University of Virginia Library

BRUNSWICK COUNTY AND ST. ANDREW'S PARISH.

The county of Brunswick and parish of St. Andrew's were established
in 1720, being cut off from the counties of Isle of Wight and
Surrey and the parishes of the same, by Act of Assembly. Being a
frontier-county, arms and ammunition were assigned to the settlers,
taxes remitted for ten years, and five hundred pounds given to Nathaniel
Harrison, Jonathan Allen, Henry Harrison, and William
Edwards, to be by them laid out in building a church, court-house,
prison, pillory and stocks, where they shall think fit. Twelve years
after this, in the year 1732, other portions of the Isle of Wight and
Surrey were added to Brunswick. Having had access to the vestry-book
of this parish, which commences in the year 1732, when the
county and parish were then completed, we are able to give a
more accurate account of the church and its ministers than of some
others. It is evident that there had been previous vestries, and
that the church ordered by the Assembly had been built, (where
is not known,) and there may have been a minister or ministers
before the commencement of this vestry-book. But in 1733 the
vestry met and chose the Rev. Mr. Beatty, at the recommendation

of the Governor. He was to preach at the church already built,
and some place on Meherrin, where a chapel was to be built. At
a meeting in 1734, two chapels, instead of one, were ordered, and
the places selected, but objection, it is supposed, being made, and
complaints sent to the Governor and Council, that body gave directions
where they were to be placed. The one was to be on Meherrin,
and called Meherrin Church, and the other on or near
Roanoke, to be called Roanoke Church, the old church to be called
the Mother-Church. In the year 1739, another church is determined
on, and in 1742, mention is made of the new church. In
1744, it is resolved to build a church on the south side of Roanoke.
In 1746, it is resolved to build a church on the south side of
Meherrin. In the year 1750, mention is made of Duke's Chapel,
and Rattlesnake Chapel. These, we presume, were additional to
the two on either side of Meherrin, and the two on either side of
Roanoke, and the Mother-Church,—being seven in all. As to their
location I can form no conjecture. The problem must be solved
by the citizens of Brunswick and Greensville, the latter county,
with one or more of the churches, having been cut off from the
former at a later period. In the year 1750, the Rev. Mr. Beatty
disappears from the record, having served the parish seventeen
years. In the same year the Rev. George Purdie is elected
minister for six months. At the end of the year the Rev. William
Pow,—the same no doubt who was soon after the minister in Bath
parish,—being recommended by the Hon. Lewis Burwell, President,
and the Commissary, is chosen. In six months after, the Rev.
Mr. Purdie is again the minister, though with the remonstrance
of four of the vestry. In November, 1752, the name of another
chapel—Reedy Creek—appears, and in the year 1754 another by
the name of Kittle Stick. At the same date the Rev. Mr. Purdie is
allowed to preach once in three months at Red Oak School-House,—
probably the place where Red Oak Church afterward stood.

At a vestry-meeting in 1755 the following entry is found:—

Under the same date we find mention of the Old Court-House
Church, and an order that the Surveyor of the county make a
plan of it, as it will be necessary to build three other chapels.

In the year 1757, we find the case of Mr. Purdie before the
vestry, the Commissary having ordered a trial. The witnesses
appear, when Mr. Purdie acknowledges guilt and resigns his
charge, but the vestry agree to try him for one year more. At
the end of that time, one month's trial was allowed him. They
are not relieved from him until April, 1760. His case is mentioned
in other documents which I have. The Rev. Patrick Lunan and
the Rev. Gronon Owen next present themselves as candidates, and
are both admitted on trial for one year, the salary to be equally
divided between them. The Rev. Mr. Lunan was doubtless the
one who gave such trouble to the parish in Suffolk soon after this.
The Rev. Mr. Owen had been recommended by the Governor, but
the recommendation did not come until the application of Mr.
Lunan had been made. Therefore they were both put on trial,
but at the end of the year neither was chosen. Governor Fauquier
then presented Mr. Owen, who was accepted. There was probably
some understanding between the vestry and Governor to this effect,
or else the Governor, being an authoritative man, insisted upon his
right of presentation and induction,—a thing seldom done by any
of his predecessors. Mr. Owen continued to be the minister until
1769, and died there. We should have had no knowledge whatever
of Mr. Owen but for a recent communication from a literary
society in London, from which it appears that he was a man of
talents and worth. The communication referred to makes inquiry
concerning him and his posterity, and their history in this country.
It seems that he was a Welshman, a man of great genius and a fine
scholar, who wrote one of the best poems in the Welsh language,
concerning Wales; and a Welsh society in England is desirous to
erect some monument to his memory in that country. All the
information which could be returned was, that some worthy grandchildren—two
females—were living in Brunswick in reduced circumstances.
No tombstone, no inscription, exists. Perhaps the
place of his interment is unknown. In the year 1769, the Rev.
Mr. Lundie produces a certificate from the Bishop of London of
his ordination, and is received as the minister.

