 | Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia |  |
ARTICLE XXXII.
Parishes in Middlesex.—No. 2.
Hitherto we have been entirely occupied with the history of
the clergy of this county. This being an early settlement,
lying on one of the finest rivers in Virginia, and near the
bay, we might expect to find here many of the ancestors of
some of the most respectable families of Virginia. As the vestrymen
were chosen from the leading citizens of each parish, we
shall give, in the order in which they appear on the vestry-book
for more than one hundred years, a full list of all who served the
parish in that capacity. Those who have any acquaintance with
the Virginia families, and with many who have dispersed themselves
throughout the West and South, will readily trace great
numbers to the parish of which we are treating. For the sake of
brevity we shall only mention the surnames, and afterward be more
specific as to a few of them. Corbin, Perrott, Chewning, Potter,
Vause, Weeks, Willis, Cock, Curtis, Smith, Dudley, Thacher, Skipwith,
Beverley, Wormley, Jones, Miller, Scarborough, Woodley,
Whitaker, Robinson, Warwick, Gordon, Chichester, Midge, Churchill,
Burnham, Wormley 2d, Kemp, Smith 2d, Cary, Dudley 2d,
Smith 3d, Daniel, Price, Mann, Seager, Vause 2d, Cock 2d, Cant,
Skipwith 2d, Wormley 3d, Thacher 2d, Grimes, Beverley 2d, Kilbee,
Kemp 2d, Corbin 2d, Robinson 2d, Walker, Jones 2d, Wormley
4th, Standard, Churchill 2d, Robinson 3d, Walker 2d, Robinson 4th,
Hardin, Wormley 5th, Corbin 3d, Smith 4th, Grymes 2d, Stanard
2d, Reid, Carter 2d, Elliot, Miles, Montague, Grymes 3d, Nelson,
Smith 5th. (The figures 2, 3, 4, 5 signify how many of the same
name and family held the office of vestrymen at different times.
They were probably sons, grandsons, &c.) The old English aristocracy
is apparent on the vestry-books. Sir Henry Chichely, Baronet
and Knight, (he was once Deputy-Governor of Virginia,) Sir William
Skipwith, Baronet and Knight, appear always at the head of the
vestrymen as written in the vestry-books, these titles giving them
the precedence. They appear to have been active and liberal, giving
appear to have been churchwardens for a longer period than any
others. The Thackers and Robinsons were also constant attendants
and active churchwardens for a long time. So also the Smiths,
Churchills, Curtises, Corbins, and Beverleys. Many of the above-mentioned
vestrymen were members of the Council, and held other
offices in the Colonial Government. The first Beverley on the list
was the celebrated Robert Beverley, so noted in the early history of
Virginia as a martyr in the cause of liberty. He was Clerk to the
House of Burgesses, and father of Robert Beverley, the historian of
Virginia, and ancestor of the other Beverleys. There were always
three lay readers, one to each of the churches,—the middle or mother,
or Great Church, and the upper and lower. We read the names of
Chewning, Baldwin, and Stevens, among the lay readers. They
were required not only to read Homilies, but to catechize the children
and see that every thing about the churches was kept clean
and in order, that the leaves around the churches (which were built
in the woods) should be burnt, in order to preserve the churches
from being destroyed by some of the great fires which were common
in the woods. It was not always easy to get suitable persons as
lay readers. We find at one meeting an express act of the vestry,
requiring that they be sober and reputable men; and this was only
an echo of the Act of Assembly. Complaints appear on the vestry-books
of the irregular attendance of the members, and a fine was
imposed of so much tobacco for each failure. The vestry appear
on several occasions to have taxed themselves with something extra
for the clergyman, though for every thing done and furnished for
the church, even the wealthiest made charges, as for communionwine,
putting up a horse-block, &c. The duties of the vestrymen
were to see that the salaries of the ministers be collected, which
was no easy matter, seeing that it must be gotten from the whole
country. They also took care of the poor, of orphan and illegitimate
children, imposed fines, and appointed persons to procession
the lands,—that is, renew the landmarks from time to time. Certain
offences against good morals were sometimes punished by them. In
one instance a lady of respectable family was fined five hundredweight
of tobacco for breaking the seventh commandment.[100] The
servants, of whom, at an early period, great numbers came over to
this country, binding themselves to the richer families. The number
of illegitimate children born of them and thrown upon the
parish led to much action on the part of the vestries and the legislature.
The lower order of persons in Virginia, in a great measure,
sprang from those apprenticed servants and from poor exiled culprits.
It is not wonderful that there should have been much debasement
of character among the poorest population, and that the negroes
of the first families should always have considered themselves a
more respectable class. To this day there are many who look upon
poor white folks (for so they call them) as much beneath themselves;
and, in truth, they are so in many respects. The churchwardens
in this parish, among other things, were directed to assign seats in
the churches to the different families, which they no doubt did with
some reference to family and wealth, as in England. Mr. Matthew
Kemp, as churchwarden, received the commendation of the vestry
for displacing an unworthy woman, who insisted on taking a pew
above her degree. Four of the families of Wormley, Grymes,
Churchill, and Berkeley, obtained leave of the vestry to put an
addition of twenty feet square to one of the churches (the lower
one) for their special use. It was very common, as we shall see
hereafter, for certain families to build galleries for themselves after
the manner of their forefathers in England, and it was hard sometimes
to dislodge their descendants, even when their position was
uncomfortable and not very safe. There was one very important
duty which the vestries had to perform, and which was sometimes
a subject of dispute between them and the Governor of Virginia,—
viz.: to maintain their rights, as representing the people, in the
choice and settlement of ministers. In the English Church the
congregation have no part in the choice of their ministers. Patrons
appoint them, and livings support them. In Virginia, as the salary
was drawn directly from the people by the vestries, the vestries
sometimes claimed not only the right to choose the ministers, but
to turn them away at pleasure. In the absence of Bishops and
temptation on the part of the vestries to act arbitrarily if the power
was entirely vested in them. To prevent this, the Governor claimed
to be the ordinary, and to act as Bishop in relation to this point.
He, appealing to an English canon, allowed the vestries the right
of choosing their minister and presenting to him for induction.
Being inducted, the minister could not be displaced by the vestry:
he had a right to the salary, and might enforce it by an appeal to
law, unless, indeed, for misconduct, he could be deprived by some
difficult and tedious process under the direction of the Governor.
Should the vestry not appoint a minister within six months after
a vacancy, then the Governor might send one, and induct him as
the permanent minister, not to be removed by the vestry. The
Governor of Virginia in 1703, Mr. Nicholson, at the time about
which I am writing, maintained also that he had a right to send a
temporary supply to any parish immediately on the occurrence of
a vacancy, which supply might be superseded by one of their own
choice within the six months. It is the same power which some
have proposed to vest in our Bishops in relation to a temporary
supply of vacant parishes. It is evident that such a power would
very much interfere with the free choice of ministers by the vestries,
since the minister thus sent as the supply would have a great advantage
over others who might be obtained. To refuse him after
trial would be to condemn the choice of the Bishop, and be an offence
to himself. The above is the view taken of the relative
power of the vestry and Governor, in an opinion of the Queen's
Attorney-General, Mr. Edward Northy, which was sent by the
Governor to all the vestries of the Church, and directed to be put
on record.[101] The action of the vestries uniformly show their determination
to defend themselves as well as they could against the
evils consequent upon such a construction of the law. As to the
immediate temporary supply of the vacancies, that does not appear
to have been attempted by the Governor, although the right was
claimed. In order to prevent the minister being suddenly inducted
and put upon them for life, (whether one of their own choice or
of the Governor,) who might soon prove unworthy, while in reality
there was no method of getting rid of him, since no civil Governor
ministers for a limited time, generally twelve months,
sometimes less, repeating the same again and again until they were
sufficiently satisfied of their worthiness and suitableness, and then
of presenting him to the Governor for induction and permanent
settlement. Against this there was no law, and the Governor
acquiesced in it. And who can blame them for adopting such a
course? Bad as the state of things was even under that wise precaution,
how much worse would it have been, if the choice of the
vestry or the appointment of the Governor, after such a slight
acquaintance as either of them were likely to have with foreigners,
must be perpetuated for better for worse, even as the marriages of
some in that day, who imported their wives from England without
knowing them! It is but justice to the vestries to say, that as a
general thing, when they secured the services of a respectable
minister, they retained him during life. Although I shall shortly
show one instance to the contrary, I shall also show a number in
confirmation of it. It is also due to the vestries to say, that, in
compliance with the decision of the Governor, they always allowed
to the ministers who were not inducted the same rights, perquisites,
and privileges with those who were inducted. This principle is, I
believe, confirmed by one of the canons of our General Convention.
