CHAPTER III.--The Settlement.
The Meeting House, or as they were beginning to call it, The McDonaldSettlement, capped a half dozen of the eastern Alleghany foothills atthe head of Jackson River.
It was a community of some twenty farms, grouped for protection andcompany in such a way that four farm houses occupied each hill top nearthe central intersection of their respective boundaries. All werehuddled about a large hill, capped by a grove of oak and sugar mapletrees, which sheltered the stone church and the community school houseof hewn logs. This arrangement had been possible because the wholeboundary had been purchased and laid off by the trustees of the church.
The settlement was not only prosperous, but peaceful and homelike. Itsinhabitants had never deemed it necessary to build a block house thoughmore Indians visited their community than the less remote settlementswhich had suffered from attack and depredation, while they had escaped;it may have been in part due to the natural mountain barrier just attheir back, but they attributed it to their treatment of the Indians,with whom they made friends.
The log houses were ruggedly comfortable. As each house had in turn beenbuilt at a community log rolling, all exhibited a similarity of styleand construction. Each was carefully and cozily built, had four roomsand an attic, a front and ell porch and two large sandstone chimneys. Atthe edge of the side porch was the well with its pole sweep and back ofeach house was a barn, the lower story of which was of stone and set inthe hill-side, where possible.
While to the casual observer these homes presented little apparentdifference, individuality of ownership was perceptible in ornamentationas also prosperity or the reverse by the situation and fertility of thefarm and the live stock in the farm yard and pastures.
The church marked the center of the community and was the mostpretentious building west of Blue Ridge. It was of hewn stone with awooden roof and spire; and in the belfry hung a sweet-toned bell whichAngus Cameron had brought from Scotland in 1758. There were two frontdoors; the one on the right for the men and the one on the left for thewomen; and between, extending from the front wall to within six feet ofthe pulpit, exactly bisecting the church, was a six foot partition, overor through which no one saw except some of the boys and possibly a girlor two; who during one of the regular two hour services each Sunday, hadsurreptitiously with jack-knife or gimlet or hair ornament, perforatedit.
By crowding, three hundred persons could find seats on the slab benches.They were filled to capacity each Sunday and some of the communicantsand visitors rode more than fifteen miles rather than miss the meeting.
When in 1759, Samuel Davies had preached the dedication sermon, morethan five hundred had crowded it. All the settlers of the valley hadattended as well as many from Blue Ridge, the Shenandoah and GreenawayCourt. Now eleven years old, the church was looked upon as an ancientlandmark and known throughout Virginia as the Jackson River MeetingHouse.
More than once its doors had been closed in the name of the law, asenacted and administered by the Burgesses, most of whom wereconformists. When this had happened Davies and other Scotch and IrishPresbyterian preachers and long and solemn faced ruling elders, refugeesfrom Scotland and Ulster, Ireland, had gathered at Williamsburg; and soinsistently and ably petitioned, that the easy-going planter delegates,worried by importunities; not only rashly promised their influenceagainst further persecution, but legislation permitting to Presbyteriansreligious freedom throughout the colony. When the Baptists and Quakerslearned of these promises, they demanded the same rights for themselves,but met with less favor.
The school house was a large structure of two rooms. The girls sat inone and the boys in the other; though the classes made up of both,recited in either room. There were two teachers, Jeremiah Tyler, agraduate of Oxford and an elder of the church, who taught the advancedclasses, and Grandma McDonald, who taught the little children.
The Shorter Catechism and the Westminster Creed were printed in the backof the primer; and were taught all beginners. No one was promoted to thehigher grade until he could recite the catechism without materialblunder and could answer the essentials of doctrine propounded by thecreed. The Bible was the text book of the advanced pupils, not only forits precepts but for its style and because it was the only book, a copyof which each family possessed.
Friday afternoon the boys and girls of the advanced grade held spellingand quotation battles. The sly old teacher watched to catch a boyexhibiting an interest in a girl pupil; then he chose the boy forcaptain of the boys and the girl for captain of the girls. The side lostwhose captain was first quoted or spelled down. All quotations and wordswere from the Bible and no quotation once recited could be repeated.Each captain when first called upon was supposed to recite suchquotations as he knew were known by the opposing captain; but noquotation could exceed a chapter or psalm in length. One of the lazyboys, having learned from the little brother that his sweetheart knewthe 119 Psalm memorized and recited the 176 verses as his firstquotation.
