USA > Virginia > Henrico County > Henrico County > The first century of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia. 1780-1880 > Part 3
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few, to our old Church on the hill (St. John's) and by contri- buting our mite, endeavor to preserve the religion of our fathers. Delightful hours we sometimes pass there."
In 1780, as we learn from Tucker's Life of Jefferson, Richmond was but a village contain- ing scarcely eighteen hundred inhabitants, half of whom were slaves. It had been designated the seat of government only the year before, 1779, after a lively competition with Hanover- town-the question being decided by a majority of one.
An Act of the General Assembly, in 1780, provided for laying out the streets of the town, connecting, by passable roads up the steep hills, what is now Main Street with Broad Street, setting apart the rugged grounds upon which the Capitol now stands, for the govern- ment buildings. The General Assembly met in a large one-story, wooden structure, at the foot of Council Chamber Hill. Mordecai says : "On Fourteenth, or Pearl Street, below Ex- change Alley, where Mr. Fry has erected some fine stores" (page 53). Howe says: "The old Capitol, which was private property, stood on the site which is now occupied by the Custom House and some of the adjacent buildings" (page 305). Perhaps, as he wrote in 1845, he
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refers to an older Custom House, before the present edifice was built. Antiquarians must decide.
Mrs. Colonel Carrington thus humorously limns a picture of the village about this time:
" It is, indeed, a lovely situation, and may at some fu- ture period be a great city ; but at present it will afford scarce one comfort of life. With the exception of two or three families, this little town is made up of Scotch factors, who inhabit small tenements here and there, from the river to the hill, some of which looking-as Colonel Marshall (afterwards Judge Marshall) observes-as if the poor Caledo- nians had brought their houses over on their backs, the weaker of whom were glad to stop at the bottom of the hill; others, a little stronger, proceeded higher; while a few of the stoutest and boldest' reached the summit, which, once accomplished, affords a situation beautiful and picturesque. One of these hardy Scots has thought proper to vacate his little dwelling on the hill; and, though our whole family can scarcely stand up all together in it, my father has determined to rent it as the only decent tenement on the hill."-Meade, vol. I, p. 140.
It is to be regretted that the earliest Record Book of the Church has been lost. If intelli- gently kept, it enrolled the names of the four- teen disciples who entered into the organization. We might trace the influence of their piety upon their descendants, some of whom, it may be, are still living among us. They were probably in humble positions in society, little known be- yond their own circle. The names of multitudes
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of saints-godly and useful-are nowhere re- corded save in the "Lamb's Book of Life." But they sowed a few seeds, from which suc- cessive and ever-increasing harvests have sprung. They put a little leaven in the mass, which has been working for a hundred years. Who can foretell what grand results may flow from little causes ?
We know one name, at least, of the fourteen, Mr. Franklin, of Union Hill. He or his wife- perhaps both-were probably constituent mem- bers, as the earliest meetings were held at their house. Researches now going on may discover others of "the fourteen."
From the lost Record Book we should probably have learned, too, what ministers were present to recognize and give fellowship to the new Church. The organization of a Church in the chief town of the State must have been regarded with deep interest by those zealous and laborious preachers who were willing to endure severe persecutions for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. And in those days of traveling ministers, when many of them almost lived on horseback, it is highly probable that some were here. It may help us to gain some just idea of the character of the men, and of
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the condition of the churches in the Colony, if we conjecture who among the neighboring and accessible ministers might have been invited to the Council of constitution.
The nearest resident Pastor, in 1880, was William Webber, of Dover Church, Goochland County, eighteen miles north of the city. He was one of the heroes who preached Christ's gospel so effectively from the windows of Chesterfield and Middlesex jails. He was a wise and godly man, a leader among those who planned and labored to secure freedom of conscience in this State. He was afterward Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, and for fourteen years Moderator of the Dover Association.
His nearest neighbor was Pastor of the Goochland Church, twenty two miles from the city, the venerable Reuben Ford, converted under the preaching of George Whitefield, the founder and apostle of the Goochland County churches, a prudent, dignified, and laborious servant of Christ, prominent in the counsels of the denomination, in the conflicts for religious liberty, and a very respectable writer.
