South Farnham Parish
Lewis Latane
Sittenbourn Parish (part)
Bartholomew Yates
St. Mary's Parish
William Andrews
Gloucester County
Petsoe (Petsworth) Parish
Emmanuel Jones
Abingdon Parish
Guy Smith
Ware Parish
James Clack
Henrico County
Bristol Parish (part)
George Robinson
Varina als Henrico Parish
James Ware
King William Parish
Benjamin De Joux
James City County
Wallingford Parish
Wilmington Parish
John Gordon
James City Parish
James Blair
Martin's Hundred Parish
Stephen Fouace
Bruton Parish (part)
Cope D'Oyley
Isle of Wight County
Warrosqueake Parish
Thomas Sharpe
Newport Parish
Andrew Monroe
King and Queen County
St. Stephen's Parish
Ralph Bowker
Stratton-Major Parish
Edward Portlock
King William County
St. John's Parish
John Monroe
Lancaster County
Christ Church Parish
Andrew Jackson
St. Mary's White Chapel Parish
John Carnegie
Middlesex County
Christ Church Parish
Robert Yates
Nansemond County
Upper Parish
Lower Parish
Chuchatuck Parish
Norfolk County
Elizabeth River Parish
William Rudd
New Kent County
Blisland Parish
St. Peter's Parish
James Bowker
Northumberland County
Fairfield Parish
John Farnifold
Wiccocomico Parish
John Urquhart
Northampton County
Hungars Parish
Peter Collier
Princess Anne County
Lynnhaven Parish
Solomon Wheatley
Richmond County
Sittenbourn Parish (part)
Bartholomew Yates
North Farnham Parish
Peter Kippax
Surry County
Southwark Parish
Alexander Walker
Lawne's Creek Parish
Thomas Burnet
Stafford County
St. Paul's Parish
Overwharton Parish
John Frazier
Warwick County
Mulberry Island Parish
Denbigh Parish
Westmoreland County
Cople Parish
Washington Parish
James Breechin
York County
Bruton Parish (part)
Yorke Parish
Cope D'Oyley
Hampton Parish
Stephen Fouace
Charles Parish
James Slater
James Blair, Commissary to the Bishop of London
Peregrine Cony, Chaplain to the Governor.
It will be noted that the above list reports fifty-one parishes, or
after deducting three which appear as partly in two counties, a total
of forty-eight parishes. These covered the whole territory in which
English settlers lived. The incumbent clergymen total thirty-five but
some five or six of the parishes for which no incumbent was named were
very small in extent or population, and looked to the minister of an
adjoining parish for services and sacraments. Probably this list
includes five or six parishes which were vacant. Because of the great
length of time required to secure clergymen from England this fact is
evidence of the growing strength and organization of the Church under
the influence of the Commissary.
Most of the clergymen who came to Virginia were graduates of the
English and Scottish universities, and brought an element and influence
of education and culture to the growing life of the Colony. Dr. Philip
Alexander Bruce, in his notable _Institutional History of Virginia in
the Seventeenth Century_, makes the following statement:
If we consider as a body the ministers who performed the various duties
of their calling in Virginia during the Seventeenth Century, there is
no reason to think they fell below the standard of conscientiousness
governing the conduct of the English clergyman in the same age. The
early history of the New World was adorned by no nobler group of
divines than the group which gives so much distinction from the point
of view of character and achievement to the years in which the
foundation of the colony at Jamestown was being permanently laid.
From the middle of the century to the end as from the beginning to the
middle, a large proportion of the clergymen were not only graduates of
English universities, but also men of more or less distinguished social
connections in England. Outside the great towns in England, or the
wealthiest and most populous of the English rural parishes, there was
in the course of the century, perhaps no single English living filled
by a succession of clergymen superior to this body of men, (i.e.,
incumbents at Jamestown) in combined learning, talents, piety, and
devotion to duty. And yet there is no reason to think that the ability,
zeal and fidelity of these ministers who occupied the pulpit at
Jamestown were overshadowing as compared with the same qualities in the
clergymen who, one after another, occupied any of the more important
benefices in York, Surry, Elizabeth City, or Gloucester Counties, or
the counties situated in the Northern Neck, or Eastern Shore.... All
the surviving records of the seventeenth century go to show that,
whatever during that long period may have been the infirmities or
unworthy acts of individual clergymen, the great body of those
officiating in Virginia were men who performed all the duties of their
sacred calling in a manner entitling them to the respect, reverence and
gratitude of their parishioners.
Very little is known of the activities of the clergy outside of their
professional duties beyond the fact that a great many of them conducted
schools at their homes; and these "parsons schools" became a widespread
influence for good upon the youth of their day. In the generations
before the founding of the College these schools became the great
agency throughout the colony for the education of the sons of the
gentry, and of the occasional youth of a lesser privileged family who
was taken free by the parson, or supported by a school endowment given
by some charitable person. In the later days there were many such
parish funds. We read of George Washington, in the following generation
attending the school conducted by Parson Marye in Fredericksburg, and
of his future wife, Martha Dandridge attending another.
It is a notable fact that throughout the whole seventeenth century the
ideal shown by the General Assembly was to provide for the clergy an
adequate salary for the comfortable home of an educated man. In 1695
when the question of increase in clerical salaries was raised, the
House of Burgesses made a report to Governor Andros upon the purchasing
value of salaries paid in tobacco, and stated, "They have duly weighed
the present provision made for the ministers of this country in their
respective parishes together with their other considerable perquisites
by marriages, burials, etc., and glebes,----that most if not all the
ministers of this country are in as good a condition in point of
livelihood as a gentleman that is well seated and hath twelve or
fourteen servants." They had previously stated that the tobacco salary
of the parson would in normal years in the past yield eighty pounds
sterling when sold.
In contrast with this salary of the clergymen in Virginia attention may
be called to the statement made in England in 1714, that there were in
England at that time "5,082 livings under eighty pounds in annual
value, of which more than 3,000 were under forty pounds, and 471 under
ten pounds. This report was made to show the importance of the fund
established by Queen Anne, called Queen Anne's Bounty, for increasing
the endowment of these weak parishes."
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
The Table of Contents was added for convenience.
Page 3: Guilt is an obsolete form of gilt
(a plate of silver guilt).
Page 16: Changed ecclestiastical to ecclesiastical
(after an ecclestiastical trial by the bishop).
Page 23: Changed cattel to cattle
(great plenty of cattel and hogs).
Page 50: Changed priviliged to privileged
(youth of a lesser priviliged family).