The days of Makemie: or, the vine planted, A.D. 1680-1708.

Front matter

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Preface

The name has lived, but has Francis Makemie been much more than a myth in the dim twilight of the past? With sure instinct the Church has always /^/^ that a debt of gratitude was owed by her to the Apostle of the Chesapeake, but how little she has known about him !

Dr. Miller's Memoir of yohn Rodgers, published in 1 8 13, attracted some attention to our pioneer. He is spoken of as coming to America about the year 1700. The conflict between the Old and the New School parties, and the attempt to trace back their distinctive principles to the origin of the American Presbyterian Church and place them upon a historical basis, aroused a new interest in the founder of the Peninsula churches.

Irving Spence, in his Letters on the Early History of the Presbyterian ChiircJi, published in 1838, embodying the results of his own investigations among the traditions and court records of the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, gave new impulse to inquiry and did more than any one before to clear away the thick mists. Dr. Hill and Dr. Hodc^e in their controversies

PREFACE.

widened the interest, resulting in the publication of the Consmutional History of the latter in 1839. Neither Dr. Hill's Sketches nor Dr. Hodge's History added materially to our knowledge of Makemie. Hill's mistakes are glaring. A slight step forward was taken when Foote's Sketches were published, in 1850 contammg a very interesting account of our pioneer In 1857 appeared Webster's History, giving the most satisfactory sketch of Makemie yet published, and adding more than any one since the days of Spence to our knowledge of our founder. His dates are valuable, but sometimes erroneous. No original researches seem to have been attempted since Webster wrote later writers depending for material upon Webster and Spence. Makemie remains almost as much a myth as ever.

The present writer has been engaged for seven years m direct personal investigations, critically questioning all that has been published before, taking nothing for granted, authenticating dates, plodding through records covered with the dust of two centuries, securing transcripts of all of Makemie's writings, studying his character from his own utterances, and sparing no pains, time nor expense in these patient -researches. Born upon that historic ground, familiar with the name of "Par son Makemie" from infancy, having for two years occupied the pulpit of some of the oldest churches founded by him, it has been the author's ambition to know all that could be known of the old worthy and

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to make him again a living, breathing, speaking personaHty in ecclesiastical history.

The result is the present work. Effort is made to give a picture of the times and scenes in which Makemie was so prominent an actor. The thin thread of fiction introduced to keep up the flow of narrative will not obscure the historical facts which are definitely fixed in the notes. The setting of extracts from records and from the writings of Makemie and his contemporaries, when of any length, in a smaller type than that used in the narrative, will aid the reader who desires especially to note them. The colonists of the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, among whom our pioneer lived and died, have never before had a historian.

The writer has taken special pleasure, too, in rescuing from utter oblivion a few names, the customs and a few specimens of the language of the Indians then inhabiting the Eastern Shore, and who, along with their dialect, have wholly disappeared from the earth.

It must be distinctly noted that in the severe strictures upon the Quakers and the adherents of the Church of England, there is no purpose to reflect upon those churches of the present day. The picture is painted from the standpoint of a Presbyterian of that age denounced by the one and persecuted by the other ; as such, the picture is historical and reflects the spirit of Makemie's own writings.

O PREFACE.

The author does not care to press his claim that many of his most important discoveries, embraced in this volume, have been of late put in print by others without credit given to the discoverer. His great purpose has been to vindicate the fame of the pioneer. This has been a labor of love, and he rejoices in the wider honor accorded to Makemie during the last two years, whoever may have assisted in proclaiming the results of these researches.

In Europe valuable assistance has been given the author by the Rev. Dr. Killen of Belfast, Prof Witherow of Londonderry and the Rev. Dr. Robert Anderson of Glasgow.

It would be ungrateful not to mention, also, Mr. William H. Brown of Princess Anne, Maryland, who has rendered most efficient aid as an enthusiastic antiquarian.

