USA > Virginia > Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 43
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51
From 1740 to 1760 : Colonel William Dangerfield, John Corbin, Samuel Hipkins, Rice Jones, Henry Young, John Clements, William Covington, Francis Waring, Archibald Ritchie, Paul Micou, John Upshaw, William Montague, Charles Mortimer.
From 1760 to 1780 : Meriwether Smith, Samuel Peachy, John Lee, Leroy Dangerfield, Thomas Roane, Robert Beverley, John Beale, Robert Payne Waring, William Latane, John Brockenbrough, Humphrey B. Brooke.
From 1780 to 1800 : Sthreshley Rennolds, Paul Micou, Jr., John Dangerfield, Maco Clements, Robert Beverley, Jr., James Upshaw, Tun- stall Banks, Reuben Garnett, James Sale, Thomas Roane, Jr., Joseph Bahannon, Andrew Monro, Thomas Pitts, John Mathews, James M. Garnett. Clerks of Court, from 1740 to 1800, were Wm. Beverley, John Lee, Hancock Lee, John P. Lee.
"This Joshua Fry mentioned above (continues my friend) married Mrs. Mary Hill, who was a daughter of Paul Micou the first. I have heard from my father that this Joshua Fry was connected with Wil- liam and Mary College. He has numerous descendants in Virginia. One of this family accompanied General Washington in the Indian wars. John Lomax was the ancestor of Judge John T. Lomax ; Paul Micou and Mungo Roy, the ancestors of the Roys and Micous in this State. The Dangerfields mentioned above were lineal descendants of John Dangerfield, the first settler in the county of Rappahannock, who resided at Greenfield, and to whom it was granted in 1660. The last proprietor was Colonel John Dangerfield. Most of the other justices have descendants in this section at this time. Archi- bald Richie, the ancestor of this family in Virginia, was a Scotch- man, and a merchant in Tappahannock."
THE DANGERFIELD FAMILY.
The history of the Dangerfield family in this country, so far as I have been able to ascertain, is contained in the following state- ment. "The first of the name who emigrated to America were two brothers, John and William, who came to this country early and settled on the James River : one or both of them intermarried with the Blands and Robinsons, and held a high social position in that
406
OLD CHURCHES, MINISTERS, AND
section. The residence of John Dangerfield, in New Kent, retained the family name within the memory of one living at this time. It is not known whether they held any office or not. In 1660, John Dangerfield, a descendant of John, located a patent in the county of Rappahannock, and at Greenfield, which remained in the family till 1821. He married in Rappahannock, and left a son, William. He became a justice and colonel, and married a member of the Batherst family of England,-a Miss Meriwether, of Batherst, Essex county. He left a son William, who married a Miss Fauntleroy, of Nailor's Hold. He was also a justice, and left three sons,-John, William, and Leroy. William inherited the greater portion of his estate, including the family residence, and was one of the seven colonels appointed at the commencement of the Revolution. He married a Miss Willis, of Fredericksburg, and died during the Revolution, at his seat,-Coventry, Spottsylvania,-and left a large family. John, the eldest, inherited the estate in Essex, and suc- ceeded to the offices, civil and military, held by his ancestors. He married, first, Miss Southall, of Williamsburg, and secondly, Miss Armstead, of Hess. Leroy, the brother of the last William, filled the office of justice for several years, and married a Miss Parker, daughter of the first Judge Parker, of Westmoreland county, and descendant of Alexander Parker, a justice of Rappahannock. He removed to Frederick county, Virginia.
To the above contributions from Mr. Micou, the worthy Clerk of Essex, and another friend, I have something more to add. The father of the first Lomax who came to this country was one of the silenced and ejected ministers in the time of Charles I. of England,-a pious, conscientious, and superior man. His son John, who came to this country, intermarried with the Wormlys of Middlesex. Lunsford Lomax, son of John, married Judith Micou, daughter of the first Paul Micou, who settled in Virginia, and who was a French surgeon and Huguenot. Major Thomas Lomax, father of the present Judge Lomax, was his son. The family seat is that beautiful estate situated on Portobago Bay, a few miles below Port Royal, on the Rappahannock. The eldest sister of Judith Micou, who married Lunsford Lomax, married Moore Fauntleroy. One of her daugh- ters married the Rev. Mr. Giberne, of Richmond county. Another of this connection, who was the grandmother of Mr. Micou, the present Clerk of Essex, married the Rev. Mr. Mathews, one of the ministers of St. Anne's parish, Essex.
