USA > Virginia > Isle of Wight County > Isle of Wight County > The Old brick church, near Smithfield, Virginia > Part 2
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In 1664, he is a commissioner to adjust the boundary line of Virginia and Maryland.1
In 1666,14 he is one of the commissioners of this State to confer with the commissioners of Maryland and of North Carolina, rela- tive to their tobacco interests.
In this year 13 he is also a member of the General Assembly, and appears there as Adjutant-General Bridger.
In 1675,16 he is a member of the Council of State, and a colonel in the Indian wars.
In 1676-'77," he is a member of the court at Green Spring.
In 1676, his surrender is demanded by Nathaniel Bacon, Jr.,1 characterized as "the rebel."
11 Hening, Vol. I, p. 431.
12 Hening, Vol. II, p. 197.
13 Neill's Virginia Carolorum, p. 303.
14 Neill's Virginia Carolorum, p. 303.
15 Hening, Vol. II, p. 225, Il. 249.
16 Hening, Vol. II, p. 328, and Neill's Virginia Carolorum, p. 348-9.
17 Hening, Vol. II, p. 548 and 551-7, 60.
18 Neill's Virginia Carolorum, p. 363.
15
. THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
In 1677, he is a member of the court at the Middle Planta- tions, and is a witness to the will of Sir William Berkeley. 19
In 1680, he is a Councillor of State and Commander-in-Chief of the forces in Isle of Wight, Surry, Nansemond and Lower Norfolk; and Colonel Arthur Smith, of Isle of Wight, and Colonel John Lear and Major Milner, of Nansemond, are under his command.20
In 1683, he is a member of the Council of State and of the General Court, along with his Excellency, Thomas, Lord Cul- peper, Governor, &c., Mr. Secretary Spencer, Mr. Auditor Bacon, Major-General Smith, Colonel Philip Ludwell, Colonel William Cole, Ralph Wormley, Esq., Colonel Richard Lee, Colonel John Page, and Colonel William Byrd.2
The last codicil to his will bears date April 9th, 1685, and it is acknowledged in open court, which was then held at The Glebe, about a mile from Smithfield, where the court-house was located until 1752, when it was moved to Smithfield. In his will he makes special mention of his friends, Lieutenant-Colonel John Pitt, Mr. Thomas Pitt, and Colonel Arthur Smith, and of his brick house on the White Marsh farm, where he resided, the brick basement of which still exists to this day. And though the field has been constantly cultivated, from time immemorial, right up to the house, and right up to the very edge of the grave, yet, the innumerable bricks still lying scattered everywhere around, attest the largeness and the magnificence of that house. In 1890, Mr. Edward Pitt, a descendant of the Pitts above-mentioned, and a firm believer in the truth of the old tradition we are consider- ing, now an aged man, a resident for many and many a long year on that White Marsh farm, as owner and as tenant, showed me the tomb of General Bridger, the basement of his house, and told me he had frequently picked up bricks with the prints of the feet of fowls and of dogs on them, made whilst they were soft, showing that they had been burnt on or near the farm.
1º Hening, Vol. II, p. 548-51-7, 60.
20 Colonial Papers, No. 63, in Record office, London, as published in the Richmond Dispatch, July 6, 1890.
" Hening, Vol. III, p. 557.