As the manuscript is passing from the writer's hands news comes of the death of the Rev. John C. Backus, D. D., LL.D., of Baltimore, whose sympathy and encouragement have helped to inspire the long-continued labor. That the completed book might have been read and approved by that great and good man was a reward pleasantly contemplated, now never to be enjoyed. But his words of good cheer will still seem to linger about its pages.

Marshall, Missouri, November i, 1884.

THE DAYS OF MAKEMIE.

THE DAYS OF MAKEMIE,

Chapter I

A. D. 1680.

" A Country capable of superlative Improvement." — Makemie.

AND yonder at last is Maryland ! The myste- ^ rious New World, long dreamed of, is now dawning upon our view under the slanting beams of the rising May sun. Before we retired to sleep last night in our sea-cradle the captain promised a pleasant surprise to early risers, and just as the round orb of day is about to roll up out of the horizon of waters, we are hurried on deck to take our first look at the scene of many hazy hopes and untried possibilities. Here we sit upon the prow of the brigantine and drop into silence, gazing upon the moving shores and feeling as only flying exiles can feel.

Slowly from the crest of breakers emerges the low coast. Long arrays of white hills chase one another to the north and the south like snowdrifts beyond the blue billows, but as we draw nearer and see the tumbling waves bursting into foam, their shining spray throws into dimmer shade the sunny sands. Beyond the hills we discover an interior sheet of placid waters lying in serene beauty between the beach and the main, expanding and contracting in graceful curves up and down the view. On the other side of this inner sound the eye is gladdened with the sight of green woodlands, their variegated hues contrasting pleasantly with the intervening sparkle of snow and silver, and by their repose of beauty resting the tired gaze from the incessant ocean-motion of days and weeks.

So, I am told, one hundred and eighty-two years ago, the great voyager Sebastian Cabot passed southward along the coast from Newfoundland, looking upon these same hills and the lands over yonder, gazing through the inlets with curiosity sublime, then turning away his helm from the thirty-eighth parallel and carrying home to England the sure announcement of a new continent. The first European that ever beheld the white beaches of Maryland, the brave navigator was dreaming of the Indies and their spices and gold with all the romance of 1498 ; but he did not know how Jehovah's hand was at the helm, preparing a refuge for the suffering and oppressed of the Old World in the years of great need.

From the captain's map I find that we have had glimpses of Fenwick's and Assateague islands, and that "Sinepuxent" is the name of the arborescent grounds beyond. The inner sheet of beautiful waters is now called " New Haven Bay," but I hope that the rightful aboriginal name will finally prevail and displace the foreign intruder. Assateague — Sinepuxent : the unaccustomed sounds point to the people who inhabit these wilds and whose acquaintance we must make ere long. In the distance, across the bay, do we not discover the little cabins and the smoke of a town of the natives? Oh, I wonder what our life

A. D. i68o.] THE DAYS OF MAKEMIE. II

among those strange people is to be ? Can the Amercan tomahawk prove more cruel than the English mitre ? Somewhere between these ocean-waves and the magnificent Chesapeake of which we have heard so much, our lot is to be cast and new graveyards are to be made. Here and there we seem to see indications of settlement upon the main by the whites (i*). Who are these that are ahead of us as pioneers ? Are they content ? Is the virgin soil more prolific of thorns or flowers ? So I sit upon the advancing prow and pry over into the profound unknown, and wonder and wonder.

Sail on as lightly and hopefully as you can toward the contemplated harbor, my graceful caravel, and remember what a frail cargo you are bearing of girlhood's fancies and visions of the improbable. Yes, and you are freighted with the past as well.

Far backward over this waste of billows, nestled behind the cliffs of Albion, I see a dear little cottage embowered in vines and fragrant with the odors of springtime. The hedge is green, the trees are leafy and tremulous, the sky is smiling in sunshine. The rich English landscape widens away, dotted with houses, checkered with wheat-fields and adorned at intervals with temples of the Most High God.

