{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_28634/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_28634","id":"gutenberg_28634","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28634","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - American","Category: History - Religious","Church of England in Virginia","Virginia -- Church history","Virginia -- Religion"],"text":"Produced by Mark C. Orton, Diane Monico, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRELIGIOUS LIFE OF VIRGINIA IN\nTHE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY\n\nThe Faith of Our Fathers\n\nBy\nGEORGE MACLAREN BRYDON\nHistoriographer of Diocese of Virginia\n\nVIRGINIA 350TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION CORPORATION\nWILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA\n1957\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT(C), 1957 BY\nVIRGINIA 350TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION\nCORPORATION, WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA\n\n\nJamestown 350th Anniversary\nHistorical Booklet, Number 10\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nIntroduction\n\nChapter                                      Page\n\nOne   Beginnings                               1\n\nTwo   The Colonists at Worship                 6\n\nThree Making Bricks Without Straw             12\n\nFour  Building a Christian Community          22\n\nFive  The Coming of the Negro                 26\n\nSix   Fighting Adverse Conditions             34\n\nSeven The Last Decade                         42\n\nBibliography                                  46\n\nAppendix A                                    47\n\nAppendix B                                    48\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe settlement of Englishmen at Jamestown in 1607 was the outgrowth of\na vision of transatlantic expansion which had been growing stronger\nsteadily during the preceding generation. It was in the following of\nthat vision that Queen Elizabeth granted to a group of men headed by\nSir Walter Raleigh the authority to establish a colony upon the remote\nshores of the Atlantic ocean, and out of the plans of this group came\nthe ill-fated colony which was started at Roanoke Island, in what is\nnow the State of North Carolina, in the year 1585. This colony after a\nlife of a few years disappeared: whether destroyed by Indian attack, or\nby a Spanish fleet which resented the settlement of Englishmen in a\nland that was claimed for Spain, or by famine or disease, no one knows\nto this day. The one permanent result was the giving of the name\nVirginia to their American land in honor of their Queen.\n\nFollowing the failure of this first effort, a plan was formulated and\nestablished by charter given by King James in the year 1606. Under this\ncharter companies were to be formed in order to found two English\nsettlements in America; one to be a colony at some point between the\n34th and 41st degrees of latitude, and the other between the 38th and\n45th degrees. Both companies had the widespread interest of the English\npeople, and both made settlements in America in the same year, 1607.\nThe Virginia Company established its settlement at Jamestown, from\nwhich developed the Colony, and later the Commonwealth of Virginia, as\nthe first permanent English settlement in America. The Plymouth Company\nmade its settlement upon the coast of what is now Maine; but this\neffort failed and the colonists returned home in the following year.\nPermanent settlement of New England began in 1620 with the coming of\nthe Pilgrims to Plymouth, Massachusetts. From these two first\nsettlements thus widely separated, but with their common ideal of\nEnglish civilization and English concepts of freedom and\nself-government, has grown the American nation of today. This nation,\nwhile welcoming all the gifts and values which people of other nations\nhave brought to the enrichment and broadening of our common life, is\nstill basically an English or Anglo-Saxon nation.\n\nMany impelling motives animated the men who organized the Virginia\ncompany and labored for the establishment of a colony in America. They\nwanted of course the expansion of British trade and a wider market for\nBritish manufactures; and they naturally hoped for financial profit\nfrom their investment in shares of stock in the companies. They\nplanned, also, not merely trading posts in a foreign land as in India\nand elsewhere, but an extension and expansion of the empire of Great\nBritain.\n\nA most important part of their plan was to make colonies the answer to\na problem which was pressing for solution: the problem of what to do\nwith the increasing overplus of population in many of the cities of\nEngland. The danger of a population too great for the land of England\nto support and feed was a real one. A colony to which England could\nsend her overplus population as part of a greater England was a real\nsolution, and a better one than would be the raising of grain and\nfoodstuff by foreign countries to feed the hungry of Great Britain.\nThat men were thinking along this line appears from the action of\ncertain large towns in paying the expense of the voyage of young people\nby the score or hundred to Virginia, and from the plan soon after the\nfirst settlement, whereby young women of reputable families were sent\nto Virginia to become wives of the colonists.\n\nAnd still another motive was the religious one. The Virginia Company\nkept constantly in the forefront their plan to Christianize the\nIndians. Their plan as they began to put it into effect included the\nestablishment of parishes and the selection of fit clergymen to go\noverseas; to establish a University with a college therein for Indians,\nand to take Indian youths into English families to fit and prepare them\nfor their college. They secured from both King and Archbishop the\nauthority and permission to bring the expatriated Pilgrim Fathers back\nunder the English flag, and give them a settlement in Virginia, a plan\nwhich failed after the Pilgrims had started for their promised new\nhome.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER ONE\n\nBeginnings\n\n\nThe men who came to Jamestown brought the ideals and ways of life of\nthe mother country; its common law, the enactments of Parliament, the\nChurch of their people; and as shown in the prayer written in England\nwhich the commanding officer of the colony was required to use daily at\nthe setting of the watch, they hoped also that the natives of the land\nmight be brought into the Kingdom of God. They made petition for their\nown needs, but they prayed also:\n\n     And seeing, Lord, the highest end of our plantation here is\n     to set up the standard and display the banner of Jesus\n     Christ, even here where Satan's throne is, Lord let our\n     labour be blessed in labouring the conversion of the\n     heathen; and because thou usest not to work such mighty\n     works by unholy means, Lord sanctifie our spirits and give\n     us holy hearts that so we may be thy instruments in this\n     most glorious work.\n\nIt is of real significance that the London Company made its first\nsettlement a parish after the manner of the Church of England, and\nelected as its first rector the Reverend Richard Hakluyt, one of the\nmost noted clergymen in England, and a man who had captured the\nimagination of all with his books on travel in far lands. He was\nexpected to remain in England and represent the needs of the colonists\nand help, perhaps, to select clergymen to go to new parishes which\nwould be formed as settlements developed. The religious aspect of the\nmovement was approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and he approved\nalso the selection of the Reverend Robert Hunt who came to Jamestown as\nthe vicar of the parish and the pastor of the colonists.\n\nThe London Company made a provision that each new settlement should\nbecome a parish with its own rector. The first settlements were\nestablished by the Company itself and were called \"Cities\" after the\nideal and pattern of Geneva. That city, the home of John Calvin and of\nthe Calvinistic theology which so strongly influenced the Church of\nEngland in the Seventeenth Century, was a self-governing unit in the\nSwiss Confederation. It consisted of the city and its suburban\nterritory and was the prototype from which the \"City\" or \"Hundred\" in\nVirginia and the \"Township\" or \"town\" in Massachusetts were formed.\n\nThere were four Cities in Virginia: James City, Charles City, The City\nof Henrico, and Elizabeth City. They were boroughs at the time of the\nfirst meeting of the General Assembly of Virginia in 1619, each one\nelecting its own Burgesses. And as counties now, instead of cities,\neach one elects its own Delegates to the Assembly. There were four\n\"cities,\" three \"hundreds,\" and four \"plantations\" represented by\nBurgesses in the first Assembly in 1619, and each one was a separate\nparish. Official records have long been lost but the names are known of\nsome six clergymen who were incumbents of parishes in Virginia between\n1607 and 1619.\n\nThe London Company had a rule that every clergyman who volunteered or\nwas invited to go to a parish in Virginia was to be investigated as to\ncharacter and fitness, and each one of them was taken by a committee to\na church to read the service and preach a sermon as part of the\ninvestigation.\n\nIt is not generally known, perhaps, but plans for the immediate\ndevelopment of the life of the colonists included the establishment of\na university which would set aside one hall or college for the\neducation of Indian youth and another for the education of sons of\nEnglish families. The London Company in 1618 made a grant of ten\nthousand acres of land on the north side of the James River and\nimmediately to the east of the present-day City of Richmond. That grant\nwas to be the seat of the University and was to be developed as a group\nof tenant farms with the college buildings in the center. So great was\nthe interest throughout England in the plan that the King as the\ntemporal head of the Church presented the matter to the whole people of\nEngland. In 1617 he wrote the Archbishops of Canterbury and York:\n\n     Most Reverend Father in God: Right trustie and well beloved\n     Counsellor, we greet you well: You have heard ere this of\n     the attempt of divers worthy men, our subjects, to plant in\n     Virginia, under the warrant of our letters of patent, people\n     of this Kingdom, as well as for the enlarging of our\n     dominions as for the propogation of the Gospel amongst\n     infidells; wherein there is good progress made, and hope of\n     further increase: so as the undertakers of that plantation\n     are now in hand with the erection of some churches and\n     schools for the education of the children of these\n     barbarians, which cannot but be to them a very great charge,\n     and above the expense which for the civil plantation doth\n     come to them, in which we doubt not but that you and all\n     others who wish well to the increase of Christian religion\n     will be willing to give all assistance and furtherance you\n     may, and therein to make experience of the zeal and devotion\n     of our well minded subjects; especially those of the clergy.\n\n     Wherefore we do require you, and hereby authorize you to\n     write your letters to the several bishops of the dioceses in\n     your province, that they do give order to the ministers and\n     other zealous men of their dioceses, both by their own\n     example in contribution and by exhortation to others, to\n     move our people within their several charges to contribute\n     to so good a work in as liberal a manner as they may.\n\nUnder instructions from the King offerings were to be taken in every\nparish four times a year for two years, the money collected to be sent\nto the bishops and by them forwarded to the treasurer of the London\nCompany. The treasurer reported later that more than fifteen hundred\npounds sterling had been sent to him, and later he reported additional\namounts. In that period three bequests aggregating more than a thousand\npounds sterling were reported for the Christianizing of the Indians.\nOther gifts included a \"communion cup with cover and a plate of silver\nguilt for the bread\" with communion silk and linen cloths and other\nornaments, all to be placed within a church for Indians to be built\nunder another bequest. This communion chalice and paten are owned\ntoday by one of the oldest parishes in Virginia, and are in St. John's\nChurch, of Elizabeth City Parish, at Hampton.\n\nOn one of the ships sailing from England to the East Indies an appeal\nwas made by the chaplain in behalf of the university in Virginia and\ngifts were made in such large amount that when they were sent to\nVirginia they sufficed for the erection of \"a publique free schoole\" to\nbe connected with the university. They named it \"The East India\nSchool.\" The General Assembly, when it first met in July 1619, adopted\na resolution urging English families to take promising Indian youths\ninto their homes to teach them the fundamentals and prepare them for\nthe opening of the college.