 | Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia |  |
ARTICLE XX.
Hungar's Parish, Northampton County.
Northampton was originally called by the old Indian name of
Ackowmake or Accowmake. In the year 1642 the name was
changed from Accowmake to Northton or Northampton, the name
of a county in England from whence the family of Robins came,
and on account of which it probably received this name. In that
same year—1642—the parish was divided, all below King's Creek to
Smith's Island being one parish, afterward called Hungar's parish,
and all from King's Creek to Nuswattock Creek being the other,
and called Nuswattocks or Nassawattocks Church or parish. Accowmake
was one of the original shires established in 1634. Being
cut off from the mainland by the Chesapeake Bay, and the passage
being difficult and dangerous, it was permitted for a considerable
time to be somewhat independent in the execution of the laws, no
appeal from the decision of its authorities to the higher court on
the other side of the bay being allowed, except for great causes.
On account of its detached position, the title of the Colony in early
writers is that of Virginia and Accomac. This independent
condition probably contributed to something like a rebellion in
the time of Governor Yeardley, which required a visit from him
and the Council, and suitable attendants, in order to its suppression.
In this suppression Colonel Scarborough took an active part.
It was always an interesting part of Virginia. In the year
1622, when the great massacre of the Indians took place in all
other parts of the State, it was in serious contemplation to remove
the whole colony to the Eastern Shore; and when, in Bacon's
Rebellion, Mr. William Berkeley was obliged to fly, he twice found
an asylum there. Could an accurate history of its early settlement
and of the chief families which have ever since been living
there, and of the old churches and ministers, have been preserved,
perhaps no portion of the State would have furnished a more interesting
one; and had that justice been done to the culture and
improvement of its soil, and the use of its many advantages, which
now has begun to be done, few parts of Virginia would have been
more valuable. In one remarkable particular it has retained a
the State. While the oldest vestry-books and county-records have
been burned by fire or lost through negligence, the proceedings
of the court of Accomac, from 1632, ten years before it changed
its name, and yet more, before it was divided into two counties,
have been preserved, and now furnish documents from which to
estimate the discipline of the court and the manners of the people.
A friend,[73] at great pains, has furnished me with copious extracts
from the records of the court from the year 1632 to 1690, and
some of a later date, out of which I shall select as many, and
of such kind, as shall best suit the size and character of this
work.
Those who examine these records are struck with nothing so
much as the penitentiary discipline which they exhibit, more like
that of the early ages than is to be found in Protestant times and
countries. As we have, in connection with certain parishes, taken
up some special topic for consideration, as those of induction of
ministers and the Option or Two-penny Act, we will, before entering
on the statistics of this parish, very briefly consider the subject of
discipline as exhibited in the early history of the Church and State
of Virginia. We have already alluded more than once to the
"laws moral, martial, and divine," which were introduced under
Governors De La War, Dale, and others from the Low Countries of
Europe, where they were in use among the armies of that time,
and which were better suited for a rude soldiery, in a barbarous
age, than for the Christian Church in any age. We have said
that the most severe of those enacted against heresy and blasphemy
and non-attendance at church were never executed. Mr. Burke,
whose skeptical principles and ill opinion of Christians cannot be
concealed, is forced to acknowledge this.
I have met with but one instance of the infliction of that most
painful punishment, "the running of an awl or bodkin through
the tongue;" and that was not for any violation of the laws concerning
religion, but for a sin of the tongue, in uttering a base
and detracting speech against Mr. Hamar, a worthy gentleman of
the Council at an early period of the Colony. The guilty person
was a Mr. Barnes, of Bermuda Hundred, who was sent to Jamestown
for trial, and condemned "to have his tongue run through
with an awl, to pass through a guard of forty men, and to be
butted by every one of them, and at the head of the troop
violation of the seventh and ninth commandments, which God
himself delivered amidst lightnings and thunders from Sinai, the
most frequent and disgraceful punishments were inflicted. As
to slander, the bearing false witness against fellow-beings,—at
the early period of the Colony, if a woman was convicted of it,
her husband was made to pay five hundredweight of tobacco;
but, this law proving insufficient, the penalty was changed into
ducking, and inflicted on the woman herself. Places for ducking
were prepared at the doors of court-houses. An instance is mentioned
of a woman who was ordered to be ducked three times from
a vessel lying in James River, near Bermuda Hundred, for scolding.
