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HISTORY OF NORTH CAROLINA

BAPTISTS BY

- GEORGE WASHINGTON P .A.SCHAL

VOLUME I 1663-1805

RALEIGH THE GENEftAL BOARD

NORTH CAROLINA BAPTIST STATE CONVENTION 1930

NORTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS

church at Meherrin were his former neighbors in Chowan and had come with him as a colony to this region. The records show that such was true of the Brinkleys.

In the year 1740, according to the statement of J. W. Moore, a resident of Murfreesboro, and the author of sev­ eral works on North Carolina history and of a manuscript history of the Baptists of North Carolina, "Joseph Parker and his people at Meherrin dimissed by letter enough of their members to form what was long known as Bertie Church, but later Sandy Run."62 The location of this church, near the present town of Roxobel, was such as would naturally invite the labors of Parker. Possibly later the church at Kehukee supplied its preachers. Moore's account of its origin seems the most probable. 63 It seems probable that "\Vheeler was mistaken about the

time when Joseph Parker left Meherrin. Facts now well established indicate that he left the church much earlier to the care of William Parker, probably the son William Parker, an uncle of Joseph Parker. As early as May 7, 1742, Joseph Parker made a petition to the Council for a grant of 200 acres of land in Edgecombe. 64 According

ea This_ va_luable 'work, which is very compendious and full, is worthy of publication. . Hufham, N. 0. Baptist Historical Papers, I, 226, says, on what authority does not appear, "The first work of the church at Ke~ukee was the establishment of an arm at Sandy Run, Bertie County, which became an independent body in 1750, the year after Sojourner's · death." On the other hand, Moore in the work already mentioned, Chapter II, page 21, says, "There is no tradition of any labors on his (Sojourner's) part east of the Roanoke river." Burkitt and Read claim that this was a Calvinistic church from its first constitution and there­ fore was not established before 1755. But this is doubtless incorrect. All readers of the History of the Kehukee Association soon learn that it lacks completeness not to say accuracy in matters that concern the General Baptists. ·

63 Among the many unsolved problems of our early Baptist history is one that relates to this region. Burkitt and Read say that a young lady of Bertie, Anne Moore, whose home was at Cashie, found it necessary to go to South Carolina to secure baptism, and as a result became the wife of Rev. Jeremiah Dargan who returned with her to Cashie about the year 1769. But at this time the churches at Meherrin, Sandy Run, Kehukee, etc., had long been established and Miss Moore could have secured baptism by immersion at any of them. .. Colonial Records, IV, 619.

168

to Morgan Edwards he gathered the church at Lower Fish­ ing Creek, near Enfield, and had it under his charge from 1748. Edwards' language implies that Parker remained here until about the time that the churches of this region were transformed into churches of the Particular Baptist order. 65 It is probable that about this time Parker went "south of the Tar." In 1758, according to Edwards, he baptized Henry Abbot, who until that time had been a teacher. In 1761 he was already at Little Contentnea, in the present county of Greene, where in that year he bap­ tized one Joshua Vining, whom Edwards found ten years later preaching at Lynch's Creek in South Carolina. These activities of Parker were in sections too remote from Meher­ rin to have made it possible for him to have regularly served that church at the same time.66 The Meherrin church until 1794 had services every Sun­

day (Wheeler). The tables of Asplund, who was "himself a member of this church, show up till this time it was the only church in Hertford County. In its first years this church and its branch at Sandy Run seem to have furnished the only Christian ministrations for the territory between the Chowan and the Roanoke. It is true that in 1736 Rev. John Boyd, who had previously been a physician in Chowan, after taking orders in London, returned and began' i~ Bertie with some enthusiasm work as a minister of the

·Church of England in Northwest Parish embracing northern part of Bertie which then included what is now Hertford and Northampton. But in a year or two he had

""He says that Fishing Creek "existed a· society of general baptists. since the year 1748, under the care of Mr. Parker. But the chief of them receiving the doctrines of Grace, they were, Oct. 13, 1756, re­ formed," etc.

