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ABOUT the year 1735, a
race of people diverse in habits, manners, forms of religious worship
and doctrinal creed from those who had previously taken their abode in
Virginia and the Carolinas, and destined to exert a grand and
controlling influence on the enterprise, wealth, and prosperity of those
States, began to erect their habitations along the western frontiers,
and form a line of defence against the savages of the mountains and the
great west, by their strong neighborhoods of hardy, enterprising men, in
that region of country extending from the Potomac river to the Savannah,
which now forms the heart of these States, and is most abundant in
resources of men and things.
Previously to that date,
the emigrants to Virginia, whose descendants had spread out over the
lower counties, and were progressing towards the mountains, were chiefly
from England, with a few Scotch and Irish families intermingled, with
one colony of Germans in Madison county, and one of Huguenots a few;
miles above Richmond, each having its own peculiar forms of religious
worship, and ministers proclaiming the gospel in their native tongue.
Iii North Carolina the
first permanent settlements had been formed by fugitives from Virginia,
who sought refuge in the mild climate and extended forests of this
unoccupied region,—some from the rigid, intolerant laws of that colony,
which bore so heavily on all that could not conform to the ceremonies of
the established church,—and some from a desire to escape from the
jurisdiction of all law, delighted with the license enjoyed in the
plains and swamps of a country which, previous to the 18th century,
scarce knew the exercise of civil authority. When the Puritans were
driven from Virginia, some eminently pious people settled along the
seaboard, safe from foreign invasion, and free from the domestic
oppression of intolerant laws and bigoted magistrates. Next to these
were the emigrants from the West Indies and from England, who preferred
the advantages offered by this uninhabited country to those of a more
populous state. About the year 1707, a colony of Huguenots was located
on the Trent river; and one of Palatines at Newborn, in 1709; each
maintaining the peculiar habits, customs, and religious services of the
fatherland. The Quakers, at an early date, cast in their lot with the
colony of Virginia; and many were compelled to fly from the execution of
the severe laws passed against their sect., and found refuge in
Carolina. They were of English descent, and at that time, too few, in
either State, to exert a preponderating influence on the community at
large.
The Presbyterian race,
from the north of Ireland, is not found in Virginia and North Carolina,
till after the year 1730, except in scattered families, or some small
neighborhoods on the Chesapeake. Soon after this period it is found at
the base of the Blue Ridge in Albemarle, Nelson, and Amherst, in
Virginia; and then in the great valley. About the year 1136 a colony of
Presbyterians, from the province of Ulster, Ireland, commenced their
residence on the head springs of the Opecquon in Frederick county, near
the present town of Winchester; and their descendants are found in the
congregation that bears the name of the creek in that county, and also
in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Indiana. About the same time, or perhaps a
little earlier, John Caldwell, from the north of Ireland, commenced a
settlement on Cub-creek, in Charlotte county, Virginia, then a province;
and persuaded a colony of his countrymen to unite with him. Their
descendants are found in the Cub-creek congregation, and those
congregations that have grown out of it: and also in Kentucky and South
Carolina—the eminent political character, John Caldwell Calhoun, being
one of them. About the year 1736, Henry McCulloch persuaded a colony
from Ulster, Ireland, to occupy his expected grant in Duplin county,
North Carolina. Their descendants are widely scattered over the lower
part of the State, and the southwestern States, with an influence that
cannot be easily estimated.
About the same period,
the Presbyterian settlements were commenced in Augusta and Rockbridge
counties, Virginia; and speedily increasing, they formed numerous large
congregations, which are still flourishing, having given rise to many
other congregations in the counties further west, and also in the
western States. From all these have arisen hosts of men that have acted
conspicuous parts east and west of the Alleghanies, during the century
that has passed since the emigrants built their cabins on the frontiers
of Virginia and Carolina.
