Chapter XVI: Introduction (10)

The Shannahan Brothers, John, William and Patrick, born in Waterford County, Ireland, came to Quincy before 1840. They were all successful railroad builders and constructed roads in all parts of the country. In 1852 they built sections of the Iron Mountain Railroad in Missouri. They constructed the Northern Cross Railroad between Quincy and Clayton. Had contracts on the Hannibal and St. Joseph road, and the Quincy, Alton and St. Louis road. John and William lived to a ripe age. Patrick survived them. He died in 1895 at the age of eighty-four years, leaving three sons, James P., Richard and William, and four daughters, all in Quincy except William, who is in California. John Shannahan had two sons, but William had none. A brother, Thomas, came from Ireland in 1851.

John Burns, Sr., was born in Maine of Irish parents and came to Quincy in 1834 with a family of several sons. He was a man of strong religious convictions and a hater of slavery. John Burns, Jr., went to California in 1849 and became a prominent man of that state. George W. Burns went with his brother, but returned after one year and engaged in the mercantile business in the town of Payson, eighteen miles south of Quincy, where his father was then residing. In 1854 he returned to Quincy, and in company with John Wood, Jr., engaged in the flour milling business. In 1862 he was appointed paymaster in the army with the rank of Major, and was captured on the Red River and held for three months. He was elected a state senator in 1874. In 1880, he went again to California, where in a gallant effort to catch a team of runaway horses attached to a carriage containing ladies, he was killed on the streets of Sacramento. Major Burns inherited a brave and generous disposition to risk his own life to save that of others, as shown by the brave conduct of his father in saving and protecting the noted Doctor Nelson, the most brilliant man among the early pioneers. Dr. David Nelson was born in Tennessee. He was a friend of Andrew Jackson and served under him as surgeon during the war of 1812. He had been an infidel, but was converted and became an ardent advocate of Christianity. He was an extensive slave holder and moved with them to Missouri, near Palmyra, eighteen miles west of Quincy. He was a kind and humane master and soon caused a bitter feeling against himself among his slave holding neighbors by persisting in teaching his negroes to read and write and giving them religious instruction in defiance of a law then existing forbidding the teaching of negroes. He attempted to found a college at Palmyra, and had books shipped to him from the East. Upon opening one of the boxes, it was found that not being quite full of books, it had been filled with anti-slavery pamphlets, by some eastern man who knew his desires to educate and uplift the blacks. The knowledge of the receipt of the pamphlets spread like wild-fire among the slave holders, who determined to take his life. The Doctor was spirited away by his friends and hid in a cave, where he wrote the first chapter of his great work on “Infidelity,” while his enemies were scouring the country for him, with all of the roads guarded and every supposable means of escape cut off. His friends implored him to come to Quincy. Making his way through a heavy forest, he arrived at midnight on the west bank of the Mississippi River opposite Quincy, where John Burns and other friends were to meet him and row him across. While waiting at the edge of the forest for his friends to appear, with the wide sweeping river before him and the lights of Quincy on the opposite shore, he composed that beautiful hymn, “The Shining Shore”:

My days are gliding swiftly by
And I, a pilgrim stranger,
Would not detain them as they fly,
Those hours of toil and danger.

Chorus.

For Oh, we stand on Jordan’s strand,
Our friends are passing over,
And just before, the shining shore,
We may almost discover.

When Burns and his friends arrived with boats, they informed him that a number of infuriated slave holders were on the other side, determined to seize him and bring him back to Missouri. To avoid them, they rowed up the river twenty miles before crossing to Illinois, then quietly brought him down, overland, to Quincy. Several efforts were afterwards made to retake Doctor Nelson to Missouri, but John Burns and his loyal friends vigilantly guarded him until the bitter feeling subsided and died out. In Quincy Doctor Nelson established one of his four institutes to educate young men for Christian Missionaries, in which he spent all of his own means besides much money raised by him in the East. He died poor, at the age of fifty-one, and was buried in Woodland Cemetery, where friends have erected a large granite monument to his memory. He left only a daughter, a Mrs. Rose Clapp, who, if living, is now in California. One of John Burns’ daughters is in Quincy, Mrs. Schermerhorn. Miss Julia Burns, long a school teacher here, is now employed in the Treasury Department at Washington.

Samuel Hopkins Emery, D. D., born at Andover, Massachusetts, in 1815, died in Taunton, Massachusetts, October fifth, 1901, was a Manx and Irish Celt. His father was John Emery, who traced back to John Emery of Newbury, Massachusetts, who, with his brother Arthur, came to America from Ramsey, Isle of Man, England, in 1635. His mother was a daughter of Colonel Welch of New Hampshire, who commanded a regiment under Washington during the war for American freedom. Doctor Emery graduated at Amherst College, a classmate of Henry Ward Beecher. He was one of the brainy Americans, who made their age and time famous for high thought and culture. He came to Quincy as pastor of the First Congregational Church in 1855, at the height of the formative thought that lifted the Republic out of the black slime of human slavery and made of it in deed, as well as name, what their fathers of 1776 meant it should be, a real land of the free and home of the brave. Doctor Emery remained in Quincy fifteen years, during which time he endeared himself to all by a kind and generous nature and an untiring interest in the public welfare. During the war there were three military hospitals in Quincy, crowded with sick and wounded soldiers brought up the river on boats from the frontier. Doctor Emery was the army chaplain in charge. He comforted and cheered as few men could, the sick and wounded, especially those on whose brows the cold hand of death was laid, because his heart was in the cause of the country for which they were suffering and dying. Early in the war, he aided in organizing two patriotic bands of Quincy women devoted to the relief and comfort of soldiers, not only in his own hospitals, but on the fields everywhere. They were known as the “Needle Pickets” and “The Good Samaritans,” among whom were Mrs. Governor Wood, Mrs. Anna McFadon, Mrs. Robert Benneson, Mrs. Anna McMahon, Miss Ella Carrott and Mrs. Finlay, the wives and daughters of Irish pioneers. Those consecrated women devoted their time and strength and means to furnish supplies for the hospitals at home and on the fields of conflict. They commenced their work early, scraping lint and rolling bandages, and remained active until the close of the war. They organized an “Old Folks” concert company that gave entertainment in cities in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. They sent nurses to the front. They held a fair in Quincy that continued two weeks and netted them $36,000. With the consent of President Lincoln, they sent Doctor Emery to visit the hospitals in the South and report on their condition. The following is a copy of his pass or authority:

“WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D. C., April 13, 1862.

“Ordered; That permission be given to the Rev. S. Hopkins Emery of
Quincy, Ill., to pass within the lines of the United States forces to
Savanna, Tennessee, and wherever the sick and wounded soldiers of the
United States may be, together with any ladies and gentlemen that may
be in his company, for the purpose of affording care and attendance to
the sick and wounded. The quartermasters and commissaries will afford
them transportation when required and all officers and persons in the
service or employment of the United States will afford them courtesy,
assistance and protection.

“(Signed) EDWIN M. STANTON,
“Secretary of War.”

The Illinois Sanitary Fair, which was held in mammoth tents which covered Washington Park at Quincy, Illinois, attracted the attention of the nation. One of the things offered by them at auction was a book of autographs signed for the occasion by some of the most distinguished men and women of the time. The one from James Russell Lowell was accompanied by the following note and verses:

“I couldn’t send a bare signature to a state which has sent 200,000
men to fight the battles of us all and whose regiments bear on their
tattered flags the names of our most glorious victories.

“Tears may be ours, but proud for those who win
Death’s royal purple in the enemy’s lines.
Peace, too, brings tears, and ‘mid the battle din,
The wiser ear some text of God divines.
For the sheathed blade may rust with darker sin.

“God give us peace, not such as lulls to sleep,
But sword on thigh and brow with purpose knit
And let our Ship of State to harbor sweep,
Her ports all up, her battle lanterns lit
And her hushed thunders gathering for their leap.

“(Signed) J. R. LOWELL.

“Cambridge, Mass., October, 1864.”

No grave of all the millions who maintained the Union cause on or off the battlefield deserves to be more gratefully remembered and strewn with flowers each recurring Memorial Day than that which in Taunton, Massachusetts, contains the remains of the patriotic Quincy Chaplain, Dr. S. Hopkins Emery. At the time of Doctor Emery’s death, his two sons were among the most prominent business men in Quincy, S. H. Emery, Jr., was vice-president and manager of the Straw Board Paper Company; J. W. Emery is president of one of our largest stove foundries, and father of an interesting, growing family. S. H. Emery, Jr., died shortly after his venerable father, leaving only a daughter, Mrs. Ellis, surviving him.

George Brophy came from Kilkenny, Ireland. He was an assistant in the county clerk’s office for many years. In 1868 he was himself elected as clerk and by repeated elections held the office for twenty-four years. He had but one son, who died at about the age of thirty years, and two years before the death of his father. His only daughter is the wife of Duke Schroer, now one of the editors of the Quincy Journal.

John Lawless was born in Stafford County, Virginia, June 20, 1795. His father was John Lawless of Irish blood and a slave holder. He served all through the Revolutionary War and was wounded at the battle of Cowpens. His mother was a Scotch lady. She was a devout Catholic and also a doctor who practised a little. The subject of our sketch, while still a boy, moved to Kentucky with his mother’s parents, where he received a common school education. On February 24, 1820, he married Margaret Skirvin, a devout Baptist, and settled in Grant County, Kentucky, on a farm. In 1835, with a family of seven children, they came to Adams County, Illinois, and settled on a farm twelve miles northeast of Quincy, where his descendants are still living. It required four weeks to come in an ox-wagon from Kentucky to Quincy. After coming to Adams County, three more children were born to them. John Lawless was a model pioneer. He was a fine rifle shot and enjoyed the use of a gun. He was a very successful farmer; a good business man; an excellent hand to write deeds and legal documents for his friends and neighbors. He was a consistent Old School Baptist. He died May 13, 1865. All of his ten children grew to maturity. Like their father, all may well be considered western pioneers. His oldest son, Henry Harrison, died at the age of twenty-one; Mary Ann, the second child, is still living at the age of eighty-six years at Columbus, Illinois. She was married in 1846 to William Judy, who died a year later. A son, William H., was born to them. Her daughter-in-law and three children are living in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Elizabeth Jane Lawless, born December 8, 1824, was married to John P. Yeargain April 9, 1849, and died April 15, 1899. Her descendants number thirty-two. John Quincy Lawless, born December 1, 1826, was married to Elizabeth Pearce, February 26, 1863. Both are living in Columbus, Illinois. They have two sons and two daughters, all married, and five grandchildren. William Conrad Lawless was born in 1828, and was married February 1, 1855, to Mary Ann Pierce. He died February 15, 1898. Their descendants, including sons and daughters, number twenty-six. Sarah Margaret Lawless was married to John Lummis, February 26, 1852. She still lives at Paloma, Illinois, a widow. She has eight children and twenty-three grandchildren. Thomas Lawless was born March 21, 1834; died February 28, 1897. He married Annie M. Ferguson, in 1874. They have three sons, a daughter-in-law and one grandchild. Susannah Lawless, born March 18, 1836, died November 25, 1876. She married James R. McBroom October 10, 1855. Their living descendants number twenty-eight. James Sanford Lawless lives on the farm where he was born seventy-one years ago. He married Clara Ferguson in 1871. They have seven children; two of them are married. Oliver Perry, the youngest, born July 20, 1841, married Margaret Gutherie, March 10, 1864. This branch numbers twenty-one. They have all followed farming, taking up much of their lands in a wild state when of but little value. They broke out the prairie sod, fought their way through the hardships known only to the early settler, and are now turning over these farms in a high state of cultivation to their children. But, better than this, they are leaving an example in their lives, which is worthy of imitation. The third generation numbers eighty-five. The most active of all at the present time running in age from children to sixty years of age. They represent various avocations of life, but the greater part are farmers. There are seventy-nine of the fourth generation, scattered among five states, and seven of the fifth generation, a total of one hundred and eighty-four. Very few families have held together so long in residence and association; comparatively few are living outside of Adams County, and those who are keep in close touch with the rest. On the twenty-first day of August, 1909, the Lawless family held a reunion at Columbus. It was the largest gathering of this kind ever held in Adams County. The Lawless family of Adams County and its branches are the only ones known in the West. It is known prominently still in Virginia.

