University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER II

AGRICULTURE, COMMERCE AND BANKING,
SCIENCE, LAW, MEDICINE, AND RELIGION

Agriculture. The old colonial method of tillage consisted
in using the land for corn or tobacco till the soil failed to
give a fair return. The farmer opened up a new field and
subjected this to the same exhaustive culture. The evil, however,
was not without its compensative advantages, so long as
there was any surplus of woodland on the estate, as it
enlarged the area for a future rotation of crops.

Probably, however, the facts have been to a certain degree
misrepresented. We have direct evidence from William Nelson,
President of the Council, in a letter to Samuel Athawes in
1770 that farmers were then employing manure and making
better crops than ever on their lands. He wrote:[21] "I am not
sorry to tell you that I expect that we shall make this year
80,000 hogsheads (of tobacco). * * * You make me smile
when you talk of the lands being too much worn and impoverished
to bring good tobacco as we formerly did, and I know
that a skillful planter can make it fine from any land, it being
his part and interest to improve any that he finds worn or
wearing out."

After the Revolution a three-shift system was practiced—
that is, first, a crop of Indian corn; second, wheat, rye or oats;
and third, "the year of rest," in which the stock was permitted
to glean scanty subsistence from the natural vegetation
that sprang up. This system was rather hard on the
land, but prevailed as late as 1835 in the region on the south
side of the James, from the seaboard to the mountains.[22]

In the meantime a much better system came in vogue in
the region north of the James, especially in what is known as
the Northern Neck. Here peas and red clover were early
used, and by their employment, united with deep plowing, and
the use of gypsum or plaster of paris and a more diversified
rotation of crops, the lands were enriched and yielded gratifying
returns. As early as 1792 Israel Janney brought the
first gypsum from Pennsylvania and tried it on his crops in
Loudoun County with success, and in 1804 John A. Binns of
the same county wrote and published a "Treatise on Practical
Farming" in which he praised the value of gypsum
and deep plowing. In 1796 Landon Carter, of "Cleve," in
King George County, expatiated in a letter to Washington on
the value of "Indian peas" in restoring corn land.[23]

In the Valley district also a good system of cultivation
was early pursued, and irrigation was practiced to a considerable
extent.

One step in advance was the greater attention paid in Virginia
after the Revolution to the growth of wheat and the
small grains. They gradually took the place in Tidewater,
Virginia, of tobacco, which was now banished to the Western
and Southwestern counties. But tobacco still remained a
favorite staple, and its intelligent production was much encouraged
by a book written by William Tatham, entitled "An
Historical and Practical Essay on the Culture and Commerce
of Tobacco," published in London in 1800.[24]

Interest in agriculture was shown by the existence of an
Agricultural Society in Culpeper County in 1794,[25] and perhaps

earlier. Probably there were other local societies. The first
State Society was formed in 1811, and continued in existence
till 1820. John Taylor, of Caroline, was its president. His
book, "Arator," (1810) was of great service in his day in
stimulating scientific farming. He died in 1824, and his labor
was taken up by Edmund Ruffin.

In the meantime, local societies were springing up in many
counties, and on January 12, 1820, the first general meeting of
delegates from the United Agricultural Societies of Virginia
was held at Parker's Tavern in Surry County, January 10-12,
1820. Delegates were present from Prince George County,
Sussex, Surry, Brunswick and Petersburg.

Edmund Ruffin was a delegate from the Society in Prince
George and acted as Secretary. Gen. John Pegram was President.
The Albemarle Society was not represented at this
meeting. It had been established in 1817 with James Madison
as President, late President of the United States.

For the years following 1819 only diligence and access to
files are necessary to bring out all the facts relating to Agriculture
in Virginia, since the American Farmer, the earliest
agricultural journal in America, began that year, and it is
replete with information regarding such movements in Virginia.
It is unquestionable that the period from 1819 to 1860
was one of steady improvement in the Agriculture of the
Middle Atlantic States. About 1829 Theodorick McRobert
published a farm journal called The Virginia Farmer, at
Scottsville, Albemarle County, which continued till after 1833.[26]

In that year (1833) Edmund Ruffin established The
Farmers' Register, which ran for ten years, and was esteemed
one of the best (if not the best) agricultural journals in the
United States. The publication the next year of his famous
work on "Calcareous Manures" combined with this Journal
to put new life into the farmer's profession. Most of the local
societies had come to an end, but in 1836 an agricultural convention
was held at Richmond, with James Barbour as president.

The farmers memorialized the Legislature to establish
a Board of Agriculture, and this was done in 1841, but the
act was repealed in 1843. James Barbour was the first president
of this short-lived board, and Edmund Ruffin was the
secretary. Two famous farmers were members of the Board,
James M. Garnett, of Essex County, and Richard Samson, of
Goochland County.

