American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses American Negro. Wars of the Americas: Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias: An Oral History ofthe Peace Corps: Book of Mormon Study Guide, Pt. Works of Frank Lloyd Wright: Experience, Institution, Theology Concilium. Credit Card Debt's Junky Road. Land of the Indians, State of Occupying Forces. US history and immigration laws. Politics and Tax series. A Writer Teaches Writing: A Practical Method ofTeaching Composition: It feels good to be part of the Twisty family.
Anna Fore Marshallville, Georgia. Twisty is the Facebook of twisting. Kendra Martinez Los Banos, California. Meet the Twisty team. Pennypacker, Historical and Biographical Sketches Philadelphia: Tripple, , page ; see also in formation supplied by Pennypacker, pages , in the same volume. A little rill there started which further on became an immense torrent, and whenever hereafter men trace analytically the causes which led to Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Appomattox they will begin with the tender consciences of the linen weavers and husbandmen of Germantown.
Of most interest to this study, however, are those who moved into the interior of Lancaster and York counties. In a careful study, Abdel Ross Wentz of Gettysburg College described in great detail the first "authorized" settlement in present-day York County which was made when John Hendricks moved across the Susquehanna River in Other pioneers had settled in this area as early as , but they had been removed by the authorities. In he was joined by his brother, James, who was accidentally shot and killed by their father, James, in while they were hunting turkeys.
Wentz also examined carefully the traditional claim that the first settlement in York County was made by Englishmen--the Hendricks. It is highly probable, but remains without positive proof, that these Hendrickses were of German descent, that their ancestors one or two generations previous were Mennonites in Switzerland or in the Rhine Valley and had fled before persecution and found refuge in England; that there they quickly associated themselves with their English brethren in the faith, the Quakers, and with them came to America.
In this case they might be called Englishmen of German descent, and this would account for their German spirit of enterprise in pushing across the Susquehanna and locating where they did, Certain it is that soon after their location in York County the Hendrickses were close associates of the Germans who followed them into the county. They sympathized with them in times of adversity and cooperated with them in matters of religion.
But while there were these strong bonds of sympathy and cooperation, perhaps even ties of blood between these pioneer Hendrickses and the early Germans in the county, nevertheless the places from which they came, their associates before their migration, together with the other evidence in the case, seem to leave little room for doubt that John and James Hendricks were regarded as Englishmen when they crossed the Susquehanna. The manner in which the Hendrickses first became Brethren is not certain, but certain evidence needs to be considered. Morgan Edwards in his previously cited history of the Little Conewago congregation in York County stated that "Their beginning was in when one Eldrick, Dierdorff, Bigler, Gripe, Studsman and others united into a church.
The suspicion is that the name ought to be Hendricks, since members of the family were living in this area in close proximity to the Brethren during the 's. Michael Tanner, in particular, was a Brethren who had come to America in Pennsylvania German Society, , pages Hereinafter cited as Wentz, York County. First, he "took out a patent for two hundred acres of land near the farm of John Hendricks in west Lancaster County," according to J.
Henry, who was especially interested in Tanner's career. Then, he was one of "the first Dutch [! At this time, Tanner was living six miles southwest of the John Hendricks residence. No indication is given by Edwards of the background of this man, but the suspicion is that he was the same individual described by Wentz as a Quaker and a carpenter, who lived in the western part of Lancaster County in and who was employed by James Patterson in to make trips across the Susquehanna River to take care of Patterson's horses.
Fur- thermore, in two depositions which he made regarding the border difficulties west of the river, he made his mark for a signature. He was a wheelwright, which was a specialized kind of carpentry ; furthermore, in the marriage of John Hendricks to Sarah Lewis on December 27, , the bondsman was James Hendricks who made his Henry, Brethren in Maryland, pages Wentz, York County, page Henry, Brethren in Maryland, page How long James Hendricks lived in North Carolina is uncertain. Two sales of land to James Hendricks in and in were for land adjacent to his initial purchase on Crane Creek in Of course, one major problem which is almost impossible for the historian to solve with the available information is the fact that the Hendricks family used the names James and John in every generation so that after several generations there were probably several individuals with these names in each generation ; it is therefore possible that several different individuals with the name James may be involved in these events in Pennsylvania and in North Carolina.
The third of Morgan Edwards' congregations in North Carolina in the Crane Creek area west of the Yadkin River evidently came to an end as did the Catawba and Ewarry congregations as the result of a combination of factors in- cluding the death of the Kerns and the emigration of other leaders including the Hendrickses. The pressure of neigh- boring religious groups such as the Baptists and the Methodists also must have entered into the picture.
Rowan County Marriage Bonds, I, In his introduction to the history of the Baptists in South Carolina, Morgan Edwards stated that "In a few Tunker baptists from Con- necocheague came into the northwest parts about the waters of Santee. Of these three families the Miller family bore the most distinctively Brethren name; for example, Edwards listed Millers as members of seven of the fifteen Brethren congregations in Pennsylvania. The name, Canomore, however, is not found in any possible form in Ed- wards' list of the Pennsylvania Brethren. Free is probably a form of Frey or Fray; Christian Fray was a member of the Conewago congregation in Pennsylvania in Of course, the fact that Edwards did not provide the names of the members of the Connecocheague congregtion from which these South Carolina Brethren had emigrated is a handicap in providing a more definite identification of their background.
These Brethren families probably departed from their friends and relatives in Frederick County, Maryland because of their desire to secure inexpensive, virgin soil on the frontier of South Carolina. At any rate, it did not take them long to stake out claims in their new location. Michael Miller acres on the north side of Broad River on Beaverdam Creek in and acres on small branches of Sandy Run in Really, this uncertainty is not very important anyway, since these Brethren usually stopped for a time to visit relatives in the various settlements on their way south and west.
What these Brethren found in South Carolina must have pleased them, for they were joined by other Brethren during the 's. Edwards reported that "after them came Rev.
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George Martin and wife, and Hans Waggoner and wife. With a minister present, the Brethren "united in communion in the month of July ," according to Edwards, who added that they "increased fast. The most recent student of Martin's life, H. Austin Cooper, who has written an unpublished biography, noted that Leah Townsend, South Carolina Baptists: The Florence Printing Company, , page Hereinafter cited as Towsend, South Carolina Baptists.
Hereinafter cited as Meriwether, South Carolina. Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, pages He did not believe in riding a horse but walked thousands of miles each year on these missionary tours to the back country of our colonies. At that time he was a member of the Reformed Church, but in he was baptized as a Brethren by Peter Becker. His leadership potential was evidently recognized immediately, for in the same year he was ordained as an elder.
His itinerancy is indicated again by the fact that before his South Carolina residence, he had been connected with the Coventry, Conestoga, Little Conewago, and Conewago congregations in Pennsylvania and with the An- tietam congregation in Maryland. For about five years in the 's George Adam Martin was the leader of the Beaver Creek congregation in South Carolina, as it was called, but by he was back in Penn- sylvania where he got into difficulty in the Conewago congregation.
Consequently, he led some sixty members in the establishment of the new Bermudian congregation. The crux of the matter was the strictness with which certain sectarian practices such as the closed communion and the ban were to be enforced. Added to these issues was Martin's attitude which was characterized by his declaration that "everybody who knew me considered me a great doctor of Holy Writ. In reaction to his disfellowshiping Martin took two steps: In the first place he tied himself more closely to the schismatic group of Brethren led by Conrad Beissel, the leader and At the time he wrote this statement, Cooper did not know of Edwards' account of the Brethren in South Carolina.
The most distinctive characteristics of the Ephrata Brethren were their emphasis on celibacy as the highest form of Christian life and their acceptance of the seventh day as the proper time for Christian worship. This Sabbatarianism, as it is known, spread widely among the Brethren settlements and had its impact in South Carolina as will be noted. In the second place, Martin led a group of sympathetic Brethren across the mountains to establish the first Brethren congregation in Somerset County, Pennsylvania in Here Martin spent the remaining thirty years of his life, although he continued to travel widely.
Brumbaugh, one of the first scholarly historians of the Church of the Brethren, summarized Martin's career in these words: He possessed an unusual mind, well trained in German and in Latin, was a logical reasoner, a profound speaker, and a ready writer. The most important leader of these Brethren on the southern frontier was David Martin, who was probably a son of George Adam.
For a time at least, George Adam Martin lived at Conestogo, although the exact dates are unknown. He married a local girl named Ann Lessley, who quite possibly was the daughter of James Leslie, a settler on Little River and evidently a friend of John Pearson, whom Edwards considered an assistant of David Martin.
By when Edwards visited This biographical sketch of Martin is based on H. Hereinafter cited as Brumbaugh, German Baptist Brethren. According to his will, he eventually had eight children, including in addition to these three, George, Solomon, Samuel, Deborough, and Ruth. Martin has the happy cast of mind that he is facecious and devout at the same time. In he secured a survey of one hundred acres on the road from Ross's Mill to Grant's Ferry on Wrights Branch on the south side of Wateree River, and three years later he secured another survey of one hundred acres on a branch of Beaver Creek of Broad River, bordering on the land of John Godfrey, Thomas Medows, and the estate of William Mobley.
Townsend considered this latter location "the center of religious activity of the group," which is reasonable since Edwards described Beaver Creek as "a little brook running into Broad River on the north side. By the Beaver Creek settlement included twenty-five families and fifty baptized members. Very likely, some of these members represented non-German Carolinians who associated with the Brethren because of Martin's preaching.