60 Wheeler's statement is probably based upon an inaccurate account in the History of the Kehukee Association, that, "Elder W. Parker was in the exercise of the pastoral function as early as 1773. How long be­ fore we are not able to say." Page 208. This only means that Burkit; found William Parker at Meherrin when he took charge of Sandy Rm: . in 1773.

God shall enable us; to perform all mutual duties towards each other and to those that shall hereafter join with us, and to keep our appointed meetings and to keep our secrets, ~eing taught of God's word that the church of Christ is a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed; and not to depart from one another illegally or without regular dismission; and that we shall, as God gives us means, ability, conveniency and opportunity, attend on the means of grace, the institution of the ordinances of the Gospel, hoping and relying upon Almighty God for grace, wisdom and spiritual understanding, guidance and ability to adorn this our profession and to perform our duties, hoping that he will bless us with grace suitable to our privileges; which he in bis goodness and mercy hath bestowed upon us in his house through Jesus Christ o~r Lord to whom be glory in the church throughout all ages, world without end, Amen.

To the Church of Christ atPoplar Springs Meeting-House. A true copy, this 28th November, I 793. Isaac Pippin, C.C.

While nearly all the General Baptist ministers soon joined in the reformation three remained in the old faith until the end. These were Elders Joseph Parker, William Parker, and John Winfield. All three had labored in the church at Meherrin, Joseph Parker being its first pastor and William Parker his assistant and later his successor, ~bile Winfield was to become pastor of the church at Pungo m Beaufort County. · The case of Elder Joseph Parker is not without a touch

of the pathetic. He and his wife Sarah had been members of the first Baptist church organized in North Carolina. His church at Meherrin was at this time the second oldest in the Province, and that offshoot of it, Sandy Run, was the third oldest. But while through his influence the church at Meherrin remained true to its pristine faith, he saw all the other churches which he had a part in organizing and a? the preachers save those mentioned whom he had bap­ tized fall away and become disciples and preachers of a new order. He was left alone. In these circumstances he sought new fields; first at Little Contentnea where he was preaching and baptizing as early as 1761, and where Morgan

Edwards found him pastor of a church; later he went to Wheat Swamp, where in deep poverty and dependent for support on the contributions of feeble congregations he and his aged wife took up their abode, organized a new church, and as its pastor continued to preach and baptize until his death. From the churches thus organized in his old age have come with slightly amended teachings the present Free­ will Baptists of the State, who are said to number about thirty thousand. . Baptists of the State of every shade of opinion continue to revere his memory and think of him with love, for he was a true and faithful servant of Jesus Christ. The Calvinists soon built a church near that of Winfield

on the Pun.go and seem to have absorbed its membership. The church at Meherrin continued in the General Baptist order with diminishing power .until the death of William Parker in 1794. Then it became a Particular Baptist church and the General Baptists of North Carolina were no more, unless indeed we regard the Freewill Baptists as General Baptists under a different name.

NORTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS

NORTH CAROLINA BAPTISTS

what retiring, but we have seen that his fellow citizens sent him to the Conventions of 1788 and 1789; in 1796 and 1797 he was called upon to represent his county in the State Senate. For this reason probably he was not Moderator of his Association in those years. "As long as mental faculties were retained the subject of religion was the burden of his song." He died March 14, 1811.74

, In this connection it may be well to quote a contemporary statement made by Burkitt in a communication to Rip­ pon's Register,7~ which indicates the nature of the member­ ship of the Baptist churches of eastern North Carolina at this time. It is as follows :

In North Carolina, we enjoy the exercise of liberty both civil and ecclesiastical, in the largest sense, so that the Baptists are ~ respectable as others. There are members of· several churches m the Kehukee Association who are in the commission of the peace. Some act as sheriffs. One of the members of my church is high sheriff in the county of Northampton, another in the county of Hertford. Colonel Na than Mayo, who was moderator in our last Association, had been a member of the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina for many years. There are members in several churches who have served many years in the House of Commons, and others in the Senate. Upon the whole, there is hardly any post of profit or honor in the State but has been repu­ tably filled by one or another of our Baptist brethren. Indeed, all pasto.rs of churches are excluded a seat in the General Assembly of· this State by our Constitution, but our ministers act as justices of the peace a~d in other offices; and some, who have not the charge of a congregation, have been honored with a seat in the Legislature. Our Brother, Peter Qualls, who lately departed this life, had been Senator for the county of Halifax: for several years. But though we have ministers and members who are men of wealth and honor, most of our brethren in the ministry and the members in general are poor men.

