Centennial Celebration 1 ^7. A/ 4*ktf<<4 // 7>, % '0 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/historicaladdres01ches An Historical Address Delivered in Saint Matthew's Church HlLLSBORO, N. C.j ON SUNDAY, August 24,, 1924 being the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Parish PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE VESTRY by Joseph Blount Cheshire, D.D. Bishop of North Carolina With a Foreword by the Rector PRESSES OF CHRISTIAN & KING PRINTING COMPANY DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA 1925 sw So. 0?\l FOREWORD By The Rector The one hundredth anniversary of the organization of Saint Matthew's Church, Hillsboro, N. C, was fittingly observed on Sunday, August 24, 1924. The services of the day were as follows: 8 :00 A.M. — Celebration of the Holy Communion. 11 :00 A.M. — Holy Communion with historical address b} 7 the Bishop. 8 :00 P.M. — Confirmation and addresses by visiting clergymen and laymen. Besides the Rector, the Rev. Dr. William De Lancey Benton, there were present and assisting in the services, the Bishop of the Diocese, the Right Reverend Joseph Blount Cheshire, D.D., and the Archdeacon of Raleigh, the Venerable Morrison Bethea. By all admission, the outstanding event of the day was the Bishop's address at the eleven o'clock service. That it might be printed and widely distributed was the generalty expressed wish of those who heard it. It ap- pears, therefore, elsewhere in this publication. In the evening, at eight o'clock, the church was again filled to overflowing. The service began with the Order of Confirmation. Among those receiving the rite were two great-great-granddaughters of Chief Justice Ruffin, who gave the valuable site where now stand the church [3] and rectory. Following this Mr. J. Cheshire Webb, of Hillsboro, introduced the speakers of the evening: Arch- deacon Bethea, Mr. Samuel S. Nash of Tarboro, and Mr. D. Heyward Hamilton of Baltimore. Especially fine, it should be said, was the music at the several services under the direction of Mrs. William D. Benton. It showed the ability of the choir to sing, and sing well, the highest order of church music. Thus everything combined to make a day of much interest and many congratulations. On the following evening, under the auspices of the women of the parish, a reception was held at the rectory. In spite of the unfavorable weather, it was largely at- tended by church-folk and others, some of whom came from far-away places outside the State. A pleasing fea- ture of the occasion was "A Tribute to Old Saint Matthew's," written by Mrs. Benton and sung with fine effect by Mrs. Alexander H. Graham and the choir. Alto- gether, an evening of rare enjoyment, and one not soon to be forgotten. Mention must here be made of another matter. Suc- cessful as the celebration undoubtedly was, it left indeed one thing to be desired, the presence of the honored and beloved senior warden, Major John W. Graham, LL.D., who was absent because of illness. So came the centennial observance of Saint Matthew's to its fair and happy completion. May it mark the begin- ning of a new epoch in the history of the parish, an epoch of fuller life, of larger growth, of higher usefulness. [41 ST. MATTHEW'S CHURCH HlLLSBORO AND ST. MATTHEW'S PARISH ORANGE COUNTY BY Joseph Blount Cheshire, D.D. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Hebrews XI: 39.40. The relation between us, who are alive in this visible world, and those who have passed on to the higher state, not apprehended by our mortal senses, remains a mystery. Someone has defined a mystery to be a light shining behind a cloud. This illustrates what I mean. They are hidden by the Cloud into which they have passed; but certainly the light of their love and goodness is not wholly quenched. It still shines from behind the Cloud; our hearts are still cheered and comforted by their beautiful and blessed spir- its. It is a wholesome and strengthening and ennobling truth, that Communion of Saints, which we assert in the Creed, springing from the finest human sentiment, and based on the sure ground of Scripture teaching. We are all one in Christ ; not only all who love and serve him here, but also all who have gone before. We look forward to a joyful reunion; they await our coming, that we may together advance to our final consummation: "All these, having obtained a good report through faith, received not [5] the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." We are embraced in a common bond in Christ; we look for- ward to a common joy. Another thought seems proper on this occasion. We instinctively think and speak well of the departed: De Mortuis nil nisi Bonum. Now this sentiment may be exag- gerated, and so may degenerate into insincerity and dis- honesty. But in principle I believe it to be just and right. In a very true and real sense it is the good in the man which is the real man. The bad is often but a lapse, a fall from his real self, a misrepresentation of his true nature, and of the real effort and aim of his life. In his physical life a man has an infirmity, a disease, a twisted or de- formed member, the scar of a deadly wound. We recog- nize these as imperfections, marring the strength and beauty of the body. But we do not think of these defects as an essential part of the man. They are accidents, temporary and passing phases of incompleteness and imperfection, which in its growth and development the healthy organism will eliminate, throw off, correct, out- grow. They have no essential part in our idea of the man's physical being. In the same way I think we have an instinctive feeling that much of the evil and sin, many defects of the man, are but passing conditions of our tem- porary, human, struggling and failing nature; and that they will be laid in the grave with the corruptible elements of our mortal bodies; that they are not of the essence of the man. There is a deep, and I believe a true, human instinct that remembers our departed by the best that is in them, and reveres and honors them. [6] I have to speak of the past and of the men of the past ; and I thank God that I can speak of them with gratitude and with admiration. They were not faultless. Doubt- less they were much as men since have been, and are now. But today we remember before God their good deeds, and thank God for them. On their foundations we build; all that is best in us and in our work has, in a way, come from them. As the wise Son of Serach says : "Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us. There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be which have no memorial * * *. Their bodies are buried in peace; but their name liveth forever." (Eccles. XLIVrl .8.9.14). The particular event, of which we now observe the one hundredth anniversary, is the organization of the Parish of St. Matthew's Church, Hillsboro, under the Canons of the Diocese of North Carolina and of the Protestant Epis- copal Church, in the United States of America. But