USA > Virginia > Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia, Vol. II > Part 3
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FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
It does not appear to have been represented in any of the Conven- tions subsequent to the Revolution, until some years after the revival of the Church, except in the years 1790 and 1791, by a lay delegate,-Mr. John Royall. It is believed that Mr. Brunskill lived for many years to be a dead weight upon the Church. He never married, and lived a solitary, uncomfortable life. It is stated of him, and on authority entirely to be relied on, that, upon the declaration of war, he proclaimed from the pulpit that to take part in it was rebellion; upon which the gentlemen arose and carried their families out of the church, and, on consultation, determined to inflict punishment upon him, which was only pre- vented by the interference of two of the elder and most influential gentlemen present. But he was never permitted to officiate again, a lay reader being appointed to take his place. He continued until his death to hold the glebe and to live upon it.
Of the churches in Amelia I have received accounts from two of the oldest persons now living in it. There was one called Hun- tington, (long since in ruins,) about five miles northwest of the court-house. There was another called Chinquapin Church, in the upper part of the county, built about the year 1749 or 1750, at a place since called Paineville. There were three other churches, called Rocky Run, Avery's, and Pride's, in different parts of the county, two of which have been claimed as private property, taken down, and used for farming-purposes. Of old Grubhill Church we have more particular accounts. A venerable lady, now living, and in her ninetieth year, remembers, when a child, to have accompanied her parents to this church, and knows that the timber for it was furnished from her father's and uncle's lands, (Messrs. William and Joseph Eggleston.) Another old lady, now deceased, is known to have said that in the year 1768 she saw the workmen laying the floor of the wing of the church, the main body having probably been built some years before. I have been visiting that old building since the year 1827 or 1828. It was even then in a somewhat tottering condition as to the galleries, which had been put up, with the permission of the
The families who attended Grubhill Church were the Bookers, Tabbs, Eggles- tons, Archers, Royalls, and Meades.
The plate was kept by Joseph Eggleston, Sen. and Jr., till the death of the latter, and was sold by order of the court a few years after,-in 1815.
The Archer family is one of early settlement in Virginia, and of high respect- ability. Some of them formed a part of that happy and interesting circle of which Judge Tucker speaks as dwelling in York before the Revolutionary War.
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vestries, by some of the old families of Egglestons, Banisters, Tabbs, Archers, &c., for their own use. Although cold in winter, hot in summer, at all times dark and uncomfortable, (being high up, and near the roof,) yet such was the old family feeling of at- tachment to them on the part of the descendants of those who built and first occupied them, that even after it became somewhat unsafe to sit in them, being propped up with large poles and in other ways, they could not be induced to abandon them. This presented an obstacle for some time to remodelling and improving other parts of the church; and the attachment to the whole building, such as it was, though decaying and very uncomely and uncomfortable, for a long time stood in the way of a new and better one.
At length old feelings were so much subdued as to permit a new one to be erected and the old one to be removed. The attachment to the old name, Grubhill, though neither classical nor scriptural, was so great, that not even a compromise, by which it should be called St. Paul's, Grubhill, would be accepted by those whose antiquarian feelings were distressed by the change of the name given it by their ancestors and so long in use. The history of the transaction is on the pages of the vestry-book.
As names are not always things, we trust that the divine blessing will be as abundantly poured out on the religious services performed in it under the old and homely name of Grubhill, as of any other. Of the two extremes, an undue attachment to old things, or an undue fondness for new, we prefer the former, as most conservative ; but " medio tutissimus ibis."
Having had access to the vestry-book of Raleigh parish, com- mencing in 1790, we are enabled to furnish a list of the vestry- men from that date. At an election at that time we find the name of William Giles, John Pride, Richard Eggleston, John Wiley, John Archer, Joseph Eggleston, Rowland Ward, John Towns, Jr., Daniel Hardaway,-John Archer and Richard Eggleston being made churchwardens. From that time until the year 1827 there does not appear to have been any election of vestrymen, or any thing done in the parish. In that year the Rev. William F. Lee was elected minister, and the following gentlemen vestrymen :- Hodijah Meade, John R. Robertson, Charles Eggleston, T. R. Banister, W. A. Mileston, Benjamin L. Meade, W. J. Barksdale, William Murray ; to whom were added, at different times, John Booker, James Allen, Jaqueline Berkeley, Dr. Thomas Meaux, Dr. Skelton, Daniel Worsham, William Barksdale, Jr., Dr. Skelton,
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FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
Jr., B. M. Jones, Thomas G. Tabb, Egbert Leigh, J. W. Lane, Thomson Walthall. Here my list ends.