\n\nThe work of establishing the university was already proceeding; land\nwas being cleared; farm houses were being erected; more than one\nhundred artisans and workmen had been sent from England and the college\nbuildings were under construction when on Good Friday, March 22,\n1621/22, the great Indian massacre occurred. A full third of all the\nEnglish people in Virginia were killed by Indians in one fatal day. The\nbuildings at the university were burned to the ground, and every\nEnglish man, woman and child in every family of the artisans and\nworkmen was killed. The East India School was burned to the ground.\nIndeed the only thing that saved the colony from utter extermination\nwas that Chanco, an Indian who had become a Christian, had learned of\nthe plot the night before the massacre and warned the Englishman,\nRichard Pace, with whom he lived. Pace crossed the James River and\nwarned the residents of Jamestown. So it was that Jamestown and some of\nthe adjoining settlements were warned in time to protect themselves.\n\nThe massacre was of course a terrific catastrophe to the whole colony.\nOutlying settlements had to be abandoned and the colony was engaged in\nwar with the Indians for several years. Then a second catastrophe\noccurred. King James became dissatisfied with the independent attitude\nof the London Company and personally secured its dissolution in 1624.\nHe then took control of Virginia as a Royal Colony and he himself\nappointed the Governor and Council of the colony.\n\nThis ended all plans for the opening of the university. The King died\nin the following year and his son, King Charles I, was not interested\nin a university in Virginia. Nor was he or anyone else interested in\nsending ministers to the colonial parishes.\n\nThe London Company, with a membership including representatives of the\nChurch and the universities, and of business interests and the higher\nsocial classes, had the confidence of the people. The King did not. He\nhad their loyalty as their sovereign, but the spiritual and cultural\nwelfare of a colony overseas carried little weight amid the political\ncross-currents and the self-seeking of a royal court.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TWO\n\nThe Colonists at Worship\n\n\nThere are several first-hand accounts of religious worship in the\nearliest days of the Jamestown colony. Captain John Smith wrote of the\nmen at worship in the open air until a chapel could be erected. He\ndescribes the scene of a celebration of the Holy Communion, with the\nHoly Table standing under an old sail lashed from tree to tree, with a\nbar of wood fastened between two trees as the pulpit, and men kneeling\non the ground before their first altar. Services were held daily,\naccording to the rules of the _Book of Common Prayer_ which they\nbrought with them: morning prayer and evening prayer everyday, and\nsermons twice on Sunday and once during the week. The law of the Church\nrequired the Holy Communion to be celebrated at least three times\nduring the year; on Christmas, Easter, and Whitsunday; and\nunquestionably this law was observed at Jamestown. Many clergymen\ncelebrated that sacrament oftener. There can be little doubt that the\nfirst celebration of the Holy Communion at Jamestown was on Whitsunday,\nMay 24th (old style) 1607, although the first one of which a record\nremains was held on the third Sunday after Trinity, June 21. That was a\nspecial celebration, held for a two-fold purpose, one, that Mr. Hunt\nhad been able to reconcile serious differences between certain elements\namong the colonists who had been in angry strife with each other, and\nsecond, because two of the ships which brought the colonists to\nVirginia were to set sail on the following morning upon their return\ntrip to England.\n\nWilliam Strachey, writing in a report of the colony in 1610 after Lord\nDe la Warr had arrived as the new governor presents the following\npicture:\n\n     In the midst of the market-place, a store-house, a\n     \"Corps-du-Garde\", and a pretty chapel, all which the Lord\n     Governour ordered to be put in good repair. The chapel was\n     in length sixty feet, in breadth twenty-four, and the Lord\n     Governour had repaired it with a chancel of cedar and a\n     communion table of black walnut; all the pews and pulpit\n     were of cedar, with fair broad windows, also of cedar, to\n     shut and open, as the weather shall occasion. The font was\n     hewen hollow like a canoa, and there were two bells in the\n     steeple at the west end. The Church was so cast as to be\n     very light within, and the Lord Governour caused it to be\n     kept passing sweet and trimmed up with divers flowers. There\n     was a sexton in charge of the church, and every morning at\n     the ringing of a bell by him, about ten o'clock, each man\n     addressed himself to prayers, and so at four of the clock\n     before supper. There was a sermon every Thursday and two\n     sermons every Sunday, the two preachers taking their weekly\n     turns. Every Sunday when the Lord Governour went to church\n     he was accompanied with all the Councillors, Captains, other\n     officers, and all the gentlemen, and with a guard of fifty\n     halberdiers, in his Lordship's livery, fair red cloaks, on\n     each side and behind him. The Lord Governour sat in the\n     choir in a green velvet chair, with a velvet cushion before\n     him on which he knelt, and the Council, Captains and\n     officers sat on each side of him, each in their place; and\n     when the Lord Governour returned home he was waited on in\n     the same manner to his house.\n\nReverend Alexander Whitaker, the first rector of the City of Henrico\nfrom its foundation in 1611 until his death by drowning in 1617, and\nwho is still remembered as the clergyman who baptized the Indian\nprincess Pocahontas, after her conversion to the Christian faith,\ndescribed his services as follows:\n\n     Every Sabbath we preach in the forenoon and catechize in the\n     afternoon. Every Saturday at night I exercise in Sir Thomas\n     Dale's house. Our Church affaires be consulted on by the\n     minister and four of the most religious men. Once every\n     month we have a communion, and once every year a solemn\n     fast.\n\nThis method of daily and Sunday services, as the regular rule of the\nChurch of England, was adopted in Virginia as far as colonial\nconditions would permit. But apart from Jamestown itself, and the\nschools which came into existence, there would not be many parishes in\nwhich daily services would be feasible. The people lived too far apart\non their farms. They might drive or walk three or five miles to Church\non Sundays, but could not give the time for that on work-days. The same\nobjection worked against having two services on Sunday. So the custom\nbecame general of having a single service in every church and chapel\nevery Sunday. The statement made by Rev. Alexander Whitaker, that he\n\"catechized\" every Sabbath afternoon, is illustrative of the usual\nmethod of instructing young people of the parish in the Church\nCatechism as preparation for admission to the Holy Communion. Such\n\"catechetical classes\" might be held as frequently on Sunday afternoons\nas the needs of the parish children, both white and Negro, might\nrequire: or perhaps sometimes, as frequently as the zeal, or lack of\nzeal of the incumbent minister might determine. When in 1724 the Bishop\nof London sent a questionary to every Anglican clergyman incumbent of a\nparish in America, one of the questions was, \"At what times do you\nCatechize the Youth of your Parish?\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     They have builded many pretty villages, faire houses and\n     chapels which are growne good benefices of 120 pounds a\n     yeare besides their own mundall [mundane] industry.\n\nSo wrote Captain John Smith a number of years after his return to\nEngland. There may have been an excess of imagination in describing new\nand raw settlements as \"faire villages,\" but the salary which was to be\npaid to the ministers was a provable fact. Tithes from the culture of\nthe land by the parishioners amounted to as much as L120, and the\nminister had a glebe of 100 acres from the cultivation of which his\ntenants and servants through \"mundall industry\" might greatly increase\nhis income.\n\nThe London Company had carried to Virginia and fixed for the whole\nduration of the colonial period the parish system of the Church of\nEngland. Under that system each community became a parish and the\npeople of the parish, as the land-owners of the community, supported\nthe church and paid the salary of the minister by tithes from the\nproduce of the land. There was, however, one change from the custom in\nEngland. There the tithes of a parish might produce a salary for the\nincumbent in any amount from ten pounds to hundreds of pounds per\nannum. In Virginia the amount of the salary was fixed by the General\nAssembly as a definite quantity of tobacco. There was also a glebe farm\nand a residence. Those who came to Virginia brought with them their\nBible and their _Book of Common Prayer_ and the Established Church of\nEngland became the Established Church of the Colony.\n\nThe all-pervading fact to be kept in mind in connection with the\ndevelopment of religious organization in Virginia is that the Church of\nEngland itself, during the period from 1600 to the Cromwellian era\n1645-1660, was in a turmoil on account of two diverse schools of\nthought. One school within the Church desired to retain all the ancient\nforms of creed and worship from past centuries except those which had\nbeen perverted under the centuries of Roman Catholic domination. The\nother school within the Church desired to cast out all liturgical forms\nand the surplice, and also all power of the bishops. They wished to\nreduce worship to the forms of Calvinistic theology. There were also\nmany who desired to make the Church broad enough to include both\nschools. The Calvinistic party was already forming dissenting\ncongregations.\n\nThe Brownists, later to become the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, had\nalready been driven out of England; and under King James, who had\nturned against the Calvinists to support the \"high church\" party,\necclesiastical courts were being formed to mete out severe punishment\nto leaders of dissent.\n\nKing James had declared he would \"harry the dissenters\" and force them\nto conform to the Established Church or be driven from the country.\nEngland's answer to that threat was to establish the colonies of\nMassachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire; and the\nconstantly growing power of dissent resulted in civil war, in\nexecution of King Charles I, in the era of the Commonwealth; and in the\nabolition of _Prayer Book_ worship for fifteen years from every church\nand chapel in England.\n\nIn 1606 when the Virginia Company was organized the Calvinistic party\nwas in power in England, and there were many Calvinists, or Puritans,\nas they were then called, in the universities and elsewhere. The\nVirginia Company itself was under the influence of Puritan leaders; so\nmuch so, indeed, that this fact was one of the reasons which impelled\nthe King to abolish the Virginia Company. He knew the freedom of\nself-government which the Company had established in Virginia and he no\nlonger trusted its loyalty to the Monarchy.\n\nFrom the first settlement in 1607 the policy in Virginia was to let no\nquestion arise between high-churchman and Calvinist. The earlier laws\nrequired the minister of a parish to question every newcomer as to his\nreligious beliefs, but there is no record of any Protestant dissenter\nor any Calvinist having been presented for trial before an\necclesiastical court. It is of course known as an historical fact that\nSir Edwin Sandys labored long to secure from the King and the\nArchbishop permission to bring the Pilgrim Fathers from Holland, under\nthe British flag again and establish them as a \"hundred\" in Virginia.\nIt is of record also that such permission was obtained and that the\nPilgrim Fathers set forth for the Chesapeake Bay but were diverted from\ntheir course by storms that carried them to a place which they named\nPlymouth. It is of record furthermore that the Reverend Henry Jacob,\nwho founded the first Independent or Baptist congregation in London,\nwas later forced out and came to Virginia where he found a home and\npeace until his death.\n\nReverend Alexander Whitaker, rector of the two adjoining parishes of\nHenrico and Charles City from 1611 until 1617, was the son of a famous\nPuritan divine. In a letter discussing conditions in Virginia he said:\n\"I marvaile much--that so few of our English ministers that were so\nhot against the surplis and subscription come hither where neither are\nspoken of.\" Whitaker was rector of two parishes because William\nWickham, the minister of one parish, was not of Anglican ordination and\ncould not lawfully celebrate the Holy Communion. After the death of\nWhitaker the Governor of Virginia requested the London Company to ask\nthe Archbishop of Canterbury to authorize Mr. Wickham to celebrate the\nSacrament, \"there being no one else.\" Such authorization to a clergyman\nof Presbyterian ordination could have been given by the Archbishop at\nthat time as it was permitted then by law. Wickham was not the only\nminister of Presbyterian ordination who served as incumbent of a parish\nof the Established Church in Virginia. In a report made to London in\n1623 it was stated that in Virginia in 1619 \"There were three ministers\nwith orders and two without.\" The \"two without\" were unquestionably of\nPresbyterian ordination.