I have been furnished by a worthy friend with some notices of
407
FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
the connection and relatives of the Rev. Mr. Mathews, the sub- stance of which I take pleasure in adding to what has been written concerning St. Anne's parish, Essex. The families of Mathews and Smith and Bushrod intermarried at an early period. The Rev. John Mathews also married a Miss Smith. His son Thomas was a member of one of our earlier Conventions; his daughter Mary married Dr. Alexander Somervail, of Scotland; his daughter Fanny married James Roy Micou, father of the present Clerk of Essex ; his daughter Virginia married Dr. William Baynham, of Essex. There were also two other daughters.
The two physicians who married daughters of the Rev. Mr. Mathews were most eminent men in their profession, and of very high moral character.
Dr. Somervail, though brought up in the Kirk of Scotland, was for some time an avowed infidel. It is said that some remarks dropped by Mrs. Hunter, mother of the present Senator in Con- gress, during a religious discussion she had with the celebrated Dr. Ogilvie and one of his Virginia followers, in the presence of Dr. S., made an impression on his mind, and led him to a serious exa- mination of Christianity, which resulted in his conversion. He was most eminent in his profession, contributing largely to Dr. Chapman's Medical Journal, and being the author of an important discovery, by which one of the most painful diseases of the human frame is relieved. He was the physician of the poor as well as the rich. On leaving Scotland his father said to him, "If you ever oppress the poor my curse is upon you." Neither the curse of his earthly or heavenly Father came down upon him for neglect- ing the poor. On the very day of his death, in his seventy-sixth year, he paid friendly visits to some of his poor patients. Dr. Somervail, after his conversion, connected himself with the Baptist Church, but was beloved and esteemed by all. The Hon. James M. Garnett sent an extended obituary of him to the National Intelligencer at the time of his death.
Not less eminent was the other son-in-law of the Rev. Mr. Mathews,-Dr. William Baynham. He was the son of an old vestryman of the Episcopal Church in Caroline county, who was also an eminent physician. The son, after studying seven years under his father, completed his preparations for the practice of medicine under the celebrated Dr. William Hunter, of London. Young Baynham distinguished himself while in England, and had he remained there would certainly have attained to the highest
408
OLD CHURCHES, MINISTERS, AND
station in his profession .. He also was the discoverer of something very important in the medical department. The eulogies bestowed upon him, both at home and abroad, for moral character and great medical attainments, of which I have specimens before me, prove that he was a man of great celebrity. The Hon. Robert Garnett, of Essex, furnished the press with a high encomium on his character.
.
409
FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
ARTICLE XXXVII.
Parishes in Caroline County .- St. Mary's, St. Margarett's, St. Asaph, Drysdale.
IN the year 1827 Caroline county was formed out of the heads or upper parts of Essex, King and Queen, and King William, and, soon after, the parishes of Drysdale and St. Margarett's were formed, it is believed, for I can find no certain account of the time. The parish of St. Mary's had previously, I think, been established in Essex county, most probably soon after the county was established in 1701. Wherefore we find that, in 1724, when the Bishop of London sent his circular to the clergy, an answer was returned from the Rev. Owen Jones, minister of St. Mary's parish, Essex. He had then been twenty years in the parish. The parish was about twenty miles long, extending from below Port Royal up toward Fredericksburg, I suppose, as it now does. There were one hundred and fifty families, one hundred and fifty attendants at church, one hundred communicants; servants neg- lected, and particular means for their instruction discouraged ; no public school, no parish library.
In the year 1754 one of the three John Brunskills was the minister. In 1758 the Rev. Musgrave Dawson was there. In the years 1773-74 and 1776 the Rev. Abner Waugh was minister. In the years 1785 and 1786, after our Conventions commenced, we find Mr. Robert Gilchrist the lay member, but no clergyman, although Mr. Waugh was still the minister of the parish. Nor does he appear until the year 1792, and never again after that. It will be seen that, in the close of life, he was for a short time minister of the church in Fredericksburg.
