Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia.

Nottoway county was separated from Amelia in the year 1788.
Nottoway parish was established in the county of Amelia, being
separated from Raleigh parish before the year 1752 and after the
year 1748. There being no account of the Acts of Assembly for
1749-51, in Henning, I am unable to decide the precise year.
In the year 1754, and again in 1758, the Rev. Wm. Proctor was
the minister,—the same, no doubt, of whom mention is made in
the vestry-book of Halifax. In the years 1773-74-76, the Rev.
Thomas Wilkinson is the minister. Of him I have found a good
account. The Rev. Mr. Jarratt informs us that Dr. Cameron was
its minister for about two years after leaving Petersburg in 1793,
but was obliged to resign for want of support. This was, no
doubt, the last of Episcopal services in this parish, except some
occasional ones of late years. As to the churches in this parish,

all that I have been able to learn is from the Act of Assembly in
1755, by which the parish of St. Patrick is established in the county
of Prince Edward. It seems that the county of Prince Edward had
been separated from Amelia the previous year, and from that part
of it in which the parish of Nottoway lay, but no new parish was
then cut off from it and established in Prince Edward. But now,
in 1775, the parish of St. Patrick is taken from Nottoway and
made to correspond with the bounds of Prince Edward. At a later
period (1788) Nottoway county is established, corresponding, I presume,
with the bounds of old Nottoway parish in Amelia. The Act
speaks of two new churches being recently built in the lower part
of Nottoway parish, and requires the parish to refund a portion of
the money which had been raised from the whole parish for their
erection, to be refunded to the new parish in Prince Edward. Where
these churches are situated, and what were their names, and what
others had been there before, I am unable to say.[4]

[4]

I have an old leaf from a vestry-book, without the name of the parish on it, in
which I find the Rev. John Brunskill minister in 1753, Major Thomas Tabb and
Major Peter Jones churchwardens, William [OMITTED] Wood Jones, William Archer,
Richard Jones, and Samuel Cobb, vestrymen. This must certainly be a part of the
old vestry-book of Raleigh parish, and Mr. Brunskill must have been its minister
in 1753. In the following year (1754) he was certainly in another parish, and Mr.
Dauson in this. He must have returned to this before the year 1773, or else one
of the same name, for there were three John Brunskills in Virginia at this time.

"In the year 1829 or 1830," writes a friend, "while riding with a friend from
Prince Edward Court-House to Nottoway Court-House, I noticed, near to a farmhouse
on the road, a barn of singular appearance. `Yonder barn,' I remarked,
`looks much like some of the old Colonial churches I have seen.' `It was a church
of the Old Establishment,' was his reply. `The present owner of the farm, (which
I think had been the glebe,) finding it vacant and on land which was once a part of
the tract he purchased, and as it was near his house, had it put on rollers and removed
to its present position for the use you see. There was no one to forbid the
sacrilege, or, if so, it was without avail; but the act, I believe, is condemned by the
general sentiment of this community as that of a coarse-minded, unscrupulous votary
of mammon.' "

University of Virginia Library

NOTTOWAY PARISH, NOTTOWAY COUNTY.