\n\nAmong the first laws enacted in Virginia was one requiring every\nminister who came into the colony to take the oath of \"conformity\" to\nthe Church of England. The law did not include laymen; it was the\nminister only who was required to take the oath. Later, the laws\nenacted by the General Assembly required every clergyman coming into\nthe colony to subscribe to the Articles of the Christian Faith\naccording to the Church of England and to be of Anglican ordination. By\nreason of sheer inability at times to provide sufficient Anglican\nclergymen for the parishes, clergymen of Presbyterian ordination were\npermitted to serve in Virginia parishes; and that was true throughout\nthe whole seventeenth century. The last Presbyterian clergyman to hold\nan Anglican parish in Virginia, Rev. Andrew Jackson of Christ Church\nParish, Lancaster County, died in 1710. Throughout the century the law\nrequired every citizen to attend the parish church, but there was never\nan ecclesiastical court in which a layman could be tried, convicted or\npunished as a dissenter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THREE\n\nMaking Bricks Without Straw\n\n\nThe colony of Virginia, after the protective and guiding influence of\nthe Virginia Company was taken away, found itself in an almost\nimpossible situation so far as religious organization was concerned.\nThe leaders of colonial life realized all the more clearly as time\npassed that King Charles I, who succeeded his father King James I in\n1625, was not the least interested in the religious welfare of the\ncolony. America was entirely outside the bounds of any diocese or\nprovince in England, and consequently there was no bishop of a diocese,\nor archbishop of a province with any personal responsibility for the\nguidance or help of the parishes which were being organized in the\ncolony. The Church in Virginia was left to itself to live or to die. It\nbelieved, according to the teachings of the Church, that bishops were\nnecessary for the ordination of men to the ministry and for the\nperformance of the spiritual rite of confirmation, whereby alone under\nthe law of the Church of England baptized Christians could be admitted\nto the sacrament of the Holy Communion. A bishop was also necessary for\nthe organization and leadership of a diocese, which was the governing\nbody to which every parish and congregation must belong. But no bishop\nwas ever sent by the Church of England to Virginia or to any other part\nof America throughout the entire colonial period.\n\nThe lack of a bishop left the Anglican Church, which was the\nEstablished Church of the whole colony, unable to organize for the\nenactment of its own laws or the management of its own affairs. There\nbeing no diocesan organization the clergymen in charge of parishes had\nno ecclesiastical authority over them. That fact tended to have the\neffect of making each incumbent clergyman a virtually free lance with\nno responsibility to an ecclesiastical superior nor community of\nfellowship with other clergymen in the colony. This condition continued\nuntil near the end of the century.\n\nThe General Assembly of Virginia followed the example of the Parliament\nof England and asserted legislative authority by laws for the temporal\ngovernment of the Church. It divided the occupied territory of the\ncolony into parishes and it established new parishes as settlement\nextended steadily to the westward. Because of this fact there was never\nany section which was not part of a parish, and the usual rule when a\nnew county was to be created was to establish a new parish covering the\nterritory of the proposed county before the county was created. Church\nbuildings might be far apart in new parishes, but no section of\nVirginia in which English people were settling was without the\nestablished forms of religious worship.\n\nThe General Assembly enacted laws directing the election of laymen in\nevery parish as the governing body of the parish in temporal affairs.\nThat group was called the \"Vestry.\" It had authority to buy land for\nchurches, churchyards and glebe farms, to erect church buildings and to\nbuild glebe-houses as residences for ministers. It was also charged\nwith the care of the poor and the destitute sick, and orphaned children\nwithin the parish, with the duty of providing new homes for these\nchildren in responsible families. The money to pay for the land, the\nbuildings, the care of the sick and needy, the salary of the minister,\nand other parish needs was collected from the parishioners through an\nannual \"tithe\" of so many pounds of tobacco per poll. The vestry upon\noccasion also had certain civil duties not within the scope of\nreligious organization.\n\nThe setting up of a vestry of laymen as temporal head of the Church in\na parish or congregation was first developed in Virginia. It was\nextended later to other colonies as the Anglican Church spread through\nthem all, and it came over into the life of the Protestant Episcopal\nChurch in the United States. Great as the value of the vestry has been\nto the whole Episcopal Church, the vestry in Virginia was of still\ngreater value, for by its extension to other colonies and states it has\ngiven one of its most distinctive features to the Church of today.\n\nIn England, with the exception of some few parishes formed within the\npast century or so, no parish has the right to elect its own rector.\nThe rector is usually appointed by some institution or individual\nvested with that authority which is called \"the advowson of a parish.\"\n\nMoreover, no diocese in the Established Church of England has the power\nto select its own bishop. The King as temporal head of the Church\nappoints the bishops of all dioceses, and that power is exercised for\nthe King by his prime minister. And during the colonial period in\nAmerica the Governor of every colony other than Virginia and\nPennsylvania appointed the rector of every Anglican parish and inducted\nhim into office.\n\nIn Virginia the vestries of the parishes fought Governor after Governor\nuntil they won the right for the vestry itself to choose the minister\nto serve in its parish. That right has extended throughout the\nEpiscopal Church today and has gone further so that today the laity of\nthe Church have the right to representation in all diocesan conventions\nand councils, and in the general convention of the Church. Thus the\nlaity have their part in every election of a clergyman to become the\nbishop of a diocese.\n\nIn the seventeenth century the General Assembly also put into effect in\nVirginia the constitutions and canons of the province of Canterbury \"as\nfar as they can be put into effect in this country.\" The General\nAssembly thereby made the \"doctrine, discipline and worship\" of the\nAnglican Church of England that of the Church in Virginia as far as it\ncould be done without a bishop.\n\nThat was as far as the General Assembly could go. Throughout all the\nseventeenth century the Established Church of Virginia consisted of a\ngroup of parishes without connection with each other and without\ncentral spiritual authority. There was therefore no actual power of\ndiscipline, either of clergymen or laymen.\n\nThe situation was made all the more difficult because there was no sure\nway to secure ministers. When a parish became vacant some layman in the\nparish would have to write to his business agent in England, or to some\nfriend or relative there and ask that he find a clergyman who would\ncome to Virginia. Parishes, when they became vacant, remained vacant as\na rule for a year or more; sometimes very much more. The vestries early\nadopted the custom of appointing godly laymen as readers whose duty it\nwas to assist the minister by leading the congregation in the responses\nin the Church service, and in raising tunes for the singing of metrical\nversion of the Psalms. Later, when it was found desirable to erect\nchapels of ease in populous parishes, enough readers were appointed in\nevery parish to permit one of them to hold morning service each Sunday\nin each place of worship throughout the parish, while the minister went\nhis usual round of service in each church or chapel upon regular\nschedule. Except in remote chapels the custom was to have service each\nSunday in every church or chapel.\n\nThe reader was authorized to conduct morning and evening prayer and to\nread a printed sermon, or a \"homily.\" He could not celebrate the\nsacrament of Holy Communion. Rather frequently, and especially during\nthe era of the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II, several\nadjoining parishes would be vacant at the same time; and at one time\nabout the end of the Commonwealth period the statement was made that\nthere were only some ten clergymen in Virginia to serve fifty parishes.\nUnder such circumstances the reader was called upon to perform many\nduties. He might baptize a dying child, conduct a funeral, or perform a\nmarriage ceremony.\n\nThere was also in those early days no way of screening out unworthy men\nwho appeared occasionally as clergymen in the colony; men who perhaps\nhad been forced out of parishes in England because of immorality or\ndrunkenness; and occasionally men with forged credentials. Such men\nwere occasionally appointed to parishes by vestries who had no way of\nlearning their true status; and if the man was thenceforth morally\ndecent and had no great fault except occasional drunkenness, he would\nbe allowed to stay on because of the need of a priest to celebrate the\nsacraments.\n\nThe vestries protected their parishes from unworthy clergymen by the\nuncanonical appointment of a minister as incumbent of a parish for a\nyear at a time, rather than present him canonically to the Governor of\nthe colony for induction into the rectorship of the parish. Under the\nlaw of England, and under the law of the Church of England, no rector\ncould be forced out of a parish after induction except after an\necclesiastical trial by the bishop or his commissary.\n\nIn 1656 John Hammond published a pamphlet entitled _Leah and Rachel_,\nextolling the attractiveness of Virginia and Maryland as places of\nresidence at that time. He described vividly the difficulties which the\nolder colony had suffered in the earlier years of Charles I. He wrote:\n\n     They then began to provide and send home for Gospel\n     ministers, and largely contributed for their maintenance.\n     But Virginia savouring not handsomely in England, very few\n     of good conversation would adventure thither, (as thinking\n     it a place wherein surely the fear of God was not), yet many\n     came, such as wore black coats, and could babble in a\n     pulpet, roare in a tavern, exact from their parishioners,\n     and rather by their dissolutenesse destroy than feed their\n     flocks.\n\n     Loath was the country to be wholly without teachers, and\n     therefore rather retain these than to be destitute; yet\n     still endeavours for better in their places, which were\n     obtained, and these wolves in sheeps cloathing, by their\n     Assemblies questioned, silenced, and some forced to depart\n     the country.\n\nAnother problem which the Church faced in Virginia resulted from the\ncharacter of the immigrants who came to the colony. It is a well\nestablished fact that the men who came in three ships to Jamestown in\n1607 were from various strata of society in England. They all entered\nJames River on equality of opportunity and of danger. Some at least had\ncome from the higher classes of society; younger sons, perhaps, or\nrelatives of stockholders in the London Company, attracted to Virginia\nbecause of the newness of the adventure and the spice of danger; sons\nof professional men and men of business, intrigued by a new business\nlife and opportunity; men from the laboring classes and the peasantry\nof rural sections. But it is extremely doubtful that the Jamestown\nsettlement, after its tragic first years, continued very long to be\nattractive to young men seeking adventure only. Many of the families of\ntoday who boast of their generations of ancestry in Virginia descend\nfrom or married into the families of the men and women who came to the\ncolony in these earliest years of settlement, and have ancestors buried\namong the unknown dead of the Jamestown cemetery and churchyard.\n\nThere were three sources from which the settlers came; and these\nsources were more or less in effect throughout the whole of Virginia's\nfirst century. First and foremost in numbers and importance were the\nsons of small farmers and tenant farmers, and younger sons of the\nlaboring classes and small merchants. No matter how large the\npopulation may be, always there are positions of employment with a\nnormal wage; but when the younger sons of a mechanic or other working\nman grow to maturity where there is only one wage-producing employment\navailable to the family, the younger sons must seek a living from other\nsources. Farms cannot be reduced below the number of acres required to\nsupport one family. When that has been done and there are several sons,\none of them must inherit the farm and the others must seek a living\nelsewhere.