A friend has furnished me the following tradition concerning some of the old churches in Caroline county : whether all of them were in St. Mary's parish is doubtful :-
"There was one which stood on the south side of Maricopie or Massa- copie Creek, in the eastern part of the county, and was, I think, called Joy Creek Church, from a small rivulet close by. Every vestige of it had disappeared before my father's recollection, so that it must have been one of the most ancient of our churches. Another stood near the south-
410
OLD CHURCHES, MINISTERS, AND
western border of the county, near Reedy Creek, and was called Reedy Creek Church. Within my recollection the walls and roof were entire. About thirty years ago the roof fell in, and immediately the bricks were carried away by the neighbours. A third was near the Bowling Green, about a mile northeast of it. This was in good condition about forty or fifty years ago, and services held in it. The Hoomes, Pendletons, Taylors, Battailes, Baylors, and other old families, attended it. Another is the Old Bull Church, or St. Margarett's, with which you are familiar. The last is the present Rappahannock Academy, about two miles from the river and four miles above Port Royal. In my boyhood," says my informant, "an amusing story was told of two men returning one night from muster with too much of what is called Dutch courage in them,-that is, intoxicated. The old church was said to be haunted of the devil, and they determined to drive him out. It was very dark, and one of them planted himself at one door, or where a door had been, while the other entered at the other end with a pole, with which he began to beat about, when something started up and ran to the door where the other man stood with his legs stretched out. It proved to be an ox, which was in the habit of sheltering there, and which, lowering his head as he approached the man, took him on his neck and bore him some distance away."
I have also received a letter from a clerical brother who has long ministered in this region, and from which I make a few extracts :-
"The Mount Church, before it was converted into an academy, was one of the first country-churches in the State. It was in the form of a cross, with galleries on three of the wings, in one of which was the largest and finest-toned organ in Virginia. This organ was sold, under an Act of the Legislature, and the proceeds applied to the purchase of a library for the use of the Rappahannock Academy. It is now in a Roman Catholic church in Georgetown. The aisles were paved with square slabs of sand- stone. The enelosure around the church was used as a burial-ground, and, though now a play-ground for the boys, the forms of the graves are ap- parent. The glebe was first sold, and the proceeds applied to an academy, and, the following year, the house itself was appropriated to the same pur- pose. John Taylor, of Caroline, John T. Woodward, Lawrence Battaile, Hay Battaile, and Reuben Turner, were the trustees. I have been unable," says my correspondent, " to ascertain the age of Mount Church. It must have been built at a period long anterior to the Revolution. The first minister of the parish was the Rev. Mr. Boucher. All that I can gather concerning him is, that he lived and taught school in Port Royal. The only reminiscence of his acts is a red sandstone monument, which he had erected near the village to the memory of one of his pupils, who died in 1763, aged nine years, on which there is this epitaph :-
' Beneath this humble stone a youth doth lie Almost too good to live, too young to die: Count his few years, how short the scanty span ! But count his virtues, and he died a man.' "
This may be good poetry, but in the second line there is un sound theology. I suppose we must make a liberal allowance for
411
FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
the poetica licentia. Mr. Boucher was also, at one time, the minister of Hanover parish, in King George, on the other side of the river. I have often heard my old friend, Mr. Addison, of Maryland, speak of him. He was connected with the Addisons and the Carrs, of Maryland, but in what way I know not. The name of Boucher is still in use among the Carrs of Virginia. The following account of him I take from the third volume of that interesting, laborious, and impartial work of the Rev. Mr. Anderson on the Colonial Churches :-
" I allude to Jonathan Boucher, who was born in Cumberland, in 1738, and brought up at Wigton Grammar-School. He went to Virginia, at the age of sixteen, and was nominated by the vestry of Hanover parish, in the county of King George, to its rectory before he was in Orders. He returned to England for ordination, and, after he had crossed the Atlantic a second time, entered upon the duties of that parish upon the banks of the Rappahannock. He removed, soon afterward, to St. Mary's parish, in Caroline county, upon the same river, where he enjoyed the fullest confi- dence and love of his people. In the second of two sermons preached by him, upon the question of the American Episcopate, in that parish, and in the year 1771, in which it had been so strongly advocated, he expresses his assurance that he would be listened to with candour by his parishioners, seeing that he had lived among them more than seven years, as their minis- ter, in such harmony as to have had no disagreement with any man, even for a day. The terms of this testimony, and the circumstances under which it was delivered, leave no room to doubt its truthfulness. He was accounted one of the best preachers of his time, and the vigorous and lucid reasoning of his published discourses fully sustains the justice of that repu- tation. From St. Mary's parish Mr. Boucher went to Maryland, where he was appointed by Sir Robert Eden, its Governor, to the rectory of St. Anne's, in Annapolis, the capital of that Province, and afterward of Queen Anne's, in Prince George county. From the latter parish he was ejected at the Revolution.