In 1845 the Virginia Society of Agriculture was reorganized
and Edmund Ruffin was chosen president, but, he declining
the post, the Hon. Andrew Stevenson was elected
president.

In the meantime, another agricultural journal had been
started, the Southern Planter, begun at Richmond in 1841,
and which still survives.

In 1849 Governor John B. Floyd was willing to recommend
in his message the appointment of a State Chemist, and
the endorsement of a State Agricultural Society, but the
Legislature would not act. A carefully worked out bill did
pass in 1851, authorizing the appointment of a State Chemist
and an Agricultural Commission, the Commissioners to draw
a salary of $2,500. But, it is said, nothing at all official came
out of this.

The same year the Virginia Society of Agriculture, in
unison with the general advance, took new life. The Constitution
was revised and new officers elected. Its members and
resources rapidly increased, and the Society had a field agent,
Gen. William H. Richardson, who knew how to get hold of the
people.

The State Society thus active held its very successful first
fair at Richmond in the fall of 1853, and the custom was maintained
for eight years regularly, through the fall of 1860.
After that there was no fair until the fall of 1869.

In March, 1854, this vigorous State Society appointed its
own Commissioner of Agriculture, Edmund Ruffin, who served
till 1855. After that there was no Commissioner of Agriculture
in the State on any footing until July 1, 1877, as under

the act of March 29 of that year. March 5, 1888, a Board of
Agriculture was superimposed upon the Commissioner, and
the structure was complete.[27]

The influence of Edmund Ruffin upon Agriculture in Virginia
during three decades must not be slighted. His work
on "Calcareous Manures" was the beginning of what one may
call "a new era" in Virginia farming. The book went through
four editions, increasing in size with each edition till from
118 pages it attained in 1852, 490 pages.

In another pamphlet he pressed the necessity of an Agricultural
College, and was the first in the United States to
outline a course of study for such an institution. In newspaper
articles, and as editor of the Farmers' Register, he urged the
use of legumes and marl as fertilizers of poor soil, drainage,
and blind ditching and the five-fold rotation of crops, and by
following his own suggestions and by the judicious employment
of negro labor, he not only increased his own estate
eightfold, but set an example which was copied by his neighbors
and the farmers throughout the State. The enormous
increase in the value of farm lands and stock between 1850 and
1860, due in large measure to his salutary labors, is shown by
the census for those years.

In 1850 the value of farms in Virginia was estimated at
$216,401,543, and in 1860 it had increased to $371,761,661.
Farming implements increased from $7,021,772 to $9,392,296.
The value of all live stock in 1850 was $33,656,659 and in
1860 was $47,803,649. This percentage of increase in the value
of farm lands exceeded that of any of the old Thirteen States,
except North Carolina, which increased from $67,891,766 to
$143,301,065.

As indicative of the incompatibility of the States, the
value of farm lands in Massachusetts in 1850 was only
$109,076,347 and in 1860 was $123,255,948, and yet her total
wealth in 1850, principally in the shape of capital and manufactures,
was $573,342,286. On the other hand, the total wealth

of Virginia in 1850, consisting principally of farms and live
stock, was $430,701,082. In 1860, Massachusetts had in property,
principally in capital and manufactures, $815,237,433
and Virginia $793,249,687, showing a considerable gain on
the part of Virginia on Massachusetts.[28]

In this connection, it is of interest to read a letter or two
from Tidewater, Virginia, giving some idea of the wonderful
wheat farming during this time of progress (1845-1860). In
July, 1846, Benjamin Ogle Taylor reported that there had
been great improvement in farming methods below Fredericksburg.
Later in 1847 Robert B. Bolling wrote from
"Sandy Point," Charles City County, that he had averaged
twenty-three bushels of wheat on 500 acres, and that Hill
Carter, of "Shirley," and John Selden, of "Westover," in the
same county, and William Harrison, of "Brandon," in Prince
George County, had averaged thirty-one bushels on fields of
100 to 200 acres.[29] Naturally these were the days when the
Richmond Mills were so conspicuously in the South American
trade.

Commerce and Banking. In Colonial days a great many
ships were built in Virginia, though not to compare with
Massachusetts in numbers. Ships of 300 tons burden were
built, and there were a number of shipyards in the rivers.
The colony carried on a great trade with the West Indies in
Virginia made sloops.[30]

Transportation for the most part, however, was in British
vessels and the chief exports were tobacco and Indian corn, and
the chief imports consisted of groceries and English manufactures.
But most of the people in moderate circumstances went
clad in Virginia cloth made of cotton grown on the plantations.