\n\nThe broad acres of Virginia and its equable climate attracted thousands\nof such younger sons, and also others who had not been successful and\nsought opportunity in a new land. The settlers came from every section\nof England, and from the bleak hills of Scotland; from Wales and also\nfrom Ireland. The English were mostly from the Anglican parishes of the\nEstablished Church. The Scottish new-comers were accustomed to\nmembership in the Established Church of Scotland and they found little\ndifficulty in living within the Established Church of Virginia. Indeed\nthere is no recorded effort to establish a Presbyterian congregation in\nVirginia until the last quarter of the seventeenth century. So friendly\nwas the feeling between the Anglicans and the Scottish Presbyterians in\nthe Norfolk section that Rev. James Porter of Presbyterian ordination\nwas the incumbent minister of the Anglican Lynnhaven Parish prior to\n1676 and until his death in 1683.\n\nA second source, certainly in the early years, was the rapidly\nincreasing population of the cities and towns of England. It is of\nrecord that in the days of the London Company one town appropriated\nfunds sufficient to pay the expenses to Virginia of a large number of\nits unemployed, and probably the same thing was done by other towns for\ntheir unemployed. Doubtless a little \"pressure\" was applied in the case\nof young men who had no occupation and no visible means of support. And\nshanghaiing, to use a modern term, was not unknown.\n\nA third source from which settlers came developed from the custom which\ngrew up in England of sending to Virginia, and later to all the\ncolonies, persons who had been convicted of law-breaking. At that time\nthere were some hundred felonies in the English code of jurisprudence\nfor which the sentence of death by hanging could be imposed. These\nfelonies included such offenses as stealing a pig or anything of\ngreater value than a shilling. The ruling classes of England had long\nrealized that punishments were too severe for offenses which today\nwould be misdemeanors; and in the fifteenth century an effort had been\nmade to mitigate the severity of punishment by an amendment of the law\nof \"benefit of clergy.\" This law was a law of Parliament which had\ncome down from earlier ages of the Church. Under that law an\necclesiastical person, either priest or monk, who was charged with a\nfelony could not be tried by a civil court but was delivered up to the\nbishop of his diocese for trial in an ecclesiastical court.\n\nBy the end of the sixteenth century Parliament had amended the benefit\nof clergy law so that every free male who could read and write, upon\nconviction of a first offense of felony might plead \"benefit of\nclergy\", and upon showing that he could read a verse of Scripture, have\nthe penalty remitted. He was then burned in the hand with a hot iron so\nthat the scar thereby made would be evidence against him if he should\nplead benefit of clergy a second time.\n\nThe benefit of clergy law was early written into the Virginia code and\ncontinued in that code until after the Revolution. Harsh as was the law\nit showed a real effort to ameliorate still harsher laws, and it saved\nthe lives in England and America of many thousands of first offenders.\nThe first verse of the fifty-first Psalm was so frequently presented to\nbe read by some convicted man or boy that it became known as the \"neck\nverse\" because it saved a life; and many a kindly official taught a\n'teen-age boy that verse so that he could \"read\" it when it was\npresented to him.\n\nOne of the earliest records of the General Court of Virginia contains\nthe following entry under date January 4, 1628/29:\n\n     William Reade, aged thirteen or fourteen years, convicted of\n     manslaughter, when the verdict was read, and William Reade\n     asked what he had to say for himself, that he ought not to\n     die, demanded his clergy, whereupon he was delivered to the\n     Ordinary.\n\nThere were many such instances. In Virginia the Governor was the\nOrdinary and as such had authority to accept the boy's plea, have him\nread the \"neck verse,\" and thereby permit him to go free \"after the\nburning.\"\n\nThe severity of the laws influenced the courts in many parts of England\nto permit or sentence an offender to escape death by going to one of\nthe American colonies, and it became the custom to sentence convicted\ncriminals to serve for a period of years in an American colony as an\nindentured servant. A great number of such \"convicts\" were sent to\nVirginia because of the constant demand there for indentured servants\nto cultivate the fields and for other duties.\n\nMany of the convicts became useful citizens of the colony after their\nterms of servitude ended; but many did not reform and in time became\nsuch a menace that for a period after 1670 the General Assembly forbade\nthat any more convicts be brought into the colony.\n\nIt can be seen therefore that from the beginning the population of\nVirginia grew by immigration from various sources and that not all who\ncame to the colony were of the best type. The New England colonies had\nthe advantage that their immigrants came in large part from dissenters\nfrom the Established Church of England. They came for \"conscience\nsake,\" however, and with their concept of theocratic government the New\nEngland colonists could make it difficult indeed for immigrants they\ndid not welcome. After Roger Williams had been exiled to Rhode Island\nand a few Quakers had been hanged on Boston Common, it was made clear\nto Baptists and Quakers, to Anglicans and to witches that Virginia was\na more favorable climate for them than Massachusetts.\n\nIn contrast to New England, Virginia was founded and developed as a\ncross-section of the whole life of the British Isles, with its evil as\nwell as its good; with ideals of freedom of thought which made no\nattempt to control a man's conscience; and with an ever growing concept\nof self-government and human freedom as already developed during nearly\na thousand years and set out by the common law and the statute law of\nthe race. Virginia was not founded upon any theocratic concept of\ngovernment under the influence of a priestly class.\n\nThe life and community consciousness that developed in Virginia into\nthe distinctive customs and ways of a well organized and firmly\nestablished commonwealth were necessarily different from those of the\ncolonies in New England because of the differing conditions under which\nmen lived. In the township system of New England a village normally\nbecame the township center and the people lived near enough to each\nother to enable them to meet frequently; to work and play together; to\ntransact business; and to gossip of neighborhood affairs. In Virginia\nit was otherwise. In Virginia families lived on separate farms and each\nfarm was of necessity a community within itself. Life was geared to the\nbasic fact that tobacco was the money crop, and also was the real\nsource of the financial strength and stability of the colony. Each\nfamily required a farm of sufficient acreage to raise tobacco as well\nas food-stuff and cattle; and throughout the whole colonial period the\ngenius of Virginian life opposed the development of towns of greater\npopulation than was required for a shipping point and a warehouse, for\nthe storing and grading of tobacco, and for a few agents of English and\nScottish merchants.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FOUR\n\nBuilding a Christian Community\n\n\nJohn Hammond, in his pamphlet _Leah and Rachel_ sketched briefly\nconditions which existed in Virginia between the \"starving time\" of\n1609-10 and the year 1656. His attempt was to correct an opinion widely\nheld in England of the lawlessness of colonial life. He interpreted the\ngreat massacre of 1622 as the end of one phase and the beginning of\nanother. He showed that in each phase there was an inevitable period of\nlaxity of life and disregard of moral and legal conventions which was\novercome finally by the better element of citizenry. His writing\npresents a dark picture of conditions, possibly too dark in some\nphases; but his picture of the power of the growing colony to establish\nand maintain general concepts of decency of life and conduct is\nimpressive.\n\nOf the period following the great massacre he wrote:\n\n     Receiving a supply of men, ammunition and victuals out of\n     England, they again gathered heart, pursued their enemies,\n     and so often worsted them, that the Indians were glad to sue\n     for peace, and they, (desirous of a cessation) consented to\n     it.\n\n     They again began to bud forth, to spread further, to gather\n     wealth, which they rather profusely spent (as gotten with\n     ease) than providently husbanded, or aimed at any public\n     good; or to make a country for posterity; but from hand to\n     mouth, and for a present being; neglecting discoveries,\n     planting orchards, providing for the winter preservation of\n     their stocks, or thinking of anything stable or firm; and\n     whilst tobacco, the only commodity they had to subsist on,\n     bore a price, they wholly and eagerly followed that,\n     neglecting their very planting of corn, and much relyed on\n     England for the chiefest part of their provisions; so that\n     being not alwayes amply supplied, they were often in such\n     want, that their case and condition being relayted in\n     England, it hindred and kept off many from going thither,\n     who rather cast their eyes on the barren and freezing soyle\n     of New-England, than to joyn with such an indigent and\n     sottish people as were reported to be in Virginia.\n\n     Yet was not Virginia all this while without divers honest\n     and vertuous inhabitants, who, observing the general neglect\n     and licensiousnesses there, caused Assemblies to be call'd\n     and laws to be made tending to the glory of God, the severe\n     suppression of vices, and the compelling them not to neglect\n     (upon strickt punishments) planting and tending such\n     quantities of corn, as would not onely serve themselves,\n     their cattle and hogs plentifully, but to be enabled to\n     supply New-England (then in want) with such proportions, as\n     were extream reliefs to them in their necessities.\n\n     From this industry of theirs and great plenty of corn, (the\n     main staffe of life), proceeded that great plenty of cattle\n     and hogs, (now innumerable) and out of which not only\n     New-England hath been stocked and relieved, but all others\n     parts of the Indies inhabited by Englishmen.\n\n     The inhabitants now finding the benefit of their industries,\n     began to look with delight on their increasing stocks; (as\n     nothing more pleasurable than profit), to take pride in\n     their plentifully furnished tables, to grow not onely civil,\n     but great observers of the Sabbath, to stand upon their\n     reputations, and to be ashamed of that notorious manner of\n     life they had formerly lived and wallowed in....\n\n     Then began the Gospel to flourish, civil, honourable, and\n     men of great estates flocked in; famous buildings went\n     forward, orchards innumerable were planted and preserved;\n     tradesmen set on work and encouraged, staple commodities, as\n     silk, flax, pot-ashes, etc., of which I shall speak further\n     hereafter, attempted on, and with good success brought to\n     perfection; so that this country which had a mean beginning,\n     many back friends, two ruinous and bloody massacres, hath by\n     God's grace out-grown all, and is become a place of pleasure\n     and plenty.\n\nIt may possibly be worthwhile to compare the life of Virginia during\nits first two generations with the far west of the United States from\nthe gold-rush days of 1849 to the end of the nineteenth century. There\nagain, as in the Virginia of 1607, bona fide settlers of moral ideals\nand stability of life prevailed in the long run and developed\nself-governing states which maintained the moral code.\n\nBut Virginia had an advantage which the far west of the gold-rush days\nlacked. Virginia had an Established Church which in spite of its own\nproblems and difficulties created a parish in every section, and\nprovided clergymen as far as they could be obtained. It is granted that\nsome at least of the clergymen were unworthy. The vestries themselves\nejected men of that kind and services could be maintained by readers.\nAnd so the Word of God was read and prayer was offered regularly; and\nevery man who could read had the Ten Commandments staring him in the\nface from the tablets on the wall behind the Holy Table. The individual\nmight scorn and sneer but in the end the Law of God became the law of\nthe community.\n\nMen came to church in those early days. For one reason, the law of the\ncolony required it and there was the threat of punishment if absence\nfrom church was reported to the grand jury. But there was another\nreason also, even though men and women were compelled to walk five or\nsix miles to attend. That other reason was the loneliness of farm life\nin the early days of colonial Virginia. The churchyard on a Sunday\nmorning was then the meeting-place of the whole community, and the only\nplace where all could meet on the same level. The only other meetings\nwere when elections were held at the Court House, every three or four\nyears. And men might attend the meetings of the county court; but women\ncould not vote, and they did not go to elections; nor were they apt to\nattend meetings of the county court except in rare instances when they\nwere engaged in litigation. And the amount of hard liquor consumed on\nelection days and county court days was also a deterrent.\n\nBefore the day of parish aid societies and women's guilds, the church\nservice of a Sunday morning was moreover the only meeting to which\neverybody might come as of right; and while at church the women\ndiscussed affairs and neighbors within the church building the men\noutside walked about or sat on stumps or logs and held their\ndiscussions before and after the service hour.