Oan Piggott, father of the writer, came from near Thurles, County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1844, with two sons and two daughters by a first marriage and one son by a second marriage. He came via New Orleans to St. Louis, Missouri. William was the oldest son. He was a steamboat mate on the lower Mississippi and was killed in the Confederate service during the civil war, as an officer in an Arkansas regiment. Michael, the next son, learned the bricklayers’ trade in St. Louis, and at the age of twenty moved to Quincy, where he commenced business for himself as a builder. When the war commenced, he enlisted in the Union Army in Company “F,” Birge’s sharpshooters, subsequently known as the Fourteenth Missouri Infantry, and finally as the Sixty-sixth Illinois Infantry, commanded by Col. Patrick E. Burk of St. Louis, Mo. At Fort Donaldson, he was promoted as Captain of his company. In February, 1864, his company reënlisted. On the fourteenth day of the following May, he lost a leg at the battle of Resace, Georgia, where Burk was killed. The older of the two girls, Honora, entered a Catholic convent at St. Louis, and died in 1865. The younger, Mary, died in St. Louis in 1847 from cholera. James, the youngest son, a stove moulder by trade, died at Louisville, Kentucky, since the civil war. Two children by the second marriage were born in St. Louis, Richard and Sarah, both now living, Richard in St. Louis, and Sarah in Calaway County, Missouri, the wife of Christopher Connell, a prosperous farmer. Richard served with Price in the Confederate service, until captured at the battle of Iuka, Mississippi, in 1863. Oan Piggott died on a farm in Warren County, Missouri, in 1876.

The Flynn, Kirby and Larkin families are well represented by grandsons, now able managers of the J. J. Flynn Company, extensive manufacturers of carbonated waters, syrups and extracts in Quincy.

To Joseph W. Stewart, son of the pioneer William Stewart, Sr., the State of Oregon is indebted for the scientific development of its fruit interests at Medford. It is said that every fruit tree in Oregon is a monument to the memory of Joseph Stewart. His brother William is a scientific fruit grower near Quincy and resides in the city.

The grandsons of these early pioneers are now forging their way to the front in the professions and in business. In the forties, a poor widow, by the name of Wall, came to Quincy, with two children, a boy and a girl. After coming from Ireland, she and her husband located at Baltimore, Maryland, where her children were born. There with her brother, who was a Welch, her husband commenced contracting in the building of railroads, moving west with the roads. They reached Danville, Illinois, where her husband died and left her in very poor circumstances financially. She came with her children to Quincy and raised both to respectable positions in society. The boy, who was named Edmond Wall, is now nearly seventy years of age and a bookkeeper for a tobacco manufacturing company. He is the father of four sons; the oldest is John E., a member of the law firm of Wilson & Wall. He is an eloquent advocate and has the promise of a great political future. J. W. Wall, a brother, is the active manager of the Gardner Governor Company, the largest institution of its kind, perhaps, in the world, and he has two younger brothers as assistants.

A grandson of an Irishman, C. B. McCrory, is judge of our County or probate court, while Erde Beatty, also a grandson of an Irishman, is clerk of our Circuit Court, and William Smith, another grandson, is an assistant clerk in the County Court. Major George W. Green, of Chicago, is the grandson of John McDade, a soldier of 1812. Major Green is the head of a large lumber company in Chicago. He was major of the Seventy-eighth Illinois Infantry during the civil war and was severely wounded. He is a prominent member of the Loyal Legion. The grandsons of Timothy Castle are successful managers of the Comstock Castle Stove Company in Quincy, Keokuk and other cities.

Barney Corrigan, with his wife and ten children, came to Quincy in 1840 from Tyrone County, Ireland. In 1843 he settled on a farm southeast of the city, purchased from a soldier of 1812 an Irishman by the name of Constantine Clark. His children all married after coming to America, and had large families, excepting Edward, who died a few years after his arrival. The old homestead is still in the family, having passed from Barney Corrigan to his son James, who raised a family of seven sons and two daughters. James occupied the farm for fifty-three years, and at his death it passed to his son Daniel, whose brother, James B. Corrigan, has been Treasurer of Adams County for two terms of four years and deputy treasurer for several terms.