when we say St. Matthew's Church, Hillsboro, our memory unavoidably goes back beyond the one hundred years of the history of this particular phase of the life of this parish. The organization of one hundred years ago was the gathering together of the remains of an ear- lier Church life. It was taking up the broken threads of the two ends of a parted cable, and renewing a sundered continuity. There had been a St. Matthew's Church, Hillsboro, long before 1824. I propose to go back a little in my review of the past. I wish I had time to speak in some detail of the Ecclesi- astical legislation of the Province of North Carolina, of the laws relating to the establishment and support of the [7] Church. No chapter in American history has been more erroneously written or more commonly misunderstood. Writers in the period following the Revolution, when pre- judices were inflamed, and access to contemporaneous Colonial authorities was difficult, accepted, and passed on as facts, statements entirely incorrect, which are sup- ported by no contemporary evidence, and which are in many cases contradicted by adequate contemporary docu- mentary proof. Our own Dr. Hawks, who did so much to recover the Church records of our Colonial period, did not wholly escape this error. Dr. Carruthers, for exam- ple, in his life of David Caldwell, says that the Church in the Province was established, and that the clergy were paid, by the English Government ; that there were oppres- sive laws against dissenters; and that the Presbyterian clergy were subjected to an "odious test"; with other allegations of a similar character. I can only say in passing that all these allegations are entirely untrue, in the sense in which they were in- tended, and in which they have been generally understood. Thy were, I am sure, not made maliciously. Such a man as Dr. Carruthers, I am quite certain, was incapable of an intentional misrepresentation. He was simply misin- formed on some points, and seems on others to have quite misunderstood the true character and purpose of the legislation he complains of. The British Government had no more to do with establishing the Church of England in the Province of North Carolina than with establishing the Presbyterian Order and Ministry in the Puritan Colo- nies of New England. It never paid a penny to the sup- port of the Clergy of the Province. And the "test," [8] which Dr. Carruthers speaks of as "odious" and as being imposed upon dissenting ministers, was also imposed on the Clergy of the Church, and on civil officers as well, Sheriffs, Magistrates, and all others ; and was in fact simply a declaration against the Romish doctrines of Transubstantiation, and of the Supremacy of the Pope! Why it was a hardship upon the Presbyterian ministers to make such a declaration, Dr. Carruthers does not say. The Ecclesiastical legislation of the Province of North Carolina, as of the other American Colonies, was the action of the people themselves, in accordance with the ideas of the day, making public provision for public wor- ship. Each County, upon being constituted by the Gen- eral Assembly of the Province, was also made a Parish; and the freeholders of the County were authorized on Easter Monday in each year, in an election held by the Sheriff of the County, to elect twelve vestrymen for the parish; and the vestrymen were authorized to lay taxes for building churches, purchasing glebes, and supporting the Clergy. Where the people desired the services of the Church, the vestry exercised this authority, and thus pro- vided for the worship of the Church. Where the people did not desire such services, the vestrymen simply neg- lected to put the law into effect.* *This is illustrated by the case of Rowan County, where occurred the only attempt, of which I have seen any record, to put the Vestry Act into effect in a parish where a majority of the people appear not to have desired it. There was a large settlement of Lutherans in this County. Having no ministers of their own, they seem to have co-operated with the Churchmen. In the year 1769, the Rev. Theodore Swain Drage was sent to that parish. He went earnestly to work to have the Vestry Act executed; to have a church built, and taxes laid for the support of the parish. This roused the antagonism of the dominant Presbyterian majority, who in the next election for vestrymen chose their own elders and deacons who, refusing to carry out the provisions of the law, compelled the abandonment of this effort to establish the Church in Rowan County. This is the only case of such an [9] The Assembly of 1752 erected the County of Orange from portions of the Counties of Granville, Johnston, and Bladen; and constituted the new County a parish, by the name of St. Matthew's Parish. This Act seems to have been abolished by royal proclamation; and a new Act (1756 : C. XXII) reconstituted both county and parish. March 12th, 1766, the Bishop of London licensed the Rev. George Micklejohn for work in North Carolina; and shortly after his arrival in the Province Governor Tryon appointed him to St. Matthew's Parish, Orange County. This Colonial Parson Micklejohn is one of the most notable of the many notable men whose names have been associated with the history of Orange County and St. Matthew's Parish. He was born about the year 1717. In the parish records of Emmanuel Church, Warrenton, with which he never had any connection, I have seen an entry in the handwriting of the Rev. Cameron F. Mac- Rae, stating that this Rev. George Micklejohn was born at Berwick on Tweed; that he was a graduate of the University of Cambridge ; that he had served as Chaplain under Frederick the Great (probably in some English regiment) ; and that he was with the Duke of Cumberland at the Battle of Culloden* Whatever may have been his earlier history, his career in North Carolina was adventurous and interesting. For attempt which I have been able to discover in any part of the Province during this period. When the Moravian settlements had been made in Rowan County, that part of the county which was occupied by the Moravians was, by the Gen- eral Assembly of the Province (Act of 1755, C. XIII), set off as a separate parish, Dobbs Parish, that the Moravians might control it. Whether as a matter of enlightened policy, or only by the guidance of a good Providence, the legislation of the Province was such that it gave little occasion for sectarian contentions. *I have been unable to discover Mr. MacRae's authority for these state- ments concerning Parson Micklejohn. [10] fifty years he was a notable character in this part of the New World. The first conspicuous incident in this later half of his life was in connection with the Regulator trou- bles of 1768. Governor Try on had gathered the military forces of the Province at Hillsboro, both from the East and the West.f On Sunday, September 25th, by order of the Gov- ernor (apparently), the Rev. Henry Patillo, the Presby- terian Pastor of Nutbush, in Granville County, preached