" His 'Discourses'-thirteen in number, preached between the years 1763 and 1775-were published by him when he was vicar of Epsom, in Surrey, in 1795, fifteen years after the formal recognition by England of the Independence of the United States. They contain, with an his- torical preface, his views of the causes and consequences of the American Revolution, and are dedicated to General Washington, not because of any concord of political sentiment between him and the writer, for in this respect they had been and still were wide as the poles asunder, but to express the hope of Mr. Boucher that the offering which he thus made of renewed respect and affection for that great man might be received and regarded as giving some promise of that perfect reconciliation between these two countries which it was the sincere aim of his publication to promote. While the language of this 'Dedication' attests the candour and generosity of Boucher's character, still, his courage and hatred of every thing that savoured of republicanism are displayed not less clearly through- out the whole body of his work. The only faults which, in the course of his 'Historical Preface,' he can detect on the part of England, before and during the war which had deprived her of thirteen Colonies, was the
412
OLD CHURCHES, MINISTERS, AND
feebleness of her ministers at home and of her generals abroad. The positive injustice of many of her acts seems never present to his mind. The arguments of Burke and Chatham, exposing that injustice, weigh with him as nothing."
The foregoing extract from Mr. Anderson's work shows the author to be a man of candour and a lover of America, though a good English Churchman too. I hope his work will be patronized in this country.
To these notices of the Rev. Mr. Boucher I add something more from my clerical correspondent in Caroline :-
" The successor of Mr. Boucher was the Rev. Abner Waugh. He was the last minister of Mount Church. He was not engaged in the active duties of the ministry for many of the latter years of his life. Mr. Waugh was chaplain to the Convention which ratified the Federal Constitution.
"The chief families in this parish," he adds, (there being no list of vestrymen,) "were the Millers, Foxes, Grays, Beverleys, Taliaferos, Woodfords, Battailes, Fitzhughs, Corbins, &c. A member of one of the families was buried, according to her own directions, beneath the pave- ment of the aisle of that wing of the church which was occupied by the poor. She directed this to be done as an act of self-abasement for the pride she had manifested and the contempt she had exhibited toward the common people during her life, alleging that she wished them to trample upon her when she was dead."
In relation to Old Mount Church, where this lady was interred, we conclude with an extract from our report to the Convention of 1838 :-
" The services of this place [Grace Church, Caroline] being over, we proceeded to Port Royal. On our way to that place, and only a few miles above it, we passed by a large brick building, once a temple of the living God, where our forefathers used to worship, now, by an act of the Legis- lature, converted into a seminary of learning. This house, like some others of those built in ancient times, seems destined to outlive generations of those more modern ones, which, hastily and slightly constructed, soon sink upon their own knees and fall into ruins. It stands on an elevated and beautiful hill, overlooking the river and country around, and is rendered very interesting by a number of large and venerable trees not far distant. It was deserted as a place of worship, some time before its conversion into a seminary. The melodious organ that once filled the house with its en- rapturing notes (said to have been the first ever imported into Virginia, and of great price) has long since been sold, and is now in a Roman Catholic chapel in the District of Columbia, (either in Washington or Georgetown.) During the interval of its use as a church, and its applica- tion to other objects, if common fame is to be credited, (and we fear it de- serves it but too well,) this sacred house was desecrated to most unhallowed purposes. The drunken feast has been spread where the holy Supper of our
413
FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
Lord was wont to be received, and the footsteps of the dance have sported over that floor where the knees of humble worshippers once bent before the Lord."
ST. MARGARETT'S, CAROLINE COUNTY.
This parish, as we have seen, was established soon after the year 1727.