At any rate, Martin did not hesitate to preach to non-Germans and non-Brethren, for as Townsend indicated, "In Rev. David Martin went into the region about Clouds Creek, where he found some English Dunkers and Seventh Day Baptists, to whom he preached and administered com- Hereinafter cited as Summer, Newberry County. Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, page By there was a congregation of thirty families with forty -two baptized communicants. One of the prominent charter members was Snowden Kirkland and the local leader of the society in was James Warren, "who exhorts among them.
Two families were prominent in this settlement, the Elijah Patchet family and the Thomas Taylor family. By the time Edwards visited Martin, the Edisto congregation had sixteen baptized members from eight families, and Patchet was serving as the minister of the group. Like the Clouds Creek Brethren, all of these new Brethren were English, "some keeping the 1st day some the 7th for sabbath. Edwards does not reveal where the ordination took place, and it seems quite possible that the two Maryland elders could have been visiting the congregations in the Carolinas to encourage and strengthen them or that Martin could have gone to Maryland for this event.
Edwards made it clear in his discussion of the North Carolina Brethren that Leatherman had a special responsibility for all of the Brethren in the southern colonies. Their church government was purely republican as I observed in my first volume Ton Pennsylvania in which there is an extensive discussion of the Brethren] ; but in Maryland and I suppose in other states they have a superintendent whose name is Daniel Leatherman; to him is referred the decision of variances among the ministers and the people, and as the Dunkers call all their ordained ministers bishops, it follows that Leatherman holds the rank of archbishop.
In fact, they rarely ever used the title of bishop, preferring to call their highest ranking ministers, elders. Thomas Dobson, , page Here he cleared and cultivated the land, and built a house and barn. However, Pearson was also a surveyor, and after the death of the surveyor, George Haig, at the hands of the Indians in , "Pearson turned to surveying and became the most active of these enterprising developers of the back country.
He had located on a high ridge on the west side of the Broad River above the mouth of Crims Creek, a site which gave him an excellent view of the Broad River valley. As sometimes happened to such land speculators, Pearson became bankrupt in and was forced to sell his thirteen hundred acre estate on the Broad River; he then moved back to the Congaree River settlement. On March 27, he wrote: The State Commercial Printing Company, , page Hereinafter cited as McMaster, Fairfield County.
Meriwether, South Carolina,page 60; see also the mapon page The Brethren of the eighteenth century sometimes called their Annual Meetings, great meetings, when they assembled from as many as possible of the local congregations to conduct necessary business and to engage in a great spiritual revival experience.
The time of year in the month of May would also fit the usual time for having the Annual Meeting. Since the practice of having such meetings began in the 's as an outgrowth of the threat to the Brethren of the Zinzendorf synods in Pennsylvania and since no record has been preserved of the location or the business of These manuscripts were secured from Mrs.
George Tomlin of Blair, South Carolina, the present owner. I am deeply indebted to her for the use of this very valuable material. However, the second portion of the letter of May 5 which I have quoted is missing from Mrs. I have taken it from Townsend, South Carolina Baptists, page On the other hand, it has been assumed by Brethren historians that all of the early Annual Meetings were held in Pennsylvania; however, there is no evidence to support such an assumption.
Although these two groups did not get along very well together in Pennsylvania in which state each group had its greatest strength, as these individuals moved toward the frontier, they tended to forget the bitterness of feelings in Pennsylvania and to work together more closely in facing the harshness and loneliness of life in the back country. Sachse, who has written the most detailed history of the German sectarians in Pennsylvania, sum- marized this mingling of the two groups, when he wrote of the Brethren in Maryland: The two groups evidently came to South Carolina at about the same time.
Printed for the Author, , page Hereinafter cited as Sachse, German Sectarians. Of the latter group, he wrote: Thomas Owen and Wife who came here in Victor Nelly and wife who arrived in Richard Gregory to their minister," and "No place of worship; the meeting is held alternately at the houses of Thomas Owen and Victor Nelly. John Gregory, "an old man," arrived in South Carolina from East Jersey in May, , at the same time as the earliest of the First Day Brethren and requested that his fifty acres be included with the land of his son, Benjamin, on Crims Creek. Richard Gregory asked for three hundred acres for himself, his wife, and four small children on the Wateree Creek, and actually received two hundred seventy-eight acres at the junction of Wateree Creek and Wateree River.
In addition to the Owen, Nelly, Meriwether, South Carolina, page These families were the most centrally located in terms of the total membership of the congregation. A second group of families lived along the Wateree River farther east than the Broad River. Richard Kirkland secured three hundred fifty acres on Wateree Creek on the path from the Congarees to the Catawba Nation in , at which time one of his neighbors was Richard Gregory. Still a third group of families lived on the south side of Broad River. Paul Williams who lived on Second Creek in requested one hundred fifty acres for his daughter's husband, John Pearson, who came from Philadelphia.
Although this John Pearson was later identified as a Quaker, he was evidently not the assistant of David Martin in the Beaver Creek Brethren settlement. Another member of this family, Ephraim Cannon, secured two hundred acres on Cannons Creek in The only surveys which Townsend found for another member of this 38 congregation, Joshua Edwards, were located in the Welsh Tract on the Peedee River. Morgan Edwards has preserved some of the details of this venture. About some eight families crossed the Savannah River and settled in the eastern part of the colony of Georgia near a little river which the Indians called Tuchosokin now called Tuckaseeking.
The settlement was close to the mouth of this river where it empties into the Savannah River and within the bounds of St. The leader of this settlement was Richard Gregory, who had been in South Carolina at least as early as However, he died in Georgia, and the leadership role fell on Robert Kirkland, also a member of a very prominent family among the Brethren in South Carolina.
His assistant was John Clayton, who got into difficulty with the English authorities for a comment in one of his sermons. He stated that "he who kept a concubine would be no Christian, though the keeper were a king and the concubine a countess. Clayton's involvement with the English authorities was typical of the troubles which plagued the colony because of the attitude of their neighbors.
Series Essay No. Saylors, NC and KY, ss (The Morris-Saylor Family History)
The factor which caused the dissolution of the colony in addition to sickness was "a malignity which their neighbors had conceived against them on account of their working on Sundays and the judgments as These events seemed to represent the hand of God to the neighbors of these Sabbatarians. Living on the frontier of Georgia was difficult enough without incurring the antipathy of the neighbors of this communal settlement; consequently, after about four years, the survivors gave up and returned to live among their friends in South Carolina.
After an early life in New Castle County, Pennsylvania, Seymour spent some time as a sailor and captain of a ship and then by some unknown circumstance he became "one of the earliest and most enthusiastic converts of the Sabbatarian movement" in French Creek, Pennsylvania, which was a settlement of English and Welsh Sabbatarians with close connections with the Ephrata settlement. In he and his sister entered the Ephrata community; however, the discipline was too exacting and they soon returned to French Creek. Before leaving, Seymour was baptized by Beissel and was ordained to serve the English and the Welsh.
As the result of his work, a monastery similar but smaller than Ephrata was constructed at French Creek. The community was prospering until Seymour fell in love and married a young sister from Ephrata. To add to the difficulties he became ill with spells of insanity and engaged in a series of financial frauds involving especially his wife's family.
For a time he served with the army during the Indian wars of the 's. Supposedly, his horse was shot out from under him, which so frightened him that "he earnestly prayed to Almighty God, and made a vow that if God would save him out of this danger he would mend his life. The records are not clear, but evidently he served the Broad River congregation on a sporadic basis. In Edwards reported: Isaac Zeymore did the preaching among them while he behaved well He is a man of wit and some learning; but unstable as water.
It "shows that God afterwards made use of him to build up an English congregation according to the plan he had projected when still living a Solitary in the Settlement. Clearly, the First Day Brethren and the Seventh Day Brethren lived together, worked together, and worshiped together in the back country of South Carolina. Morgan Ed- wards confirmed this cooperation between the two groups repeatedly in his discussion of South Carolina. Regarding the Seventh Day group he wrote: Sachse, German Sectarians, pages Certainly, David Martin did not hesitate to minister to the spiritual needs of those Brethren who worshiped on the seventh day.
On the frontier of South Carolina the similarities between the two groups obviously were much greater than the differences. One of these involved the settlement on Dutch- man's Creek in the Forks of the Yadkin River which was built around the leadership of the Hendrickses and the Rowlands.
The original interest of the Brethren in this area may have been built on the marriage of John Hendricks to Sarah Lewis, who was probably a daughter, or at least a relative, of Daniel Lewis, who was a Quaker living in the Dutchman's Creek settlement at least as early as when the Moravian minister, George Soelle, visited him.
Fries and others, Records of Moravians, 11, Land and has forewarned your humble Petitioner and forewarned him from tiling the land, and is Determined to Drive him from the Sd. And your Humble Petitioner being a Poor, Harmless and inoffensive man, having bought sd. We the subscribers hereof, do know asshuredly the right of the said land belongs to the above name John Crouse and we have known sd. Crouse a long time and we are satisfied that he is but a simple and very honest man.
One of the others was the Quaker, Daniel Lewis, and most of the others had various relationships with the Brethren in North Carolina and in Kentucky across the years. The Rowan County records reveal that the members of the Hendricks family were active in the Dutchman's Creek area following For example, in John Hendricks secured a state grant for two hundred acres, in he purchased one hundred twelve acres on the waters of Dutchman's Creek, and in he secured another state grant for two hundred eighty- six acres at a place called the Bear Garden on the waters of the South Yadkin River.
Two years later, Hendricks sold ninety- seven and one half acres in the same area. Another individual who was very active in land tran- sactions in the Dutchman's Creek area was Jacob Crouse, who was quite possibly a relative of John Crouse, identified in the petition to the governor as a Brethren.