to the Mecklenburg and Rowan Brigade; and the Rev. George Micklejohn, of St. Matthew's Parish, Orange County, to the Granville and Orange Brigade. Mr. Micklejohn's sermon, on the text Rom. XIII: 1, "The powers that be are ordained of God," etc., was afterward published, and the following November Governor Try on prensented one hundred copies of this sermon to the Provincial Assembly in session at Newbern, with a mes- sage very highly commendatory. Both preachers were thanked for their sermons in the Orders for the Day, Monday, September 26th. In the more serious Regulation troubles of the year 1771, culminating in the battle of Alamance, and in the conviction and capital punishment of five of the Regu- lators, captured in that battle, Parson Micklejohn ap- pears again, as indeed a supporter of "the Powers that be," but with strong and helpful sympathies for his friends and parishioners concerned in the uprising. There is an interesting illustration of this in a well known tra- tAmong the eminent men thus assembled in Hillsboro, in connection with military demonstration — for happily it was nothing more — we find these: Colonel Adlai Osborne, Moses Alexander, Maurice and James Moore, Francis and Abner Nash, Samuel Swann, John Rutherford, Lewis DeRosset, Sam- uel Strudwick, John Ashe, Alexander Lillington, et al. [11] dition, unauthenticated by contemporary documentary proof, but so generally received, and so supported by cir- cumstantial evidence, that I believe it to be substantially true. General Thomas Person, after whom Person County is named, was a distinguished man in his day, a leading patriot of the Revolution, and also remembered as a Trustee and generous benefactor of our State University, one of its early buildings being called Person Hall, in his honor. Person was a Churchman and a friend of the Hillsboro Parson, but he was in active sympathy with the Regulators of 1771, and was, Colonel Saunders says, exempted by Tryon from the Amnesty declared after the suppression of the uprising. The tradition is that at this period Person was for a time confined in the gaol at Hillsboro under a charge of a treasonable nature; and that earnest efforts were being made to discover incriminating evidence against him. Ap- prehending that his house at Goshen might be searched, and damaging evidence discovered in his private cor- respondence, he invoked the aid of his friend, Parson Micklejohn. Between them, as the story goes, they per- suaded the Sheriff to permit Person to leave the gaol, as soon as the twilight of the summer evening allowed him to do so without being observed, and upon Parson Mickle- john's standing surety for his return before day-light the next morning. Goshen is about thirty miles from Hills- boro, "as the crow flies." How far it was up and down the long red-clay hills and along the devious country roads of 1771, I cannot tell. But Parson Micklejohn was the proud owner of a thoroughbred mare, and her fleet feet [12] carried his friend to Goshen before midnight. There Per- son selected from his papers all which might be repre- sented or interpreted to his disadvantage ; hid them in the "pud-lock" holes of a brick-kiln ; remounted and was in Hillsboro, and back in the custody of the Sheriff, before day-light. And Parson Micklejohn, on his mettlesome mare, was seen enjoying at his usual hour his morning's ride ; so that no one could have believed that the mare had been ridden over sixty miles within the past few hours. The next interesting mention of the Hillsboro Parson is at the opening of the Revolutionary Congress of 1775, of which the Rev. Henry Patillo was a member.* August 20th, we read in its record : "Resolved that Colonel Fran- cis Nash wait on the Rev. George Micklejohn and request him to attend and to perform divine service; pursuant to which he attended [and] opened the Congress by reading prayers in the Church at Hillsboro. "f But the next time we find the Presbyterian and the Churchman associated it is in a very different mutual relation. The Rev. Henry Patillo, as has been said, was a member of the Congress of 1775 ; he was also a member of the famous Halifax Congress of 1776. He doubtless united reverently in the prayers read by the Rector August 20th, 1775, in the Church at Hillsboro. Less than * At the Hillsboro Congress of August 20th, 1775, as also at the Halifax Congress of April, 1776, almost all the eminent men of the Province and the leaders in the Revolution were present. It is impossible to name them all: Hooper, Johnston, Hewes, Moore, Maclaine, Avery, Martin, Nash, Alex- ander, Ashe, Haywood, Irwin, Hill, Sumner, Polk, Blount, Harnett, Caswell, Person, etc., etc. — a complete muster-roll, we might say, of the leading men of the State. t The last Resolution of the first day's session of this Congress was: "That the Rev. Henry Patillo be requested to read prayers to the Congress every morning a«d the Rev. Charles Edward Taylor every evening during his stay." (Colonial Records X.169.) The Rev. Charles Edward Taylor was Rec- tor of St. George's Parish, Northampton County. [13] a year later, sitting as a member of the Halifax Congress in April, 1776, he passed sentence on George Micklejohn — I assume that it was the same George Micklejohn — one of the Tories and Regulators captured at Moore's Creek. He was paroled for the rest of the war, provided he re- mained "in Perquimans, in that part of said County on the south side of the river, with leave of 14 days to pre- pare himself." This action was taken by the Halifax Congress only in the case of persons whose character and importance made it probable that they would exert an influence in their own communities adverse to the cause of the Revolution. We know of no person of this name in the Colony save the Rector of St. Matthew's Parish. My conjecture is that, as many of the Regulators were his Orange County parishioners, and the Highlanders of Cumberland County were accompanied by many of the Orange County Regulators, their Clergyman, being a zealous loyalist, had gone with his loyal parishioners, and so was among those captured after the disastrous defeat of Moore's Creek. I have found no further account of Parson Mickle- john until after the Revolution. And now he reaped the reward of his generous friendship for the imprisoned Thomas Person. General Person had been one of the most active and prominent characters during the Revolution in North Carolina. After hostilities had ceased he gave his old friend, Parson Micklejohn, a refuge at his Gran- ville home, Goshen. The place has been pointed out to me where stood the house, near General Person's residence, in which Mr. Micklejohn lived. How long he resided here I do not know. I think it must have been through the [14] first decade of the nineteenth century. I have myself known persons whom he had baptized as infants well on into this period. Once or twice a year, as long as he was able to travel, he made his rounds from Granville up through Orange and what is now