REV. FRANCIS MAKEMIE—THE PAUL OF SEAGIRT ACCOMAC, THE KNOX OF CHESAPEAKE, AND FOUNDER OF ORGANIZED PRESBYTERIANISM IN AMERICA.
BY REV. HAVERGAL SHEPPARD, D. D., MINISTER OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH AT SCHENECTADY, N. Y.
Just fifty-five years after the accession of the House of Stuart to the British Crown; years born of those awful times of the Reformation, when men hated each other for their creed rather than for their conduct; in the year in which Cromwell died, 1658, Francis Makemie was born in that little out of the way village of the north of Ireland, Ramelton, County Donegal.
That beautiful arm of the Atlantic, called by the natives Lough Swilly, lay hard by his home and undoubtedly many were the times as a boy he played on its shores or swam in its clear, cool waters.
Like many of the world’s great preachers, he became hopefully pious at the age of fifteen, according to his own testimony in his answer to Keith’s “Libel Against a Catechism,” published by Francis Makemie, in Boston, 1694, he says:
“’Ere I received the imposition of hands in that Scriptural and orderly separation with my holy and ministerial calling, that I gave requiring satisfaction to Godly, learned and judicious, discerning men, of a work of grace and conversion, wrought in my heart at fifteen years of age, by and from the pains of a Godly schoolmaster; who used no small diligence in gaining tender souls to God’s service and fear.”
At seventeen he was enrolled in the University of Glasgow in the third class, with the ministry in view. Next we see him, January 28th, 1860, appearing before the Presbytery of Laggan at St. Johnstown, Ireland, with a recommendation from his Pastor, Mr. Thomas Drummond, and so began his theological training and examination; from time to time he presents himself before the Presbytery and is examined by a competent committee.
Mr. William Liston reports: “September 29th, 1680, that Mr. Francis Makemy desires some more time and that he is diligent.” Again, March 9th, 1681: “Upon the good report we get of Messrs. Francis Makemy and Mr. Alexander Marshall, the meeting think fit to put them upon trials in order to their being licentiates to preach and they name I. Timothy 1:5 to Mr. Makemy.”
Again, April 20th, 1681, Francis Makemy delivered his homily upon I. Timothy 1:5 and was approved. Matt. 11:28 was appointed to him for the next meeting.
May 25th, 1681, Mr. Francis Makemy delivered his private homily on Matt. 11:28 and was approved.
The last entry in the minute book of the presbytery of Laggan, previous to December 30th, 1690, was on July 31st, 1681. “The meeting see fit to lay aside their ordinary business at this extraordinary meeting, only, if time will permit, we will hear the exegeses of the two young men who are upon their trials.”
It is more than likely, as Dr. Briggs says in the appendix to American Presbyterianism: “That Mr. Makemy was probably licensed in the autumn of 1681 and after several appropriate trials and having preached for Mr. Hempton at Burt, April 2d, 1682, he was ordained to go out to America.”
Two years previous, or 1680, Colonel William Stevens laid before the Presbytery of Laggan by letter the desire of the Presbyterian families in the lower counties of Maryland on the eastern shore, for a minister to labor in that part of the country.
The clergy of the established church in Virginia and Maryland were not those who would appeal to earnest and pious nonconformists; Hammond in “Leah and Rachel or Two Fruitful Sisters, Virginia and Maryland” (London, 1656) used strong language in speaking of the supply of clergy from the old land, “Yet many came, such as wore Black coats, and could babble in a Pulpit, roar in a Tavern, exact from their Parishioners and rather by their dissoluteness destroy, than feed their Flocks;” to this may be added the testimony of Bishop Meade of Virginia (1829–1862) “Immense were the difficulties in getting a full supply of ministers of any character, and of those who came, how few were faithful and duly qualified for the station.”
