Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia

This county originally contained all that is now Surrey and
Sussex. There were two parishes in it in 1738, called Lawn's
Creek and Southwark, running the whole length of the county
toward the Carolina line, being one hundred and twenty miles.
At that time each of them were curtailed; and, as in the case of
the Isle of Wight parishes, Black River divided them. Those
parts of the parishes which lie south of Blackwater River formed

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a parish by the name of Albemarle, in what is now Sussex county,
and the parts north of Black River formed another parish, retaining
the name of Southwark,—that of Lawn's Creek being henceforth
dropped. Although there were many ministers in the parishes
of Surrey before the year 1724, and between that and 1754 and
1758, and though I have their names on different documents in
possession, I am not able to identify or locate them, because these
documents do not appropriate them to their parishes. I am able to
say who were the ministers in 1724, because their answers to the
Bishop of London show it. I can say who were the ministers in
1754 and 1758, because I have a list both of the ministers and
parishes of those years. Had I the old vestry-books, they would
supply the deficiency; but I have none of either of these parishes;
and yet they may be in existence, though in some tattered form.

I give, first, some of the answers of the Rev. John Worden,
who says,—

"I arrived in Virginia in 1712, when Governor Spottswood sent me for
six months to Jamestown. Thence I went to the parishes of Weynoake
and Martins Brandon, both of which parishes were hardly sufficient to
support a minister; therefore I removed to this parish, where I have been
since January 30th, 1717." His parish, he says, "is ten miles wide
along the river, and one hundred and twenty long, with seven hundred
tithables in it. There are some Indians, bond and free, and negroes, bond
and free. Some masters will have their negroes baptized; and some will
not, because they will not be sureties for them. I cannot persuade parents
and masters to send their children and servants to be catechized. I sometimes
get eight shillings and fourpence for my tobacco, per hundred, and
sometimes not so much; and if I send it to Europe, perhaps it brings me
in debt, as of late years it hath happened. The vestry will not keep my
glebe-house in order; but if I choose to do it myself, I may and welcome.
I have a church and chapel thirty miles apart,—twelve communicants at
the former, and thirty or forty at the latter."

The following are the answers of the Rev. John Cargill, minister
of Southwark parish:—

"I have been here sixteen years. My parish is twenty miles in width,
and one hundred inhabited in length, being a frontier-parish. It has
three hundred and ninety-four families. The school of Mr. Griffin, called
Christina, for Indians, is on the borders of my parish. There is one
church and two chapels, and seventy or eighty communicants. My tobacco
now sells at five shillings per hundred; my salary from thirty to
forty pounds. My glebe-house is in a very bad condition, and the parish
will not repair it, so I must look out for a house elsewhere. No school,
no library, in the parish."

Such is the sad account in 1724 of the two parishes in Surrey
county.

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In the year 1758, after the arrangement by which all on the north
side of Blackwater is united in Southwark parish, we find the Rev.
Peter Davis its minister; in the years 1774 and 1776, the Rev.
Benjamin Blagrove. In the year 1785, the Rev. John Henry
Burgess, of whom we recently spoke as minister in Southampton,
appears in the Convention as minister of Southwark; and, in the
years 1790 and 1792, the Rev. Samuel Butler. After this we hear
of it no more. Its last minister was a man of pleasure, so devoted
to the turf that he was made President of the Jockey Club of
Surrey and Charles City, as I was informed by the clerk of the
same. Nothing else was to be expected but that the Church should
perish in such hands.

Since the revival of our Church in Virginia, efforts have been
made in behalf of the parishes in Surrey, and not without some
effect. Between twenty-five and thirty years ago the Rev. John
Cole, encouraged by the zeal of good Mrs. Falcon and others of
Southwark parish, preached for one year at Old Surrey and Cabin
Point Churches, reviving not a little the hopes of our few remaining
friends. At a later period the Rev. Edmund Christian spent some
time in the same; and for the last few years the Rev. John
McCabe recently of Hampton, has devoted one Sunday in four to
Old Surrey Church. Under his ministry the congregation increased,
and a new church has been recently erected near the old one.[88]
I know of no other churches in Surrey but those of Old Surrey and
Cabin Point, unless there be one standing about eight or ten miles
from the court-house. I made one visit to it about twenty years
ago. In company with a zealous female member of the Church,
some notice having been previously given, I approached the old
and desolate-looking place. No horses or carriages were around
it; but on the sill of an open door was sitting an old negro man,
who I was told had in former times been the sexton. We three
were the congregation. My visit has not been repeated.