Of this kind of cloth 250,000 pounds were manufactured
annually about 1770.[31]

Upwards of 50,000 or 60,000 hogsheads of tobacco were
exported annually at that period, giving employment to 17,000
tons of shipping. A few years later the exports of tobacco
reached the figure of 80,000 hogsheads.

The census shows that, in 1772, Virginia and Maryland
exported £528,404 worth of goods and imported goods to
the value of £793,910. The four colonies of New England,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire
exported £126,265 and imported £824,830.

During the War of the Revolution commerce was suspended.
After the treaty of peace in 1783, trade revived and
the custom house receipts of Virginia in 1788 amounted to
$266,000. During this time Virginia had control of her own
trade, had her own custom houses, her own marine hospitals,
and her own revenue cutters, bearing her own flag.
Trade was free with all parts of the world. The sum of
$266,000 was collected under an average tariff of two and one-half
per cent and represented an import trade of over
$10,000,000. And assuming that the imports were chiefly
based upon exports, the amount of the two must have been
not far from $20,000,000.[32]

The transference of the power to regulate trade to the Federal
Government shut out British shipping, and the high
tariffs afterwards imposed subjected Virginia to the exploitation
of New England. The effect was seen almost immediately.
In 1791 the exports from Virginia were $3,130,865 and
the exports of Massachusetts $2,519,651. In 1853 the exports
of Virginia amounted to $3,302,561, and the exports of Massachusetts
were $16,895,304. The same year the imports of
Virginia were $399,004 and the imports of Massachusetts
$41,367,956.[33] Virginia found herself compelled to conform to

a condition of things wholly in favor of New England. Many
towns in Virginia that had once a large foreign trade fell into
ruins and were deserted, such as Falmouth, Yorktown and
Dumfries. Norfolk and Alexandria ceased to grow.

She vainly attempted to escape from this vassalage, and
many conventions were held at Norfolk and Richmond to
encourage a direct trade with England and France, but not
much success attended these efforts. Better success attended
trade with the South American States in flour shipped from
the Gallego and Haxall Mills in Richmond. According to
the preliminary report of the Eighth Census, by Joseph C.
G. Kennedy, the largest mill in 1860 was at Oswego, New
York, which produced 300,000 barrels of flour. The next two,
in Richmond, made 190,000 and 160,000 barrels of flour
respectively. The value of the annual production of each
ranged from $1,500,000 to $1,000,000 and the whole value of
flour and meal produced in Virginia in 1860 was $15,212,050.

There were nail and iron works at Richmond whose products
in 1860 were considerable. The value of iron founding in
the State was placed at $809,955 as compared with $409,836,
the value in 1850. Petersburg, Richmond and Wheeling were
centers of tobacco factories, cotton seed and oil mills, flour
mills, paper factories and woolen factories. The year 1860
saw, despite all impediments, a considerable increase in manufactures
over 1850. The value in 1850 was estimated at
$29,602,507, and in 1860 at $50,652,124.

Connected with trade were the banks, of which Virginia
had a very efficient State system in 1860. During Colonial
times and for some time after it, business of this kind was
conducted by goldsmiths and private companies, who had not
been incorporated. They accepted deposits, discounted paper
and issued currency notes. In 1804 the Legislature began
passing a series of acts intended to force these unchartered
persons to cease doing business, and by 1820 they were pretty
well extinct as business concerns.

In 1804 the Legislature chartered the Bank of Virginia

and its branches, with a capital of $1,500,000. It had branches
at Norfolk, Petersburg, Lynchburg, Fredericksburg, Danville,
Charleston, Buchanan, Portsmouth and Union. The bank was
given authority to issue notes, but they were not to exceed
$4,500,000 above the amount of its deposits, and its notes
were to be received in payment of all taxes due to the State.
The bank went into immediate operation and had a career of
unbroken success until destroyed by the War for Southern
Independence.

Tempted by the success of this bank, other persons got
a charter in 1812 for the Farmers' Bank of Virginia, with its
branches. It had equal success and continued in the confidence
of the Virginia people till, having invested its money in Confederate
bonds like the other bank, it experienced a similar
fate of bankruptcy. This bank was followed by the Northwestern
Bank and the Bank of the Valley, both chartered in 1817.
By 1860 banks were to be found in every village and town in
Virginia. In general, it may be said of them that they were
conservative and safe. In spite of financial panics which
struck the country at times the Virginia banks were noted for
their soundness. In 1860, in a white population of 1,047,411
capable of making contracts, the banks had a capital of
$15,884,543 and $9,612,560 of circulating notes for currency.
The banks were scattered through the entire community,
mainly agricultural, so that there was an abundance of currency
and available capital for the use of the people. Banking
privileges were very free, and to this Mr. Royall, who made
the subject a study, attributes the prosperity of these institutions
and the ability to weather the financial storms that
struck the whole Union from time to time.[34]