If now it be asked what was the state of morals and religion in
the parish where the leading men, the nobility and the gentry, took
such an active part in support of the public service of God, and
when the moral character of the ministers appears to have been
good, whatever may have been the substance and style of their
preaching, I must point to the fact that a pious man, Mr. William
Churchill, being a churchwarden, by his last will, in the year 1711,
left a sum of money, whose interest was to be used for the encouragement
of the minister to preach "against the four reigning vices
of atheism and irreligion, of swearing and cursing, fornication and
adultery, and drunkenness." They must have been prevalent in
that day to have prompted such a bequest. That they increased
more and more, even to the time of the French Revolution, is but
too probable. It was so with all ranks of the community. The
seats of the rich and the educated were the scenes of a more refined
voluptuousness, while many of the abodes of the poor were filled
with the lowest vices. And what has been the end of these things?
But for the uneducated and sometimes fanatical ministers, who, in
the providence of God, were after a time permitted to preach the
Gospel to the poor in Middlesex, where would have been the Church
become of the old Episcopal families, the Skipwiths, Wormleys,
Grymeses, Churchills, Robinsons, Berkeleys, and others? What
has become of, or who owns, those mansions where were the voluptuous
feasts, the sparkling wine, the flowing bowl, the viol and the
dance and the card-table, and the dogs for the chase, and the
horses for the turf? I am told, and I believe it, that the whole of
that county was at one time in possession of some few of these old
families, and that now not a rood of it is owned by one of their
name, and scarcely by one in whom is a remnant of their blood.
Old Brandon, the seat of my maternal ancestors, the Grymeses, is
gone, except a small part of it. Rosegill, where the Wormleys
lived in English state, has passed from hand to hand, and is reduced
to less than half its size. Even the places of many others
cannot now be found. The ploughshare has been over them, as it
has been over the ruins of many an old church in Virginia. But
still there were good and holy men and women there, in whom the
spirit of the Gospel and of the Prayer Book reigned, and that spirit
has possessed many of their exiled posterity. While some of the
descendants of those whose names I have recorded have been but
too well known in Virginia as unworthy, there have been a good
number of both sexes who have proved themselves to be an honour
to the State, and active agents in rebuilding the Church of their
fathers. Old Middlesex, too, once about to be deserted of its inhabitants
by reason of disease, exhaustion, and barrenness, has of
late years entered upon a new and unexpected career. Resting as
it were on a bed of richest marl, her agriculture has been revolutionized,
and she bids fair one day, and that not a distant one, to
compare with some of the fairest portions of our land. And what
has become of the old Mother-Church—the Great Church, as she is
styled in her journal—standing in view of the wide Rappahannock,
midway between Rosegill and Brandon? More perhaps than fifty
years ago it was deserted. Its roof decayed and fell in. Every
thing within it returned to its native dust. But nature abhors a
vacuum. A sycamore-tree sprung up within its walls. All know
the rapidity of that tree's growth. It filled the void. Its boughs
soon rose above and overspread the walls. In the year 1840, when
it pleased God to put it into the hearts of some, in whom the spirit
of old Virginia Episcopalians still remained, to seek the revival of
the Church's dry bones in Middlesex, that huge, overspreading tree
must first be removed piecemeal from the house, and the rich mould
of fifty years' accumulation, to the depth of two feet, must be dug
The walls—faithful workmanship of other days—were uninjured, and
may still remain while generations of frail modern structures pass
