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Throughout
the 17th and most of the 18th centuries, both the physical and moral
welfare of the people were the responsiblity of the local praish.
The churchwardens were empowered by the government to find a living
for persons lacking in means of support, and to oversee the behavior
of all those in the parish.
The means of
regulating behavior resulting in funds for supporting the needy.
Fines of tobacco were regularl imposed for lewd behavior, bastardy,
etc. These fines were then used to pay for clothing and other necessaries
for the poor. For example, in 1693, one Elizabeth Paine of York
Parish was ordered by the churchwardens to levae the plantation
where she had been living, because she was a woman of "blown
reputation". She appealed to the ocunty court for permission
to stay on the land where she ahd a crop planted for the suppport
of her children. The court awarded her freedom to stay on the plantation
until the tobacco crop had been cut, and ordered "all persons
disposed to interfere with her...to refrain from doing so"
under penalty of a heavy fine.
[Institutional History of Virginia in the 17th Century,
P.A. Bruce, 1910]
Following the
Revolutionary War, this situation changed. The state of Virginia
divested the churches of the authority to impose fines, and required
that church assets, provided in the past by public monies, revert
to the public good. They were ordered to sell silver plate, bells,
and finally, after 1800, glebe lands to provide a county budget
for welfare. In light of this, it is remarkable that the bell and
silver plate survived at York-Hampton Parish. It is possible that
the bell remained because it was in fact a county bell at the time.
Yorktown escaped
most ill effects of the Revolution until the very end, when it was
occupied by Lord Cornwallis and the British allies and beseiged
by General Washington and his allies. York-Hampton Parish chruch
was used by the British as a powder magazine, and "the pews
and windows of the Church all broke & destroyed"; a claim
for damages of £150 was made after the war.
[York County records, "Claims for Losses of York County
Citizens in British Invasion of 1781"]
The devastation to the church building and to the lives of parishioners
was the beginning of a protracted period of decline which did not
begin to reverse itself for more than 150 years. Details of the
formation of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America
can be found elsewhere;
for our purposes, it is encough to say that in Yorktown, as in many
other locales, a few faithful parishioners struggled to keep the
order and forms of Anglican worship in the face of prejudice that
attached to oppressive establishment.
| In the
fifty years after the Revolution the Episcopal Church in Virginia
was forced to go through a bitter experience of prostration
and sequestration of property, during which the great majority
of its parishes were disorganized and the churches abandoned.
Within this period many churches were destroyed and almost all
of these still standing were left to decay and desecration.
Only gradually was the Church able to regain and restore to
use those that remained. Almost every one of them shows some
evidence of this unhappy period.
[The Colonial Church in Virginia, G. Maclaren
Brydon and Mary Goodwin, 1968] |
Bishop William
Meade, writing in the mid-nineteenth century, attributed to the
Nelson family the continuation of the congregation at York-Hampton
Parish [Old
Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, 1857].
In 1785, the Rev. Robert Andrews left the parish and gave up the
ministry to work at a profession that would better support his family.
In June of that year, 45 men and women of the parish organized themselves
to raise money for the support of a new rector, the Rev. Samuel
Sheild. The first bishop of Virginia, James Madison, visited York-Hampton
for confirmation soon after his consecration in London in 1790.
Meade describes how Hugh Nelson prepared the confirmands in the
parlor of Nelson House before they went to the church. This is the
first recorded confirmation service at York-Hampton, and possibly
in Virginia.
Despite the
efforts of lay leaders like Hugh Nelson, the parish continued to
struggle, beset by the successive losses caused by the continuing
antagonism between the new government and the new church. By 1804,
the church had lost its glebe lands by order of the General Assembly.
In 1814, another
disaster struck. An article from the Richmond Enquirer, dated
March 9, 1814, tells the sad tale:
| York,
March 4 — Yesterday about 3:00 P.M. Mrs. Gibbons' house
in this place took fire and together with the county Court-house,
the Church, the spacious dwelling of the late President Nelson,
and the whole of the town below the hill, except Charlton's
and Grant's houses, were consumed. The lower town was occupied
principally by poor people, who are now thrown upon the world
without a shelter or a cent to aid them in procuring one....The
wind was high and the boulding were old — the fire spread,
of course, like a train of powder. |
TimeLine
of Significant Events
- 1775 - Battle
of Lexington and Concord begins War for Independence
- 1777 - Oath
of Allegiance - those who refused to take the oath in support
of the patriot's cause were forced to leave the area
- 1779 - Virginia
capital moves to Richmond
- 1781 - Cornwallis
surrenders to Washington at Yorktown
- 1782 - On
the Peninsula, 78% of householders own slaves; median number is
six per household
- 1784 - First
Virginia clergy convention to revise Anglican church laws
- 1786 - The
Rev. Samuel Seabury consecrated in Scotland, becomes first Episcopal
bishop in America
- 1800 - United
States capital moved to Washington, D.C.
- 1802 - Disestablishment
Act - churches lose glebe lands
- 1812 - War
of 1812 begins
- 1814 - Fire
along the Yorktown waterfront spreads to the top of the bluff
and burns the church
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