In contrast to John, Jacob Crouse was evidently neither ignorant nor slow, for he In addition to the Hendricks the other very important Brethren family in the Dutchman's Creek area was the Rowland family, which had been active among the Penn- sylvania Brethren almost from the beginning of the sect in that colony. When the Beissel schism took place in the Conestoga valley in , one of those Brethren who refused to go along with Beissel was Hans Rolande. The earliest record of their presence in North Carolina is an entry for four hundred fifty acres on Weaver's Creek in the Forks of the Yadkin on November 5, For unexplained reasons this land was not granted to Rowland until November 27, In the meantime he had made another entry on November 30, for three hundred acres on Dutchman's Creek in the same area; this grant was issued more promptly on October 10, During the 's and the 's Gasper Rowland was involved Sachse, German Sectarians, I, Edwards, Pennsylvania, page Quoted in Brumbaugh, German Baptist Brethren, page Also, in two sales of land in he was identified as a resident of Wilkes County, North Carolina, but in none of these tran- sactions was his later Kentucky residence involved.
Joseph Rowland, who was probably the son of Gasper Rowland, purchased two hundred acres of the Abraham Weltey estate from Jacob Crouse in February, ; this land was on Bear Creek adjoining Daniel Hendricks and John Rowland whose relation to other members of the Hendricks and Rowland families is not clear. Eight years later in Joseph Rowland sold this land in one of the very few tran- sactions in which the seller lost money. Within twelve months Rowland had sold the land to Mary Hendricks, who is unidentified. The Census of indicates the existence of an extensive Brethren settlement built around the Hendrickses and the Rowlands in the Forks of the Yadkin.
Although people with Brethren names continued to live in this area e. The only author who has written at any length on the relation of the Hendrickses and the Rowlands to the Church of the Brethren is J. Moore, who was more of a journalist than a historian.
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If this date is correct, it would indicate that Rowland was in the Carolinas somewhat earlier than the information based upon the land and other records previously cited. Of course, the land records do not usually indicate the earliest arrival date of a pioneer. This ordination also indicated the close relationship between the Brethren in the Carolinas, for which there is not much evidence. Moore also described something of the work of the Hendrickses and the Rowlands in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri. Each of these leaders who had contributed to the life of the Brethren in North Carolina continued to work actively among the Brethren of the west for many years.
Moore, Some Brethren Pathfinders Elgin: Hereinafter cited as Moore, Some Brethren Pathfinders. The oldest of the present-day North Carolina congregations is the Fraternity Church of the Brethren located six miles southwest of Winston-Salem. It had its beginning in the 's as the result of the establishment of a Brethren settlement on the southern edge of the Moravian territory called Wachovia. The Salem diarist recorded on February 12, that "The great needs of Salem received special help today when quite unexpectedly, three Dunkards came and asked to buy acres of land in Wachovia; which was promised them when they had seen it.
Reuter left day before yesterday, already, as this week he is to survey acres on the Ens, near Peter Pfaff , for Schutz and Tanner, two Baptists from the Huwaren. Furthermore, on April 6 the Bethabara diarist reported that one of the Moravians had purchased for his brother-in-law in Pennsylvania the four hundred acres which had been surveyed for "the Baptist, Schutz, from the Huwaren, who has not come back, and one hears he has settled elsewhere.
Fries and others, Records of Moravians, 1 1, , Michael had at least two sons, Henry, who was a member with his father of the Little Conewago congregation in York County in , and Jacob, who moved to Maryland where he became a prominent leader as the minister of the Middlecreek congregation in Frederick County, according to Morgan Edwards. The additional evidence indicates that John Tanner was a typical pioneer minister, for in the 's he traveled and preached in North Carolina where he was filled with buckshot by a man angered by Tanner's baptism of the man's wife.
Recovering, he evidently spent several years in the 's in the Muddy Creek area, for he purchased three hundred six acres from the Moravians in and sold the tract in to Jehu Burkhart, a Brethren elder. Was he attracted to North Carolina by the presence of George Tanner, who might have been a relative, or by Jacob Tanner, who also lived in the Muddy Creek set- After possibly spending a short time in Pennsylvania, John Tanner departed for the Kentucky frontier where he again gathered a Brethren settlement around him, which is con- sidered the first settlement of white men in Boone County.
After losing two sons by Indian attacks in Kentucky in the early 's, he moved to the Brethren settlement in Spanish territory in Cape Girardeau County, Missouri, in where he died in In July of , the Friedberg diarist reported that a Moravian told him that he had sold his farm on Reedy Creek, which flowed into the Yadkin River just to the south of Muddy Creek, to a Brethren in order to move into Wachovia. The Salem diarist noted in May, that four more families had just arrived from Pennsylvania-three Moravian and a Brethren; thus, the Brethren group was growing by addition from the North as well as by Brethren in North Carolina moving around.