Among the steamboats running from St. Louis on the upper Mississippi between 1827 and 1836 which were owned or commanded by Irishmen were the following: The Omega, by Captain Rafferty; the Shamrock, by Captain May; the Emerald, the Gypsy and the O’Connell, by the Reynolds Brothers, and the Josephine, by Captain Clark.

Our subject has run away with us and has taken us far beyond the limits we designed when we commenced these notes. The field occupied by the Irish-American pioneers of the upper Mississippi Valley, in even the vicinity of Quincy, is not exhausted by these notes.

REV. FRANCIS MAKEMIE—THE PAUL OF SEAGIRT ACCOMAC, THE KNOX OF
CHESAPEAKE, AND FOUNDER OF ORGANIZED PRESBYTERIANISM IN AMERICA.

BY REV. HAVERGAL SHEPPARD, D. D., MINISTER OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
AT SCHENECTADY, N. Y.

Just fifty-five years after the accession of the House of Stuart to the British Crown; years born of those awful times of the Reformation, when men hated each other for their creed rather than for their conduct; in the year in which Cromwell died, 1658, Francis Makemie was born in that little out of the way village of the north of Ireland, Ramelton, County Donegal.

That beautiful arm of the Atlantic, called by the natives Lough Swilly, lay hard by his home and undoubtedly many were the times as a boy he played on its shores or swam in its clear, cool waters.

Like many of the world’s great preachers, he became hopefully pious at the age of fifteen, according to his own testimony in his answer to Keith’s “Libel Against a Catechism,” published by Francis Makemie, in Boston, 1694, he says:

“’Ere I received the imposition of hands in that Scriptural and orderly separation with my holy and ministerial calling, that I gave requiring satisfaction to Godly, learned and judicious, discerning men, of a work of grace and conversion, wrought in my heart at fifteen years of age, by and from the pains of a Godly schoolmaster; who used no small diligence in gaining tender souls to God’s service and fear.”

At seventeen he was enrolled in the University of Glasgow in the third class, with the ministry in view. Next we see him, January 28th, 1860, appearing before the Presbytery of Laggan at St. Johnstown, Ireland, with a recommendation from his Pastor, Mr. Thomas Drummond, and so began his theological training and examination; from time to time he presents himself before the Presbytery and is examined by a competent committee.

Mr. William Liston reports: “September 29th, 1680, that Mr. Francis Makemy desires some more time and that he is diligent.” Again, March 9th, 1681: “Upon the good report we get of Messrs. Francis Makemy and Mr. Alexander Marshall, the meeting think fit to put them upon trials in order to their being licentiates to preach and they name I. Timothy 1:5 to Mr. Makemy.”

Again, April 20th, 1681, Francis Makemy delivered his homily upon I. Timothy 1:5 and was approved. Matt. 11:28 was appointed to him for the next meeting.

May 25th, 1681, Mr. Francis Makemy delivered his private homily on Matt. 11:28 and was approved.

The last entry in the minute book of the presbytery of Laggan, previous to December 30th, 1690, was on July 31st, 1681. “The meeting see fit to lay aside their ordinary business at this extraordinary meeting, only, if time will permit, we will hear the exegeses of the two young men who are upon their trials.”

It is more than likely, as Dr. Briggs says in the appendix to American Presbyterianism: “That Mr. Makemy was probably licensed in the autumn of 1681 and after several appropriate trials and having preached for Mr. Hempton at Burt, April 2d, 1682, he was ordained to go out to America.”

Two years previous, or 1680, Colonel William Stevens laid before the Presbytery of Laggan by letter the desire of the Presbyterian families in the lower counties of Maryland on the eastern shore, for a minister to labor in that part of the country.

The clergy of the established church in Virginia and Maryland were not those who would appeal to earnest and pious nonconformists; Hammond in “Leah and Rachel or Two Fruitful Sisters, Virginia and Maryland” (London, 1656) used strong language in speaking of the supply of clergy from the old land, “Yet many came, such as wore Black coats, and could babble in a Pulpit, roar in a Tavern, exact from their Parishioners and rather by their dissoluteness destroy, than feed their Flocks;” to this may be added the testimony of Bishop Meade of Virginia (1829–1862) “Immense were the difficulties in getting a full supply of ministers of any character, and of those who came, how few were faithful and duly qualified for the station.”

It is a well established fact that some who were discarded from the English Church obtained livings in Virginia, there was not only defective preaching but most evil living among them. One of them was for years president of a Jockey Club and another fought a duel in sight of the very church in which he had performed the solemn offices of religion.

Governor Berkeley’s testimony in the matter has been frequently quoted, “As to religious teaching—we have forty-eight parishes and our ministers are well paid and by my consent should be better if they would pray oftener and preach less, but as of all other commodities, so of this, the worst are sent to us, and we have few that we could boast of since the persecution in Cromwell’s tyranny drove divers worthy men hither.”