After the second division the Kehukee had its first session in October, 1794, with the church of Lemuel Burkitt at Sandy Run. This session was memorable for the accession "Biggs, Kehukee Association. 19lff .,,. Vol. II, 204f. ' .

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KEHUKEE ASSOCIATION 1777-1805

of the church at Meherrin which until this time had been a General Baptist church under the care of Elder William Parker. Mr. Parker had been in this station for probably forty years or more before his death in January, 1794.76 In 1790 Asplund listed Meherrin as the only church in Hert­ ford County. So long as this church remained under the care of Elder William Parker it had services every Sunday. From the time of the transformation in the other Baptist churches of the region begun in 1755 the church at Meherrin saw much trouble. Mr. Parker remained an Arminian, but soon there was division in his membership. In 1775 under the preaching of Burkitt a number of. his best membe.rs m~de a defection and joined a congregation at Potecasi, which became a branch of Burkitt's church at Sandy Run. It seems that these members did not take this step until they had approached Mr. Parker and endeavored to influence him to adopt the Calvinistic view. Bu: he remained ste~df a:'t in his Arminianism. Their secession caused a decline m the church. But the declension, however great, did not in­ terfere with the rebuilding of a new meeting house, in place of their first which then had stood for forty years. At the expense and by the labor of the Parker family for the most part a new house of worship was constructed. Whatever may be said of his theology, Elder William Parker was a man of deep personal piety, of irreproachable morals and "deeply devoted to the spiritual interests o~ his flock._" On his death a large concourse of people testified to their regard for his worth by attendance on his funeral. The "As early as 1748, according to Morgan Edwards, .Joseph Parker, the

first minister of the Meherrin Church, had been preachmg to the. congrega­ tion afterwards constituted as the church at Fishing Creek (Daniel's Meet­ ing House). In 1761 Joseph Parker was on the <?o.ntentnea. The only reason for supposing that 1773 is the date when W illlarn Par.ker assumed the pastorate of the Meherrin church is the statemen~ of Burkitt _(KehuketJ Aaaociation 203) that "Elder William Parker was in the exercise of the pastoral fu~ction as early as 1773." This means no. more ~ban that Parker was already pastor when Burkitt first came to this section and assumed the care of the Sandy Run church. There is every reason to_ suppose that Parker had already been in the pastorate twenty-five years m 1773.

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sermon was preached by the ablest minister of the former Kehukee Association, Elder David Barrow, who came all the way from his church in the Isle of Wight for the purpose. It is probable that, in his severe censure of Mr. Parker,

Wheeler, Meherrin Church, was only repeating things said by Calvinists against all General Baptists, and that most of the disturbance in his church was due rather to the natural desire of the members to conform to the standards of the neighboring Baptist churches and possibly the proselyting zeal of Burkitt than to any disorders engendered by Mr. Parker's looseness in receiving members. One would suppose from Wheeler's statement that the church had dwindled to nothingness in 1794 ; but according to Asplund it contained about 100 members. In the divided church there was doubt­ less "the frequent exhibition of unsanctified feeling," spoken of in Wheeler's account. After the death of Mr. Parker, Bur~itt organized a small church on the Calvinistic plan, and it was this small reorganized church that was now ad­ mitted to the Association.

The Association now was to be free from further division for a period of eleven years. I give here the times and places of its various meetings.

September 27, 1794. Sandy Run. September 23, 1795. Yoppim, Chowan County. September 22, 1796. Mchcrrin. September 21, 1797. Flatty Creek (Newbiggin, now Salem),

Pasquotank County. September 20, 1798. Cashie, Bertie County. October 5, 1799. Fishing Creek (New Meeting Lawrence's),

Halifax, Edgecombe County. ' October 4, 1800. Falls of Tar, Nash County. October 3, 1801. Great Swamp, Pitt County. October 2, 1802. Wiccacon, Bertie County. October 1, 1803. Connoho (Log Chapel), Martin County. October 5, 1804. Meherrin, Hertford County. October 4, I 805. Lower Fishing Creek, Halifax County.