When supposed sweethearts were not available as captains, the masterwould select the laziest boy and girl. Then the school and sometimes thewhole community, exhibiting an interest, would get behind the captainsand by threat and persuasion urge each to earnest effort.
Jeremiah Tyler had emigrated to Virginia from Ulster and was one of thefirst to come to the settlement. He had assisted in building the churchand upon its completion had made the journey to Williamsburg to bringRev. Samuel Davies of Princeton for the dedicatory service.
While at Williamsburg, being a thrifty Scotchman, he had patented onethousand acres of fertile land adjoining the community boundary of seventhousand acres. His patent included a broad and fertile mountain cove ofseveral hundred acres, overlooking the settlement.
He married Judith Preston in 1762; and they had built their home in theouter edge of the cove. From the house you looked down upon the housesof the settlement; and the white church and school house on the hillstood out against the grove and the green valley beyond, as twofull-rigged ships, with expanded sails on a calm sea.
There they had lived for four happy years, until the winter of 1776;when in the night, bears came out of the mountains and breaking intotheir sheep shed, killed half the flock.
Then he built a bear pen of great logs and caught a large black bear.The bear in his struggles for freedom displaced a log, which as Tylerwas passing, fell upon his foot and crushed it. His wife unable to liftit, leaving their daughter of three months in her cradle, ran to thenearest neighbor's, more than a mile distance, for help and not waitinguntil a horse could be caught and saddled, hastened home. Then unmindfulof her own condition, helped with her husband.
The next day a doctor from Blue Ridge removed her husband's foot andgave her some medicine for "a misery in her side." Within the week shedied of pneumonia; then Tyler and his little daughter went to live withGrandma Preston. Since that time, no longer able to farm, he had taughtthe school, hobbling back and forth from the Preston farm.
Archibald Campbell, seeking a location, visited the Tyler clearing and,enchanted by the view, brought his wife to the place. It was a fineOctober day; the earth was still and warm; the valley green; themountain side clothed in vivid autumnal shades made the view perfect inits loveliness. She insisted that providence had led them to thisparadise.
When school was out he sought the master and together they rode over theboundary. Tyler told of the four happy years when Judith and he hadtoiled in this, their Eden, counting it play, to make it a place ofbeauty and peace and altogether a home. He pointed to a cedar grove uponthe mountain side where she was buried; and reserving a hundred acresaround this spot, sold the place to Mr. Campbell for four hundredpounds. Thus it was the Campbells found their home on the edge ofcivilization.
Through October and until the first snow in late November, they toiled,fitting and provisioning the place for winter; the family living withMr. McDonald, while their servants remained at the farm. The house wasrepaired and enlarged, the barn loft filled with
forage and the shedwith firewood.
Then on Thanksgiving day, established by the Pilgrim fathers in 1621,and now observed by all the colonies; after a three hour church serviceand a family dinner at the McDonalds; they moved to their own home,where the servants, though the day was warm, had built great fires towelcome them.
All were pleased with the location and glad to be at home; though forthe first few nights, a timid strangeness thrilled them when themountain owls hooted and wolves howled in dolorous cadence at the edgeof their clearing.
The following spring, needing work horses, and learning that Herman Hitehad several for sale, Mr. Campbell, taking his servant Richard andaccompanied by David Clark, rode northward across the divide, to theJoist Hite Settlement, more than eighty miles distant.
When they arrived at Mr. Hite's they were celebrating his daughter'swedding and the festivities were to continue for several days. Herefused to exhibit or sell his horses until the festivities ended. Theywere quartered with the men in the big red barn, where they sleptcomfortably on the hay wrapped in homespun blankets.
Mr. Clark succeeded in stealing the bride's slipper, which the groomsmenwere supposed to guard; and if stolen they were forced to redeem beforeshe could dance. One of them was permitted to redeem it with a bottle ofwine, after Mr. Clark had extorted the promise of a kiss from the brideand the privilege of replacing the slipper, which doings, being aDissenter deacon, he failed to mention to either his wife or hisfather-in-law.
