Sketches of Virginia : historical and biographical, Part 3

Author: Foote, William Henry, 1794-1869. 4n
Publication date: 1856
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott
Number of Pages: 614

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THE BURIAL-GROUND.

land of his own gift-and many of his family and descendants are around him. A pious man, he sought in America a home, in cir- cumstances he could not find in Scotland. A native of Paisley, he embarked while a youth with a company of emigrants, leaving their native shores on account of political and religious difficulties. Among these was a family by the name of Hume. The father and mother died on the voyage and left an only child, a daughter. Young Hoge took charge of their effects, and on arriving at New York delivered them and the young lady to a connexion, a Dr. Johnston. Having chosen Amboy for his home, Mr. Hoge sought Miss Hume in marriage. In a few years he removed to the State of Delaware; and again, in a few years, removed and found a home on the Swetara, in Pennsylvania; and from that place in his old age removed, with his emigrating children, about the year 1735, to Opecquon. His oldest son, William, joined the Quakers, and took his residence with them in Loudon County ; his second son, James, lived near Middletown, is mentioned by Dr. Alexander in his Autobiography, and was eminent for his clear un- derstanding, devout fear of God, and love of the gospel of Christ; he attached himself to the Seceder Church ; his son, Moses, was the professor of Theology, first regularly chosen as such by the Synod of Virginia. George, the third son of William Hoge, was one of the first bench of Magistrates in Frederick County, lived a short time on the south branch of Potomac, and removed to North Carolina. Robert Wilson had married the second daughter, and lived in that stone and wooden house. The bones of those who died on the Opecquon are in the south-eastern part of the yard, every foot of which is occupied as a tenement of the dead. Near that tree in the eastern corner lies Dr. Robert White, a graduate of Edinburgh, and many years a Surgeon in the British Navy. While in the service he visited his connexion, William Hoge, then living in Delaware, and in process of time became his son-in-law, taking for his wife the elder daughter Margaret. Having emi- grated with his kin people to Virginia, he took his residence near the North Mountain, on a creek which bears his name. He was laid in this yard in the year 1752, in the 64th year of his age. He left three sons, John, Robert, and Alexander. Robert inherited the residence of his father, and it descended to his grand-child. Alexander became a lawyer of eminence, lived near Winchester, was a member of the first Congress of the United States, and of the Virginia Convention that adopted the Federal Constitution; and was a member of the Legislature at the time the Rev. J. B. Smith made his famous speech on the rights of conscience, against a general assessment. John was a member of the first bench of Magistrates in Frederick County, and was father of Robert White, who, in his youth, signalized himself in the Revolutionary Army, and bore the marks of his courage in his slightly limping gait, while he adorned the bar, and then the bench of his native State, as President of the General Court.

THE BURIAL-GROUND.

This limestone pyramid tells you it was reared in memory of Samuel Glass and Mary Gamble, his wife, who came in their old age, from Ban Bridge, County Down, Ireland, and were among the early settlers, taking their abode on the Opecquon in 1736. His wife often spoke of "her two fair brothers that perished in the siege of Derry." Mr. Glass lived like a patriarch with his descen- dants. Devout in spirit, and of good report in religion, in the absence of a regular pastor, he visited the sick to counsel and instruct, and to pray. His grand-children used to relate in their old age, by way of contrast, circumstances showing the strict obser- vance of the Sabbath by families. Public worship was attended when practicable; and reading the Bible, committing and reciting. the Catechism, and reading books of piety and devotion, filled up all the hours. Mr. Glass, in the midst of wild lands to be pur- chased at a low rate, thought sixteen hundred acres enough for him- self and his children. Around him here lie his children and many of his grand-children, having given evidence of reconciliation to God. Just at his right lies his son-in-law, James Vance, the father of numerous descendants, both in Virginia and the wide region west of the Alleghenies. Out here to the left are his children, grand-children and great-grand-children. There is his grand-son, Joseph Glass, a Presbyterian preacher, of strong frame and power- ful mind, going down to his grave in the very strength of his life, in 1821; and at his side was laid, in 1831, his wife, the flower of another Scotch-Irish family : and just by lies their eldest daughter, the wife of a Presbyterian preacher, who says on her tomb-stone, "It is easy for a Christian to die" -and near by lies the second daughter, left by the death of her parents the head of the family, herself in declining health. Among her papers were found a few lines written soon after her mother's death. Will you read them ?-

Oh! my mother, vainly now I seek thee, while my heart is aching; And seest, knowest, carest thou, While sorrow's cloud is o'er me breaking ?