Jn this period the following churches were .received into the Association: 1794, Meherrin, Lemuel Burkitt, pastor; 179~, Great Swamp, Elder Noah Tison, pastor; 1798, Haywood s, Franklin County under care of Elder Jacob Crocker; 1799. Quankey, Halif:x County, no pastor but ministered to by Elders Jesse Read and McAlister Vinson ; 1803, Cross Ro~ds, Edgecombe County, Elder Jonathan Cherry, Pastor; L1t~le Conetoe, same County, Elder Thomas Ross, pastor; Conan;­ sey, Bertie County, Elder Northam, pasto~; 1804, ~ran~er,s Creek, Beaufort County, pastor not given; Sn:11thw1ck s Creek, Martin County, Joseph Biggs, pastor; Swif t C~eek, Edgecombe County, pastor not given; Prospect, Edgecombe County, pastor not given; Mearn's Chapel, Nash Co~nty, pastor not given; Sappony, Nash Count.y, pastor not given; two churches in Bertie, one at Log Meetmg House, the other at Outlaw's Chapel. The years from 1790 till the end of the cen~u~y were lean

years for the churches in the Kehukee A~sociahon and the Baptist churches in eastern North Carolina .g~nera?Y· In fact there had been no g;reat revival of reli~1on since the formation of the Association. There had indeed been a steady growth as is shown by the increase in the number of churches and members, but in all the eastern half of t?e State there were hardly four thousand members of Baptist churches in 1800 in a population of perhaps ~.50,000 ", In other States there had been great revivals and mgatheni:gs of members. In one Virginia Association, the Dover, the in­

crease in membership from a great revival, 17~5 to 178~, was said to be four or five thousand-" B.ut little of this evangelical progress was felt in North Carolina. The records of the Kehukee Association show that the worthy men ';ho assembled as its delegates from year to year were sensible

11 • , • I 101 See also Semple, Virginia Baptists, 93f. S a!{~~os~t!%~t:;',~any hundreds had been baptized in th~ course o! t~e year." The correspondent o~ Rippon's RegistBr gave the gures use

in the text.

Box no.: 1 Folder no.: 22

NAME: Parker, William

see

PC 2 Alderman, John Thomas, 1853-1932. Papers, 1755-1930 [broken series]

NMfE: Parker, William

DATA: son of William Parker; sett. Meherrin (Hartford) N. C., 1742-1794; Bapt.

SOURCE: ':'he Co Lorri.a I Clergy of Virg.;riia, No r t h Carolina and South Carolina by: Rev. Freder.ick=Lewis Weis

Page: 67

....... - Roes. Then Shilo Ohurch was mrganizP.d in 1729. ____.rn---'that yP,ar ---- they petitioned SupP.rior Court of Pasquotank to b~ rP.corded as

the Baptist Church to protect them from any intP.rfenance from

civil author1 tj:ea which pP.rsecut\ed· them for wosshipplng not in

aceo rrlance With the Epi ecopal faith. Thl s petition was mads un:l3.er

Act o t Toleration granted in the r etgn of William and Mary in

1689. The civil authorities and the church of England were one ,. •

(I)

William and Joseph Parker, brothers, both ::Bap•Uet preach­

er a ,came, from England in 1717 and settled naar Edenton. owned

land in 1737 as per records in Chowan County. It la thought

thP.y a~sisted in founding the Old Bethel Church und~r Rev. Paul

PalmP.r. Old Bethel Churdh le el tuated about half way b~tWPen -~~L7 z, 7 Edenton and HPrtford, W. C. It was reorganized in ·1806 by Mar:-titC

. .-~

and the eame at this time. Not until 1776, the year of Beelar-

atlon of I ndep endance ' was the church and the state F.1epara ted.