Ah ! why should the bright scene have been clouded? Why make it a crime to worship the good Lord as the pious soul believes to be right ? Especially hard is it for the conscience to be dominated by king and courtiers who have no conscience of their own — men wicked and corrupt, whose religion is a hatred of those who love the Saviour.

There ! I have bravely put upon my page a solemn

* Figures in brackets refer to the Appendix.

truth which on the other side of the sea would have been treason. My reckless goosequill, thou art disloyal to the Stuart! The breath of May floats out from the Maryland shore redolent already with inspirations of freedom.

My honored sire joins us, his well-worn Bible in hand. When leaving our old home for ever, we all had our especial treasures from which we could not part — mother's embroidered family-tree; John's gun, with its wheel-lock ; Martha's Book of Martyrs, by John Foxe ; and my own theorbo, with which I hope " to sooth a savage breast," as Mr. William Shakespeare once said — but my father's one treasure is the Holy Book so beautifully translated under King James seventy years ago, and which comprises for my sire his sweetest music, his grandest martyrology, his armory of defence and his family record, all in one. In the times of our increasing troubles it had been his bosom-companion, his daily solace. If new nations are ever to arise upon this Western continent, he firmly believes that all their greatness is to grow from the teachings of the Book divine.

For a while my thoughtful sire turns his eyes to the shore, and then, the household all gathered, he opens the sacred pages and reads : " By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath foundations whose maker and builder is God."

Then we all kneel, and we know that the roar of

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the billows does not drown his words from the Ear in the heavens :

" Thou Mightiest One, who hast measured the waters in the hollow of thy hand and meted out heaven with a span and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance, thou art God, and thou alone. The Old World and the New are alike thy handiwork. The centuries gone and the centuries to come are thy vassals. In august sovereignty, through persecution and wrong, but in righteousness infinite, thou art so ruling as to cast many exiles upon yonder wilderness. May truth and rectitude and religious liberty take root upon every hill and plain and valley ! May the continent be occupied for God ! In yonder province, through the rivalry of two cruel churches, thy sceptre has evolved the boon of equal toleration to all. Surely thy ways are marvelous. Be thou our Maryland's Lord Proprietary. Shape thou the destinies of those who have gone, and of those who are yet to come. The wilderness blossoming as the rose, may it blossom with thy glory ! May the New World teach the Old the lesson of the rights of man and the rights of God !"

My father always reminded me of what they tell us of the stauncher Puritan days.

As we rose from our knees, the heavy burst of the breakers along the Maryland beach seemed to swell heavenward the response, "Amen, and amen !"

Chingoteague, Matompkin, Watchapreague, Matchapungo, the names imitating the roll and tumble of the surges along the shore, — so we pass on down the coast of the sister-colony named for the Virgin Queen. Entering the broad Chesapeake — said to mean, in the Indian language, " the Mother of Waters " — my heart leaps back once more across the great ocean whose billows wash the shore of Britain, and, thinking of the days departed, two or three pictures rise before me which I wish to perpetuate upon the pages of my journal.

First Picture. — A plain room in the city of Bath ; a little girl of four years entering the door, her hand in her father's, her timid heart beating in awe, her eyes looking around for the good man of whom she has often heard. Driven from his pulpit at Taunton, hunted, imprisoned, maltreated, until now his health is gone, he is lingering only a little this side the gate of heaven ; for no iniquitous Five-Mile Act can keep him at a distance from the Celestial City. When the child sees him worn and emaciated, she would shrink away; but his gentle eye seems to melt into hers and his voice sounds like the voice of an angel. She hears him tell of holy joys and heavenly ravishments, and of patient waiting to be borne away. Speaking of the sweet love of Jesus for the little ones, his transparent saintly face seems to light with more than human beauty, and his arm draws gently around her waist, as if to lift her with him to the bosom of God. The child could never forget the year 1668 and the godly Joseph AUeine. The day was to come when this memory and his book. The Alarm to the Unconverted, were to lead her to Christ. Little did the child know that during the same year, 1668, was born in far America a baby-girl who was to be her friend and companion in the after-days.