I have already said that the Rev. Mr. Lee, of whom I have spoken more fully in another place, became the minister in 1827. In the year 1835 the Rev. Farley Berkeley, the present minister, took charge of it, connecting with it the pastorship of either the church in Chesterfield, or that at Genito Bridge, in Powhatan, or sometimes of both. I see from the vestry-book, that he has ever insisted on an annual election, though the vestry protest against it as unnecessary, and record the same. How different from former days, when, though Governors, Commissaries, and clergy ever protested against annual elections, the vestries insisted on them. The difference arises from the great difference in the character of the clergy generally. I know of but one parish in the diocese which follows this ancient custom, and peculiar circumstances in its past history led to this. The clergy of our day are ready to relinquish their charges the moment they believe their services are unacceptable and unprofitable, while the people are anxious to retain as long as possible the labours of a worthy, pious, and zealous minister.
I have only to add, in relation to Raleigh parish, that the Rev. Mr. Chevers, a few years since, devoted himself very diligently to the effort at establishing the congregation at Chinquapin Church, but, after two years' faithful services, relinquished it as a hopeless task at the present time. "Non si male nunc et olim sic erit."
NOTTOWAY PARISH, NOTTOWAY COUNTY.
Nottoway county was separated from Amelia in the year 1788. Nottoway parish was established in the county of Amelia, being separated from Raleigh parish before the year 1752 and after the year 1748. There being no account of the Acts of Assembly for 1749-51, in Henning, I am unable to decide the precise year. In the year 1754, and again in 1758, the Rev. Wm. Proctor was the minister,-the same, no doubt, of whom mention is made in the vestry-book of Halifax. In the years 1773-74-76, the Rev. Thomas Wilkinson is the minister. Of him I have found a good account. The Rev. Mr. Jarratt informs us that Dr. Cameron was its minister for about two years after leaving Petersburg in 1793, but was obliged to resign for want of support. This was, no doubt, the last of Episcopal services in this parish, except some occasional ones of late years. As to the churches in this parish,
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all that I have been able to learn is from the Act of Assembly in 1755, by which the parish of St. Patrick is established in the county of Prince Edward. It seems that the county of Prince Edward had been separated from Amelia the previous year, and from that part of it in which the parish of Nottoway lay, but no new parish was then cut off from it and established in Prince Edward. But now, in 1775, the parish of St. Patrick is taken from Nottoway and made to correspond with the bounds of Prince Edward. At a later period (1788) Nottoway county is established, corresponding, I pre- sume, with the bounds of old Nottoway parish in Amelia. The Act speaks of two new churches being recently built in the lower part of Nottoway parish, and requires the parish to refund a portion of the money which had been raised from the whole parish for their erection, to be refunded to the new parish in Prince Edward. Where these churches are situated, and what were their names, and what others had been there before, I am unable to say .*
ST. PATRICK'S PARISH, PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY.
We have seen that the county was established in 1754 and the parish in 1755. In the year 1758 the Rev. James Garden is its minister. We find him there also in 1773,-fifteen years after. In the years 1774 and 1776 the parish has no minister. In the years 1777 and 1778 the Rev. Archibald McRoberts was the minister. We have already spoken of his relinquishment of our ministry in. the year 1779. With his ministry Episcopal services no doubt
* I have an old leaf from a vestry-book, without the name of the parish on it, in which I find the Rev. John Brunskill minister in 1753, Major Thomas Tabb and Major Peter Jones churchwardens, William Craioby, Wood Jones, William Archer, Richard Jones, and Samuel Cobb, vestrymen. This must certainly be a part of the old vestry-book of Raleigh parish, and Mr. Brunskill must have been its minister in 1753. In the following year (1754) he was certainly in another parish, and Mr. Dauson in this. He must have returned to this before the year 1773, or else one of the same name, for there were three John Brunskills in Virginia at this time.
" In the year 1829 or 1830," writes a friend, "while riding with a friend from Prince Edward Court-House to Nottoway Court-House, I noticed, near to a farm- house on the road, a barn of singular appearance. 'Yonder barn,' I remarked, 'looks much like some of the old Colonial churches I have seen.' ' It was a church of the Old Establishment,' was his reply. 'The present owner of the farm, (which I think had been the glebe, ) finding it vacant and on land which was once a part of the tract he purchased, and as it was near his house, had it put on rollers and re- moved to its present position for the use you see. There was no one to forbid the sacrilege, or, if so, it was without avail; but the act, I believe, is condemned by the general sentiment of this community as that of a coarse-minded, unscrupulous votary of mammon.'"