No doubt she was notorious for it. If a man was guilty
of slandering a minister, he was required to pay a fine of five
hundred pounds of tobacco and ask the pardon of the minister
before the congregation. Now, however we may lament and
condemn the modes which were sometimes adopted by our
ancestors for declaring their abhorrence of these crimes and
seeking to banish them from society, we must do them the justice
to acknowledge that it was evidence in them of a hatred of sin
and irreligion, and of a desire and determination to punish what
was offensive to God. We must also ever make due allowance for
the times and circumstances in which laws are made and enforced.
In examining the early history of Hungar's parish, we find that
in the year 1633, the offence of slandering the first minister, the
Rev. Mr. Cotton, was punished in the following manner:—"Ordered
by the court that Mr. Henry Charlton make a pair of stocks and
set in them several Sabbath-days, during divine service, and then
ask Mr. Cotton's forgiveness, for using offensive and slanderous
words concerning him." In the year 1643 the court inflicted
punishment on one Richard Buckland for writing a slanderous song
on one Ann Smith, ordering that "at the next sermon preached at
Nassawattocks, he shall stand, during the Lessons, at the church-door,
with a paper on his hat, on which shall be written `Inimicus
libellus,' and that he shall ask forgiveness of God, and also in
particular of the said defamed Ann Smith." In the year 1647,
Mr. Palmer being minister at Nassawattocks, the churchwardens
presented two persons to the court, which ordered them to stand
in the church during the service, with white sheets over their
shoulders and white wands in their hands. In the year 1652 the
Rev. Mr. Higby is brought before the court for scandalous speeches
against Major Robins,—the issue of it not being mentioned. In
scandalous speeches against the Rev. Mr. Teackle, and she was
ordered to receive twenty lashes on her bare shoulders, and to be
banished the county. In the year 1664, Captain John Custis
being High-Sheriff, there were eight presentments for violating the
seventh commandment, one for swearing, one for not attending
church, two for playing cards on Sunday. We have already mentioned
that a few Quakers had before this time been brought before
the court for blasphemy and ordered out of the county. It is
due to the people of the county to say that they did tolerate
respectable persons of that sect at a later period. Between the
years 1680 and 1690 there were such living quietly and unmolested
in that region. It is on record that "Thomas Brown and his wife,
though Quakers, were yet of such known integrity that their affirmation
was received instead of an oath." That the citizens of
the Eastern Shore were not cruel and bloodthirsty may be inferred
from the fact that the first capital punishment was inflicted in the
year 1693. The above-mentioned Mr. and Mrs. Brown were the
ancestors of that large and respectable family of Upshurs which
have since been spread over the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The
old family seat, called Brownsville, on the sea-shore of Northampton,
still in possession of an Upshur, was the ancient residence of the
Browns, who were there visited by some of the more eminent
Friends from Philadelphia, who came to have fellowship with them
in their peculiar mode of worship.
Before attempting a list of the names of the ministers and a
notice of the churches, I will mention a few things reflecting credit
on a few individuals. The first notice is due to Mr. Stephen
Charlton, who, in the year 1653, bequeathed the glebe which has
so long been the subject of dispute between the Episcopalians of
Northampton and the overseers of the poor. I find honourable
mention of Mr. Charlton in the account given by Colonel Norwood
in his visit to the Eastern Shore in the year 1649. Being on a
voyage from England to Virginia, he and his company were cast
away on one of the islands in the ocean. After remaining there
more than a week, they were conducted by some friendly Indians to
the main land, and found their way to Captain Charlton's hospitable
abode. "When I came to the house of one Stephen Charlton, he
not only did outdo all that I had visited before him, in variety of
dishes at his table, which was very well ordered in the kitchen, but
would also oblige me to put on a good farmer-like suit of his wearing-clothes
for exchange of my dirty habit; and this gave me
brother of Kickotanke, [the Indian chief who had been kind to
them,] with other things to make it worth his acceptance." Mr.