Thou dost not hear me-far away, Where sorrows come not, thou art dwelling; Thou heedest not the dark array Which heavily my heart is filling.

My own kind mother ! 'tis not vain

To think of thee, to love thee dearly ;

That love is pure, it hath no stain ; Such love, such vision, cometh rarely. Oh, often when I sleep, I hear Thy soft voice, and I see thee smiling; Tho' heavier load I wake to bear, I love that sweet and brief beguiling. My blessed mother! thou art where Thou canst not hear my sad complaining, But clothed in bliss and brightness there, With the redeemed thy spirit's reigning. And Father, wilt thou grant me grace To follow where her step was leading? With her in heaven grant me a place, This, this, shall be my latest pleading.

THE STONE CHURCH.

This whole yard is strewed with the ancient dead. These new- looking monuments mark the beginning of a second century among the graves. Excellence and beauty lie here. How gladly would we stop at the very grave of William Hoge, from whom have descended so many honorable families, and so many ministers of the Gospel ! And " the beauty of Opecquon" - who shall tell us where she laid down, heart-broken, to rest ? To this yard hundreds and hundreds. in Virginia, and the far West, will come to seek the sepulchres of their emigrating ancestors. At the Resurrection there will be joyous meetings.

Could proper memoranda of Back Creek, Falling Waters, and Tuscarora, in Berkeley County, and Elk Branch and Bull Skin, in Jefferson, and of the south branch in Hardy, be brought to light, reflections, profitable and impressive, would cluster around the re- collections and memorials of the worthy emigrants. They were of the same race as those of Opecquon, and probably not a whit behind in excellence. In the absence of other testimony, these examples must guide our judgment respecting the congregations in the northern part of the great Valley of the Shenandoah.

CHAPTER II.

THE SETTLEMENTS ON THE FORKS OF THE SHENANDOAH-THE STONE CHURCH.

THE traveller on the great paved road from Winchester to Staunton, after passing the eighty-third mile-stone, sees on his right, (about eight miles from Staunton), in a grove of ancient oaks, a stone building, of antique and singular appearance. The east end is towards the road, with a large doorway for folding doors, about midway from the corners of the house; and on one side of this large entrance is a low, narrow door, according with no known archi- tecture or proportion. Near the ridge of the roof the gable slants a number of feet, as if the corner of the roof and gable had been cut off, and the vacancy covered with shingles. A little above the great door is a window of modern construction. On the north side of the house is an appendage, a small room with walls and chimney of stone. Diverging from the road, in the path long trod by the generations assembling here, the visitor will perceive, at a small distance from the house, traces of a ditch and the remains of an embankment, drawn quite round the house in a military style. This is the oldest house of worship in the Valley of Virginia. It has seen the revolution of years carrying away generations of men, and their habitations, and their churches. The light pine doors speak at once their modern origin, swinging in the place of the massy

THE FIRST SETTLERS ON THE SHENANDOAH.

oaks that hung upon the solid posts, in unison with the walls that now, after the storms of a century have left their marks, give no signs of speedy decay. Reared before Braddock's war, this house was to the early emigrants a place for the worship of Almighty God, and a retreat from the inroads of the savages, the dwelling- place of mercy, and a refuge from the storm. That ditch was deep, and that bank had its palisade ; and that little door was the wicker- gate, and that room was the kitchen, when the alarm of approach- ing savages filled the house and closed the massy doors. Thus secured, the courageous women and children could defend them- selves from any savage attack while the strong men went to their fields, or to drive off the intruding foe. On the other side of the great road is the place where these adventurous emigrants were laid to repose till dust has returned to dust, in close assemblage, as in the house of God, or the palisaded fort.