At Friedberg which was south of Salem and closer to the Brethren community, the diarist reported on May 1, that not many were present at the Moravian service, since some of the members "out of curiosity were at the Dunkard meeting," thus indicating that Brethren services were probably just beginning.
The same diarist noted in August, that "Last Sunday Christian Frey attended a Dunkard meeting, in which three persons were baptized. Among the many sources which have been utilized to piece together the story of John Tanner, two of the most valuable are: Fries and others, Records of Moravians, 11,,,, Although the Moravians did not identify the leader of this Brethren settlement, other evidence indicates that a Brethren elder named Jehu Burkhart moved to the Fraternity area of North Carolina from Frederick County, Maryland in His father, Jonathan, had emigrated from Switzerland in the 's or 's and had settled with four children his wife had died on the Atlantic crossing in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Here young Jehu had married Magdalene Croll before moving to Frederick County, where he owned a thirty-one acre farm from to One of the major reasons why the Fraternity congregation survived the turbulence of the war period and the division in the ranks that occurred among the Brethren in the years after the war was the coming of the Jacob Pfau Faw family from Maryland, for his descendants served as ministers of the congregation for many generations and indeed his descen- dants have continued to play an active leadership role in the denomination in the twentieth century.
The history of the family in America began in when Jacob Pfau with his wife, Catherine Disslin, and his children, Elizabeth, Anna Hereinafter cited as Burkett, John Burket. After losing Magdelane with smallpox in England and after spending nine weeks on the Atlantic, the family arrived in America in November. Because of Catherine's ill health at the termination of the Atlantic crossing, the Pfaus were unable to move inland immediately to be with their friends and were forced to spend the winter in the neigh- borhood of their port of embarkation at Philadelphia.
In September, Jacob so the letter has been identified wrote to his relatives in Swit- zerland, urging them to come to this good land, where the Pfaus were "never a day without meat, fresh butter and cheese, and also good wheat bread. The family was increased by the addition of Jacob, Isaac, and Adam by this second marriage.
During the 's Jacob moved his family to Frederick County, Maryland, for in he paid the quit-rent for one hundred acres to Lord Baltimore for a tract known as Friendship, which was some eight miles northwest of the city of Frederick. Among the many German settlers in this county were numerous Brethren, but whether the Pfaus learned of the Brethren during their stay in Frederick County has not been determined.
Also, among the many Germans in this area were large numbers who were leaving because of the unsettled conditions caused by the war and because of the at- tractiveness of land in North Carolina, and about Jacob Privately printed, , revised, , passim. National Genealogical Society, 2 volumes, , It, This choice of a tract of land would seem to indicate some prior knowledge of the Brethren. Regardless of why they chose this exact location, on September 29, , Jacob Pfau signed an Articles of Agreement with Friedrich Marshall, the Moravian business agent, by which Pfau leased two hundred seventy- four acres with an option to purchase the land over a period of years.
Also included is a map of farm owners in Wachovia dated and later on which lots eighty-eight and eighty-nine were held by Isaac Faw and Jacob Faw respectively. By their marking, the lots were identified as "partly rented, and partly bought but not yet paid for. The lease was to continue for seven years, during which time Faw was granted the right to lease part of the tract to his brother Isaac with the provision that if the purchase was completed, the Faws would receive separate deeds.
This agreement would seen to indicate the death of the patriarch, Jacob Faw, who had come to America from Switzerland more than forty years earlier. His death had probably occurred in the preceding year or two, for he is listed in the Census of ; included in the family at that time were three males over sixteen presumably the father Hereinafter cited as Moravian Archives. Although the Fraternity congregation in North Carolina managed to survive this storm, the strong Brethren congregations in South Carolina were completely destroyed in the process.
In when Robert Mills compiled his Statistics of South Carolina, he was unable to discover any Brethren congregations in the state ; the available evidence supports his conclusion. What happened to these congregations was that over a period of years a number of the Brethren under the leadership of David Martin gradually turned to Universalism. Because of the Brethren emphasis on the New Testament with its em- phasis on the love of God, the Brethren of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were particularly susceptible to the tenets of Universalism.
Moore summarized this in- fluence: Early in the history of the Brethren in America the doctrine of Final Restoration became a live issue and not a few of our people were tinctured with it.
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In fact it became necessary for the Annual Meeting to give the matter some consideration It probably secured its firm foothold mainly through the writings of Elhanan Winchester, a very prolific and fluent Baptist minister TOO. Hurlbut and Lloyd, , page and passim. Hereinafter cited as Mills, Statistics. In he settled in Philadelphia, and in time became acquainted with the Brethren in Germantown, and preached for them quite frequently. In his writings he speaks of being with them the first Sunday in April, Furthermore, as Townsend pointed out, many of his converts to the Welsh Neck Church were later excommunicated, probably because "his carelessness in inquiring into the religious experiences of his converts was due to his having dropped from his creed the principle of election.