Charlton was not only a hospitable but a pious man, if we may
judge from the language and bequests of his will. After some
expressions showing that he had just views of a Saviour, he divides
his property equally between his wife and two daughters, Elizabeth
and Bridget, whom he directs to be educated in a godly manner,
and to be under guardians until the age of fourteen. Should
Bridget, the eldest, die without children, her share was to be given
to the church in Northampton, for the support of the minister.
She married a Mr. Foxcroft, a worthy man, and until his death a
vestryman of the church. They both lived to a good old age, and,
dying childless, the father's will was readily complied with. The
glebe, consisting of fifteen or sixteen hundred acres of the best
land in the county, has been in possession of the vestry ever since
her death, though the overseers of the poor have for some time
been endeavouring to take it from them. The other daughter,
Elizabeth, while at school, and only twelve years of age, was persuaded
to elope with a Mr. Getterrings, and, being unable to get a
license on that side of the bay, they came over to the western, and
contriving, by some artifice, to evade the laws, were married. She
soon died, and the husband sought to recover the estate to himself.
It was carried into court. A Colonel Scarborough, ancestor of
those bearing that name, prepared an address to the court in
writing, setting forth the iniquity of the conduct of Mr. Getterrings,
especially and emphatically dwelling on the right of every
man to dispose of his property according to his own will,—an argument
which may, with mighty power, be used in the case of the
other child's property also, since nothing can be clearer than that
Mr. Charlton's desire and intention was to leave her property, if
dying without issue, to the Episcopal Church of Northampton, or
in a certain event to one of his relatives.
In the year 1689, I read of the death of Colonel John Stringer.
His will indicates just views and feelings on the great subject of
man's redemption. In the preamble he says, "I bequeath my
soul to God, who first gave it me, Father, Son, and Spirit, Unity
in Trinity, Trinity in Unity, who hath redeemed and preserved
me, in and through Jesus Christ, who died for my sins and the sins
of all people that truly and unfeignedly believe in him, for whose
sake and loving-kindness I hope to obtain everlasting life; wherefore,
dear Father, have mercy on my soul." Among other legacies,
and Commandments put up in the new church about to be built in
the lower part of Northampton. He also forbids all drinking and
shooting at his funeral, as things altogether unbecoming the
occasion.
I may also mention the fact of Major Custis, who lived some
time in Williamsburg and married a daughter of Colonel Daniel
Parke, presenting sets of heavy silver Communion-service to both
the churches, upper and lower, of Northampton; and when the
lower church was built, in 1680, near which was his residence, he
promised to give the builder one hogshead of tobacco, or its equivalent,
and thirty gallons of cider, to put up for him the first pew
(the best, I suppose) in the church. Several other donations might
be mentioned. Let these suffice.
We now proceed to speak of the ministers and churches of
Northampton. It is somewhat difficult to determine their order
with accuracy, from the fact that there were from the year 1642
two parishes,—the upper and lower,—divided as we have already
said, and the ministers and people responsible to the one civil court,
from whose records we get our information. We shall not be very
anxious to decide this point, it being of little consequence.
Mr. Cotton is the first minister of whom we find notices on the
records of the court. He is often named therein from 1633 onward,
as bringing suits for his tithes. We read of a Mr. Cams,
or Carns, who received one hundred pounds of tobacco for preaching
a funeral sermon in the parish of Mr. Cotton. We read also
of John Rodgers, Thomas Higby, Francis Loughty, Thomas
Palmer, John Almoner, Thomas Teackle. Thomas Teackle was
the first minister of the upper church. Mr. Higby was then
minister of the lower. All of them, with the exception of Mr.
Teackle, served but a short time, and the records show many suits
for their salaries. Mr. Teackle had his difficulties also, and to the
end of his life sought his dues in a legal way. He seems to have
acquired much property in land. Though fiercely assailed as to
his moral character, in one instance by Colonel Scarborough, he
seems to have retained the confidence of the people.
About the year 1660, settlements had spread themselves up the
neck, toward Pungoteage, so as to call for a church and other
public buildings. In the year 1662, the county of Accomac was
formed. Of these things we shall treat in our next article.
