Robert Latham Article
Early ARP Church
From: Elizabeth Kell, Mt. Vernon, Ill,, 1964
Source: Associate Reformed
Presbyterian, Due West, S. Car., Sept. 13, 1888
Vol. XXXV, No. 37, p. 1, Col. 1.
CORRESPONDENCE
An Excursion
Number IV
Messrs, Editors: In my last I mentioned Paul's Grave Yard. This is an old burying ground about six miles south of Richburg and about two miles north of the place where the dusts of Rev. William Martin rests. It is only a short distance from a Methodist Church by the name of Mount Prospect. Why it was given the name of Paul's Grave Yard I am not certain. Most probably because a family bearing the name Paul first began to bury their dead out of their sight at that place. The name Covenanter Grave Yard would be very appropriate, because the dust of more Covenanters sleeps in it than in any one spot in the Southern country. The Pauls were Covenanters. The original Paul settlement in Ireland was in County Antrim. Rev. Dr. Paul's refutation of Arianism [sic] is, perhaps, the best production on that subject in the English Language. He preached near Larne. So far as I know there is not today a single individual in Chester who bears the name Paul. John Glenn and his wife Margaret were members of Hopewell in Chester County and both are buried in Hopewell Graveyard. It is very probable that the first individuals interred in Paul's Graveyard are without tombstones. The stone erected to the memory of Henry rock records the fact that he died July 15, 1785. This is the oldest date that I discovered, but there may be some older, as I did not have time to examine all.
Another stone, which marks the grave of Mary Wilson, records the fact that she died on the 13th of November, 1788. In this old Graveyard the first Lynns who settled in Chester County are buried. On the tombstone of John Lynn, at whose house Rev. Matthew Lynn preached in 1787, it is stated that he died September the 2nd, 1820, aged eighty-five years. It is further stated that "He emigrated from Ireland, 1771 and sustained a share in the Revolutionary War for Freedom." His wife, Jeanette, died, according to the record on the marble slab which marks her grave, on 7th of September, 1815, aged sixty-six years and six months. When John Lynn came to America he was about thirty-six years old, and his wife, Jennette, about twenty-one. It has always been stated that John Lynn came with Rev. William Martin to America. The record on his tombstone does not conflict with this. The probability is that the emigrants left Ireland in 1771 and landed in American in 1772. John Kell, the ancestor of the Kells, one of whom lives near the Catholic Church, in Chester County, and near Sharon [?] Church in York County, one, Dr. Samuel Kell, in Fort Hill [or Mill], and Dr. Thomas Kell in, I think Union County, North Carolina, is buried in Paul's Grave Yard. John Kell, it is stated on his tombstone which marks his grave that, the "he sustained a share in the troubles of the Revolutionary War. As a professor of religion, he united himself to the Reformed Presbyterian Church. He maintained his standing with firmness." A number of the descendants of John Kell went, about the beginning of this century, to the Northwest. One of the sons of John Kell was a minister of the Gospel in the Covenanter Church. At one time when the subject of church music was warmly discussed among the Covenanters some one asked Mr. Kell what sort of tunes he would sing. "Anything," he replied, "from ‘Hail Columbia' to ‘Fire on the Mountain Boys.'"
I was struck with the great age to which many of those who were buried in Paul's Grave Yard attained. George Weir who died June 3, 1806 was ninety-two years old, and his wife, Mary, who died June the 8th, 1814, was ninety-four years old. John Kell was eighty-three years old. Henry Rock, who died in 1785[1788?], was sixty-five years old, and John Rock, who died in 1796, was eighty-four years old.
Then, as now, many persons, and the staid old Covenanters as well as other people, wee fond of what I will for want of a better name call tombstone poetry. From the slab which marks the resting place of John Bell and his grandson, John Guthrie, the following is copied:
"When you our friends are
passing by
And this informs you where we lie
Remember you ere long must have
Like us a mansion in the grave."
On the tombstone of M. Jane Kell, wife of John Kell, is the following:
"Her race was long,
Her rest is sweet,
Her bow divine,
Her joy complete."
M. Jane Kell died on the 28th of June, 1817, aged seventy-nine years. Many of the names which appear on the headstones in Paul's graveyard have long since ceased to exist in the neighborhood. This is a very remarkable fact and is true of nearly every community in our country. Some names apparently become extinct while others seem greatly to multiply. The number of individuals bearing the name Weir must have been, at one time, very great when we consider the sparse population of the country. Now, as far as I know, the name is extinct on Rocky Creek. George Weir owned a large body of good land which he portioned out among his children, but his descendants who bore his name have all either died or emigrated to other regions. There are some of his descendants still on Rocky Creek, but they do not bear that name Weir. The following incident in the life of David Weir, who was born in 1780, will serve to give us some knowledge of the times, and especially of the spirit of the Covenanters. When it was determined to build Mount Prospect Church, the members of the Methodist Church in the community were anxious to secure a site for the church and a plat of land sufficiently large for encampment. The most desirable place for the church was at the fork of the road north of the present site of Mount Prospect Church. The land belonged to David Weir. A committee of gentlemen was appointed to negotiate with Mr. Weir for the land. To this committee Mr. Weir is reported to have replied in the following words or words of similar import. "Forty years ago I helped my father drive the howling wolves out of the country and I'm not going to assist in bringing them back." This determined the present site of Mount Prospect campground. Those were the days of camp meetings in the Methodist Church, and the mode of conducting those meetings was generally regarded with decide disapprobation by both the Covenanters and the first Associate Reformed people. It was not the preaching of the Gospel for a number of days consecutively that they opposed, but the shouting.
