CUMBERLAND PARISH, LUNENBURG COUNTY, VIRGINIA 1746-1816, VESTRY BOOK, 1746-1816, by Landon C. Bell File contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Margaret Driskill ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ************************************************************************ "In the Colonial period Virginia had, of course, a state church. In other words, the Episcopal Church was establishedby law, and supported by a compulsory charge or tax. The state was therefore divided into parishes for the administration of the religious and semi-religious affairs coming under the jurisdiction of the vestries. These parishes frequently, but not always, coincided with the boundaries of the counties. Sometimes, for convenience counties were divided into more than one parish. There were often noticeable differences between the character and calibre of the men composing the vestries and the early ministers who came over from England. The vestries, in general, were composed of men drawn from the more able and important part of the citizenry of the parish; the ministers were such as were willing to become adventurers, more or less, in the new, sparsely settled, and relatively impecunious communities of the new world. That a minister was willing to come to America at that time, often was indicative of the fact that he was not of the character and capacity to make a success at home, or that there were other reasons of not wholly creditable character impelling the move. The ministers who came over seeking the livings afforded in the colony, were, as a general rule, so indifferent and undesirable, - many of them being gamblers, and intemperate and immoral, - that it was a very serious thing for a community to have such a person settled upon them, with legal powers to enforce their salaries by the levy and collection of taxes. There were notable exceptions. Some of the parish ministers were men of the highest integrity, morality and character, such as example as Reverend Peter Fontaine of Westover Parish, Reverend James Craig of Cumberland Parish, and Reverend James Maury, who, notwithstanding his controversy with the vestry over the two penny act, was a man of high character and a patriot in the cause of American liberty. Bishop Meade contends, not without considerable reason, that the vestries were the real depositaries of power in Colonial Virginia. He says, "They not only giverned the church by the election of ministers, the levying of taxes, the enforcing of laws, but they made laws in the House of Burgesses; for the burgesses were the most intelligent and influential men of the parish, and were mostly vestrymen." Reference: OLD CHURCHES, MINISTERS, ETC., by Bishop Meade, VolumeI, 151. This is perhaps a slight overstatement of the case. The county courts were undoubtedly greater depositaries of power than the vestries, and it was but a limited class of laws that the vestries were charged with administering, and possibly too the county courts were as numerously, possibly more numerously represented in the House of Burgesses, than the Vestries. Still the vestrymen and the magistrates of the County Courts were often the same persons; and that the vestries were great powers in the Colonial establishment, is an undeniable fact." "Lunenburg, VA had, as we shall see, an important part in the struggle between the vestries and the Colonial Governors". "When the county was created in 1745 it embraced, in addition to its present area, the now comprised in Mecklenburg, Charlotte, Halifax, Pittsylvania, Henry, Franklin, and the greater part of Bedford and Campbell counties". "This great area was comprised in one parish and was named Cumberland. While Lunenburg County and Cumberland parish were created by the act of 1745, it was provided that they should come into existence 'from and immediately after the first day of May next'". Reference: Hening V. 3110 "it was directed by the Act that the sheriff should advertise 'some convenient time and place' for the meeting of the 'freeholders and housekeepers' to elect 'twelve of the most able and discreet persons' of the parish as vestrymen". "The first vestry of Cumberland parish seems to have been composed of the following: Lewis Deloney, Clement Read, Matthew Talbott, Abraham Martin, Lyddall Bacon, David Stokes, Daniel Ferth, Thomas Bouldin, John Twitty, Field Jefferson, John Edloe, and John Cox". "in 1746 the vestry ordered a chapel forty-eight feet by twenty-four feet to be build near Reedy Creek. This was near Lunenburg Court House. This was burned, as Bishop Meade informs us, 'between thirty and forty years since, during the ministry of Rev. Mr. Philips". Reference: Bishop Meade's book was printed in 1891. It continues on through several mininsters, but from a Genealogy standpoint, perhaps you will find this interesting. About 1837, St. John's Church was the only one standing in the parish. Reedy Creed Church had been consumed by fire. Being deserted of worshippers, it was filled with fodder, and is said to have taken fire. Old FDlatrock Church had been disposed of and the proceeds applied to the building of St. John's. St. Paul's