16
VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
General Bridger died on the 15th day of April, 1686, the owner of a very large amount of personal property, and more than twelve thousand acres of land in Isle of Wight county, besides an unknown amount in Surry, James City, and in Mary- land. He was buried in the field near his house, and on his marble slab there is this inscription, which is still perfectly legible:
SACRED To Ye MEMORY OF THE HONble JOSEPH BRIDGER Esq. COUNCEL-I OF. STATE. IN VIRGINIA To KING CHARLES Ye 2.ª DYING APRIL Ye 15 : A : D: 1689 AGED 58 YEARES MOURNFULLY LEFT His WIFE 3 SONS & 4 DAUGHTERS
Does Nature silent mourn & can. dumb. stone Make his true worth to future Ages knowne
Excels exprefsion Marble fure will keep His Mem'ry best yt ever. on. his grave fhall weep Here lies ye late great Minifter. of State That Royal virtues had & Royal fate To Charles his Councels did. fuch. hon's bring His own exprefs fetched him t' attend ye king His Soul yt evr did wth vigour move Nimbly took wing. soared like it felfe above For ye bright stars ner'e layfily. decline But in an inftant shoot y. ceafe to shine
His wife, Hester, was living as late as 1698, and as Madame Bridger witnessed the will of Colonel John Lear of Nansemond. His son, William, died in 1704. His son, Joseph, died in 1712. His son, Samuel, died in 1713. 22
22 I am indebted to W. G. Stanard, Esq., for the following information relative to the Bridgers:
Colonel Samuel Bridger, Justice of the Peace in 1691; William Bridger, Burgess, 1718; Joseph Bridger, Sheriff of Isle of Wight, 1732; James and Joseph Bridger, Burgesses, 1758, 1761; James Bridger, Burgess, 1765; James Bridger, Justice Isle of Wight, 1769; Joseph Bridger, Burgess, 1772; Joseph Bridger, Burgess, 1773-'4-vacated seat in 1774 to accept the office of sheriff.
17
THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
His daughters were Martha Godwin, Mary, Elizabeth and Hester; and Elizabeth died in 1717.
I am particular, in giving, with some minuteness, the history of General Bridger, because the tradition of the building of the Old Brick Church is immediately associated with him and his father, and is handed down directly through many of their descendants and associates, who have always been of the very highest social and intellectual prominence in the Church and in State, in peace and in war. No tradition could possibly descend through them, which was not founded on an absolute fact.
The names of many of these descendants and associates, whose families still reside in the county of Isle of Wight, appear upon an old Vestry book of the Church now in the clerk's office of this county, which, commencing in 1723-only six years after the death of Elizabeth Bridger-was, until 1733, the Vestry book of the Bay Church alone, and afterwards, of it, and of the Old Brick Church, until its final entry in 1777. In the first entry in this book relative to the church it is then and there called "The Old Brick Church." It was hoary with age then; even then its white hair floated in the breeze. Treating this Vestry book, for manifest reasons, as an entirety, it shows that William Bridger, a grandson of General Bridger, was a vestryman from 1724 to 1730; that Major Joseph Bridger, another grandson, was a vestry- man from 1735 to 1747; that Joseph Bridger, a great grandson, was a vestryman from 1747 to 1749; that Colonel Joseph Bridger, another great grandson, was a vestryman from 1757 to 1769; and that James Bridger, a grandson or great grandson, was a vestryman from 1766 to 1777.
This Colonel Joseph Bridger, the next most important per- sonage in the tradition, was the associate and friend of Arthur Smith and William Hodsden, who were co-vestrymen of the old church, and co-trustees of the town of Smithfield in 1752.
It is a matter of absolute impossibility for any one to read the Acts of February, 1752, docking the entail of the Arthur Smith lands, and the Act of 1754, docking the entail of the Joseph Bridger lands, without instantly perceiving, that whoever drew those acts, were perfectly familiar with the entire history of both families.
18
VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Colonel Joseph Bridger died intestate in 1769, and left sur- viving him his widow Mary, and his daughters, Judith and Catherine.
Mary and her father, Thomas Pierce, on the 4th of January, 1770, qualified as the personal representatives upon his estate, and Robert Tynes and William Davis were the appraisers of that estate.
Mary, the widow, on the 17th of June, 1773, married Josiah Parker, who was a member of all of the Conventions of the State in 1775, afterwards a distinguished colonel in the Revolu- tionary war, and lived till 1810; and their daughter, Ann Pierce Parker, in 1802, married Captain William Cowper, United States Navy, of Nansemond, the gallant commander of the Baltimore, and the son, I think, of that Captain John Cowper of the same county, who nailing his flag to the masts of the brig Dolphin, sailed out of the waters of the Nansemond river into those of the Chesapeake, with a vow that he would attack the first enemy that he met, regardless of her size and armament, and never surrender, and went down at sea in a death grapple with two of the enemy, in full sight of Fortress Monroe, in that heroic manner so graphically portrayed in William Wirt Henry's splendid memoir of his glorious grandsire, Patrick Henry (Vol. I, p. 480).
Mrs. Cowper died in March, 1849. She was a woman of ex- traordinary endowments and of superior cultivation, and had enjoyed, when her father was a member of Congress from 1789 to 1801, all the advantages that the best schools in Philadelphia could give. Dr. John R. Purdie, one of our oldest citizens, and always one of its most intelligent and distinguished, called by the late Rev. Philip Slaughter "the venerable Dr. Purdie, the most antique pillar of the parish," now in the eighty-third year of his age, knew her well, was her family physician, said of her: "Her intelligence possessed a State if not a national repu- tation.33 She was proud of her family, and thoroughly conver- sant with all of its history. I have in my possession her copy of the inscription on the tombstone of General Bridger. It is endorsed "Inscription on the tomb of the Honorable Joseph Bridger, Paymaster-General to the British troops in America
23 Suffolk Sun, 1872.
19
THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
during Bacon's rebellion, in the reign of Charles the Second of England. General Bridger was the son and heir of the Joseph Bridger, who superintended the building of St. Luke's Church, in Newport Parish, Isle of Wight county."
Mr. N. P. Young, now in the seventy-fifth year of his age, who, since 1841, has been the clerk of the courts of this county, says of her: "She was a lady of great intelligence and varied information, I was always delighted with her conversations. She frequently spoke of the Old Church, and of its ancient date, which she always fixed as in 1632."
Her copy of the inscription was made after 1827, for the Old Brick Church was never called St. Luke's until it was so called by the Rev. William H. G. Jones, its first rector after the Revolu- tionary war, in his report of that year to the Council of his Church; and her copy, therefore, has all the force and sanction that could possibly be given to it by family pride, by personal investigation, not only in the bloom but in the full maturity of her splendid powers. And the full weight of this sanction can- not be appreciated without the knowledge that Colonel Parker, by virtue of his marriage with the widow Bridger, became the custodian of a large quantity of very valuable papers that related to the family, and to the Old Church, the majority of which were seized and destroyed by Tarleton's men in 1781, when they en- deavored to capture Colonel Parker at his home, and the balance were lost in the war of 1812. Mrs. Cowper was perfectly familiar with these papers, cherished them as the jewels of her household, and verbally, and in writing, transmitted the substance of them to posterity.
Judith Bridger, her half-sister, who had the same pride and the same facilities for knowing the contents of these papers, married Richard Baker; and Catherine, her sister, married Blake Baker-the sons of Benjamin Baker of Nansemond.
Richard Baker was the father of the late Richard H. Baker, who was born in 1788, and died in 1871, in the eighty-third year of his age. He was from 1834 (with the slight interruption occasioned by the late war) until his death, a period of thirty- seven years, the very distinguished judge of this the second judicial circuit. He, too, was proud of his descent, and had every opportunity, in the eighty-three years of constant association
20
VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
with his kindred and people of this section, to apply his judicial mind to the traditions of his family, and of the church, in which he had an ancestral right to be interested. His mother, Judith Bridger Baker, survived until 1840 or 1841, and he had every opportunity of learning from her all that she knew of these matters.
The present Richard H. Baker, the son of the late judge, took especial pains to learn from his father and mother all that they had learned from his grandmother relative to the Bridgers, and the traditions of the Old Church, and committed to writing, during their lives, notes of the conversations he had with them, which notes (now before me) say, "My grandmother Baker was Judith Bridger of Macclesfield in the Isle of Wight county, great-granddaughter of the Sir Joseph Bridger who built St. Luke's Church in 1632." This statement, then, has all of the endorsement which it is possible to derive from the great names of Judge Richard H. Baker, and of his mother, Judith Bridger Baker.
