From A HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY NORTH CAROLINA CONTAINING SKETCHES OF PROMINENT FAMILIES AND DISTINGUISHED MEN WITH AN APPENDIX BY REV. JETHRO RUMPLE PUBLISHED BY J. J. BRUNER SALISBURY, N. C. 1881 Copyright DMK Heritage 2004 The following are excerpts from the above-mentioned book. Page 62-65 CHAPTER IX RELIGION AND CHURCHES, WITH A RESUME OF THE PARISH LAWS The early settlers of Rowan County were religious people. The Presbyterians, of Scotch-Irish extraction, were probably the most numerous in the section now comprising Guilford County, in the Jersey Settlement, in Western Rowan and Iredell counties. The Lutherans and German Reformed (the latter sometimes called Calvin congregations, and Presbyterians), prevailed in parts of Guilford, Davidson, East and South Rowan, and Catawba Counties. I name the regions as they are now known, but they were all then in Rowan. In Davidson and Randolph there were Baptist churches. In Salisbury, in the “Jerseys,” and elsewhere, there were some members of the Church of England. It is probable that William Temple Coles and his family, John Dunn, perhaps Corbin and Innes and the Frohocks were attached to that communion. We infer this simply from their nativity and their connection with Earl Granville and Governor Dobbs, as agents or officers of the crown. In regard to Dunn we have a more certain tradition, as we shall hereafter mention. It will be remembered that ST. LUKE’S PARISH was established contemporaneously with the county, as a part of the great system of government here wrought out, or attempted; as nearly conformed to the system of the mother country as practicable. During the administration of Governor Dobbs-in 1754, according to Wheeler-ten years later according to other authorities (See Wheeler, p. 357; Caruthers’ Caldwell, p. 175), steps were taken to provide for the ministry of the word according to the rubric of the Church of England. A petition, signed by thirty-four persons in the County of Rowan, and addressed to Governor Dobbs, represents: “That His Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects in this county, who adhere to the liturgy and profess the doctrines of the Church of England, as by law established, have not the privileges and advantages which the rubric and canons of the Church allow and enjoin on all its members. That the Acts of the Assembly calculated for forming a regular vestry in all the counties have never, in this county, produced their happy fruits. That the County of Rowan, above all counties in the Province, lies under great disadvantages, as her 63 HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY inhabitants are composed almost of all nations of Europe, and instead of a uniformity in doctrine and worship, they have a medley of most of the religious tenets that have lately appeared in the world; who from dread of submitting to the national Church, should a lawful vestry be established, elect such of their own community as evade the Acts of the Assembly and refuse the oath, whence we can never expect the regular enlivening beams of t he holy Gospel to shine upon us.” >From the fact that there were only thirty-four signers to this petition from the vast territory of Rowan, we may naturally infer that the population in those days was hopelessly plunged into “Dissent.” And yet it was the purpose of the far-away rulers of England, and of the North Carolina Assembly, to have the Province conform as far as possible to the ecclesiastical system at home. And so the parish system of England, as far as practicable, was incorporated in the system of North Carolina law. What that system was, can be gathered from a voluminous Act, of thirty-three sections, passed by the General Assembly at Wilmington in 1764. Other Acts and regulations of the same general tenor had been adopted on various occasions before, but the Act of 1764-with a supplementary one in 1765-is the most full, and gives an impartial view of the system as perfected, just before the final downfall of the whole scheme at the Declaration of Independence in 1776. I will endeavor to give an impartial resumé of the parish system. According to this “Act” the Freeholders of each county, on Easter Monday of every third year, were required to elect twelve vestrymen to hold said office for the term of three years. A “Freeholder” according to existing laws was a person who owned at least fifty acres of land, or a lot in some town. These Freeholders were required to vote for vestrymen under a penalty of twenty shillings equal to two dollars and fifty cents in specie-and the vestrymen so elected were required to subscribe an oath that “they will not oppose the doctrine, discipline, and liturgy of the Church of England, as by law established”; and in case of refusal to qualify, any vestryman elect was to be declared incapable of acting in that capacity. Out of the twelve vestrymen two church wardens were to be chosen, who were required to hold office at least one year, under a penalty of forty shillings, equal to five dollars in specie or sterling money, and they were to forfeit five pounds (£5) if they did not set up their accounts for public inspection in the courthouse. These vestries might appoint one or more clerks, or readers, to perform divine service at such places as they might designate. 