USA > Virginia > Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia, Vol. II > Part 35
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"At length, about three years ago, an interesting little boy, on whose head scarce five summer suns had shone, stood at the window of his mother's chamber, just as the sun was going down, holding something thoughtfully in his hand. Observing his seriousness, his mother said to him, 'What are you thinking about, my son? What are you looking at so earnestly?' It was a new gold dollar, which his father had given him. His answer was, 'Mother, I am thinking of giving my gold dollar to Mr. Castleman, to build a new church I have heard him say he would like to have.' The mother encouraged the thought, and said, "Well, my son, do give it. God will bless you for it.' Accordingly, that dollar was wrapped in a small paper, with the written request that I would receive it for that object. This little event cheered my heart, and caused me to resolve at once to move forward with the enterprise. The result is a beautiful church, seventy-three feet six inches by forty-six feet six inches in the clear, thirty feet high, with a tower of eighty feet, and capable of accommodating com- fortably six hundred and fifty persons."
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The following communication from General Samuel Lewis, of Port Republic, Rockingham county, is a suitable sequel to the foregoing :-
"Rockingham parish, Rockingham county, was formed from a part of Augusta in the year 1776. In that portion of Augusta now constituting the county and parish of Rockingham, there were two chapels of the Esta- blished Church. One was situated about four miles west of Harrisonburg, near the present village of Dayton. The families of Smith and Harrison, with others of the early settlers in that neighbourhood, were of the Church of England. The other chapel was situated about five miles north of Port Republic, on the road from that place to Harrisonburg. The early settlers on the Shenandoah River near Port Republic were generally of English descent, and belonged to the Established Church. John Madison, (Clerk of Augusta county, the father of Bishop Madison,) Gabriel Jones, (the most distinguished lawyer of his day in the valley,) and Thomas Lewis, (who for many years represented Augusta county in the House of Bur- gesses, and was one of the earliest advocates of American independence,) had married sisters, (Misses Strother, of Stafford county,) and were among the earliest settlers in that neighbourhood. Peachy R. Gilmer, John Mackall, of Maryland, and others, soon after settled among them. These families were all of the Church of England. The Rev. Alexander Bal- maine for several years officiated at these two chapels, and spent much of his time with his parishioners on the Shenandoah.
"The old chapel near Dayton (a framed wooden building) remained standing until within the last twenty or thirty years. During and after the war of the Revolution, the services of the Church were discontinued; and, after the rise of Methodism in this county, most of the families who had formerly worshipped there became Methodists, and this chapel was used for many years as a Methodist meeting-house. The property on which it stood, after a lapse of years, fell into the hands of a Tunker* family : its use as a place of worship had been abandoned by the Methodists, and it was finally used as a barn by its Tunker proprietor. But few of the descendants of the original worshippers at this chapel now reside in its neighbourhood, and but one of them, within the knowledge of the writer of this sketch, retains any attachment to the Church of their ancestors.
"The descendants of the Church-of-England settlers in the neighbour- hood of Port Republic are many of them now members of the Protestant Episcopal Church, but very few of them remain in the neighbourhood. One of the sons of Thomas Lewis-the late Charles Lewis, Esq .- inherited, and lived, and died upon, the paternal estate. He ever retained his attach- ment to the Church, and several of his descendants are now communicants in the church at Port Republic."
Among those descendants is the author of the foregoing commu- nication, General Samuel Lewis, so often the delegate, not only to our Diocesan but to our General Conventions. I knew his ex-
* A sect of German Christians.
:
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cellent father, Mr. Charles Lewis, well. A truer friend to the Church when friends were few, a more perfect gentleman, and a worthier citizen, could not be found. I also knew that venerable old lady, Mrs. Gabriel Jones. The first visit ever paid to that parish was in company with her grandson, Mr. Strother Jones, of Frederick, when we saw her in her old age, rejoicing in the prospect of the resuscitation of the Church of her love. Her large old Prayer- Book is still in the hands of one of her descendants. Her husband, Mr. Gabriel Jones, was for a long time so prominent at the bar in the valley, that he was called "The Lawyer." His name is on the vestry-book of Frederick parish as council for the Church in one of her suits.