was build during the ministry of the honest and zealous Mr. Taliafero. At his entrance upon duty there were only seven regular attending communicants in the Parish. During his brief ministry, forty-six were added to the communion. Mr. Talifero was succeeded by the Rev. Thomas Locke, who has continued to be the minister until within the last two years. The Rev. Mr. Henderson is its present rector. "I take from the old vestry-book, the following list of Vestrymen: "Lewis Deloney, Clement Read, Matthew Talbot, Abraham Martin, Lyddall Bacon, David Stokes, Daniel Ferth, Thomas Bouldin, John Twitty, Field Jefferson, John Edloe, John Cox, Francis Ellidge, Luke Smith, William Embry [or Embra] , Peter Fontaine, Robert Wade, Goeorge Walton, Joseph Morton, Thomas Hawkins, William Watkins, Thomas Nash, John Speed, Henry Blagrove [Blagrave], John Jennings, Matthew Marraball, John Parrish, John Ragsdale, Daniel Claiborne, Edmund Taylor, Thomas Pettis, Thomas Lanier, Thomas Tabb, William Gee, David Garland, John Hobson, George Philips, TRhomas Wynne, William Taylor, Thomas Chambers, Christopher Philips, Benjamin Tomlinson, Charles Warden, Elisha Betts, Thomas Buford, William Harding, David Stokes, John Ballard, Robert Dixon, anthony Street, Edward Jordan, Nicholas Hobson, Sterling Niblett [Neblett], John Cureton, Christopher Robertson, James Buford, Covington Hardy, Ellison Ellis, J. E. Broadman, William Buford, James Smith, Thomas Stephenson, Bryan Lester, William Glenn, Obadiah Clay, William Tucker, Edmund P. Bacon, Thomas Garland, John Billups, David Street, Peter Epps, W. Farmer, James McFarland, Thomas M. Cameron, William GBufor, Jr." "The Presbyterians were the first sect or denomination to make any appreciable inroads upon the Anglican church; buy Presbyterianism did not make any considerable headway in the Colony for a long time after its first appearance. As early as 1683 some Presbyterians were living in eastern Virginia." REFERENCE: VIRGINIA PRESBYTERIANISH AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY, by T.C. Johnson, 13. "Josias Mackie was, so far as is known, the first legal dissenting minister in Virginia." Reference: SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IN VIRGINIA, by Eckenrode:, 31, citing McIlwaine, 31. "He qualified under the Toleration Act of 1689 and was the pastor of a congregation on Elizabeth River until his death occurred in 1716. But the person who was regarded as the real founder of Presbyterianism in the United States was Francis Mackemie, who came from Ireland and settled in Accomac County, Virginia. He was licensed to preach in 1699 and lived a time in Virginia, but the greater part of his life in America was spent in the North. After his removal from Virginia, Presbyterianism practically died out in the eastern part of the state. "It is to Mackemie rather than to Mackie that Foote gives the honor of being the first in Virginia. He says: 'The interest attached to the name, birthplace, and labors of Mackemie arises from the circumstances, that he was, in all probability, the first consistent Presbyterian minister in the United States; certainly the first in Virginia. "In 1738 a group of Presbyterians led by John Caldwell, 'who are about to settle in the back parts of Virginia,' requested the Synod of Philadelphia to appoint persons to wait upon the Governor and Council of Virginia, 'in order to procure the favor and countenance of the government of that province to the laying a foundationof our interests." "The governor assured the Philadelphia Synod that the Presbyterians might settle in VA and not be disturbed by Virginian authorities." ONe of the earliest Presbyterian preachers to preach in Lunenburg County was Rev. William Robinson, born near Carlyle, England of Quaker parents. His father was a physician of eminence and wealth. To trace the courses of the various Presbyterian preachers who in the early years faithfully labored in the territory originally comprised in Lunenburg would lead us beyond any possible limits that can be assigned to the subject. That would require a volume in itself, as the readers of Foote's two volumes several times quoter are aware." "The Baptists of Virginia came from three sources: From England, from Maryland, and from New England. {Reference: SKETCHES OF VIRGINIA (2Nd Series), by Foote, 579.} Virginia had been settled a full century before that denomination is mentioned by name in its annals. The first Baptists in Virginia 'were emigrants from England, who, about the year 1714, settled in the southeastern parts of the state. The next group about 1743 came from Maryland and settled in the northwestern part of the State, while still a third and more important party came from New England. The New England group were disciples of Rev. George Whitefield, and were known as NEW LIGHTS. This 'NEW LIGHT STIR' became an extensive movement, and those adhering to it 'conceiving that the parish congregations, a few excepted, were far from the purity of the Gospel, determinedto form a society to themselves. Accordingly they embodied many churches. Into these none were admitted who did not profess vital religion. Having thus separated themselves from the established churches, they were denominated Separates." The Separates fir stook their rise, or rather their name, about the year 1744. {Reference: HISTORY OF THE BAPTIST, by Semple, 12.