USA > Virginia > Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 28
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foregoing list deserves a mention. Besides being always most liberal to the minister and to all the wants of the church, and most punctual at the meetings of the vestry and at church, for a long series of years, toward the close of his life Mr. John Eyre gave the sum of three thousand dollars for the erection of that model parsonage which may be seen a mile from Eastville, and from which the great Atlantic may be surveyed. To Dr. W. G. Smith, the faithful lay-reader and vestryman of so many years, and the active friend of the church in so many ways, the church
from the place of his first settlement, the fort at Casco, in 1690, only a few hours before it was sacked and its inhabitants generally massacred by the Indians, and removed to Boston. Dying shortly after, he left his family to the care of his eldest son James, then seventeen years of age, who, besides providing for it, amassed the largest fortune then possessed by any one person in Massachusetts. He left two sons ; the youngest, James Bowdoin, (the name being now changed from Boudouin, ) was the friend and compatriot of Washington and Franklin, delighting in the same philosophical pursuits with the latter, and agreeing and acting with both in the great political movements of the day. He was a man of high moral and religious character, which, together with his patriotism and statesmanship, made him for a long time the first man in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. But for his own and Mrs. Bowdoin's ill-health, he would have been in that Congress which signed the Declaration of Independence.
A daughter of Mr. Bowdoin married a Mr. Temple, who, though born in Boston, was of an old English family and inherited a title. Into this family of Temples, a Mr. Robert Nelson, of England, married, previous to their emigration to America. Hence the names and families of Temples and Nelsons in Massachusetts. It may be that those in Virginia and Massachusetts are derived from the same English stock. The ancestor of the Bowdoins-Pierre Boudouin-was godfather to Peter Faneuil, the donor of Faneuil Hall, Boston. His great-grandson, James Bowdoin, son of the Revolutionary patriot, was also a distinguished man, not only holding a seat in both branches of the Legislature, but being sent as minister to the Courts of France and Spain. He died without children, and was the founder of Bowdoin College, Massachusetts. One of the grandsons of Pierre Boudouin-John-removed to the Eastern Shore of Virginia, at the beginning of the last century. It is said that his relative, the founder of Bowdoin College, offered to adopt his son Peter if he would change his name, but that the offer was declined. His grandson, Peter Bowdoin, has succeeded to his father's and grandfather's place as vestryman in Northampton. One sister married Professor George Tucker, of the University of Virginia; another, Dr. Smith, of Eastville, Northampton. Two brothers are living in Baltimore. All of the Bowdoins-now pronounced Bodens-of Virginia are of this family, and, so far as I know and believe, have belonged to the Epis- copal Church. Their first ancestor, Pierre Boudouin, it is presumed, was of that Church, as he was godfather to Mr. Faneuil's child. The Winthrops and Lloyds of Boston were also connected with the Temples and Bowdoins.
[Since the above was written and published in its first form, a letter from a friend says that I am mistaken in supposing that the John Boudouin who came to Virginia was the grandson of Pierre Boudouin, of Boston, and is confident that he was his son. Not having in possession Mr. Winthrop's pamphlet, I cannot re-examine it. That document will correct my error if I have made one. ]
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is indebted, not only for the judicious planning of it, but for one year's devotion of almost all his time and attention to the erection of it, and of all the surrounding improvements.
The Episcopal congregation of Northampton is now, and has been for a long time, a deeply-interesting one. Its peace and happiness, however, has been much marred for many years by a painful and protracted controversy with the overseers of the poor concerning the glebe. More than two hundred years ago the worthy and pious Charlton, in view of his approaching dissolution, and in the event of one of his two daughters dying childless, left a portion of that earth, which is all the Lord's, for the perpetual support of the Church of his fathers, and of that religion which had been his happiness in life, and was now to be his consolation in death.
