Anderson, James S. M.A History of the Colonial Church. London: 1843. 3 vols.Andrews, Matthew Page.The Soul of a Nation, The Founding of Virginia and the Projection of New England. New York: Doubleday, 1943.Brydon, George MacLaren.Virginia's Mother Church and the Political Conditions Under Which It Grew. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Historical Society, 1947. Vol. I, 1607-1727; Vol. II, 1725-1814.Fiske, John.Old Virginia and Her Neighbors. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899. 2 vols.Goodwin, Edward L.The Colonial Church in Virginia. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Morehouse Publishing Company, 1927.With appendix giving list of Anglican clergymen who served in Virginia in the Colonial period.Hening, W. W.Statutes of Virginia, 1619-1792. 13 vols.Mason, George C.Colonial Churches of Tidewater, Virginia. Richmond, Virginia: Whittet and Shepperson, 1945.Meade, William.Old Churches, Ministers, and Families in Virginia. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1857. 2 vols.This is the old standard work upon this subject, and is still of great value, but must be used with the understanding that records and other original sources made available since his day disprove many of his statements about local conditions. This is especially true regarding his statements concerning the unworthiness of the colonial clergy. His expressed conviction that most of them were unworthy morally has been entirely disproved by the evidence of records now available.Perry, W. S.History of the American Episcopal Church. Boston and New York: Osgood, 1899. 2 vols.—Historical Collections Relating to America's Colonial Church. Virginia: Privately printed, 1870.Swem, E. G.Virginia Historical Index. Roanoke, Virginia: Stone Printing Co., 1934-36. 2 vols.
Anderson, James S. M.A History of the Colonial Church. London: 1843. 3 vols.
Andrews, Matthew Page.The Soul of a Nation, The Founding of Virginia and the Projection of New England. New York: Doubleday, 1943.
Brydon, George MacLaren.Virginia's Mother Church and the Political Conditions Under Which It Grew. Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Historical Society, 1947. Vol. I, 1607-1727; Vol. II, 1725-1814.
Fiske, John.Old Virginia and Her Neighbors. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899. 2 vols.
Goodwin, Edward L.The Colonial Church in Virginia. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Morehouse Publishing Company, 1927.With appendix giving list of Anglican clergymen who served in Virginia in the Colonial period.
Hening, W. W.Statutes of Virginia, 1619-1792. 13 vols.
Mason, George C.Colonial Churches of Tidewater, Virginia. Richmond, Virginia: Whittet and Shepperson, 1945.
Meade, William.Old Churches, Ministers, and Families in Virginia. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1857. 2 vols.This is the old standard work upon this subject, and is still of great value, but must be used with the understanding that records and other original sources made available since his day disprove many of his statements about local conditions. This is especially true regarding his statements concerning the unworthiness of the colonial clergy. His expressed conviction that most of them were unworthy morally has been entirely disproved by the evidence of records now available.
Perry, W. S.History of the American Episcopal Church. Boston and New York: Osgood, 1899. 2 vols.
—Historical Collections Relating to America's Colonial Church. Virginia: Privately printed, 1870.
Swem, E. G.Virginia Historical Index. Roanoke, Virginia: Stone Printing Co., 1934-36. 2 vols.
The following extracts from the Journal of the Life of Thomas Story, during his visit to Virginia in 1698 are indicative of the attitude of the people of Virginia toward religious toleration:
8th Day of the 12th Month, we landed in Mockjack Bay——Next Fourth Day being the 1st day of the 1st month (i.e. January, 1698/99) we went again by water to a monthly meeting at Chuckatuck, where came our friend Elizabeth Webb from Gloucestershire in England, who had been through all the English colonies on the Continent of America and was now about to depart for England. The meeting was large and the Sheriff of the County, a Colonel, and some of others of note in that county were there, and very sober and attentive.On the 22nd we had a pretty large meeting at Southern Branch, at the house of Robert Burgess. He was not a Friend by profession, but a Justice of the Peace, and of good account in these parts. There had never been a meeting there before; yet the people were generally solid and several of them tendered; and after the meeting the Justice and his wife were very respectful, and treated us to beer and wine, and would gladly have had us to have eaten with them and lodged in their house that night, but being otherwise engaged in the course of the service.The next day [several days later] we had a meeting at Romancock, which was large and open. Many persons of note from those parts were there, as Major Palmer, Captain Clayborn, Doctor Walker, and others, all very attentive.