To the foregoing I add the following communication from my
esteemed friend, William Harrison, of Brandon:—

"In the will of Benjamin Harrison, of Surrey, who was buried at the
chapel near Cabin Point, and who, according to the epitaph on his tombstone,
was born in Southwark parish in 1645, and which will was admitted
to probate in 1712, I find the following passage:—`Item, I give
twenty pounds sterling to buy ornaments for the chapel, and that my executor

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take care to provide them, so soon as may be, after the new chapel is
built; and my will is that five acres of my land be laid out, where the old
chapel now stands, and that it be held for that use forever.' "

The plate of this church, I have reason to believe, was sold by
a person having charge of it, and the proceeds applied to private
use. The Harrisons, Shorts, Allens, Cockes, and Peters, in olden
time, were leading families around this church.[89]

[88]

The old one was built in the year 1754; the age of the one at Cabin Point
unknown.

[89]

To this I add the following from the History of Virginia, by Mr. Charles Campbell.
The following is the epitaph:—"Here lyeth the body of the Honourable
Benjamin Harrison, Esquire, who `did justice, loved mercy, and walked humbly
with his God,' was always loyal to his Prince, and a great benefactor to his country."
He had three sons, of whom Benjamin, the eldest, settled at Berkeley. He
married Elizabeth, daughter of Lewis Burwell, of Gloucester, and was an eminent
lawyer, and sometime Speaker of the House of Burgesses. He died in April, 1710,
aged thirty-seven, leaving an only son, Benjamin, and an only daughter, Elizabeth.
A monument was erected at the public expense to his memory in the old Westover
churchyard. The son Benjamin married a daughter of Robert Carter, of Corotoman,
(called King Carter,) in Lancaster county. Himself and two daughters of
this union were killed by the same flash of lightning at Berkeley. Another daughter
married Mr. Randolph, of Wilton. The sons were Benjamin, the signer of the Declaration
of Independence, Charles, a general in the Revolution, Nathaniel, Henry,
Colin, and Carter H. From the last-mentioned descended the Harrison, of Cumberland.
Benjamin Harrison, Jr., the signer of the Declaration, and otherwise
celebrated, married a Miss Bassett. Their children were Benjamin, father of the
late Benjamin Harrison, of Berkeley, Carter B., sometime member of Congress, and
William Henry, President of the United States; one daughter who married a Mr.
Randolph, and another who married a Mr. Copeland. The second son of Benjamin
Harrison, of Surrey, (the first of the family in Virginia,) was Nathaniel. His eldest
son was also named Nathaniel, and his only son again was Benjamin Harrison, of
Brandon, member of the Council of Virginia at the same time with Benjamin
Harrison, of Berkeley, about the commencement of the Revolution. This Benjamin
Harrison, of Brandon, who married a daughter of the last Colonel Byrd, of Westover,
was father of the present William Harrison, of Upper Brandon, and of the
late George Harrison, of Lower Brandon, on James River, besides four daughters.
If the first of the name was a zealous friend of the Church and liberal contributor,
his posterity have ever continued true to it; and the two last named, with their
families, have done much to its partial revival within the last thirty years. The
ministers have ever found their seats to be hospitable homes when in that part of
the parish. They have set good examples in encouraging the religious teaching
of their servants, and, in order to promote this, have built a chapel between them
for the especial benefit of the same.

For a full description of Mr. Benjamin Harrison, signer of the Declaration of
Independence, Governor of Virginia, and holder of so many offices during and after
the war, I refer the reader to Mr. Griggsby's book on the Convention of 1776.
Of the family of Harrison he says, "Of all the ancient families in the Colony, that
of Harrison, if not the oldest, is one of the oldest. The original ancestor some
time before the year 1645 had come over to the Colony; but, as his name does not
appear in the list of early patentees recorded by Burk, it is probable that he purchased
land already patented, or may have engaged in mercantile pursuits. The
first born of the name in the Colony of whom we have any distinct record was Benjamin
Harrison, who became a member of the Council, and was Speaker of the House
of Burgesses, and died in Southwark parish, in the county of Surrey, in the year
1712, in his sixty-second year." Mr. Griggsby thinks it probable that his father
was the Herman Harrison who came over in what is called the "second supply" in
Smith's History, or of Master John Harrison, who was Governor in 1623, and
adds:—"That from the year 1645 to this date—a period of more than two centuries—the
name has been distinguished for the patriotism, the intelligence, and the
moral worth of those who have borne it."

University of Virginia Library

PARISHES IN SURREY COUNTY.