University of Virginia Library

"There was one which stood on the south side of Maricopie or Massacopie
Creek, in the eastern part of the county, and was, I think, called
Joy Creek Church, from a small rivulet close by. Every vestige of it had
disappeared before my father's recollection, so that it must have been one
of the most ancient of our churches. Another stood near the southwestern

border of the county, near Reedy Creek, and was called Reedy
Creek Church. Within my recollection the walls and roof were entire.
About thirty years ago the roof fell in, and immediately the bricks were
carried away by the neighbours. A third was near the Bowling Green,
about a mile northeast of it. This was in good condition about forty or
fifty years ago, and services held in it. The Hoomes, Pendletons, Taylors,
Battailes, Baylors, and other old families, attended it. Another is the Old
Bull Church, or St. Margarett's, with which you are familiar. The last is
the present Rappahannock Academy, about two miles from the river and
four miles above Port Royal. In my boyhood," says my informant, "an
amusing story was told of two men returning one night from muster with
too much of what is called Dutch courage in them,—that is, intoxicated.
The old church was said to be haunted of the devil, and they determined
to drive him out. It was very dark, and one of them planted himself at
one door, or where a door had been, while the other entered at the other
end with a pole, with which he began to beat about, when something
started up and ran to the door where the other man stood with his legs
stretched out. It proved to be an ox, which was in the habit of sheltering
there, and which, lowering his head as he approached the man, took him
on his neck and bore him some distance away."

"The Mount Church, before it was converted into an academy, was one
of the first country-churches in the State. It was in the form of a cross,
with galleries on three of the wings, in one of which was the largest and
finest-toned organ in Virginia. This organ was sold, under an Act of the
Legislature, and the proceeds applied to the purchase of a library for the
use of the Rappahannock Academy. It is now in a Roman Catholic
church in Georgetown. The aisles were paved with square slabs of sandstone.
The enclosure around the church was used as a burial-ground, and,
though now a play-ground for the boys, the forms of the graves are apparent.
The glebe was first sold, and the proceeds applied to an academy,
and, the following year, the house itself was appropriated to the same purpose.
John Taylor, of Caroline, John T. Woodward, Lawrence Battaile,
Hay Battaile, and Reuben Turner, were the trustees. I have been
unable," says my correspondent, "to ascertain the age of Mount Church.
It must have been built at a period long anterior to the Revolution. The
first minister of the parish was the Rev. Mr. Boucher. All that I can
gather concerning him is, that he lived and taught school in Port Royal.
The only reminiscence of his acts is a red sandstone monument, which he
had erected near the village to the memory of one of his pupils, who died
in 1763, aged nine years, on which there is this epitaph:—

"I allude to Jonathan Boucher, who was born in Cumberland, in 1738,
and brought up at Wigton Grammar-School. He went to Virginia, at
the age of sixteen, and was nominated by the vestry of Hanover parish,
in the county of King George, to its rectory before he was in Orders. He
returned to England for ordination, and, after he had crossed the Atlantic
a second time, entered upon the duties of that parish upon the banks of the
Rappahannock. He removed, soon afterward, to St. Mary's parish, in
Caroline county, upon the same river, where he enjoyed the fullest confidence
and love of his people. In the second of two sermons preached by
him, upon the question of the American Episcopate, in that parish, and in
the year 1771, in which it had been so strongly advocated, he expresses
his assurance that he would be listened to with candour by his parishioners,
seeing that he had lived among them more than seven years, as their minister,
in such harmony as to have had no disagreement with any man, even
for a day. The terms of this testimony, and the circumstances under
which it was delivered, leave no room to doubt its truthfulness. He was
accounted one of the best preachers of his time, and the vigorous and lucid
reasoning of his published discourses fully sustains the justice of that reputation.
From St. Mary's parish Mr. Boucher went to Maryland, where he
was appointed by Sir Robert Eden, its Governor, to the rectory of St.
Anne's, in Annapolis, the capital of that Province, and afterward of Queen
Anne's, in Prince George county. From the latter parish he was ejected
at the Revolution.

"His `Discourses'—thirteen in number, preached between the years
1763 and 1775—were published by him when he was vicar of Epsom,
in Surrey, in 1795, fifteen years after the formal recognition by England
of the Independence of the United States. They contain, with an historical
preface, his views of the causes and consequences of the American
Revolution, and are dedicated to General Washington, not because of any
concord of political sentiment between him and the writer, for in this
respect they had been and still were wide as the poles asunder, but to
express the hope of Mr. Boucher that the offering which he thus made of
renewed respect and affection for that great man might be received and
regarded as giving some promise of that perfect reconciliation between
these two countries which it was the sincere aim of his publication to
promote. While the language of this `Dedication' attests the candour
and generosity of Boucher's character, still, his courage and hatred of every
thing that savoured of republicanism are displayed not less clearly throughout
the whole body of his work. The only faults which, in the course of
his `Historical Preface,' he can detect on the part of England, before and
during the war which had deprived her of thirteen Colonies, was the

feebleness of her ministers at home and of her generals abroad. The
positive injustice of many of her acts seems never present to his mind.
The arguments of Burke and Chatham, exposing that injustice, weigh
with him as nothing."