Alamance, preaching and baptizing the children and the grandchildren of his old St. Matthew's parishioners. He seems to have been recognized after the Revolution as the leading clergyman of our Church in the State. At the Convention held in Tarborough in November, 1790, in an effort to organize the Diocese, he was elected Presi- dent of the Convention, and John Norwood, of Franklin County, was the Secretary. Reliable tradition represents Mr. Micklejohn as having officiated at this period in St. John's Church, Williamsboro, at Shocco Chapel in War- ren County, and also in Franklin County, where John Norwood was lay-reader. This John Norwood married the widow Whitaker, whose maiden name was Leah Lenoir, sister of General William Lenoir, and daughter of a good Colonial churchman, Thomas Lenoir, of Edgecombe. Their son, Judge William Norwood, was one of the origi- nal members of this parish at its organization in 1824. Tradition has not been disposed to flatter the char- acter of George Micklejohn. The foibles of the Clergy always attract the criticism of the people; and perhaps it is right that they should be judged strictly. But on the whole we cannot refuse our respect to a man who, in those trying times, exposed to the malice of the evil- minded of all parties, was a friend to men on both sides; and whose associations, so far as appears, were entirely with the best and most eminent characters, even among [15] those separated from him by the bitterness of national prejudice and political rancour. He is represented in popular tradition as a small man, but of great physical strength and athletic prowess; in his old age (for he was already nearly fifty when he came to Hillsboro in 1766) excelling most young men in feats of strength and agility. His wife is said to have left him, and to have given him an ineradicable distrust of women. This was probably before he came to America. It is said that he would accept no fee for marriages or other services, except a golden doubloon (about 33 shillings, or $8.00), his reason being that he kept his cash in a "money belt," and the doubloon was of the proper size to fit into this receptacle. There was a story in the Norwood family that on some occasion he gave his money belt to his friend John Norwood to keep for a time. Mr. Norwood had a fine wife, this Leah Le- noir, of Edgecombe, and like many other good and pru- dent men, he trusted much of his most important business to her. He therefore gave the Parson's moneybelt into her keeping. When Mr. Micklejohn came for it, Mr. Norwood called on Mrs. Norwood to produce it. The Parson looked upon him with amazement and indignation : "What! You trust my money to that woman?" And he never again asked Mr. Norwood to keep his money for him. He is said to have preached in the Court House in Warrenton late in his life. Old Mrs. Judge Battle remem- bered hearing that a colored maid, having seen the strange sight of the little old man enveloped in his black gown, on his way to the Court House where he was to have ser- [16] vice, ran to her mistress in great alarm, and said she had seen the old black devil going along the street. As has been said, he removed from Granville County to Virginia, probably about the year 1810. He resided in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, in St. James' Parish, of which Bishop Ravcnscroft had been rector for a few years, when in 1823 he was called to be the Bishop of North Carolina. The Rev. Philip Slaughter, an eminent authority, I believe, upon the Church history of Virginia, conjectures that he may have had charge of this parish; but Bishop Meads is probably correct in thinking that he never had any pastoral charge in Virginia. He was an attendant upon Bishop Ravenscroft's minis- trations during the first year of his Rectorship of St. James' Parish. It is said that the Rector upon one occasion in preaching referred to the presence in the con- gregation of his venerable brother, "Who could give the witness of a century to Christ." The old man seemed to resent being called a hundred years old, and interrupted the preacher: "Na, mon, na; ninety-acht, ninety-acht" In a list of the Clergy of the Diocese of Virginia, ap- pended to the Journal of the General Convention of 1817, is this entry: "The Rev. George Micklejohn (aged 100) Mecklenburg." He is said to have died in the year 1818 at the house of William Burchett, in Mecklenburg County, Virginia. In November, 1880, I visited a Mrs. Tabitha Black- wood, near the track of the railroad from University Sta- tion to Chapel Hill, half a mile beyond where it crosses the Hillsboro road by New Hope Creek bridge. She was born in 1802, and was baptized, along with other children, [17] in Granville County, and remembered distinctly the name of the man who had baptized her, and that he had said something about "the blessed children, the blessed chil- dren." She repeated the words several times. The pic- ture of our Saviour blessing little children, as illustrated by the act of the Clergyman in his vestments taking the child into his arms and baptizing it, had evidently im- pressed itself on her memory. I questioned her closely. She could not remember her age when baptized; but said she was a "good bit of a girl." I judged from her account that she could not have been under five years old. I think therefore that we are safe in saying that Mr. Micklejohn's services in Granville did not cease much, if at all, before the year 1810. I have been told on good authority that old Mr. Philip Walker, of St. Mary's Church, Orange County, stated that on one occasion Mr. Micklejohn baptized sixty chil- dren at the house of his grandfather, John Latta. Something should be said of the church, i.e., of the structure, first erected as the Parish Church of St. Mat- thew's Parish. It had very notable association, and was the place in which famous assemblies met, deliberated and determined some of the most critical questions ever raised in the history of our State. It was built, I know not in what year, but some time before the outbreak of the Revo- lution. The location was on the northwest corner of Churton and Tryon Streets, where the Library now stands; and the grave-yard, St. Matthew's Church-yard, was, after the manner, the good custom, of our Mother Church in the old land, the common burying-ground of all the people. The church was a framed wooden structure, [18 1 and must, I think, have been of considerable size, probably with galleries around three sides, and capable of seating several hundred persons. This must have been the case, since we know that large Conventions held their sessions in the building. The Journal of the Congress of August, 1775, does not specifically state that its sessions were held in the church, but I think that record distinctly implies that they were. The very famous State Convention of July and August, 1788, which by a majority of one hun- dred votes refused to ratify the Federal Constitution, met "in the church;" such is the record in its Journal. Mr. Griffith McRee, in his excellent Life of Judge Iredell, says that the Convention met in "the Presbyterian Church." At that time there was no Presbyterian Church in Hills- boro; St. Matthew's Parish Church was the only church in the town. From the departure of Parson Micklejohn, apparently about the first of the year 1776, there was no clergyman in the parish for many years. The church was used for the great State Assemblies above mentioned, and prob- ably for any other purpose, religious or secular, which might seem to require its use. At one time it is said to have been used as a school house. In the course of time it became ruinous. Early in the Nineteenth Century it was pulled down, and a church building, the one at pres- ent used by the Presbyterian Congregation, was erected by popular subscription, the church-yard continuing to be the general burying ground of the community.