The entries in the vestry-book now become irregular and brief.
The war of the Revolution was at hand. The best men were on
the field or in the councils of the country. Henry Tazwell, an
active member of the vestry, was taking an active part in the

affairs of the country. The ministers lost their salaries; the glebes
were for the most part scarcely worth having, and the glebe-houses
tumbling over their heads. The Rev. Mr. Lundie was among the few
who continued at his post during the war. His name is seen on
the Journal of the Convention in 1785, which met in Richmond to
organize the diocese and unite in the general confederation of the
Church in America. He was then the minister of the churches in
Greensville as well as Brunswick. After this he became a minister
of the Methodist communion. The names of Drury Stith,
John Jones, Thomas Claiborne, appear among the lay delegates.
They were probably among the last who despaired of the Church
in this region. It is believed that the Rev. Mr. Grammar in 1827
was, longo intervallo, the regular successor to Mr. Lundie. The
Rev. Messrs. Jarratt, Tucker, and Cameron, from the adjoining
counties of Dinwiddie and Lunenburg, doubtless performed many
ministerial offices there during their ministries.

In giving a list of the clergy in Bath parish, from Mr. Grammar's
time to the present, we have given the list of the ministers of St.
Andrew's parish, as they were under the same ministry, with the
exception of the three last,—the Revs. Messrs. Berger, Johnson, and
Mower, whose services have been confined to Brunswick, while Bath
parish had its own. Under the auspices of these ministers of our
resuscitated Church in Brunswick, three new churches have been
built, one at Lawrenceville, another about twelve miles off, called
Wilkin's Chapel, from the name of him who built it at his own expense,
and the third about eighteen miles from Lawrenceville.

The following is the list of vestrymen from the year 1732 to
1786:—Henry Embra, John Wall, Richard Burch, Wm. Machen,
Wm. Wynne, Charles King, Wm. Smith, Thomas Wilson, Robert
Dyer, Nicholas Lanier, Wm. Hagwood, Batt Peterson, Nathaniel
Edwards, James Mitchell, Clement Read, George Walter, John
Ligleport, Littleton Tazwell, Nicholas Edmonds, John Clack,
Thomas Switty, Henry Edmonds, Robert Briggs, Edward Goodrich,
Heagle Williams, John Petway, Samson Lanier, William
Thornton, W. Edwards, Henry Cocke, Alexander Watson, Thomas
Stith, Frederick Machen, Francis Willis, Henry Tazwell, Joseph
Poeples, Richard Elliott, William Batte, Thomas Edmonds, Wm.
Machen, Buckner Stith, Benjamin Blick, Birrus Jones, Andrew
Meade, John Stith, John B. Goldsberry. Among the above-mentioned
vestrymen we read the names of Clement Read, Littleton
and Henry Tazwell. Of the first we shall speak when we find
his name on the vestry-book of Cumberland parish, Lunenburg, when

separated from Brunswick. For notices of the two Tazwells, we
refer to Mr. Grigsby's book on the Convention of 1776. The
first was descended from William Tazwell, who came from Somersetshire
in 1715, and married a daughter of Colonel Southey
Littleton. His son Littleton resided in Brunswick and was an
active vestryman and churchwarden. His grandson Henry was
born there, and became a lawyer of eminence. He married a Miss
Waller. He was the father of the present Littleton Waller Tazwell.
After distinguishing himself as a statesman and patriot in
the House of Burgesses, and in other causes during and after the
war, he was raised to the bench of the Court of Appeals, and then
appointed Senator of the United States in the place of Mr. John
Taylor, of Caroline, and in opposition to Mr. Madison.