8th Day of the 12th Month, we landed in Mockjack Bay——
Next Fourth Day being the 1st day of the 1st month (i.e. January, 1698/99) we went again by water to a monthly meeting at Chuckatuck, where came our friend Elizabeth Webb from Gloucestershire in England, who had been through all the English colonies on the Continent of America and was now about to depart for England. The meeting was large and the Sheriff of the County, a Colonel, and some of others of note in that county were there, and very sober and attentive.
On the 22nd we had a pretty large meeting at Southern Branch, at the house of Robert Burgess. He was not a Friend by profession, but a Justice of the Peace, and of good account in these parts. There had never been a meeting there before; yet the people were generally solid and several of them tendered; and after the meeting the Justice and his wife were very respectful, and treated us to beer and wine, and would gladly have had us to have eaten with them and lodged in their house that night, but being otherwise engaged in the course of the service.
The next day [several days later] we had a meeting at Romancock, which was large and open. Many persons of note from those parts were there, as Major Palmer, Captain Clayborn, Doctor Walker, and others, all very attentive.
A List of Parishes in Virginia, and the Clergy in them under date of July 8, 1702.
Parishes and Incumbent MinistersCharles City County.Bristol Parish, (part)George Robertson [Robinson]Westover ParishCharles AndersonMartin's Brandon ParishWeyanoke ParishJames BushellElizabeth City CountyElizabeth City ParishJames WallaceEssex CountySouth Farnham ParishLewis LatanèSittenbourn Parish (part)Bartholomew YatesSt. Mary's ParishWilliam AndrewsGloucester CountyPetsoe (Petsworth) ParishEmmanuel JonesAbingdon ParishGuy SmithWare ParishJames ClackHenrico CountyBristol Parish (part)George RobinsonVarina als Henrico ParishJames WareKing William ParishBenjamin De JouxJames City CountyWallingford ParishWilmington ParishJohn GordonJames City ParishJames BlairMartin's Hundred ParishStephen FouaceBruton Parish (part)Cope D'OyleyIsle of Wight CountyWarrosqueake ParishThomas SharpeNewport ParishAndrew MonroeKing and Queen CountySt. Stephen's ParishRalph BowkerStratton-Major ParishEdward PortlockKing William CountySt. John's ParishJohn MonroeLancaster CountyChrist Church ParishAndrew JacksonSt. Mary's White Chapel ParishJohn CarnegieMiddlesex CountyChrist Church ParishRobert YatesNansemond CountyUpper ParishLower ParishChuchatuck ParishNorfolk CountyElizabeth River ParishWilliam RuddNew Kent CountyBlisland ParishSt. Peter's ParishJames BowkerNorthumberland CountyFairfield ParishJohn FarnifoldWiccocomico ParishJohn UrquhartNorthampton CountyHungars ParishPeter CollierPrincess Anne CountyLynnhaven ParishSolomon WheatleyRichmond CountySittènbourn Parish (part)Bartholomew YatesNorth Farnham ParishPeter KippaxSurry CountySouthwark ParishAlexander WalkerLawne's Creek ParishThomas BurnetStafford CountySt. Paul's ParishOverwharton ParishJohn FrazierWarwick CountyMulberry Island ParishDenbigh ParishWestmoreland CountyCople ParishWashington ParishJames BreechinYork CountyBruton Parish (part)Yorke ParishCope D'OyleyHampton ParishStephen FouaceCharles ParishJames SlaterJames Blair, Commissary to the Bishop of LondonPeregrine Cony, Chaplain to the Governor.
