 | Old churches, ministers and families of Virginia |  |
ARTICLE XXVI.
Parishes in Charles City, Surrey, and Sussex
Although Charles City was one of the eight original shires or
counties into which the Colony was partitioned in 1634, and holds
so central a position among the old counties, and lies on one of our
noblest rivers, yet have we little knowledge of either its civil or
ecclesiastical history during the first century of our Colonial existence.
We read indeed of Westover Hundred, and Weynoake
Hundred, and Charles City Hundred, as early settlements on
James River, within its bounds, and of the destruction or great
injury of them by the Indians in the great massacre of 1622. We
read of a school being established, or about to be established, at
Charles City Hundred, in aid of the proposed College at Henrico,
without being able to ascertain the location of it,—though we presume
it was somewhere on the river. The dimensions of the parish
we are able accurately to define. As was the case with some other
counties on this and other rivers, it extended some distance on
both sides of James River. Inconvenient as this must have been
to the inhabitants in many respects, yet such was the unwillingness
to divide what God had divided, that two court-houses were used
in the one county, one on each side of the river, for a long period
of time. Still more inconvenient must this have been to the
ministers of religion and the people of their charges, whose
parishes were thus divided. There were two parishes in Charles
City,—Westover or the upper, and Weynoake or the lower,—each
divided by the river into two parts, until the year 1720, when the
two parts of Westover and Weynoake on the north of James River,
together with a part of another parish called Wallingford, extending
to the Chickahominy, were all united into one, and took the
name of Westover parish; while the two parts of Weynoake and
Westover on the south of the river were united to one called
Martins Brandon in Prince George, which latter county had been
taken from Charles City, being that part of it lying south of James
River. It is not until after this arrangement that we have any
account of the ministers of Charles City county and Westover
parish as they now are. We have no means of ascertaining the
after its establishment. In the year 1724, the Rev. Peter Fontaine
gives an account of himself and his parish. He came into
it nine years before that time,—had officiated in Wallingford,
Weynoake, Martins Brandon, and Jamestown, before the new arrangement.
He had now three churches in Westover parish, the
upper or Westover Church, and the lower church near the Chickahominy,
formerly in Wallingford parish. The length of this parish
was thirty miles; the number of families two hundred and thirty-three,
of communicants seventy-five. He was as attentive to the
instruction of children and servants as circumstances would allow.
There were two glebes in his parish, neither of which had houses
on them, and the best of them rented for thirty shillings. He
lived in his own house and on his own farm. His salary, besides perquisites,
was from fifty to sixty pounds. Mr. Fontaine is the same
minister of whom we have spoken as accompanying Colonel Byrd
on that most laborious and dangerous expedition for running the
dividing-line between Virginia and North Carolina. Colonel Byrd
evidently held him in the highest esteem, as doubtless did all his
parishioners. We find him still living in their affections and labouring
among them in the year 1757. He died in the month of July
of that year. After expressing a firm trust in a joyful resurrection
through the blood of a merciful Redeemer, he concludes his
will by saying, "My will and desire is, that I may have no public
funeral, but that my corpse may be accompanied by a few of my
nearest neighbours; that no liquors be given to make any of the
company drunk,—many instances of which I have seen, to the
great scandal of the Christian religion and abuse of so solemn an
ordinance. I desire none of my family to go in mourning for
me."
Concerning this good man and his family, something more must
be said. I have already, in my article on one of the parishes in
Albemarle, referred to the interesting history of the Fontaine
family as set forth by Miss Ann Maury and Dr. Hawks. I refer
to it again, and commend it to all as having all the interest of the
best novels, without their imperfections and evils. Mr. Peter Fontaine
was one of six children (five sons and one daughter) of two
pious and valiant Huguenots, who fled from France to England.
Giving their children a good education, especially as to religion,
they committed "them to the providence of a covenant God to seek
their fortune in the wide world." All of them came to America,
though two of them—Moses and John—returned to England. The
coming to America, became the mother of a numerous posterity.
James Fontaine settled in King William as a farmer, and is also
the ancestor of many most respectable families in Virginia and
elsewhere. Francis was the minister of whom we have already
spoken in our article on York-Hampton. Peter is the worthy
person of whom we are now speaking, and who also has his descendants
spread over our own and other States. Nor are the names of
Fontaine and Maury absent from the lists of our present American
Episcopal clergy. Of Mr. Peter Fontaine, who spent his whole
ministry of about forty years in the county of Charles City, with
the exception of a short time at Jamestown and Wallingford parish,
it becomes us to add something more. His letters to various relatives,
and one of his sermons, furnish us with the means. It was
the pious custom of the Fontaines to assemble annually, and hold a
solemn religious thanksgiving in commemoration of their deliverance
from persecution in France, and remarkable preservation when
attacked by French privateers in the North of Ireland. I have
before me a sermon on one of those occasions, preached by Peter
Fontaine. After a suitable prayer, which is prefaced to it, he takes
for his text that passage from Romans,—"That ye may with one
mind and with one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ." After a general consideration of the duty enjoined
by the text, he applies it to their particular case. Alluding to the
former, he says,—
"Several months was our parent obliged to shift among forests and
deserts for his safety, because he had preached the word of God to a congregation
of innocent and sincere persons, who desired to be instructed in
their duty and confirmed in their faith. The woods afforded him a shelter
and the rocks a resting-place; but his enemies gave him no quiet, until,
of his own accord, he delivered himself up to their custody. They loaded
his hands with chains, his feet stuck fast in the mire, a dungeon was his
abode, and murderers and thieves were his companions, until God by
means of a pious gentlewoman, whose kindness ought to be remembered
by us even to latest posterity, withdrew him from thence, and was the
occasion that his confinement was more tolerable."