Second Picture. — Eight years have passed. The same maiden, grown large, but still a child, is playing in their pleasant cottage-yard with neighbor Winston's younger son — the boy four years her senior and her favorite playmate from infancy. His family are of the Established Church, good people and tolerant ; for such were found even in those evil times. No week passes without many romps by William and the child in the pretty trellised enclosure. To-day they are happy, as usual, and too absorbed to notice the highway, until a rude voice exclaims,

" You had better be gone, young sir, and leave that Presbyterian wench alone."

Before she has time to think, William flings back to the gay troup of cavaliers the angry reply,

" You had best be gone yourselves and learn better breeding before you ride this way again !"

They dismount and dash through the gate to seize the boy, but he stands his ground, defying them and giving back taunt for taunt. She sees them growing more enraged ; and when one of them draws his sword upon her playmate, she rushes recklessly in between. Then one of the cavaliers strikes heavily with his hand, and she is thrown upon the grass. The blow is not so hard but she can understand the harder words :

" Take that, you Puritan whelp !"

The boy catches up a stone to hurl at her assailant, when they seize him and, cursing, carry him off She hears him say as they drag him away,

" If the Church must have such base defenders as you, I too will be a Puritan !"

William's father had too much influence at court for his son to suffer harm, but he has been my ideal hero ever since.

Those were sad days in the British Isles.

Third Picture. — A lovely Sabbath morning not long ago. Last year occurred the slaying of Archbishop Sharp in Scotland and the battle of Bothwell Bridge, and the redoubled hatred against Presbytery in Scotland and everywhere. Our king had lately reproached his illegitimate son, Monmouth, with sparing so many lives at Bothwell and troubling the government with prisoners. Our pastor was impoverished and banished. A few neighbors and their children are collected in our little parlor, my dear father reading the Scriptures and talking of God's promises. Then, amid the hush of the day, the company are led in prayer by the deep tones of my sire. Suddenly loud knocks and boisterous voices at the door, and then my loved father is hurried away to lie six months in a dungeon under charge of convening a riotous assembly, his real crime being that he did not use prescribed prayers and frequent the parish church. The Conventicle Act of 1664 had forbidden any one over sixteen years of age to attend any other than the Established worship in any place where five or more persons were present.

And so we are here. We pass Naswadox, Occahannock, Pungoteague, Matchatank, Onancock, Chessonessex, Mosongo, and find ourselves steering through a narrowing sound toward the mouth of a little river about one hundred miles up this great bay. Space around for scores of mighty navies, our brave craft floats solitary and alone upon the bosom of the vast inland sea. Will the day ever come when this wide stretch of waters shall be busy with the commerce of the world ?

The view around is far from unattractive, though

A. D. i68o.] THE DAYS OF MAKEMIE. \J

there is nothing grand or startling in its effects — no rocky coasts, no towering mountains. The absence of these, leaves here a charm of quietude and serenity. Brooding softly over all we see, is an indescribable somctliing which falls most genially into harmony with the yearning of tired souls. Our lives have already had enough of the harsh and the boisterous.

Green marshes hanging out like beautiful floating frills from the drapery of mainland; dunes of clean sand spotted over with flocks of sea-birds ; hundreds of interjacent coves and lakes and miniature bays, placid, multiform, bringing heaven and earth as closely mated as two friends looking into the same mirror; evergreen forests rising slowly from the broad levels, as if loth to break the repose of some great millennium, — all possessing a soft picturesqueness of their own, comporting happily with the moods of a heart that would have sung to it a lullaby of peace. I look at these many graceful indentations around the Maryland coast, these outstretched arms of welcome, and I seem to see a perpetual hospitality oflering itself to all who have been struck by earth's storms and are yearning for a tranquil home.