The loss of the early
records of Orange presbytery has left us without the means of
ascertaining the precise year the Presbyterian colonies in Granville,
Orange, Rowan, Mecklenburg, and, in fact, in all that beautiful section
extending from the Dan to the Catawba, began to occupy the wild and
fertile prairies. But it is well known, that, previously to the year
1750, settlements of some strength were scattered along from the
Virginia line to Georgia. On account of the inviting nature of the
climate and soil, and the comparative quietness of the Catawba Indians,
and the severity of the Virginia laws in comparison with those of
Carolina, on the subject of religion, many colonies were induced to pass
through the vacant lands in Virginia, in the neighborhood of their
countrymen, and seek a borne in the Carolinas. As early as 1740, there
were scattered families on the Hico, and Eno, and Haw—and cabins were
built along the Catawba.
The time of setting off
the frontier counties is known, but is no guide to the precise time of
the first settlements. Granville county was set off from Edgecomb in
1743, and extended west to the charter limits; Bladen was taken from New
Hanover in 1733, its western boundary being the charter limits; and in
1749 Anson was set off from Bladen with the same western boundary. The
two counties, Anson and Granville, embraced all the western part of the
State in 1749. Orange was set off from Bladen in 1751, and Rowan from
Anson in 1753, and Mecklenburg from Anson in 1762. These dates show the
progress of emigration and increase of population, but do not fix the
time when the cabins-of the whites began to supplant the wigwams of the
Indians. The dates of the land patents do not mark the time of
emigration, as in some cases the lands were occupied a long period
before grants were made, and the lands surveyed; and in others, patents
were granted before emigration. Some of the early settlements of
Presbyterians were made before the lands were surveyed, particularly in
the upper country.
Emigration was encouraged
and directed very much in its earliest periods, by the vast prairies,
with pea-vine grass and canebrakes, which stretched across the States of
Virginia and Carolina. There are large forests now in these two States,
where, a hundred years ago, not a tree, and scarce a shrub could be
seen. These prairies abounded with game, and supplied abundant
pasturage, both winter and summer, for the various kinds of stock that
accompanied the emigrants, and formed for years no small part of their
wealth. In 1744, Lord Cranville's share of North Carolina was set off by
metes and bounds, having Virginia on the north; a line drawn froiu the
sea-shore westward on the parallel of 38° 34' north latitude, on the
south; the Atlantic Ocean on the east; and the unexplored ocean on the
west. The great inducements offered by his lordship and his agents, the
beauty and healthiness of the country, the fertility of the soil, and
the low rate at which tracts of land were set to sale, attracted
attention, and brought purchasers for residence and for speculation.
Every additional colony increased the value of the remaining possessions
of his lordship.
The remaining part of the
upper country was held by grants made from the crown, from time to time,
and by the grantees sold out in smaller sections. There is nothing,
however, in the peculiar circumstances of making the land purchases, or
in the country itself, or the time in which the settlements were made,
that can account for the spirit, principles, and habits of the people.
These they brought with them, and left as a legacy to their children
they had wrought wonders in the fatherland, turning the scale of
revolution in 1688, putting the crown on the head of William, Prince of
Orange, and working out purity of morals, inspiring a deep sense of
religious liberty and personal independence, under all the withering
influences of prelacy, aristocracy, and royalty.
While the tide of
emigration was setting fast and strong into the fertile regions between
the Yadkin and Catawba, from the north of Ireland, through Pennsylvania
and Virginia, another tide was flowing from the Highlands of Scotland,
and landing colonies of Presbyterian people along the Cape Fear River.
Authentic records declare that the Scotch had found the sandy plains of
Carolina, many years previous to the exile and emigration that succeeded
the crushing of the hopes of the house of Stuart, in the fatal battle of
Culloden, in 1746. But in the year following that event, large companies
of Highlanders seated themselves in Cumberland county; and in a few
years the Gaelic language was heard familiarly in Moore, Anson,
Richmond, Robeson, Baden, and Sampson. Among these people and their
children, the warm-hearted preacher and patriot, James Campbell, labored
more than a quarter of a century; and with them, that romantic
character, Flora McDonald, passed a portion of her days. As many
congregations were formed among these Highlanders, who were all
Presbyterians, as that devoted, but solitary man of God, Mr. Campbell,
could visit in the performance of the duties of his sacred offices.