\n\nThe church with its churchyard was the public forum at which matters of\npublic policy and public interest were discussed. It was here also\nthat business was transacted; and it was here that community spirit of\nfellowship, of sympathy and of understanding was developed. The\ncolonial government recognized all this by directing that every public\ncommunication which had to be brought to the attention of the people as\na whole be read to the congregation of every church or chapel in the\ncolony. And the Church recognized the same thing by providing that such\nannouncements should be made immediately after the reading of the\nsecond lesson or New Testament lesson in the morning service. The\napproaching worshipper never knew what interesting announcement might\nbe made at that time; so there was always an element of expectancy and\nsuspense; perhaps an announcement of the banns of matrimony; perhaps\nthe reading of a new law, or of some proclamation by the Governor and\nCouncil; perhaps the baptism of a baby, or even a marriage.\n\nSo it was that men and women of all classes came under the influence of\nChristian teaching whether they would or no; and the constant teaching\nand stressing of moral and Christian ideals of life had their effect in\nchanging and improving the character of the community life.\n\n[Illustration: Old Church Tower, Jamestown, Virginia\n\nPhoto by Flournoy, Virginia State Chamber of Commerce]\n\n[Illustration: Jamestown Church Communion Service\n\nChalice and paten given by Governor Francis Moryson, in 1661. Both\nbearing the inscription: Mix not holy things with profane. _Ex dono\nFrancisco Morrison, Armigeri Anno Domi, 1661._\n\nLarge paten at the right given by Sir Edmund Andros, Governor, 1694.\nInscribed: _In usum Ecclesiae Jacobi-Polis. Ex dono Dni Edmundi Andros,\nEquitis, Virginiae Gubernatoris, Anno Dom. MDCXCIV._\n\nAlms basin, London, 1739. Second on the right. Inscription: For the use\nof James City Parish Church. Given by the old church at Jamestown in\n1758 to Bruton Parish Church.\n\nCourtesy Miss Emily Hall]\n\n[Illustration: COMMUNION SERVICE IN USE AT SMITH'S HUNDRED, 1618.\n\nThis three piece communion service now at St. John's Church, Elizabeth\nCity Parish, Hampton, Virginia, has the longest history of use in the\nUnited States of any church silver. The set, a gift to the church\nfounded in 1618 at Smith's Hundred in Charles City County, was made\npossible by a legacy in the will (date 1617) of Mrs. Mary Robinson of\nLondon. Smith's Hundred renamed Southampton Hundred, 1620, was\npractically wiped out in the Indian Massacre of 1622. This communion\nset delivered in 1627 to the Court at Jamestown for safe keeping,\nsupposedly, then was given to the second Elizabeth City Church built on\nSouthampton (now Hampton) River. The inscription in one line on the\nbase of the Chalice is: _The Communion Cupp for Snt Marys Church in\nSmiths Hundred in Virginia_. Hall marks on all three pieces bear London\ndate-letters for 1618-19.\n\nCourtesy Mrs. L. T. Jester and Mrs. P. W. Hiden]\n\n[Illustration: The Glebe House, Charles City County, Virginia\n\nCourtesy Valentine Museum, Richmond]\n\n[Illustration: Glebe House, Gloucester County, Virginia\n\nPhoto by Flournoy, Virginia State Chamber of Commerce]\n\n[Illustration: Christ Church, Middlesex County, Virginia\n\nPhoto by Flournoy, Virginia State Chamber of Commerce]\n\n[Illustration: Merchant's Hope Church, Prince George County, Virginia\n\nPhoto by Flournoy, Virginia State Chamber of Commerce]\n\n[Illustration: Saint Lukes Church, Isle of Wight County, Virginia\n\nPhoto by Flournoy, Virginia State Chamber of Commerce]\n\n[Illustration: Saint Peters Church, New Kent County, Virginia\n\nPhoto by Flournoy, Virginia State Chamber of Commerce]\n\n[Illustration: Robert Hunt Memorial Plaque\n\nAltar-piece. A bronze bas-relief representing the administration of the\nfirst Anglican communion in America, June 21, 1607. George T. Brewster,\nsc. Gorham Co., founders.\n\nCourtesy Cook Collection, Valentine Museum]\n\n[Illustration: Robert Hunt Memorial Shrine\n\nErected by the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in the\nState of Virginia. Presented to the Diocese of Southern Virginia of the\nProtestant Episcopal Church, June 15, 1922. It was placed in the\nperpetual care of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia\nAntiquities.\n\nCourtesy Cook Collection, Valentine Museum and National Park Service]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FIVE\n\nThe Coming of the Negro\n\n\nA new element came early into the life of Virginia, with permanent and\ncontinuous hurt to the welfare of the colony and later to the\nCommonwealth; an element to which the colony was compelled to adapt\nitself because it did not have the power to eradicate it after men\nperceived its danger. It was the element of human slavery.\n\nThe first Negro captives were brought into the port of Jamestown in the\nyear 1619. They were brought by a foreign ship then described as a\n\"Dutch\" ship, but presumably a Portuguese slaver seeking the\nenlargement of his market. The Portuguese had developed a market for\nNegro slaves in the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean where the\nenslaved Indians proved unable to perform the hard work demanded of\nthem. Unhappily the slavers succeeded in widening their market to\ninclude Virginia and the other English colonies of the American\ncontinent and in the West Indies.\n\nThe first Negroes were brought to Jamestown in 1619 and sold to English\nmasters as indentured servants. As such they were required to serve for\na definite number of years and after that they would become freemen\nentitled to all the benefit of Virginia law. The goal set before them,\nas before immigrants from France and the Netherlands, was eventual\nfreedom and naturalization as full citizens.\n\nThe tragedy of the Negro was that he had been procured by the\nPortuguese as a captive taken in war between the native Negro tribes,\nand he came into the life of Virginia utterly ignorant of every British\nideal of human freedom and government under constitutional law. He knew\nnothing of the English language. The indentured Englishman or Scotsman\nwho was sold into service came with inherited knowledge of Anglo-Saxon\nideals of civil government and Christian faith; and the one great goal\nset before him was that he could become a legal citizen of Virginia\nafter he completed his years of servitude. The Negro knew nothing of\nall this.\n\nThere would have been little difficulty if the few Negroes in the first\nship had been all who came. The government could have provided for\ntheir care and for their instruction in English ideals and the\nChristian faith. But they were not all who came. The first indentured\nNegroes proved useful as hewers of wood and drawers of water, and they\nwere capable of far more work in the fields than many of the\nEnglishmen: and so the agrarian needs of the community where all men\nwere farmers made the governmental authorities willing to admit more\nNegroes.\n\nThe authorities must have realized at once that if Negroes were brought\ninto the colony in great number they could not be permitted to become\nfreemen after any period of indenture. That would have brought into the\nlife of Virginia a steadily growing population of men and women who\nknew nothing of English institutions, or of the English language, or of\nthe Christian religion. The welfare of the colony required that if they\nwere to be admitted at all, they could be admitted only as servants\nunder a permanent status of servitude. So slavery was introduced into\nthe British empire; and in America the enslavement of the Negro was\npermitted in New England as well as in Virginia, the Carolinas and in\nGeorgia.\n\nThat was the first act in the great tragedy of Negro slavery in\nAmerica. The second was that the enslavement and sale of Negroes proved\nso profitable that the people of England entered into it by chartering\nthe Royal African Company, with authority to purchase captive Negroes\nthroughout a large portion of Africa which was assigned to the Company\nfor that purpose. At one time at least the King of England owned stock\nin the Company; and he gave his instruction to the royal Governors of\nAmerican colonies that they should not permit the passage through a\ncolonial legislature of any act which would interfere with the right to\nimport Negroes and sell them into slavery within the colony.\n\nThe third act in the tragedy was that after Virginia and perhaps other\ncolonies had made many unavailing efforts to check or forbid by\nlegislation the bringing of more Negroes from Africa, the War of\nAmerican Independence was fought and won. In the Constitutional\nConvention of the new sovereign states called to create a Federal Union\nof them all, the representatives of Virginia and other states fought\nbitterly for an immediate prohibition against further importation of\nNegro slaves, only to be defeated by the cotton-growing interests of\nsome states and the shipping interests of others who demanded that the\ntrade be continued for a period of years. And so the Constitution of\nthe United States when first put into effect in the Federal Union\npermitted for twenty years the importation of captive Negroes from\nAfrica and their sale into slavery.\n\nThe increase in the number of Negro slaves in those states where their\nlabor proved profitable brought with it the constant fear of a Negro\ninsurrection; a fear that continued until the ending of slavery in this\ncountry. The presence of the Negroes and of English convicts sold into\nservitude made it impossible upon any large plantation for the women\nand children of the master's household ever to be left without the\nprotection of a slave-master who had the power of gun and lash to\nprotect them from harm.\n\nThe preaching of the Christian faith to the heathen Indians, which was\nso strongly present in the purposes of the London Company at the first\nsettlement of Virginia, must have been considered when the custom of\nadmitting Negro slaves began but there is no recorded evidence bearing\nupon that subject. If there had been a bishop in the colony he could\nhave made the conversion of the Negro to Christianity an important part\nof a diocesan program; but without a bishop nothing could be done in\nan organized way. The matter was perforce left to the consciences of\nthe incumbent ministers of the several parishes.\n\nIt must be remembered that every first generation of the slaves had\ncome to America as captives taken in war of one tribe against another.\nTheir languages and dialects included perhaps every language in central\nand southern Africa; and their unfamiliar languages made it almost\nimpossible for the average citizen or his parson to do much in the way\nof preaching the Christian faith; except perhaps in the observance of\nthe universal law of kindness.\n\nThe birth of slave children, however, removed the barrier of language,\nfor the children were taught English as their native tongue. The\nchildren therefore could be taught. All teaching of children, whether\nchildren of the master and mistress or those born as their slaves, was\nconsidered the duty of the whole family. And the teaching of the\ncatechism and the duties of a Christian life to the slave children was\nas important a part of the family responsibility in a Christian home as\nthe teaching of the children of the family itself. No clergyman of the\nChurch would be willing to baptize a slave child unless there were\nresponsible sponsors present who would assume the obligation to give\nsteady Christian teaching. So it became a rule of the clergy, or most\nof them, that the master and mistress in the case of each such baptism\nmust assume the obligation to give the child Christian training. The\nbaptized children could then in early youth be permitted to attend the\ninstruction classes which were held by the incumbent minister for them.\nThe slave child and the master's child would share the privilege of\nadmission to the Sacrament of the Holy Communion when each one had\nshown sufficient knowledge and understanding of right and wrong, and\nhad been sufficiently instructed in \"the things which a Christian\nshould know and believe.\" No one knows how many or what percentage of\nslave children in Virginia or elsewhere were baptized, or how many\nbecame communicants because no record was kept. But there were enough\nbaptisms to create a new problem.\n\nThere was no Negro slavery in England, and it was generally understood\nthat when a Negro slave set foot upon the soil of England he became a\nfree man. Somehow that concept of freedom became linked in common\nthinking with the concept of baptism into the Christian faith; and\nthere arose in practically every slave-holding section of the English\ncolonies a question whether the very act of baptizing a slave child did\nnot set him free from slavery. Because of that question many\nslave-owners declined to permit the baptism of their slaves until the\nquestion was settled, and consequently in every slave-owning colony it\nbecame necessary to secure a legislative enactment establishing the\nlegal status of a baptized slave. The question arose in Virginia, and\nin 1667 the following act was adopted by the General Assembly:\n\n    Whereas some doubts have risen whether children that are\n    slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners\n    made partakers of the blessed sacrament of baptisme, should\n    by virtue of their baptisme be made free; _It is enacted and\n    declared by this Grand Assembly and the authority thereof_,\n    that the conferring of baptisme doth not alter the condition\n    of the person as to his bondage or freedom; that diverse\n    masters, freed from this doubt, may more carefully endeavour\n    the propagation of Christianity by permitting children,\n    though slaves, or those of greater growth if capable to be\n    admitted to that sacrament.