It will be noted that the above list reports fifty-one parishes, or after deducting three which appear as partly in two counties, a total of forty-eight parishes. These covered the whole territory in which English settlers lived. The incumbent clergymen total thirty-five but some five or six of the parishes for which no incumbent was named were very small in extent or population, and looked to the minister of an adjoining parish for services and sacraments. Probably this list includes five or six parishes which were vacant. Because of the great length of time required to secure clergymen from England this fact is evidence of the growing strength and organization of the Church under the influence of the Commissary.
Most of the clergymen who came to Virginia were graduates of the English and Scottish universities, and brought an element and influence of education and culture to the growing life of the Colony. Dr. Philip Alexander Bruce, in his notableInstitutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, makes the following statement:
If we consider as a body the ministers who performed the various duties of their calling in Virginia during the Seventeenth Century, there is no reason to think they fell below the standard of conscientiousness governing the conduct of the English clergyman in the same age. The early history of the New World was adorned by no nobler group of divines than the group which gives so much distinction from the point of viewof character and achievement to the years in which the foundation of the colony at Jamestown was being permanently laid.
From the middle of the century to the end as from the beginning to the middle, a large proportion of the clergymen were not only graduates of English universities, but also men of more or less distinguished social connections in England. Outside the great towns in England, or the wealthiest and most populous of the English rural parishes, there was in the course of the century, perhaps no single English living filled by a succession of clergymen superior to this body of men, (i.e., incumbents at Jamestown) in combined learning, talents, piety, and devotion to duty. And yet there is no reason to think that the ability, zeal and fidelity of these ministers who occupied the pulpit at Jamestown were overshadowing as compared with the same qualities in the clergymen who, one after another, occupied any of the more important benefices in York, Surry, Elizabeth City, or Gloucester Counties, or the counties situated in the Northern Neck, or Eastern Shore.... All the surviving records of the seventeenth century go to show that, whatever during that long period may have been the infirmities or unworthy acts of individual clergymen, the great body of those officiating in Virginia were men who performed all the duties of their sacred calling in a manner entitling them to the respect, reverence and gratitude of their parishioners.
Very little is known of the activities of the clergy outside of their professional duties beyond the fact that a great many of them conducted schools at their homes; and these "parsons schools" became a widespread influence for good upon the youth of their day. In the generations before the founding of the College these schools became the great agency throughout the colony for the education of the sons of the gentry, and of the occasional youth of a lesser privileged family who was taken free by the parson, or supported by a school endowment given by some charitable person. In the later days there were many such parish funds. We read of George Washington, in the following generation attending the school conducted by Parson Marye in Fredericksburg, and of his future wife, Martha Dandridge attending another.
It is a notable fact that throughout the whole seventeenth century the ideal shown by the General Assembly was to provide for the clergy an adequate salary for the comfortable home of an educated man. In 1695 when the question of increase in clerical salaries was raised, the House of Burgesses made a report to Governor Andros upon the purchasing value of salaries paid in tobacco, and stated, "They have duly weighed the present provision made for the ministers of this country in their respective parishes together with their other considerable perquisites by marriages, burials, etc., and glebes,——that most if not all the ministers of this country are in as good a condition in point of livelihood as a gentleman that is well seated and hath twelve or fourteen servants." They had previously stated that the tobacco salary of the parson would in normal years in the past yield eighty pounds sterling when sold.
In contrast with this salary of the clergymen in Virginia attention may be called to the statement made in England in 1714, that there were in England at that time "5,082 livings under eighty pounds in annual value, of which more than 3,000 were under forty pounds, and 471 under ten pounds. This report was made to show the importance of the fund established by Queen Anne, called Queen Anne's Bounty, for increasing the endowment of these weak parishes."
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
The Table ofContentswas added for convenience.Page3: Guilt is an obsolete form of gilt(a plate of silver guilt).Page16: Changed ecclestiastical to ecclesiastical(after an ecclestiastical trial by the bishop).Page23: Changed cattel to cattle(great plenty of cattel and hogs).Page50: Changed priviliged to privileged(youth of a lesser priviliged family).