USA > Virginia > Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia, Vol. I > Part 51
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After a few years Mr. Craig thinks of leaving the parish ; and the Rev. Mr. Jarratt, who was about to go to England for Orders, receives a title on the same condition which had been agreed on with Mr. Craig. Mr. Craig, however, still continues in the parish until his death in 1795. He appears to have had the esteem of the people. A good glebe and glebe-house are prepared for him, and he was allowed to practise medicine in connection with his ministry. At one time-about 1790-he appears to have left the parish, or to have been officiating in some parish or parishes around, as the vestry pass an order that if he will return to the parish and preach every Sabbath they will raise sixty pounds for him. Whe- ther the sixty pounds was raised or not, he appears to have la- boured in his old parish until his death. His ministry was of thirty- fire or thirty-six years' duration in this one parish.
Mr. Craig united the practice of medicine with the duties of the ministry. Whether it was from the necessity of obtaining a support for his family, or from charity to the poor, I cannot say. He prospered in his worldly matters. His glebe was larger and better than most of those in the State, and he was a better manager. He had a mill of his own, and during the war it was a kind of storehouse for public provisions. Tarleton, knowing this, and that Mr. Craig was a true American and zealous in the cause of the Revolution, took the mill in his route, and, after he and
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his men had feasted on Mr. Craig's good mutton and fed their horses on his corn, caused all the barrels of flour to be rolled into the mill-pond and the whole establishment to be burned down.
To Mr. Craig the Rev. John Cameron succeeded. He was one of four brothers who came from Scotland,-one of them, besides himself, being in the ministry. The family was ancient and highly . respectable. He was educated in King's College, Aberdeen, was ordained by the Bishop of Chester in 1770, and came over that year to Virginia. His first charge was St. James's Church, Mecklen- burg. From thence, in 1784, he went to Petersburg, and, after spending some years there, removed to Nottoway parish. Mr. Jarratt, in speaking of the migratory course of the clergy for want of support after the Revolution, says,-
" Among others, we have a recent instance of this in the case of Dr. Cameron, whom you saw at my house as a visitor. He then lived at Petersburg. But, induced by necessity, having a large and increasing family, he removed into a parish above me, called Nottoway, where the vestry obligated themselves to pay him a hundred pounds annually for three years successively. But, meeting with no assistance from any one of the people, the whole fell upon themselves alone. This burden they found too weighty, and it caused them to wish to get rid of the incum- bent, which I am told they have effected, and Dr. Cameron is now the minister of a parish in Lunenberg county. Few or none of the people would go to hear him, (at least very seldom,) and very few of the vestry made a constant practice of going to church, as I have been informed, so that frequently his congregation would not exceed five or six hearers. Surely this was enough to weary him out and make him think of new quarters."
His new quarters not being in this respect sufficient for his support, he was obliged to resort to school-keeping, and had a select classical school, for which, by his scholarship, he was emi- nently fitted. He was made Doctor of Divinity by William and Mary College. If for his strictness he was even then complained of, how would such a school as his be now endured, by either parents or children ? By nature stern and authoritative, he was born and educated where the discipline of schools and families was more than Anglican. It was Caledonian. But he made fine scholars. There is one at least now alive, who is an instance of this, and bears testimony to it. His sincere piety and great uprightness commanded the respect of all, if his stern appearance and uncompromising strictness prevented a kindlier feeling. I never saw him but once, and then only for a few hours around a committee-table at our second Convention in Richmond, and then received a rebuke from him; and, though it was not for an unpar-
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donable sin, yet I sincerely thanked him, and have esteemed him the more for it ever since. The father's piety and integrity have descended to more than one of his posterity. Judge Duncan Cameron, of North Carolina, was his son, and educated by him. Of him it might be said in some good degree, as of Sir Matthew Hale, " A light saith the Pulpit, a light saith the Bar." Judge Walker Anderson, of Florida, is his grandson, and was his scholar, and but for ill health would have been in the ministry. I might speak of others, but it enters not into my place to enlarge more.
Dr. Cameron continued the minister of Cumberland parish until his death in 1815. He was buried beside his daughter, Anna M. Cameron. A tombstone has been erected to their memory by his son, of whom we have just spoken,-the late Hon. Duncan Cameron, of North Carolina.
About three or four years after the death of Mr. Cameron, the Rev. Mr. Philips, of whom I wrote in the article on Hanover, took charge of this parish and continued in it until his death. During the interval between the death of Mr. Cameron and the coming of Mr. Philips, Mr. Ravenscroft, of Mecklenburg, then a candidate for Orders in Virginia, was recommended by Bishop Moore and accepted by the vestry as lay reader in the parish.