Prior to that time t he state paid ta.XP.8 to the go v« rnmsn t for the

support of the church.

William Parker came up the Chowan and Maherrin River

and settled near Murfreesboro which is known in that section

as Bunavlsta. Murfreesboro at that time wae known as Murfrees

t.,r, who livP.d at Como, but rflc~ntly in Aulandf?r. The latter

Landing, the head of navigation .of Maherrln Rlv~r, and o r gan i ze d

Maherrin Church, which in 1739 had its flret house of worship

. ~r~ct~d on land givP.n by William Parker by d~ed written 1n his

own hand, and is the third oldest Baptist Church in North Caro-

line.. His son,or grandson, J0hn Parker who also Li ve d i n

Murfreesboro was married four tim0s. Two of hie wives w~re

eisters,by the name Wy~; one was a Miss Peck, and his last

wife was Elizabeth ••....••••.••• , which latter was a mother of

/~~i1~/ Jacob parker, who died in Warrenton N.C. sometime ago,

and Dr. K:tng Par'ke r j who died.in Marlon,ALa. in 1864. Dr.

King Parker was the fath~r of Rev. H.B.Parker, a Baptist Minis-

was born in 18 58 at Murfreesboro.

Joe,ph Parker's Will was recorded in th~ SPcr~tary of

State's office in Raleigh, which was probatP.d in 1779. He

lPft leven(7) children as le~atees; The daughters w~re

Mary, Cannon, Ruth, and Lenina, and the sons w~re:

Jacob, TobP., Mathew, and Joseph. Joseph Jr. was a preacher

and. ae t t Le d in Edgecombe and Pitt County; died in Green County

in the early part of the 19th century. Rev. Louie Whitfield

of Lenore County knew R~v. JoePph Parker personally, and said he

was a man of great influence and magn~tism, and had the

confidence of the people. These all sprung from the English

General Baptist who be liP.ve d ln the declaration: 11 That God

so loved !the wor).d. that: .. he gave his only begotten eon, that

whosoever believeth in him shall haVP evPrlasting lifa~, ruid the

teachings_of tho. new testament which was their only creo.d.

Revee. Peter P. Vanhorne and Benjamin Miller came from

Philad~lphia to N0rth Carolin~ about tho. Middle of the 18th

Co.ntury and in 1755 thi:>y commenced tha.ir work in the old

Jersey Churdh in Davidson County, seeking to teach the

General Baptist Churches to the high Cal vali s t Lc doc t r.i ne,

They went from Jersey to Grassy cr~ek In Granville County,

and f'rorn there t hey went to Fishing Cr@ek in Warrenton County

without any euccP.ss. And from Fishlng Creek they went to Kahukee

in HalifaX County, and they reorganizP.d Kahukee Church, after

gPttine ten of its old membe r s to t ak» pc ase s ai o n of the church,

on th~ Calvalistic basis,. They continued their op~ration

with small ebccess , and in 1769 five churches ~ntered into

the organization of Kahuk~e, and in the hot controver•i~s of

that period which followed the church languish~d, and in 1785

a compromise of confeAsion of faith WaA adopted and printed.

ThA original church was founded by William Walker who ca~P. over

from Sojourner. Hts sister cam= over with th=rn and settled at

and Miss ~oJourner gav~ th0 land on which c~1rch ............ ' was bull t , William $ojourn~r was a man of dPlicate consti-

tution, but a man of magnetism. The Sojourners were from IslP-of-Whi te County, of Virginia.

.. ~

Jos~ph Parker vrune from Chowan. County soon after 1 ?42,

soon after SojournP.r came to Halifa.X. His work reachP.d

to a grP.at extent. He labo~rPd and travelled .. xtensively.

lie o r gan Lae d a strong church wh4:lth was thf:ln known. aa a Low~r

Fishing Cr@ek, and now known as Lavrrence' s Church. He also

organizP.d the church at War River, and many oth~r churches •

• Rev. Louis whitfiel« was a Baptist preacher of

Le.nor~ County, and died in 1861 owning about 40,000

ac r e s of land in Lenore and Wayn1;1 County.

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