Again, according to Meade, “It is not wonderful that disaffection should take place and dissent begin.” It was under these conditions and after Lord Howard of Effingham succeeded Culpepper in Virginia, having received royal instructions “to allow no person to use a printing press, on any occasion whatsoever,” that there came into Virginia the man whose influence in the cause of religious liberty in the colonies must be reckoned as second to that of but few others—this was Francis Makemie, the Irish founder of organized Presbyterianism in America. He came by the way of the Barbadoes and settled at Rehoboth by the river and founded the Presbyterian Church at Snow Hill, Maryland, 1683. He was earnest, fearless and indefatigable in his labors for the spiritual uplift of the people with whom his lot was cast, and it is worth noting that in those days of the intolerance of the established church, that the Presbyterian denomination began its existence in a colony founded by a Roman Catholic nobleman, Lord Baltimore. Having raised the blue banner in Maryland, he traveled by land as far as Norfolk and proceeded to Carolina, where it seems he labored among the people until the spring of the following year, as he was in North Carolina in May.

In a letter to Increase Mather, written July 22d, 1684, from Elizabeth River, Virginia, he speaks of a voyage engaged to South Carolina, but he met with contrary winds and was driven as far north as Delaware Bay and eventually had to put into Virginia, where he was persuaded by Colonel Anthony Lawson and other inhabitants of the Parish of Linhaven in lower Norfolk County to stay that season. Their pastor, formerly from Ireland, died the August before and left them without a leader.

Makemie seems to have remained at Elizabeth River for a considerable time. He writes again from there to Increase Mather, Boston, N. England, under date of July 28, 1685, in which he acknowledges the receipt of a letter and three books and refers to a Mr. Thomas Barret, a minister living in South Carolina and from whom he had received a letter from Ashley River, stating that he was about to take shipping for New England and for whom Makemie enclosed a letter. Just how long after this he remained with this people is not known, only that in the following year he made an extended preaching tour southward to Carolina, ministering to the spiritual necessaries of the people in neglected communities and performing the other duties devolving upon a true minister of the Gospel. It was no easy task that confronted him, while nearly three fourths of the population were dissenters from the established church.

“It is safe to say,” says Cobbs, “that no small proportion of the people were without any definite religion.” This was especially true of North Carolina.

As late as 1729 Colonel William Byrd wrote of Edenton, then capital of North Carolina: “I believe this is the only metropolis in the Christian or Mohammedan world where there is neither church, chapel, mosque, synagogue, or any other place of worship of any sect or religion whatever.

“They pay no tribute either to God or to Cæsar.”

With a knowledge of such conditions before him he put himself forward in 1686, with that fearlessness characteristic of his race, to preach the Gospel to the regions beyond.

How long he labored here is impossible to tell, but he returned and took up his residence on the eastern shore at Matchatauk, Virginia. His name appeared for the first time on the court records of Accomac County, Virginia, in 1690, and John Galbraith’s will, made August 12th, 1691, refers to Makemie as Minister of the Gospel at Rehoboth town. In that year he made a visit to England and returned either that autumn or the following spring, after an earnest endeavor to inspire interest in the religious life of the new colony. It was during the year 1692 that Makemie visited Philadelphia and planted the seed of Presbyterianism by preaching the first sermon in the Barbadoes store, northwest corner of Second and Chestnut streets, after which, in the autumn of this year, he sailed for the Barbadoes, where he remained several years, combining the life of a minister and a merchant, as shown by letters dated December 28th, 1696; January 17th, 1697, and, February 12th, 1697, which are still preserved.

It was either during the year 1697 or the early part of the succeeding, 1698, that he returned to his old home on the eastern shore and married Naomi Anderson, according to Dr. Hill’s “Rise of American Presbyterianism.”

In a will signed by William Anderson, July 23d, 1698, and recorded October 10th, he refers to Mr. Francis Makemie and Naomi, his wife, my eldest daughter. Again, the will says, “If my daughter Naomi have no issue,” showing that no children were born at that time.

In Virginia he suffered much annoyance from the authorities, but was the first dissenting minister to obtain a certificate under the toleration act, 1689, of William and Mary, having previously a certificate of his qualifications at Barbadoes, yet it was not until ten years later, 1699, that the Virginia legislature grudgingly granted this with licenses for two houses in Accomac, as places of dissenting worship, to which another was added in 1704.

How much he did for the cause he espoused through the years following cannot be computed, as he went in and out among the people, many of them Presbyterians from Scotland and Ireland, bringing the faith of their fathers with them, but in this new colony, in an environment opposed to religious feeling, they drifted into many sins and habits that fared well to spoil their early impressions of piety.

It is worthy of note that all this time he supported himself by business pursuits; realizing the responsibility of the growing work, he executed a power of attorney to his wife May 30th, 1704, reciting that he was about to depart for Europe, which he did, arriving in London that summer, he then appealed to the nonconformists ministers for men and funds to sustain them. The London ministers responded by agreeing to furnish support for two missionaries, for two years, and Makemie at once secured two young men, John Hampton, a fellow countryman, and George McNish, a Scotchman (?).

It was while he sojourned in London that he published his “Plain and Friendly Persuasive to the Inhabitants of Virginia and Maryland for promoting Towns and Cohabitations, by a well wisher to both Governments,” returning in 1705 with the foregoing young men. We find that there were five church edifices and as many organized Presbyterian congregations in Somerset County as a result of his previous labor.

In 1706 he had the new church building at Rehoboth erected on his own land. Indeed this was an eventful year for the Presbyterian Church, as on March 22d the first Classical Assembly organized under the name “Presbytery,” presumably in the building of the First Presbyterian Church erected 1705 at Market and Banks Streets, Philadelphia.

