USA > Virginia > Isle of Wight County > Isle of Wight County > The Old brick church, near Smithfield, Virginia > Part 3
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3º Furnished by John R. Purdie and N. P. Young.
" Since the above was written the third volume of W. W. Henry's Life of P. Henry has been published, and on p. 268, I find a letter from Hardy, dated New York, January 17, 1785, to P. Henry, Governor, "enclosing a memorial of some citizens of Virginia praying to be indulged with a separate government," and on pp. 273-7, I find a joint letter from Samuel Hardy and James Monroe, dated February 13, 1785, relative to the location of the Federal Capitol.
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THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
But why lament? Why draw the far-fetched sigh? We all are mortal, and we all must die. His mortal part has felt the tyrant's sway; To happier climes his soul has winged its way. On seraph wings he took a rapid flight, And seraph-like now revels in delight. Why then dread death? Why fear to pass o'er The gulf that parts from that happy shore? Where death stalks not in horrible array, Enrobed in terrors that produce dismay, But through verdant fields the kindred spirits glide, And flowery landscapes charm on every side, Whilst youth immortal blooms on every cheek With endless joy, and happiness complete."
Mr. Monroe, during the Convention of 1829, pronounced Mr. Hardy the most brilliant man of his age that he ever knew.41
The State of Virginia, in 1786, cherishing his memory, named the county of Hardy, now in West Virginia, after him, and Hardy's Bluff, and Hardy District, in the county of Isle of Wight, show how his name and family have impressed them- selves on her heart and on her memory.
Archer Carroll married Agnes Hardy of this family, and their son, George Carroll, married Miss Wrenn. N. P. Young mar- ried Virginia Carroll.
The traditions of the Old Church are fondly cherished in all the branches of this family.
Robert Tynes, the vestryman from 1746-1777, served with every vestryman whom we have or shall mention, except William Bridger, and could, therefore, repeat to JOHN DAY what he learnt from Lawrence Baker. He was, as we have seen, the appraiser of the estate of Colonel Bridger. Henry Tynes, a descendant of his, died in Chuckatuck in 1874, and Robert Tynes, his son, died there in 1891. I knew both of them well, but I do not re- member to ever to have conversed with either on this subject. But as they were intelligent gentlemen, and lived only five miles from the Church, it is impossible for them to have been ignorant of its history.
" Dr. John R. Purdie, from his father, John H. Purdie.
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VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Nicholas Parker was a vestryman from 1760 to 1777. He was born in 1722, and died in 1789. He married Ann Copeland, who was born in 1723, and died in 1786. She was the daughter of Joseph Copeland and Mary Woodley, the daughter of Andrew Woodley. Joseph Copeland was probably a descendant of the Rev. Patrick Copeland, who was chaplain on the Royal James in 1617, and when near the Cape of Good Hope collected from her officers and men £70 "for the good of Virginia." He also, on the 18th of April, 1622, preached before the Virginia Company, of London, and "urged the promotion of the noble plantation that " tended so highly to the advancement of the Gospel, and the honoring of our dread sovereign." He spent fully £1,000 sterling in Bermuda for a school for the training of Indian chil- dren, and died between 1649 and 1655. The frequency of the intercourse between Bermuda and Virginia suggests the migra- tion of the family to this country.
Nicholas Parker and Ann Copeland were the parents of the Colonel Josiah Parker, who married the widow Bridger.
Thomas Woodley, the vestryman from 1728 to 1755, was the brother of Mary and the son of Andrew Woodley, who came to this country in 1691 with his wife, Mary, and his sons, Thomas and Henry, and had born unto him here John, who married Francis Wilson, and Mary, who married Joseph Copeland.
Thomas had a son John, who married Catherine Boykin, the widow of Major Francis Boykin, who was Catherine Bryant, of Northampton county, North Carolina. They had a son Andrew, who married Elizabeth Hill Harrison, and their daughter Francis was my mother.
Jordan Thomas, the vestryman from 1746 to 1755, was a descendant of the Richard Thomas whose will bears date in 1681. He was the county surveyor and laid off the town of Smithfield in 1752 for Arthur Smith. He lived to a green old age and died in 1807.
