FALLING CREEK CHURCH.
"I visited Falling Creek Church in 1849, and note the following particulars
concerning it:—
"This church is in Chesterfield county, about thirteen miles southwest
of Richmond. It is situated in what is now a very secluded spot. I instinctively
raised my hat as I crossed the old decaying threshold and stood
under the roof of this ancient edifice. It is a wooden building, the timbers
of the very best quality, and even at the time [1849] in a state of
almost perfect preservation. After the old style, we find the clerk's desk
at the foot of the reading-desk, and, rising above both, the pulpit,—the
latter of octagonal form, with a sounding-board. These were at the side
of the church. At the end of the aisle, and opposite the main entrance,
were the chancel and communion-table. A side-door faces the pulpit. The
window-shutters were, with one or two exceptions, all missing. The sashes
had been taken from the windows and scattered about the church and
yard, and none of them appeared to have ever had a single pane of
glass, so carefully had the work of appropriation been carried on. The
pews are square, with seats on all four sides, and capable of accommodating
about fifteen or twenty persons each. About two hundred persons
could have been comfortably seated on the floor of the church, while many
additional sittings might have been found in a gallery which ran across
the end of the house opposite the chancel.
"A gray-haired old negro—not very talkative, but a coloured gentleman
of the old school, for his manners were almost courtly—informed me that
he could `just remember when the church was built, being then a mere boy.'
He said that it was always crowded `when the clergyman with the black
gown preached.' He remembered, too, `when the British soldiers camped
in the churchyard,'—at whose appearance his master and mistress, and all
their family, hurriedly fled. The name of his master I have forgotten. He
pointed out one of the largest trees in the churchyard, and told me he had
seen that tree planted as a scion at the head of an infant's grave. He
had forgotten whose child it was. The Baptists had used the church
for some time, until of late years, when they abandoned it, owing to its
retired position. It was taken possession of by those who did not feel it
was holy ground, for its walls were desecrated with scribbling unsuited to
the sacredness of the place; and about a month before my visit the dead
body of a poor creature, noted in the neighbourhood for his drunken
habits, was discovered lying at the foot of the clerk's desk, much defaced
by the rats. Better that the owls and the bats should have undisturbed
possession, than that God's image should thus be defiled in the house of
prayer."
There was a warm friend of the Church living near this place,
of whom it becomes us to make some mention. Mr. Archibald
Cary, of Amphill, in Chesterfield, appears in the Episcopal Conventions
in the years 1785 and 1786, as delegate from Dale parish.
In the last of these years he died. I refer my readers to Mr.
Grigsby's work on the Convention of 1776, for a sketch of the political
character and patriotic services of Mr. Cary. He was among
the very foremost of the patriots of Virginia. "It was from his
lips, as Chairman of the Committee of the Whole, that the words
of the resolution of Independence, of the Declaration of Rights,
and a plan of government, first fell upon the public ear." The
following is a brief sketch of one branch of the Carys, from Mr.
Grigsby's book:—
"Miles Cary, the son of John Cary, of Bristol, England, came to Virginia
in 1640, and settled in the county of Warwick, which, in 1659, he represented
in the House of Burgesses. In 1667 he died, leaving four sons.
His son Henry, father of Archibald, was appointed to superintend the
building of the capitol at Williamsburg, (when the seat of government
was removed from Jamestown;) also at a later period to superintend the
rebuilding of the college, which had been burnt. He married a daughter of
Richard Randolph, of Curles, and left five daughters, who married Thos.
Mann Randolph, of Tuckahoe, Thos. Isham Randolph, of Dungeness,
Archibald Bolling, Carter Page, of Cumberland, and Joseph Kincade."
This branch has been denominated the Iron Carys, from the fact
that Archibald Cary was called "Old Iron," either, says Mr.
Grigsby, because of his "capacity of physical endurance" or
"his indomitable courage," or because he had an iron furnace
and mills at Falling Creek, on the site of one established by
Colonel Berkeley, who, with a number of his men, was murdered
by the Indians in 1622. Mr. Cary's mills were burned by Colonel
Tarleton in the American war.