In the will of the Elizabeth Bridger, who died in 1717, mention is made of her daughter Patience Milner, and of her grand- daughters Elizabeth and Martha Norsworthy.
The third George Norsworthy," who died in 1724-the year after the commencement of the old Vestry book alluded to- married Elizabeth Bridger, the daughter of the Elizabeth Bridger just above spoken of.
Joseph Norsworthy, a descendent of this George, was born in 1771, and died in March, 1859.
Mr. Joseph C. Norsworthy, a grandson of this Joseph, who Dr. Purdie says, "was remarkable for his integrity, his memory and his intelligence," writes me that "he told me many times that the Old Brick Church was built in 1632; that in 1666 a Miss Norsworthy was buried in the aisle of the church, close to the chancel. He showed me the spot, and mentioned £5 as the burial fee. He also gave me a history of the re-shingling of the church as he received it from his father and grandfather; and he stated that there never was a doubt in the minds of any of them that the Old Church was built in 1632."
" Letters of J. C. Norsworthy and family tree.
21
THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
The history of this re-shingling, as received by Mr. Joseph Norsworthy from his father and grandfather, and imparted by him to his son, Nathaniel, to his grandson, Joseph C., to his friend, Dr. Purdie, and others, was that the Old Church was not re-shingled from 1632 to 1737. And the old Vestry book, to which allusion has been made, which it is reasonable to suppose Mr. Norsworthy never saw (for the vestry was dissolved in 1777, and the courthouse moved to its present location in 1800), and if he did, never read, contains an important entry bearing directly on this point, and strongly confirmatory of it.
It says that at a vestry meeting held on the 11th day of Octo- ber, 1737, it was ordered "That Peter Woodward do the shing- ling of the church with good cypress shingles, of good substance, and well nailed, for 700 pounds of tobacco; 300 pounds being now levied; to be finished at or before the next parish levy, and the church wardens to take bond and security for the payment of the same."
The credit of the discovery of this entry is entirely due to the indefatigable research of Dr. Purdie, who, in an article in the Southern Churchman in 1882, commenting on this entry, says: "as the best cypress shingles are known to resist the elements more than one hundred years, the date of the building of the Old Brick Church, as derived from tradition, must receive support from this record." And Bishop Meade, in the second volume of his Old Churches and Families, p. 119, alluding to Christ Church, Lancaster county, Virginia, says: "the offer was cheerfully ac- cepted, and the present house was completed about the time of Mr. Carter's death-that is, about the year 1732-and exhibits to this day (1838) one of the most striking monuments of the fidelity of ancient architecture to be seen in our land. Very few, if any, repairs have been put upon it; the original roof and shingles now cover the house, and have preserved in a state of perfection the beautiful arched ceilings, except in two places, which have within a few years, been a little discolored by rain, which found its way through the gutters where the shingles have decayed." When, in a few years afterwards the church was repaired, "the shingles, except in the decayed gutters, were so good that they were sold to the neighbors around, and will prob- ably now last longer than many new ones just gotten from the woods."
22
VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
In confirmation of these observations, it may be added that the Old Brick Church was not again re-shingled until 1821,2% when a vestry-the first that was organized after the war-had it done, and made some material alterations in the interior arrange- ments of the church.
During all that period of profound silence and absolute dis- use, from 1777 to 1821, save very rare and occasional services, the grand Old Church was left the prey to all the elements and to every despoiler who chose to raise his sacrilegious hands against it.
In 1642, only ten years after the church was built, Mr. Falk- ner had charge of all the churches in the county of Isle of Wight. In that year the county was divided into two parishes, the Upper and the Lower; and the Old Brick Church was in the Lower Parish.
In 1680," William Hodsden was the minister of the church in the Lower Parish, and also of the church in Chuckatuck Parish.