He did this in the exercise of a right recognised by God himself in the law of his word, and secured to men by the laws of every government on earth,-the right of disposing of our property by will. It pleased that God, who put it into the heart of his servant thus to will a portion of his property, to cause that contingency to happen on which the bequest to the Church depended. He with- held the blessing of children from the daughter, and so ordained that the church of Northampton should be her heir. At her death that church took quiet possession of it, and long enjoyed it. The Legislature of Virginia, both under the Colonial Government and since our independence, has by several acts ratified her claim. But, after a long period of acquiescence in the church's right, the over- seers of the poor, under that act of the Legislature which had never before been suspected of embracing this case, determined to claim it, and actually did sell it, conditionally, at public auction .* The question was brought before the Legislature, and a sanction for the sale sought for ; but it was dismissed as unreasonable. The question was taken before a court of law, and twice decided in behalf of the church. An appeal, however, has been taken from the last decision to a higher court, and when the vexatious suit will be decided, no one can tell. Years have already been passed in painful controversy. Great have been the expenses to the church, and much the loss in various ways which has been sus- tained. The peace of the county has been much impaired by
* Soon after the passage of the Act the servants belonging to the farm and the other glebe in the county, which properly came under the Act, were disposed of by the proper authorities; but this was not touched.
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it. Political questions, and election to civil offices, have been mixed up with it, and Christians of different denominations estranged from and embittered toward each other. Surely, when our Legislators reserved all private donations from the operation of the law which ordered the sale of glebes, if this case could have been presented to them, and they been asked whether it could come under the sentence of it, the bitterest enemies of the Episcopal Church, and the most unbelieving foes of our religion, would have shrunk with horror from the mere suggestion. May God overrule it all for good !
A friend on the Eastern Shore, whose delight is in searching its ancient records, has sent me a full account of the Custis family, which so abounds in that part of the State. Its name and blood are intermingled with those of most of the families of Northamp- ton and Accomac, whether rich or poor. I give a brief statement of it. The name of John Custis first appears on the record in 1640. It is probable that he was the person of whom Colonel Norwood speaks, in his account of his voyage to America and shipwreck on the Eastern Shore in 1649, as having been a hotel- keeper in Rotterdam and a great favourite with English travellers. He had six sons and one daughter. The daughter married Colonel Argal Yeardley, son of Governor Yeardley, of Virginia. His sons were John, William, Joseph, who were in Virginia, Thomas, who was in Baltimore, (Ireland,) Robert, who resided in Rotterdam, and Edmund, who lived in London. The family is of Irish descent. John appears to have taken the lead. He was an active, enter- prising man, engaged in making salt on one of the islands ; fore- most in all civil and ecclesiastical matters ; was, in 1676, during Bacon's Rebellion, appointed Major-General ; a true royalist; a law-and-order man ; a favourite of Lord Arlington in the time of Charles II., after whom he called his estate Arlington, on the Eastern Shore, which he received by his first wife. His second wife was daughter of Colonel Edmund Scarborough. He died at an advanced age, after having been full of labours through life. He had only one son, whom he named John. This John Custis had numerous children, whose descendants, together with those of his uncle, William Custis, have filled the Eastern Shore with the name. His son John, being the fourth of that name, after being educated in England, received from his grandfather the Arlington estate. He was the John Custis who moved to Williamsburg and married the daughter of Colonel Daniel Parke, and was the father of him whose widow married General Washington. His tomb is
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at the Arlington House, in Northampton, and its inscription one of the curiosities of the Eastern Shore. It is plainly to be in- ferred from it that he was not very happy in his matrimonial rela- tions ; for it says that he only lived seven years,-those seven which he spent as a bachelor at Arlington. His wife, it is to be feared, was too much like her brother, and unlike her father, both of whom were spoken of in one of our articles on Williamsburg.
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ARTICLE XXI.
Parishes in Accomac.
AT the first, as we have seen in the article on Northampton, the whole of the Eastern Shore of Virginia was called Accowmake; then changed to Northampton; then divided into Northampton and Accomac. Soon after this, in the year 1762, the county of Accomac was divided into two parishes, by a line running from the bay to the sea, the upper being called Accomac parish, and the other St. George's. The dividing-line runs about three miles north of Drummondtown.