When the marriage celebration finally ended and the other guests haddeparted old man Hite expressed a readiness to transact business. Theypurchased four horses from him; and then rode to Winchester.
It was St. Patrick's day, and as they rode down the single businessstreet they met a procession of Dutchmen carrying crude effigies of St.Patrick and his wife Sheeley. She wore a necklace of potatoes andcarried a peck or more in the folds of her check apron. As theprocession marched by the mouth of an alley, it was set upon by a halfdozen husky Irishmen, who after a fierce struggle rescued the Saint andhis lady.
Home again, they found Rev. Donald McDonald in conference with the otherthree Presbyterian preachers of the Valley churches.
Under the Act of Toleration, all Dissenter ministers were required toapply in person to the Council at Williamsburg, the capital, for licenseto preach and for permits to establish churches. This law, thePresbyterian preachers had found they could now disregard and had beendoing so for some time; enjoying greater religious freedom than the Actin letter permitted; or than was enjoyed by any other of the Dissenterdenominations. The Baptists petitioned the House of Burgesses that theymight be given "the same indulgences as the Presbyterians."
This caused the Presbyterians to fear that their privileges might becurtailed; and learning that a bill was in preparation affecting "HisMajesty's Protestant Subjects in The Colony," the Valley ministers metat Donald McDonald's and after a lengthy conference and long prayersdecided that he should go to Williamsburg as their representative;carrying petitions from the Valley churches protesting against theproposed law. In his absence it was arranged that the schoolmaster, whowas also a ruling elder, should fill the pulpit of the Jackson RiverMeeting House.
It was on this first Sunday that he delivered a sermon on "Civil andReligious Liberty," taking as his text Acts 5:38, 39; which was said tohave roused the Valley settlements to active open opposition against theMother Country.
On Sunday morning the church doors were opened regularly at nineo'clock, though service did not begin until ten. From sunrise a personmight stand in the church yard and looking out over the Valley see theworshippers leaving their distant homes and in convergent andever-increasing numbers approach the church from every direction. Theycame in family groups or singly; on foot and on horseback; a few incarriages and farm wagons; sometimes a family on a single horse; thewife riding behind her husband, with a baby in her lap and a child oftender years clinging on behind her.
At nine-thirty, the sweet voiced bell was first tolled; most of thecongregation had already gathered in neighborly little groups under thetrees. The women on their side of the yard discussed family news andlocal gossip; while the men on their side talked of crops and sports,hinted at horse trades to be consummated on the morrow and argued overpolitics, taxation and religion.
There was a distinct group of several families from far away GreenawayCourt; in the main conformists who at the time having no church of theirown to attend, came to Jackson River. They were kindly received in thesettlement and welcomed by the congregation. They remained to themselvesuntil the last church bell rang, when they, too, separated; the mengoing in the door to the right and the women to the left, as was thecustom of the Valley congregations. Each mother with her girls abouther, walked down the aisle and shooed them into a pew; while beyond thepartition, over which the top of a tall man's head might be glimpsed,the fathers found seats for themselves with their boys.
The schoolmaster announced and read the hymn, which was considerednecessary, as books were few; then whanging his tuning fork until thekey suited his trained ear, led in singing the hymn--Reconsecration--byRev. Samuel Davies.
Here at that cross where flows the blood That bought my guilty soul for God; Thee, my new Master, now I call, And consecrate to Thee my all.
As he was in the midst of his first long prayer; the one in which it wasthe custom to pray by name for the sick, afflicted and dissolute; andfor the heads and representatives of government from the King to thecounty magistrate; he was interrupted by the piping voice offour-year-old Dorothy Fairfax, of Greenaway Court, who sitting near thepartition and peeping through a gimlet hole made by some bad boy, sawlittle John Calvin Campbell, of her own age, not more than a foot away.
In the unsubdued voice of infant innocence, she piped out: "'ittle boy,peep through the 'ole."
He was the grandson of the minister, and while minister's sons are notalways well behaved, it is said their grandsons are; at least JohnCalvin, an infant non-conformist, knew better than to talk to a daughterof the conformist church during meeting. He remained quiet with his eyesfixed on the preacher with a sleepy stare, while Dorothy's voice grewlouder and more insistent; to the amusement of the younger members ofthe congregation, until the thought occurred, that now all peep holeswould be hunted out and plugged by Deacon Cressler, the carpenter.