In 1746, William Hodsden, a descendant of this William, was a vestryman of this Old Church, and so continued until 1752. He was an intimate friend of Colonel Joseph Bridger; and was with him, a co-trustee of the town of Smithfield. He married Sarah Bridger, and died in 1797. He was the father of the Joseph Bridger Hodsden, who was born in 1776, and died in 1815; and he was the father of the Joseph Bridger Hodsden, who was born in 1811, and died in 1877; and he was the father of the Joseph Bridger Hodsden, who gave me these dates. Like the Norsworthys, they were the neighbors of the Bridgers, inter- married with them, resided in the same neighborhood, and have received and transmitted from father to son the same tradition of the construction of the Old Church.
Arthur Smith was a vestryman of the Old Church from 1736 to 1740; and Thomas Smith, his nephew and heir-at-law, was a vestryman from 1745 to 1751.
They were the descendants of the Arthur Smith, who with
25 Joseph Norsworthy and Dr. John Robinson Purdie.
26 Hening, Vol. I, p. 279.
27 Senate Document, 1874.
23
THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
George Hardy, represented the county in the General Assembly of 1644." He claimed descent from the Sir Thomas Smith," who was so long the treasurer of the Virginia Company of London.
The first Arthur Smith died in 1645," the friend of the first Joseph Bridger. He left a son, Colonel Arthur Smith, who died in 1696, the friend of General, the second Joseph Bridger, and was, together with Lieutenant-Colonel Pitt and Thomas Pitt, the adviser by his will of his widow, and like them, the recipient of a legacy for a memorial ring.
The second Colonel Arthur Smith, who died in 1696, left a son (Arthur) who died in 1755, and was the guardian of Colonel Joseph Bridger, under the will of his father.
The third Arthur Smith, who died in 1755, left the nephew Thomas, spoken of above, who was the father of the fourth Arthur, the Colonel Arthur Smith, who was a member of the General Assembly of Virginia in 1819, a member of the Council of State in 1809 and 1816," and a member of Congress from 1821 to 1825. He died in 1854, and the date of the construction of the Old Church was received by him from ancestors, who were the contemporaries of all of the Bridgers, and he transmitted the tradition as he received it.
Richard Hardy, the vestryman of the church from 1769 to 1777, was a descendant of the George Hardy of 1644, and was the father of George, William, and Samuel, and of Nancy, Han- nah and Sarah.
Sam Hardy, as he was, and still is, familiarly called, was, per- haps, the most brilliant man that the county of Isle of Wight ever produced, and as everything but his name has been allowed to fade into oblivion, I will crave your indulgence for putting on record something more than the mere mention of his name. He was at William and Mary in 1776," during the presidency of the
28 Hening, Vol. I, p. 283.
2º Miss Eliza Cocke's Genealogical Tree.
80 Hening, Vol. VI, p. 308.
31 Furnished by R. A. Brock.
12 Catalogues, pp. 97, 80, 50; Vestry Book, p. 117.
24
VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Rev. John Camm, who was the rector of the Old Brick Church in 1745. He was, with Spencer Roane and John Page and John Marshall and Bushrod Washington, among the original members of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of that College. Hugh Blair Grigsby " speaks of him as "the amiable and lamented Hardy," "one of the most popular and beloved of our early statesmen," "brilliant, profound, and suddenly snatched away," and Lyon G. Tyler " calls him "the eloquent Hardy, whose early death extinguished the most brilliant expectations." He entered the House of Delegates about the close of the war, and remained an active member until he was sent to Congress in 1783. He died in Philadelphia whilst a member of Congress, on Monday, the 17th of October, 1785. His death was announced in Congress the same day, which resolved "that the members as a body would attend the funeral the following day with crepe around the left arm, and will continue in mourning for one month." Mr. Gray- son, Mr. Read, and Mr. Kean were appointed a committee to superintend the funeral, and they were ordered "to invite the Governor of the State, the Ministers of Foreign Powers, the Mayor of the city, and other persons of distinction to attend the funeral."" The funeral expenses were £114 9s., and they were paid by William Grayson, who brought the matter to the atten- tion of the State. On the 5th of December, 1785, Judge Tyler addressed a tender and loving letter to Patrick Henry, the Gov- ernor, in which he said "his father has been much injured by the war; his family is large, and such a sum as £150 would distress him greatly, as I know he would most certainly encounter any difficulty rather than not pay it;" and it was paid by the State.3
31 History of the Virginia Convention, Vol. II (Va. Hist. Colls. X), 1788, pp. 137, 226, and copy of Journal of 1785, furnished me by Senator John W. Daniel.