} The early Baptist preachers generally lacked the classical education, which, for example, the Presbyterians as a rule had, but nevertheless, and possibly largely for that reason, the Baptist church grew by leaps and bounds until the movement became one of the events of Virginia history. Not only did their persecution and prosecution help them in the eyes of the populace, but there were other reasons for their success. They were democratic in politics as well as in religion 'and whole hearted in their sympathy with the Colonial cause as against England.'.. "But, says Mr. Eckenrode, 'the chief reason for success laly in the fact tht the Baptists presented the great evangelical movement in the way which appealed most strongly to the masses." "In 1751 Shubal Stearns, who was born in Massachusetts, was converted to the Baptist faith. He came to Virginia in 1754, but not meeting with the encouragement he expected in Frederick County, he went on to North Carolina where he had some friends, and founded a church on Sandy Creek in Guilford County. He wwas accompanied from New England by a party of followers. Sterns was a brother-in-law of Rev. Daniel Marshall, who accompanied him from Frederick County to Sandy Creek, [Reference: Semple: HISTORY OF THE BAPTISTS, 13-14. Semple speaks of his coming in 1754 to Opeckon, in Berkeley County. This was then Frederick County. Berkeley was not formed until 1772]. and Rev. Joseph Breed was also a member of the Sandy Creek Church. The Presbyterians in general had been content to observe the interpretation of the Toleration Act by the Colonial authorities, and hence had but little trouble with the constituted authorities or with the established church. But in the main the policy of the Presbyterians was to avoid conflict. With the Baptists it was different. They did not conceive it to be possible in a sparsely settled country to do the Lord's work as they believed it ought to be done by confiningf their preaching to a limited number of definitely fixed and licensed places. Their preachers were all, or practically all, itinerants, and 'the itinerants considered the British laws concerning religion as wholly unjustifiable, and in this spirit they disregarded them although occasionally they applied for licenses and were refused. As a consequence, an inevitable legal prosecution followed which placed the Baptists in the light of sufferers for the cause of religious freedom...the Baptists could not have done their work if they had strictly complied with the Toleration Act. Itinerancy was a vital feature of their agitation; it was only by going out into the fields and hedges that they could reach a sparse population scattered over a large territory. " The history of the Baptist church in Virginia abounds in instances of the prosecution and punishment of Baptist preachers. John Walter, Lewis Craig and James Childs were arrested in Spotsylvania County. William Webber and Joseph Anthony were imprisoned in Chesterfield in 1770, and Webber, along with John Waller, James Greenwood and Robert Ware were imprisoned in Middlesex in 1771. Samuel Harriss, too, though he was known to be a man of high character, and had served the colony in important positions, was arrested and taken into court as a disturber of the peace. It is an interesting circumstance that the first permanent church established by the Baptists in Virginia, was within the original area of Lunenburg. As early as January, 1760, the Baptists formed an association, embracing this section of Virginia. This was the first of the Baptist associations in this section and is called the ORIGINAL SEPARATE BAPTIST ASSOCIATION. "Rev. Robert Williams is credited with founding Methodism in Virginia. He was born in England, but settling in Ireland, he became a local preacher of the Methodist Societies, and received from Mr. Wesley license to preach in America under the regular missionaries. He is said to have been a very poor man, and sold his horse to pay his debts before embarking for the New World. When he sailed his outfit consisted of 'a pair of saddle-bags containing a few pieces of clothing, a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk'. His fare for the passage was paid by a Mr. Ashton who came over in the same ship. He landed in New York in the fall of 1769. His labors were confined to the northern section of the country until the fall of 1771 when he was on the Eastern Shore of Maryland; he passed down the peninsula toward the lower part of Virginia. He first appeared in Virginia in 1772. This was at Norfolk where he preached his first sermon at the door of the court house. He first began to sing; the fymn finished he kneeled and prayed, and then announcing his text he preached to a disorderly crowd, who were chiefly curious and not a little amused at the preacher's performances. Nevertheless, the church thus inauspiciously planted has