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FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
ceased in Prince Edward, as we see no representative, either clerical or lay, in any Convention.
There were in Mr. McRoberts's time three churches in Prince Edward, one of which, or the congregation thereof, separated with him. Their names were-1st. The Chapel or Watkins's Church, about eighteen miles from Prince Edward Court-House, on the Lynchburg Road, which was the one whose congregation followed Mr. McRoberts in his movement toward an Independent Church. It is now occupied by different denominations. 2d. French's Church, which was about a mile from the court-house and is now gone down. 3d. Sandy River Church, on Sandy River, about eight miles from the court-house on the Petersburg Road. This last church is now, I am told, occupied by the Baptist denomination. I have in my possession a pamphlet of some twenty-two pages, containing an account of a controversy concerning it between the Methodists and Baptists in the years 1832-34. When deserted by the Episcopalians it had been repaired by general subscription, and at several different times occupied as a free church. In the year 1832 the Baptists obtained a title to it and claimed sole right to it, though not refusing to allow the Methodists the use of it at such times as the owners might choose. The Methodists were unwilling to accept these terms, and much unhappy disputation ensued. At one time two ministers of each denomination met on the same day and were in the pulpit together, and the vote of the congregation as to who should preach was taken. The matter was referred to two men eminent in the law,-Judge Thomas Bouldin and Mr. Charles Smith. They determined that the deed recently given to the Baptists was not good, that the one given to the churchwardens at the first creation of the church was the legal title, and that it belonged ยท now to the Commonwealth of Virginia, unless there was an older and better title than that of those who made one to the church- wardens, and to this they were inclined, and therefore advised that the line be run in order to decide the point. A line was run, and it passed through the church; and so a part of it only was legally the property of the churchwardens and afterward of the Common- wealth. The result was that the Baptists retained possession, though the Methodists maintained that a wall might be raised through the church according to the line run ; but it was not done. If either Mr. Chapman Johnson's opinion-that the churches were the property of Episcopalians-was true, or that of Judge Bouldin and Mr. Smith, then, in the first case, the Episcopalians in the county ought to have been applied to to decide the question, or
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OLD CHURCHES, MINISTERS, AND
else the public authorities, either of which would, I think, have settled it more amicably and more to the honour of religion. Other unhappy disputes have occurred concerning our old churches in other places. I knew of one where, after much strife between two denominations, the church was set up by them to the highest bidder. Who gave the title, or what was it worth? About another, two parties preached in different pulpits,-one in the old Episcopal pulpit and the other in a new one in a different part of the church. So far from their being always respected as equally common property, I have myself been refused admission into one, while on an Episcopal visitation, by those who claimed it by the right of use. In relation to the suggestion that the Episcopalians in Prince Edward were the most proper persons to decide the question as to the occupancy of Old Sandy River Church, if it be said that there were scarcely any left unto whom application might have been made, I reply that, from all the information I have been able to get, there have always been some few of high respectability there. One at least there was, whose firm attachment to the Church, yet catholic spirit to all others, and great weight of character, were felt and acknowledged by all. I allude to Mr. William Berkeley, son of the old lady of Hanover who bade the overseers of the poor who sent a deputation to her for the Communion-plate to come them- selves and take it. He inherited all his mother's devotion to the Church, and when at our Conventions, and on other occasions, opportunity was presented for displaying it, never failed to do so. He was not, however, a bigot to a particular Church, but loved the whole Catholic Church. In evidence of which, being in the provi- dence of God placed beyond the reach of an Episcopal place of worship, and near the Presbyterian College in Prince Edward, he not only attended the religious services held there, but was an active member of the board of trustees thereof. For a long period of time he presided over that board, fulfilling the duties of his station faithfully, and yet always having it distinctly understood that he was a true son of the Episcopal Church. So amiable, pious, and dignified a Christian gentleman as he was is not easily found.