These first settlers of this beautiful country were like those of Opecquon, from the north of Ireland, the blended Scotch-Irish, and in search, as they said, of freedom of conscience with a competence in the wilderness ; and for these they cheerfully left their homes and kindred in Ireland. Unallured by the speedy steamers and comfortable packets, they crossed the great abyss of waters, and sought the mountains of Virginia. Benjamin Burden and William Beverly had each obtained a large grant of land from Governor Gooch, to be located west of the Blue Ridge, on the head-waters of the Shenandoah and the James. Each of these was interested to procure settlers by the terms of the grant, and for their own convenience and profit. Beverly was from the lower country of Virginia, a branch of the well-known family; Burden was an enter- prizing trader from New Jersey, and had ingratiated himself with the Governor. John Lewis was from Ireland, by way of Portugal, to which he first fled after a bloody encounter with an oppressive land-holder, of whom Lewis was lessee. Lewis brought his wife, Mary Lynn, and four sons, Andrew, Thomas, William, and Charles, and one daughter, as we are told by Colonel Stuart, of Greenbrier, and made his locations on a creek running into the Middle Forks of Shenandoah. His residence was a few miles below Staunton, which stands on the same creek, called, after the first settler, Lewis. John Mackey at the same time took his residence at Buffalo Gap; and John Salling at the forks of James river, below the Natural Bridge. Lewis located land in different places, making judicious selections. Beverly's tract lay across the valley, the upper edge of which included Staunton. Burden's tract was in the upper part of Augusta, and in Rockbridge.

· Great efforts were made to call the attention of emigrants, who, landing on the Delaware, were finding their way to the lower end of the valley, and the pleasant country at the eastern base of the Blue Ridge, on the waters of the James and Roanoke. Advertise- ments were sent to meet the emigrants at landing, and also, it is said, across the water. It does not appear that either of these

EMIGRANTS AND MISSIONARIES.

gentlemen went, or sent agents to Europe, to seek for emigrants : that was not necessary. The tide of emigration was rapid. The invitations offering the most favorable terms, were the most suc- cessful. Beverly and Burden could present more, encouraging cir- cumstances in the upper end of the valley, than Hite and others could at the lower end, threatened as they were by Fairfax, with lawsuits, and all the vexations of litigation. And before the year 1738, numerous settlements were made on the prairie hills and vales of the Triple Forks of Shenandoah.

The old stone church, with the grave-yard near, was the centre of a cluster of neighborhoods. Emigrants in sufficient numbers to form a congregation able to support a minister, would scatter abroad in distant localities in this beautiful region, scarcely near enough for self-defence, or to assemble on the sabbath. Families chose their residence according as they fancied a spring of water, a running stream, a hill, a piece of woods, a prairie, or extensive range for cattle and horses, or abundance of game, that gathered in some valleys. The first consequence of this wide occupation of the country was ease of living. The range was sufficient for the cattle and horses, summer and winter. A few fields were tilled for bread. The next consequence was a long ride or walk to meet in congregations for public worship on the sabbath ; and by degrees the people became disused to the sanctuary, and began to lose a regard for religious ordinances. The third was exposure to savage inroads. For some twenty years the emigrants were unmolested. Some that had known war in Ireland, lived and died in that peace in this wilderness, for which their hearts longed in their native land. Others in the quietness and abundance of this isolated county, began to think wars and fightings were confined to the legends of past days. The use of fire-arms, in which they became expert, was to supply from the wild game their returning appetites.

Missionaries speedily followed these emigrants. "A supplication from the people of Beverly Manor, in the back parts of Virginia," was laid before the Presbytery of Donegal, September 2d, 1737- "requesting supplies. The Presbytery judge it not expedient for several reasons to supply them this winter; but order Mr. Ander- son (James) to write an encouraging letter to the people to signify that the Presbytery resolves, if it be in their power, to grant their request next spring." Mr. Anderson was the bearer of the petition of the Synod of Philadelphia, to Governor Gooch of Virginia, made at the request of John Caldwell and others, in 1738, to obtain protection in the exercise of their religious preferences. Having been kindly received, he visited the emigrants in the valley with assurances from the Governor, of protection in the exercise of their consciences in matters of religion, and encourage- ment to extend their settlements.

Another supplication was presented in September, 1739. “The Presbytery having discoursed at some length upon it, and hearing Mr. Thompson express his willingness in some degree to be ser-

EARLY PREACHERS.