In Hanover County lived John Clay-the father of Henry Clay-and then Pastor of
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Chickahominy Church, a plain, but sincere and devout man of God.
There were at that time several traveling evangelists, who were holding meetings and organizing churches throughout this region. Among them, Elijah Baker, through whose labors five of the churches in the Peninsula between James and York Rivers were gathered, and seven of the churches on the Eastern Shore ; for which services he was rewarded by imprisonment in Accomac jail, and forcibly carried into a vessel to be transported from thecountry ; and Joseph Anthony, often asso- ciatedwith Baker in evangelistic work, and who gave some emphatic testimony, and gained some precious experiences, in Chesterfield jail. Either of these might have been pre- sent.
Another of these traveling evangelists then in the vicinity was the shrewd, witty, but devoted and indefatigable John Leland, whose field of preaching, he tells us, was from Orange down to York," and who passed over that route from November, 1779, to July,. 1780, and baptized one hundred and thirty-six converts on that journey. He, doubtless, passed through Richmond, and was within call.
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Daniel Marshall, though seventy-four years old in 1780, had yet four years' quite active labor before him, and was ready to go wherever an opportunity of preaching Christ offered. He was one of the Connecticut converts, in the great revival under the preaching of Whitefield; started as a Missionary to the Indians on the Upper Susquehanna ; preached his way down into Virginia ; became associated with Shubael Stearns, his brother in law, only four years dead ; ranged into the Carolinas and Georgia, and was now living just over the North Carolina line. The Murphy boys, now old men-and Dutton Lane were still bearing the fiery cross over the valleys and mountains, and gathering the consecrated clan for the battles of Jehovah.
But to return to the more settled ministers of 1780; there were in the territory now occupied by the Dover Association, John Courtney, Pastor of Upper College Church in William County, afterward for thirty six years Pastor of this Church. Theoderick Noel of Upper King and Queen Church, an impassioned exhorter, of wonderful power, and who baptized, says Andrew Broaddus, as many converts as any other preacher then in Virginia. John Wright was Pastor of Grafton Church. He was called
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by Semple, "a blessed man of God, faithful to occupy his talents, whose vineyard, though- small, was well kept."
John Young was Pastor of Reed's, in Caroline, for six months, and prisoner in Caroline jail. His funeral sermon John Courtney preached in 1817-when he had numbered fourscore years, less one.
Robert Ware, one of the prisoners of King and Queen jail, was now Pastor of Lower King and Queen Church. A man of moderate abilities, but of unquestioned piety and zeal. James Greenwood, another of these prison-graduates, who was dragged from his rustic pulpit to finish his interrupted sermon in Middlesex jail, was Pastor of Piscataway Church, in Essex County, a humble, godly, and beloved minister of Christ.
If they desired on so interesting an occasion the services of the most eloquent and popular preacher in Virginia, they had only to send over the Rappahannock and call for Lewis Lunsford, now Pastor of Moratico, in the Northern Neck, who had been arrested and threatened with prison, and who was sorry he did not go, rather than allow himself to be persuaded to give security not to preach again in an adjoining county without a license from the Court, which
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license he failed to procure. But in 1880 their laws could be no longer enforced.
If they looked across the James into Chester- field for helps, there were Eleazer Clay, of Chesterfield Church, an influential and useful man, who lived to be ninety years old. Wm. Hickman, of Skinquarter Church, converted during the glorious revival under the walls of Chesterfield jail, who preached his first sermon in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, being commanded and licensed to preach by Thomas Tinsley, and who returned only for a brief time to Virginia, and was now Pastor at Skinquarter ; but who soon went back to his beloved Kentucky, where he became one of the honored Patriarchs of that State, who baptized five hundred converts at the Forks of Elkhorn, and lived to the eighty- fourth year of his age.
Jeremiah Hatcher, afterward of Bedford County, progenitor of a long line of preachers -may the number never be less-was Pastor of Tomahawk Church in 1780. These men all lived within a dozen miles of Richmond.