In the year 1676, we find a Rev. Mr. Key the minister of the
lower parish. The Rev. Mr. Teackle, we presume, was still the
thousand-weight of tobacco from the vestry. A Rev. Mr. Richardson
preceded Mr. Key, but it seems he was not an orthodox
minister; that is, one regularly ordained by an English Bishop;
for such was the use of the word orthodox at that time. From
necessity,—the great difficulty of getting such,—the vestries sometimes
employed those who were not Episcopally ordained. An
opportunity offering to get an Episcopal minister of good character,
they dismissed Mr. Richardson, and wrote to the Governor,
Sir William Berkeley, to induct Mr. Key. The Governor readily
complied, and, being well acquainted with Mr. Key, recommended
him highly.
In the year 1691, a petition was made to the Assembly to unite
the two parishes of Northampton, on the ground that they were
unable, each of them, to give such a support as would secure an
able minister and build a good church. The petition was granted,
and the two merged in one, and called Hungar's parish. It was
after this, I presume, that the large church at Hungar's was built.[74]
In the following year, Mr. John Monroe was the minister of the
united parishes. Of him we read in some of the convocations of
the ministers in Williamsburg.
In the year 1703, the Rev. Mr. Collier was minister. He married
a widow Kendal, who had previously made an assault on some
one in church, and was afterward presented in court for cursing
and swearing.
Mr. Foxcroft died in 1702, leaving all his property to his wife,
Bridget, who died two years after, and fifty years after her father's
death. Being childless, the glebe-land, by his will, was the property
of the church.
In the year 1712, the Rev. Patrick Falconer is minister, and continues
so until 1718, when, after having given much to the poor,
he left his property to his brother James, in London, and desired
that his body be buried before the pulpit in Old Hungar's Church.
The Rev. Thomas Dell was then minister until the year 1729.
Then John Holbroke to 1747. The Rev. Edward Barlow probably
succeeded him, and died in 1761. Then the Rev. Richard Hewett,
who died in 1774; and in that year the Rev. Mr. McCoskry was
chosen, who died its minister in the year 1803. He married a
Mr. McCoskry was succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Gardiner. The
Rev. Thomas Davis followed him, and was followed by the
Rev. Mr. Symes. In the year 1820, the Rev. Simon Wilmer
appears on the vestry-book as minister, and so continued until
1823. Stephen S. Gunter was elected in 1824, and continued
until his death, in 1835. W. G. Jackson was elected in 1836, and
resigned in 1841. J. P. Wilmer was elected in 1841, and resigned
in 1843. John Ufford was elected in 1843, and resigned in 1850.
James Rawson was elected in 1850, and died in 1854. John M.
Chevers was chosen in 1855, and is the present rector.
The following is the list of vestrymen since 1712:—Peter Bowdoin,
John Eyre, Nathaniel Holland, John Addison, John Goffigan,
John Upshur, John Winder, Littleton Upshur, George Parker,
William Satchell, Thomas Satchell, S. Pitts, Jacob Nottingham,
Isaac Smith, John T. Elliott, J. H. Harmonson, James Upshur, Abel
P. Upshur, W. Danton, Charles West, W. G. Smith, John Leatherbury,
Severn E. Parker, John Ker, T. N. Robins, N. J. Winder,
Major Pitts, G. F. Wilkins, Simkins, Fisher, Evans, Bell, Adams,
Nicholson.[76]
One generous act of him who stands second on the
liberal to the minister and to all the wants of the church, and
most punctual at the meetings of the vestry and at church, for a
long series of years, toward the close of his life Mr. John Eyre
gave the sum of three thousand dollars for the erection of that
model parsonage which may be seen a mile from Eastville, and
from which the great Atlantic may be surveyed. To Dr. W. G.
Smith, the faithful lay-reader and vestryman of so many years,
and the active friend of the church in so many ways, the church
year's devotion of almost all his time and attention to the erection
of it, and of all the surrounding improvements.
The Episcopal congregation of Northampton is now, and has
been for a long time, a deeply-interesting one. Its peace and
happiness, however, has been much marred for many years by a
painful and protracted controversy with the overseers of the poor
concerning the glebe. More than two hundred years ago the
worthy and pious Charlton, in view of his approaching dissolution,
and in the event of one of his two daughters dying childless, left
a portion of that earth, which is all the Lord's, for the perpetual
support of the Church of his fathers, and of that religion which
had been his happiness in life, and was now to be his consolation
in death.