* The first minister to reside in Hillsboro, and to organ- * Mr. Frank Nash informs me that there was not only a general sub- scription for the erection of this building, but that funds for this purpose were also raised by a lottery. [19] ize a congregation and maintain regular services, was the Rev. John Witherspcon, a Presbyterian, half-brother of Chief Justice Frederick Nash. This congregation used the church as their regular place of worship, making, how- ever, no claim of ownership, and yielding it to other minis- ters when others desired the use of it. This being con- tinued for some years gradually identified the building as a "Presbyterian Church" in the popular mind. When the present organization of St. Matthew's Church was effected in 1824, the question naturally arose as to whether the Parish should claim the old church-yard and the building erected thereon. One of the early ordin- ances of the Halifax Congress of 1776 had secured to the Episcopal Church all Churches, Church-yards, Glebes, Church plate, and other property in possession of the Church at the breaking out of the Revolution.* In my mind there is no doubt whatever that the church and church-yard in Hillsboro came within the purpose and meaning of that Ordinance. The late John W. Nor- wood, of Hillsboro, from whom I received the foregoing account of the decay and demolition of old St. Matthew's Church, and of the erection of the present building; and also of the process by which it came into the occupancy and possession of the Presbyterian Congregation, told * This Ordinance is in general terms, and does not name any particular church, or denomination, but it wr.s evidently worded to meet the case of the churches and parishes of the Episcopal Church in the State, whose title might have been supposed to be affected by the very great alteration in their legal status caused by the Revolution. Indeed Mr. John Norwood, in speaking of the title of St. Matthew's Parish to the parish church and church-yard, suggested that the Church of England, being a foreign corpora- tion, was necessarily evicted from its property by the results of our becoming an independent nation. I pointed out to him the Ordinance of the Halifax Congress; but I further called his attention to the fact that the title to church property in the parish was in the "Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Matthew's Church, Orange County," who were no more a "foreign corpora- tion" than the Trustees of a Presbyterian Church in Orange County. [20] me further that in 1824 there was a suggestion that the newly organized vestry of St. Matthew's Church should assert their claim to this church. He said that Judge Ruffin, in after years, would often say to him pleasantly, "You Presbyterians are using our property." But he said Judge Ruffin had opposed the suggestion that they should claim it, and thus deprive the Presbyterian con- gregation of its use. He said to his fellow-vestrymen in 1824 that to enforce that claim would cause variance and strife between themselves and their good friends and neigh- bors. He therefore offered for the location of their church and church-yard as much of his property as the Vestry might think sufficient ; and so St. Matthew's new church was built upon its present site. The following extract from the records of the parish gives the formal document organizing the parish in 1824: Organization of St. Matthew's Church, Hilxsboro August 23, 1824 We, whose names are subscribed, do hereby form our- selves into a Congregation to be known by the name of St. Matthew's Church; and we do hereby promise con- formity to the constitution and canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church, as established by General Convention of the same. Eliza Estes, Mary P. Ashe, Elizabeth Ashe, Mary R. Anderson, Sally Grove, William Norwood, Ann Ruffin, P. R. Anderson, Ann O. Cameron, Thomas Ruffin, Josiah Turner, Stephen Moore, William Cain, Jr., William Bar- ry Grove, Robina Norwood, Benjamin B. Blume, Francis L. Hawks, Elizabeth Norwood, Walker Anderson, Emily [21] Hawks, T. Latta,* Thomas Carney, W. E. Anderson, Thomas J. Faddis, Elizabeth Latta (mother), Mary Lat- ta, Jonathan Sneed, Elizabeth Latta (daughter), Ellen Latta, N. Hoston, Catherine Hoston. This record in the Parish Vestry Book is unfortun- ately not the original document, with the actual signa- tures of those who thus joined to organize the parish. It was copied into the Parish Record from the original in possession of the Rev. William M. Green, and was prob- ably written in some book kept by Mr. Green as an official record of his own work and ministrations. The hand- writing in the Parish Record is that of the second Rector, the Rev. Henry H. Prout. Mr. Prout's other entries show that he was not very careful and accurate in his entries. In the names signed to the foregoing paper are, I feel sure, some inaccuracies. I have ventured to correct only one — 1 the name of William Norwood, given in this record as William Harwood! I believe there are others. W T hat I would emphasize in connection with this action in 1824, is that, though St. Matthew's Church, as an or- ganization under the Constitution and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, and in the Diocese of North Carolina, is a new corporation, it is, in fact, but the perpetuation of the life of the past. It is, as I have before stated, the gathering up of broken strands, and renewing continuity with the past, the per- petuation of the old life under new forms. The time at my command has been too limited to allow of any suffi- cient inquiry into the family history of the seventeen sur- names in the list of thirty-one persons who joined in or- * Instead of T. Latta, I am strongly inclined to read J. Latta, i.e., John Latta. In copying writing of that period the J. might easily be mistaken for T. [22] ganizing the parish in 1824; and I am writing these lines on a steamer in a fog, off the rocky coast of Newfound- land, very far from all sources of information. But, even so, I am able to recognize many of these names as