prospered in the state to a marked degree. It is said that upon the burning many years ago of the Cumberland Street church, in Norfolk, the Methodists unwittingly built their church edifice upon the very spot where Mr. Williams stood to preach his first sermon in the State of Virginia. REFerence: MEMORIALS OF METHODISM IN VA. (Bennett), 47. "Mr. Williams and Rev. Devereaux Jarratt, of whom some brief mention is made in the account of the Episcopal Church, in this Chapter, became intimate friends. They first met in March, 1773. Upon the assembling of the first American Conference of the Methodists, in Philadelphia on July 14, 1773, the whole number of members reported from Virginia was 100. The whole number of members in America reported at that time was 1160. Not more than 6 or 7 preachers attended the conference, but it laid out 6 circuits and stationed 10 preachers. of these Virginia had 2, in Norfolk, VA, Richard Wright, Petersburg, Robert Williams. The Methodist missionaries began their work in Virginia under great difficulties. They were at the beginning not a separate church or sect but a society within the Episcopal Church. They could preach, but they could not perform the ordinances of the church. This was an especially unsatisfactory state of affairs for a group of religious zealots who believed themselves to be, and who undoubtedly were, superior, in Christian principles and a correct mode of living, to a great many of the ministers of the established church who were empowered to perform the sacraments. There was at least one minister, Rev. Devereaux Jarratt, in the Episcopal Church, who had been ordained, and who 'travelled far and wide to give the Societies the benefit of the ordinances, but he could not keep pace with the rapid strides of Methodism', and the converts 'could not doubt, that the men who had been instrumental in bringing them to Christ for salvation, possessed, in virtue of their sacred call, the right to bring them into his visible Church by Baptism, and to dispense to them the emblems of his dying love." At the time, the doctrines of the Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists were rapidly spreading in Virginia, and the Presbyterians at least were 'in the proper sense'organizing Churches. In meeting the Presbyterians and even the Baptists the Methodist preachers felt their official inferiority. 'In all things else they were equal to the best ministers among the dissenting sects; but in respect to the ordinances, there was a painful and embarrassing inequality'. The Revolutionary War was in progress, and no one knew how long it might continue. All connection with England was severed, nothing could be expected from Wesley because he was a staunch Episcoplian, and was believed to be 'uncompromisingly opposed to all steps looking toward a separation from the Established Church.' He had always refused to exercise the right of ordination, and he desired the American Methodist Societies to consider themselves as belonging to the Church of England. The movement for establishing the Methodists as a separate church was a logical growth, which the early adherents to the Methodist Societies, at least in the beginning, were unconscious of promoting. From the beginning of the movement about 1771 until the Baltimore Conference in 1784, the work of the pioneers was such as to lead almost inevitably to the action that was taken. Some of these early itinerants are closely identified with ther section of which we write. One of these was Henry Ogburn of Mecklenburg County who was converted in the great revival of 1776. 'He labored with great zeal and success for ten years as an itinerant...was sent as a pioneer to the Kentucky Circuit, and amid savage tribes he planted Methodism, preaching to the hardy settlers in their 'stations', or little forts, and sowing seed from which rose the Methodist church in Kentucky." He spent several years in Western Virginia, where his preaching was signally blessed. At the cabin home of Thomas and Sarah Stevenson, he organized the first Methodist Society in Kentucky. "The eara from the Revolutionary time for a periof of some fifty years was one marked by sectarian controversy and doctrinal strife. All the sects had with one accord complained of the character of the religious establishment under the Colonial regine. But with the adoption of the Bill of Rights, the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church, and the enactment of the Statute of religious freedom, no millenium or universal peace and concord among the different denominations was ushered in. On the contrary the strife became more bitter as the restrictions disappeared. The bodies which had complained of the autocracy of the established church, and of the arbitrary course tht institution pursued became measurably subject to the same indictment they had made against it. Not only was there generous and ungenerous rivalry of the sects against each other, but there developed factions within these separate churches, due to divergences of opinions respecting various matters of doctrine and of practice. There had been from time to time efforts