Makemie seems to have been elected the first Moderator, as his name is the first to appear on the oldest records extant. This body was composed of three pastors and four missionaries, and was a happy union of men from different parts of the British possessions—Makemie and Hampton from Ireland, McNish from Scotland (?), Andrews, Wilson, Taylor and Davis from New England. A marked absentee was Josias Makie, the Irish pastor at Elizabeth River.

It claimed no authority, but it was a broad, generous, tolerant spirit which effected this union, and it seems to have taken the Presbytery of Dublin as a model. The record of this first meeting is lost, but, according to Briggs, “American Presbyterianism,” after the adjournment of the Presbytery in October, Francis Makemie took John Hampton with him and set out on a journey to Boston, on arrival in New York he was invited by the Dutch minister, Rev. Gualtherus du Bois to preach in the Reformed Church, but Lord Cornbury forbade the service. The preacher, not insisting on the use of the church, held service and preached in the house of William Jackson “with open doors.”

HONORABLE EDWARD E. McCALL.

Justice of the Supreme Court of New York.

A Life Member of the Society.
]

Hampton preaching also on the same Sunday, January 20th, 1707, at Newtown, L. I. So bold a defiance aroused the wrath of the Governor, who, on the 24th of the month issued a warrant for the arrest of both men, “who have taken upon them to preach in a private house without having obtained any license for so doing, as they have gone into Long Island with intent there to spread their pernicious doctrines and principles to the disturbance of the church by law, established and of the government of this province.” The warrant was executed and the culprits were brought for examination before the Governor when Makemie defended his liberty on the toleration act of England—this act Cornbury declared to be without any force in his government, and required the prisoners to give bonds for good behaviour and to promise not to preach in New York or New Jersey. Makemie was willing to give bonds, but refused the promise, and both men were put in jail, where they remained six weeks and four days, during the absence of Chief Justice Momperson. On the return of the Judge they were brought before him on a writ of “habeas corpus.” Hampton was discharged without trial as a “man of less interest,” while Makemie was liberated under bonds to appear for trial at the next session of the court, the Grand Jury having found a true bill against him, “that he did take upon himself to preach in a conventicle and meeting not permitted or allowed by law, under color or excuse of religion in other manner than according to our Liturgy and practice of the Church of England.”

On his release he immediately returned to Philadelphia with Hampton for the meeting of Presbytery March 22d, 1707. From thence he writes to Benjamin Colman of Boston: “Since our imprisonment we have commenced a correspondence with our Reverend Breth of the ministry at Boston, which we hope according to our intention has been communicated to you all, whose sympathizing concurrence I cannot doubt of, in an expensive struggle for asserting our liberty against the powerful invasion of Lord Cornbury, which is not yet over.

“I need not tell you of a picked jury and the penal laws are invading our American sanctuary without the least regard to the toleration, which should justly alarm us all.”

At the trial, in the following June, the prosecution relied on the royal instruction to Cornbury, rather than on the ministry act, as though conscious that said act, while establishing a church, yet inflicted no penalties for non-conformity.

Makemie defended himself, producing licenses from the Governors of Virginia and Maryland, contending that there was nothing in the English common or statute law to hold him, and nothing in the laws of New York against the liberty he had exercised.

As to the Governor’s ecclesiastical authority, he argued that it could not exist without the due promulgation of law.

The plea of Makemie was so forceful that a jury “Packed to convict” was won over to his cause and unanimously acquitted him. The court, however, would not release him until he had paid all the costs, which, together with his expenses, amounted to £83, as sufficiently heavy burden, for which he must yet have had great compensation in the consciousness that he had fought a great fight and won a great victory in the cause of human liberty. Never again did a New York Governor attempt to silence any orderly preaching of the Gospel.

To Cornbury the issue of the case brought a bitter mortification, and he seems to have been seriously alarmed for the consequence to himself from the reports of the trial made by Mr. Makemie and his friends in England and the Colonies.

Writing to the lords of trade in October, 1707, he denied that Makemie had applied to him for a license, and said: “I entreat your Lordship’s protection against that malicious man, who is well known in Virginia and Maryland to be a disturber of the peace and quiet of all places he comes into; he is a Doctor of Physic, a Merchant, and attorney or counsellor at law, and, which is worse of all, a disturber of governments.”

It does not appear that Makemie ever took any action against Cornbury, nor was it needed to the damage of his Lordship’s reputation, which his course had so deeply stained.

The trial being over, Makemie seems to have continued on his journey to New England, as he addressed a letter to Lord Cornbury from Boston in July, 1707, and, according to a bequest in his will made soon after, “Mr. Jedediah Andrews, Minister at Philadelphia, is given my new cane, bought and fixed in Boston.” This will was signed April 27th, 1708, in which he refers to his wife and two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne Makemie.

Some time between this and August 4th, when the will was ordered to be recorded, Makemie died, with a solemn declaration of attachment to his mother church and so ended the career, at the age of fifty, of one of the greatest men who ever came to our shores in the interest of the protestant religion and it is safe to say had he lived in the times of the Revolution, he would have been one of the many of his fellow countrymen who went forth to fight for the flag of this new nation and raised their voices in behalf of human liberty.

JAMES L. O’NEILL, ESQ.,

Of Elizabeth, N. J.

Member of the Executive Council.
]

May 14th, 1908, a handsome monument was dedicated to his memory on the banks of Holden’s Creek, Accomac County, Virginia.