Science. During most of the Colonial period, science pursued
lines of observation, and Natural History was the favorite
study. Beginning with John Banister, who made a catalogue
of Virginia plants about 1673, the list of scientists,

who made Virginia their home or paid it a considerable visit,
recorded the names of Rev. John Clayton of Jamestown,
Mark Catesby, Robert Beverley, William Byrd, Dr. John
Mitchell, John Clayton, Clerk of Gloucester County; Dr. William
Small, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics
at William and Mary College, and Governor Francis Fauquier,
who wrote no book but loved to talk of science.

With Watt's development of the steam engine in 1763 a
new era began—the era of invention. With Watt, Virginia
had a link in Dr. William Small, who after a stay at William
and Mary College of six years (1758-1764), returned to England,
and it was on his advice that Watt in 1773 left Glasgow
and went to Birmingham, where he formed a partnership with
Matthew Bolton, the proprietor of the Soho Engineering
Works, to make steam engines. Under the expanding wing of
this new departure, a Philosophical Society, was formed at
Williamsburg in May, 1773, known as "The Virginia Society
for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge," of which John
Clayton, the celebrated botanist, was president, and John
Page, of "Rosewell," was vice president. The society bore
prompt fruit. Page led the way and invented an instrument
by which he measured the fall of dew and rain to the 300th
part of an inch, being the first instrument of its kind in
America; and at his residence on the York River he calculated
an eclipse of the sun. This was followed by the invention of a
thresher, the first in America, by John Hobday, to whom the
Society presented a gold medal, still preserved.

There is evidence that this Society was in existence in
1787, but its dissolution did not stop the spirit of invention in
Virginia.

Virginian names largely exceeded those of any other State
among the early United States patentees of threshing machines.
William Thompson took out a patent August 2, 1791.
In 1794 William Hodgson and James Wardrop patented
threshing machines, and Wardrop's machine was introduced
into England in 1796. In 1797 William Booker took out a

patent, and in 1803 a patent was granted to Samuel Houston
of Virginia, and in 1807 another to B. B. Bernard.[35] Colonel
John Taliaferro, John Murphy and John M. Syme were also
early inventors of threshing machines.[36]

Foremost, however, among these early inventors was
James Rumsey, who, though a native of Maryland, was a citizen
of Virginia and spent the active part of his life in that
Commonwealth. He lived at Shepherdstown on the banks of
the Potomac River and was the first in this country to construct
and navigate a boat by steam. He privately tested his
boat in 1786 and gave a public demonstration at Shepherdstown
of its value in 1787. Though Rumsey's steamboat never
came into successful use, he paved the way for Fulton, whom
he met in London, and several of his other inventions survive
in one modified form or another, as for instance the tubular
boiler, so superior to the old tub or still boiler in the presentation
of fire surface and in capacity for holding rarefied steam.

One of Rumsey's patrons was Thomas Jefferson, who succeeded
Franklin as President of the American Philosophical
Society. He took great interest in natural science and invented
a plow, a hemp brake, a pedometer and a copying press.
Dr. James Madison, President of William and Mary College,
excelled in physics and astronomy, and his enthusiasm threw
a peculiar charm over his lectures on natural philosophy.

A contemporary of Doctor Madison was Dr. James Greenway
of Dinwiddie County, an ardent botanist, who wrote a
number of interesting letters to the American Philosophical
Society upon the fertilizing value of the pea, the nature of a
certain poisonous plant found in Virginia, and an extinct volcano
in North Carolina. William Tatham, who lived in Virginia
at this time, was a very resourceful man and wrote many
valuable treatises on different subjects.

The patent office at Washington preserves the names of

many Virginia inventors in the latter part of the period
covered by this book, but space forbids mention of but two,
more eminent than any of the rest. The first in birth was
Matthew Fontaine Maury, born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia,
January 14, 1806. He suggested a system of reforms in
the navy department, which, adopted by Congress in 1842, introduced
order where chaotic conditions formerly prevailed.
President Tyler appointed him head of the Bureau of Nautical
Charts, which became the National Observatory. As such, he
made a profound study of the varying depths, winds and currents
of the sea, and by his works, "Sailing Directions," and
his "Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology,"
which last is said to have passed through more editions than
any modern book of its kind, won for himself the name of
"Pathfinder of the Seas." He suggested all the principles of
the modern weather bureau operations, instituted a system of
deep sea soundings, and showed that the bottom of the sea
between New Foundland and Ireland was a plateau admirably
adapted for a telegraphic cable. He suggested to Cyrus W.
Field the character of the cable to be employed, and how it
should be laid. In generous recognition, Mr. Field said "I
am a man of few words; Maury furnished the brains; England
gave the money; and I did the work."