\n\nThe question was settled likewise throughout all the slave-holding\ncolonies of England, and human slavery was written into the laws of the\nvarious colonies of the British empire, there to remain until the\nideals of the nineteenth century eliminated it from the constitution\nand the laws of every English-speaking nation.\n\nThe following incidents, although they occurred in the first half of\nthe eighteenth century, outside the period covered by this booklet, are\nyet of such interest in the continuing story of Negro slavery as to be\nworth recording here.\n\nIn 1724 the Bishop of London, Edmund Gibson, sent a questionary to the\nincumbent minister of every Anglican parish in the American colonies.\nAmong the questions he asked were two; one inquiring how many\n\"infidels,\" either Indians or Negroes, there were in each parish; and\ntwo, what efforts were being made to convert them to the Christian\nfaith. The answers revealed a serious situation, and the need of more\ndefinite and better organized efforts to convert the Negroes.\n\nThe first effort made by the Bishop of London was as strong a pastoral\nletter as he could write upon the need of more earnest effort to bring\nthe Negro slaves into the Christian faith. He also prepared a pamphlet\nto be used for the instruction of Negroes. His pastoral letter and his\npamphlet were sent to every incumbent minister, and copies were given\nto the heads of families.\n\nAnother effort was the organization in England in 1723 by the Rev.\nThomas Bray of a company called \"Dr. Bray's Associates.\" Dr. Thomas\nBray was the bishop's commissary to the province of Maryland. The\npurpose of Dr. Bray's Associates was to establish in the colonies\nschools for the education and Christian instruction of Negro children,\nand it did a useful work. It did a notable work in the City of New\nYork, and it conducted schools in other places; one of them at\nWilliamsburg, in Virginia.\n\nThere was another and most unusual development in Virginia. Under the\nurge of the Bishop of London's pastoral letter there came a great\nincrease in the number of baptisms of adult Negroes; so sudden an\nincrease as to cause concern to Commissary Blair and to Governor Gooch.\nIn some way a report had spread among the Negroes that ex-Governor\nAlexander Spotswood, upon his return from a voyage to England, had\nbrought with him an order from the King directing that all baptized\nNegro slaves be set free. The story, improbable as it was to English\nears, was believed implicitly by the Negroes and it brought many of\nthem to their parish clergy seeking for baptism. Time passed and there\nwas no movement to set the baptized Negroes free. They became\nindignant, for they believed the colonial authorities had ignored the\nKing's order. A plot for a Negro uprising was formed; but the plot was\ndiscovered and the ringleaders were punished.\n\nAnother incident occurred two years later. A woman slave who had been\nbaptized was convicted of manslaughter in the Gloucester County Court\nwhich sentenced her to death. She thereupon plead the benefit of\nclergy. Her plea brought a new problem to the courts of Virginia for\nuntil that time no woman and no slave in the colony had ever been\npermitted to plead benefit of clergy. The County Court considered the\nplea and the vote was a tie between granting the plea and enforcement\nof the sentence. The County Court referred the matter to the General\nCourt of the colony; and there again the vote resulted in a tie. The\nGeneral Court therefore referred the case to the Attorney General of\nEngland. Meanwhile, the General Court ordered that the woman's plea be\ngranted, and, in order not to set a precedent in an unsettled question,\ndirected that she be sold out of the colony. At a subsequent meeting of\nthe General Assembly the matter was settled so far as Virginia was\nconcerned by enactment of a law that all persons convicted of a first\noffense of felony, whether male or female, bond or free, might plead\nbenefit of clergy.\n\nSlavery existed in the American colonies from Massachusetts and\nConnecticut to Virginia and the Carolinas at the end of the seventeenth\ncentury. It was alien to English ideals of human freedom. Yet out of it\nall one tremendously important fact has come to pass. The Negro came to\nAmerica from almost every Negro tribe and dialect in central and\nsouthern Africa; he came without any connection except his connection\nwith other slaves when more than one were sold to the same master. He\ncame into a highly developed civilization with great organized power of\nleadership and government; and through the generations of slavery the\nNegro in America wrought for himself a national and racial\nconsciousness within the sphere of American life. The American Negro\ntoday is the most highly educated and the most advanced Negro in the\nworld. As such he has the opportunity to make his own contribution to\nthe culture and the civilization of the world. This their centuries of\nslavery and repression have brought them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SIX\n\nFighting Adverse Conditions\n\n\nThe political conditions in England throughout the middle of the\nseventeenth century bore heavily upon Virginia in religious as well as\nin civil matters. The period of civil war which began in 1642 lasted\nuntil the King was captured by the parliamentary forces, and Archbishop\nLaud, the hated persecutor of dissenters, was beheaded. After an\nimprisonment of four years the king was beheaded and Oliver Cromwell\nreigned as Protector of the Commonwealth. The civil war had lined up\nthe dissenting bodies in England, and the Presbyterian Church in\nScotland, against the King and the Church of England.\n\nOn the American scene the Puritan colonies in New England were in\nhearty sympathy with the dissenters in England. In Virginia the\ngovernment and the great body of the people were in equal sympathy with\nKing Charles and the Established Church. It is true there were in\nVirginia the goodly number of several hundred Puritan settlers. In the\nChurch also there was some Puritan sympathy among a small group of the\nclergy. One of these, indeed, the Rev. Thomas Harrison, who became\nminister of Elizabeth River Parish (Norfolk) in 1640, was presented for\ntrial in the county court in April 1645 \"For not reading the Book of\nCommon Prayer, and not administering the sacrament of baptism according\nto the canons and order prescribed, and for not catechizing on Sunday\nin the afternoon, according to the Act of Assembly.\" He was banished to\nMassachusetts in 1648, where he remained for two years and married.\nAfterward he returned to England and was given official position in the\nCommonwealth under Cromwell.\n\nIn the heated atmosphere of the times the Puritan group in Virginia\ntook occasion to apply to the Puritan church government in\nMassachusetts to send three ordained Puritan \"missionaries\" to their\nfellow religionists in Virginia, but upon the arrival of the\nmissionaries their ship was met by government officials; the three\nmissionaries sent back to Massachusetts; and the master of the ship was\nfined for bringing them to the colony. No one in official position in\nVirginia could escape the conviction that the sending of Puritan\nministers to Virginia at such a time, whether upon request of the\nNansemond River group or upon suggestion from Boston, was for any\npurpose other than to foment and organize Puritan opposition to the\nKing. For that reason Puritanism in Virginia came under suspicion, and\nthe Governor, Sir William Berkeley, with the full support of the\ngovernment and public opinion, treated all Puritans as enemies. He made\ntheir situation so intolerable that the entire group accepted an\ninvitation from the proprietor of the Province of Maryland and migrated\nto that colony. There, given land on the Severn River, they gained\ncontrol of the provincial government within a few years. The forcing of\nthe group out of Virginia was a political act of defense and was not\nreligious persecution.\n\nThe English Parliament in 1645 enacted a law abolishing the Church of\nEngland as an active organization. The law enacted by Parliament drove\nevery bishop from his diocese, and forbade the use of the _Book of\nCommon Prayer_ in any church or chapel in England. The rectors of over\ntwo thousand parishes were forced out and their places were filled by\nPresbyterian and Independent or Baptist ministers.\n\nThe General Assembly of Virginia, upon learning the action of\nParliament, adopted an act in 1647 requiring the use of the _Prayer\nBook_ in every church and chapel in Virginia each Sunday in the regular\nforms prescribed in the _Prayer Book_. The Act made further provision\nthat in every parish in which the incumbent minister disobeyed the law\nand continued disuse of the _Book of Common Prayer_, his parishioners\nwere thereby absolved from paying him any further salary.\n\nIn England marriage was held to be a religious service to be performed\nby no one other than a priest of the Church; and Parliament, after\nabolishing the Prayer Book and the canons of the Anglican Church, was\ncompelled to enact another law making provision for the performance of\nthe marriage ceremony as a civil contract. The new law directed that\njustices of the local courts perform marriages and record them, if\ndesired, in the court records. The people of Virginia paid no attention\nto this law except, as far as is known, in one case in Northumberland\nCounty. In the year 1656 a man and woman in Lancaster County, instead\nof going to the minister, if there were one, or to the reader of the\nparish, went to a county official of Northumberland and were married\naccording to the Act of Parliament. Their marriage was recorded in the\ncourt order book and there nine months later the new incumbent, Samuel\nCole of Lancaster, found it. He thereupon declared openly that the law\nof Virginia was in effect in his parish and not the Acts of Parliament.\nThe affair ended when the parson required the wedded couple to consider\nthemselves unwed until he could announce the banns of matrimony for\nthem on three separate Sundays and then perform a Christian marriage.\nHe then took occasion to go to the Northumberland county court and\nrecord his certificate of marriage of the couple in the court order\nbook. The two certificates still appear in the order book of the county\ncourt of Northumberland County in the following words:\n\n    Certificate of Marriage, 11 Sept. 1656. John Merryday [i.e.,\n    Meredith] and Mrs. Ann Nash, als. Mallet, were married by\n    Coll. Jno. Trussell, according to Act of Parliament, 24\n    August, 1653. Witnesses Geo. Colclough, Leonard Spencer and\n    Jno. Carter. Rec. 20 Sept. 1656.\n\n    To all such whom it may concern. These are to certifie that\n    John Meredith & Ann Nash, being three times Published\n    according to Law, were married at Currotomon on the 14th of\n    this instant July, 1657 per mee, Samuel Cole, minister,\n    _ibidem_ 20th July 1657 this certificate was recorded.\n\nThe colony of Virginia in affairs of both church and state exercised\nmore independence of action under the Commonwealth than it ever\nexercised before or afterward until the Declaration of Independence in\n1776. The General Assembly, after it made a treaty of peace with\nCromwell's commissioners, elected the several governors of the colony\nuntil the Restoration of Charles Second in 1660 took that authority\nfrom them. The Burgesses had agreed to discontinue the use of prayers\nfor the King and the royal family in public services, and the General\nAssembly enacted a law directing each parish to decide for itself\nwhether it would continue or discontinue the use of the _Book of Common\nPrayer_. All questions of parish administration were left to the\nseveral vestries. If a parish did not wish to use the old form of\nworship it might use such form as it desired.\n\nA number of ministers of Presbyterian ordination, and some openly\nacknowledged Puritans thereupon came into the colony and these became\nincumbent ministers of parishes. The last known one was the Rev. Andrew\nJackson, incumbent of Christ Church Parish in Lancaster County from\nsome years after 1680 until his death in 1711. He was a godly and\ndevout minister, beloved by his parishioners. Tradition says that he\n\"stood up to read the Psalms, but remained seated when they said the\nCreed.\"\n\nFor twenty-five or thirty years prior to 1675, to the distress of the\nChurch and the people as a whole, there was a desperate lack of\nordained ministers, and inability, to get clergymen from England. Some\nfew, driven out of parishes in England by the Parliamentary victors,\ndid come to Virginia, but never in sufficient number to supply the\nneed. Then, after the restoration of Charles, II, in 1660 and the\nreturn of the Anglican Church to active life, there were so many\nparishes in England from which non-conforming ministers were removed\nbecause of refusal to use the _Book of Common Prayer_, that for nearly\na decade there were almost no clergymen to send overseas. Conditions\ndid begin to improve, however, before the end of the decade.