From a record in the Clerk's Office in Northampton there is reason to believe that the church at Pongoteague was built before the division of the Eastern Shore into two counties, and was the first erected in Accomac. The next was that which stood a few miles from Drummondtown, and was, until the year 1819, called the New Church. At that time the name of St. James's was given to it. It was subsequently removed to Drummondtown, and now forms the church in that place. In the year 1724, there were three churches in the upper parish, (Aecomac,) about ten miles distant from each other. The first minister of whom we read in this parish was the Rev. William Black, who, in the year 1709-10, wrote to the Bishop of London that he had taken charge of it,- that there had been no minister there before for fifteen years. In the year 1724 he is still the minister; and, in answer to certain questions by the Bishop of London, writes, that he preaches at these churches, has two hundred communicants, four or five hun- dred families under his charge, instructs the negroes at their mas- ters' houses, has baptized two hundred of them, catechizes the children on Sunday from March to September, has no Communion- service or any thing decent in his church, receives a salary of forty pounds per annum, (that being the value of his tobacco,) rents his glebe for twenty shillings per annum, has a school in his parish, endowed by one Mr. Sanford, of London, and which is still in existence .*
* The attention paid to the servants by Mr. Black is deserving of special notice, as showing the feeling of the pious ministers on the subject at that day. It was
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How long the pious labours of Mr. Black continued after the year 1724 is not known. In the year 1755, we find, from an old list of the clergy of Virginia, that the Rev. Arthur Emmerson, afterward well known in other parishes, was the minister. In the year 1774, the Rev. William Vere is set down in the Virginia Al- manac as the minister of Accomac parish. He was doubtless the last minister of this parish. In the year 1785, when the first Con- vention after the Revolution met in Richmond, there was no clerical delegate from either of the parishes of Accomac. Mr. Jabez Pittis was the lay delegate from Accomac parish, and Mr. Levin Joynes and Tully Wise from St. George's.
I conclude this brief notice of the old and decayed parish of Accomac, in Accomac county, with the following paper, furnished by my friend, T. R. Joynes, Sr., of that county, touching the school. The document consists of an extract from the will of Mr. Sandford, with some remarks by Mr. Joynes :-
"In the will of Samuel Sandford-' sometime of Accomack county, Vir- ginia, and now being in the city of London, dated the 27th day of March, 1710, in the ninth year of the reign of our sovereign Lady Queen Anne, over England, alias Great Britain'-there is a very long preamble in the usual pious style of that age; and, after a number of other devises, he says, ' For the benefit, better learning, and education of poor children, whose parents are esteemed unable to give them learning, living in the upper part of Accomack county, in Virginia; that is to say, from Guild- ford Creek directly to the seaside, and likewise from Guildford Creek to the dividing-line parting Virginia from Maryland, the rents and profits,
always recognised as a duty by the civil and ecclesiastical rulers in England, and more or less practised by the better sort of our ministers in Virginia. About this time I find the following proposition, which is preserved among the archives of Lambeth :-
"A Proposition for Encouraging the Christian Education of Indian, Negro, and Mulatto Children.
" It being a duty of Christianity very much neglected by masters and mistresses of this country (America) to endeavour the good instruction and education of their heathen slaves in the Christian faith,-the said duty being likewise earnestly recom- mended by his Majesty's instructions, -for the facilitating thereof among the young slaves that are born among us; it is, therefore, humbly proposed that every Indian, negro, or mulatto child that shall be baptized and afterward brought to church and publicly catechized by the minister in church, and shall, before the fourteenth year of his or her age, give a distinct account of the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and Ten Commandments, and whose master or mistress shall receive a certificate from the minister that he or she hath so done, such Indian, negro, or mulatto child shall be exempted from paying all levies till the age of eighteen years."
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(of the three tracts of land therein described, containing together three thousand four hundred and twenty acres,) authorizing and empowering such person or persons who are justices of the peace, churchwardens, or of the vestry for the time being, or the major part of them, being inhabitants of those aforesaid parts of ye county of Accomack aforesaid, to sett and lett the aforesaid premises for the better improvement thereof, and for the support of better learning and better education of poor children ; for which uses the rents and profits thereof is bequeathed and given forever,-hereby humbly praying the Honourable the Governor of Virginia for the time- being, with the Honourable Council of State, their care that the lands by this will given may be appropriated for the uses intended and pre- scribed.'
