USA > Virginia > Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 33
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The following are the answers of the Rev. John Cargill, minister of Southwark parish :-
" I have been here sixteen years. My parish is twenty miles in width, and one hundred inhabited in length, being a frontier-parish. It has three hundred and ninety-four families. The school of Mr. Griffin, called Christina, for Indians, is on the borders of my parish. There is one church and two chapels, and seventy or eighty communicants. My to- bacco now sells at five shillings per hundred; my salary from thirty to forty pounds. My glebe-house is in a very bad condition, and the parish will not repair it, so I must look out for a house elsewhere. No school, no library, in the parish."
Such is the sad account in 1724 of the two parishes in Surrey county.
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In the year 1758, after the arrangement by which all on the north side of Blackwater is united in Southwark parish, we find the Rev. Peter Davis its minister ; in the years 1774 and 1776, the Rev. Benjamin Blagrove. In the year 1785, the Rev. John Henry Burgess, of whom we recently spoke as minister in Southampton, appears in the Convention as minister of Southwark; and, in the years 1790 and 1792, the Rev. Samuel Butler. After this we hear of it no more. Its last minister was a man of pleasure, so devoted to the turf that he was made President of the Jockey Club of Surrey and Charles City, as I was informed by the clerk of the same. Nothing else was to be expected but that the Church should perish in such hands.
Since the revival of our Church in Virginia, efforts have been made in behalf of the parishes in Surrey, and not without some effect. Between twenty-five and thirty years ago the Rev. John Cole, encouraged by the zeal of good Mrs. Falcon and others of Southwark parish, preached for one year at Old Surrey and Cabin Point Churches, reviving not a little the hopes of our few remaining friends. At a later period the Rev. Edmund Christian spent some time in the same; and for the last few years the Rev. John McCabe, recently of Hampton, has devoted one Sunday in four to Old Surrey Church. Under his ministry the congregation increased, and a new church has been recently erected near the old one .* I know of no other churches in Surrey but those of Old Surrey and Cabin Point, unless there be one standing about eight or ten miles from the court-house. I made one visit to it about twenty years ago. In company with a zealous female member of the Church, some notice having been previously given, I approached the old and desolate-looking place. No horses or carriages were around it ; but on the sill of an open door was sitting an old negro man, who I was told had in former times been the sexton. We three were the congregation. My visit has not been repeated.
To the foregoing I add the following communication from my esteemed friend, William Harrison, of Brandon :-
" In the will of Benjamin Harrison, of Surrey, who was buried at the chapel near Cabin Point, and who, according to the epitaph on his tomb- stone, was born in Southwark parish in 1645, and which will was ad- mitted to probate in 1712, I find the following passage :- ' Item, I give twenty pounds sterling to buy ornaments for the chapel, and that my exe-
* The old one was built in the year 1754; the age of the one at Cabin Point unknown.
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cutor take care to provide them, so soon as may be, after the new chapel is built; and my will is that five acres of my land be laid out, where the old chapel now stands, and that it be held for that use forever.' "
The plate of this church, I have reason to believe, was sold by a person having charge of it, and the proceeds applied to private use. The Harrisons, Shorts, Allens, Cockes, and Peters, in olden time, were leading families around this church .*
* To this I add the following from the History of Virginia, by Mr. Charles Camp- bell. The following is the epitaph :- "Here lyeth the body of the Honourable Benjamin Harrison, Esquire, who 'did justice, loved mercy, and walked humbly with his God,' was always loyal to his Prince, and a great benefactor to his coun- try.". He had three sons, of whom Benjamin, the eldest, settled at Berkeley. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Lewis Burwell, of Gloucester, and was an eminent lawyer, and sometime Speaker of the House of Burgesses. He died in April, 1710, aged thirty-seven, leaving an only son, Benjamin, and an only daughter, Elizabeth. A monument was erccted at the public expense to his memory in the old Westover churchyard. The son Benjamin married a daughter of Robert Carter, of Coroto- man, (called King Carter,) in Lancaster county. Himself and two daughters of this union were killed by the same flash of lightning at Berkeley. Another daughter married Mr. Randolph, of Wilton. The sons were Benjamin, the signer of the De- claration of Independence, Charles, a general in the Revolution, Nathaniel, Henry, Colin, and Carter H. From the last-mentioned descended the Harrisons of Cum- berland. Benjamin Harrison, Jr., the signer of the Declaration, and otherwise celebrated, married a Miss Bassett. Their children were Benjamin, father of the late Benjamin Harrison, of Berkeley, Carter B., sometime member of Congress, and William Henry, President of the United States; one daughter who married a Mr. Randolph, and another who married a Mr. Copeland. The second son of Benjamin Harrison, of Surrey, (the first of the family in Virginia, ) was Nathaniel. His eldest son was also named Nathaniel, and his only son again was Benjamin Harrison, of Brandon, member of the Council of Virginia at the same time with Benjamin Harrison, of Berkeley, about the commencement of the Revolution. This Benjamin Harrison, of Brandon, who married a daughter of the last Colonel Byrd, of West- over, was father of the present William Harrison, of Upper Brandon, and of the late George Harrison, of Lower Brandon, on James River, besides four daughters. If the first of the name was a zealous friend of the Church and liberal contributor, his posterity have ever continued true to it; and the two last named, with their families, have done much to its partial revival within the last thirty years. The ministers have ever found their seats to be hospitable homes when in that part of the parish. They have set good examples in encouraging the religious teaching of their servants, and, in order to promote this, have built a chapel between them for the especial benefit of the same.
For a full description of Mr. Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of Independence, Governor of Virginia, and holder of so many offices during and after the war, I refer the reader to Mr. Griggsby's book on the Convention of 1776. Of the family of Harrison he says, "Of all the ancient families in the Colony, that of Harrison, if not the oldest, is one of the oldest. The original ancestor some time before the year 1645 had come over to the Colony ; but, as his name does not
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SUSSEX COUNTY.
A few words suffice for Sussex county, and Albemarle parish in Sussex county. The parish, as has been stated above, was divided from Lawn's Creek and Southwark parishes in 1738. We have an old tattered register, which seems to have begun in 1738, and at the bottom of each page is the name of William Willie, minister. It continues until 1776 with the same name. I find the name of William Willie, as its minister, on a list in 1754,-the earliest list to be found on record. I find it also in a list for 1776 in an old Vir- ginia almanac. In both instances he is the minister of Albemarle parish, Sussex. The parish, I doubt not, began and ended with him, as does the old register, for we hear no more of him or the parish after the year 1776. It is by far the most particular register I have ever met with. It states the days on which he preaches at each of his four churches,-St. Mark's, St. Andrew's, St. Paul's, and Nottoway, and the number of persons present, and occasionally other circumstances. It states the births, baptisms, deaths, marriages, sponsors, names of masters, of bond and free, black and white. So methodical and pains-taking a man, living for thirty-eight years among a people (judging from the names in the register) as respectable as any in Virginia, was, it is to be hoped, a worthy minister in other respects.
In speaking of the church in Sussex as being born and dying with Mr. Willie, we do not mean to say that there were no churches and ministers in that region before,-the contrary being evident,- but that its separate parochial existence commenced with him and died with him so far as regular ministerial services were concerned. Nor do we mean to say that no efforts have been made of late to resuscitate it. Some years since a new church was erected by the
appear in the list of early patentees recorded by Burk, it is probable that he pur- chased land already patented, or may have engaged in mercantile pursuits. The first born of the name in the Colony of whom we have any distinct record was Benja- min Harrison, who became a member of the Council, and was Speaker of the House of Burgesses, and died in Southwark parish, in the county of Surrey, in the year 1712, in his sixty-second year." Mr. Griggsby thinks it probable that his father was the Herman Harrison who came over in what is called the " second supply" in Smith's History, or of Master John Harrison, who was Governor in 1623, and adds :- " That from the year 1645 to this date-a period of more than two centu- ries-the name has been distinguished for the patriotism, the intelligence, and the moral worth of those who have borne it."