He did this in the exercise of a right recognised by God himself
in the law of his word, and secured to men by the laws of every
government on earth,—the right of disposing of our property by
will. It pleased that God, who put it into the heart of his servant
thus to will a portion of his property, to cause that contingency to
happen on which the bequest to the Church depended. He withheld
the blessing of children from the daughter, and so ordained
that the church of Northampton should be her heir. At her death
that church took quiet possession of it, and long enjoyed it. The
Legislature of Virginia, both under the Colonial Government and
since our independence, has by several acts ratified her claim. But,
after a long period of acquiescence in the church's right, the overseers
of the poor, under that act of the Legislature which had
never before been suspected of embracing this case, determined to
claim it, and actually did sell it, conditionally, at public auction.[77]
The question was brought before the Legislature, and a sanction
for the sale sought for; but it was dismissed as unreasonable. The
question was taken before a court of law, and twice decided in
behalf of the church. An appeal, however, has been taken from
the last decision to a higher court, and when the vexatious suit
will be decided, no one can tell. Years have already been passed
in painful controversy. Great have been the expenses to the
church, and much the loss in various ways which has been sustained.
The peace of the county has been much impaired by
mixed up with it, and Christians of different denominations
estranged from and embittered toward each other. Surely, when
our Legislators reserved all private donations from the operation
of the law which ordered the sale of glebes, if this case could have
been presented to them, and they been asked whether it could come
under the sentence of it, the bitterest enemies of the Episcopal
Church, and the most unbelieving foes of our religion, would have
shrunk with horror from the mere suggestion. May God overrule
it all for good!
A friend on the Eastern Shore, whose delight is in searching its
ancient records, has sent me a full account of the Custis family,
which so abounds in that part of the State. Its name and blood
are intermingled with those of most of the families of Northampton
and Accomac, whether rich or poor. I give a brief statement
of it. The name of John Custis first appears on the record in
1640. It is probable that he was the person of whom Colonel
Norwood speaks, in his account of his voyage to America and
shipwreck on the Eastern Shore in 1649, as having been a hotel-keeper
in Rotterdam and a great favourite with English travellers.
He had six sons and one daughter. The daughter married Colonel
Argal Yeardley, son of Governor Yeardley, of Virginia. His
sons were John, William, Joseph, who were in Virginia, Thomas,
who was in Baltimore, (Ireland,) Robert, who resided in Rotterdam,
and Edmund, who lived in London. The family is of Irish descent.
John appears to have taken the lead. He was an active, enterprising
man, engaged in making salt on one of the islands; foremost
in all civil and ecclesiastical matters; was, in 1676, during
Bacon's Rebellion, appointed Major-General; a true royalist; a
law-and-order man; a favourite of Lord Arlington in the time of
Charles II., after whom he called his estate Arlington, on the
Eastern Shore, which he received by his first wife. His second
wife was daughter of Colonel Edmund Scarborough. He died at
an advanced age, after having been full of labours through life.
He had only one son, whom he named John. This John Custis
had numerous children, whose descendants, together with those of
his uncle, William Custis, have filled the Eastern Shore with the
name. His son John, being the fourth of that name, after being
educated in England, received from his grandfather the Arlington
estate. He was the John Custis who moved to Williamsburg and
married the daughter of Colonel Daniel Parke, and was the father
of him whose widow married General Washington. His tomb is
of the curiosities of the Eastern Shore. It is plainly to be inferred
from it that he was not very happy in his matrimonial relations;
for it says that he only lived seven years,—those seven
which he spent as a bachelor at Arlington. His wife, it is to be
feared, was too much like her brother, and unlike her father, both
of whom were spoken of in one of our articles on Williamsburg.
I am informed by one now living that there were, as late as 1809, the remains
of a fine organ in Hungar's Church. "It was entirely broken up by ruthless hands,
and the lead and other parts used for sacrilegious purposes."
