 | A history of Caroline county, Virginia |  |
CLERICAL SIDELIGHTS ON COLONIAL CAROLINE
The Reverend Jonathan Boucher was born in England, "at
Blencogo, in Cumberland, England, a small hamlet on the road
between Wigton and Allonby," March 12, 1738. He came to
America in the year 1757, and in 1761 was nominated by the
vestry of Hanover Parish, King George County, for the rectorship.
Not being in orders he went to England, where, on March
26, 1762, he was ordained. On returning to America he took
charge of the parish to which he had been nominated and here
he remained until he removed to St. Mary's Parish in Caroline
County, which lay across the Rappahannock river, opposite
Hanover Parish.
Mr. Boucher was married three times; his first wife being a
niece of the great Addison of The Spectator. She was a woman
of rare beauty, and the story of their first meeting is both singular
and interesting. Mr. Boucher was visiting a certain community
in Caroline for the first time, and, while here, he called on a
man with whom he had no previous acquaintance. This man's
daughter had dreamed on the night before of the arrival of a strange
young man who should become her husband. On answering the
knock at the door the young lady swooned, for before her was the
face she had seen in her dream.
During those troubled and trying days just before the outbreak
of the Revolution, when many of the most pronounced
Tories weakened, Boucher remained an ardent Royalist and
persisted in preaching loyalty and adherence to the mother
country. This led to intense opposition to his ministry in St.
Mary's Parish, and even to attempted violence. On one occasion
he was warned before the morning Service in Old Mount Church
(now Rappahannock Academy) that if he dared to read one word
of the loyal Bidding-prayer he would be instantly shot dead in
his pulpit. Nevertheless he appeared in his pulpit, on the
moment, with two ominous horse pistols which he placed on his
pulpit cushion, and thereupon proceeded to read the forbidden
prayer distinctly. When he had finished he calmly descended
the pulpit stairs to his vestry.
It appears that Mr. Boucher conceived the notion that for
some unaccountable reason—possibly his intimacy with Washington—he
had been singled out from all others who held similar
political sentiments, and persecuted and punished beyond reason.
to Washington under date of August 6, 1775, which letter is
reproduced in full in Notes and Queries (London) Volume six
of the fifth series, and which is in part, as follows:
"To Colonel George Washington,
"The Lodge, August 6th, 1775:
"Dear Sir,—I thought it far from the least pleasing circumstance
attending my removal hither that it placed me in your immediate
neighborhood. For having now been happy in your acquaintance
several years, I could not help considering myself, nor indeed
help hoping that I was considered by you, as an old friend; and
of course I counted on our living together in the pleasing intercourse
of giving and receiving the mutual good offices of neighborhood
and friendship.
"That things have turned out much otherwise I need not
inform you. Mortified and grieved as I confess myself to be at
this disappointment, I am by no means prepared to say that you
are wholly to be blamed for it; nor, as I would fain hope you in
your turn will own, is it entirely owing to any fault of mine.
I can easily suppose at least that neither of us think ourselves to
blame; and yet I cannot help thinking that had I been in your
place I should have taken a different part from that which you
have chosen. Permit me, sir, as one who was once your friend,
freely to expostulate with you. If I am still in the wrong, I am
about to suffer such punishment as might satisfy the malice of
even the most vindictive enemy.
"On the great points so long debated between us it is not
my design to again to solicit your attention. We have now
each of us taken and avowed our side, and with such ardour as
becomes men who are earnest in their convictions. That we
should both be right is impossible, but that we both think we are
must in common candour be allowed. And this extreme difference
of opinion between ourselves, where we have no grounds for
charging each other with being influenced by any sinister or
unworthy motives, should teach us no less candour in judging
of and dealing by others in a similar predicament. * * * *
The true plan is for each party to defend his own side as well
as he can by fair argument, and also, if possible, to convince
his adversary; but everything that savours of, or approaches
to, coercion or compulsion is persecution and tyranny.