My mother knew Mrs. Cowper intimately, and like her pos- sessed a masculine mind and a fondness for genealogy. They were archæologists of highest order. I knew Frederick P. P.
42 Neill, Virginia Company, p. 251, 253, 254, 372, 374; Neill, Virginia Vetusta, p. 134, 193, 194, 195; Brown's Genesis, 973.
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THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
Cowper, the son of Mrs. Cowper, intimately, and from him, and from my mother, I have heard, repeatedly, the history of the Old Church, and in all the branches of our family the tradition of its construction is confidently believed.
Lawrence Baker, the vestryman from 1724 to 1757 was the father of Richard Baker, who was a vestryman from 1760 to 1777, and clerk of the county from 1754 to 1770.
It is believed that Benjamin Baker, of Nansemond, is a de- secendant of the Isle of Wight branch of this family.
John Day is the ancestor of Colonel C. F. Day, of Smithfield, and his wife is a granddaughter of General John Scarsbrook Wills, who was a member of all of the conventions of 1755 and 1776, and prominent in the Revolutionary war.
The traditions of the Old Church are preserved in this family.
From the vestrymen of the Old Church, and from every per- son and family who has ever had any official or unofficial con- nection with it, has descended the same invariable tradition. And the pregnant fact must be considered, that it has never been contradicted. It would have been contradicted, if contradiction had been possible. As everyone knows, Nansemond county was the early and the congenial home of the non-conformist. Its boundary line is only five miles distant; and it would have been perfectly natural and inevitable for them to have furnished willing witnesses against the tradition, if any witnesses at all, could by any possibility, have been found. Then, besides, Benn's church, the most famous Methodist church in this section, has grown upon the ruins of the Old Church, and antagonistic as it was in its early days, it has never furnished a person to suggest a doubt of the correctness of the ancient tradition. On the contrary, all of its members, like the Norsworthys and the Hodsdens are zealous supporters of that tradition.
The tradition, then, is the tradition of friends and of foes; is universal; is coeval with the Church; has always been asserted, never denied, and must be accepted as true. And it has been accepted as true by Dr. Hawks, by Bishop Meade, by Philip Slaughter, by the whole county of Isle of Wight, and by every person who has given to this subject the consideration that its importance demands.
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VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
3d. The Lately Existing Records.
Francis Young was deputy clerk of the county of Isle of Wight from 1768 to 1787; and clerk from 1787 to 1794. He was succeeded by his son, James, from 1794 to 1800; by his son, Francis, from 1800 to 1801; and by his son, Nathaniel, from 1801 to 1841; and Nathaniel P. Young, the son of Nathaniel and grandson of Francis, has held the office from 1841 to the present time, with the slight interval of the days when Virginia was a military district.
In 1781, when the courthouse of the county was in the town of Smithfield (Nathaniel Burwell, the clerk, having left this sec- tion of the State), the custody of the records of the county was in the hands of Francis Young, his deputy clerk. He being in the regiment of General John Scarsbrook Wills, was absent from the county; but his faithful wife, learning that Tarleton intended to make a raid on Smithfield to destroy the records, took and buried them on what is now the farm of John F. Scott, near the mill-pond, in a trunk that is now in the clerk's office. They re- mained buried for a long while.
Dr. John R. Purdie, the brother-in-law of the late Nathaniel Young, in an article in the Southern Churchman of October 19th, 1882, alluding to these facts, writes: "I have heard him (Na- thaniel Young) say that when a boy there was in the office an old record book containing vestry proceedings, in which he no- ticed entries relating to the Old Brick Church, and his recollec- tion was clear that they were of the date of 1632. At the time these entries were discovered the book containing them was in an advanced stage of decay, caused by the dampness whilst they were buried, as I have stated, and soon yielded to the tooth of time. Mr. Young was remarkable for the strength of his memory and accuracy of statement."
Dr. Purdie has always been remarkable for his antiquarian re- search, for the love of his section and State, for the strength of his memory, and for the accuracy of his statements.