A little further off were David Tinsley, of Powhatan Church, whom his persecutors tried to suffocate with fumes of tobacco and red pep- pers in his Chesterfield dungeon. Jeremiah
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Walker, of Nottaway Church, of whom Semple says: "few men did more good in so short a time than Walker did round about Nottaway."
Fames Shelburne, of Lunenburg County, of whom Dr. Alexander said, after hearing his Christian experience and becoming quite inti- mate with him: "When the old millwright had finished his narrative, I felt much more inclined to doubt my own call to the ministry, rather than that of Shelburne."
John Weatherford, of Charlotte, whose name is immortalized by his bold proclamation of the gospel from behind the high fence which was erected to hide the jail window, which was his pulpit, from the crowds outside in Chesterfield, and whose most eloquent eulogy was written by the venerable Dr. Plummer, who knew him in his old age. He was a frequent delegate to the General Assembly, during the struggle for religious liberty, and was for several years clerk of the General Committee. .
John Williams, a man of liberal education for the times, a member of the General Com- mittee, several times a delegate to the General Assembly with petitions for religious liberty, an earnest advocate and planner for ministerial education, a far-seeing and progressive man,
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was pastor of Meherrin Church in Lunenburg County.
A little farther west, in Pittsylvania, lived Samuel Harris, "a Paul among the churches ;" and so like one that he was actually elected a sort of Diocesan Bishop with the title Apostle by the misguided enthusiasm and confidence of the General Association. He was undoubtedly a man of superior ability and of great in- fluence. He was once, in Orange County, dragged by the hair from his out-door pulpit, tried and condemned by an Orthodox Court.
Rene Chastaine, the influential and beloved Pastor of Buckingham Church for fifty-three years-from 1772 to 1825-was within easy traveling distance. He was sent for to baptize the converts of the Chesterfield-jail revival. Under threat of prosecution, he gathered the converts together in an arbor, and bravely preached to them and a crowd of the ungodly in the vicinity of the prison.
If the Richmond brethren looked over the field now occupied by the Goshen Association, there were two famous men, who never spared themselves when any good work was going forward, and who were here if they were invited and had not some other godly enterprise on
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hand; for they seemed nearly ubiquitous .- John Waller, who, in his younger days, had been known as the "Devil's Adjutant" and " swearing Jack Waller;" and who now as a minister of Christ was flashing like a brilliant meteor over the State, though frequently eclipsed, having been darkened in the dungeons of four different jails for one hundred and thir- teen days in all; who gathered eighteen churches, and baptized over two thousand converts, and was now living in Spottsylvania County. Lewis Craig, who took lessons in practical theology in Spottsylvania and Caroline Counties' jails, was now also Pastor in Spottsylvania, and in the following year led most of the members, as an organized traveling church in the wilderness, across the Allegheny Mountains into Kentucky, and settled them on the Elkhorn River, where he died, aged eighty-seven years. Elijah Craig, his brother, prisoner in Culpeper and Orange jails, was Pastor of Blue Run in Orange.
Ambrose Dudley was also now in Spottsylva- nia, but soon after removed to Kentucky, and whose memory is cherished there as one of the fathers of the Elkhorn Association, and after- ward, alas! of the Licking Anti-Missionary As- sociation.
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John Taylor lived in Fauquier, in 1780, and was a sort of missionary evangelist on the western frontiers, and, in 1783, settled in Woodford County, Kentucky, where, in his old age, he wrote a history of the ten churches with which he had been connected. He was a wise leader in our Kentucky Zion, and preached from his twenty-first to his eighty-first year.
James Garnett, for fifty-five years Pastor of Crooked Run, Culpeper County, where he preached every Lord's Day, declining all calls to a plurality pastorate-if his good example had been generally followed, we should have now a different state of things in our Southern country-could have been here at the organi- zation.
John Pickett, of the Fauquier prison, and founder of six of the old Culpeper Association churches, had his home in Fauquier.
The Fristoes, Daniel and William, of Stafford, soundly Calvinistic, and apostles of the Ketock- ton Association.