The Rev. Charles Taliafero, after an interval of some years, succeeded Mr. Philips in 1831, and for six years laboured most diligently and successfully, being the means under God of rousing up the slumbering energies of the old parish. St. John's Church was the only one standing in the parish at that time. Reedy Creek Church had been consumed by fire. Being deserted of worshippers, it was filled with fodder, and said to have taken fire while some negroes were playing cards in it by night. Old Flatrock Church had been disposed of and the proceeds applied to the building of St. John's. St. Paul's was built during the ministry of the honest and zealous Mr. Taliafero. At his entrance upon duty there were only seven regular attending communicants in the parish. During his brief ministry forty-six were added to the communion. Mr. Taliafero was succeeded by the Rev. Thomas Locke, who has con- tinued to be the minister until within the last two years. The Rev. Mr. Henderson is its present rector.
I take from the old vestry-book the following list of vestrymen :-
Lewis Deloney, Clement Read, Matthew Talbot, Abraham Martin, Lyddall Bacon, David Stokes, Daniel Ferth, Thomas Bouldin, John Twitty, Field Jefferson, John Edloe, John Cox, Francis Ellidge, Luke Smith,
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William Embry or Embra, Peter Fontaine, Robert Wade, George Walton, Joseph Morton, Thomas Hawkins, William Watkins, Thomas Nash, John Speed, Henry Blagrove, John Jennings, Matthew Marraball, John Parrish, John Ragsdale, Daniel Claiborne, Edmund Taylor, Thomas Pettis, Thomas Lanier, Thomas Tabb, William Gee, David Garland, John Hobson, George Philips, Thomas Wynne, William Taylor, Thomas Chambers, Christopher Philips, Benjamin Tomlinson, Charles Warden, Elisha Betts, Thomas . Buford, William Harding, David Stokes, John Ballard, Robert Dixon, Anthony Street, Edward Jordan, Nicholas Hobson, Sterling Niblett, John Cureton, Christopher Robertson, James Buford, Covington Hardy, Ellison Ellis, J. E. Broadman, William Buford, James Smith, Thomas Stephen- son, Bryan Lester, William Glenn, Obadiah Clay, William Tucker, Ed- mund P. Bacon, Thomas Garland, John Street, Henry Stokes, Peter Lamkin, Philip Jackson, Thomas Garland, John Billups, David Street, Peter Eppes, W. Farmer, James McFarland, Thomas M. Cameron, Wil- liam Buford, Jr.
It will be seen that the name of Buford often occurs on this list. At one time four of the name were in the same vestry. To Mr. Thomas Buford, a pious member of the Church, the parish is now, and has been for a long time, indebted for its ability to support a minister. About sixty years ago he left an estate to the parish, which, though badly managed, has rendered effectual aid to the vestry in the support of a minister.
To the above list I add the first election after the effort at re- viving the Church began :- David Street, Colonel John Street, William Overton, Roger Atkinson, Thomas Atkinson, James Mc- Farland, Charles Smith.
ST. JAMES'S PARISH, MECKLENBURG COUNTY.
This parish was separated from Cumberland parish, Lunenburg, in the year 1761. The county of Mecklenburg was cut off from Lunenburg in 1764. The City Church, as it is called, is still stand- ing, being an old frame building with a number of old Episcopal families around it, who, I trust, will ever be as willing as they are able to sustain a minister. Where the chapels stood I am unable to say. There was an old house of worship, in the time of Bishop Ravenscroft's ministry, called Speed's Church, which I believe was one of former days. In later days one was built in a more central place and called St. James's, and then removed to another position, and then abandoned and sold for the purpose of building one at Boydton. Another has been built about twelve miles from Boyd- ton by the name of St. Andrew's, another near the Carolina line called St. Luke's, and, lastly, one at Clarksville, on the Roanoke.