THE LEWIS FAMILY.
Augusta is undoubtedly the county in which something should be said of this name, as John Lewis, the father of the numerous families of Lewises in Western Virginia, was the great Augusta pioneer in 1720. Whether this family, and other families in Vir- ginia of the same name, are allied by reason of a common origin in a foreign land, cannot positively be affirmed; but the same- ness of family names, and oftentimes resemblance of personal ap- pearance and character, are such that many have inferred a common origin. Such was the expressed opinion of the late Benjamin Watkins Leigh, as of others. Mr. John Lewis, of Augusta, came from the county of Dublin, in Ireland, about the year 1720,-his eldest son, Thomas, being born there in 1718: some ascribe a Welsh origin, and others a Huguenot, to the family. His eldest son, Thomas, was a vestryman of the early Church in Augusta, and one of the first delegates to one of the first Conventions in Virginia after our troubles began. His library was well stored with old English theological books; and such was his attachment to the Episcopal Church, that in his will he requested that his friend and brother-in-law, old Peachy Gilmer, should read the burial-service of the Prayer-Book over his remains, there being no minister in the parish at that time. At one time he was in correspondence with the Rev. Mr. Boucher in reference to Augusta parish. He was the father of the Charles Lewis spoken of above, and grandfather of the present General Lewis, of Port Republic. There were three other sons of the first John Lewis. The second was Andrew Lewis, the hero of Point Pleasant. The third was William, who was also . a vestryman in Augusta, and afterward settled at the Sweet
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Springs. The fourth was Charles, who was killed by the Indians in the battle of Point Pleasant. Such is the information I received from one of the family, who speak of only four sons. Howe in his book on Virginia, and Charles Campbell after him, speak of two others. They say that all six of the brothers, under the com- mand of Samuel, the oldest, were with Washington at Braddock's defeat.
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ARTICLE LXXVII.
Churches in Western Virginia .- St. Paul's and St. John's, Brooke County.
WE introduce our notices of the churches in Western Virginia by the following passage from a sketch of Western Virginia, by the Rev. Dr. Doddridge, whose ministry will be duly noticed :-
" The Episcopal Church, which ought to have been foremost in gather- ing their scattered flocks, have been the last and done the least of any Christian community in the evangelical work. Taking the Western country in its whole extent, at least one-half of its population was originally of Episcopalian parentage ; but, for want of a ministry of their own, they have associated with other communities. They had no alternative but that of changing their profession or living and dying without the ordinances of religion. It can be no subject of regret that those ordinances were placed within their reach by other hands, whilst they were withheld by those by whom, as a matter of right and duty, they ought to have been given. One single chorepiscopus, or suffragan Bishop, of a faithful spirit, who, twenty years ago, should have 'ordained them elders in every place' where they were needed, would have been the instrument of forming Episcopal congregations over a great extent of country, and which, by this time, would have become large, numerous, and respectable; but the opportunity was neglected, and the consequent loss to this Church is irreparable.
"So total a neglect of the spiritual interests of so many valuable people, for so great a length of time, by a ministry so near at hand, is a singular and unprecedented fact in ecclesiastical history, the like of which never occurred before.
" It seems to me that if the twentieth part of their number of Christian people of any other community had been placed in Siberia, and dependent on any other ecclesiastical authority in this country, that that authority would have reached them many years ago with the ministration of the Gospel. With the earliest and most numerous Episcopacy in America, not one of the Eastern Bishops has yet crossed the Alleghany Mountains, although the dioceses of two of them comprehended large tracts of country on the western side of the mountains. It is hoped that the future diligence of this community will make up in some degree for the negligence of the past.
