|
The two articles that
follow, relating to the early history of the Scotch-Irish in this country,
are part of a series, twelve in all, which were originally published
(1891) in the Herald and Presbyter, a religious paper in Cincinnati, O.
Attracting the notice of Prof. George Mac-loskie, of Princeton, N. J.,
they were by him introduced and read in part to the late Congress at
Atlanta, and are here given in full.
"Let not ambition mock
their useful toil, Their homely joys and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur
hear, with a disdainful smile, The short and simple annals of the poor."
The Ulstermen are to be
judged by the standards of the Eighteenth, not the Nineteenth century.
Following the emigrations described in our last article, comes what may be
called an age of buckskin and homespun, when the clothing consisted of
skins and furs, or of linsey or cotton woolsey and other products of the
spinning wheel and hand loom. Settlements were made in communities, the
cabins located near enough together to furnish mutual protection against
the lurking savages, to gratify their social instincts, to aid each other
in clearing their farms, and afford the advantages of schools and
Churches. In every cabin was heard the music of the busy spinning wheel.
All need not learn to weave, but all must card and spin flax, tow, wool,
and in some places cotton. All blankets, coverlets, quilts, and wearing
apparel for both sexes were, as a rule, home-made. An entire congregation,
including the minister in the pulpit, were often dressed in homespun. The
moccasin, hunting shirt, sun-bonnet, and rifle were common in the rude log
churches, where stools and slab benches, resting on puncheon floors, took
the place of pews. Log barns, cabins, churches, and school-houses made up
the homely pioneer settlements. Little ones were tucked away in
trundle-beds, while boys and young men climbed) often by ladders on the
outside of the cabin, to the lofts. Great fireplaces occupied sometimes
nearly one entire end of the cabin, where the substantial cooking was done
over or before the blazing wood fire, in pots and pans, and Dutch ovens,
or in the ashes, with sometimes a brick oven outdoors. Candles or very
rude lard lamps of a primitive pattern, sometimes merely a saucer, with a
rag for a wick, made darkness visible when the cabin was not illuminated
by the fire. It was a century and more before the modern cooking stove and
range, whose introduction the writer well remembers, as well as the music
of the spinning and "quill" wheels, on which the youngsters wound the
quills for the weaver's shuttles, on the hand looms.
In this day of diversified
industries, when one labor-saving invention treads fast upon the heels of
another, we can with difficulty comprehend the manifold duties of the
pioneer housewife in the ordinary cabin life of that day. She milked and
churned, caught rain water in troughs and barrels from the roofs for the
washing, made her own soap, baked her own bread, washed, picked, dyed, and
carded the wool, broke, carded, and spun the flax, wove the cloth, cut and
made the garments, reared the children, nursed the sick, and often cheered
the disheartened laborer at her side. Hollow trees or sap troughs, where
maple sugar was made, supplied cradles for the babies. One of the
Presidents of the United States is said to have been rocked in such a
cradle. Then there were Indian troubles, alarms, massacres, ambushes, men
shot down at the plow, mothers and children murdered or driven into
captivity; with blockhouses and forts for protection from the dusky
savages, where even the women learned to run bullets, and could load and
fire with deadly aim if it were necessary.
For amusements they could
trap and hunt; there were foot races, and log rollings, or log cabin
raisings, husking and spinning bees, quiltings, spelling matches, singing
schools, and weddings.
The choicest of the land
thus early fell into worthy hands, and ere long comfort and plenty came,
not to say wealth. By such enterprise, industry, and hardships they hewed
out for themselves valuable farms from the primeval forests, and these
toils and perils, incident to life in the new world, gave character to
many communities which they still bear. They had little money, but stout
hearts and hands; and so, in the fear of God, they laid the broad
foundations of our present civilization. Underneath all this plain
homespun exterior there were men and women of warm and true hearts; and if
not so well versed in the lore of the schools, there was no lack of common
sense, which for them, in that day, was the greater necessity. The pretty
girls were dressed in striped or plaid cloths, carded, spun, and woven by
their own hands; and their sweethearts in sumach or walnut-dyed material,
prepared by their own mothers. Courting was done while riding or walking
to and from meeting, or on the way to the spring when there. Nor did the
girls hesitate to walk barefoot, and on their arrival at the grove and
spring, near which the church stood, stop, and, washing their feet, put on
shoes and stockings preparatory to entering the house of God.