"The successor of Mr. Boucher was the Rev. Abner Waugh. He was
the last minister of Mount Church. He was not engaged in the active
duties of the ministry for many of the latter years of his life. Mr. Waugh
was chaplain to the Convention which ratified the Federal Constitution.

"The chief families in this parish," he adds, (there being no list
of vestrymen,) "were the Millers, Foxes, Grays, Beverleys, Taliaferos,
Woodfords, Battailes, Fitzhughs, Corbins, &c. A member of one of the
families was buried, according to her own directions, beneath the pavement
of the aisle of that wing of the church which was occupied by the
poor. She directed this to be done as an act of self-abasement for the
pride she had manifested and the contempt she had exhibited toward the
common people during her life, alleging that she wished them to trample
upon her when she was dead."

"The services of this place [Grace Church, Caroline] being over, we
proceeded to Port Royal. On our way to that place, and only a few miles
above it, we passed by a large brick building, once a temple of the living
God, where our forefathers used to worship, now, by an act of the Legislature,
converted into a seminary of learning. This house, like some others
of those built in ancient times, seems destined to outlive generations of
those more modern ones, which, hastily and slightly constructed, soon sink
upon their own knees and fall into ruins. It stands on an elevated and
beautiful hill, overlooking the river and country around, and is rendered
very interesting by a number of large and venerable trees not far distant.
It was deserted as a place of worship, some time before its conversion into
a seminary. The melodious organ that once filled the house with its enrapturing
notes (said to have been the first ever imported into Virginia,
and of great price) has long since been sold, and is now in a Roman
Catholic chapel in the District of Columbia, (either in Washington or
Georgetown.) During the interval of its use as a church, and its application
to other objects, if common fame is to be credited, (and we fear it deserves
it but too well,) this sacred house was desecrated to most unhallowed
purposes. The drunken feast has been spread where the holy Supper of our

Lord was wont to be received, and the footsteps of the dance have sported
over that floor where the knees of humble worshippers once bent before
the Lord."

Extract of a Letter from Edmund Pendleton to Richard Henry Lee,
June 13, 1785.

"You have heard of a Convention of the clergy and laity of our Episcopal
Church last month. I was not able to attend it, but was pleased to
learn that the members were truly respectable, and their proceedings wise
and temperate. Their journal is not yet printed, but I am told it contains
rules for the government of the clergy, and the appointment of
deputies to represent us in a Federal Convention to be held in Philadelphia
in September next, to whom it is referred to revise and reform our
Liturgy. Mr. Page, of Rosewell, and your brother, of Greenspring, [Mr.

William Lee,] are the lay deputies, and the Revs. Mr. Griffith and
McCrosky the clerical. What is become of Bishop Seabury, and how is
he received in Connecticut? One would not have expected that the first
American Bishop had come to New England."

"To the Honourable the Legislature of the State of Virginia, the
subscribers, inhabitants of the county of Caroline, beg leave to represent,
that, beholding with concern the growth of a species of corruption at elections,
commonly called treating, as having a tendency to destroy national
principles and individual morals, they presume to submit the following
considerations to legislative deliberation:—1st. Whether the best mode of
enabling electors to judge of a candidate's qualifications is to deprive them
of their senses. 2d. Whether corrupting and being corrupted is calculated
to produce sentiments of confidence between the people and their
representatives. 3d. Whether true patriotism can exist on any other foundation
than such confidence and esteem. 4th. Whether, in order to bring
merit into preference, success should depend on expense. 5th. Whether,
if a political body should appear, where wealth grew out of public spoils,
until it was beyond competition, a check upon its pernicious influence will
be erected by a consignment of legislation to riches. 6th. Whether
liberty will be considered inestimable by those who are in the habit of
selling it for a bottle of rum. 7th. Whether the dispensation of corruption
is likely to steel the mind of the elected against its introduction, in
the exercise of several elective functions confided to the representatives
of the people. 8th. Whether the consequences experienced from a septennial
repetition (as in England) of the practice we deprecate are sufficient
to justify it as an annual custom, and whether virtue or vice is the
safest basis for a republican government.