As chief of the water defences of the South he was father
of the torpedo and mining systems, employed so generally in
the late European War.

He was covered with honors and medals by all the European
governments, and was urged by the French government
to take charge of their great observatory at Paris, and invited
to Russia by a personal letter from the Grand Duke Constantine.
Instead of accepting he preferred to live a plain Virginia
citizen, having charge at his death of the chair of
meteorology at the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington,
Virginia. By many he was regarded as the greatest of all
American scientists.

The second of these great scientists of world wide influence

Cyrus H. McCormick

was Cyrus Hall McCormick, son of Robert McCormick, born
February 15, 1809, in Rockbridge County. His father invented
a reaper which did not work, but Cyrus experimented
and perfected it, and, as the result of his labors, accomplished
a world wide revolution in agriculture. Not only did it vastly
increase the area of grain cultivation but it was the stimulus
to the development of every manner of farm implement. It
had a profound influence upon the success of the war against
the South; for William H. Seward attributed to it, and not to
the armies of the North, the subjugation of the South. "The
reaper is to the North what slavery is to the South," he said.
"By taking the place of regiments of young men in the
western harvest fields, it releases them to do battle for the
Union at the front, and at the same time keeps up the supply
of bread for the nation's armies. Thus, without McCormick's
reaper, I fear the North could not win, and the Union would
be dissolved."[37]

At no time in history has there been any lack of individual
talent for science in Virginia. Hugh Jones, remarking upon
the character of the Virginian as far back as 1724, said: "The
climate makes them bright and of excellent sense and sharp
in trade, an idiot or deformed native being almost a miracle."[38]
But the lack of towns and great centres of population placed
Virginia, as far as science went, at great disadvantage. Those
born in Virginia had generally to go to the great cities of Boston,
Philadelphia and New York for preferment. Such was
the case of Henry Draper, of Prince Edward County, born
March 7, 1737, who as a professor of the University of New
York became well known for his discoveries and work in selective
photography. He discovered oxygen in the sun by
photography and advanced a new theory of solar spectrum.

Such also was William B. Rogers, who, after serving as
Professor of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy in William

and Mary College and in the University of Virginia, as State
officer made the first report on the geology of Virginia, a work
which has no superior, and is full of original suggestions.
After thirty-five years' service in Virginia he moved to Boston,
where, in 1860, he founded the famous Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, and died in that city in 1882, having
seen his pet project crowned with success.

Legal Profession. During most of the 17th century the
business of the Colony of Virginia was very simple, and there
was little encouragement for trained lawyers, and the causes
were pleaded by merchants and planters acting for the parties
in suit. As elsewhere in America the people generally were
jealous of these persons and made their high fees a pretext to
enact hostile legislation against them. But in this there
was really no reflection upon the character of the lawyers, who
on the whole, are shown by the records to have been leaders
in society.

At the end of the century a regular body of trained men
began to appear, such as William Sherwood and William Fitzhugh.
The pursuit in the eighteenth century became a dignified
profession resting on license and examination. This century
had in its early years such names as Edward Barradall,
John Clayton, Stevens Thompson, William Hopkins, William
Robertson, and John Holloway. In its latter years it was
brilliant with the names of Patrick Henry, George Wythe,
Peyton Randolph, Edmund Pendleton, Robert Carter Nicholas,
Thomas Jefferson, St. George Tucker, Edmund Randolph,
Henry Tazewell, and scores of others. The nineteenth
century shone with even a greater luster. The names of John
Marshall, Spencer Roane, Littleton W. Tazewell, Chapman
Johnson, John Wickham, and Benjamin Watkins Leigh illustrate
the earlier decades, and William Green, Henry St.
George Tucker, Conway Robinson and James P. Holcombe
illustrate the '40s and '50s.

William and Mary College had the first school of law
(1779) in the United States and St. George Tucker published

the first text book on the law (1803). Albert J. Beveridge
says in his Life of John Marshall that "as small and mean"
as was Richmond in 1780 "not even Philadelphia, Boston or
New York could boast of a more brilliant bar."

Medical Profession.[39] As with the lawyers, the doctors in
the early years of the Colony of Virginia were untrained men.
They were generally "surgeons, apothecaries or apprentices"
and they, like the lawyers, incurred the wrath of the Assembly
by charging "excessive fees." Laws were passed to regulate
the charges, but not the practice, and the profession lagged
much behind the legal profession. As late as 1736 a statute
declared the doctors to be merely "surgeons, apothecaries or
apprentices," and "unskillful in the art of a physician."