It is a well established fact that some who were discarded from the English Church obtained livings in Virginia, there was not only defective preaching but most evil living among them. One of them was for years president of a Jockey Club and another fought a duel in sight of the very church in which he had performed the solemn offices of religion.
Governor Berkeley’s testimony in the matter has been frequently quoted, “As to religious teaching—we have forty-eight parishes and our ministers are well paid and by my consent should be better if they would pray oftener and preach less, but as of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent to us, and we have few that we could boast of since the persecution in Cromwell’s tyranny drove divers worthy men hither.”
Again, according to Meade, “It is not wonderful that disaffection should take place and dissent begin.” It was under these conditions and after Lord Howard of Effingham succeeded Culpepper in Virginia, having received royal instructions “to allow no person to use a printing press, on any occasion whatsoever,” that there came into Virginia the man whose influence in the cause of religious liberty in the colonies must be reckoned as second to that of but few others—this was Francis Makemie, the Irish founder of organized Presbyterianism in America. He came by the way of the Barbadoes and settled at Rehoboth by the river and founded the Presbyterian Church at Snow Hill, Maryland, 1683. He was earnest, fearless and indefatigable in his labors for the spiritual uplift of the people with whom his lot was cast, and it is worth noting that in those days of the intolerance of the established church, that the Presbyterian denomination began its existence in a colony founded by a Roman Catholic nobleman, Lord Baltimore. Having raised the blue banner in Maryland, he traveled by land as far as Norfolk and proceeded to Carolina, where it seems he labored among the people until the spring of the following year, as he was in North Carolina in May.
In a letter to Increase Mather, written July 22d, 1684, from Elizabeth River, Virginia, he speaks of a voyage engaged to South Carolina, but he met with contrary winds and was driven as far north as Delaware Bay and eventually had to put into Virginia, where he was persuaded by Colonel Anthony Lawson and other inhabitants of the Parish of Linhaven in lower Norfolk County to stay that season. Their pastor, formerly from Ireland, died the August before and left them without a leader.
Makemie seems to have remained at Elizabeth River for a considerable time. He writes again from there to Increase Mather, Boston, N. England, under date of July 28, 1685, in which he acknowledges the receipt of a letter and three books and refers to a Mr. Thomas Barret, a minister living in South Carolina and from whom he had received a letter from Ashley River, stating that he was about to take shipping for New England and for whom Makemie enclosed a letter. Just how long after this he remained with this people is not known, only that in the following year he made an extended preaching tour southward to Carolina, ministering to the spiritual necessaries of the people in neglected communities and performing the other duties devolving upon a true minister of the Gospel. It was no easy task that confronted him, while nearly three fourths of the population were dissenters from the established church.
“It is safe to say,” says Cobbs, “that no small proportion of the people were without any definite religion.” This was especially true of North Carolina.
As late as 1729 Colonel William Byrd wrote of Edenton, then capital of North Carolina: “I believe this is the only metropolis in the Christian or Mohammedan world where there is neither church, chapel, mosque, synagogue, or any other place of worship of any sect or religion whatever.
“They pay no tribute either to God or to Cæsar.”
With a knowledge of such conditions before him he put himself forward in 1686, with that fearlessness characteristic of his race, to preach the Gospel to the regions beyond.
How long he labored here is impossible to tell, but he returned and took up his residence on the eastern shore at Matchatauk, Virginia. His name appeared for the first time on the court records of Accomac County, Virginia, in 1690, and John Galbraith’s will, made August 12th, 1691, refers to Makemie as Minister of the Gospel at Rehoboth town. In that year he made a visit to England and returned either that autumn or the following spring, after an earnest endeavor to inspire interest in the religious life of the new colony. It was during the year 1692 that Makemie visited Philadelphia and planted the seed of Presbyterianism by preaching the first sermon in the Barbadoes store, northwest corner of Second and Chestnut streets, after which, in the autumn of this year, he sailed for the Barbadoes, where he remained several years, combining the life of a minister and a merchant, as shown by letters dated December 28th, 1696; January 17th, 1697, and, February 12th, 1697, which are still preserved.