viceable to that people, if the Lord shall please to call him thereto, and if other difficulties in the way be surmounted, the Presbytery look on him as a very fit person for the great undertaking. Mr. Thompson made a number of visits to the Valley of the Shenandoah, and to the Presbyterian Congregations east of the Ridge; and finally took his residence for some years in Prince Edward, near or with his son-in-law, Mr. Sankey, minister of Buffalo. The same year, 1739, Mr. John Craig, a licentiate, was sent by the Presby- tery to visit "Opecquon, the High Tract, and other societies of our persuasion in Virginia, at his discretion." The next spring from different congregations there came up " supplications, wherein they request that Presbytery, by reason of great distance, please to form a call to Mr. Craig, and affix the names to the call of the subscri- bers to said supplications.": The Presbytery called on Mr. Craig for information and his wishes in respect to these supplications. Mr. Craig expressed himself in favor of the "call from the in- habitants at Shenandoah and the South river ;" the Presbytery directed Mr. Sankey to prepare a call. On the 17th of June, Mr. Craig declared his acceptance; and in September, 1740, passed his trials for ordination. "Robert Doag and Daniel Dennison from Virginia, declared in the name of the congregation of Shenandoah, their adherence to the call formerly presented to Mr. Craig"-the next day was appointed as "a day of solemn fasting and prayer, to be observed by all parties concerned, in order to implore the divine blessing and concurrence in the great undertaking." Mr. Sankey preached from Jeremiah 3. 15, "I will give you pastors after mine own heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and un- derstanding ;" and Mr. Craig was set apart for the work of the gospel ministry in the south part of Beverly's Manor."

Mr. Craig was the first Presbyterian minister regularly settled in the Colony of Virginia. In his old age, he prepared for his de- scendants a manuscript volume containing the important facts of his life, interspersed with reflections, prayers, and meditations. It is entitled-

A preacher preaching to himself from a long text of no less than sixty years : On review of past life.

"I was born August 17th, 1709, in the parish of Dunagor, County Antrim, Ireland, of pious parents, the child of their old age, tenderly loved, but in prudent government, and by early in- structions in the principles of religion as I was capable of receiving them, which had strong effects on my young and tender mind, (being then about five or six years of age,) and engaged me to fly to God with prayers and tears in secret, for pardon, peace, guidance and 'direction, while in the world, and to fit me for death; and what appears strange to me now, the just thoughts and expressions that were given to me, and the strict care of my conduct, lest in my

MR. CRAIG'S NARRATIVE.

childish folly, I should sin against God; and the correct desire I had to know more of God and my duty to him, made me diligent, and the task easy, to learn to read the word of God, which then and ever since gave me great delight and pleasure: and though I endeavored to conceal my little religious exercises and acts of de- votion, my affectionate and tender parents discovered my conduct, and turn of mind, and thirst after knowledge, which raised in them pleasing hopes, and engaged them contrary to their former designs, to bestow upon me a liberal education.". About the age of fourteen or fifteen, he made profession of religion, being admitted, after ex- amination, to the Lord's table, by Rev. Alexander Brown, who bap- tized him. While at school he was careful to avoid those com- panions that might lead him into the imitation of their vicious ways. He was at first shocked by the depravity he saw around :- this he says -"made me pray more earnestly that God would keep me from falling in with those views. As for my conduct and diligence for the space of eight or nine years at school, I never received one stroke, or so much as a sharp rebuke from all the masters I was with : but still gained the favor of them all." He then spent some years in reading Algebra, and the Mathematics generally, Logic, Metaphysics, Pneumatics and Ethics- and also Geography and History, ecclesiastical and profane: aud then he repaired to Scotland, and in the college at Edinburgh, attained to the degree of A. M. Anno Domini, 1732. His observations in college, and the opening prospects in worldly matters, embarrassed him greatly in his choice of a profession. After much perplexity he resolved to attend the physicians' hall. A long and dangerous illness that came upon him was accompanied with the sufferings of an accusing con- science. After a confinement of about six months, unexpectedly to himself and others he recovered. He had wept and prayed, and humbled himself before God. "Patrimony and estate had then little weight in my mind, being well convinced that God who saved my life from death would support it, while he had any service for it. So I cast myself upon his care, and earnestly prayed for his direction." He was now pretty much settled in his convictions that he ought to engage in the ministry of the gospel.

" America was then much in my mind accompanied with the argument - that service would be most pleasing and acceptable, where most needful and wanting - which raised in me a strong desire to see that part of the world. I consulted my parents and friends, who did not much hinder my designs. I earnestly cried to God for his directions, that he would restrain or encourage me, as he saw it would be to his glory and my happiness. At that time I had a dream or vision, representing to me as it were in miniature, the whole that has happened to me of any importance these thirty- five years ; yea, the very place I have been settled in these thirty years. I knew it at first sight, and I have done here what was re- presented to me then. I thought little of it then, though often of it since."