\n\nThe improvement increased more rapidly after a new bishop of London\ncame into that diocese in 1675 and manifested active interest in the\naffairs of the parishes in America.\n\nDuring the decade 1660-70, shortly after King Charles had been received\nand crowned King of England, the General Assembly of Virginia made\nearnest effort to call the attention of the Crown and the people of\nEngland to the needs of the Church in the colony. A committee of\nclergymen was sent from Jamestown to London to present the matter to\nthe King. The committee published a pamphlet telling of the great need\nand urging a definite programme to help improve religious conditions.\nThree things ought to be done: first, a bishop should be sent at once\nto visit the parishes and ordain as deacons devout laymen who had been\nserving as readers so that there would be at least a deacon in every\nparish; second, fellowships ought to be established at the universities\nof Oxford and Cambridge for the support and training of men for the\nministry who would agree to serve the Church for a term of years in the\nparishes of Virginia; third, and most important, a bishop ought to be\nconsecrated to organize a diocese in Virginia and bring the parishes\nthere into the full life of the Anglican Church.\n\nNo one knows what influence the pamphlet had in arousing interest.\nCertainly no bishop was sent to ordain readers as deacons; and no\nfellowships were established at the universities to train men to serve\nin the ministry in Virginia. But a movement did start to organize a\ndiocese and consecrate a bishop. This occurred after 1670. The movement\nwon approval and a charter was prepared for the signature of King\nCharles as the temporal head of the Church. The charter provided that\nthe diocese was to be called the Diocese of Virginia, and Jamestown was\nto become the see-city where the bishop was to have his \"Cathedral.\" A\nclergyman was selected by the King to become the new bishop. He was the\nReverend Alexander Moray who had fled Scotland with Prince Charles and\nhad gone as chaplain with the ill-fated campaign ending in defeat at\nthe Battle of Worcester in 1652 in which Prince Charles sought to win\nhis throne from the Parliamentary conquerors. Mr. Moray then fled to\nVirginia and became rector of Ware Parish in Gloucester County.\n\nBut something happened in 1672 after the King had announced publicly\nthat he had selected Mr. Moray to be bishop. Nobody knows what it was,\nbut the charter was never signed, and Mr. Moray was not made a bishop.\nThere is some evidence that he died just at that time and possibly that\ncaused the plan to fall through.\n\nIt would seem probable that the failure of the plan in 1672 aroused the\ninterest of Henry Compton who became Bishop of London in 1675, for in\nthat same year he secured from the Crown authority to select and\nlicense men to serve as ministers of the parishes in America. And\nshortly thereafter a fund called \"The King's Bounty\" was established,\nfrom which each clergyman licensed to serve in America was given twenty\npounds sterling to pay the cost of his voyage. This plan continued\nuntil the American Revolution. It did great good, for it gave to every\nAnglican clergyman in the colonies a bishop whom he felt he knew, and\nto whom he could write if necessary. The Bishop of London never at any\ntime had any authority whatsoever over the laity of the Church in\nAmerica, nor over the work of the vestries as temporal heads of the\nparishes. But his influence with the clergy was of enormous value to\ntheir morale.\n\nTen years later Bishop Compton went farther and secured authority to\nappoint clergymen as his personal representatives in the colonies; to\nconfer with the clergy; and, if necessary, to remove from their\nparishes clergymen who had proven to be unworthy men. The commissaries\nlost their power some sixty years later when a new Bishop of London\nappointed in 1748 refused to give his commissaries the authority which\nearlier commissaries had exercised.\n\nThe first commissaries, James Blair for Virginia and Thomas Bray for\nMaryland, made great contribution to the life of the Church of England\nin the colonies and in England also. Commissary Bray was the moving\nspirit in organizing three missionary societies in England: the Society\nfor the Propagation of Christian Knowledge; the Society for the\nPropagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; and, in his old age, the\nsociety of Dr. Bray's Associates for ministry to Negro slaves in all\nthe colonies. He also instituted a plan for sending libraries of\ntheological books to parishes in the colonies, an enormous help to\nclergymen in far-off places.\n\nJames Blair served as Commissary in Virginia from his appointment in\n1689 until his death in 1743. His greatest work was the establishment\nand development of the Royal College of William and Mary in 1693. He\nraised money for its establishment first by asking pledges from all\npersons in Virginia who were able to give, and then in England where he\nquickly gained the active interest of Queen Mary and King William. He\nsecured his charter for the College in 1693 and by 1695 the erection of\ncollege buildings was well under way. He served as president of the\ncollege until his death in 1743. He steered it through its early\ndifficulties; he fought for it against Governor and Council when\nnecessary; and he brought it to its full status as a College with six\nprofessors and more than a hundred students in 1729. He lived long\nenough to welcome Reverend George Whitefield, the first great leader of\nthe evangelical movement, when he came to Williamsburg in 1740, and had\nthe happiness to learn that his College had won the admiring approval\nof his visitor. Whitefield wrote in his diary an account of what he\nsaw, and ended, \"I rejoiced in seeing such a place in America.\"\n\nCommissary Blair fought steadily and successfully for the rights and\nprivileges of the clergy, and secured real increase in clerical\nsalaries. He fought also for the right of the vestries to elect the\nrectors of their own parishes, even as he strove when need was, to\nsecure the removal of the occasional unworthy clergyman.\n\nThe organization of the College of William and Mary in 1693 was indeed\nthe culmination of the plan of the London Company to establish a\nUniversity in Virginia. The first effort went up in smoke in 1622.\nThere was another effort in the days of Sir William Berkeley after the\nRestoration, but the time was not then ripe. But the opportunity came\nagain. Already there were several endowed schools in Virginia: The Syms\nSchool in Hampton, the Eaton School, also in that parish, the Peasley\nSchool in Gloucester County, and others. Many parish clergymen also\nbecame noted for the excellency of their schools. So the College which\nbegan in 1693 came to head a group of schools which had already spread\nthrough the colony.\n\nFrom its beginning it held to the ideal of having a School of Divinity\nto train men for the ministry of the Church of England, as well as a\nschool of philosophy or liberal arts as we now describe it, to train\nmen for secular life and leadership in the colonial life. When the\nCollege reached its maturity it had a School of Divinity with two\nprofessors, and a School of Philosophy with two, in addition to masters\nin other departments. It had also a foundation which could support\neight men studying for the ministry. From that time until the\nRevolution a steady stream of candidates went from the College to the\nBishop of London for ordination. But that is part of the story of the\nnext century. The beginning came in 1693.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN\n\nThe Last Decade\n\n\nThe decade 1690-1700 was an era of steady growth in the religious and\ncultural life of Virginia. New counties were created as population\nspread further and further up the great rivers; and parishes increased\nin numbers as the population grew. The first official list of \"The\nparishes and the clergymen in them\" which has survived the wreckage of\ntime was the list of 1680, and the next is the list of 1702. These\nlists show that in 1680 there were forty-eight parishes and thirty-six\nclergymen incumbents. In the list of 1702 there were fifty parishes and\nforty clergymen.\n\nThe one most notable event in the religious life of both England and\nVirginia was enactment by Parliament in 1689 of the Edict of\nToleration. That act in the first year of the reign of King William and\nQueen Mary was the first incident in the movement of the English people\nthrough their legislature toward freedom of religion. The Act did not\nrepeal the severe laws against dissent adopted in the reign of King\nCharles, II, but it did remove the penalties. It took the first step\nalong a new roadway into human freedom; and the English-speaking world\non both sides of the Atlantic hailed it as such.\n\nAs it was a law of England, the act did not come into effect in\nVirginia until it was included within the code of laws of the colony.\nThat was not done until 1699, although the Council of State had\napproved the act in principle early in that decade. By that time\nenforcement of law requiring attendance at church every Sunday had been\nrelaxed for it was impossible of enforcement under the conditions of\nVirginian life. The law was not repealed until late in the eighteenth\ncentury and under it every person wherever possible was required to\naccept attendance at church as the duty of every citizen. In revisal of\nthe Virginia law in 1699 it was provided that every person must attend\nworship in the parish church at least once every two months. The\nGeneral Assembly at the same time enacted a new proviso whereby\ndissenters from the Established Church of Virginia, who could qualify\nif in England as belonging to denominations or groups permitted under\nthe Toleration Act, were free in Virginia from any penalty for\nnon-attendance at the parish Church if they attended their own places\nof dissenting worship at least once in the two months period.\n\nIn 1699 there were three denominations of dissent in Virginia; the\nPresbyterians, the Baptists and the Quakers. The many thousands of\nimmigrants from Scotland who had belonged to the Established\n(Presbyterian) Church of Scotland found little to object to in the\nworship of the Established Church of Virginia, and entered into it\nwithout difficulty or objection.\n\nBut the Presbyterians from England, as dissenters from the Established\nChurch of that country, and the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who began\ntheir immigration to Virginia after the Restoration, brought with them\nthe determination to organize in America as a Presbyterian\ndenomination. They were especially strong in the counties of Princess\nAnne and Norfolk; and the first Presbyterian congregation in Virginia\nwas organized in 1692 in that area. It is also of interest to note that\nthe Reverend Francis Makemie, who organized the first presbytery in\nPhiladelphia about 1705 and later the first Synod of the Presbyterian\nChurch in America, lived for many years in Accomac County, Virginia.\n\nThere was a Baptist minister in the village of Yorktown during the\ndecade 1690-1700 but little is known of his work, nor is it known\nwhether there were then one or more organized Baptist congregations.\n\nThe Quakers were the most widely scattered and in numbers probably the\nstrongest of the three groups. They were especially numerous in Henrico\nCounty and the eastern section of Hanover County and on the Nansemond\nriver. The Church Attendance Act of 1699 and the Toleration Act of the\nEnglish Parliament applied to them as to other dissenters, but they\nwere still under suspicion as to their loyalty and also because they\ncontinued their early custom of open and violent attacks on the\nreligion and worship of the orthodox Churches. They gave bitter offense\nby their public announcements in time of war between England and France\nor between England and Spain that they would give aid and furnish such\nsupplies as might be needed to any enemy fleet which should come with\nhostile intent into the Virginian waters.\n\nWhile the laws which punished interruption of religious services were\nstill necessary and were enforced, the adoption of the proviso in the\nVirginian Act of 1699 was a real step forward on the way to the\nultimate goal of entire freedom of worship. It made the worship of the\ndissenters as truly legal as that of the Established Church, and it\nremoved from the dissenters the requirement that they attend the\nworship of the Anglican Church.\n\nThomas Story, the noted English Quaker, who wrote and published a\njournal of his life and work as a Quaker preacher, gives an interesting\naccount of his two prolonged visits to Virginia in 1698/99 and in 1705.\nIn his daily journal for 1705 he comments at every stopping-place, with\nmanifest pleasure, upon the welcome given him and his friends and the\nfreedom of public preaching accorded him wherever he went. He was\nwelcomed and entertained over and again at Anglican homes and he\nrecords occasionally the fact that a county sheriff or constable or\njustice of the county court was present at his preaching. He does not\nrecord any instance in which anyone in civil authority in the colony\nprotested against his preaching or attempted to stop him; and the high\npoint of his visit came when the Governor of Virginia, learning of his\napproach, invited him and his friends to the Governor's mansion,\nentertained them and gave them fruit to carry with them on their\njourney toward Philadelphia.