There was no want of
employment among men or women. If there had been leisure to read, there
were few books to gratify their taste. Aside from the Bible and Psalms,
the most common books were: "Pilgrim's Progress," "Mosheim's History," "Doddridge's
Works," "Night Thoughts," "Hervey's Meditations," "Josephus," the
"Writings of John Owen," and similar works, which were read and re-read by
the whole community.
Much has been written of
the planting of churches, schoolhouses, and colleges in New England, but
as thrilling a story might be and ought to be told of the log churches,
schoolhouses, log colleges, and theological seminaries, which were also
schools of red-hot patriotism, planted by our Presbyterian fathers, some
of which were the forerunners of our present popular, prosperous,
venerated institutions of learning. The log college of William Tennent was
established at Neshaminy in 1726. The germ of what is now Princeton was
another log college at Elizabethtown, N. J. There was another similar
school at New London, Pa., which was removed and grew into a college in
Newark, Del. Still another was organized at Fagg's Manor in 1759. In 1767
David Caldwell instituted, near Greensboro, what was known as the Eton of
the South. From such schools as germs were involved, under great
disadvantages, our American type of colleges, such as are found to-day in
the Middle and Western States, and on to the Pacific. We may well recall
the day when our great-great-grandfathers and mothers went barefoot and in
homespun to the log schoolhouses, and the more favored young men and women
completed in homespun their more liberal course of study in the log
colleges, and they certainly were as well prepared for the duties of life
in that age as those of our day are in our palatial colleges and cushioned
pews. Many a minister added to his pastoral work the liberal education of
several young men for the ministry. This was the homespun age of
Presbyterianism in this country, when Christians, if they were plain and
simple in their ways, were intelligent and well grounded in the Scriptures
and the doctrines of the Church. No more faithful or effective gospel was
ever preached than by men in homespun. Pastors went from house to house,
praying with and catechising the whole household. The family altar was
honored, and parents instructed their children in religious things. The
Lord's Supper was administered at least twice a year, preceded by a day of
rigid fasting and other extra services, the minister being assisted by one
or more neighboring pastors. Sometimes these services were held in the
open air, so largely were they attended. A little later came the camp
meetings, at which there were wonderful manifestations of the Holy Spirit.
Tables were often used for the Lord's Supper with tokens, none being
admitted to the ordinance unless they had previously received these tokens
from the pastor or the elders. The line which separated the Church and the
world was distinctly drawn.
The Puritans of New England
and the Presbyterians from Ulster were the two pillars of our national
temple, like Jachin and Boaz in the old sanctuary. The one stood for
personality and separation, the other for partnership and representation;
the pilgrim fathers believed in individuality, the Scotch-Irish in
equality; the one set up the town meeting, the other the state house; the
one the congregation, the other the synod; the one clung to an established
Church supported by civil tax, the other was the first to advocate the
separation of Church and state in the abolition of the civil tax; the one
enjoyed his own religion but hindered others in the enjoyment of theirs,
while the other sought liberty of conscience for all.
Acts of the Scotch-Irish Fathers
By Rev. H. Calhoun They were pioneers in the
early settlement of the new world, and their work consisted in the genesis
of things, laying foundations and seizing strategic points as the vanguard
of Christian civilization, first east and afterward west of the
Alleghanies. Whether along the Atlantic Coast or across the mountains,
their work was enough like the acts of the apostles to justify the title
of this paper—both being called and sent to plant Christian Churches upon
new and unoccupied fields, inaugurating advanced movements in the old and
new world's history. Both broke away from old moorings, encountered
dangers, suffered deadly persecutions, endured hardship, and were
providentially guided to eminent success. We need not claim that they
were, without exception, ideal Christians. Some of them doubtless had more
Scotch-Irish vim than divine grace. They were of fervid temperament, quick
intellect, and ready speech. They had conspicuous energy, strong will, and
were firm, and even obstinate, for the right and the wrong. They were
certainly excellent types of rugged, impetuous strength of character, and
even when they failed as examples of practical piety, they often stood
firmly by gospel truth. But whatever their defects, there were always not
a few among them who were eminently godly people, and who gave religious
character to this transmontane movement.
Let us look upon an average
home among the settlements of Western Pennsylvania during the last quarter
of the eighteenth century. It is invariably a log cabin, perhaps twenty by
twenty-five feet, with a part of two logs cut away for the one window;
oiled paper or linen took the place of glass; chimneys were built with
sticks of wood plastered with clay; benches and stools made of split logs,
and supported on four legs, took the place of chairs. Around the walls
wooden pegs were driven into the logs, on which hung the garments of the
inmates. Another set of pegs supported the rifle, bullet pouch, and powder
horn, which were often taken even to church. In the same way was supported
a little shelf on which rested the meager library of standard religious
works. This one apartment served the varied necessities of parlor, family
room, bedroom, nursery, kitchen, and even church. Probably, in 1780, there
was not a single stone, brick, or frame house west of the mountains. Such
were the homes of those who crossed the mountains on pack horses, there
being no roads, or none suitable for carriages.