Nevertheless, the records show that, during all this long
period, there were men in Virginia of high professional training.
William Russell, who saved John Smith's life in June,
1608, was doubtless of this class. Dr. Lawrence Bohun, the
physician general of the Colony in 1610-1620, was educated
among the "most learned surgeons and physicians in the
Netherlands." His heroic death in 1620 on the Margaret and
John when attacked by the Spaniards in the West Indies,
makes him a glorious figure in Virginia history. The successor
to Doctor Bohun was Dr. John Pott, who was "a Cambridge
Master of Arts," and recommended by the famous
Theodoric Gulston "as well practiced in chirurgerie and
physic and expert in distilling waters." He served at one
time as acting Governor of Virginia.

Later on we come across the names of Dr. John Toton, a
French Huguenot physician, Dr. Henry Potter, Dr. Charles
Brown, Dr. John Mitchell and Dr. William Cocke. There were
doubtless many other names of trained physicians distinguishing
this long period. Virginia was very unhealthy, and
for a long time four out of every five immigrants died the

first year of their arrival. The diseases were chiefly ague and
fever, dysentery and scurvy.

After 1736 the profession grew much in character, and
many young Virginians studied medicine at the University of
Edinburgh. Some of them became well known in the annals
of the country, such as Theodorick Bland, Colonel of Cavalry
in the Revolution, Arthur Lee, Walter Jones and George
Gilmer, all four of whom served the State, in Congress or
the Legislature.

Bland took the lead in trying to dignify the profession,
and in 1761 he formed the young Virginians studying medicine
at Edinburgh into a club, whose constitution pledged the
members not to stop in their studies short of a degree, and
"not to degrade the medical business with the trade of an
apothecary or surgeon." After his return to Virginia, he
drew a petition to the Legislature asking that "the right to
practice should be confined to those who had been properly
licensed and honored with a doctor's degree."

The petition had no effect, and it is probable that the
country districts of Virginia were not ready for such a law.
The ordinary farmer thought it convenient that the same
man should be doctor, apothecary and surgeon, and deemed
it imprudent to separate the professions.

But in course of time, the doctors themselves, aided by
public opinion, made a doctor's degree almost essential to
the practice. European Universities were superseded largely
by American Colleges, and the College of Philadelphia, which
had become in 1779 the University of Pennsylvania, was a
special favorite with the Southern youth. Between 1810 and
1860 the number of Southern youths who matriculated at that
institution reached a total of upwards of 7,000. Maryland
University was also a great favorite and contributed over
300 graduate doctors for Virginia alone.

But the University of Virginia had now gotten under way
and many doctors studied there. Later, deficiency in the
University in clinical advantages being felt, Hampden-Sidney

College in 1837 established a medical department in Richmond.
In 1844 this department being fortunate enough to
obtain a loan of $25,000 from the Literary Fund, built an
attractive building, and in 1854 it was made independent of
Hampden-Sidney and incorporated under the name and style
of "The Medical College of Virginia."

In 1860, by reason of the bitter sectional spirit, the large
contingent of Southern medical students attending at the
Colleges in Philadelphia withdrew in a body under the lead
of Hunter Holmes McGuire, and became students of the College
in Richmond. An arrangement was had between the
Legislature and the College by which the former gave the
College $30,000 for the erection of a hospital and in return
the Faculty of the Medical College turned the College over
to the State.

How much did Virginia doctors previous to 1861 contribute
to the general illumination of knowledge that characterized
the nineteenth century?

This is a question that cannot be answered with any degree
of accuracy. The amount of cultivation in the world at any
given time is the result of action and counteraction, and
perhaps there is no life, however obscure, that does not contribute
a little to the great mass of civilization. I may mention,
however, in a few words, some names of Virginians who
shine in the glory of a great light as benefactors of the human
race. First, James McClurg, son of Dr. Walter McClurg, a
British surgeon, who was sent to Hampton to open the first
hospital in America to inoculate for smallpox, pursued his
general studies at William and Mary College and studied
medicine at the University of Edinburgh and attended the
hospitals of Paris and London. In December, 1779, he was
elected to fill the chair of Medicine instituted that year at
William and Mary College, and which was next in time to that
at Philadelphia. He was a member of the Federal Convention
in 1787 and died in Richmond, July 9, 1825, having occupied
for half a century perhaps the foremost place in his profession