MR. CRAIG'S NARRATIVE.

He embarked at Learn, June 10th, 1734, and was landed at New Castle upon Delaware, on the 17th of the succeeding August. " I escaped a very imminent danger, without any means but the kind hand of providence, being accidentally cast overboard in a dark and tempestuous night. I lay as on a bed of down on my back, on the raging wave which tossed me back on the ship's side, where I found hold and sprung aboard, and none aboard knew of it. When I came ashore I met with an old acquaintance, Rev. Benjamin Camp- bell, minister of New Castle. He was then aguish, and died about two months after, greatly to my grief."

He attended the Synod of Philadelphia, in September 1734, and delivered his letters of introduction to the members. "It gave me both grief and joy, to see that Synod; grief, to see the small number and mean appearance; joy, to see their mutual love and good order, and men of solid sense among them, and steady to the Presbyterian principles, and against all innovations, which began to appear at this Synod, from an overture read publicly by the Rev. Gilbert Tennant, concerning the receiving of candidates into the ministry, and communicants to the Lord's table-which he imbibed from one Mr. Frelingheusen, a low Dutch minister, which notions were then openly rejected, but afterwards prevailed so far as to decide the Synod, and put the Church of God here into the utmost confusion." After looking around, with much discouragement, for a proper location, he at length found "a home, a maintenance, a faithful and able friend, a sincere Christian, the Rev. John Thomp- son of Chesnut Level, whose praise is deservedly in the church. I taught school one year, and read two years more. Being invited. by the Presbytery, I entered on trials, and was licensed by the Presbytery of Donegal, 1737. I was sent to a new settlement in Virginia of our own country people, near 300 miles distant. From the dream I had before I left Ireland, I knew it to be the plot in Christ's vineyard, where I was to labor. I must say I thought very little of it, which perhaps was my sin."

"From them I had a call, and durst not refuse it, although I well saw it would be attended with many great difficulties. I accepted the call - the place was a new settlement, without a place of worship, or any church order, a wilderness in the proper sense, and a few Christian settlers in it, with numbers of the heathen travelling among us, but generally civil, though some persons were murdered . by them about that time. They march about in small companies from fifteen to twenty, sometimes more or less. They must be supplied at any house they call at with victuals, or they become their own stewards and cooks, and spare nothing they choose to eat and drink." This was previous to Braddock's war. The Act of Assembly forming Augusta County, passed 1738. The first court was held in 1745. Kentucky, and all Virginia claimed in the west, belonged to it. Mr. Craig goes on-" When we were erected into a county and parish, and had ministers inducted, of which we had two, they both in their turns wrote to me, making high demands. I.

MR. CRAIG'S NARRATIVE.

gave no answer, but still observed our own rules when there were no particular laws against them."

About the division of the Presbyterian Church he writes - " Having seen the conduct of ministers and people, when I was in Pennsylvania, that maintained these new. doctrines, examined the controversy, had free conversations with both parties, applied to God for light and direction in the important concerns, which was done with time and deliberation, not instantly, I attained clearness of mind to join in the protest against these new and uncharitable opinions, and the ruin of Christ's Government. This gave offence to two or three families in my congregation, who then looked upon me as an opposer of the work of God, as they called it, an enemy to religion, and applied with all keenness to their holy and spiritual teachers, to come and preach, and convert the people of my charge, and free them from sin and Satan, and from me, a carnal wretch on whom they unhappily depended for instruction, to their souls' utter destruction. They flying speedily came and thundered their new gospel through every corner of my congregation ; and some of them had the assurance to come to my house, and demand a dismis- sion of some of my subscribers who had invited them, being tainted with these notions formerly. But Providence so ordered that affair, that they gained none of my people that I knew of; my moral character stood clear and good, even among them; but they freely loaded me with these and such like, poor, blind, carnal, hypocritical, damned wretch; and this given to my face by some of their minis- ters. And when I administered the Lord's Supper to my people, they mockingly said to their neighbors going to it, what, are you going to Craig's frolic? I thought God had given me a difficult plot to labor in, but I ever called upon him in trouble, and he never failed to help."

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Sketches of Virginia : historical and biographical, Part 3

Author: Foote, William Henry, 1794-1869. 4n Publication date: 1856 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott Number of Pages: 614

Author: Foote, William Henry, 1794-1869. 4n
Publication date: 1856
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott
Number of Pages: 614