VII.
DR. COKE IN VIRGINIA.
1785-1791.
Dr. Thomas Coke—The Eastern Shore—Alexandria—Swollen Creeks—The Pies of Mecklenburg—A Retired Dancing-Master—Halifax County—Following the Spring—Petersburg—Dan River Landscapes—Richmond—Port Royal.
IT would be an interesting book that should give the history of missions in this country. That godly man, Nicholas Ferrar, who was so active in the affairs of the London Company; the good minister of Jamestown, who came with the first supply; the pastors of the congregations that settled in Massachusetts; the Jesuit fathers; the emissaries of the Society of Friends; the Presbyterians from the north of Ireland and from Scotland; Whitefield, Asbury, Coke—how large was the share of these men in the making of America. Among them, Dr. Thomas Coke was not the least. He was nine times in this country and covered a great part of it as then known, including the islands of the British and several of the French Indies.
Dr. Coke was born in 1747, and was graduated B. A. at Oxford in 1768. In 1775 he was made D. C. L., and had considerable prospects of church preferment, but was reckoned a Methodist after 1776. His bishop reproved him, but declined to remove him. His rector dismissed him. Wesley employed him for a time to assist in answering his voluminous correspondence. In 1782 he was the first president of the Irish Conference, and held the office for the rest of his life, with a few intermissions. In 1784 he drew up a plan for missions, and was appointed superintendent, with episcopal functions, in America. That year he came to this country and ordained Asbury, at Baltimore, as deacon, elder and superintendent. Wesley was very indignant at the change of the title superintendent to bishop, and the confirmation of the change led in 1792 to the O’Kellyan schism. Dr. Coke possessed a private fortune of £1,200 a year. He died in 1813 on a voyage to India. His work in the field of missions was cosmopolitan, and to him more than to any other the creation of the vast network of the Methodist foreign missions is due.
September, 1784, Dr. Coke sailed from King Road, Bristol, for New York. In November he was on the Eastern Shore. Returning to Philadelphia and Baltimore, he was at Alexandria March 9, 1785. This great man was able to enjoy the country. He was born in Wales. But he does not seem to have been skilled in the art of cross-country horsemanship in all weathers. He writes (March 9th): “In my ride this morning to Alexandria through the woods, I have had one of the most romantic scenes that ever I beheld. Yesterday there was a very heavy fall of snow and hail and sleet. The fall of sleet was so great that the trees seemed to be trees of ice. So beautiful a sight of the kind I never saw before.”
There was no one to pilot Dr. Coke from Alexandria, and his servant had overstayed his time on a visit to the Eastern Shore. Between Alexandria and Colchester there were two runs to be crossed, both greatly swollen from the sudden thaw. “A friend who lives in Alexandria came with me over the first run, and everybody informed me I could easily cross the second if I crossed the first. When I came to the second (which was perhaps two hours after I crossed the first) I found that I had two streams to pass. The first I went over without much danger; but in crossing the second, which was very strong and very deep, I did not observe that a tree, brought down by the flood, lay across the landing place. I endeavored, but in vain, to drive my horse against the stream and go around the tree. I was afraid to turn my horse’s head to the stream and afraid to go back. In this dilemma I thought it most prudent for me to lay hold on the tree, and go over it, the water being shallow on the other side. No sooner did I execute my purpose so far as to lay hold of the tree (and that instant the horse was carried from under me) but the motion that I gave it loosened it, and down the stream it instantly carried me.” The tree, with passenger, lodged below at a little island, and then there floated down another tree. The doctor, besides being thoroughly wetted, was near losing his life. After more than a hundred years the suggestion may be offered that the first tree should never have been laid hold of. “I was now obliged to walk,” continues Dr. Coke, “about a mile, shivering, before I came to a house. The master and mistress were from home, and were not expected to return that night. But the principal negro lent me an old ragged shirt, coat, waistcoat, breeches, etc., and the negroes made a large fire and hung my clothes up to dry all night.” Before bedtime the horse, having got around the tree, was recovered and brought in by a neighbor, who supposed the rider to be drowned. “As he seemed to be a poor man, I gave him half a guinea. I trust I shall never forget so awful but very instructive a scene.”
After this March welcome to Virginia, Dr. Coke passed through the State into North Carolina, and returned to Alexandria May 23d. He was at Fredericksburg and Williamsburg (where inquiring for a Methodist he was told there was one in the town, who proved to be “a good old Presbyterian” and hospitable), at Smithfield and Portsmouth, in Mecklenburg County, at New Glasgow, towards the mountains, and in Culpeper County. These sojournings are specified. There was a bad season in May that year, and near Alexandria the creeks were again difficult at the crossings. It was observed on this, the first tour, that in Mecklenburg County “they have a great variety of fruit pies—peach, apple, pear and cranberry, and puddings—very often.” About New Glasgow (on Buffalo River, just north of Amherst Courthouse) Dr. Coke remarks: “The wolves, I find, frequently come to the fences at night, howling in an awful manner; and sometimes they seize upon a straying sheep. At a distance was the Blue Ridge, an amazing chain of mountains. I prefer this country to any other part of America—it is so like Wales, my native country. And it is far more populous than I expected.”