By going back a century and a half, and then coming down the records, we
meet with, as acting in the vestries and courts, the names of Scarborough, Robins,
Littleton, Charlton, Severn, Custis, Yeardley, (son of Governor Yeardley,) Kendal,
Purnell, Waltham, Claybourn, Andrews, Wise, Foxcroft, Parker, Eyre, Upshur,
Hack, West, Vaughan, Preston, Marshall, Burton, Stith, John Bowdoin. Concerning
the ancestors of the latter, something more particular will be interesting to the
reader. I take it from an address of the Hon. Robert Winthrop, of Boston, delivered
before the Maine Historical Society at Bowdoin College, at the annual commencement
of 1849. The first of the family who came to America was Pierre
Boudouin, a French Huguenot, who, driven from France, first settled in Ireland,
then, with a wife and four children, came to Casco, in Maine. Of him Mr. Winthrop
says, "He was one of that noble sect of Huguenots of whom John Calvin
may be regarded as the great founder and exemplar; of which Gaspard De Coligny,
the generous and gallant admiral who filled the kingdom of France with the glory
and terror of his name for the space of twelve years, was one of the most devoted
disciples and one of the most lamented martyrs, and which has furnished to our
land blood everyway worthy of being mingled with the best that has ever flowed
in the veins of either Southern Cavaliers or Northern Puritans. He was of that
noble stock which gave three presidents out of five to the old Congress of the Confederation,
which gave her her Lawrences and Marions, her Hugers and Manigalts,
her Prioleaus, and Galliards, and Legares to South Carolina; which gave her Jays to
New York, her Boudinots to New Jersey, her Brimmers, her Dexters, and her Peter
Faneuil, with the cradle of liberty, to Massachusetts." Pierre Boudouin escaped
from the place of his first settlement, the fort at Casco, in 1690, only a few hours
before it was sacked and its inhabitants generally massacred by the Indians, and
removed to Boston. Dying shortly after, he left his family to the care of his eldest
son James, then seventeen years of age, who, besides providing for it, amassed the
largest fortune then possessed by any one person in Massachusetts. He left two
sons; the youngest, James Bowdoin, (the name being now changed from Boudouin,)
was the friend and compatriot of Washington and Franklin, delighting in the same
philosophical pursuits with the latter, and agreeing and acting with both in the
great political movements of the day. He was a man of high moral and religious
character, which, together with his patriotism and statesmanship, made him for a
long time the first man in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. But for his own
and Mrs. Bowdoin's ill-health, he would have been in that Congress which signed
the Declaration of Independence.
A daughter of Mr. Bowdoin married a Mr. Temple, who, though born in Boston,
was of an old English family and inherited a title. Into this family of Temples,
a Mr. Robert Nelson, of England, married, previous to their emigration to America.
Hence the names and families of Temples and Nelsons in Massachusetts. It may
be that those in Virginia and Massachusetts are derived from the same English
stock. The ancestor of the Bowdoins—Pierre Boudouin—was godfather to Peter
Faneuil, the donor of Faneuil Hall, Boston. His great-grandson, James Bowdoin,
son of the Revolutionary patriot, was also a distinguished man, not only holding a
seat in both branches of the Legislature, but being sent as minister to the Courts
of France and Spain. He died without children, and was the founder of Bowdoin
College, Massachusetts. One of the grandsons of Pierre Boudouin—John—removed
to the Eastern Shore of Virginia, at the beginning of the last century. It is said that
his relative, the founder of Bowdoin College, offered to adopt his son Peter if he
would change his name, but that the offer was declined. His grandson, Peter
Bowdoin, has succeeded to his father's and grandfather's place as vestryman in
Northampton. One sister married Professor George Tucker, of the University of
Virginia; another, Dr. Smith, of Eastville, Northampton. Two brothers are
living in Baltimore. All of the Bowdoins—now pronounced Bodens—of Virginia
are of this family, and, so far as I know and believe, have belonged to the Episcopal
Church. Their first ancestor, Pierre Boudouin, it is presumed, was of that
Church, as he was godfather to Mr. Faneuil's child. The Winthrops and Lloyds of
Boston were also connected with the Temples and Bowdoins.
[Since the above was written and published in its first form, a letter from a friend
says that I am mistaken in supposing that the John Boudouin who came to Virginia
was the grandson of Pierre Boudouin, of Boston, and is confident that he was his
son. Not having in possession Mr. Winthrop's pamphlet, I cannot re-examine it.
That document will correct my error if I have made one.]
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