"It is on this ground that I complain of you and those with
whom you side. How large a proportion of the people in general
think with you or think with me it is not in our power to ascertain
here. * * * * But there is this difference between us. No
Tory has yet in a single instance misused or injured a Whig merely
for being a Whig. And whatever may be the boasted superiority
of your party, it will not be denied that in some instances at
least this has been in our power. With respect to Whig, however,
the case has been exactly the reverse: A Tory at all in the
power of a Whig never escaped ill treatment merely because of
his being a Tory. How contrary all this is to that liberty which
Whigs are ever so forward to profess need not be insisted on here;
it is so contrary to all justice and honour, that were there no
other reasons, I would not be a Whig, because their principle as
exemplified in practice, lead to that which is so mean and unmanly.
"It is a general fault to charge all the errors of a party on every
individual of that party. I wish to avoid the disgrace of so
indiscriminate a judgment by acknowledging that I know many
Whigs who are not tyrants. In this number it is but doing you
common justice to place you. I wish I could go on and also
declare that you have been careful to discourage others from persecution;
but, scorning to flatter, as much as I scorn to tax you
wrongfully, I am bold to tell you that you have much to answer
for in this way. It is not a little that you have to answer for with
respect to myself.
"You know you have acknowledged the sincerity and the
purity of my principles; and have been so candid as to lament
that you could not think on the great points that agitate our
common country as I do. Now, sir, it is impossible I should
sometimes avow one kind of principles and sometimes another.
I have at least the merit of consistency; and neither in any private
or public conversation, in anything I have written, nor in anything
I have delivered from the pulpit, have I ever asserted any other
opinions or doctrines than you have repeatedly heard me assert,
both in my own house and yours. You cannot say that I deserve
to be run down, vilified, and injured in the manner you know has
fallen to my lot, merely because I cannot bring myself to think
on some political points just as you and your party would have
me think. And yet you have borne to look on, at least as an
in a manner been pelted to death. I do not ask if such conduct
in you was friendly: was it either just, manly or generous? * * ."
It is fitting to remark here that twenty-two years later, on
publishing A View of the Causes and Consequences of the
American Revolution, Mr. Boucher dedicated his volume to the
very man whom he thought had played so mean a part, and
who was no longer worthy of his friendship. The dedication
was in the following words:
"To George Washington, Esquire, of Mount Vernon, in
Fairfax County, Virginia. Sir, In prefixing your name to a
work avowedly hostile to that Revolution in which you bore a
distinguished part, I am not conscious that I deserve to be
charged with inconsistency. I do not address myself to the
General of a Conventional Army, but to the late dignified President
of the United States, the friend of rational and sober freedom.
"As a British subject I have observed with pleasure that the
form of Government, under which you and your fellow-citizens
now hope to find peace and happiness, however defective in many
respects, has, in the unity of its executive, and the division of its
legislative, powers, been formed after a British model. That, in
the discharge of your duties as head of this Government, you have
resisted those anarchical doctrines, which are hardly less dangerous
to America than to Europe, is not more an eulogium on the
wisdom of our forefathers, than honourable to your individual
wisdom and integrity.
"As a Minister of Religion I am equally bound to tender you
my respects for having (in your valedictory addressed to your
countrymen) asserted your opinion that `the only firm supports
of political prosperity, are religion and morality,' and that,
`morality can be maintained only by religion.' Those best friends
of mankind, who, amidst all the din and uproar and Utopian
reforms, persist to think that the affairs of this world can never
be well administered by men trained to disregard the God who
made it, must ever thank you for this decided protest against the
fundamental maxim of modern revolutionist, that religion is no
concern of the State.