at reformation of the existing churches. Such, for example, was Wesley's effort to reform the Episcopal Church, which eventually resulted, not in its reform, but in the establishment of the Methodist Episcopal Church as a separate body. Such also, was the effort of James O'Kelly and his associates to bring about reforms in the arbitrary method of church government obtaining under Asbury in the early Methodist Church. This too resulted not in reforming the Methodist Espicopal Church, but in the organization of the body known as the Republican Methodist Church. One of the subjects of disagreement, which especially disturbed the religious world during the general period mentioned was that of creeds. Creeds or Confessions of faith, being statements or declarations formulated by the respective religious bodies, were by them made the test of orthodoxy, and their acceptance the prerequisites of fellowship within the several bodies. Human creeds were authoritative and binding. Sectarianism was rife everywhere. Party lines were rigidly drawn. Christian union was ridiculed. Sects were pronounced essential to the purity, health and vigor of the body of Christ. True religion was lost sight of in contentions over rival dogmas, and human opinions and speculations were preached rather than the GOSPEL. Total hereditary depravity and unconditional election and reprobation were commonly taught. REFERENCE: Address At World's Fair, St. Llouis, CTOBER 30, 1904, BY Frederick D. Power. As a separate body they are sometimes called "Campbellites", a name they did not choose, nor have they ever approved. This name has been used because of the prominence of Thomas and Alexander Campbell in the movement which resulted in their separation from the Baptist Church. Their attitude toward the matter of name is clearly stated by Frederick D. Power in the remarkable address by him at the World's Fair, in St. Louis, on "DISCIPLES OF CHRIST DAY", October 30, 1904, following the great international convention of the Disciples. He said: "The Disciples were called Christians frist at Antioch." As the bride of Christ the church should wear the name of the bridegroom. Party names perpetuate party strife. Disciples of Christ have been charged with presumption in calling themselves Christians and their churches Christian churches, or churches of Christ. They do not deny that others are Christians, or that other churches are churches of Christ. They do not claim to be the Church of Christ or even a Church of Christ. They simply desire to be Christians only, and their churches to be only churches of Christ. Hence they repudiate the name 'Campbellite'. The Church will be one only under the name of Christ." Among the early preachers of the Disciples of Christ who preached in Lunenburg may be mentioned Silas Shelburn, Daniel Petty (or Pettie as the name is sometimes spelled), Chester Bullard, R.A. Smith, Benjamin Creel, A.B. Walthall, and Pleasant Barnes. Alexander Campbell is said to have preached at Old Bethany Church, near Wattsboro, before the date of the Dover Decree, or, in ohter words, before the separation from the Baptist Church took place. Bullard was born in Montgomery County, Virginia, Creel in Fauquier, and Walthall in Amelia. Besides REEDY CREEK, among the earliest of the churches of the Disciples of Christ in Lunenburg were Mt. Olivet, which stood and still stands on the Rehoboth road, between the North and Middle Meherrin Rivers, BETHANY, which stood near Wattsbor, on Cox road, COOL SPRING, which was located northwest of Rehoboth, on the road leading northwest from McCormick's Mill in the section between Juniper Creek and Grassy Fork of Middle Meherrin river, PERSEVERANCE, in the lower end of the county on the Two Notch road, and Spring Hill church on Flat Rock Road near Non Intervention. Between 1818 and 1844, Silas Shelburn, Pleasant Barnes, Daniel Petty and Chester Bullard seem to have been the most active of the members of the Disciples of Christ Church in performing marriage ceremonies. In addition to those identified with the several denominations mentioned, the Lunenburg County marriage records show marriages by various ministers whose denominational affiliations are NOT indicated by the marriage returns. Some of these performed great numbers of marriages over a considerable period of time. The list of those whose affiliations are NOT indicated are: Archibald McRoberts, Matthew Dance, M.M. Dance, Charles Ogburn, Renard Anderson, Garner McConnico, John Paup, Edward Almond, Joel Johns, William Davis, Richard Dabbs, Hezekiah W. Lelland, Jesse Brown, James Robertson, Milton Robertson, William Richards, Stephen Jones, George Petty, Caleb N. Bell, Francis Smith, Thomas H. Jeffreys, William Hatchett, Joshua Featherston, Sterling W. Fowler, John Thompson, Benjamin Watkins, Abner Watkins, James Smith, John Wesley Childs, J.W. Flwler, Thomas D. Garrott, Robert J. Carson, Thodowick Pryor, James M. Jeter, W.S. Wilson, B.R. Duval, Samuel G. Mason, Freemon Fitzgerald, Albert Anderson, Thomas Y. Castleman, George A. Bain, Robert Michaels, William Wilson, Richard E.G. Adams, Lousi Dupree and William Doswell.