The first minister of this parish was Mr. John Cameron, of whom
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we have recently spoken. He is on our list of clergy from this parish in 1774-76, the only one we have between 1754 and 1758 and 1785. It is probable that he was minister in Mecklenburg from his first coming into this country, in the year 1770, until 1784, when he moved to Petersburg; though one of his descendants informs me that he was living in Charlotte in 1771, where he married a Miss Nash. He may have settled there first and after a year or two removed to Mecklenburg. It has generally been supposed that the Rev. George Micklejohn succeeded to Mr. Came- ron, but I can find no evidence that he ever was the regular minister of the parish. Although there were Conventions from the year 1785 to the year 1805, and then from 1812 to the present time, his name never appears as the minister. He was ordained for North Carolina by the Bishop of London in 1766, and removed, no doubt, from thence to Virginia and settled in Mecklenburg. He had either taught school in Carolina or Virginia before the Revo- lution, if that anecdote be true which is related of him,-viz. : that on being solicited by some of the gentlemen, after the war, to re- sume his occupation and take some of their sons, he replied that "he would have nothing to do with their little American democrats, for that it was hard enough to manage them before the Revolution, and now it would be impossible." He lived to a great age, was a man of peculiar character, and never calculated to be useful in the ministry. He preached very often in Mecklenburg, but to very small congregations, not always to two or three, himself and an old brother Scotchman being on one occasion the whole assembly : nevertheless, the sermon was preached. He lived some years after Mr. Ravenscroft's ministry commenced. The latter tells the fol- lowing anecdote of him :- On a certain occasion, when he (Mr. R.) was preaching on the various testimonies to the truth and excellency of religion, he alluded to the comfort of it to the aged and to their dying witness to it, and, pointing to old Mr. Micklejohn, who was present and before him, told the congregation that there was the testimony of a century to our holy religion, supposing him to have lived his century ; but Mr. M. immediately corrected him, crying aloud, in broad Scotch, "Naw, naw, mon,-ninety-aught, ninety- aught." But he outlived a century. Mr. Ravenscroft was the first minister of the parish after the relinquishment of it by Mr. Cameron in 1784. He was of an ancient Virginia family, to be found about Williamsburg and Petersburg, according to the records of the House of Burgesses and the vestry-books. He himself was related to old Lady Skipwith, of Mecklenburg. He was educated at Williams-
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burg. John Randolph, who was there at the same time, used to say that his nickname was Mad Jack while there, and that he de- served it long after by reason of the vehemence of his temper, speech, and manners. The religion of Christ took strong hold of him, and made a great change in his views and character, so that he felt necessity laid upon him to preach the Gospel. He at first united himself to the Methodists, but, on examination, gave the preference to the Church of his fathers, and became a lay reader in Mecklenburg and Lunenburg, producing no little effect by his most impressive and emphatic manner. In the year 1817 he was minister of St. James's parish, in which he continued until his election to the Bishopric of North Carolina. He was succeeded by the Rev. William Steele, who was followed by the Rev. Francis McGuire. He continued its minister until obliged to retire from full duty by reason of ill health, though he still lives in it and performs some services. The Rev. Mr. Chesley took the place of Mr. McGuire, and was succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Rodman. It is now vacant.
Although there is no vestry-book of the church in Mecklenburg from which to give a list of the early vestrymen from the year 1761, we cannot forbear the mention of a few names of persons well known to us, who contributed much to its revival after the year 1812. Major John Nelson, son or grandson of old Secretary Thomas Nelson, of York, settled toward the close of the last century in Mecklenburg, on the Roanoke. The Rev. Alexander Hay, of whom we shall read when we come to Halifax county, re- sided as teacher in his family. The old man and his numerous sons entered zealously into measures for the revival of the Church. Mr. John Nelson, Mr. Robert Nelson, and Major Thomas Nelson, especially, were the active coadjutors of Mr. Ravenscroft and his successors in raising up the prostrate Church in Mecklenburg. The names of all of them are to be seen on the journals of our State Conventions, and those of two of them on the list of delegates to the General Convention. Major Thomas Nelson signalized himself in the last war with England, and was for some time a member of Congress from his- district. He recently died at Co- lumbus, in Georgia, to which State he removed some years since, beloved and esteemed by all who knew him. To these I might add the venerable name of Goode and his descendants, and the Lewises, Cunninghams, Baskervilles, Alexanders, Colemans, Sturdivants, Tarrys, Daily, and others.
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CORNWALL PARISH, IN THE COUNTY OF CHARLOTTE.
The county of Charlotte was taken from Lunenburg in the year 1764. The parish was separated from Cumberland parish, Lu- nenburg, in the year 1755, nine years before. On the list of clergy for the years 1773, 1774, and 1776, we find the Rev. Thomas Johnson assigned to this parish. We cannot ascertain that any other ever was the regular pastor of this parish; but from the family Bible of old Colonel Carrington, of Charlotte, we ascertain that the following ministers officiated in baptizing between the years 1755 and 1762 :- The Revs. William Key, John Berkeley, James Garden, William Craig, and Alexander Hay. Some of them were certainly ministers of surrounding parishes ; some of them may have been ministers of this.
END OF VOL. I.
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