"It is on these grounds, Sir, that I now presume (and I hope
not impertinently) to add my name to the list of those who
have dedicated their works to you. One of them, not inconsiderable
in fame, from having been your fulsome flatterer, has become
myself I have no resemblance. I bring no incense to your shrine
even in a Dedication. Having never paid court to you whilst you
shone in an exalted station, I am not so weak as to steer my
little bark across the Atlantic in search of patronage and preferment;
or so vain as to imagine that, now, in the evening of
my life, I may yet be warmed by your setting sun. My utmost
ambition will be abundantly gratified by your condescending, as
a private Gentleman in America, to receive with candour and
kindness this disinterested testimony of regard from a private
Clergyman in England. I was once your neighbor and your
friend: the unhappy dispute, which terminated in the disunion
of our respective countries, also broke off our personal connexion:
but I never was more than your political enemy; and every
sentiment even of political animosity has, on my part, long ago
subsided. Permit me then, to hope that this tender of renewed
amity between us may be received and regarded as giving some
promise of that perfect reconciliation between our two countries
which it is the sincere aim of this publication to promote. If,
on this topic, there be another wish still nearer to my heart, it
is that you would not think it beneath you to co-operate with
so humble an effort to produce that reconciliation.
"You have shown great prudence (and, in my estimation,
greater patrotism) in resolving to terminate your days in retirement.
To become, however, even at Mount Vernon, a mere
private man, by divesting yourself of all public influence, is not
in your power. I hope it is not your wish. Unincumbered with
the distracting cares of public life, you may now, by the force of
a still powerful example, gradually train the people around you
to a love of order and subordination; and above all, to a love of
peace. Hae tibi erunt artes. That you possess talents eminently
well adapted for the high post you lately held, friends and foes
have concurred in testifying; be it my pleasing task thus publicly
to declare that you carry back to your paternal fields virtues
equally calculated to bloom in the shade. To resemble Cincinnatus
is but small praise; be it yours, Sir, to enjoy the calm repose
and holy serenity of a Christian hero; and may `the Lord bless
your latter end more than your beginning!'
"I have the honour to be, Sir, your sincere Friend and most
obedient humble Servant,
Rev. E. D. Neill, in his Notes on the Virginia Colonial Clergy
(Philadelphia 1877), says Washington replied from Mount Vernon
under date of August 15, 1798, in part as follows:
"For the honour of its dedication, and for the friendly and
favourable sentiments therein expressed, I pray you to accept
my acknowledgements and thanks. Not having read the book,
it follows of course that I can express no opinion with respect
to its political contents; but I can venture to assert beforehand,
and with confidence, that there is no man in either country more
zealously devoted to peace and good understanding between the
nations than I am; no one who is more disposed to bury in oblivion
all animosities which have subsided between them and the
individuals of each."
The autobiography of the Reverend Jonathan Boucher
appeared in Notes and Queries (London) during the years 18851886,
having been contributed by his grandson Jonathan Boucher,
and may now be found in Volumes 1, 5, 6 and 9 of the Fifth
Series in several of the better American libraries. The following
extracts, bearing mainly on Boucher's life in Caroline, are taken
from these volumes:
"I went to Workington to learn mathematics and boarded
at the Rev. Mr. Ritson's, who was to instruct me, paying for
board and education at the rate of a guinea a month. Here I went
through all the practical branches of navigation, and also land
surveying, in which I had much practice. I remember our diet
was both ordinary and scanty. For a time I surveyed land
every day, working in severe weather from sun to sun, without
eating or drinking; and I do not remember ever to have dined
at his house when there was not salmon and mashed potatoes,
or when there was anything else. In 1759, Mr. Younger, a respectable
merchant in Whitehaven, wanted a young man to go out as
a private tutor to a gentleman's sons in Virginia. I was to enter
into pay on the day of my leaving England; to have my passage
gratis; to have my board and sixty pounds sterling a year for
teaching four boys, with liberty to take four more on such terms
as I could agree for on my arrival. On the 12th of July I landed
at Urbanna and soon after got up to the place of my destination
which was Captain Dixon's, at Port Royal in Caroline county.
Here I met with a cordial reception. Being hospitable as well as
chiefly by the toddy drinking company. Port Royal was inhabited
by factors from Scotland and their dependents, and the
circumjacent country by planters in middling circumstances.
There was not a literary man, for aught I could find, nearer than
the country I had left behind, nor were literary attainments,
beyond mere reading and writing, at all in vogue or repute. In
all the years I lived at Port Royal I did not form a single friendship
on which I can now look back with approbation, though I
had numerous acquaintances and many intimacies. In such
society my thoughts which had long been withdrawn from the
Church turned back, and a train of unforeseen circumstances
made me an ecclesiastic.