be- longing to old Colonial Church families, some of them parishioners of Parson Micklejohn, others from other Co- lonial Churches of North Carolina and of Virginia. The name of most frequent occurrence, in the list of members in 1824, is Latta. These were old Colonial Churchmen of St. Matthew's Parish. There were two families of this name, whether closely related or not, I do not know. One family, living some miles west of Hillsboro, was called familiarly the "Long Lattas," from their unusual height; the others, east of the town, were spoken of as the "Short Lattas," being of only medium stature. Their descend- ants still survive here and elsewhere, loyal to the old Church of their fathers. Two on the list, Mary P. Ashe and Elizabeth Ashe, were daughters of Samuel Ashe, whose wife was a daugh- ter of Colonel William Shepperd, and a granddaughter of Egbert Haywood, thus representing three eminent Co- lonial families. I am informed that Ann O. Cameron was the widow of the Rev. John Cameron, of Old Blandford Church, Pe- tersburg, and the mother of a notable family of sons and daughters, Judge Duncan Cameron and Judge John A. Cameron, among them. Certainly she was a "mother in Israel." I can think of no one who in her own life-time saw a greater number of, her descendants eminent in Church and State. Among them were several other of these founders of the parish: the Andersons, Walker An- [23] derson, afterward Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida, and William E. Anderson, a noted teacher. Judge William Norwood, the first Junior Warden, was the son of John Norwood, Colonial layman and Lay- reader, of Bute (now Franklin) County. John Nor- wood's wife was Leah Lenoir, daughter of a good Edge- combe Churchman, who in his last will and testament, made in 1767, directed his Executor to procure a copy of the Book of Common Prayer, for each of his children who had already been provided for, and therefore were to receive nothing under the will. Judge Norwood's wife, Robina Hogg, was the youngest daughter of a Scotch Episcopalian, James Hogg, one of Parson Micklejohn's Hillsboro parishioners. He has many descendants in this and other southern States ; many still living in this parish, who perpetuate the best qualities of their sturdy Scotch ancestor. In this and in other Dioceses, they are among our most zealous laymen; and they have given a number of distinguished Clergymen to the Church.* Stephen Moore, of this 1824 document, was of Mount Tirza, Person County. His family came to North Caro- lina from New York, and he was a near relative of Bishop Richard Channing Moore, of Virginia. He probably joined in organizing the parish in Hillsboro as being his best means of practical connection with the Church. He was the grandfather of Mrs. James Horner, of Oxford, and great-grandfather of Bishop Horner, of Asheville. William Berry Grove, of the year 1824, had been a * Of Clergymen, descendants of James Hogg, of Hillsboro, have been the Rev. William Norwood, D.D., the Rev. John Norwood, the Rev. Joseph C. Huske, D.D., the Rev. John Huske, the Rev. Kirkland Huske, the Rev. Bar- tholomew F. Huske, the Rev. John H. Tillinghast, and the Rev. William N. Tillinghast; also the Rev. Marion Huske, a Presbyterian minister. [24] member of Congress, from the Fayetteville District, I think. His wife, Sarah Grove, was another daughter of Colonel William Shepperd and his Haywood wife. I need not in this presence pursue these personal in- quiries. These names, Ruffin, Turner, Cain — you know, better than I, what they have stood for in this community. Mr. Willie P. Mangum never lived in Hillsboro, nor was a member of St. Matthew's Church here. Like Judge Cameron, he resided in the lower part of the county; but they both lived under the pastoral care of the Rector of St. Matthew's. The church built by Judge Cameron at Fairntosh, as also St. Mary's Church, were practically Chapels of St. Matthew's Parish, and were always served by the Rector of the parish, though at times they have both been represented independently in the Diocese Con- vention. It seems to me that both these eminent men should be reckoned as of St. Matthew's Parish. There is another name associated with the parish be- fore the Revolution, and also under its present organiza- tion; though it does not appear in the proceedings of 1824. General Francis Nash, of Hillsboro, and Gover- nor Abner Nash, of Newbern, were among the most dis- tinguished men of our Revolutionary period. The former was of St. Matthew's Parish. It was "Colonel Francis Nash," who was appointed by the Hillsboro Congress of August, 1775, to wait on Parson Micklejohn, and request him to perform divine service at the opening of its session. I conjecture that the Parson was known to be rather unsympathetic in his attitude, and therefore the Congress appointed his most distinguished parishioner to use his influence to secure his services. [25] Chief Justice Frederick Nash, son of Governor Abner Nash, was a kind and valued friend of my father when a young law student in Raleigh. He told my father that his family had been an old Church of England family; and that he himself had been brought up in the Church, but had become a Presbyterian under the influence of a zealous and pious Presbyterian Minister, when the Rec- tor in Newbern was but a cold and ineffective pastor. I think there are no descendants of General Francis Nash now living in Hillsboro, though there are in other parts of the State. But of the descendants of Governor Abner Nash there are many in this parish, and elsewhere in this and other Dioceses. Of the descendants of his son, Chief Justice Nash, many have returned to the Church in which he was reared, and by their character and labors strengthen and extend its work and influence. You do not need to have them named. That was certainly a most remarkable vestry chosen at the organization of the parish in 1824. There were but five, and four of the five were Thomas Ruflin, Chief Justice soon afterward of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, and recognized as one of the greatest lawyers our country has ever produced; Francis L. Hawks, a name unique in connection with historical and literary pursuits, and one of the great pulpit orators of his day; Walker Anderson, afterward Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida; and William Norwood, an eminent Superior Court Judge of our State. The parish was also happy in its first rector. Few men in the history of the Diocese, or of the Church in the United States, have been more truly admirable in char- [26] acter, pure and blameless in life, and more effective in their ministry, than the Rev. William Mercer Green, first rector of the parish as at present organized, and after- ward for thirty-seven years Bishop of Mississippi. As he organized this parish, so he had organized the parish of Emmanuel Church, Warrenton, and built the church in both these parishes; and later built the church at Chapel Hill. He was really more influential than any other person in the choice of Bishop Ravenscroft as our first Bishop in 1823. He did not seem to be a man of very commanding intellect or of special personal powers. I say he did not seem to be of extraordinary genius or impressiveness. But there was a simplicity of Christian sincerity and love, a sweet persuasive spirit, a personal grace, a cultivated mind, a quiet zeal and a spiritual force, which made him always and everywhere acceptable, beloved, and most effective in his ministry. He remained in the parish fifteen years. In 1838 he was elected Pro- fessor in the University of North Carolina. His ministry in Hillsboro had been most fruitful. Certainly few men in so small a community can show such a list — not in numbers, but in quality of persons presented for Con- firmation, and of men who became Candidates for Holy Orders under his pastorate.