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zeal of a few surviving friends and members of the church, and the Rev. Mr. Withers, McGuire, and others, have performed services in it. We hope the ground will never be abandoned, but that in this and the neighbouring county of Southampton the twelve churches which once were, but now are not, may in time have their places supplied by the blessing of God on the labours of faithful men.
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ARTICLE XXVI.
Parishes in Charles City, Surrey, and Sussex.
ALTHOUGH Charles City was one of the eight original shires or counties into which the Colony was partitioned in 1634, and holds so central a position among the old counties, and lies on one of our noblest rivers, yet have we little knowledge of either its civil or ecclesiastical history during the first century of our Colonial exist- ence. We read indeed of Westover Hundred, and Weynoake Hundred, and Charles City Hundred, as early settlements on James River, within its bounds, and of the destruction or great injury of them by the Indians in the great massacre of 1622. We read of a school being established, or about to be established, at Charles City Hundred, in aid of the proposed College at Henrico, without being able to ascertain the location of it,-though we pre- sume it was somewhere on the river. The dimensions of the parish we are able accurately to define. As was the case with some other counties on this and other rivers, it extended some distance on both sides of James River. Inconvenient as this must have been to the inhabitants in many respects, yet such was the unwillingness to divide what God had divided, that two court-houses were used in the one county, one on each side of the river, for a long period of time. Still more inconvenient must this have been to the ministers of religion and the people of their charges, whose parishes were thus divided. There were two parishes in Charles City,-Westover or the upper, and Weynoake or the lower,-each divided by the river into two parts, until the year 1720, when the two parts of Westover and Weynoake on the north of James River, together with a part of another parish called Wallingford, extend- ing to the Chickahominy, were all united into one, and took the name of Westover parish; while the two parts of Weynoake and Westover on the south of the river were united to one called Martins Brandon in Prince George, which latter county had been taken from Charles City, being that part of it lying south of James River. It is not until after this arrangement that we have any account of the ministers of Charles City county and Westover parish as they now are. We have no means of ascertaining the
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name of a single minister of this ancient shire for nearly a century after its establishment. In the year 1724, the Rev. Peter Fon- taine gives an account of himself and his parish. He came into it nine years before that time,-had officiated in Wallingford, Weynoake, Martins Brandon, and Jamestown, before the new ar- rangement. He had now three churches in Westover parish, the upper or Westover Church, and the lower church near the Chicka- hominy, formerly in Wallingford parish. The length of this parish was thirty miles ; the number of families two hundred and thirty- three, of communicants seventy-five. He was as attentive to the instruction of children and servants as circumstances would allow. There were two glebes in his parish, neither of which had houses on them, and the best of them rented for thirty shillings. He lived in his own house and on his own farm. His salary, besides per- quisites, was from fifty to sixty pounds. Mr. Fontaine is the same minister of whom we have spoken as accompanying Colonel Byrd on that most laborious and dangerous expedition for running the dividing-line between Virginia and North Carolina. Colonel Byrd evidently held him in the highest esteem, as doubtless did all his parishioners. We find him still living in their affections and labour- ing among them in the year 1757. He died in the month of July of that year. After expressing a firm trust in a joyful resurrec- tion through the blood of a merciful Redeemer, he concludes his will by saying, "My will and desire is, that I may have no public funeral, but that my corpse may be accompanied by a few of my nearest neighbours; that no liquors be given to make any of the company drunk,-many instances of which I have seen, to the great scandal of the Christian religion and abuse of so solemn an ordinance. I desire none of my family to go in mourning for me."