"A Mr. Giberne, Rector of Hanover Parish across the River,
opposite Port Royal, was now engaged to marry a rich widow in
Richmond county, and a parish there being vacant, and offered
to him, it was natural he should accept it, which he did. Thereupon
Hanover Parish was offered to me. I accepted it and
arranged to sail to England for Orders the week after. Captain
Stanley, of `The Christian,' offered me passage home and back
again gratis. I embarked on board `The Christian' about the
middle of December and the middle of the following month
arrived at Whitehaven, after a tempestuous voyage. I went from
Whiteheaven to London for Ordination, and Bishop Osbaldston
being then just come to that see, I was long detained and much
plagued before I succeeded. It was a remarkable coincidence,
though perfectly accidental, that I again landed at Urbanna on
the 12th of July.
"Soon after my return the Rev. Mr. Dawson, of St. Mary's
parish in Caroline county, died and my friends of that parish,
among whom I had formerly lived, solicited me to succeed him.
I consented and in the spring removed thither. St. Mary's was
not a pleasant place, neither had it good water, but there was a
good house, and another old one, which at a little expense was
made into such an one as I wanted. I now added largely to the
furniture of my house and bought stocks of cattle and horses
and slaves.
"But my industry and exertions were extraordinary. I had
the care of a large parish, and my Church was eleven miles
distance from me; neither had I as yet any great stock of
and I soon parted with him, so that all the care of the plantation
devolved upon me; and although it was my first attempt in that
way, I made a good crop. I had now increased the number of
my boys to nearly thirty, most of them the sons of persons of the
first condition in the colony. They all boarded with me, and
I wholly superintended them for two years without any
usher. Among my boys I had the stepson of the since so celebrated
General Washington; and this laid the foundation of a
very particular intimacy and friendship, which lasted until we,
taking different sides in the late trouble, separated never to unite
again.
"On the 24th of November, 1765, I baptized in St. Mary's
Church one hundred and fifteen negro adults, and on the 31st of
March, 1766, being Easter Monday, I baptized three hundred and
thirteen negro adults, and lectured extempore to upwards of a
thousand. I question whether so extraordinary an accession to
the Church of Christ, by one man and in one day, can be parallelled
even in the journals of a Popish missionary. They are so numerous
because my predecessors, shrinking, I suppose, from the great
fatigue and disagreeableness of the duty, had in general omitted
it, on the pretense that the poor creatures were extremely ignorant
and wholly uninstructed, and could get no proper sponsors.
These did not appear to me to be sufficient objections. All
knowledge, as well as everything else, is to be judged of by comparisons.
Negroes, when compared with any other class of
people in a Christian country, are no doubt lamentably ignorant,
yet I saw no reason to think they were more so than many of the
first converts to Christianity must needs have been, and particularly
those made and baptized by St. Thomas in Africa, nor
is great knowledge and much regular instruction absolutely
necessary to baptism. The injunction to go and teach is ill
translated; it should be, `Go and disciple, or make disciples of
all nations.' And negroes are not indocile; nor is it hard even
in a few conversations and lectures, to give them all necessary
instructions in the elements of our religion, and in my humble
opinion it is injudicious to attempt to instruct them or Indians
in its mysterious doctrines. I may add, moreover, and with strict
truth, that I had under my care many Negroes as well informed,
as orderly, and as regularly pious, as country people usually are,
Associates of Doctor Bray, I had set up two or three serious
and sensible black men as school masters to teach the children
around them merely to read at their leisure hours, and chiefly
on Sunday afternoons, something as Sunday schools now are
here in England. I had in consequence almost every Sunday
twenty or thirty who could use their Prayer Books and make the
responses, and I had towards the last of my ministry there thirteen
black communicants. I continued this attention to the care of the
blacks of my parish, who amounted to upwards of a thousand
taxables, all the time I remained in St. Mary's.