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In the list of vestrymen in Brunswick, Lunenburg, Halifax, and elsewhere, we meet with certain persons some of whose descendants are enrolled on other registers than those of the Episcopal Church, such as Read, Venable, Watkins, Carrington, Cabell, Morton, &c., and we know not where in the progress of our work we can more properly introduce some notice of them than in connection with
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FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
Prince Edward county and the College of Hampden-Sydney. We have seen how the Presbyterians from Ireland and Scotland, settling first in Pennsylvania, began to emigrate to the Valley of Virginia about the year 1738,-how, under Mr. Samuel Davies, they were established in Hanover and some parts around between 1740 and 1750. From thence, in a short time, they found their way into what is now Charlotte and Prince Edward, and made strong and permanent settlements there. This was in a great measure effected by the establishment of Hampden-Sydney College, a brief history of which, taken from the Sketches of the Presbyterian Church of Virginia, by the Rev. Mr. Foote, will best enable us to understand the subject. In the year 1774 the ministers and members of the Presbytery of Hanover determine to establish a public school in that part of the State,-Prince Edward,-understanding that they can procure the services of Mr. Samuel Stanhope Smith, then a candidate for the ministry in the New Castle Presbytery, and teacher of languages in Princeton College, afterward the dis- tinguished President of the same. Sufficient funds being raised and a place selected, in November, 1774, Mr. Smith, with his brother, J. B. Smith, a candidate for the ministry, and a third person, are regularly chosen to commence the work. The first, being now ordained, was called also to the congregation in that place. Under this most eminent scholar and eloquent preacher and his yet more zealous and laborious brother, Mr. J. B. Smith, the institution flourished, notwithstanding all the obstacles of the war. In the year 1779 the elder brother resigned and accepted a call to a professorship in Princeton College. The Presidency of Hampden-Sydney devolved upon his most excellent and devoted brother, J. B. Smith, who continued to promote its welfare and the religious interests of the country around until the year 1788, when he accepted a call to a church in Philadelphia. During the Presi- dency of the younger Mr. Smith a charter was obtained for the College.
On the list of trustees we find names to which our eyes have become familiar on the pages of the old vestry-books, as those of Carrington, Nash, Watkins, Morton, Read, Booker, Scott, Meade, Allen, Parker, Foster, Johnson. Now, though some of them were doubtless still attached to the Episcopal Church, since it was de- clared at the outset that the institution should be conducted " on the most catholic plan," and it was the best policy to enlist general favour by appointing some of the Episcopal Church, yet a con- siderable number of them had doubtless given in their adhesion to
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the Presbyterian Church. Whereupon, ever since that time, we have found most of the above-mentioned names in each denomination.
Let these remarks introduce the following genealogy of the Reads and Carringtons, who may be regarded as common to the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches of Virginia, though more of the former belonged to the Presbyterian and more of the latter to the Episcopal. I take them chiefly from the Rev. Mr. Foote's Sketches of the Presbyterian Church.
Colonel Clement Read (so often mentioned as the active vestry- man in Brunswick and Lunenburg) was born in the year 1707. He was a trustee of William and Mary College in 1729. Being Presi- dent of the Council at the departure of Governor Gooch for Eng- land, in 1749, he became Governor of the Colony, but died a few days after. He had been educated at William and Mary under Commissary Blair. He married the daughter of William Hill, an officer in the British navy and second son of the Marquis of Lans- downe. Mr. Read, having, with Colonel Richard Randolph, of Curls, purchased large tracts of land in what was then Lunenburg, moved to that county and was clerk of the same for many years. He frequently served in the House of Burgesses with the great leaders of the Revolution. He died in the year 1763 and was buried at Bushy Forest. His wife was laid by his side in 1780. She was (says Mr. Foote) a pious woman and an exemplary member of the Episcopal Church. Their eldest son, Colonel Isaac Read, married a daughter of Henry Embra, (another vestryman of the Lunenburg Church,) who represented the county with his father, Clement Read. He himself represented the county with Paul Carrington, who married one of his sisters. They were both asso- ciated with Washington, Jefferson, and Henry in their patriotic movements. Paul Carrington was a zealous friend of the Episcopal Church. What were the partialities of Mr. Isaac Read, whether he followed in the footsteps of his father or not, we are unable to say. He was made colonel in a Virginia regiment, and soon after died, being laid with military honours in a vault in Philadelphia. He left a son by the name of Clement, who became a distinguished minister of the Presbyterian Church, after having for a time offi- ciated among the Methodists. He married a descendant of Poca- hontas,-a Miss Edmonds, of Brunswick,-by whom he had thirteen children.
I take from the same source (Foote's Sketches) the following no- tice of the Carrington family, whose members abound in this part of Virginia. Mr. Paul Carrington and his wife (who was of the
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FAMILIES OF VIRGINIA.