"If the Legislature shall view this mischief in the light we see it,
we refer it to their wisdom as calling loudly for an effectual legislative
remedy; and we pledge ourselves to support an energetic law by withholding
our suffrages from all who shall infringe it. Edmund Pendleton,
James Taylor, William Jones, Edmund Pendleton, Jr., Anthony
Thornton, Charles Todd, Anthony New, Daniel Coleman, Henry Chiles,
John Baylor, Mungo Roy, P. Woolfolk, John Minor, Jr., John Pendleton,
Jr., George Gray, Norborne Taliafero, William Stewart, Thomas Kidd,

David Dickerson, Philip Slaughter, John Walden, Robert Tompkins,
Edmund Chapman, George Terrill, R. R. Tyler, J. Woolfolk, Thomas
Harris."

"The Rev. Mr. Dick left one son bearing his name, who lived and died
in this county; also two daughters,—one who married Mr. Vivian Minor,
and who lived to a good old age, and retained to the time of her death a
warm attachment to the Episcopal Church, travelling the distance of twelve
miles to St. Margarett's, whenever its pulpit was filled, generally reaching
it before those in the immediate neighbourhood,—and this after she was
seventy years old. The other daughter married Mr. Robert Hart, of
Spottsylvania, and also with her descendants continued true to the Church
of her fathers. Mr. Boggs preached in this church for thirty years. In
the year 1825, the Female Missionary Society of Fredericksburg sent Mr.
John McGuire to preach for us, hoping to build up our waste places. By
the blessing of God on this effort, a considerable interest was manifested
by the few remaining members and others, and his preaching was attended
by crowds, generally. The church was then in a very dilapidated condition,
but was soon after repaired. After Mr. McGuire located himself in
Essex, the vestry called the Rev. Leonard H. Johns, who ministered to
them for two years. It was during this time that more members were
added to the Church than at any other; but most of them were, I believe,

the seals of Mr. McGuire's ministry, though Mr. Johns's was very
acceptable, and much beloved by all. Mr. Good succeeded Mr. Johns
early in the year 1829, and remained until 1831, when he was compelled
by ill health to leave the parish, much to the regret of all who knew him.
The Rev. Mr. Cooke officiated frequently for us while we were without a
minister. In July, 1832, Mr. Friend became our pastor: he continued
to preach till June, 1835, in which time the St. Margarett's Church underwent
considerable repairs and the church at the Bowling Green was
built. Mr. Ward followed Mr. Friend and remained till 1840, when the
Rev. St. M. Fackler took his place, continuing with us two years. The
Rev. D. M. Wharton took charge of this and the churches in Spottsylvania
in the fall of 1843."

I have read with deep interest your account of
many of the old churches and families of Virginia. Having just risen
from the perusal of that on York-Hampton parish, it seems to me that you
have not given all the credit it deserves to the character of the Rev.
Samuel Shield.

"He was a clergyman of high character, and was a competitor with
Bishop Madison for the Episcopate. He had at one time charge of Drysdale
parish, (now unrepresented in Convention,) lying in Caroline and the
adjoining counties. He was great-uncle, I think, to the Rev. Charles
Shield, grandfather of Dr. Samuel Shield, of Hampton, a worthy son of
our Church, grandfather to Mrs. Colonel McCandlish, of W—, and
grandfather to the wife of the Rev. Edmund Murdaugh; so that the
succession, both Christian and ministerial, is kept up in his family. But
I take up my pen to mention to you the following incident, which will
not be uninteresting to you even if it be without the scope of your published
reminiscences.

"After the massacre by the British and Indians of a large portion of
the inhabitants of the lovely Valley of Wyoming in Pennsylvania, the parishioners
of Drysdale, through their rector, Mr. Shield, as almoner, sent
to the destitute and helpless women and children of the Valley the handsome
sum (for those days) of one hundred and eighty dollars to relieve
their necessities. The transaction is thus recorded in the History of
Wyoming, by the Hon. Charles Miner:—

"At a town-meeting held in Wyoming on the 20th of April, 1780, it
was—

" `Voted, That whereas the parish of Dresden, [for Drysdale,] in the State
of Virginia, have contributed and sent one hundred and eighty dollars for
the support of the distressed inhabitants of this town, [Wilkesbarre,] that
the Selectmen be directed to distribute said money to those they shall judge
the most necessitated, and report to the town at some future meeting.

" `Voted, That Colonel Nathan Denison return the thanks of this town
to the parish of Dresden in the State of Virginia, for their charitable disposition
in presenting the distressed inhabitants of this town with one
hundred and eighty dollars.'

"Some five or six years ago I was at Dr. Samuel Shield's, in Hampton,
and the doctor told me he had discovered my name among his grand
father's papers; and upon examination I found the original letter of
thanks written by my grandfather, Colonel Denison, to his grandfather, the
Rev. Mr. Shield. It was threescore and ten years of age, but had evidently
been preserved with much care; and I sent it at once to Mr. Miner,
the historian. Very sincerely, but unworthily, your son in the Gospel.