The region of Chester County—in which Paul's Graveyard and the grave of Rev. William Martin—is well adapted to agriculture and is settled by an industrious and religious people. In it, at one time, nearly all the inhabitants were Covenanters. Six Covenanter ministers (viz. William Martin, William King, James McGarrah, Thomas Donnelly, John Reily, and Campbell Madden) were settled at various times in this region of Country. The Covenanters all left the country early in the present century on account of the institution of slavery. Slavery was introduced to a very limed extent, into the Scotch-Irish settlements of upper-Carolina before the Revolutionary War. The Scotch-Irish generally regarded the institution with disfavor, but after the Revolutionary War, the number of slaves gradually increased and the Covenanters as well as the other Scotch-Irish, became to a limited extent, slave owners. In 1800, the Reformed Presbytery enacted without a dissenting voice that "No slave-holder should be allowed the communion of the church." Revs. Samuel B. Wylie and James McKinney were sent to South Carolina to enforce this enactment, or excommunicate all from the pale of the Reformed Presbyterian Church who refused to emancipate their slaves. It was said that in obedience to this enactment of the Presbytery there was in one day, fifteen thousand dollars worth of Negro slaves set free on Rocky Creek. The majority those who liberated their slaves migrated soon afterwards to the northwestern section of the United States, and there built up the Reformed Presbyterian Church. Some of the Covenanters, however, did not accede to the wishes of the Presbytery. A few of these in after years, sold their slaves, they bought land, built houses, educated their children erected churches and constructed underground railroads by means of which to convey slaves from the south to the free north. It can accomplish nothing good to give the names of these persons. It would only mortify the feelings of their innocent offspring and possibly get me into a difficulty, to get out of which I would be forced to prove some things which would be injurious to a common Christianity. It should be remembered that sometimes the most blatant reformers, both in church and state, have not the best record. So far, however as I know, the first effort that was made in America by any ecclesiastical court to emancipate the slaves, was made by the Reformed Presbyterian Presbytery, and I may add that, in the main that body has always been consistent with its own enactments on slavery.
So far as I know, there is not a single one of the original Rocky Creek Covenanters in South Carolina. There are a few individuals in several sections of the state who are in sentiment covenanters. The last Covenanter on Rocky Creek so far as I now remember, was Mr. Hugh Henry, the grandfather of Rev. H. McMaster Henry, of Oak Hill, Alabama. Hugh Henry was a man of sterling integrity. It may be interesting for some persons to know the particular region to which to which the Covenanters of Rocky Creek emigrated. Some of the Paul's, in honor of whom Paul's Graveyard is named, went about 1807 to Lincoln County, Tennessee. They were accompanied by the Mortons, the Murdocks, the Edgers, the Littles the Wyatts, the Carothers and other families which I do not now remember. These organized a church with about 20 members on Elk River. This church was Elk. The members left on account of slavery and formed another settlement in Indiana. There was another covenanter settlement formed by Rocky Creek covenanter about he same time or a few years later in a region of country near Nashville, Tennessee. This, I think, was known as the Duck River Society. William Edgar who was a member and also an elder of what was called widow Edgar's or more frequently widow Agur's Meeting House on Rocky Creek was an elder in this Duck River Society. This Duck River Society, when slavery began to increase in the community, emigrated to Indiana and Illinois. Several families of covenanters from Rocky Creek formed a settlement on the Holston River in East Tennessee. The only member of this colony whose name is remembered is that of Archibald. This society settled either in or near Rogersville. All, or nearly all the members of the covenanter societies in Tennessee went to free states. The Elk River Society still has an existence, or at least it was still in existence a few years ago.
My recollection is that the commissioners, Wylie and McKinney met at widow Edgar's near the last of January, 1801. Their sessions were protracted through several days. Besides purging the church of Slavery, they continued the suspension of Rev. James McGarrah and deposed Rev. William Martin. Mr. Martin was nearly seventy-two years old and had been preaching the Gospel for more than forty-five years. Rev. James McKinney, one of the members of this commission, was not born for more than three years after Mr. Martin was licensed to preach the Gospel, and Rev. Samuel B. Wylie, the other member, had been licensed to preach less than one year and a half and had been ordained to the full work of the ministry less than eight months: The act was at the time regarded by many as a piece of high-handed ecclesiastical tyranny perpetuated by two boys. There is such a thing as doing the right thing in a wrong way, and by the wrong persons. I have no censure to pass upon any one. All those who were present at the widow Edgar's when Rev. Martin was deposed have passed away. The only elders present on the occasion were John Kell and David Stormont.
The names of the covenanter families on Rocky Creek were, so far as is recollected, besides those uniting with the Associate Reformed Church, Erwin, Hemphill, Todd, Kell, Little, Ewin, McHenry, Henry, McFadden, Simpson, Harbison, Black, McNinch, Orr, Rock, Cunningham, Cooper, Sproul Boyd, Cathcart, McDowell, McMillan, Richmond, Morton, Wilson, Wright, McDill (Covenanter John), Hemphill (brother of Rev. Dr. John) Wylie, Faris, Paul, Millen, Neil, King, Martin, Hunber, Coulter, Edgar, Young, Smith, Guthrie, Gillespie, McKelvey, Woodburne, Crawford, Monford, Dunn, Rovison, McDonald, Hood, Service, Marshall, and McQuiston. The great majority of those persons, and many others not now remembered, went to the northwestern States soon after the organization of the Church by Revs. Wylie and McKinney.
More anon. R.L.
The writer of this article is the Rev. Robert Latham, President of Due West College.
See also Sketch of the Covenanters