Food was equally plain. Hog
and hominy, with mush and milk, were standing dishes. But little wheat was
grown, for there were few mills to grind it. It was extensively the medium
of exchange for iron, salt, and other indispensables. The iron had to be
carried on pack horses over the mountain into a region now abounding in
it, and salt could not be had for less than five dollars a bushel. As for
tea and coffee, if the old people could afford either once a week, or on
the Lord's day, they were satisfied, while to the younger generation it
was altogether contraband.
Passing from home to the
Church life, a similar state of things prevailed. In the old Bedstone
Presbytery there was not a church building erected on the whole field
until nine years after its organization in 1781. When they began to build,
the log churches were as rare, rude, and unsightly as the private
dwellings. They did not wait until they were able to erect spacious stone
or brick structures, nor did they send East to ask help of older or
wealthier Churches. They took their axes on their shoulders, went into the
forests, cut down the trees, and, with their own hands, erected a log
building to shelter them from snow in winter and rain in summer. Except in
inclement weather, they worshiped in God's first temples. These primitive
churches were constructed entirely with the ax, without saw or plane, or
even hammer, for neither nails nor iron in any shape were employed. The
roof was of clapboards, kept in their places by logs laid upon them; the
doors also were clapboards, fastened to crossbars by wooden pins, these
crossbars projecting on one side sufficiently to form one part of a hinge.
For windows small openings were cut between two adjacent logs and glazed
with oiled paper or linen. The floors, where they had any but the earth
itself, were made of cleft logs, smoothed by the ax. These churches were
squares or parallelograms, if the logs were long enough, and when too
short for a four-sided structure, the cruciform was adopted, with twelve
sides and twelve corners; though it was not intended to represent the
twelve apostles, nor was there a reference to any other rules of
ecclesiastical architecture, but for strength and convenience. One of the
transepts was the preacher's stand. The seats were puncheon or split logs,
with four legs, and no provision was made for a fire.
The early ministers
traveled from one clearing to another, and these, accompanied by an elder,
visited from cabin to cabin, holding meetings when and where they could.
Thus the ordinances were administered in as primitive and rude
environments as those of apostolic times. The Shorter Catechism was
learned at school and recited on Sabbath evening by old and young. Many of
the backwoods people were as well instructed in religious things as those
now enjoying better advantages. The locations of these log churches were
fixed by a "perambulating committee," so called, appointed by Presbytery,
which required that they should be at least ten miles a part. Going to
church meant something in those hardy times. Ministers traveled from
fifteen to twenty miles to reach an appointment, being absent from home
for days at a time. For roads they had blind forest paths; bridges were
unknown; guideboards there were none; yet, braving all perils, heat and
cold, mud or storm, duty was done. One instance is related where the
minister forded a river, preached in his wet clothes, then recrossed the
ford and rode ten miles home. When the Sabbath came, every road and bridle
path was thronged with worshipers—on foot, even barefoot; on horseback,
riding double. The house was crowded. Two services were common, the
intermission being well improved in social greetings. These log churches
in which our fathers worshiped deserve to be held in dearer memory than
the battlefields of our history. They were the Antiochs, Philippis, and
Corinths of the new world.
Let me illustrate this
interesting feature in the cradle life of American Presbyterianism by a
brief account of Rev. John McMillan, D.D., "the apostle of Presbyterianism
at the West." He was a graduate of Princeton under the presidency of Dr.
Witherspoon. He preached for a time in the older churches in the East, but
after making two visits west of the Alleghanies, and seeing the great need
of the field, he married and removed with his wife and goods on pack
horses over the mountains in 1778 to Pigeon Creek, Washington County.
There he lived in a log house with one room, perhaps twenty by fifteen
feet, a stranger certainly to all the luxuries of life. A picture of this
cabin has been handed down to us, and may be found in Nevin's
"Presbyterian Encyclopedia." It has one door, one small window cut out
between two logs, and a chimney built outside at one end, made of puncheon
and small sticks plastered with clay. A crooked rail fence divided the
open field in which it stood from the one adjoining. The stumps of trees
stood thick about the doorway. One native tree shaded one end of the
cabin—the only ornamental shrubbery. What seems a girdled, leafless tree
stands on the opposite side of the house. No other cabin, barn, or shed is
to be seen, and the native forest surrounds the clearing. It was a very
cheerless prospect externally for his young bride.