"There is still an immense void in this country, which it is their duty to fill up. From their respectability, on the ground of antiquity, among the Reformed Churches, the science of their patriarchs, who have been the lights of the world,-from their number and great resources even in America,-she ought to hasten to fulfil the just expectations of her own people as well as those of other communities, in contributing her full share to the science, piety, and civilization of our country.
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"From the whole of our ecclesiastical history, it appears that, with the exception of the Episcopal Church, all our religious communities have done well for their country."
Without questioning the perfect sincerity and honest zeal of Dr. Doddridge in this severe criticism, or desiring to apologize for what was blameworthy in the Episcopal Church in regard to the West, we think that truth and justice require some modification of the sentence. We cannot assent to the fact that one-half of the Western population was originally of Episcopal parentage. We must remem- ber that even Maryland had a large proportion of Romanists, as well as other Protestant denominations besides the Episcopal. North of this there was scarce any Episcopalians from the first set- tlement of the country. A short time before the war, Bishop White was the only Episcopal minister in Pennsylvania. The emigrants from all the Northern States, beginning with Pennsylvania, were not of Episcopal parentage. Although Episcopalians abounded from the first in Virginia and the Carolinas, yet it should be re- membered that, of the emigrants to the West, immense numbers- far the larger part-had renounced the Episcopal Church before their removal, and only carried with them bitter hatred toward it. I am satisfied that not a tenth part of those who have left the Eastern for the Western States were Episcopalian at their removal : perhaps a much smaller proportion would be a correct estimate. Soon after the issue of Dr. Doddridge's book,-perhaps forty years ago,-I prepared something on this subject and offered it for pub- lication.
Owing to various circumstances in her history, the Episcopal Church may be regarded as the last of all the Churches in our land which began the work of evangelizing. Her race only com- menced after the Revolution. All that was done before proved but a hinderance to her. All other denominations were in active opera- tion long before, and were so prejudiced against her as not to be willing to have her as a co-worker with them. Instead, therefore, of the advantages possessed by the Episcopal Church for establishing herself in the West being greater than those of other Churches, they were less, whether we consider the Bishops and clergy at her com- mand, or the difficulty of the work to be done, by reason of existing prejudices. Justice to the memory of our fathers requires this statement. That of Dr. Doddridge has often been quoted without due consideration.
We must, however, do the justice to Dr. Doddridge to say that, if we had had many such laborious ministers as himself, the West would
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have been far better supplied with Episcopal churches and ministra- tions than it has been. And yet truth requires us to admit, what will soon appear, that even his zealous labours have not been fol- lowed by all the results which we could desire, by reason of the numerous opposing influences with which he and the Church had to contend. Nothing that I could draw from any documents or record, or from living witnesses, could so interest the reader as the following sketch of Dr. Doddridge's life and labours, from the pen of a friend, and I therefore adopt it :-
"The following article, with some slight alterations, was sent to me as a friend of the late Rev. Dr. Doddridge, by the Hon. Thomas Scott, of Chil- licothe. The writer was among the early settlers of the Northwest Terri- tory,-was Secretary to the Convention which framed the Constitution of the State of Ohio, and has since held important and responsible offices under its government. He is now far advanced in life, and employs a still vigorous intellect in throwing together for publication his reminis- cences of early associations and bygone days. D.
"Reminiscences of the first Minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church who adventured into the Wilderness Regions of Western Virginia and Eastern Ohio,-the late Rev. Dr. Joseph Doddridge, of Wellsburg, Brooke County, Virginia.
"Presuming that but few of the present members of the Episcopal Church in the now flourishing diocese in this State are aware that it was owing, in a great measure, to the early labours and indefatigable exertions of the individual above named that an Episcopate was obtained in Ohio, we feel persuaded that a few brief reminiscences connected with his self-deny- ing and persevering efforts for the establishment in the West of the Church of his fathers will not be unacceptable at the present period : indeed, as the early and intimate friend of this pioneer-herald of the Cross in our Western borders, we deem it but a measure of justice to the memory of a man who, for a series of years, laboured in the good cause single-handed and almost without remuneration. We shall, however, only advert to his labours in general, not having at hand the data to enable us to do so in detail.