Mr. N. P. Young, the present clerk, now in the seventy-fifth year of his age, writes me: "He (my father) said that for many years after he went into the clerk's office there were two old books there relative to the Church and the proceedings of the vestry, and that the older of the two, being greatly damaged by having been
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THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
buried in 1781, was destroyed by worms. In this book was, as stated by him, the proceedings relative to the erection of the Old Church. When I entered the office in 1836, nothing was left of this old book but the back and small portions of the leaves, so eaten by the worms that it was perfectly illegible."
The existence, then, of this old book, and the substance of its entries, relative to the Old Church must, upon the testimony of these living witnesses, and of the one so lately deceased, be accepted as an unquestionable fact.
4th. The Bricks and the Mortar of the Church.
In June, 1887, the Rev. David Barr, rector of Christ Church, Smithfield, attended a convocation held at Old St. John's Church near Chuckatuck. On the Sunday of that convocation a very severe storm of wind and rain came up, which, with its thunder, shook all that neighborhood. On Monday, as he was returning home, when he came in sight of the Old Brick Church, he observed that the storm had so shaken that Old Church that its roof had fallen in, and that a large part of the eastern wall had fallen on that roof. With a sad heart he stopped and surveyed the dis- tressing scene, but, plucking courage from disaster, he resolved, then and there, that the Old Church should be rebuilt, and that the most ancient building in all America of European construc- tion should be preserved to the State and to the Church which had erected it.
Mr. Emmet W. Maynard, formerly a citizen of Surry, had recently moved into the immediate neighborhood, and Mr. Barr at once engaged him, as chief workman, to remove the fallen roof and the encumbering bricks. Mr. Maynard entered promptly upon the work, and after he had removed the debris of the roof, he then began upon that of the fallen wall and the scattered bricks. Whilst so engaged, he, one day, found in the southeast corner of the Church, where the wall had chiefly fallen, a curious brick, which upon examination seemed to have something cut into it, which, by accident or design, was filled with mortar. With a sharp-pointed stick he removed the mortar until first dimly, and then clearly, and then still more clearly, was seen the figures 1632. Mr. Maynard had so recently become a citizen of the county, that I doubt, if he knew the significance of that brick; but as it came from that portion of the eastern wall that
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VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
had fallen in the Church, was peculiar in its character and shape, and had some figures on it, which, probably, were made whilst the brick was soft and before it had been burnt, he saved it, and when Mr. Barr next came to the Church he showed it to him and informed him when and where and how he found it. Mr. Barr told him rapidly and excitedly something of the ancient history of the Church and of the importance of the brick, and then, they both, with the zeal of the antiquary, fired by the discovery of the buried city or lost treasure-the proof of his faith-began a search inside and outside of the Church to see what further they could find. Presently they came upon a piece of broken brick inside of the Church, and not far from the spot where the whole brick had been found, with a figure I upon it. Being still more excited by this discovery, they increased the energy of the search, and after some hours of scrutiny and toil, they found on the southeast side of the Church, on the outside of it and near the tower, another piece of brick with a figure 2 on it. On putting these two pieces of broken brick together they were delighted to see that they fitted perfectly. The brick had been broken in two. On one part was the figure I, on the other part was the figure 2, and the middle figures was destroyed by the violent separation of the brick in its fall. These broken pieces that belonged to the middle of the brick were two small to be then found, for nearly the whole of the rubbish had been removed and thrown away. But here were the pieces of the second brick, in its make and shape exactly like the first, with the same figures upon either end. The conviction was then, and is now, absolute, on inspection, that the middle figures were 6 and 3, making 1632, like its companion brick. Both had been made by the same parties, at the same time, from the same clay, burnt in the same kiln, put in the same wall near the same place by the same workman, and both had been deeply and firmly concealed from all human sight and knowl- edge from 1632 to 1887, when they were, simultaneously, dis- closed to the world by the voice of God speaking in the storm.
And thus the Church, by its very brick and mortar, confirms the ancient tradition of the people, the truth of the crumbled record, and of the Vestry book still extant, and they all join in one consistent and harmonious acclaim that-The Old Brick Church was Built in 1632.
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THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
The ministers of the Old Brick Church, besides Falkner and Hodgen, so far as known, were:
The Rev. Thomas Bailey, prior to and during 1724.