Wm. Marshall, uncle of the Chief Justice, was one of the fashionable aristocracy of Fau- quier, and after his conversion and induction into the ministry, was only kept out of jail by the interposition of his Episcopal brother, Col.
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Thomas Marshall. During this year, 1780, he migrated to Kentucky, where many of his hon- ored descendants still live.
Richard Major, one of the most useful and godly ministers of that age, was Pastor of Bull Run Church, in Fauquier.
David Thomas, then Pastor of Broad Run Church, in Fauquier County, was perhaps the best educated and most intelligent of all these Fathers of the churches. He was in the vigor of manhood in 1780, and was proclaiming the gospel through the northern counties and into the Southern Neck. He too removed to Kentucky, and labored effectively for many years.
James Ireland, a Scotchman, whom the fana- tics of the Established Church tried to smother with brimstone, by blowing the flame and smoke of sulphur into his close cell in Culpeper jail, and who wrote rapturous letters headed,- "From my Palace in Culpeper,"-" a man," says Semple, "of considerable learning, hand- some style, affectionate and tender manner, argumentative and eloquent,"-was preaching in the Shenandoah Valley. And so was John Koontz, a German, whom enraged persecution often beat and tried to kill, but whom the Lord
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kept alive till he was eighty years old, and then dismissed to his rest and reward.
Constituted, as we have seen, in 1780, with fourteen members, with the pastoral ministra- tions of Rev. Joshua Morris, the Church gradu- ally, but slowly, increased in numbers, during the six years that followed. In 1786, Mr. Mor- ris, as we have noticed, removed to Kentucky. How soon after the organization of the Church Mr. Morris became resident Pastor, and how often he preached for them, we have now no means of learning. Whether it was for a while a monthly or semi-monthly station, as from the fewness of its members and their probable ina- bility to support a pastor, seems likely, we have no information.
The first place of meeting, as already noticed, was on Union Hill, at a private house. After- ward a building was erected or procured at or near the North East Corner of Cary and Second streets. Mr. Mordecai, in his interesting remi- niscences, writing of Gamble's and Gallows Hill, near where the Penitentiary now stands, says: "One small wooden house, with a shed at either end, stood not far off, in which service was performed by Baptist preachers, for want of a better place of worship. Its locality pos-
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sessed the advantage of being near the Peni- tentiary pond-convenient for immersion-for it was then pure water."
Afterward, Dr. P. Turpin presented to the Church the lot on which the First African Church now stands, then on a bluff overlooking the valley and beyond which there was no road, the decliv- ity being too abrupt and steep for vehicles of any sort. Upon this lot a small, plain brick building was erected, which in 1803 and subsequently was enlarged by additions on three sides, making a cruciform edifice one hundred by seventy feet. It was without any pretensions to architectural symmetry, but capable of accommodating a large congregation, and within its walls God displayed his glory and power in the conversion of thou- sands of sinners, and in the edification of thou- sands of saints. Some to whom I am now speak- ing recall tender memories of the Pastors to whom they listened, of precious Christian friends and kin, with whom they were associated in spiritual fellowship, and of the regenerating and pardoning, and adopting grace of God, and of many conflicts in which they were aided, and many gracious experiences which they enjoyed, in connection with the assemblies that gathered in the rude old Church.
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After the retirement of the first Pastor, in 1786, Elder John Courtney was called to the pastorate of the Church. He was an humble, plain man, without the advantages of early education, but a godly and laborious minister of Christ, such a one, I fancy, as Chaucer, three hundred years before Courtney was born, aptly described:
" A true good man there was, of religion, Pious and poor, the parson of the town, But rich he was in holy thought and work, And thereto a right learned man, a clerk, That Christ's pure gospel would sincerely preach And his parishioners devoutly teach."
For several years, Courtney was the only resident Pastor; later, Blair and Rice, of the Presbyterian, and Buchanon and Bishop Moore, of the Episcopal Churches, settled and minis- tered in the City.
The task of preparing biographical sketches of the Pastors and Ministers connected with the Church has been committed to other hands, and I will not, therefore, attempt any delinea- tion of the character and labors of these worthy men of God. There is a long line of them, and the unity and completeness of this series of services will be best secured by leaving such
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biographical sketches to the accomplished bro- ther who has, doubtless, given them as careful and thorough study as attainable materials could furnish.