" My first acquaintance with the subject of this notice commenced in 1788, in Hampshire county, Virginia. He was then about nineteen years of age, and a successful and highly-esteemed labourer among the Wesleyan Methodists, in connection with whom he continued several years. Being recalled from his field of labour to the paternal mansion, in Western Penn- sylvania, by the sudden decease of his father, in consequence of which event the younger members of the family-of whom he was the eldest- were placed in circumstances requiring for a time his personal supervision, the youthful itinerant felt it to be his duty to resign his charge, and, in conformity with the last wish of his deceased parent,-who had appointed him the executor of his will,-to apply himself to the settlement of his estate.
" This accomplished, he found himself in possession of sufficient means to enable him to prosecute his education, which as yet was limited,
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owing to the few facilities for obtaining one afforded by their wilderness location.
" Accompanied by his younger and only brother, Philip,-who subse- quently became eminent in Virginia as a lawyer and legislator, dying, while a member of Congress, in Washington City, in 1833,-he entered Jefferson Academy, Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, they being among the first students at that pioneer literary institution, in what was at that period, in the transmontane States, denominated the 'Far West.'
"The Wesleyans having now laid aside the Prayer-Book or ritual en- joined to be used on occasions of public worship by the founder of their society, the Rev. John Wesley,-a formula which Dr. Doddridge's judg- ment sanctioned as being not only beautifully appropriate but highly edi- fying,-he did not therefore resume his connection with them after his return from college, but diligently applied himself to an examination of the claims of the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which his parents had been members prior to their removal to the West. Suffice it to say, this examination resulted in a determination to offer himself a candidate for Orders in that Church. Early in the year 1792, he received ordination at the hands of the Right Rev. William White, of Philadelphia, soon after which he located temporarily in Western Pennsylvania, but in the course of a few years settled permanently in Charlestown, now Wellsburg, in Brooke county, Virginia.
" At this early period of the settlement of the country, the greater portion of the population of Western Virginia and Pennsylvania consisted of emigrants from Maryland and Virginia, where many of them had been attached to the Mother-Church ; hence the advent of a preacher of their own denomination was hailed by them as an auspicious event, filling their hearts with gladness. He was everywhere greeted with kindness, cheered and encouraged in his labours by the presence of large and attentive con- gregations ; albeit in most places where they assembled for public worship their only canopy was the umbrageous trees of the unbroken forest, whose solemn silence was, for the time-being, rendered vocal by their devotions.
"During the year 1793, I occasionally attended the ministrations of this zealous advocate for the cause of Christ, at West Liberty, then the seat of justice for Ohio county, Virginia, and the residence of many re- spectable and influential families. At this place divine service was held in the court-house. Although still a young man, Dr. Doddridge was an able minister of the New Covenant. When preaching, there was nothing either in his language or manner that savoured of pedantry or . awkward- ness; yet he did not possess that easy graceful action which is often met with in speakers in every other respect his inferiors; but this apparent defect was more than compensated by the arrangement of his subject, the purity of his style, the selection and appropriateness of his figures, and the substance of his discourses. He was always listened to with pleasure and edification, commanding the attention of his hearers not so much by brilliant flights of imagination and rhetorical flourishes, as by the solidity of his arguments and his lucid exhibition of the important truths which he presented for their deliberate consideration.
" In person he was tall and well proportioned, walking very erect. He possessed fine colloquial powers, was social, an agreeable companion, and highly esteemed by those who knew him on account of his plain, unosten- tatious manners, courteous demeanour, and rigid devotion to duty.
"The first Episcopal church in Western Virginia, if I remember rightly,
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called St. John's, was erected in 1792-93, in a country parish, a few miles distant from the residence of Dr. Doddridge, whose pastoral connections with it, I have been informed, continued for nearly thirty years, when declining health compelled him to dissolve it. At no great distance from St. John's, and occupied by the same pastor, another edifice, also in Vir- ginia, was erected at a very early period, the name of which I cannot now recollect.