He exhorts them in the close of the sermon never to forsake
their annual meetings, which were so calculated to keep up the
remembrance of their parent's virtues and sufferings, and the wonderful
deliverance of God. "Would to God," he says, "that you
would make it your business to teach them to your children, that
they may be qualified to perpetuate them to infinite generations to
the Almighty upon them; for God is not like Jacob, who hath only
one blessing in store. He hath millions of millions to bestow on
those who love and fear him." We believe that the recollection of
these things has had a happy religious effect on very many of this
wide-spread family. A passage from one of the letters of Mrs.
Maury, the sister of Peter Fontaine, concerning his family, is
worthy of insertion:—
"My brother Peter's first wife, Lizzy, was one of the loveliest creatures
I ever saw. God had endowed her with all the virtues of a good Christian
wife and a watchful mother. She never let the least thing pass in her
children that had any apperance of evil in it, and was very tender of them.
His present wife is a lovely, sweet-tempered woman, and she, Mary Ann,
and Peter, have an unusual tenderness for each other; and I believe if
they were her own children she could not show more tenderness to them.
My brother has two children by her,—a boy and a girl. The boy is named
Thomas. I hope God will spare my brother's life to raise them as he hath
the other two, who are examples of piety and wisdom, and a great comfort
to their parents and us."
There is one passage from a letter of Mr. Fontaine to one of his
brothers in England, on the subject of preserving health, which is
worthy of him as a man and as a minister. Besides commending
active exercise in the open air on foot and horseback, and a careful
consideration of one's own constitution so as to be our own physician,
he adds this valuable hint:—"I drink no spirituous liquors at
all; no small beer; but when I am obliged to take more than ordinary
fatigue, either in serving my churches or other branches of
duty, I take one glass of good old Madeira wine, which revives me
and contributes to my going through without much fatigue."
Happy would it have been for the Church of Virginia had all
her members prescribed such bounds to themselves. Mr. Fontaine,
though living in the midst of the opulent and voluptuous gentlemen
on James River, was no wine-bibber sitting at their tables and
quaffing glass after glass of their rich wines after having imbibed
something stronger, perhaps, before and at dinner, but confined himself
to one glass of pure wine when weariness called for it, eschewing
all other liquors. Though we think expediency and a due
regard to personal security now call for even more abstinence, on
the part of the clergy especially, yet we are free to say that if all
had restricted themselves as did Mr. Fontaine, there would have
been no need, so far as the clergy are concerned, of a temperance-society.
No one can doubt on which side of the question Mr.
gentlemen of Virginia but followed his example, how many estates
would have been saved from ruin, how many families from dispersion,
how many young men from the grave of the drunkard!
Our remaining work as to the ministers of Westover parish will
be brief. In the year 1758—three years after the death of Mr.
Fontaine—we find on an English list the name of William Davis as
minister of this parish; and the same is found on a list in the Virginia
Almanac for 1773. In the year 1776 we find the name of
James Ogilvie. No accounts have reached us of the character of
either of them. In the year 1786 we meet with the name of the
Rev. John Dunbar,—a name to be met with previously as ministering
in other parishes. For the honour of the Church it were to be
wished that it had never been on any list of the clergy. He married
a daughter of Colonel Byrd, of Westover, of whom we have
already spoken.[90]
By none was he better known and more despised
than by the members of that family. Often has one of its most
pious members, who in infancy was baptized by him, spoken to me
with concern about her baptism, asking whether it could not be
repeated, saying that she found it hard to regard herself as baptized.
Nor is it wonderful, when it is considered that, besides other
vices, he openly renounced the ministry and with it the Christian
faith, and, if I have been rightly informed, fought a duel in sight
of Old Westover Church, in which he had once officiated. Happily,
he left no descendants to blush at the above recital.