It was either during the year 1697 or the early part of the succeeding, 1698, that he returned to his old home on the eastern shore and married Naomi Anderson, according to Dr. Hill’s “Rise of American Presbyterianism.”
In a will signed by William Anderson, July 23d, 1698, and recorded October 10th, he refers to Mr. Francis Makemie and Naomi, his wife, my eldest daughter. Again, the will says, “If my daughter Naomi have no issue,” showing that no children were born at that time.
In Virginia he suffered much annoyance from the authorities, but was the first dissenting minister to obtain a certificate under the toleration act, 1689, of William and Mary, having previously a certificate of his qualifications at Barbadoes, yet it was not until ten years later, 1699, that the Virginia legislature grudgingly granted this with licenses for two houses in Accomac, as places of dissenting worship, to which another was added in 1704.
How much he did for the cause he espoused through the years following cannot be computed, as he went in and out among the people, many of them Presbyterians from Scotland and Ireland, bringing the faith of their fathers with them, but in this new colony, in an environment opposed to religious feeling, they drifted into many sins and habits that fared well to spoil their early impressions of piety.
It is worthy of note that all this time he supported himself by business pursuits; realizing the responsibility of the growing work, he executed a power of attorney to his wife May 30th, 1704, reciting that he was about to depart for Europe, which he did, arriving in London that summer, he then appealed to the nonconformists ministers for men and funds to sustain them. The London ministers responded by agreeing to furnish support for two missionaries, for two years, and Makemie at once secured two young men, John Hampton, a fellow countryman, and George McNish, a Scotchman (?).
It was while he sojourned in London that he published his “Plain and Friendly Persuasive to the Inhabitants of Virginia and Maryland for promoting Towns and Cohabitations, by a well wisher to both Governments,” returning in 1705 with the foregoing young men. We find that there were five church edifices and as many organized Presbyterian congregations in Somerset County as a result of his previous labor.
In 1706 he had the new church building at Rehoboth erected on his own land. Indeed this was an eventful year for the Presbyterian Church, as on March 22d the first Classical Assembly organized under the name “Presbytery,” presumably in the building of the First Presbyterian Church erected 1705 at Market and Banks Streets, Philadelphia.
Makemie seems to have been elected the first Moderator, as his name is the first to appear on the oldest records extant. This body was composed of three pastors and four missionaries, and was a happy union of men from different parts of the British possessions—Makemie and Hampton from Ireland, McNish from Scotland (?), Andrews, Wilson, Taylor and Davis from New England. A marked absentee was Josias Makie, the Irish pastor at Elizabeth River.
It claimed no authority, but it was a broad, generous, tolerant spirit which effected this union, and it seems to have taken the Presbytery of Dublin as a model. The record of this first meeting is lost, but, according to Briggs, “American Presbyterianism,” after the adjournment of the Presbytery in October, Francis Makemie took John Hampton with him and set out on a journey to Boston, on arrival in New York he was invited by the Dutch minister, Rev. Gualtherus du Bois to preach in the Reformed Church, but Lord Cornbury forbade the service. The preacher, not insisting on the use of the church, held service and preached in the house of William Jackson “with open doors.”
HONORABLE EDWARD E. McCALL.
Justice of the Supreme Court of New York.
A Life Member of the Society.