Concerning this good man and his family, something more must be said. I have already, in my article on one of the parishes in Albemarle, referred to the interesting history of the Fontaine family as set forth by Miss Ann Maury and Dr. Hawks. I refer to it again, and commend it to all as having all the interest of the best novels, without their imperfections and evils. Mr. Peter Fon- taine was one of six children (five sons and one daughter) of two pious and valiant Huguenots, who fled from France to England. Giving their children a good education, especially as to religion, they committed " them to the providence of a covenant God to seek their fortune in the wide world." All of them came to America, though two of them-Moses and John-returned to England. The
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daughter, Mary Ann, married Matthew Maury, from Gascony, and, coming to America, became the mother of a numerous posterity. James Fontaine settled in King William as a farmer, and is also the ancestor of many most respectable families in Virginia and elsewhere. Francis was the minister of whom we have already spoken in our article on York-Hampton. Peter is the worthy person of whom we are now speaking, and who also has his descend- ants spread over our own and other States. Nor are the names of Fontaine and Maury absent from the lists of our present American Episcopal clergy. Of Mr. Peter Fontaine, who spent his whole ministry of about forty years in the county of Charles City, with the exception of a short time at Jamestown and Wallingford parish, it becomes us to add something more. His letters to various rela- tives, and one of his sermons, furnish us with the means. It was the pious custom of the Fontaines to assemble annually, and hold a solemn religious thanksgiving in commemoration of their deliverance from persecution in France, and remarkable preservation when attacked by French privateers in the North of Ireland. I have before me a sermon on one of those occasions, preached by Peter Fontaine. After a suitable prayer, which is prefaced to it, he takes for his text that passage from Romans,-" That ye may with one mind and with one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." After a general consideration of the duty enjoined by the text, he applies it to their particular case. Alluding to the former, he says,-
"Several months was our parent obliged to shift among forests and deserts for his safety, because he had preached the word of God to a con- gregation of innocent and sincere persons, who desired to be instructed in their duty and confirmed in their faith. The woods afforded him a shelter and the rocks a resting-place; but his enemies gave him no quiet, until, of his own accord, he delivered himself up to their custody. They loaded his hands with chains, his feet stuck fast in the mire, a dungeon was his abode, and murderers and thieves were his companions, until God by means of a pious gentlewoman, whose kindness ought to be remembered by us even to latest posterity, withdrew him from thence, and was the occasion that his confinement was more tolerable."
He exhorts them in the close of the sermon never to forsake their annual meetings, which were so calculated to keep up the remembrance of their parent's virtues and sufferings, and the won- derful deliverance of God. "Would to God," he says, "that you would make it your business to teach them to your children, that they may be qualified to perpetuate them to infinite generations to
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come, and thereby engage the protection and draw the blessing of the Almighty upon them; for God is not like Jacob, who hath only one blessing in store. He hath millions of millions to bestow on those who love and fear him." We believe that the recollection of these things has had a happy religious effect on very many of this wide-spread family. A passage from one of the letters of Mrs. Maury, the sister of Peter Fontaine, concerning his family, is worthy of insertion :-
" My brother Peter's first wife, Lizzy, was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw. God had endowed her with all the virtues of a good Christian wife and a watchful mother. She never let the least thing pass in her children that had any apperance of evil in it, and was very tender of them. His present wife is a lovely, sweet-tempered woman, and she, Mary Ann, and Peter, have an unusual tenderness for each other; and I believe if they were her own children she could not show more tenderness to them. My brother has two children by her,-a boy and a girl. The boy is named Thomas. I hope God will spare my brother's life to raise them as he hath the other two, who are examples of piety and wisdom, and a great comfort to their parents and us."
There is one passage from a letter of Mr. Fontaine to one of his brothers in England, on the subject of preserving health, which is worthy of him as a man and as a minister. Besides commending active exercise in the open air on foot and horseback, and a careful consideration of one's own constitution so as to be our own physi- cian, he adds this valuable hint :- " I drink no spirituous liquors at all; no small beer; but when I am obliged to take more than ordi- nary fatigue, either in serving my churches or other branches of duty, I take one glass of good old Madeira wine, which revives me and contributes to my going through without much fatigue."
Happy would it have been for the Church of Virginia had all her members prescribed such bounds to themselves. Mr. Fontaine, though living in the midst of the opulent and voluptuous gentlemen on James River, was no wine-bibber sitting at their tables and quaffing glass after glass of their rich wines after having imbibed something stronger, perhaps, before and at dinner, but confined him- self to one glass of pure wine when weariness called for it, eschew- ing all other liquors. Though we think expediency and a due regard to personal security now call for even more abstinence, on the part of the clergy especially, yet we are free to say that if all had restricted themselves as did Mr. Fontaine, there would have been no need, so far as the clergy are concerned, of a temperance- society. No one can doubt on which side of the question Mr.