" In the will, the testator speaks of his 'living' in the county of Glou- cester, from which I infer that he was probably a minister of the Gospel, who was, at one time, a minister in Accomac, and, at the time of the date of his will, was a minister in the county of Gloucester, in England.
"T. R. JOYNES, Secretary."
From the same source I learn that the churches in Accomac were-a brick one, at Assawaman, on the seaside; a wooden one, on the Middle or Wallop's Road, about five miles from the southern line of the parish ; and another of wood, at Pocomoke, near the Maryland line, called the New Church. None of them now remain, and very few of the inhabitants of the parish retain any attach- ment to the Church of their fathers. About thirty years past, the overseers of the poor took possession of the Communion-plate, and sold the same to a silversmith, who intended to melt it up; but, being advised that it was doubtful whether they had any authority to sell the plate under the law directing the sale of the glebe-lands, and there being a tradition that the plate was a private donation, the sale was rescinded.
As to the ministers of St. George's parish, in Accomac, our records before the Revolution fail us altogether. It is probable that some of the ministers of Hungar's parish rendered service here for some time after the division of the Eastern Shore into the counties of Northampton and Accomac, especially Mr. Teackle. The first minister on any of our lists was the Rev. John Lyon, from Rhode Island, who was in the parish in the year 1774, and continued there during and some time after the war. Being more of the Englishman than the American in his feelings, his time was very uncomfortable during the Revolutionary struggle; but, being married into a respectable family, his principles were tolerated and his person protected. While as a faithful historian we shall truth- fully admit whatever of Toryism there was among the clergy of Virginia, we shall as faithfully maintain that there was a large share of noble patriotism in the clergy of Virginia. Mr. Jefferson
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declares this most emphatically. In a late number of the Lynch- burg Republican the editor refers to it, as may be seen in the note below .*
In the year 1786 the Rev. Theopolus Nugent was present in the Convention as the rector of St. George's parish, Accomac. But nothing more is known of him. The following is the list of the clergymen from the time of Mr. Nugent to the present day :- The Revs. Cave Jones, Ayrs, Reese, Gardiner, Eastburn, Smith, Chase, Goldsmith, Carpenter, Adams, Bartlett, Winchester, Jonathan Smith, Wm. G. Jones, and Zimmer. I am not able, at present, to get the surnames of some of the foregoing. A few remarks concerning two of the above-mentioned ministers will be acceptable to the reader. The Rev. Cave Jones was a native of Virginia, -probably a descendant of one of the three of that name who ministered in the early Church of Virginia. He was a man of talents and eloquence, which, after some years, attracted attention beyond the bounds of our State, and led to a call to Trinity Church,
* We affirm that no element was more often invoked in the earlier history of Virginia than the influence of ministers of the Gospel, in producing a feeling of resistance to the oppressions of England; and no class from whom the Henrys, Jeffersons, and patriot politicians of that day received greater aid in opening the eyes of the people and preparing them for a severance from Great Britain. Mr. Jefferson himself acknowledges this in his works, vol. i. pp. 5, 6.
" Describing the influence of the news of the Boston Port Bill upon himself, Mr. Henry, R. H. Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and some others, in June, 1774, he says, 'We were under conviction of the necessity of arousing our people from the lethargy into which they had fallen as to passing events, and thought that the appointment of a day of general fasting and prayer would be most likely to call up and alarm their attention. No examples of such a solemnity had existed since the days of our distresses in the war of '55, since which a new generation had grown up. With the help, therefore, of Rushworth, whom we rummaged over for the precedents and forms of the Puritans of that day, preserved by him, we cooked up a resolution, somewhat modernizing their phrases, for appointing the 1st day of June, on which the Port Bill was to commence, for a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to implore Heaven to avert from us the evils of civil war, to inspire us with firmness in support of our rights, and to turn the hearts of the King and Parliament to moderation and justice. To give greater emphasis to our proposition, we agreed to wait the next morning on Mr. Nicholas-whose grave and religious character was more in unison with the tone of our resolutions-and solicit him to move it. We accordingly went to him in the morning. He moved it the same day: the 1st of June was proposed, and it was passed without opposition. The Governor dissolved us. We returned home, and in our several counties invited the clergy to meet the assemblies of the people on the 1st of June, to perform the ceremonies of the day, and to address to them discourses suited to the occasion. The people met, generally, with anxiety and alarm in their countenances, and the effect of the day, through the whole Colony, was like a shock of electricity, arousing every man and placing him erect and solidly on his centre.'"