\n\nSo Virginia came to the end of its first century, having fought\nthrough the various adverse conditions which its people found along the\nway. The colony had come into an era of opportunity and growth with a\nwell established government, a seaborne trade which brought prosperity,\nand a concept of religion which made room for all forms of the\nChristian faith that would remain at peace with each other, and as\ncitizens be loyal to their government. As the people approached their\nfirst centennial anniversary celebration in 1707 they looked forward\nwith a confidence born of past experience to the new century upon which\nthey were to enter.\n\n\n\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\n\nIn addition to the titles in the following brief list the reader will\nfind many references to official papers, and other important and useful\nworks, in the author's _Virginia's Mother Church_, volumes one and two.\nA great many of the statements herein made are based upon these two\nvolumes.\n\n  Anderson, James S. M. _A History of the Colonial Church_.\n    London: 1843. 3 vols.\n\n  Andrews, Matthew Page. _The Soul of a Nation, The Founding\n    of Virginia and the Projection of New England_. New York:\n    Doubleday, 1943.\n\n  Brydon, George MacLaren. _Virginia's Mother Church and the\n    Political Conditions Under Which It Grew_. Richmond,\n    Virginia: Virginia Historical Society, 1947. Vol. I,\n    1607-1727; Vol. II, 1725-1814.\n\n  Fiske, John. _Old Virginia and Her Neighbors_. Boston and\n    New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899. 2 vols.\n\n  Goodwin, Edward L. _The Colonial Church in Virginia_.\n    Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Morehouse Publishing Company, 1927.\n\n    With appendix giving list of Anglican clergymen who served\n    in Virginia in the Colonial period.\n\n  Hening, W. W. _Statutes of Virginia_, 1619-1792. 13 vols.\n\n  Mason, George C. _Colonial Churches of Tidewater, Virginia_.\n    Richmond, Virginia: Whittet and Shepperson, 1945.\n\n  Meade, William. _Old Churches, Ministers, and Families in\n    Virginia_. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1857. 2 vols.\n\n    This is the old standard work upon this subject, and is\n    still of great value, but must be used with the\n    understanding that records and other original sources made\n    available since his day disprove many of his statements\n    about local conditions. This is especially true regarding\n    his statements concerning the unworthiness of the colonial\n    clergy. His expressed conviction that most of them were\n    unworthy morally has been entirely disproved by the evidence\n    of records now available.\n\n  Perry, W. S. _History of the American Episcopal Church_.\n    Boston and New York: Osgood, 1899. 2 vols.\n\n    --_Historical Collections Relating to America's Colonial\n    Church. Virginia_: Privately printed, 1870.\n\n  Swem, E. G. _Virginia Historical Index_. Roanoke, Virginia:\n    Stone Printing Co., 1934-36. 2 vols.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX A\n\n\nThe following extracts from the Journal of the Life of Thomas Story,\nduring his visit to Virginia in 1698 are indicative of the attitude of\nthe people of Virginia toward religious toleration:\n\n    8th Day of the 12th Month, we landed in Mockjack Bay----\n\n    Next Fourth Day being the 1st day of the 1st month (i.e.\n    January, 1698/99) we went again by water to a monthly meeting\n    at Chuckatuck, where came our friend Elizabeth Webb from\n    Gloucestershire in England, who had been through all the\n    English colonies on the Continent of America and was now\n    about to depart for England. The meeting was large and the\n    Sheriff of the County, a Colonel, and some of others of note\n    in that county were there, and very sober and attentive.\n\n    On the 22nd we had a pretty large meeting at Southern Branch,\n    at the house of Robert Burgess. He was not a Friend by\n    profession, but a Justice of the Peace, and of good account\n    in these parts. There had never been a meeting there before;\n    yet the people were generally solid and several of them\n    tendered; and after the meeting the Justice and his wife were\n    very respectful, and treated us to beer and wine, and would\n    gladly have had us to have eaten with them and lodged in\n    their house that night, but being otherwise engaged in the\n    course of the service.\n\n    The next day [several days later] we had a meeting at\n    Romancock, which was large and open. Many persons of note\n    from those parts were there, as Major Palmer, Captain\n    Clayborn, Doctor Walker, and others, all very attentive.\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX B\n\n\nA List of Parishes in Virginia, and the Clergy in them under date of\nJuly 8, 1702.\n\nParishes and Incumbent Ministers\n\nCharles City County.\n  Bristol Parish, (part)\n    George Robertson [Robinson]\n  Westover Parish\n    Charles Anderson\n  Martin's Brandon Parish\n  Weyanoke Parish\n    James Bushell\n\nElizabeth City County\n  Elizabeth City Parish\n    James Wallace\n\nEssex County\n  South Farnham Parish\n    Lewis Latane\n  Sittenbourn Parish (part)\n    Bartholomew Yates\n  St. Mary's Parish\n    William Andrews\n\nGloucester County\n  Petsoe (Petsworth) Parish\n    Emmanuel Jones\n  Abingdon Parish\n    Guy Smith\n  Ware Parish\n    James Clack\n\nHenrico County\n  Bristol Parish (part)\n    George Robinson\n  Varina als Henrico Parish\n    James Ware\n  King William Parish\n    Benjamin De Joux\n\nJames City County\n  Wallingford Parish\n  Wilmington Parish\n    John Gordon\n  James City Parish\n    James Blair\n  Martin's Hundred Parish\n    Stephen Fouace\n  Bruton Parish (part)\n    Cope D'Oyley\n\nIsle of Wight County\n  Warrosqueake Parish\n    Thomas Sharpe\n  Newport Parish\n    Andrew Monroe\n\nKing and Queen County\n  St. Stephen's Parish\n    Ralph Bowker\n  Stratton-Major Parish\n    Edward Portlock\n\nKing William County\n  St. John's Parish\n    John Monroe\n\nLancaster County\n  Christ Church Parish\n    Andrew Jackson\n  St. Mary's White Chapel Parish\n    John Carnegie\n\nMiddlesex County\n  Christ Church Parish\n    Robert Yates\n\nNansemond County\n  Upper Parish\n  Lower Parish\n  Chuchatuck Parish\n\nNorfolk County\n  Elizabeth River Parish\n    William Rudd\n\nNew Kent County\n  Blisland Parish\n  St. Peter's Parish\n    James Bowker\n\nNorthumberland County\n  Fairfield Parish\n    John Farnifold\n  Wiccocomico Parish\n    John Urquhart\n\nNorthampton County\n  Hungars Parish\n    Peter Collier\n\nPrincess Anne County\n  Lynnhaven Parish\n    Solomon Wheatley\n\nRichmond County\n  Sittenbourn Parish (part)\n    Bartholomew Yates\n  North Farnham Parish\n    Peter Kippax\n\nSurry County\n  Southwark Parish\n    Alexander Walker\n  Lawne's Creek Parish\n    Thomas Burnet\n\nStafford County\n  St. Paul's Parish\n  Overwharton Parish\n    John Frazier\n\nWarwick County\n  Mulberry Island Parish\n  Denbigh Parish\n\nWestmoreland County\n  Cople Parish\n  Washington Parish\n    James Breechin\n\nYork County\n  Bruton Parish (part)\n  Yorke Parish\n    Cope D'Oyley\n  Hampton Parish\n    Stephen Fouace\n  Charles Parish\n     James Slater\n\n     James Blair, Commissary to the Bishop of London\n\n     Peregrine Cony, Chaplain to the Governor.\n\nIt will be noted that the above list reports fifty-one parishes, or\nafter deducting three which appear as partly in two counties, a total\nof forty-eight parishes. These covered the whole territory in which\nEnglish settlers lived. The incumbent clergymen total thirty-five but\nsome five or six of the parishes for which no incumbent was named were\nvery small in extent or population, and looked to the minister of an\nadjoining parish for services and sacraments. Probably this list\nincludes five or six parishes which were vacant. Because of the great\nlength of time required to secure clergymen from England this fact is\nevidence of the growing strength and organization of the Church under\nthe influence of the Commissary.\n\nMost of the clergymen who came to Virginia were graduates of the\nEnglish and Scottish universities, and brought an element and influence\nof education and culture to the growing life of the Colony. Dr. Philip\nAlexander Bruce, in his notable _Institutional History of Virginia in\nthe Seventeenth Century_, makes the following statement:\n\nIf we consider as a body the ministers who performed the various duties\nof their calling in Virginia during the Seventeenth Century, there is\nno reason to think they fell below the standard of conscientiousness\ngoverning the conduct of the English clergyman in the same age. The\nearly history of the New World was adorned by no nobler group of\ndivines than the group which gives so much distinction from the point\nof view of character and achievement to the years in which the\nfoundation of the colony at Jamestown was being permanently laid.\n\nFrom the middle of the century to the end as from the beginning to the\nmiddle, a large proportion of the clergymen were not only graduates of\nEnglish universities, but also men of more or less distinguished social\nconnections in England. Outside the great towns in England, or the\nwealthiest and most populous of the English rural parishes, there was\nin the course of the century, perhaps no single English living filled\nby a succession of clergymen superior to this body of men, (i.e.,\nincumbents at Jamestown) in combined learning, talents, piety, and\ndevotion to duty. And yet there is no reason to think that the ability,\nzeal and fidelity of these ministers who occupied the pulpit at\nJamestown were overshadowing as compared with the same qualities in the\nclergymen who, one after another, occupied any of the more important\nbenefices in York, Surry, Elizabeth City, or Gloucester Counties, or\nthe counties situated in the Northern Neck, or Eastern Shore.... All\nthe surviving records of the seventeenth century go to show that,\nwhatever during that long period may have been the infirmities or\nunworthy acts of individual clergymen, the great body of those\nofficiating in Virginia were men who performed all the duties of their\nsacred calling in a manner entitling them to the respect, reverence and\ngratitude of their parishioners.\n\nVery little is known of the activities of the clergy outside of their\nprofessional duties beyond the fact that a great many of them conducted\nschools at their homes; and these \"parsons schools\" became a widespread\ninfluence for good upon the youth of their day. In the generations\nbefore the founding of the College these schools became the great\nagency throughout the colony for the education of the sons of the\ngentry, and of the occasional youth of a lesser privileged family who\nwas taken free by the parson, or supported by a school endowment given\nby some charitable person. In the later days there were many such\nparish funds. We read of George Washington, in the following generation\nattending the school conducted by Parson Marye in Fredericksburg, and\nof his future wife, Martha Dandridge attending another.\n\nIt is a notable fact that throughout the whole seventeenth century the\nideal shown by the General Assembly was to provide for the clergy an\nadequate salary for the comfortable home of an educated man. In 1695\nwhen the question of increase in clerical salaries was raised, the\nHouse of Burgesses made a report to Governor Andros upon the purchasing\nvalue of salaries paid in tobacco, and stated, \"They have duly weighed\nthe present provision made for the ministers of this country in their\nrespective parishes together with their other considerable perquisites\nby marriages, burials, etc., and glebes,----that most if not all the\nministers of this country are in as good a condition in point of\nlivelihood as a gentleman that is well seated and hath twelve or\nfourteen servants.\" They had previously stated that the tobacco salary\nof the parson would in normal years in the past yield eighty pounds\nsterling when sold.\n\nIn contrast with this salary of the clergymen in Virginia attention may\nbe called to the statement made in England in 1714, that there were in\nEngland at that time \"5,082 livings under eighty pounds in annual\nvalue, of which more than 3,000 were under forty pounds, and 471 under\nten pounds. This report was made to show the importance of the fund\nestablished by Queen Anne, called Queen Anne's Bounty, for increasing\nthe endowment of these weak parishes.\"\n\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes\n\n\nExtensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S.\ncopyright on this publication was renewed.\n\nThe Table of Contents was added for convenience.\n\nPage 3: Guilt is an obsolete form of gilt\n  (a plate of silver guilt).\n\nPage 16: Changed ecclestiastical to ecclesiastical\n  (after an ecclestiastical trial by the bishop).\n\nPage 23: Changed cattel to cattle\n  (great plenty of cattel and hogs).\n\nPage 50: Changed priviliged to privileged\n  (youth of a lesser priviliged family).","title":"Religious Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century: The Faith of Our Fathers","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":17553}