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Fontaine would be were he living in our day. And had the rich gentlemen of Virginia but followed his example, how many estates would have been saved from ruin, how many families from disper- sion, how many young men from the grave of the drunkard !
Our remaining work as to the ministers of Westover parish will be brief. In the year 1758-three years after the death of Mr. Fontaine-we find on an English list the name of William Davis as minister of this parish; and the same is found on a list in the Vir- ginia Almanac for 1773. In the year 1776 we find the name of James Ogilvie. No accounts have reached us of the character of either of them. In the year 1786 we meet with the name of the Rev. John Dunbar,-a name to be met with previously as minister- ing in other parishes. For the honour of the Church it were to be wished that it had never been on any list of the clergy. He mar- ried a daughter of Colonel Byrd, of Westover, of whom we have already spoken .* By none was he better known and more despised than by the members of that family. Often has one of its most pious members, who in infancy was baptized by him, spoken to me with concern about her baptism, asking whether it could not be repeated, saying that she found it hard to regard herself as bap- tized. Nor is it wonderful, when it is considered that, besides other vices, he openly renounced the ministry and with it the Christian faith, and, if I have been rightly informed, fought a duel in sight of Old Westover Church, in which he had once officiated. Hap- pily, he left no descendants to blush at the above recital.
In the year 1793 we find the Rev. Sewal Chapin in the Episcopal Convention at Richmond, with Mr. Charles Carter, of Shirley, as lay delegate. Mr. Chapin continued on the list of clergy as long as the Conventions continued; that is, until the year 1805, when they ceased until 1812. How long Mr. Chapin was minister after 1805 we are unable to state, nor can we speak with any certainty as to his religious views and character. Thus ends the history of
* There were three of the name of Byrd in Virginia, of whom we read in various Virginia documents. The first, who was the father of the family and early owner of lands about Richmond and of the place called Belvidera, is spoken of in my Lambeth Documents as being engaged with Commissary Blair in the incipient steps about the College of William and Mary. The part of it called the Chapel was contracted for and the erecting of it superintended by him in the time of Governor Andros, between the years 1690 and 1700. The second was Colonel Byrd, the author of the Westover Papers and owner of Westover. The third was the last of the name who owned Westover, and was with General Washington when encamped at Winchester and defending the frontiers against the Indians.
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Westover parish previous to the revival of the Church, which com- menced in 1812. So low was the condition of the parish that it was some time before even an effort was made in its behalf. In the year 1833 the Rev. Farley Berkeley, now of Amelia, acted as mis- sionary in Charles City, Chesterfield, and King William, and some- what revived the hopes of these old parishes. He was followed in Westover parish in the year 1835 by the Rev. Alexander Norris, who continued its minister until 1838. The Rev. Mr. Leavell suc- ceeded Mr. Norris, and continued in the parish until 1853. The Rev. Mr. Okeson took his place. Mr. Okeson resigned his charge the past year, (1856,) and the Rev. Dr. Wade has accepted a call from the parish.
As to the churches in Westover parish, we know nothing of the history of that at Weynoake, or of that near the Chickahominy, except that they are now nowhere to be seen. The Old Westover still stands, a relic and monument of ancient times. A new church in the neighbourhood of Weynoake was put up some years ago, but has recently been destroyed by fire. Another is now rising up upon the same site.
I wish it were in my power to furnish a list of the vestrymen of Westover parish from an early period, as in so doing I should give the names of the principal Episcopal families of Charles City ; but, no remnant of a parish-record being preserved, I am unable to do any thing more than mention a few names familiar to my ears. The Lightfoots, Minges, Byrds, Carters, Harrisons, Tylers, Chris- tians, Seldens, Nelsons, Lewises, Douthats, and Wilcoxes, are those best known to me.
The following extract from the letter of a friend is an interest- ing addition to this article :-
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