away. The house is now one of our best country-churches. The
graves of our ancestors are all around it. In scattered fragments
some of the tombstones lie; others, too substantial to be broken, too
heavy to be borne away, now plainly tell whose remains are protected
by them. To the attention and kindness of a young female near
the spot, I am indebted for the following inscription, selected from
many others, and which will not be without interest to some Virginians,
and to others who have long since left the old homes of
their fathers for the Far South or West:
EPITAPH OF MR. JOHN GRYMES.[102]
"Here lies interred the body of the Honourable John Grymes, Esq.,
who for many years acted in the public affairs of this Dominion, with
honour, fortitude, fidelity to their Majesties King George I. and II. Of
the Council of State, of the Royal Prerogative, of the liberty and property
of the subject, a zealous asserter. On the seat of judgment, clear, sound,
unbiassed. In the office of Receiver-General, punctual, approved. Of the
College of William and Mary an ornament, visitor, patron. Beneficent to
all, a pattern of true piety. Respected, loved, revered. Lamented by his
family, acquaintance, country. He departed this life the 2d day of November,
1748, in the 57th year of his age."[103]
Mr. John Grymes was the grandfather of Mrs. General Nelson, of York, and
of Mrs. Susan Burwell, first wife of Colonel Nathaniel Burwell, of Carter Hall,
Clarke county, Virginia, all now deceased.
In connection with this epitaph on Major John Grymes, who appears to have
been highly esteemed in Church and State, we give the following account of the
family, which is taken from tradition, the vestry-records, and some registries of
baptisms and marriages. It is believed that Thomas Grymes, who was a lieutenant-general
in the army of Cromwell, was the father of the first Grymes who came to
Virginia; that his son was well pleased to come to Virginia after the fall of Cromwell
and the restoration of monarchy, and there is a tradition that he even made
some change in his name when coming to this loyal Colony. The son's name was
John, who appears on the vestry-book as one of the vestry in 1694. He and Anne
his wife were sponsors to a child of the Rev. Mr. Gray, the minister in 1695 and
1696. They lived in Middlesex, near to Piankatank, at a place called Grymesby
to this day. Their tombstones still lie in an open field, upon the ground, and the
plougshare sometimes passes over them. Although the family has long since parted
with the place, I am happy to say that it is in contemplation to remove the monuments
to the old churchyard, where so many of their descendants are buried.
This John Grymes continued to act as vestryman until 1708, when he withdrew,—no
doubt from old age or infirmity, as he died not long after. His son John, whose
epitaph we have given, was born in 1693, and became a vestryman in 1711, when
only eighteen years of age, and continued to be such until his death in 1748,—thirtyseven
years. Whether the first John Grymes had other children besides the second
John does not certainly appear; but from a baptismal registry we think it probable
he had a son named Charles, as one of that name had a child baptized in 1734.
The second John and Lucy his wife had the following children between 1720 and
1733:—Lucy, Philip, Charles, (who died early,) Benjamin, Sarah, Charles, Ludwell.
Of these, Lucy married Carter Burwell, of The Grove, near Williamsburg; Philip
married Mary Randolph, daughter of Mr. John Randolph, of Williamsburg, in 1742;
and Benjamin married Miss Fitzhugh, sister of William Fitzhugh, of Chatham, near
Fredericksburg. Lucy was the mother of Mr. Nathaniel Burwell, of The Grove,
who afterward moved to Frederick.
Philip was the father of Lucy, John, (who died early,) Philip Ludwell, John
Randolph, Charles, Benjamin, Susannah, Mary, Peyton, and Betty. Lucy married
General Thomas Nelson; Philip Ludwell married, first, a Miss Randolph, daughter
of John Randolph who went to England, but had no children, then Miss Wormley,
by whom he had Mrs. Sayres and others. John Randolph Grymes followed Mr.