Henningham family) emigrated from Ireland to Barbadoes, where he died early in the eighteenth century, leaving a widow and a numerous family of children. The youngest child, George, came to Virginia about the year 1727 with the family of Joseph Mayo, a Barbadoes merchant. Mr. Mayo purchased and occupied the an- cient seat of Powhatan, near the Falls of Jamestown. Young Car- rington lived for some years with Mr. Mayo as his storekeeper. About 1732, when in his twenty-first year, he married Anne, the eldest daughter of William Mayo, brother of Joseph, who had settled in Goochland. They went to reside on Willis's Creek, now in Cumberland county. They had eleven children,-viz. : Paul, William, (who died in infancy,) George, William again, Joseph, Nathaniel, Henningham, Edward, Hannah, (who married a Cabell and was mother of Judge Cabell,) Mayo, Mary, (who married a Watkins.) The parents, George Carrington and his wife, both died in 1785. From them sprung the numerous families of Carringtons in Virginia; and in the female line the descendants have been numerous. Their eldest child, Paul Carrington, married, as we have already said, the daughter of Colonel Clement Read, of Lu- nenburg,-now Charlotte,-who left a memory of great virtues. Their children were Paul, Clement, George, Mary, and Anne. Her youngest child, Paul, became Judge of the General Court of Vir- ginia, and died in 1816. The elder Paul Carrington was married a second time, to Miss Priscilla Sims. Two of their children died in infancy. The rest were Henry, Robert, Letitia, and Martha. A very interesting account is given of this, the elder Carrington, in Mr. Grigsby's book,-the Convention of 1776. He was a member of that body, and filled various departments of duty during the Revolutionary struggle, while furnishing three sons to the army, two of whom were eminently distinguished. He was an able lawyer in his day, and after the close of the war was promoted to the General Court, and then to the Court of Appeals, where he was associated with his old friend, Edmund Pendleton, from whom he seldom if ever differed on all the great questions which came before them during the scenes of the Revolution. Agreeing with Pendle- ton on the subject of religion and in attachment to the Episcopal Church, when the question of the constitutionality of the law for selling the glebes came before the Court of Appeals, we find them united in giving their voice against the law. Mr. Grigsby informs us that "in middle life, and until the war of the Revolution was past, he was of a grave turn. Before the troubles began he had lost the bride of his youth. During the war, and when the Southern
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OLD CHURCHES, MINISTERS, AND
States were almost the reconquered Colonies of Britain, he was never seen to smile. Day succeeded day in his domestic life, and not only was no smile seen to play upon his face, but hardly a word fell from his lips. He was almost overwhelmed with the calamities which assailed his country. But his latter years were cheered by its prosperity and glory. He died in the eighty-sixth year of his age."
That some of the descendants of such men as Paul Carrington and Clement Read, born and living in Prince Edward and the counties around, should have forsaken a Church many of whose ministers had forsaken them in times of trial, or else proved most unworthy, is not to be wondered at, when we remember the ministers of the Presbyterian Church who were sent into Virginia, and were reared in it just before, during, and after the Revolution. Samuel Davies led the way. The two Smiths were men of superior abilities. Old David Rice was himself a host. Dr. Graham, Dr. Alexander, and Dr. Hodge, following soon after, and having the powerful influ- ence of a college in their hands, could not but make a deep im- pression on the public mind in all that region. It is not to be wondered at that Episcopalians should wish well to the institution, and that we should find among the trustees the names of Paul Car- rington, William Cabell, Sr., James Madison, General Everard Meade, and others, who with their families were attached to the Episcopal Church, and so many of whose descendants have con- tinued so to be. It was, in opposition to some fears expressed at the time, most solemnly pledged that it should not be a sectarian proselyting institution, though the forms of the Presbyterian Church would be observed in it; and the fact that Episcopalians have often been in some measure concerned, as trustees or professors, in its management, proves that the pledge has been redeemed as far as perhaps is practicable in such institutions. The long and pros- perous Presidency over it by the late Mr. Cushing, whose memory is held in respect by all who knew him, and who, although a member of the Episcopal Church, enjoyed the confidence of the trustees of the College, and the fact that the Rev. Mr. Dame, of Danville, and Colonel Smith, of Lexington, with their well-known Episcopal attachments, were professors in the institution, are proofs that it was conducted in as catholic a spirit as circumstances would admit of. Whether in the lapse of time any change has taken place in its constitution or administration, I am unable to say.
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