MS615_Parker_William

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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
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 becomepastor 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 baptized 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 Freewill 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
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 becomepastor 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 baptized 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 Freewill 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.
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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 Rippon's Register,7~ which indicates the nature of the membership 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 reputably 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 Hertford 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.rsm~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 influencehim
to adopt the Calvinistic view.
he remained ste~dfa:'t
in his Arminianism. Their secession caused a decline m
the church. But the declension, however great, did not interfere 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
Bu:
"As early as 1748, according to Morgan Edwards, .Joseph Parker, the
first minister of the Meherrin Church, had been preachmg to the. congregation afterwards constituted as the church at Fishing Creek (Daniel's Meeting 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 loosenessin 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 doubtless "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 admitted 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~ywere 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 increase 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
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•
I 101 See also Semple, Virginia Baptists, 93f.
S a!{~~os~t!%~t:;',~any
hundreds had been baptized in th~ course
t~e year." The correspondent o~ Rippon's RegistBr gave the gures use
o!
in the text.
NAME:
Parker, William
see
PC 2
Alderman, John Thomas, 1853-1932.
Papers, 1755-1930 [broken series]
Box no.:
1
Folder no.:
22
Parker, William
NMfE:
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
(I)
William and Joseph Parker, brothers, both ::Bap•Uet preacher a ,came, from England in 1717 and settled naar Edenton.
land in 1737 as per records in Chowan County.
It la
owned
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
Edenton and HPrtford, W. C.
-~~L7
It was reorganized . in ·1806 by Mar:-titC
.-~
z,
7
....... -
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.
and the
The civil authorities and the church of England were one
eame
at this time.
atlon of I ndep endance
'
Not until 1776, the year of Beelar-
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
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 Caroline..
His son,or grandson, J0hn Parker who also Li ve d i n
Murfreesboro was married four tim s.
0
eisters,by the name Wy~;
Two of hie wives w~re
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 who died.in
j
Marlon,ALa.
in 1864.
King Parker was the fath~r of Rev. H.B.Parker,
a Baptist Minis-
t.,r, who livP.d at Como, but rflc~ntly in Aulandf?r.
was born in 18 58 at Murfreesboro.
Dr.
The latter
•
Joe,ph Parker's
Will was recorded in th~ SPcr~tary of
State's office in Raleigh, which was probatP.d in 1779.
lPft leven(7) children as le~atees;
Mary,
Cannon,
Ruth,
He
The daughters w~re
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,.
with small ebccess
They continued their op~ration
, 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.
............ '
was bull t ,
Hts sister cam= over with th=rn and settled at
and Miss ~oJourner gav~ th0 land on which c~1rch
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.
to a grP.at extent.
His work reachP.d
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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