But it was equally
uninviting internally. Here is Dr. McMillan's own description of it as
they found it: "When I came to the country, the cabin in which I was to
live was raised, but there was no roof, nor any chimney nor floor. The
people, however, were very kind. They assisted me in preparing my house,
and in December we moved into it. But we had neither bedstead nor table
nor stool nor chair nor bucket. We could bring nothing with us but on pack
horses. We placed two boxes one on the other, which served for a table,
and two kegs served us for seats. Having committed ourselves to God in
family worship, we spread our bed on the floor and slept soundly till
morning."
This rude cabin became the
first log college west of the mountains, growing into Jefferson College in
1802. From this same cabin eighteen young men prepared for the ministry
went forth to serve the surrounding churches, some of whom rose to
eminence.
Dr. John McMillan was one
of the six men who organized the old Redstone Presbytery in 1781. In
complexion he was neither fair nor sallow, but swarthy. His features were
roughhewn, to some eyes homely, certainly masculine. His look was serious,
stern, almost harsh, were it not modified by benevolence. His manner was
blunt, abrupt, and impatient of formality, while in person he was nearly,
if not quite six feet high, with head and neck inclining forward and
showing slight promise of corpulency, setting off to good advantage his
cocked hat and broad-skirt coat and doublet breeches and knee buckles—the
conventional costume on important occasions of the day. He was a man of
Pauline zeal and force of character. His voice was very powerful,
corresponding to his large physique; and his sermons, rich in gospel
truth, were greatly blessed. He lived until his eighty-second year, dying
in 1833, in the sixtieth year of his ministry, having preached, it is
thought, full six thousand sermons. In 1802 he was chosen Professor of
Divinity and Vice President in Jefferson College. His whole life is a
happy illustration of the cradle history of Presbyterianism.
Before the days of Home
Missionary Societies, a Presbyterian minister, having come over the
mountain, was settled over the Churches of Cross Creek and Upper Buffalo,
in Northwestern Pennsylvania. One hundred dollars was the promised salary.
By renting and cultivating a small farm he hoped to support himself and
minister to the two congregations.
"The years rolled on, the
work prospered, but money was so scarce that neither the salary nor rent
of the farm could be paid. In this emergency a meeting was called to lay
the matter before the Lord and decide what to do. Wheat was a drug in the
market at twelve and a half cents a bushel. Often twenty bushels were
exchanged for one of salt. At this crisis it was reported that the only
mill in the settlement
had offered to grind the wheat at a very moderate cost; so, as the first
and only step the Lord had indicated, it was agreed to send their wheat to
the mill and have it ground. When the flour was ready, another meeting was
called, and the question which startled the stoutest hearts was: 'Who will
volunteer to run a boat to New Orleans?' It was a fearful undertaking—down
the Alleghany to the Ohio, down the Ohio to the Mississippi, through the
howling wilderness, inhabited by wild beasts and cruel savages. Many boat
crews had gone and had never been heard from again. Well might all
tremble. There was an awful hush and pause in the meeting. At last the
senior elder, sixty-four years old, rose and walked slowly up the aisle.
He turned as he reached the pulpit, and said: 'Here am I; send me.' Strong
men wept, but the answer had come; the Lord was leading them. A river
craft was soon constructed and loaded with the flour. The whole Church
assembled by the river to bid Godspeed to the enterprise; a parting hymn
was sung, a fervent prayer offered, then the old man stepped on deck, and,
seizing an oar, said: 'Farewell, brethren; unloose the cable, and let us
see what the Lord will do for us. More than nine months passed without
tidings of his fate or fortune. Sabbath after Sabbath came and went, many
anxious glances fell upon the vacant seat, and united and fervent prayers
ascended for his safe return. At last joy filled their hearts; there he
sat in his accustomed place; the Lord had brought back his own, and with
him more gold than had ever been seen in the settlement before. The
Churches prospered, the minister labored on, and now he and his elder
sleep side by side in the quiet old graveyard." (Mrs. H. Crawford,
Detroit, Mich., in Home Missionary.)
Such were some of the
needs, emergencies, and apostolic acts of the early Churches in the
wilderness.
Aye, call it holy ground,
The spot where first they trod. |