The Rev. Mr. Barlow, from March 30th, 1725, to October, 1726.
The Rev. John Gammill, from March 9th, 1729, to November 25th, 1743.
The Rev. John Camm, from March 4th, 1745, to a few months only.
The Rev. John Reid, from March 8th, 1746, to April, 1757.
The Rev. Mr. Milner, from February, 1766, to May 3d, 1770. He was a descendant of that Colonel Thomas Milner, who was a Justice of the Peace and Colonel in 1680, who was clerk to the Assembly in 1684, and its Speaker in 1691, and probably the son of that Milner who married Patience, the daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth Bridger.
The Rev. I. H. Burgess, for the years 1773-'74,-'75, and '76. The Rev. - Hubard, died on the Glebe in 1802.
The Rev. Samuel Butler, occasionally, 1780.
The Rev. William G. H. Jones, from 1826 to 1832.
Bishop Richard C. Moore confirmed a class of four in 1820- viz: Colonel Brewer Godwin, Parker Wills, Mrs. Ann P. P. Cowper, and Margaret S. Purdie.
The last marriage in the Church was that of George W. Pur- die and Evelina Belmont Smith, on April 26th, 1836.
LIST OF VESTRYMEN FROM 1724.
Lawrence Baker, vestryman from 1724 to 1757.
William Bridger,
1724 to 1730.
Thomas Woodley,
1728 to 1755.
Major Joseph Bridger,
1735 to 1747.
Arthur Smith. CC
1736 to 1740.
Thomas Smith,
CC 1745 to 1751.
Jordan Thomas,
1746 to 1755.
Robert Tynes,
CC
1746 to 1777.
William Hodsden,
CC
" 1746 to 1757.
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VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Joseph Bridger, vestryman from 1746 to 1749.
Colonel Joseph Bridger,
1757 to 1769.
Nicholas Parker,
1760 to 1777.
Richard Baker, 1760 to 1777.
James Bridger, clerk in 1753,
1766 to 1777.
Richard Hardy, CC
1769 to 1777.
John Day,
I777.
There was no election of a vestry from 1756 to 1777. It was then on the petition of "sundry inhabitants" of the parish of Newport, in the county of Isle of Wight, dissolved."
The names of the other vestrymen appearing in the old Vestry- book are Samuel Davis, Mathew Jones, Thomas Walton, Wil- liam Kinchin, William Crumpler, JAMES DAY, George Riddick, Mathew Wills, Reuben Proctor, Nathaniel Ridley, John Good- rich, George Williamson, James Ingles, John Porson, John Davis, John Simmons, William Wilkinson, Joseph Godwin, Henry Lightfoot, John Monroe, Thomas Parker, Hardy Council, Henry Pitt, Richard Wilkinson, Henry Applewhaite, Thomas Day, John Lawrence, Hugh Giles, Thomas and John Apple- whaite, Thomas Tynes, John Eley, John Darden, Dolphin Drew, John Wills, William Salter, Robert Barry, Charles Tilghman, Robert Burwell, Miles Wills, and Edmund Godwin.
One grand historic landmark of the old church-yard has recently yielded to the scythe of time, but its exact spot and its memory ought for many reasons to be perpetuated.
A grand old oak stood by the side of the road right between what is now the burial lots of William Gale and Walter B. Jor- dan. Under that oak Tarleton and his officers rested when they made a dash for Colonel Josiah Parker in 1781. Under that oak Lorenzo Dow preached, Joseph Norsworthy and others were con- verted, and he and they there joined the Methodists, and laid the foundations of the now famous Benn's church. Under that oak elections were held, and under it Samuel Hardy, Josiah Parker, James Johnson, Arthur Smith, Joel Holleman, Archer
43 See Journal of the Convention, June, 1776, p. 40; See Journal of the Convention, December, 1776, p. 80; See Hening, IX., chapter XX, p. 317.
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THE OLD BRICK CHURCH, SMITHFIELD.
Atkinson and Robert Whitfield-all members of Congress from this county-discussed the engrossing issues of their day.