Martha smiles at my enthusiasm.

Passing up within the banks of the dark-watered Pocomoke, two incidents from its past remind me that the little river already has a history. The first time its ripples were ever stirred by the keel of the civilized was in 1608, when Captain John Smith entered the stream with his exploring-party in search of fresh water, and when, as he tells us, " at first the people with great fury seemed to assault us, yet at last with songs and dances and much mirth became very tract- 2 able." These were the tribes among whom we are to live. Perhaps, while I write, we are sailing over the very spot where Virginia's truest knight bargained with the savages for water and obtained " such puddle that never till then we ever knew the want of good water. We digged and searched in many places, but before two days were expired we would have refused two barricoes of gold for one of that puddle water of Wighcocomoco." So he called the Pocomoke.

Suddenly, from the shore, where we see a cluster of rude cabins and banks of sea-shells, two or three boats hollowed out of trees shoot out and paddle to meet us. The children, affrighted, run below. Brother John hurries after his wheel-lock gun. The captain smiles and assures us there is no danger, the red men are peaceable and friendly. Our brigantine was fitted out for trade with the natives and with the farmers along the shore. The savages are holding up oysters, crying, '• Kaw-sheh ;" fish, crying, " Wammass ;" beavers, shouting, ** Nataque ;" turkeys, advertising them as " Pah-quun ;" and maize or Indian corn, calling aloud, " Cawl-naa-woop ;" uttering harsh gutturals as of beasts. I distinguish but one English word, "Beads! Beads !" For these gaudy ornaments they clamor more loudly than for anything else, although the scarcity of clothing is lamentable (2).

Our captain tells us that these Indians are of the one chief Eastern Shore nation of the Nanticokes, whom Captain Smith pronounces " the best marchants of all the salvages." Each tribe is designated by the name of the stream on which it mostly dwells. Hence I hear already of the Choptanks, the Wicomicoes, the Monokins, the Chingoteagues, the Assawamans, the

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Pocomokes — uncouth words to the unaccustomed ear, but possessed of a wild music of their own which, it is to be hoped, shall go on sounding with the roar of the waves and the sighs of the pines for ever.

So much has been written of the proud, stately red men of America that I must confess a little disappointment at the comparatively diminutive appearance of these Indians. Martha smiles again, as she has a way of smiling whenever my romantic notions are disconcerted. Our philosophic father wonders if there is anything in the climate to produce this dwarfing of stature, and if in the course of centuries the same causes will superinduce like results in the descendants of the" white settlers (3).

I record my second historical item. Forty-five years ago — only a year after the settlement of St. Mary's, and six years after the occupation of Kent Island by the troubler William Clayborne — Lieutenant Ratcl iff Warren, an adherent of Clayborne, enters the stream, in command of the pinnace Longtail, with a crew of thirteen men. Soon two pinnaces, the St. Margaret and the St. Helen, fitted out by Governor Calvert, pursue and assault the other. The quiet of these scenes is broken by the hoarse voice of conflict, and four dying men — three Virginians and one Marylander — dye the dark waters darker with their blood. There, upon the modest bosom of the little Pocomoke, was fought one of the first naval battles waged by white men upon American waters.*

Marshes upon right and left, and sweet smells of the hay ; thick forests occasionally crowding to the water's

* April 23, 1635. Founders of Maryland, Rev. E. D. Neill, D.D., p. 52.

edge ; patches of wild flowers ; a plantation gladdening the eye now upon one bank, and now upon the other, suggesting thoughts of neighborhood and neighbors in days to come, — thus slowly with favoring breezes we ascend the tortuous river.

Another boat puts off from the right bank, and, dropping anchor, we await its coming. Through the cedars and maples a brick building is discovered about one hundred yards from the shore, looking homelike amid its setting of trees, wearing the comfortable aspect of scenes left far behind and contrasting strikingly with the wigwams of the buyers of the beads.