In ten years after its organization, 1790, the number of members had increased to two hun- dred. From that date we have been able to trace with considerable accuracy the annual statistical returns. The increase has been steady, year by year; no year having passed without . some additions by baptism. In 1824, when eighty years of age, Elder Courtney closed his earthly work, and entered upon his heavenly rest. The Church then numbered eight hundred and twenty members. The larger proportion of these were negroes and slaves-"the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom."
No charge more unjust was ever made than that the religious instruction and training of the poor and laboring classes was neglected by these early preachers of the gospel. Like their Lord, they could appeal for proof of the divinity of their call by repeating-"the poor have the gospel preached unto them." They were care- ful, too, in the examination of all applicants for membership, requiring satisfactory testimony
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of their conversion, and certificates of good character from their employers; and after their admission, they were strict in watchful discipline over their conduct and conversation. Deacons of their own color were appointed to watch over and counsel them, and they listened every Lord's Day to the same instructions and ex- hortations as their white brethren; and through the zealous teachings of these early preachers and their devoted successors, when the civil war secured freedom to the race, a larger propor- tion of them than of the laboring classes of any other part of the country, or of the world, were professed, regenerate disciples of Jesus Christ.
Associated in pastoral work with Elder Courtney during the closing period of his life- for the Church would not cast him off when advancing years, spent in its service, weakened his physical powers-were Rev. John Bryce, for twelve years, from 1810 to 1822; and during one year, 1822, the accomplished and eloquent Andrew Broaddus; then for three years, from 1822 to 1825, Rev. Henry Keeling. These three were men of much more than average ability. I leave the delineation of their charac- teristics and services to the abler and more critical pen of Dr. Thomas.
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During this period, several other ministers were connected with the Church. Wm. Braine was the son of an intelligent and godly mother, who had been a frequent auditor of Whitefield, and a member of the Presbyterian Church, to which the famous Samuel Davies ministered, and afterward a member of Reed's Church, Caroline County. Two of her sons became useful ministers of Christ : Samuel, of whom Semple writes: "He was a great preacher, and bade fair to be much greater;" but he died young. Wm. Braine, who was a member of this Church, seems to have been an Evangelist, and his work is thus noted in the minutes of Dover Association of 1815: "His labors in the gospel as a minister and servant of the Churches have been more extensive than any other min- ister in our Association. After a lingering ill- ness, in 1814, he closed his own eyes, clasped his hands, and raised his last prayer: 'Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly,' and without a sigh or groan passed away to a better world."
George Williamson was an occasional preach- er, but engaged in secular business, being mas- ter armorer in the employ of the State.
Herman Snead, for a time a member of this church, was also enrolled in the list of minis-
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ters, and was an early Teacher of youth in this city.
Jacob Gregg was an Englishman, a student in Bristol Academy, and appointed by some British Society Missionary to Sierra Leone on the coast of Africa. After a brief sojourn there, he sailed for America, and landed at Norfolk. After preaching in that vicinity a few years, he traveled into Kentucky and Ohio; but in 1808 or 1809, he returned to Virginia, and settled in Richmond, where he opened and conducted a school for several years. About the year 1817, he was called to the pastoral charge of the New Market Street (now the flourishing Fourth) Baptist Church of Philadelphia. Subsequently he returned to this State. Mr. Gregg was a man of great abilities, and of most amazing memory. It was said of him, that he had com- mitted to memory and could use at will the whole of the Old and New Testaments, and of Watts' Psalms. He had capacity and eloquence enough to place him in the front rank of the preachers of his day. But, unfortunately for his reputation and usefulness, he had acquired an appetite for intoxicating liquors, which he often tried to break with shame and tears, but never, save for intervals, entirely abandoned.
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There were no Temperance Societies in his day, and moderate drinking was indulged by all classes. But this miserable habit prevented his filling those high positions for which he had capabilities.
Of T. Hurst, whose name is on our list of preachers, I have been able to learn nothing.
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