* * During his rectorship of St. Matthew's Church, the following men, each quite a marked man in his way, became Candidates for the Ministry, appar- ently under his guiding influence: William Norwood, Francis L. Hawks, William W. Spear, and Samuel Johnston. It seems that both James H. Otey, afterward Bishop of Tennessee, and George W. Freeman, afterward Bishop of Arkansas, were members of his congregation in Warrenton, and were doubtless also influenced by him in seeking the ministry. On the occasion of Bishop Ives's first visitation to Hillsboro, in October, 1832, Mr. Green presented thirty persons for Confirmation; among whom were the following notable group of young men from the University at Chapel Hill: Charles L. Pettierrew, William S. Pettigrew, Julian E. Sawyer, John H. Haughton, Richard B. Creecy, Edward W. Jones, and Thomas B. Hill. [27 1 For a time he also taught in a school for girls, in which he was associated with Mr. Walker Anderson and Miss Maria Spear. And in St. Matthew's Church dur- ing his time notable services were held. Here Bishop Ravenscroft ordained to the Priesthood the Rev. James H. Otey, afterwards the great Bishop of Tennessee, and with Bishops Polk and Elliott, founder of the Univer- sity of the South at Sewanee; and here Bishop Ives ordained the Rev. Samuel I. Johnston and the Rev. William W. Spear. In 1826 and in 1835 the Diocesan Convention met in this church. His ministry was not confined to Hillsboro during these fruitful years, but took in also St. Mary's Church, Orange County, the old Mission of St. Jude's, and for a time a small congrega- tion in Milton. Judge Duncan Cameron, at that time the leading layman in the Diocese, built a church called Salem Chapel, in the eastern part of the county, at Fairn- tosh, and there also Mr. Green ministered regularly. The first Rector of St. Matthew's, he whom we specially remember on this anniversary, left behind him in the parish a notable record of labor and of achievement.* Mr. Green was succeeded in 1838 by the Rev. Henry H. Prout, who in June 1839 was instituted as Rector by Bishop Ives. Mr. Prout was an excellent man, and his name is honorably associated with the missionary work of the Diocese, especially in connection with Bishop Ives's Valle Crucis Missions and the work in that section. Like * An interesting fact connected with Bishop Green's association with this Parish, is that on resigning in 1838 to remove to Chapel Hill, he made a formal request of the Vestry that at his death his body might be buried in St. Matthew's Church-yard. The Vestry thereupon, by a Resolution entered in the record of their proceedings, granted this request. [28] most of those who have been instituted in this Diocese, his rectorship was brief. He left the parish in 1841. Mr. Prout was succeeded by the Rev. Moses Ashley Curtis. It happens not infrequently that the character and influence of a parish is the work of one or two strong personalities. St. Matthew's Church, Hillsboro, during the first century of its existence, took its true character and impress from two men, its first rector and its third, Mr. Green and Dr. Curtis. Other rectors it has had, good and faithful men, who did their duty, and commanded the confidence, respect, and affection of their people. But to my mind those two men gave it its special quality. They possessed that peculiar power which commands respect, and in a measure compels obedience, or at any rate some degree of conformity, to its teaching and exam- ple. Mr. Green had the parish in its formative period; he laid out the lines upon which it began its development. Dr. Curtis took it almost from Mr. Green's hand, and from 1841 to 1872 — with an interval of about ten years, during which the memory of his influence had not ceased to operate — his strong character, quiet and gentle, but pervasive personality, guided the elders of the congrega- tion, and formed the opening minds and hearts of a gen- eration of young men and women, who still, in their own persons, or in the character and work of their children, are the strength and aggressive force of the Church in this, and many other parishes, in this and in other Dio- ceses. These two men, in my judment, have been among the most potent influences in the growth and development of the Church in North Carolina. Dr. Curtis was a native of Massachusetts, and came [29] to North Carolina as a teacher. He married in Wilming- ton Miss Mary DeRosset, of one of Wilmington's most noted families, who had occupied the first rank, in char- acter and in positions of civic honor, among the many eminent families of that city. Taking Holy Orders at the hands of Bishop Ives, he had for a short time minis- tered about Washington, N. C, and for a year or two he was the head of the Episcopal Academy in Raleigh. But in Hillsboro he formed his real place and life-work. In scientific attainments and in intellectual culture he has had no superior and few equals among our clergy. He was a great original authority in certain branches of botany, known over the world as such. He was a skillful musician, and under his influence and instruction the music in this little parish church was such as was hardly to be heard in other churches. Hillsboro has always been known for the social graces of its people. Dr. Cur- tis, I think, had his influence in adding just a refining touch, especially to the young women of Hillsboro, of his own congregation, and of others as well ; for it is a crown- ing glory of old Hillsboro that its Christian spirit has not been cramped or deteriorated by narrowness of sec- tarian strife or dissension. Dr. Curtis removed to Society Hill, S. C, in 1847, but in 1857 his name appears again in our Diocesan Clergy List ; and I have preferred to treat his rectorship as a whole. In spite of this inter-regnum, there was an essential continuity in his work in this parish. In 1848 the Rev. James B.