In the approaching boat — called the Ark — my eye singles out a gentleman of distinguished appearance who rises from his seat. He must be about fifty years of age * and is evidently in full vigor of body and mind. No one need mistake the mien of a born leader of men. His face is full of intelligence, and underlying all is the unmistakable impress of manly character.

As he arose from his seat I noticed that my father rose also, and that a gesture of recognition passed between them. The pleasant explanation soon follows. This is Colonel William Stevens, judge of the county court since its organization in 1 666, and the incumbent of other high offices in the province (4).

He comes on board, helped by my father's hand. They knew each other in boyhood, my sire visiting at the house of his father, John Stevens, in the parish of Mealemore, Buckinghamshire. The judge was one of the earliest settlers in this county, and he has been very active in giving information to the oppressed in Europe and opening up to them this asylum from per-

* Born in 1630.

secution. When my father began to look abroad for a place of refuge, it was natural to apply to his old friend for advice with regard to the selection of our Transatlantic home. He came out to-day for supplies, nor did we know we were so near him ; so that the surprise is mutually pleasant. I look upon our first friend in America, and the wilderness begins to brighten.

Under his kind invitation, our family are for a while the judge's guests. It is Friday, and our friend insists that we cannot become comfortably domiciled in our strange home before the Sabbath, and that we can far better enjoy the rest of God's holy day with him. Thus it comes about that on my sixteenth birthday we have first set foot upon American soil and under the auspices of hospitality as delightful as heart can wish. The thought suddenly possesses me, and, stooping down, I lay my hand upon the soft cool earth and devote this land of the Eastern Shore to such hospitality through all her future generations.

The Sabbath! Glorious day! Was there ever a brighter sunrise, a bluer sky ? Breathing is rapture.

" Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire

Mirth and youth and warm desire !

Woods and groves are of thy dressing,

Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing;

Thus we salute thee with our early song,

And welcome thee and wish thee long!"

So sang the old blind bard whom I saw worn and wrinkled, looking upon him with childish wonder and reverence during the month of his death, six years ago. If Mr. Milton ever saw such a May as smiles upon me now, he must have seen it in Italy, not in England. I sit in the shade, flat on the grass, with the lazy river at my feet. They tell nie that this little stream is essentially Southern in its features, reminding one of the bayous along which De Leon sought the fountain of immortal youth. Wild violets bloom around me, mingling their odors with the spicy perfumes of sassafras and myrtle. And this is our Maryland — soft, breezy, dreamy, balmy, halcyon Maryland !

The judge and my father come down from the house and take their seats near me, beneath a large wildcherry which overhangs the river.

"Yes," said our friend, "we call our province the * Land of the Sanctuary.' No ostracism here for religious sentiment, no denial of the rights of conscience to any faith. While to the north and south the settlers have broucfht over with them the Old World's intolerance, here no man can dictate to another his creed. Would that we could welcome all victims of ecclesiastical despotism to this favored clime ! After trying the experiment of religious liberty, the idea seems unmistakably divine."

I was intensely interested. My father's prayer was remembered in which he adored God's sovereignty in accomplishing these blessed results through the instrumentality of two persecuting churches. I listened for an explanation.

" Through a charter jealously worded for the purpose of guarding the religion of an Episcopal kingdom and the religion of a Catholic Proprietary from impinging upon each other, the wisdom of the Infinite One prepared a refuge for those oppressed by both churches. To no colony would England have granted the Papists authority to harass her Protestant subjects, and Lord Baltimore was willing to surrender the power to persecute others if thereby he could save his own faith from persecution. Then, the ascendency of Cromwell resulted to our greater security here, bringing about the enactment at St. Mary's, in 1649, under a Protestant governor and council and legislature, of the celebrated act concerning religion. Governor Stone was from this Shore, having been sheriff of Northampton county, and was an earnest partisan of the Parliament" (5).