In the upper part of the
State, between the Virginia and Carolina line, along the track traversed
by the army of Cornwallis in the war of the Revolution, there were above
twenty organized churches, with large congregations, and a great many
preaching-ultimately to prevail throughout the world, triumphing over
human depravity itself, we must go back to the ancestry of these people,
which, like the origin of the proudest house and longest line of crowned
heads in Continental Europe—is from the dust—the poorest of a shrewd and
enterprising people. The farthest limit, however, to which the research
will be carried, is about the commencement of the seventeenth century;
and as we trace the progress of events, and the developments of truth
through the seventeenth century, and more than half of the eighteenth,
we shall look with less surprise than did Governor Tryon, on the
resistance to oppression he experienced in Orange; or than Governor
Josiah Martin, on the declaration of independence, made at Charlotte
these events will seem to flow as streams from the enduring fountains of
Truth and Liberty.
All advancement in
society has been the fruit of the religious principle; and of all
religious principles that have influenced society, those have been most
effective that have most exalted God, and put the lowest estimate on the
moral purity of human nature, and the means of human devising for the
purification of our race. Those have done most for mankind that have
first taught the creature to despair of himself, and next to trust in
God; think less of property than life, and less of life than principles; and to value the hopes and expectations of eternity immeasurably more
than the things of time. With such principles men may be poor and
unpolished, but can never be mean or undone; they may be crushed, but
never degraded. When Tryon returned to his palace in Newborn, after the
bloodshed on the Alamance, he feasted. The people of Orange mourned
under the oath of allegiance exacted with terrible sanctions, and at the
sight of the gallows-tree where their neighbors had died ignominiously.
he was the minion of arbitrary power; they were temporarily crushed. He
was finally driven from the provinces of America, and they bequeathed to
their children the inheritance of a beautiful land, with all that civil
and religious freedom they ever desired.
Looking back from the
time of the bloodshed on the Alamance, or the Declaration of
Independence in Charlotte, over a period of half a century, and then
forward on the things that next succeeded in the space of another half
century—the events of both which periods have passed away to the
province of history,—and we have an exhibition of principles and men
worthy of being written and read by all mankind, and through all time.
The wonderful prosperity of the last quarter of a century but adds to
the interest of the previous thrilling events. Could the leaders of the
people that formed the population of which we speak, for one generation
in Ireland, and for two in America that immediately succeeded the first
large emigration—and in both lands, for that time, the real leaders were
godly men—could these now rise from the graves to which they went down,
some in peace, some in the sorrow of hope, and could they speak the
language of earth, they would sing a Psalm of David louder than Merrill
at the gallows—louder than they ever sang at a communion season, or
revival, in Ireland or in Carolina—the beautiful sixty-sixth: "O bless
our God, ye people, and make the voice of his praise to be heard; which
holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved. For
thou, O God, hast proved us; and thou hast tried us as silver is tried.
Thou broughtest us into the net, thou layedst affliction upon our loins.
Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire, and
through water; but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place. I will
go into thy house with burnt offerings; I will pay thee my vows; which
my lips have uttered and my mouth hath spoken when I was in trouble."
And would not their posterity in and around the grand Alleghanies shout
with 'a voice of thunder and a heart of love,—" The Lord God omnipotent
reigneth! Alleluia! Amen!"
For about two centuries
and a half this race of people have had one set of moral, religious, and
political principles, working out the noblest frame-work of society;
obedience to the just exercise of law; independence of spirit; a sense
of moral obligations; strict attendance on the worship of Almighty God;
the choice of their own religious teachers; with the inextinguishable
desire to exercise the same privilege with regard to their civil rulers,
believing that magistrates govern by the consent of the people, and by
their choice. These principles, brought from Ireland, bore the same
legitimate fruit in Carolina as in Ulster Province, whose boundaries
travellers say can be recognized by the peace and plenty that reign
within. Men will not be able fully to understand Carolina till they have
opened the treasures of history, and drawn forth some few particulars
respecting the origin and religious habits of the Scotch-Irish, and
become familiar with their doings previous to the Revolution—during that
painful struggle—and the succeeding years of prosperity; and Carolina
will be respected as she is known. |