John Randolph to England and there married his daughter. Of Charles we know
nothing certain. Benjamin married Miss Robinson, of King William, and had numerous
children, (names of all not known,) of whom only Peyton Grymes, of Orange,
and one sister, survive. Betty married Dr. Pope. Susannah, Mr. Nathaniel
Burwell, of The Grove, and afterward of Frederick. Mary married Mr. Robert
Nelson, of Malvern Hill, brother of General Nelson. Benjamin, the son of the
second John Grymes, and who married Miss Fitzhugh, settled near Fredericksburg
and had large iron-works. He was the father of Mrs. Colonel Meade, of Frederick,
and of Captain Benjamin Grymes, of King George, by his first wife; and, by a second,
of Ludwell Grymes, Charles Grymes, Randolph Grymes, Mrs. Wedderburne, and
Mrs. Dudley.
The following is also worthy of insertion:—
"Here lyeth the body of Lucy Berkliey, who departed this life ye 16th day of December,
1716, in ye 33d year of her Age, after she had been married 12 years and
15 days. She left behind her 5 children, viz.: 2 Boys and 3 Girls. I shall not
pretend to give her full character: it would take too much room for a Gravestone:
shall only say she never neglected her duty to her Creator in Publick or Private,
she was Charitable to the Poor, a Kind Mistress, an Indulgent Mother, and Obedient
Wife. She never in all the time she lived with her husband gave him so much as
once cause to be displeased with her."—Copied from a tombstone at Barn Elm,
Middlesex.
The following have also been sent me:—
"This monument is erected to the memory of Ralph Wormley, Esq.,
of Rosegill, who died on the 19th day of January, 1806, in the 62d year
of his age. The rules of honour guided the actions of this great man. He
was the perfect gentleman and finished scholar, with many virtues founded
on Christianity."[104]
"Beneath this marble lies interred the remains of Mrs. Eleanor Wormley,
widow of Ralph Wormley, Esq., of Rosegill, and sister of Col. John
Tayloe, of Mount Airey, who died the 23d day of February, 1815, in the
60th year of her age. Few women were more eminently distinguished for
as a wife she was conjugal, as a widow exemplary, as a mother fond and
affectionate, as a neighbour charitable and kind, as a friend steady and
sincere."
There were also buried within the church Sir Henry Chichely,
Knight, Deputy-Governor of Virginia in 1682. The Rev. John
Shephard in the same, and the Honourable Lady Madam Catharine
Wormley, wife of the Honourable Ralph Wormley, (the first Ralph
Wormley,) in the year 1685. The following is a communication
from the present minister of our partly-resuscitated Church in
Middlesex, (the Rev. Mr. Carraway.)
"The upper and lower churches or chapels are still standing. One of
them is about to be repaired by the Baptists, who will claim the chief
though not exclusive use of it. The lower chapel retains some appearance
of antiquity, in spite of the efforts to destroy every vestige of Episcopal
taste and usage. The high pulpit and sounding-board have been removed,
and the reading-desk placed within the chancel, before which is the
roughly-carved chest that formerly held the plate and other articles for
the decent celebration of the Holy Communion. There were three sets of
plate in the parish. A descendant of one of the earliest families, now the
wife of one of our Virginia clergy, on removing from this county, took
with her, in order to keep from desecration, the service belonging to the
lower chapel. She lent it to a rector of one of the churches in Richmond,
with the understanding that upon the revival of the parish it must be
restored. Application was accordingly made in the year 1840, and the
vestry received the value of the plate in money, which was given at their
suggestion, they having a full service in their possession. The plate owned
by Christ Church was presented by the Hon. Ralph Wormley. It numbered
five pieces. But for the inscription bearing the name of the donor,
it would have shared the fate of much that was irreligiously and sacrilegiously
disposed of. The administrator of Mr. Wormley deposited it in
the bank at Fredericksburg, where it remained for more than thirty years.