"During the period of my residence in St. Mary's, Virginia
was overrun with sectarians. They had in a manner taken
possession of two neighbouring parishes, in one of which there
was no minister, and in the other a minister of a bad life. In
my own parish I remember with pride and comfort I had not a
single dissenter of any denomination. Some of the thoughtful
people of those unhappy parishes applied to me to go amongst
them, and endeavour to check the delusion. Accordingly, I
prepared some sermons, which I delivered among them, and by
the blessing of God with such effect that many who had been
decoyed from the Church returned to it; and so, finding their
congregations fall off, the sectarian leaders soon left them. I
attributed much of my success in this to my avoiding all disputations
with their ministers, whom as I spoke of as beneath such
condescension, on the score of their ignorance and impudence.
And when one of them publicly challenged me to a public debate
I declined it but at the same time set up one Daniel Barksdale,
a carpenter in my parish, who had a good front and voluble tongue,
and whom therefore I easily qualified to defeat his opponent, as
he effectually did. And I am still persuaded that this method
of treating sectarian preachers with well judged ridicule and
contempt, and their followers with gentleness, persuasion, and
attention, is a good one.
"While traveling through Caroline I met a Mr. Swift, of
Maryland, to whom I gave some small assistance, with the result
that the next year four boys from his neighborhood applied to me
and were received into my school. This led to such friendships
in Maryland that I was soon invited to take charge of a parish
there, and, after debating the matter for two or three years, I
to Maryland I declined to take boys but two of them insisted on
accompanying me into Maryland, Mr. Custis, General Washington's
stepson, and Mr. Carr, who afterward married the sister
of my wife. My parishioners of St. Mary's, on my leaving them,
gave me such testimonies of their regard as I still feel with lively
gratitude. They not only elected Mr. Abner Waugh, on my sole
recommendation, to be my successor, but over-paid me half
a year's salary and wrote me a letter full of the kindest expressions.
"On my finally quitting them I made a sale of all my stocks
of corn, tobacco, cattle, and horses, and such of my furniture
as I did not choose to carry with me. To my slaves I gave the
option either to go with me or to choose themselves masters in
Virginia. All the unmarried ones chose the former; and the
others I sold by their own desire chiefly to gentlemen who, having
been my pupils, had lived with me. It affords me more comfort
than I can express to recollect that I have nothing bad to charge
myself with on the score of severity to my slaves. No compliment
ever paid me went so near to my heart as when a gentleman
was one day coming to my home, and, having overtaken a slave,
asked him, as is common, to whom he belonged, to which the
slave replied, `To Parson Boucher, thank God.'
"Virginians in general I have thought eminently endowed with
a knack of talking; they seem to be born orators. I remember a
whole family, in Hanover county, of the name of Winslow, who
were all distinguished as speakers; and so were the Lees and
many others. And there is also this peculiarity observable in
that country, that the first settlers having usually taken up large
tracts of land, these have since from time to time been divided
among and allotted to their descendants in small portions; so
that by this means, and by intermarrying, as is common among
them, with one another, certain districts come to be settled
by certain families; and different places are there known and
spoken of, not as here, by any difference of dialect (for there is
no dialect in all America); but by their being inhabited by the
Fitzhughs, Randolphs, Washingtons, Carys, Grimeses, or Thorntons.
This circumstance used to furnish me with a scope for
many remarks, such as do not so often occur here. The family
character, both of body and mind, may be traced through many
generations: as for instance, the Fitzhughs have bad eyes; the
are proud and imperious; Taliaferros are avaricious; and Fowkses
are cruel.
"I did not much like Philadelphia. The city is disgusting
from its uniformity and sameness; one street has nothing to
distinguish it from another, there are no squares, no public
edifices of any dignity; the situation is flat and level, and, in
short, everything about it has a Republican aspect. The people,
too, are like their town, all very well, but nothing more. One
is as good as another, and no better; and it is in vain to
look for anything like character among them. In one point, not
contented with being not agreeable, they are almost disagreeable:
the almost universal topic of conversation among them is the
superiority of Philadelphia over every other spot of the globe.
All their geese are swans: and it is a fact not to be denied that
by thus forever trumpeting their own praise they have in some
degree prevailed on their neighbours to acquiesce in their claim
to it; just as the French have made all the world agree in giving
preference to the French language.
