As intimated above, the church was built by the then bishop, after Gen. Leonidas Polk and his brothers, upon their own estate, for the accommodation of the communicants around them and their slaves. The description above presents a feature of slavery which was common throughout the South, and shows how zealously the master looked after the spiritual welfare of his slaves.
View of St. John’s from the Pike.
The Polk family—not the President, James K. Polk—who lived in Columbia, six miles away, and was a relative of the Ashwood Polks, but the Polks at Ashwood—lived in true baronial style. The most distinguished of that family was Bishop Leonidas Polk, who, while bishop, was the moving spirit in the erection of the chapel, copying after the rural chapels of England. Leonidas Polk was educated at West Point for a soldier, and graduated in 1827, but so strong was the other side of his character that he resigned his commission in the army and entered the ministry. This was a sore disappointment to his father, the old Revolutionary soldier, Col. Wm. Polk, causing him to write to his son that the step was the spoiling of a good soldier for a poor preacher.
But the old gentleman, who himself had joined Washington’s army at the age of eighteen years and had fought all through the Revolutionary War, being thrice wounded and gaining the title of Colonel and the reputation of being one of the ablest soldiers of his day, was greatly mistaken in this choice of his soldier-preacher son. Not only did Leonidas Polk become one of the great pioneer preachers of his day, but, as Dr. Wm. M. Polk says in his biography of him: “It might have touched the feelings of the veteran if he could have known that Leonidas would one day buckle on the sword—that he would lead more men in the field than his father had ever seen arrayed in battle, and that he would die at last a soldier’s death in the field of honor, fighting for what he deemed to be the cause of right and liberty.”
Speaking of Col. Wm. Polk, the same historian tells this amusing incident of the old soldier:
“When Lafayette returned to America in 1824 and made his memorable tour through the States, Colonel Polk was one of the commissioners appointed to do the honors of the State of North Carolina to his old comrades in arms.
“An eye-witness has left an amusing account of some incidents of the reception of Lafayette on his passage through North Carolina. Col. William Polk has been requested by Governor Burton to provide a cavalry escort for the illustrious visitor, and a troop of excellently drilled and handsomely uniformed volunteers was formed from the Militia of Mecklenburg and Cabarrus escort, under command of General Daniel, and met Lafayette near the Virginia line. There was much hand-shaking and speech-making.”
“But,” as the narrator writes, “Lafayette spoke but little English and understood less. He had retained a few phrases, which he would utter, generally in an effective manner, but sometimes ludicrously mal a propos.”
“Thanks, my dear friend! Great country! Happy man! Ah, I remember!” were nearly his whole vocabulary. He was received at the borders of each State by appointed commissioners, and when he had been escorted through it he was safely delivered to the commissioners of the next commonwealth. At Halifax the cortege was met by General Daniel, who had stationed a company of soldiers by the roadside, flanked by the ladies, who were assembled to do honor to the guest of the State. It had been arranged that the ladies were to wave their handkerchiefs as soon as Lafayette came into sight, and when General Daniel exclaimed “Welcome, Lafayette!” the whole company was to repeat the welcome after him. Unluckily, the ladies, misunderstanding the programme, waited too long, and were reminded of their duty by a stentorian command of, “Flirt, ladies, flirt! flirt, I say!” from the general, who walked down the line to meet the Marquis. Equally misunderstanding their part, the soldiers, instead of shouting, “Welcome, Lafayette,” in unison at the close of the general’s address, repeated the sentence, one by one, and in varying tones.