In the year 1793 we find the Rev. Sewal Chapin in the Episcopal
Convention at Richmond, with Mr. Charles Carter, of Shirley, as
lay delegate. Mr. Chapin continued on the list of clergy as long
as the Conventions continued; that is, until the year 1805, when
they ceased until 1812. How long Mr. Chapin was minister after
1805 we are unable to state, nor can we speak with any certainty
as to his religious views and character. Thus ends the history of
in 1812. So low was the condition of the parish that it
was some time before even an effort was made in its behalf. In the
year 1833 the Rev. Farley Berkeley, now of Amelia, acted as missionary
in Charles City, Chesterfield, and King William, and somewhat
revived the hopes of these old parishes. He was followed in
Westover parish in the year 1835 by the Rev. Alexander Norris,
who continued its minister until 1838. The Rev. Mr. Leavell succeeded
Mr. Norris, and continued in the parish until 1853. The
Rev. Mr. Okeson took his place. Mr. Okeson resigned his charge
the past year, (1856,) and the Rev. Dr. Wade has accepted a call
from the parish.
As to the churches in Westover parish, we know nothing of the
history of that at Weynoake, or of that near the Chickahominy,
except that they are now nowhere to be seen. The Old Westover
still stands, a relic and monument of ancient times. A new
church in the neighbourhood of Weynoake was put up some years
ago, but has recently been destroyed by fire. Another is now
rising up upon the same site.
I wish it were in my power to furnish a list of the vestrymen of
Westover parish from an early period, as in so doing I should give
the names of the principal Episcopal families of Charles City; but,
no remnant of a parish-record being preserved, I am unable to do
any thing more than mention a few names familiar to my ears.
The Lightfoots, Minges, Byrds, Carters, Harrisons, Tylers, Christians,
Seldens, Nelsons, Lewises, Douthats, and Wilcoxes, are
those best known to me.
The following extract from the letter of a friend is an interesting
addition to this article:—
"The old church and churchyard were near the present Westover
House,—about one-quarter mile up the river-bank,—where are some very
old tombstones, besides that of Benjamin Harrison. The present Westover
Church was built by Mrs. Byrd on her land, called Evelington. The
minister once resided on the adjacent tract, called Westing, which also
belonged to the Westover estate, across the creek from the Westover
House. Perhaps it was only Mr. Dunbar who occupied that farm; for the
glebe proper was between the two churches, and below the present courthouse
about two miles.
"The clerk of the county has told me that the county was divided into
two parishes,—Westover and Mapsco. The part above the court-house was
called Westover, and the part below called Mapsco, from an Indian tribe
who gave name to the creek near where the Old Brick Church, called
Mapsco, stood, about seven miles below the court-house and immediately
on the road to Sandy Point,—the old seat of the Lightfoot family. That
seven or eight miles from the mouth of that river, where the most of the
earlier friends of the Church in that part of the county must have
resided; and it was behind the Old Mapsco Church that it is said that
one of its ministers—either Davis or Dunbar—fought a duel. The quarrel
originated about a horse-race. An additional fact was related to me by
the late Benjamin Harrison, of Berkeley,—viz.: That this Mr. Dunbar
offered to be the bearer of a challenge from Benjamin Harrison, of
Berkeley, to Benjamin Harrison, of Brandon, assuring the former, as his
friend, that the conduct of the latter justified such notice. But Mr.
Harrison, of Berkeley, was not persuaded by him. The note was at
Berkeley, and Mr. Harrison promised to show it to me when he had more
leisure; but he died suddenly soon after.
"In addition to the names of the old ministers you have mentioned in
your article, I have been told by some very old servants, and some of the
oldest citizens too, that there were two others remembered besides Chapin,
who was the last occupant of the glebe, whilst the churches mouldered
away or were used as barns. That of Westover was so used at the time
the friends of the Church got possession of it, when the family at Berkeley
and Shirley undertook its repairs. The other two ministers were
Black and Blagrove. Several servants told me they were christened by
Parson Black. Old Mr. Chapin occupied the glebe until persuaded by
Mr. F. Lewis, of Weynoake, and Mr. Colier Harrison, of Kettiuvan, to rent
out the place and come and live with them. He died at Weynoake, the
residence of Mr. F. Lewis, and was buried in the aisle and under the
present chancel of the Westover Church. I have made frequent inquiry
for his sermons, &c., but have never been able to find any: all that could
be remembered of them was that they served the young ladies for paper
in which to roll up their hair at night."
There were three of the name of Byrd in Virginia, of whom we read in various
Virginia documents. The first, who was the father of the family and early owner
of lands about richmond and of the place called Belvidera, is spoken of in my
Lambeth Documents as being engaged with Commissary Blair in the incipient steps
about the College of William and Mary. The part of it called the Chapel was
contracted for and the erecting of it superintended by him in the time of Governor
Andros, between the years 1690 and 1700. The second was Colonel Byrd, the
author of the Westover Papers and owner of Westover. The third was the last
of the name who owned Westover, and was with General Washington when encamped
at Winchester and defending the frontiers against the Indians.
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