HOLLIDAYSBURG—THE HOLLIDAY FAMILY—DEATH OF LIEUTENANT HOLLIDAY AT THE
BATTLE OF BRANDYWINE—MASSACRE OF A PORTION OF WILLIAM HOLLIDAY’S
FAMILY—JOHN HOLLIDAY, AUGHWICK—GEORGE CROGAN.

BY JAMES L. O’NEILL, ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY, MEMBER OF THE EXECUTIVE
COUNCIL.

William and Adam Holliday, cousins, emigrated from the north of Ireland about 1750, and settled in the neighborhood of the Manor, in Lancaster County, Penn. The feuds which existed between the Irish and German emigrants, as well as the unceasing efforts of the proprietary agents to keep emigrants from settling upon their lands, induced the Hollidays to seek a location farther west. Conococheague suggested itself to them as a suitable place, because it was so far removed from Philadelphia that the proprietors could not well dispossess them; and, the line never having been established, it was altogether uncertain whether the settlement was in Pennsylvania or Maryland. Besides, it possessed the advantage of being tolerably well populated. Accordingly, they settled on the banks of the Conococheague and cleared land, which they purchased and paid for soon after the survey.

During both the French and Indian wars of 1755–56 and the war of 1762–63 the Hollidays were in active service. At the destruction of Kittaning, William Holliday was a lieutenant in Colonel Armstrong’s company, and fought with great bravery in that conflict with the savages. The Hollidays were emphatically frontiermen; and on the restoration of peace in 1768, probably under the impression that the Conococheague Valley was becoming too thickly populated, they disposed of their land, placed their families and effects upon pack-horses, and again turned their faces toward the west. They passed through Aughwick, but found no unappropriated lands there worthy of their attention. Thence they proceeded to the Standing Stone, but nothing offered there; nor even at Frankstown could they find any inducement to stop; so they concluded to cross the mountain by the Kittaning Path and settle on the Alleghany at or near Kittaning.

William knew the road, and had noticed fine lands in that direction. However, when they reached the place where Hollidaysburg now stands, and were just on the point of descending the hill toward the river, Adam halted, and declared his intention to pitch his tent and travel no farther. He argued with his cousin that the Indian titles west of the mountains were not extinguished; and if they bought from the Indians they would be forced, on the extinguishment of their titles, to purchase a second time, or lose their lands and live in constant dread of the savages. Although William had a covetous eye on the fine lands of the Alleghany, the wise counsel of Adam prevailed, and they dismounted and prepared to build a temporary shelter. When Adam drove the first stake into the ground he casually remarked to William, “Whoever is alive a hundred years after this will see a tolerable-sized town here, and this will be near about the middle of it.” This prediction had been verified to the letter long before the expiration of the allotted time.

In a day or two after a shelter had been erected for the families, William crossed the river to where Gaysport now stands, for the purpose of locating. The land, however, was too swampy, and he returned. Next day he crossed again, and found a ravine, south of where he had been prospecting, which appeared to possess the desired qualifications; and there he staked out a farm—the one now owned by Mr. J. R. Crawford. Through this farm the old Frankstown and Johnstown Road ran for many years—the third road constructed in Pennsylvania crossing the Alleghany Mountains.

These lands belonged to the new purchase, and were in the market at a very low price, in order to encourage settlers on the frontier. Accordingly, Adam Holliday took out a warrant for 1,000 acres, comprising all the land upon which Hollidaysburg now stands. (Hollidaysburg, named after Adam and William Hollidays, is now the county seat of Blair County.) The lower or southern part was too marshy to work; so Mr. Holliday erected his cabin near where the American House now stands, and made a clearing on the high ground stretching toward the east. In the meantime, William Holliday purchased of Mr. Peters 1,000 acres of land, which embraced the present Crawford and Jackson farms and a greater part of Gaysport. Some years after, finding that he had more land than he could conveniently cultivate, he disposed of nearly one half of his original purchase to his son-in-law, James Somerville. Adam Holliday, too, having a large lot of land, disposed of a portion of it to Lazarus Lowry. Thus matters progressed smoothly for a time, until, unfortunately, a Scotchman, named Henry Gordon, in search of lands, happened to see and admire his farm. Gordon was a keen, shrewd fellow, and, in overlooking the records of the land office, discovered a flaw or informality in Adam’s grant. He immediately took advantage of his discovery, and took out a patent for the land. Litigation followed as a matter of course. Gordon possessed considerable legal acumen, and had withal money and a determined spirit. The case was tried in the courts below and the courts above—decided sometimes in favor of one party and sometimes in favor of the other, but eventually resulted in Gordon wresting from Adam Holliday and Lazarus Lowry all their land. This unfortunate circumstance deeply affected Mr. Holliday, for he had been grossly wronged by the adroitness and cunning of Gordon; but relief came to him when he least expected it. When the war broke out, Gordon was among the very first to sail for Europe; and soon after the Council proclaimed him an attainted traitor, and his property was confiscated and brought under the hammer. The circumstances under which he had wrested the property from Holliday were known, so that no person would bid, which enabled him to regain his land at a mere nominal price. He then went on and improved, and built a house on the bank of the river, near where the bridge connects the boroughs of Hollidaysburg and Gaysport.