Hampton preaching also on the same Sunday, January 20th, 1707, at Newtown, L. I. So bold a defiance aroused the wrath of the Governor, who, on the 24th of the month issued a warrant for the arrest of both men, “who have taken upon them to preach in a private house without having obtained any license for so doing, as they have gone into Long Island with intent there to spread their pernicious doctrines and principles to the disturbance of the church by law, established and of the government of this province.” The warrant was executed and the culprits were brought for examination before the Governor when Makemie defended his liberty on the toleration act of England—this act Cornbury declared to be without any force in his government, and required the prisoners to give bonds for good behaviour and to promise not to preach in New York or New Jersey. Makemie was willing to give bonds, but refused the promise, and both men were put in jail, where they remained six weeks and four days, during the absence of Chief Justice Momperson. On the return of the Judge they were brought before him on a writ of “habeas corpus.” Hampton was discharged without trial as a “man of less interest,” while Makemie was liberated under bonds to appear for trial at the next session of the court, the Grand Jury having found a true bill against him, “that he did take upon himself to preach in a conventicle and meeting not permitted or allowed by law, under color or excuse of religion in other manner than according to our Liturgy and practice of the Church of England.”
On his release he immediately returned to Philadelphia with Hampton for the meeting of Presbytery March 22d, 1707. From thence he writes to Benjamin Colman of Boston: “Since our imprisonment we have commenced a correspondence with our Reverend Breth of the ministry at Boston, which we hope according to our intention has been communicated to you all, whose sympathizing concurrence I cannot doubt of, in an expensive struggle for asserting our liberty against the powerful invasion of Lord Cornbury, which is not yet over.
“I need not tell you of a picked jury and the penal laws are invading our American sanctuary without the least regard to the toleration, which should justly alarm us all.”
At the trial, in the following June, the prosecution relied on the royal instruction to Cornbury, rather than on the ministry act, as though conscious that said act, while establishing a church, yet inflicted no penalties for non-conformity.
Makemie defended himself, producing licenses from the Governors of Virginia and Maryland, contending that there was nothing in the English common or statute law to hold him, and nothing in the laws of New York against the liberty he had exercised.
As to the Governor’s ecclesiastical authority, he argued that it could not exist without the due promulgation of law.
The plea of Makemie was so forceful that a jury “Packed to convict” was won over to his cause and unanimously acquitted him. The court, however, would not release him until he had paid all the costs, which, together with his expenses, amounted to £83, as sufficiently heavy burden, for which he must yet have had great compensation in the consciousness that he had fought a great fight and won a great victory in the cause of human liberty. Never again did a New York Governor attempt to silence any orderly preaching of the Gospel.
To Cornbury the issue of the case brought a bitter mortification, and he seems to have been seriously alarmed for the consequence to himself from the reports of the trial made by Mr. Makemie and his friends in England and the Colonies.
Writing to the lords of trade in October, 1707, he denied that Makemie had applied to him for a license, and said: “I entreat your Lordship’s protection against that malicious man, who is well known in Virginia and Maryland to be a disturber of the peace and quiet of all places he comes into; he is a Doctor of Physic, a Merchant, and attorney or counsellor at law, and, which is worse of all, a disturber of governments.”
It does not appear that Makemie ever took any action against Cornbury, nor was it needed to the damage of his Lordship’s reputation, which his course had so deeply stained.
The trial being over, Makemie seems to have continued on his journey to New England, as he addressed a letter to Lord Cornbury from Boston in July, 1707, and, according to a bequest in his will made soon after, “Mr. Jedediah Andrews, Minister at Philadelphia, is given my new cane, bought and fixed in Boston.” This will was signed April 27th, 1708, in which he refers to his wife and two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne Makemie.
Some time between this and August 4th, when the will was ordered to be recorded, Makemie died, with a solemn declaration of attachment to his mother church and so ended the career, at the age of fifty, of one of the greatest men who ever came to our shores in the interest of the protestant religion and it is safe to say had he lived in the times of the Revolution, he would have been one of the many of his fellow countrymen who went forth to fight for the flag of this new nation and raised their voices in behalf of human liberty.
JAMES L. O’NEILL, ESQ.,
Of Elizabeth, N. J.
Member of the Executive Council.
May 14th, 1908, a handsome monument was dedicated to his memory on the banks of Holden’s Creek, Accomac County, Virginia.