The schoolmaster, knowing the ways of and accustomed to interruptions bychildren, did not waver in the fervency of his prayer, except as thechild's voice grew louder his own was raised in seeming greaterearnestness.
With eyes apparently fixed on a small gable window in the front churchwall, through which a beam of sunlight made a slanting bar of silver hebegan his sermon:
"When a stranger far out in the Valley of Virginia sees this church heis struck by its location and impressed by its look of age andpermanence. He asks its history and is told: 'It is the Jackson RiverMeeting House, built by Dissenters, Presbyterians, who came to this wildland from far Scotland and Ireland, counting the cost and dangernothing, if they might but find a place to worship God as consciencetold them God should be worshipped. But they have found that even thegroves of the wilderness are not God's free and holy temples.'
"Christ's mission was to wipe out persecution, to tear out thepartitions of prejudice in his kingdom, to establish a universal faith;yet history shows that persecution, the murderous offspring ofprejudice, remains; that all that is necessary to unleash it, start therack creaking and the stake burning is a minor doctrinal divergence; itmay be as to the form of baptism, belief in trans-substantiation orpredestination.
"Churchmen clothed with a little brief authority become venomouslyintolerant; instigate the sovereign to acts of oppression, particularlyagainst kindred sects; against other spiritual warriors serving underthe banner of the cross; leading lives much as theirs were before theyoccupied the seats of the mighty and struggling as they once did againstreligious intolerance. The commission, 'Go ye into all the world,' isneglected and t
he torch of evangelism kindled in the white flame ofsacrifice to light the way, is perverted to light the pyre of martyrdomof believers, as they, that the Son of God was crucified that Jew andGentile, Greek and barbarian might live.
"During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, at the very time Columbusfinanced by them was cruising unknown seas and finding a new world,Torquemada, a Spanish monk, having shown special aptitude forpersecution was raised to Inquisitor General; and carried on against theJews the greatest religious persecution that as yet has disgraced aworld drenched scarlet by persecutions; which did not end until 8,000had been burned at the stake, 90,000 had been imprisoned for life and800,000 had been expelled from Spain.
"In your prejudice you say: 'But Spain is a Catholic country.' Do notthe Catholics believe that there is a God who made heaven and earth, thesea and all that in them is; and that there is a Christ who madeatonement for the sins of the world? And what more believe you? And arenot they as charitable as you?
"Has Protestant America clean hands? The New World's record ofpersecution, opportunity and environment considered, is no cleaner thanthat of the Old. The Pilgrim fathers coming to America, seekingreligious freedom, brought with them their prejudices. The churchman ofthe Old World brought his doctrinal issues to the New, as the caravancamel under his burden of ivory and dates and spices, carries his hump.He was no sooner established by the finding of shelter for his goods andchattels than unloading the pack he exhibited the old hump, declaringthat God should only hear prayers of repentance and praise in hisparticular church.
"Our age of greater freedom and new thought demands a severance ofchurch and state; but our colonial government, assuming to know andprescribing as physician its only remedy for a sick soul and a contriteheart, commands that the penitent shall only offer prayers and God shallonly answer, if they are offered within the walls of the Church ofEngland.
"Human laws cannot control men in their attitude of mind and hearttowards God; the state cannot compel uniform prayers and hours ofprayer; and faith is an issue between God and the individual. Coercionmakes opinion stronger and constraint makes hypocrites, not converts.
"Again history demonstrates that the persecutor accomplishes nothingexcept his own undoing; while the persecuted one, if an advocate of agreat truth, grows to greater things. By persecution faith grows; itlifts the vail for the persecuted one and he sees into the Holy ofHolies.
"Truth can stand alone. Truth is inherently inextinguishable. It offerssomething the world must have. It will never die an outcast. If Scribesand Pharisees will not hear, Publicans and sinners will listen.
"Because truth is all powerful and will prevail, the Christian religionwill evangelize the world, led by the light of religions freedom.Gamaliel recognized the infallibility of this truth when he advised theSanhedrin, 'And now I say unto you; refrain from these men and let themalone; for if this council or this work be of men it will come tonaught, but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye befound even to fight against God.'