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New York. He was so popular in that situation as to become a formidable rival to Dr. Hobart, afterward Bishop of New York.
The Rev. Mr. Eastburn was from New York, and brother to Bishop Eastburn of Massachusetts. From every account we have received of him, whether from New York or Accomac, he must have been one of the most interesting and talented young men of our land. He came to Virginia at a time when ample material still remained in Accomac for the exercise of his pious zeal, and it was exercised most diligently in all the departments of ministerial duty, but especially in the instruction of the young by the means of Sunday-schools. He is still spoken of in the families of Accomac as that extraordinary young man. The following letter from his brother, Bishop Manton Eastburn, in answer to one from myself, furnishes some particulars worthy of being recorded :-
" NEWPORT, R. I., Aug. 25, 1855.
"MY DEAR BISHOP :- Having been at this place during the present month, your letter of the 16th has only just reached me. Nothing was published after my dear and distinguished brother's death, except the poem of ' Yamoyden, a Tale of the Wars of King Philip,' which he com- posed in company with his friend, Robert C. Sands, and which the latter edited. I can only say, in a few words, that he was ordained by Bishop Hobart at the Diocesan Convention of New York, in October, 1818; commenced his ministry in Accomac county almost immediately; and, after a short but truly glorious ministry of about eight months, (during which, as I heard him say, he thought he had been the instrument of the conversion of seventeen persons,) returned, broken in health, to New York, and expired in December, 1819, on his passage to St. Croix, W. I., to which island, in company with his mother and myself, he was pro- ceeding for the benefit of his health. He had just reached the age of twenty-two years; but he was mature in mind, accomplished in attain- ments both of ancient and modern learning, and one of the most " burning lights" in the Church of God I ever knew. I think he left an impression in Accomac which is not yet effaced.
" Excuse me for this unavoidable delay, and believe me to be
" Faithfully yours,
"In one dear Lord and Saviour, " MANTON EASTBURN. " RT. REV. BISHOP MEADE.
" P.S .- My brother's name was James Wallis Eastburn, M. A., of Columbia College, New York. He composed, at eighteen years of age, the beautiful Trinity-Sunday Hymn in our collection, No. 77; beginning, 'Oh, holy, holy, holy Lord,' &c. The 'Summer Midnight'-being five or six stanzas composed at Accomac in June, 1819-is, for beauty and elevation of thought, and heavenly aspirations after immortality, one of the most exquisite things in our language. It was published in the New York Commercial Advertiser soon after its composition.
" His studies for the ministry were pursued for two years with Bishop
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Griswold, at Bristol, R. I. There is a letter of my father's, in relation to him, in Stone's life of the Bishop."
The Episcopalian cannot but think with melancholy feelings of the gradual decline, as to numbers, of the Church in Accomac, from the time of Mr. Black, in 1710, to the present day. Then, in one parish only-the upper-there were four or five hundred families, three overflowing churches, and two hundred communicants, with scarce a Dissenter in it. Now, in both parishes, covering the whole county, there are only three churches and about fifty communicants. Other denominations, chiefly the Methodists, have drawn away the great body of the people from our communion. There are still a number of very interesting and intelligent families remaining to us, in which are not only some attached Churchmen, but truly pious Christians. May God strengthen the things that remain, and grant us there, as he has done in so many other parts of the State, a great increase !
It deserves to be mentioned that, some years since, the Rev. Ambler Weed, of Richmond, undertook the revival of the Church in the lower part of St. George's parish, and by great diligence caused a new church, by the name of St. Michael's, to be erected near Bell Haven. In this and in old Pongoteague Church he officiated for some years with great diligence and self-denial, and with some success.
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