"In the course of a few years after he took up his abode in Virginia, many families reared in the Episcopal Church removed from the older States and settled west of the Ohio River, where they were as sheep in a wilderness without a shepherd. To those of them within a convenient dis- tance from his residence he made frequent visitations, holding service in temples not made with hands but by the Great Architect of nature.
" We have been credibly informed that Dr. Doddridge was the first Christian minister who proclaimed the Gospel of salvation in the now flourishing town of Steubenville, in this State, and that some years previous to the close of the last century he officiated there monthly, the place at that time containing but a few log cabins and a portion of 'Fort Steuben.'
"The parish of St. James, on Cross Creek, in Jefferson county, was early formed by him, and was for many years under his pastoral charge. At St. Clairsville, Belmont county, he had a congregation and church, the pulpit of which he occupied from time to time until another pastor could be obtained. Occasionally his missionary excursions included Morristown, Cambridge, and Zanesville.
"In the autumn of 1815, this untiring apostle of the Church, with a view of preparing the way for future missionaries, made a tour through part of Ohio, coming as far west as this city,-Chillicothe,-preaching in the intermediate towns and ascertaining where Episcopal services would be acceptable. He was, I think, the first regularly-ordained clergyman of that Church who officiated in our place, which he did several times during his stay among us.
"In Virginia at a very early period he held religious services at Charles- town, Grave Creek, and Wheeling. At the latter place was quite a num- ber of Episcopalians, whom he frequently visited, keeping them together until the arrival of that pious and devoted servant of God, the Rev. John Armstrong, their first resident pastor.
"From the time of his ordination, he made it a practice to visit and preach wherever he could find a few who desired to be instructed in the faith of their fathers. These efforts to collect and keep within the fold of the Church the scattered sheep of the flock imposed upon him the ne- cessity of traversing a wide extent of country, which, being but sparsely settled, was poorly provided with roads; consequently, all his journeys had to be performed on horseback.
" In labours this Christian minister was most abundant, sustained under their performance by the approbation of his own conscience and the long- deferred hope that the time was not far distant when Episcopalians in the Atlantic States-to whom, through letters to several of their Bishops and otherwise, he made request and earnest appeals in behalf of a field already white for the harvest-would awake from their apathy to a lively con- sciousness of the imperative duty of making the long-neglected West a theatre for missionary exertion.
"Some years subsequent to his entrance into the ministry of the Pro-
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testant Episcopal Church, he found it necessary, in order to meet the wants of an increasing family, to combine with his clerical profession one that would be more lucrative in a new and sparsely-settled country : he accord- ingly studied medicine, completing his course under Dr. Benjamin Rush, in the Medical Institute of Philadelphia. To the avails of the latter pro- fession he was mainly indebted for means to rear and educate a large family of children.
"His life was one of close application and incessant toil; but his health eventually failed, and an asthmatic disease, with which in his later years he was sorely afflicted, in a great measure impaired his ability for useful- ness. In the fall of 1824 he attended a Convention of his Church holden in this city, but he appeared greatly enfeebled. In the course of the succeeding summer, he spent some weeks here in the family of a beloved sister, Mrs. N. Reeves, hoping, though vainly, that a cessation from labour, change of air and scene, would in some measure renovate his exhausted energies. During this period the friendship of our youthful days and the remembrance of former years revived. He often visited me at my own domicile, where we held free converse and communion together, and I found him the same cheerful, agreeable companion as in days 'lang syne.' Nothing ever occurred to mar our friendly intercourse or to diminish our kindly regards for each other. But he is taken from our midst; his dis- encumbered spirit has been called to its reward by the Great Head of the Church.
"Finding that neither travelling nor rest availed to arrest the progress of disease, my friend returned to his home and family in Virginia, as he emphatically said, 'to die among his own people.' He lingered in much bodily affliction till November, 1826, when, strong in the faith which he had preached, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, his sufferings were terminated by death, to him a most welcome messenger.
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