64 HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY The vestry were also empowered to lay a tax of ten shillings proclamation money, on each “taxable” in the county, for the purpose of building churches or chapels, paying ministers’ salaries, purchasing a glebe, erecting “mansions or parsonages,” etc. “Taxables,” as we gather from another Act, were all white male persons over sixteen years of age, all negroes, mulattoes, and mustees, both male and female, over twelve years of age, and all white persons male and female over twelve years of age who intermarried with negroes or persons of mixed blood. Such a tax, faithfully collected, would have yielded an immense revenue for the support of religion. Being a poll t ax, and not a property tax, it fell heavily upon the poor, and lightly on the rich. The tax thus levied was to be collected by the sheriff, as the other taxes, and paid over to the vestry; and in case of refusal, the sheriff was required to “distrain” the goods of the delinquent and sell them at public auction, after publishing the sale by posting it on the courthouse door, the church door, and by public announcement to the people immediately after divine service. (See Davis’ Revisal of North Carolina Laws, Edition 1173, pp. 304, 309.) By an “Act” passed in 1765, during the administration of William Tryon as Lieutenant-Governor, and called an “Act for establishing an orthodox clergy,” it was provided that every minister of a parish was to receive a stated salary of £133, 6s., 8d., and for each marriage solemnized in the parish, whether he performed the ceremony or not, provided he did not refuse, twenty shillings; for preaching each funeral, forty shillings. In addition to this he was to have the free use of a “mansion house” and “glebe,” or “tract of good land” of at least two hundred acres, or twenty pounds (£20) additional until such time as the “mansion house” and “glebe” were provided. The “mansion house was required to be thirty-eight feet in length, and eighteen feet in width, and to be accompanied with a kitchen, barn, stable, dairy, and meat house, with such other convenience s as they may think necessary.” (Sec Davis’ Revisal, 1773, pp. 338-39.) From this it will appear that the Assembly of North Carolina made a fair and liberal provision for the support of her parish ministers, and with the exception of the glebe, which he need not cultivate himself, rendered him “free from worldly cares and avocations.” But the difficulty lay in putting these regulations into effect. In Governor Dobb’s letter to the “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,” he informs the Society, in 1764, that in North Carolina “there were then but six clergymen, though there were twenty-nine parishes, and each parish contained 65 HISTORY OF ROWAN COUNTY a whole county.” (Rev. R. J. Miller’s letter to Dr. Hawks, 1830.) The fact was that a large part of the population were “Dissenters,” and they resisted every effort to settle a parish minister over them, and thus refused to subject themselves to additional taxation. In Unity Parish, in Guilford County, the people elected non-Episcopalians for vestrymen, and it became necessary for the Assembly to dissolve the vestry and declare their actions null and void. (See Caruthers’ “Caldwell.”) But let Parson Miller, in the letter above referred to, tell how matters were conducted in Rowan County, and in Salisbury especially. He says: “Subsequently to the year 1768, the Rev. Mr. (Theodore Drane) Draig came to Salisbury, in Rowan County, which was then St. Luk e’s Parish, and so far succeeded as to be able to have a small chapel erected in what is called the Jersey Settlement, about nine or ten miles east of Salisbury. But the opposition made to his settlement as rector of that parish, by the Presbyterians, was so very rancorous as to raise great animosity in their minds against all his endeavors to that end-they being far the most numerous body, having several large congregations well organized in the adjacent counties, and one of them in the vicinity of Salisbury. I well remember an anecdote told me by Dr. Newman [and] John Cowan, Sr., in their lifetime, and indeed by several others in the vicinity of Salisbury, some of whom may yet be living: ‘That on Easter Monday, when an election according to the then law of the Province was to be held for the purpose of electing vestrymen, the Presbyterians set up candidates of their own persuasion and elected them, not with any design either to serve or act as vestrymen, but merely to prevent the Episcopalians from electing such as would have done so.’ This caused much bitter animosity to spring up between the parties, and so, much discouraged the reverend gentleman. Perhaps the approach of the Revolutionary War had its influence also; but be that as it may, after a four years’ fruitless effort to organize an Episcopal congregation in this section, he left it as he found it, without any” (Rev. Mr. Miller’s letter in Church Messenger, October 15, 1879). A full sketch of each of the churches of Salisbury will be furnished in the future chapters, but so much was deemed necessary here, to give a glimpse of the early days before the Revolution. To the stirring times immediately preceding the great struggle for American liberty we must now direct our attention, for Rowan County was rather before than behind her neighbors in that struggle, as the record will show.