Undoubtedly, he was widely heard during these years in South Carolina, for he was a very successful evangelist and was also one of the early leaders in whipping up sympathy for the American cause in the War of Independence. In his numerous contacts with the Brethren, Winchester formed a very favorable opinion of them and he used them in one of his numerous books to illustrate the idea that the doc- trine of universal salvation did not destroy the moral stan- dards of a man in this world: The Tunkers or German Baptists, in Pennsylvania, and the states adjacent, who take the Scripture as their only guide, in matters both of faith and practice, have always as far as I know received and universally, at present, hold these sentiments: But such Christians, I Moore, Some Brethren Pathfinders, pages They are industrious, sober, temperate, kind, charitable people; envying not the great, nor despising the mean: They read much, they sing and pray much, they are constant attendants upon the worship of God; their dwellinghouses are all houses of prayer: They walk in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless both in public and in private: They bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord: No noise of rudeness, shameless mirth, loud vain laughter, is heard within their doors: The law of kind- ness is in their mouths; no sourness, or moroseness, disgraces their religion; and whatsoever they believe their Savior commands, they practice, without inquiring or regarding what others do.
I remember the Rev. Morgan Edwards, formerly minister of the Baptist Church in Philadelphia, once said to me, "God always will have a visible people on earth; and these are his people at present, above any other in the world. In a word, they are meek and pious Christians; and have justly acquired the character of The Harmless Tunkers.
Isaiah Thomas, , pages The book was first published in ; a copy of the edition cited is in the Perkins Library of Duke University. For additional comments on the relation of Winchester to the Brethren, see Roger E. Spring, , pages Even more effective in converting the South Carolina Brethren to the Universalist position than the preaching and writing of Elhanan Winchester was the writing of William Law, according to one of the earliest of Universalist historians, Thomas Whittemore, writing in About the year , Mr.
Martin, a pastor of a society of Dunkers, in Fairfield District, adjoining Newbury, was led to doubt the validity of the doctrine of endless punishment, by reading the works of William Law. Like an honest man, he desisted from preaching, until he could satisfy himself on that point; and after having given the subject a thorough investigation, he came out openly in the belief of Universal Salvation, and commenced preaching the doctrine.
In the latter two can be seen the influence on Law of Jacob Boehme, the Medieval mystic. Law is con- sidered by Universalist historians a precursor of Univer- salism.
In his Letters, he wrote: Published by the Author, , page Hereinafter cited as Whittemore, Universalism. Universalist Publishing House, 2 volumes, , I, Hereinafter cited as Eddy, Universalism in America. Con- sequently, the evidence seems to suggest that an additional Brethren settlement developed after Edwards' visit to South Carolina. Two of the families in the Newberry District which were positively identified with the Brethren were the Summers and Chapman families.
Joseph Summers, the patriarch of that family, was a native of Maryland. Among other things he was noted for his long flowing beard and for his introduction into the area of the strain of wheat called the Yellow Lammas. As the story goes, he brought all that he could carry in a stocking leg with him from Maryland. It was pure white in color, but gradually it became more yellow. Their first home in America was in Virginia where they had Cour- tenay and co.
Hereinafter cited as O'Neall, Annals of Newberry. Some time after , when their son, Giles, was born, the family moved to the Newberry area in South Carolina. Several important things happened to the younger Giles: Also, he became a Brethren, probably as the result of the efforts of David Martin. Finally, he followed Martin into the Brethren ministry. He began to preach in Ofter have I heard his discourses. He was beyond all doubt an eloquent and a gifted preacher; and seemed to me to be inspired with a full portion of that holy and divine spirit, which taught "God is Love.
I can see him now as plainly in my mind's eye, as I have seen him hundreds of times, as well in all the various pursuits and intercourse of life as in the pulpit; and yet I find it difficult to give of him a life-like description. He was rather above the ordinary size; grey hair and beard, not very long, but worn; his dress very much that of Friends, a face of the most placid and benevolent expression. Summer, Newberry County, page This was his jest.
Saalfield, Adah Louise Sutton
For no man ever ap- preciated more highly woman, good, virtuous, suffering, feeble woman, than he did, and none had ever more cause to value her; for certainly none better as wife and mother was to be found than his "ain gude wife. Chapman not only followed David Martin into the Brethren ministry, he followed him into Universalism. Among the writers who have described Chapman's activity as a Universalist, there is some uncertainty about his relationship to the Brethren.
On the one hand, O'Neall, who was a personal friend, wrote that "Giles Chapman, the great preacher of what was called Universalism until within the last twenty years, certainly always preached the Dunker faith. Giles Chapman, a member of the same church, searched the scriptures, became convinced of the same doctrine, and although not a preacher before, now commenced the work of the ministry.
O'Neall could not have explained the O'Neall, Annals of Newberry, pages After explaining that a Brethren minister in North Carolina, John Ham, and his followers were disfellowshiped by the Annual Meeting for accepting Universalist ideas, Eddy commented: This fact in the history of the Dunkers will explain what otherwise might seem contradictory, that while holding to the doctrine of Universal Restoration, they repel the charge of being Universalists.