During the alarms and troubles which followed in the course of the war Adam Holliday took a conspicuous part in defending the frontier. He aided, first, in erecting Fetter’s Fort, and afterwards expended his means in turning Titus’s stable into a fort. This fort was located on a flat, nearly opposite the second lock below Hollidaysburg, and the two served as a place of refuge for all the settlers of what was then merely called the Upper End of Frankstown District. He, also, with his own money purchased provisions, and through his exertions arms and ammunition were brought from the eastern counties. His courage and energy inspired the settlers to make a stand at a time when they were on the very point of flying to Cumberland County. In December, 1777, Mr. Holliday visited Philadelphia for the purpose of securing a part of the funds appropriated to the defence of the frontier. The following letter to President Wharton was given to him by Colonel John Piper, of Bedford County:

“Bedford County, December 19, 1777.

“Sir: Permit me, sir, to recommend to you, for counsel and direction,
the bearer, Mr. Holliday, an inhabitant of Frankstown, one of the
frontier settlements of our county, who has, at his own risk, been
extremely active in assembling the people of that settlement together
and in purchasing provisions to serve the militia who came to their
assistance. As there was no person appointed either to purchase
provisions or to serve them out, necessity obliged the bearer, with
the assistance of some neighbors, to purchase a considerable quantity
of provisions for that purpose, by which the inhabitants have been
enabled to make a stand. His request is that he may be supplied with
cash not only to discharge the debts already contracted, but likewise
to enable him to lay up a store for future demand. I beg leave, sir,
to refer to the bearer for further information, in hopes you will
provide for their further support. Their situation requires immediate
assistance.

“I am, sir, with all due respect, your Excellency’s most obedient
humble servant,

“JOHN PIPER.”

Mr. Holliday’s mission was successful; and he returned with means to recruit the fort with provisions and ammunition, and continued to be an active and energetic frontier-man during all the Indian troubles which followed. Notwithstanding the distracted state of society during the Revolution, William Holliday devoted much time and attention to his farm. His family, consisting of his wife, his sons, John, William, Patrick, Adam, and his daughter Janet, were quartered at Holliday’s Fort; and it was only when absolute necessity demanded it that they ventured to the farm to attend to the crops, after the savage marauders so boldly entered the settlements.

James, who we believe was next to the eldest of William Holliday’s children, joined the Continental army soon after the war broke out. He is represented as having been a noble-looking fellow, filled with enthusiasm, who sought for, and obtained without much difficulty, a lieutenant’s commission. He was engaged in several battles, and conducted himself in such a manner as to merit the approbation of his senior officers; but he fell gloriously at Brandywine, while the battle was waging, pierced through the heart by a musket ball. He was shot by a Hessian, who was under cover, and who had, from the same place, already dispatched a number of persons. But this was his last shot, for a young Virginian, who stood by the side of Holliday when he fell, rushed upon the Hessian, braving all danger, and hewed him to pieces with his sword before any defence could be made. The death of young Holliday was deeply lamented by his companions-in-arms, for he was brave and generous, and had not a single enemy in the line. His friends, after the battle, buried him near the spot where he fell; and it is doubtful whether even now a hillock of greensward remains to his memory.

About the beginning of the year 1779, the Indians along the frontier, emboldened by numerous successful depredations, came into Bedford County—within the boundaries of which Holliday’s Fort then was—in such formidable bands that many of the inhabitants fled to the eastern counties. The Hollidays, however, and some few others, tarried, in the hope that the Executive Council would render them aid. The following petition, drawn up on the 29th of May, 1779, and signed by William Holliday and others, will give the reader some idea of the distress suffered by the pioneers:

“To the Honorable President and Council:

“The Indians being now in the county, the frontier inhabitants being
generally fled, leaves the few that remains in such a distressed
condition that pen can hardily describe, nor your honors can only have
a faint idea of; nor can it be conceived properly by any such as are
the subjects thereof; but while we suffer in the part of the county
that is most frontier, the inhabitants of the interior part of this
county live at ease and safety.

“And we humbly conceive that by some immediate instruction from
Council, to call them that are less exposed to our relief, we shall be
able, under God, to repulse our enemies, and put it in the power of
the distressed inhabitants to reap the fruits of their industry.
Therefore, we humbly pray you would grant us such relief in the
premises as you in your wisdom see meet. And your petitioners shall
pray, etc.

“N. B.—There is a quantity of lead at the mines (Sinking Valley) in
this county Council may procure for the use of said county, which save
carriage, and supply our wants with article, which we cannot exist
without at this place; and our flints are altogether expended.
Therefore, we beg Council would furnish us with those necessaries as
they in their wisdom see cause.

“P. S.—Please to supply us with powder to answer lead.

(Signed) “WILLIAM HOLLIDAY, _P. M._
THOMAS COULTER, _Sheriff_.
RICHARD J. DELAPT, _Captain_.
SAM. DAVIDSON.”

The prayer of these petitioners was not speedily answered, and Holliday’s Fort was evacuated soon after. The Council undoubtedly did all in its power to give the frontiers support; but the tardy movements of the militia gave the savages confidence, and drove the few settlers that remained almost to despair. Eventually relief came, but not sufficient to prevent Indian depredations. At length, when these depredations and the delays of the Council in furnishing sufficient force to repel these savage invasions had brought matters to such a crisis that forbearance ceased to be a virtue, the people of the neighborhood moved their families to Fort Roberdeau, in Sinking Valley, and Fetter’s Fort, and formed themselves into scouting parties, and by these means protected the frontier and enabled the settlers to gather in their crops in 1780; still, notwithstanding their vigilance, small bands of scalp-hunters occasionally invaded the county, and, when no scalps were to be found, compromised by stealing horses, or by laying waste whatever fell in their way.