in America. His Essay on the Human Bile was translated
into every language in Europe. Second, Nathaniel
Chapman, of Fairfax County, one of the professors of the
University of Pennsylvania, first president of the American
Medical Association, founder of the American Journal of
Medical Science, and author of numerous medical works.
Third, Ephraim McDowell of Rockbridge County, Virginia,
born in 1771, studied at Edinburgh and practiced at Danville,
Virginia. He was first to operate for ovarian tumor, and
became "the father of ovariotomy." Fourth, Benjamin
Winslow Dudley, of Spotsylvania County, born in 1783, graduated
at the University of Pennsylvania in 1806, and afterwards
studied at London under Cooper and Abernathy. He
performed the first operation for stone in the bladder and
was called "the greatest lithotomist." He was an advanced
apostle of asepsis, attributing much of his success to the use
of hot water. Fifth, John Peter Mettauer, of Prince Edward
County, Bachelor of Arts of Hampden-Sidney College and
Doctor of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania in 1809.
He practiced at Prince Edward Courthouse and died there
in 1875. He was one of the first to conceive the idea of curing
vesicovaginal fistula, the first on this continent to operate
for cleft palate, the first to employ iodine in the treatment of
scrofula, and was among the first in such major operations
as amputation of the shoulder, ligation of the carotid, and the
resection of the superior maxilla.[40]

Religion. No history of Virginia would be complete without
some account of the progress of religion. In Colonial
days there was a state church fashioned after the Church
of England and regulated by the Legislature. Until about
1750 nearly everybody belonged to the Church, and dissenters
were few. After 1750, dissent became frequent, and by the
time the American Revolution began membership in the
Church had greatly declined. But the Conventions and Legislature
were still dominated by members of the State

Church, who proceeded to divorce the State from religion.
Their action was partly due to the influence of the rival sects,
but still more to the spread of free thought and scientific
discussion that sprang from the teachings of the French
school of writers and the English scientists.[41]

After the Revolution those persons who remained attached
to the old forms of religion organized themselves into a separate
establishment called the American Episcopal Church.
In 1786 Rev. David Griffith became first Bishop of the Church
in Virginia. In 1785 James Madison, President of William
and Mary College, presided over the first Convention of the
Episcopal Church, and in 1790 he was made second Bishop
of the Diocese. He was a scientist as well as a churchman.

For about thirty years after the Revolution this Church
struggled with adversity. The support of the law was removed
and its ministers, after being repeatedly assured of their
glebes, were deprived of them and exposed to starvation. Many
of them in self preservation had to engage in secular affairs
and abandon their flocks. Thus the church buildings were left
vacant for want of preachers and congregations, and were
often appropriated by other denominations. Others fell into
ruins and their bricks were used to construct homes and
other buildings. Among the generality of its members religion
was lifeless and skepticism prevailed.

In May, 1814, Richard Channing Moore was elected Bishop
of the Diocese of Virginia to succeed Bishop Madison, who
died in 1812, and from that time a change appeared in the
fortunes of the Church, gradual but decided. A man of great
energy and decision, Bishop Moore rendered notable service
in raising the Church from its prostrate condition. He was
assisted in this great work by William H. Wilmer, who became
President of William and Mary College, and by the lovable

and industrious William Meade, who succeeded Moore as
Bishop in 1841. From having been the most intolerant of all
Churches in Virginia, the Episcopal Church became the most
liberal of all.

The history of dissent begins with the nonconformists in
Princess Anne and Norfolk counties about 1642. Because of
the harsh laws passed at the instance of Sir William Berkeley,
many of them removed from the Colony and settled in Maryland.
Then appeared the Quakers about 1660, against whom
equally harsh laws were passed. But the Quakers were more
patient, bowed their heads to affliction, and the authorities got
tired of persecuting them. Then in 1699 the toleration law
was adopted in Virginia, and persecution relaxed. In their
petition in 1737 the Quakers declared they had nothing to complain
of except being taxed for the support of the clergy of the
State Church. For many years after the Revolution the
Quakers had strong conventides in Nansemond and Isle of
Wight counties, and in York, New Kent, and Charles City
counties, but with the cessation of persecution their influence
began to decline and their numbers decrease. The petition for
the abolition of slavery from the Quakers in Charles City
County figured in the debate in the Legislature in 1832.

In the seventeenth century a few Presbyterian ministers
were preaching in Virginia. Among them was Francis
Makemie (1658-1708). He put the Church upon its feet and is
looked upon as the Father of the Presbyterian Church in
America. In the Spring of 1706 he formed at Philadelphia the
first Presbytery ever established in the United States. He was
followed by Samuel Davies, who preached in Hanover County,
James Waddell, who preached in Lancaster County, and John
Jeffrey Smith, who established a Presbyterian Church in New
Kent County, and named the place "Providence." Their
ranks were immensely augmented by the Scotch Irish, who
poured into the Valley of Virginia.

