 | Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia |  |
OF BLISSLAND PARISH.
A few words will suffice for the little we have to say of this. No
vestry-book remains to tell its history.
Though a small parish, yet being near to Williamsburg it was
doubtless continually supplied, from its establishment in 1684 or
1685, until the year 1785, when we lose sight of it from the list of
clergy and parishes and the journals of Conventions.
In the year 1724 the Rev. Daniel Clayton was the minister, and
had been for twenty years, as he writes to the Bishop of London.
There were two churches in it. The parish had one hundred
and thirty-six families. His salary was eighty pounds per annum.
The glebe was worth nothing. No school or library was in the
parish.
In the year 1758 the Rev. Chichely Thacker was the minister.
In the years 1773, 1774, 1776, and 1785, the Rev. Price Davies
was the rector. In the latter year he appears in the Convention
at Richmond, attended by Mr. Burwell Bassett as lay delegate,
while the Rev. James Semple and Mr. William Hartwell Macon
represented St. Peter's parish. What has become of the churches
of Blissland parish I am unable to say. Perhaps I may yet learn.
I think one of them was an old brick church, on the roadside from
New Kent to Williamsburg, about twelve miles from the latter, and
which I have seen in former days,—the walls still good, and nothing
else remaining.
| Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia | |