Fathers in God, the Bishops ? One of them refused to ordain a young gentleman who went from America, because he was a rebellious American ; so that, unless we will submit to Parliamentary oppression, we shall not have the Gospel of Christ preached to us."
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voted £50 to Mr. Madison when he went over for Orders. In the following year I see an instance of liberality in General Nelson's provision for a number of families in York, who had been driven from their homes by Lord Dunmore's troops. Again I see his high and honourable character, in imitation of that integrity which his father displayed in all his dealings, when it was proposed in the House of Burgesses to adopt some method of discharging British debts which he considered improper. He indignantly opposed it, de- claring, some say, with an oath; others, far more probably, "So help me God, others may do as they please, but I will pay all my debts like an honest man.". I might add numerous testimonies to his unbounded liberality toward his comrades in the war when far from home. It becomes not me to speak of the hundreds of thousands procured on his own credit for the use of the State, when not a dollar could be gotten on its own, nor how the account stood be- tween them at the close of that war. He certainly entered upon it very rich, and came out of it so poor that when a few years had passed away, and he was laid in the old graveyard at York, without a headstone or slab to mark the spot, his property, save the old house in deserted York and some poor broom-straw fields in Hano- ver, was put up at public sale to pay the debts contracted in his country's cause .* Even the old family Bible, with the births and baptisms of the family, with the little table on which it stood, was (though, I doubt not, by mistake) sold on that occasion. Within the last year, in one of my visitations among the mountains, I heard of this Bible. So was it valued by the family now having it, whose baptisms and births had also there been registered, that they could not be induced to relinquish it to one of the descendants of its original owner.
The following account of General Nelson's family at Offley, a small wooden house in Hanover county, Virginia, by the French traveller, Chattellux, soon after the war, will not be uninteresting to the reader :-
* Chancellor Nelson, the General's youngest son, used to amuse himself with his relatives in Hanover, by telling them that their favourite hymn seemed to be that one in which were the two lines,-
" Send comfort down from thy right hand, To cheer us in this barren land."
But still, as some one said of the people of Iceland, that "poverty was the bul- wark of their happiness," so it is, and has been, with many of the descendants of General Nelson, in one respect : they have not been tempted by riches to " be full and deny God."
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"In the absence of the General, (who had gone to Williamsburg,) his mother and wife received us with all the politeness, ease, and cordiality natural to his family. But, as in America the ladies are never thought sufficient to do the honours of the house, five or six Nelsons were assem- bled to receive us,-among others, Secretary Nelson, uncle to the General, his two sons, and two of the General's brothers. These young men were married, and several of them were accompanied with their wives and chil- dren, all called Nelsons, and distinguished only by their Christian names ; so that, during the two days which I spent in this truly patriarchal house, it was impossible for me to find out their degrees of relationship. The company assembled either in the parlour or saloon, especially the men, from the hour of breakfast to that of bedtime; but the conversation was always agreeable and well supported. If you were desirous of diversifying the scene, there were some good French and English authors at hand. An excellent breakfast at nine o'clock, a sumptuous dinner at two, tea and punch in the afternoon, and an elegant little supper, divided the day most happily for those whose stomachs were never unprepared. It is worth observing, that on this occasion, where fifteen or twenty people (four of whom were strangers to the family and country) were assembled together, and by bad weather forced to stay within doors, not a syllable was said about play. How many parties of tric-trac, whist, and lotto would with us have been the consequence of such obstinate bad weather !"
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