CHAPTER XLVII.
1702-1708.
Parishes—The Rev. Francis Makemie—Dissenters—Toleration Act—Ministers—Commissary.
In the year 1702 there were twenty-nine counties in Virginia, and forty-nine parishes, of which thirty-four were supplied with ministers, fifteen vacant. In each parish there was a church, of timber, brick, or stone; in the larger parishes, one or two Chapels of Ease; so that the whole number of places of worship, for a population of sixty thousand, was about seventy. In every parish a dwelling-house was provided for the minister, with a glebe of two hundred and fifty acres of land, and sometimes a few negroes, or a small stock of cattle. The salary of sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco was, in ordinary quality, equivalent to £80; in sweet-scented, to £160. It required the labor of twelve negroes to produce this amount. There were in Virginia, at this time, three Quaker congregations, and as many Presbyterian; two in Accomac under the care of Rev. Francis Makemie; the other on Elizabeth River.
The Rev. Francis Makemie, who is styled the father of the American Presbyterian Church, was settled in Accomac County before the year 1690, when his name first appears upon the county records. He appears to have been a native of the north of Ireland, being of Scotch extraction, and one of those called Scotch-Irish. Licensed by the presbytery of Lagan in 1680, and in two or three years ordained as an evangelist for America, he came over, and labored in Barbadoes, Maryland, and Virginia. The first mention of his name on the records of the county court of Accomac bears date in 1690, by which he appears to have brought suits for debts due him in the business of merchandise. He married Naomi, eldest daughter of William Anderson, a wealthy merchant of Accomac, and thus acquired an independent estate. In the year 1699 he obtained from the court of that county a certificate of qualification as a preacher under the toleration act, the first of the kind known to be on record in Virginia. At the same time, upon his petition, two houses belonging to him were licensed as places of public worship.[372:A] In a letter written in 1710 by the presbytery of Philadelphia to that of Dublin, it is said: "In all Virginia we have one small congregation on Elizabeth River, and some few families favoring our way in Rappahannock and York." Two years after, the Rev. John Macky was the pastor of the Elizabeth River congregation. It is probable that the congregations organized by Mr. Makemie, in 1690, were not able to give him a very ample support; but, prosperous in his worldly affairs, he appears to have contributed liberally from his own means to the promotion of the religious interests in which he was engaged. According to tradition, he suffered frequent annoyances from the intolerant spirit of the times in Virginia; but he declared that "he durst not deny preaching, and hoped he never should, while it was wanting and desired." Beverley, in his "History of Virginia," published in 1705, says: "They have no more than five conventicles among them, namely, three small meetings of Quakers, and two of Presbyterians. 'Tis observed that those counties where the Presbyterian meetings are produce very mean tobacco, and for that reason can't get an orthodox minister to stay among them; but whenever they could, the people very orderly went to church."
From this it may be inferred that the Eastern Shore, where Makemie was settled, produced poor tobacco, and that in consequence of it there was no minister of the established church in his neighborhood. He is supposed to have had four places of preaching; his labors proved acceptable; his hearers and congregations increased in number, and there was a demand for other ministers of the same denomination. Mr. Makemie, about the year 1704, returned to the mother country and remained there about a year. During the following year two ministers, styled his associates, were licensed, by authority of Governor Seymour, to preach in Somerset County, in Maryland, notwithstanding the opposition of the neighboring Episcopal minister. Makemie's imprisonment in New York (by Lord Cornbury) for preaching in that city, and his able defence upon his trial, are well known. He died in 1708, leaving a large estate. His library was much larger than was usually possessed by Virginia clergymen in that day, and included a number of law books. He appointed the Honorable Francis Jenkins, of Somerset County, Maryland, and Mary Jenkins, his lady, executors of his last will and testament, and guardians of his children.[373:A]
In 1699 a penalty of five shillings was imposed on such persons in Virginia as should not attend the parish church once in two months; but dissenters, qualified according to the toleration act of the first year of William and Mary, were exempted from this penalty, provided they should attend at "any congregation, or place of religious worship, permitted and allowed by the said act of parliament, once in two months."[373:B] Hening remarks of this law: "It is surely an abuse of terms to call a law a toleration act which imposes a religious test on the conscience, in order to avoid the penalties of another law equally violating every principle of religious freedom. The provisions of this act may be seen in the fourth volume of Blackstone's Commentaries, page 53. Nothing could be more intolerant than to impose the penalties by this act prescribed for not repairing to church, and then to hold out the idea of exemption, by a compliance with the provisions of such a law as the statute of 1 William and Mary, adopted by a mere general reference, when not one person in a thousand could possibly know its contents." It was an age when the state of religion was low in England, and of those ministers sent over to Virginia not a few were incompetent, some openly profligate; and religion slumbered in the languor of moral lectures, the maxims of Socrates and Seneca, and the stereotyped routine of accustomed forms. Altercations between minister and people were not unfrequent; the parson was a favorite butt for aristocratic ridicule. Sometimes a pastor more exemplary than the rest was removed from mercenary motives, or on account of a faithful discharge of his duties. More frequently the unfit were retained by popular indifference. The clergy, in effect, did not enjoy that permanent independency of the people which properly belongs to a hierarchy. The vestry, a self-perpetuated body of twelve gentlemen, thought themselves "the parson's master," and the clergy in vain deplored the precarious tenure of their livings. The commissary's powers were few, limited, and disputed; he was but the shadow of a bishop; he could not ordain nor confirm; he could not depose a minister. Yet the people, jealous of prelatical tyranny, watched his feeble movements with a vigilant and suspicious eye. The church in Virginia was destitute of an effective discipline.[374:A]
FOOTNOTES:
[372:A] It appears from his will, dated in 1708, that he also owned a house and lot in the new town in Princess Anne County, on the eastern branch of Elizabeth River, and a house and lot in the new town on Wormley's Creek, called Urbanna. Whether he used these houses for merchandise, or for public worship, is not known. It appears from Commissary Blair's report on the state of the church in Virginia, that the congregation on Elizabeth River existed before the year 1700. From the fact of Mr. Makemie's directing, in his will, that his dwelling-house and lot on that river should be sold, it has been inferred that he had resided there before he moved to the opposite shore of the Chesapeake, and that the church in question was gathered by him; if so, it must have been formed before 1690; for in that year he was residing on the Eastern Shore. Others have supposed that the congregation on Elizabeth River was composed of a small company of Scotch emigrants, whose descendants are still to be found in the neighborhood of Norfolk.
[373:A] Foote's Sketches of Va., first series, 40, 58, 63, 84; and Force's Historical Tracts, iv.
[373:B] Hening, iii. 171.
[374:A] Hawks; Bancroft; Beverley, B. iv. 26.