34 Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. I, p. 191.
35 Virginia Convention of 1788, Vol. II, pp. 137, 226.
36 Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. I, p. 191.
37 On page 342, of the third volume of W. W. Henry's Life of P. Henry, is the letter of P. Henry, of December 12, 1875, to "The Speaker of the House of Delegates, urging the Legislature to pay the funeral expenses of the late Hon'ble Mr. Hardy, because of the merits of the deceased gentleman, and of the circumstances which make an application to his
25
THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
His associates in Congress were Thomas Jefferson, William Grayson, Richard Henry Lee, Arthur Lee, and James Monroe. "Monroe and Hardy were about the same age, were in the Assembly together, were on terms of strictest intimacy, and board- ed with Mrs. Ege in Richmond. When Monroe made his Southern tour, as President, he called to see his old landlady, who presently appeared, and though thirty-odd years had passed since the death of Hardy, as she threw her arms about the neck of Monroe, she sobbed for "Poor Hardy." His remains rest in Philadelphia, where those of Henry Tazewell, James Innes, Stevens Thomson Mason, Isaac Read, and other gallant and patriotic Virginians still repose."
On hearing of his death, Judge Tyler " wrote the following beautiful tribute to his memory:
Ah, why my soul indulge this pensive mood, Hardy is dead: the brave, the just the good. Careless of censure, in his youthful bier The muse shall drop a tributary tear.
His patriot bosom glowed with warmth divine, And Oh! humanity! his heart was thine. No party interest led his heart astray: He chose a nobler, though a beaten way. Nor shall his virtues there remain unsung- Pride of the Senate, and their guide and tongue. That tongue, no more, can make even truth to please- Polite with art, and elegant with ease. Fain would the muse augment the plaintive strain; Tho' the most flattering panegyric vain, When the brief sentence, youthful Hardy's dead, Speaks more than poet ever thought or said!
surviving friends improper." These circumstances are mentioned in Judge Tyler's letter.
So the funeral expenses of the budding statesman were ultimately borne by the State as the last tribute it could pay to his worth and to his genius.
38 Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. I, p. 191.
26
VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
The elegy of Hardy" on the death of Michael Young, on March 26, 1782, the sole known product of his pen," shows that he possessed great poetic powers.
"The curtain's drawn-the awful scene is past- My once respected friend has breathed his last. Exhausted nature sinks into repose, A long, long sleep his feeble eyelids close. Terrific death with all its dire parade, A conquest of his mortal part has made. Cold are those hands that tuned the pleasing lyre, That rais'd the hero's ardor, and the patriot's fire, That made old age awhile forget its years, And eased the restless mind from anxious cares; That soothed, enraptured, or distressed the mind, Brightened the genius, and the soul refined; Harmonious numbers never more to sound. Alas! he's gone; he moulders in the ground. Pale is the cheek that wore the blooming youth, Silent the tongue that spoke the voice of truth. Dried are those tears that ne'er refused to flow In tender sympathy for another's woe- Breathless the breast that glowed with filial love For earthly parents and his God above. Nor need we end the patriot here: He was the tender brother, and the friend sincere. From virtuous precepts to virtuous arts inclined, His thoughts exalted, and serene his mind. But death tyrannic aimed the fatal dart- It flew unerring, and it reached the heart. He fell beneath the cruel tyrant's power, Nipped in his bloom, like some fair vernal flower.
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