I am glad ; I would like to come in and see him! John Ham, a Brethren elder in North Carolina, was one of that very small number of Brethren who actually became a Universalist. Little is known about John Ham. The origin of the name and of the family is obscure. The only possible origin among the Pennsylvania Brethren seems to be the family of Adam Hann, which belonged to the Ephrata settlement during the 's.
In a controversy developed with Conrad Weiser , and the Han family fled ; however, it is recorded that in Eddy, Universalism in America, I, In March, he sold one hundred seventy of the three hundred fifty acres to his son John Ham. Among his neighbors were Peter Beam and Abraham Renshaw. The deed was witnessed by Joseph Ralan Rowland , the Brethren minister. Probably, Ham's moving was related to the action of the Annual Meeting of , which will be considered later, for he was seeking a more congenial location.
That John Ham continued to live in the area even after being put out of the church is indicated by his will of December 12, , probated in February, , which divided his land on Hunting Creek between his sons, William and John. Sachse, German Sectarians, II, , Surry County Deed Books, C, This tract is apparently close to the line between present-day Stokes and Forsyth counties. The distance as the crow flies from Muddy Creek to Lick Creek was perhaps fifteen to twenty miles, which certainly does not seem too difficult in the light of the trips the Brethren made to Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio.
Possibly, some other Brethren lived in the area around Ham. James Tanner was listed in the Census of not far from Ham, and also he secured two land grants on the waters of the Town Fork in However, the Census does not reveal the large number of characteristically Brethren names which is true of most of the other settlements. Con- sequently, the likelihood is that Ham and such other Brethren as lived on the North side of Wachovia usually worshiped with the Fraternity congregation and considered themselves a part of it. That John Ham was a Brethren elder was confirmed by the prominent Universalist historian, Richard Eddy, who wrote in About , John Ham, an elder in one of their churches in North Carolina, began to preach the doc- trine of no future punishment, and, being a man of great talents and of popular address, many converts were made to his views, chiefly in Virginia and the Carolinas.
The church at large became alarmed, and at a council held about that time, they decided against preaching or saying anything in public about the doctrine of Restoration. Subsequently, John Ham and his followers were cut off from the fellowship of the church. See Durnbaugh, Brethren in Colonial America, pages Winchester "did considerable preaching in North Carolina and other parts of the country and likely met with our people at a number of other points.
It is more likely that while with the Brethren in North Carolina, he instilled into them the universal restoration doctrine that later on helped to mislead a number of the southern members. As Eddy suggested, the leadership of the Brethren became concerned about this heresy. The elder of the Pipe Creek congregation in Maryland, Michael Pfautz, explained in a letter of December 9, to Martin Urner of Schuylkill and Alexander Mack of Germantown, Pennsylvania Brethren congregations, that "Brother Stutzman from Carolina sent a letter with two brethren, namely Brother John Gerber and Brother John Burger t from Carolina, to the great meeting, because somewhat strange doctrines were cropping up among the southern brethren, and the brethren in North Carolina felt very uneasy about them, and therefore wanted to hear the opinion and judgment of the older brethren, etc.
Quoted in Durnbaugh, Brethren in Colonial America, pages We hear that there arises a strange doctrine, or rather opinion, among the brethren in Carolina, and that some brethren are grieved about this matter, because some believe, say, and teach the following, viz,: That there is no other heaven but that in man. That there is no other hell but that in man. That God has no form or shape; and if a person would worship God, and would conceive in his mind God as in the human form; would imagine or believe that God had an appearance like a man, such person would do the same as one who would worship a horse or any other beast.
That God has no anger, and would punish no person on account of his sins. That the dead rise not; for out of the grave nothing would come forth. For this cause some brethren desire to hear the views or minds of the brethren in general council , and therefore we inform the loving brethren, that The view or doctrine of the old brethren is, that we are to believe as the Scripture has said. For Christ says, "He that believeth on me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Further he says, "The Scriptures can not be broken. Again we see that Christ in his whole life has looked upon the Scriptures, and has fulfilled them in all things. For when they came, and Peter struck with the sword, the Lord said, "Put up again thy sword into his place, for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword.
Thinkest thou that I can not now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the Scripture be fulfilled, that thus it must be? Now, to come to the word about heaven. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Now, it is without contradiction that when he died his soul and spirit had departed from the body, and had found, it seems, ac- cording to the word, the hell in which he suffered tor- ments.
So we think it would be well for us, if we would on this point or word "hell" apply the doctrine of Paul, not to dispute about words ; for we can notice in Holy Writ that the word hell is used for different things. But we believe, as it is written, that there is a lake of fire or place of torment, in many places mentioned, which, according to the word, is outside of man, as we read plainly Matt.