^£)onelly took charge of the parish; and died the latter part of 1855. He was, as I have heard, an earnest and devout man, but seems [30] to have been in bad health during the greater part of his ministry? and, so far as I have been able to judge, made no great or permanent impression on the parish or the community ; though I have always heard him affection- ately spoken of by members of the parish. Dr. Curtis died April 10th, 1872, and was succeeded by his son, the Rev. Charles Jared Curtis, who was or- dained to the Diaconate August 7th, following his fath- er's death; and by appointment of the Bishop served his Diaconate in the parish. Having been ordained to the Priesthood December 14th, 1873, he became Rector, and served until his resignation July 24th, 1880. I do not propose to speak particularly of the suc- cessors of Dr. Curtis. It is too soon to estimate their work or character. They were the Rev. Charles J. Cur- tis, from 1872 to 1880; the Rev. Joseph W. Murphy, from 1881 to 1892; the Rev. Benjamin McKenzie, from 1892 to 1896; the Rev. Samuel Paxson Watters, from 1897 to 1911; the Rev. Alfred S. Lawrence, from 1912 to 1917 ; and the Rev. William D. Benton, from 1917 until the present time. I wish I had the time and the knowledge to speak ade- quately of the distinguished laymen of the parish. Those associated with its organization one hundred years ago, of whom I have very briefly and insufficiently spoken, have not been the only ones whose names should be remembered with honor this day. But, before I mention any other name, I remind you of one noble woman, whom most, if not all, of you must have in mind before I name her, your organist for so many years, the faithful co-laborer with Dr. Curtis in creating the high standard of sacred music, [31] * which characterized his services ; and the perpetuator for so many years after his death of his musical tradition, — Miss Lizzie Jones. Omitting only the names of Bishop Green and Dr. Curtis, I doubt if any should be put on a level with hers, in respect to her influence upon the life and work of the parish, as well on its spiritual side, as in the expression of that life in the worship of the sanctuary. Someone once asked a young clergyman of this Diocese, who was about to be married, if the prospective bride was beautiful. "She has the beauty of holiness" was the reply. That is how I think of Miss Lizzie Jones. In my mind's eye I can see her now, sitting there before the organ, radiant with the light of unaffected goodness and devotion, "the beauty of holiness" The Wardens elected in 1824 were Francil L. Hawks, Senior Warden, and William Norwood, Junior Warden. There is a hiatus in the record as to the election of Wardens and Vestrymen. The regular unbroken record begins in 1838. From that date the following have been the Wardens, Senior and Junior: William Cain, Joseph C. Norwood, Priestly H. Mangum, Andrew Mickle, Cad- walader Jones, Henry K. Nash, James Webb, Thomas B. Hill, D. Hey ward Hamilton, John W. Graham, William A. Hayes. Associated with these in the history of the parish have been others, more than I can enumerate. Some of them, perhaps some of the best, I may never have heard of. There was Colonel Cadwalader Jones, the elder; and Colonel Cadwalader Jones, the younger, who removed to South Carolina, and carried with him his good North Carolina Churchmanship, and was one of those who stood [32] by the Bishop in one of their painful experiences in deal- ing with the question of the status of the Negro in the Church. There was Dr. James S. Smith, member of Congress from this District, father of my old friend and parish- ioner, Miss Mary Ruffin Smith, of Chapel Hill ; and Judge John L. Bailey, of our Superior Court Bench, with others no less worthy. My own memory goes back to Judge Ruffin, after whom came his notable sons, whom I can recall in this congregation: Mr. Brown Ruffin, Colonel Thomas Ruffin, Mr. Sterling Ruffin; and his daughters, quite as notable. Then there were Mr. John D. Cameron, Mr. Henry K. Nash, Mr. Paul Cameron, Dr. William Cameron, and their families; Mr. George Collins, Mr. Thomas B. Hill, and my father-in-law, Mr. James Webb. In our Diocesan Journal of 1893, the last named, with his son and his grandson, three James Webbs, appear in the list of the elected delegates to that Convention. And there are still James Webbs here in Hillsboro to carry on the work. I shall say one word of another good woman. I can- not venture to speak at length of Hillsboro women. What I think and feel about them it is beyond my power fully to express. My old friend and Junior Warden of St. Peter's Church, Charlotte, Colonel Hamilton C. Jones, once said to me that there seemed to be something pecu- liarly refined about them. "Mr. Cheshire," he said, "I think I can know a lady from Hillsboro by the way she walks along the street." I have thought that I could understand what he meant. And in paying this tribute to them all, I am going to mention only one. And she was [33] not a Hillsboro woman after all. She was from Orange Court House, Virginia, Mrs. Watters, wife of jour former Rector, the Rev. Samuel Paxson Watters. The greater part of her time in Hillsboro, she was an invalid, for years helpless and suffering, confined to her room and to her chair. And yet, so far as I could judge, she was one of the most effective and useful women in the Diocese. This Parish benefited by her as few parishes do by the services of the Rector's wife. I feel I ought to say this. You who hear me know that I say the truth. But I cannot go on. You yourselves see how impos- sible it must be for me to discuss these, our own friends, kinsfolk, associates and companions, who are still so near to us. We remember them all before God this day, and thank Him for what they have been to us. Being dead, they yet speak. Listen to what in your hearts they say to you; and follow after them in those things which you are proud and thankful to remember in them. Their bodies are buried in peace, but their names live forever in our hearts. I will add one word concerning the Rev. Joseph W. Murphy, your sixth Rector. When Bishop Atkinson ordained me to the Diaconate on Easter Day, 1878, the Bishop himself preached the Ordination Sermon, from the text, "Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. 9 ' I have often thought of the Rev. Mr. Murphy as being one of the most faithful men I have ever known. I mention one simple, but to me pathetic, illus- tration of this quality. The Canons require every clergy- man to report annually to the Bishop all his official acts. Mr. Murphy never failed in this duty, even after age had [34] compelled his retirement from active service. Every year there came to me from Washington the report of such infrequent services as he had performed. After his death his daughter found in his desk a paper endorsed, "To be sent to the Bishop after my death." She sent it to me. I opened it and found a report of every service performed by him since the date of his last annual report : "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." On this one hundredth anniversary I give you that incident as an example, and trust you may all follow that humble and faithful man. [35]