In the years 1754 and 1758, the Rev. John Brunskill-one of three ministers of the same name-was in charge of St. Marga- rett's. By another document in my possession, I find that he was in this county before the year 1750. From 1758 to 1773 we have no means of ascertaining who ministered in this parish. From 1773 to 1787, the Rev. Archibald Dick, who was ordained in 1762, was the minister of St. Margarett's. After the disappear- ance of Mr. Dick from the journals in 1787, we know of no other regular minister in St. Margarett's until the year 1829, when the Rev. Caleb Good represents this parish,-as also in 1830. His zealous labours contributed not a little to revive the hopes of the Episcopalians in that parish. Services were from time to time afforded to Bull Church, or St. Margarett's, by neighbouring ministers ; and after some time a church was built at the Bowling Green, which, whether in St. Margarett's or St. Mary's parish, was connected with the congregation in St. Margarett's. In 1833, the Rev. Mr. Friend became the minister of St. Margarett's, and con- tinued so for some years, until his removal to St. Mary's of the same county. Since the removal of Mr. Friend, St. Margarett's has been connected with Berkeley parish in Spottsylvania county, first and for some years under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Ward, until his removal to Westmoreland, and then of the Rev. Dabney Wharton, its present minister. We have no old vestry-books from which to learn who were the early friends of the Church in this region. We can only mention the names of a few families known to ourself,-the Temples, Tompkinses, Swans, Hallidays, Rawlings, Minors, Hills, Harts, Keans, Leavills, Phillipses, Dickensons, Har- rises, Nelsons, Fontanes,-as now belonging to this part of Caroline and Spottsylvania.
PARISHES OF DRYSDALE AND ST. ASAPH, IN CAROLINE COUNTY.
These parishes have long since been deserted of Episcopalians, and can soon be disposed of. That of Drysdale was, it is sup- posed, cut off from St. Mary's in 1713. St. Asaph was taken from Drysdale, which lay partly in Caroline and partly in King
414
OLD CHURCHES, MINISTERS, AND
William, in the year 1779. Drysdale parish, thus reduced, lay alongside of Essex and St. Asaph, toward Hanover county.
In the years 1754 and 1758, we find the Rev. Robert Innes minister of Drysdale parish. In the year 1774, the Rev. Andrew Moreton. In the year 1776, the Rev. Samuel Shield. In the years 1785 and 1787 and 1789, the Rev. Jesse Carter represents the parish in the Convention, since which time we hear nothing of the parish. Mr. William Lyne appears during this time to have been a faithful lay delegate.
St. Asaph parish, as we have seen, was established in 1779, during the war of the Revolution. We can only look for any ac- count of this parish, in the absence of a vestry-book, to the jour- nals of our Conventions, which began in 1785, after the close of the war. In the year 1785, we find it represented by the Rev. Samuel Shield and Mr. John Page, Jr. In the year 1786, by the Rev. James Taylor and Mr. John Page. In the year 1787, by the Rev. James Taylor and Mr. John Baylor. In the year 1796, by the Rev. George Spirrin and Mr. John Woolfolk. St. Asaph only appears these four times on our journals.
Within the bounds of this parish after the separation, and in Drysdale before that time, lived Mr. Edmund Pendleton, President of the Court of Appeals, of whom we have previously spoken as a sin- cere Christian and steady friend of the Church. Were any vestry- books of Caroline county to be found, there can be no doubt his name would be there. He was the clerk of the vestry, he himself informs us, when a mere boy. Should it be asked why his name never ap- pears on our journals of Convention with those of Governors Wood and Page, and the Nelsons and Carys, and other patriots of the Revolution, it would be sufficient to conjecture that his heavy duties as judge prevented; but it is made certain by the following letter to Richard Henry Lee, which has been sent me by a friend :-
Extract of a Letter from Edmund Pendleton to Richard Henry Lee, June 13, 1785.
" You have heard of a Convention of the clergy and laity of our Epis- copal Church last month. I was not able to attend it, but was pleased to learn that the members were truly respectable, and their proceedings wise and temperate. Their journal is not yet printed, but I am told it con- tains rules for the government of the clergy, and the appointment of deputies to represent us in a Federal Convention to be held in Philadel- phia in September next, to whom it is referred to revise and reform our Liturgy. Mr. Page, of Rosewell, and your brother, of Greenspring, [Mr.
415
FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
William Lee,] are the lay deputies, and the Revs. Mr. Griffith and McCrosky the clerical. What is become of Bishop Seabury, and how is he received in Connecticut ? One would not have expected that the first American Bishop had come to New England."
I am happy also to be able to furnish another document from the pen of Judge Pendleton, toward the close of his life, on a subject of as deep interest at the present as at that time. It is a petition, in his own well-known handwriting, and with his own name at the head of it, from the inhabitants of Caroline, addressed to the Legislature, praying it to take into consideration the evils of treating the voters at annual elections with intoxicating drink. The names of the signers are those of the most respectable citizens of Caroline county. The committee to whom it was referred in the House were also the most eminent men of Virginia, viz. :- Messrs. Vena- ble, Mathews, Ellzey, Jennings, Hill, Shield, and John Taylor.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.