Dr. Purdie, in an article in the Southern Churchman in No- vember, 1882, speaking of that oak, says: "oaks of gigantic proportions and of great age stand near this venerable Christian temple. One of them, the oldest and perhaps the largest of the vegetable kingdom family in the county, if not in Eastern Vir- ginia, was more than twenty years ago measured by myself in company with the Rev. Silas Totten, D.D., of the faculty of William and Mary College, and its circumference five feet from the ground was more than eighteen feet. Under its expansive boughs men now old gamboled in childhood and in youth. In its extensive shade the past and the present generations have lunched on protracted religious occasions. On its grassy carpet Virginia militia have formed ranks and performed simple and eccentric movements. And the loud harangues of legislative aspirants and political declaimers were ofttimes heard from its rugged roots. On the afternoon of a calm autumnal Sabbath in 1875, this vegetable giant, this patriarch of the forest, succumbed to nature's laws, and its mighty fall never to be revived, and not to be replaced in ages, it became a huge mass, if may I say, sacred timber and fire fuel."
Not only was this grand old oak loved for the reasons given, but because it, more, perhaps, than any of its fellows, was in the universal heart intimately associated with the tenderest senti- ments. On its huge knees, purposely designed by nature, many sat, who, "Like Juno's swans, still went coupled and insepar- able," and those knees were so diverged and distant that what was said in love's low tones on the one side of the faithful tree did not reach the engaged ear on the other. Grand old oak, how we miss you! Under that old oak,
"Whose boughs were mossed with age, And high top, bald with antiquity,"
how often have we gathered and carved names, and kissed the bark, and hugged its huge circumference, believing it to be inspired with the touch and feeling of her who had just left it. Broader than that which stood sentinel in Sumner-chase, it was
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VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
enshrined in sweeter memories, for as that had only one Walter and one Olivia, this had its hundreds.
And this whole grove, abandoned by the service of the Church, revered and loved for its ancient memories and its multitudinous dead here buried, its dense, extensive and sacred shade, its solemn hush and silence was our forest of Eden, where our melancholy Jacques and passionate Orlandos, "Sighing every minute and groaning every hour," hung "odes on hawthornes and elegies on brambles," saying-
"O Rosalind, these trees shall be my books, And in their barks my thoughts I'll character; That every eye which in this forest looks Shall see thy virtues witnessed everywhere."
And now, having completed the history of this grand old church so far as it is known to me-not even having ignored its sentimental associations, let me express the hope that it will soon be restored to its pristine condition, and once again unite in har- mony and in love with all other churches in the evangelization of the world.
R. S. THOMAS.
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MINISTERS WHO CAME FROM 1607 TO 1622.
A PARTIAL LIST OF MINISTERS WHO CAME FROM 1607 TO 1622.
Robert Hunt came in 1607, died at Jamestown, 1609.
Richard Bucke came in 1610, died at Jamestown, 1624.
Glover came prior to 1611.
Poole came prior to 1611.
William Wickham came prior to 1611, died at Henrico, 1638. Alexander Whitaker came prior to 1611, died at Henrico, 1617.
William Mease or Mays came prior to 1611, died at Henrico after 1623.
William Macock came prior to 1616, died at Henrico after 1626.
Thomas Bargrave came prior to 1618, died at Isle of Wight, 1621.
Robert Paulet came prior to 1620.
David Sandis came prior to 1620.
William Bennett came prior to 1621, died at Isle of Wight, 1624.
Robert Bolton came prior to 1621, lived in Accomac and Jamestown.
Jonas Stockton came prior to 1621, lived in Elizabeth City and Henrico.
Thomas White came prior to 1621.
Haut Wyatt came prior to 1621, lived in Jamestown.
Hopkins came prior to 1622.
Pemberton came prior to 1622.
Greville Pooley came prior to 1622.
William Cotton came about 1622.
The letter of the London Company to the Governor and Council of Virginia, dated September 11, 1621, speaking of books for the ministers, says: "As for books we doubt not you will be able to supply them out of the libraries of so many that have died."
R. S. T.
FRIEBELE PRESS 107 WEST 25TH STREET NEW YORK
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