"I used to consider the two colleges of Philadelphia and
Princeton in the Jersies, as the chief nurseries of the frivolous
and mischievous kind of knowledge which passed for learning
in America. Like some of the Academies in and around London,
they pretend to teach everything, without really being competent
to the teaching of anything as it ought to have been taught.
But their chief and peculiar merit was thought to be in rhetoric
and Belles Lettres, a term not easily defined or understood.
Hence in no country were there so many orators, or so many
smatterers. Two or three years spent at one of these seminaries
were in general deemed sufficient to qualify a person for the
gown; and persons so qualified had now pretty generally gotten
the Churches, which in Virginia were immediately in the gift
of the people. It is surprising what indecent contentions these
popular elections occasioned. I have oftener than once known
half a dozen candidates all trying for a vacant parish, and
preaching alternately, to give their electors an opportunity of
determining which they liked best. These two colleges of Princetown
and Philadelphia manufactured physicians also with equal
facility. I have known many a young man come and set up as
a doctor in the neighbourhood in all due form, and with all
of Philadelphia. As for lawyers, they seemed to grow up spontaneously;
many of the first name and note in their profession
were men without any education and totally illiterate. Such a
state of society was peculiar, and could not but have peculiar
effects, for no other body of men, nor all the other bodies of men
put together, had half so much influence as the lawyers."
Upon his removal to Maryland, Mr. Boucher's real troubles
with the Whigs began. He was as ardent a Royalist as ever,
and, in the face of the growing sentiment for independence, he
continued to preach his convictions respecting loyalty as faithfully
as before. The first offence given to the Maryland patriots
was the calling of a convention of the clergy which petitioned for
a bishop. This so incensed the Governor and other leading
citizens that they declined for a time to speak to the intense
Royalist. The Annapolis charge became so unpleasant that Mr.
Boucher removed to Queene Anne parish in Maryland, but here
also he had a very unpleasant reception, even finding the Church
doors shut against him on his arrival. Soon afterward one of his
parishioners paid a man eight dollars for as many loads of rocks
to drive Boucher and his friends away. He preached for a time
under the protection of a brace of pistols lying on his pulpit,
but even these were unable to protect him much longer. On
arriving at Church one day he found it nearly filled with armed
and determined men, twenty of whom had been picked out for
the purpose of firing on him when he ascended his pulpit. One
of his friends, Mr. David Cranford, seized him and by sheer
physical force deterred him from his purpose. Mr. Boucher then
seized Mr. Osborne Sprigg, head of the armed band, and cocking
his pistol forced him to conduct him in safety back to the rectory.
This Mr. Sprigg did, but retaliated by having his men play The
Rogue's March as they escorted the rector home. It was while
living at Castle Magruder in Queene Anne parish that Mr. Boucher
administered a threshing to the blacksmith, and accepted the
challenge of Mr. Sprigg to a duel. Mr. Sprigg, however, showed
the white feather and was ever after branded as a coward in that
community. This is interesting by way of showing that it was not
considered wholly improper for a clergyman of that day and
place to resort to "the field of honour."
Mr. Boucher removed to the parish of Rev. Mr. Addison, his
but the time was near at hand for the bursting of the war clouds
and so he resolved to return to England for a year or two until
the storm blew over, leaving his wife to care for the estate, but
she, being unequal to the ordeal of separation, determined to go
with him. Accordingly on the 10th day of September, the last
day of intercourse between America and Britain before the
beginning of hostilities, he and his wife, amidst the tears and
cries of their slaves, went aboard the Nell Gwynne, leaving all
their possessions behind save bills of exchange to the amount of
400 pounds. On September 20th they sailed out of the Chesapeake
Bay and out of sight of the shores of Virginia, which they
were to see nevermore. They arrived in Dover October 28th and
soon thereafter Mr. Boucher was made Vicar of Epsom Parish,
where he lived the life of a scholar, producing many volumes,
and where he died April 27, 1804.
| A history of Caroline county, Virginia | |