It has been in use up to a few months since, when, we regret to say, it
met with almost entire destruction by fire. Enough has been gathered up
to make a service more than sufficient for the present little company of
communicants. It will perpetuate the name of the donor and indicate his
pious intention. The third set, belonging to the upper chapel, was sold
by the overseers of the poor. We omitted to mention in the proper place
that there are some slight traces of the foundation of a building, now
overgrown with pine-trees, which tradition says was the chapel of the
Buckingham farm, the residence of Mr. Henry Corbin."
A few words will suffice for the history of efforts for the revival
of the Church in Middlesex. The Rev. Mr. Rooker was employed
as missionary, in this and the adjoining county of Mathews, for a
few years after 1840. His preaching and labours excited a considerable
zeal in the few remaining members of the Church in those
counties. He was succeeded by its present minister, the Rev. Mr.
faithfully and laboriously to those two counties. Though the fields
be large and comparatively unproductive, requiring great toil and a
large amount of itinerancy, and the salary small, still, no invitations
to more promising and less laborious positions have tempted him to
leave them. Himself and companion are now, and have been for
some years, the welcome inmates of the family of Captain Bailey,
who, with his excellent wife, (a pious member of the Church,) is
living at old Rosegill, the ancient seat of the Wormleys, on the
high banks of the Rappahannock, a few miles from Christ Church.
Captain Bailey, (the relative of our old friend Colonel Chewning,
of Lancaster, one of whose descendants was vestryman and another
lay reader in Middlesex, whose dwelling is on the opposite shore,)
when an orphan boy, in a spirit of independence, left Lancaster to
seek his fortune in the wide world. He launched forth for Baltimore
in a merchant-vessel, traversed many seas, visited many lands
and experienced many dangers and hardships, was shipwrecked
often, (Mrs. B. being with him in one shipwreck,) but still preserved
by a kind Providence. Occasionally, in the midst of his various
efforts to realize a fortune, in which he was at length most successful,
he would return to his native place, and, as Colonel Chewning
has often told me, cast a wishful eye on old Rosegill, towering on the
high banks of the Rappahannock, and declaring his determination,
if Providence spared his life and prospered his efforts, that he
would spend the evening of his days as the owner of that mansion.
Providence has spared his life and prospered his efforts in laying
up a fortune gathered from various seas and countries, and he and
his wife are now the hospitable owners of Rosegill. More than
half of the huge pile has been removed by him, and the remainder
exalted, beautified, and improved. Hospitality, though modified
and improved from former times, still distinguishes the place.
Captain B. and his excellent wife are glad to have the society of
Mr. and Mrs. Carraway as permanent guests, free of all charge.
Besides patronizing old Christ Church on the one side of him, he
has recently purchased the old court-house in Urbanna on the other,
and converted it into a neat and comfortable house of worship.
Mr. Carraway's services are very acceptable, and the Episcopal
Church is gradually rising in the estimation of the inhabitants of
Middlesex.
Mr. Wormley attended a number of the Episcopal Conventions after the Revolution.
After his death, the descendants of Colonel Edmund Berkeley appear to be
almost all that remained of the church. That family preserved the vestry-book,
from which I have obtained the foregoing information.
It is due to these times to say that the courts and juries were not entirely
negligent of their duties, but sometimes set examples which those of our day
would do well to follow. The following extracts from the presentments of a Grand
Jury of Middlesex in 1704 are proofs of this:—
"1st. We present Thomas Sims for travelling on the road on the Sabbath-day
with a loaded beast.
"2d. We present William Montague and Garrett Minor for bringing oysters
ashore on the Sabbath-day.
"3d. We present James Lewis for swearing and cursing on the Sabbath-day.
"Ordered, That John Hutney be fined according to law for being drunk on the
Sabbath-day."
Beverley, in his History, expresses the following opinion of Governor Nicholson:—
"And lastly, Governor Nicholson, a man the least acquainted with the law of
any of them, endeavoured to introduce all the quirks of the English proceedings,
by the help of some wretched pettifoggers, who had the direction both of his conscience
and his understanding."
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