"When the path of prophet and believer is too easy, the growth is slow.The sting of persecution is necessary to fructify the seed, to harrowthe field; then follows occasional abundant harvests--never a failure.
"You have read or been told how our fathers were harassed in the OldCountry until they were driven to the New. From 1745, the year of theRebellion, until now, our people have been coming to this colony; and atinfrequent intervals have felt that victory, not of religious liberty,but of toleration, was at hand.
"The fall and winter of 1758-9, we quarried and hauled the stone forthis church and in the summer of 1759 it was completed. Then Mr. Prestonand I went to Williamsburg, where we met the Rev. Samuel Davies andbrought him back to preach the dedicatory sermon.
"On that day the whole Valley was in attendance, as were many from BlueRidge and Greenaway Court and Winchester. There were even a few fromWilliamsburg and Richmond. Every Presbyterian within a hundred miles whowas able to ride or walk came; and with them many of their friends amongthe Quakers, the Baptists, the Lutherans, the Mennonites, the Dippersand communicants of the English Church. It was God's House; God's peoplefilled it; the spirit of the Holy Ghost was upon it; the commandment ofthe Son was regarded; and crowded out all thought of sect and doctrinalintolerance. It looked as though there was to be a religious peace inthe colony: and all rejoiced.
"Who brought this about? That greatest of preachers, Samuel Davies, thegreatest orator who has ever spoken in the colony. But I am wrong--notall rejoiced. Who strangled the movement? Clergymen of the ConformistChurch.
"The seat of an established church is no birthplace for a new faith. Thebirthplace of the Christian faith was not in Jerusalem but on the shoresof that placid inland sea on which the boats of the fisher apostlesrested. To the Christian, the first mind pictures of Jerusalem are ofthe Garden, the crucifixion and the resurrection. After these comes thepicture of the Savior's lamentation: 'O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! thou thatkillest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; howoften would I have gathered thy children together; even as a hengathereth her chickens under her wing, and ye would not.'
"When I think of the Church of England, it is not of the communicants,but of their intolerant clergy; who in selfishness of heart undid thegreat work of Davies and smothered with tares the seed he had sown. Forthem, the vision of Peter has no significance; the command, 'Rise,Peter, kill and eat' is not heard; the conclusion, 'of a truth Iperceive God is no respecter of persons,' is impossible.
"The Conformist Church is not without the Kingdom. It is an agency ofGod for the salvation of the world. Many a communicant loves hisPresbyterian neighbor as he does himself; but some of their intolerantclergy, nursing jealousy, loving blindness and perversity, delighting inpersecution, would provoke from the Savior of the World, that scathingdenunciation: 'Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites--woe foryour injustice and oppression; woe for your hair-splitting doctrinalfolly, which strains the gnat and swallows the camel.'
"Today the old issue of intolerance is resurrected and becomes a vitalone by the pending bill to regulate, 'His Majesty's ProtestantSubjects.' If necessary to bury it past disinterment, many of the peopleof the Colony will support the new issue: That the Burgesses of Virginiashall take precedence of authority over the King; and if need be, thesetwo issues, religious liberty and self-government for the Colony, shallbecome yoke-fellows to drag to destruction giant oppression.
"The Presbyterian Church recognizes the divine origin of government; andthat each subject must 'render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's;'but the right to worship God as God commands and as conscience dictatesis more sacred than obedience and allegiance to the King. We love peace,but more our freedom; we love our home, but more our equities in theKingdom of God; and we will give all for civil and religious freedom.
"It is as great to give your life to, as for a cause. In the Beatitudeswe are told: 'Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness'sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shallrevile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil againstyou falsely for my sake; rejoice and be exceeding glad; for great isyour reward in heaven.'
"Visions come with persecution. Paul tells how, after the stoning atLystra, he was caught up into Paradise and saw unutterable things. Againin the account of Stephen's stoning we are told how he lookedsteadfastly up into heaven and saw the glory of God; and while theystoned him he called upon God, saying, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit'and he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, 'Lord lay not this sinto their charge;' and when he had said this, he fell asleep.
"He fell asleep. While asleep, the tears were wiped from his eyes; hisvision was strengthened; he awoke in a land where there was no night, inthe presence of God, who said unto him: 'I will be your God and youshall be my son.'"