In the bitter antagonism to the establishment the Presbyterians
joined with the Quakers and Baptist, and supported

all the bills for its divorce from the State. After the Revolution,
when the Legislature passed an act incorporating the
Episcopal Church the Presbytery of Hanover was implacable
and protested against it and assisted in accomplishing its
repeal. After that the progress of the Presbyterians was
steady and rapid. Its ministry has been noted for its able
and learned men. The names, occurring in the latter part of
this period, of John Holt Rice, Conrad Speece, Moses Hoge,
George A. Baxter, William Armstrong and R. L. Dabney will
long be remembered and revered.

The next in order of the greater denominations of Christians
were the Baptists. In 1714 some emigrant Baptists settled
in Southeast Virginia and in 1743 another party settled in
the Northwest, but a large accession came from New England
about the period of the "New Light Stir." The first formal
church was established in Hanover County in 1760, but soon
there were numbers of others in Chesterfield, Middlesex,
Caroline, and other counties. A passionate impulse swayed
the preachers of the Baptist faith. The Toleration Act required
all ministers to have a license and the Baptists disregarded
its injunction. For breach of the law many of their preachers
were confined in jails, and the jails of that period had no
fire places and were cold and comfortless. Nevertheless,
through the windows of their places of confinement they
preached to great throngs of people. The result might have
been foreseen. The Baptists only grew stronger, and when
the opportunity presented itself with the coming of the Revolution
they were the bitterest opponents of the State Church.

After the American Revolution the Baptists became the
most numerous sect in the State. The masses had rushed into
their ranks and most of their early preachers were poor and
self educated. John Waller and R. B. Semple were exceptions.
But about 1830 the Baptists began to pay more attention to
the work of training their ministers. They established Richmond
College and numerous schools.

The Methodists were the last of the great denominations

to come into existence. George Whitefield, who, with John
Wesley, founded Methodism, visited Virginia in December,
1739. His doctrine of faith discarded predestination and
asserted that every man's salvation or damnation depended
upon his acceptance or rejection of the workings of the Holy
Spirit. Thus was sowed the seed which was to germinate
and bear fruit.

At first Methodism was a movement within the State
Church, both in England and Virginia. Rev. Robert Williams
was one of the earliest pioneer members, and he baptized
Rev. Jesse Lee in 1779. At that time Virginia was the headquarters
of Methodism in America. In that year there were
in the United States forty-two Methodist ministers and 8,577
members and nearly one-half of this number was in Virginia.
It was here that the largest labor was performed and from
here the greatest product was gathered. In 1784 the Methodists
set up an establishment independent of the regular
Church, which they had resolutely refrained from attacking in
the Legislature. In 1789, Jesse Lee, after visiting with Bishop
Francis Asbury, many parts of the South, took the light to
New England, which stood out like an iceberg in the cold
formality of its religion. The Methodists continued to grow
in Virginia, and established Randolph-Macon College and
other valuable schools. In 1844, the conflict of opinion and
practice between the Northern and Southern Conferences on
the subject of slavery, had become so intense that a separation
took place, which resulted in the organization of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South.

Besides these prominent Protestant denominations there
were in Virginia during this period several other Protestant
sects—Lutheran, Campbellites, Thomasites, Menonites, etc.—
all more or less important in numbers and influence. Nor had
the Roman Catholic Church neglected the State in extending
her Communion. In Colonial days the Catholics were much
feared and disliked by the people of Virginia, as by Protestants
everywhere. They might vote but the test oath prevented

them from holding offices. Notwithstanding this
the Brent family, though Catholics, held office in Colonial
days, the oath being doubtless waived as to them. With the
Revolution came more liberal feelings, and the Statute of
Religious Freedom guaranteed everybody, including Catholics,
equality of rights. So the Catholics ceased to be discriminated
against and increased in numbers during the period
under consideration; and in 1846, this denomination had
thirteen churches and three institutions of learning or charity,
one of which was St. Joseph's Academy in Richmond. The
communicants of this church were in general foreigners,
chiefly of French or Irish extraction.

Apart from the Christian denominations stood the Jews.
Some Jewish names had appeared very early in the history
of Virginia. Their first religious congregation was established
in Richmond in 1791, and in 1846 they had in that city
two synagogues, one conducted after the order of the Spanish
and Portuguese Jews, and the other after that of the German
Jews.[42]

In conclusion it may be stated with great confidence that
after the American Revolution there was no part of the world
in which conscience was more free than in Virginia.