Dinwiddie - "Countrey of Apamatica" Chapter 1

Chapter 3

IN THE FIRST DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC

During the Revolution and immediately afterwards a notorious counterfeiter by the name of Benjamin Woodward furnished the people of Dinwiddie considerable excitement and the state no little expense. He was the leader, it seems, of a band of criminals who found a way to print excellent copies of the new paper currency of Virginia and neighboring states. Woodward was arrested early in the summer of 1776 and taken to Dinwiddie, where he was to appear "before John Banister Esquire or any other magistrate of the said County and dealt with according to law." Shem Cook, Joseph Cook, Frederick Ray, and Joseph Ray, suspected of being Woodward's accomplices, were also arrested and sent to Pittsylvania County, where they claimed a right to be tried. The arch-counterfeiter and a bag of his implements were expensively delivered to the Petersburg jail. Woodward was examined by the court of Dinwiddie County and "remanded to Jail in order to takehis trial," but the clever rascal escaped and caused the county and the state more trouble and more expense. A reward of 650 was immediately offered "to any person who shall apprehend the said Woodward and deliver him to the Keeper of the Publick Jail."

COUNTERFEITING IN THE NEW COUNTRY

Later it was discovered that the counterfeiter had many accomplices in his large-scale scheme to defraud the government. In December 1778,while Benjamin Woodward was still at large, the Governor received upon oath the names of 21 men who were implicated. The less important members of the ring were rounded up in due time. Though the law required that they receive the death penalty, the lives of four were spared, according to a statement made in 1782 by William Rose, the jailor, "provided they performed three years Service each, as Common Labourer sin the public lead mines."

Yet the search for Benjamin Woodward was long continued with no results. In 1784 Virginia strengthened her law concerning the treatment of counterfeiters by imposing "death without benefit of clergy-that is, capital punishment with no chance to obtain divine forgiveness - upon makers of counterfeit money and those persons handling the money and "knowing the same to be forged." Naturally enough, Benjamin Woodward stayed in hiding. Perhaps word came to him through the grapevine that in 1790 James Arthur, having been arrested upon the charge of counterfeiting, made a confession showing Benjamin Woodward to be the brains of the criminal gang, and that James Wood, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, in the absence of the governor, issued a proclamation for Woodward's arrest and offered $150 for his "apprehension &conveyance . . . to the District jail of Petersburg." Perhaps news even came to Woodward that John and Tinsley Young had discovered more of the implements with which he printed the certificates and that through the efforts of Robert Bolling and Peterson Goodwyn the Young brothers had received a reward of seven pounds. The story of John Young's finding of the implements used by Woodward must have excited the people of Dinwiddie. The poor man, terrified lest he be accused of being in league with Woodward, appealed to Edward Pegram for help and advice. Mr. Pegram took over the implements and notified the governor - much, it seems, to the relief of John Young and his brother. The newly discovered implements and the confession of James Arthur were quite enough to convict Woodward. Arthur's statement indicated, moreover, that Benjamin Woodward, during the years he wasa fugitive from justice, had been in Virginia, plying his trade as a maker of paper certificates and coins and that through agents in Virginia and many other states he had done a profitable business. The following "gentlemen justices" were present at the examination of Arthur: James Greenway, Edward Pegram, Jr., William Watts, Raleigh Downman, Joseph Whitehead, Francis Meier, Frederick Jones, Joseph Turner, Peterson Goodwyn, Wood Tucker, Jordan Reese, and Henry Spain. According to Arthur's confession, Woodward had been operating in Petersburg, Richmond, Portsmouth, and Norfolk, using other men to "pass'' the certificates and coin of his making. He, "his negro fellow," James Arthur, and others struck off the certificates. Many of these Arthur confessed to have signed, Woodward cleverly hiding behind his confederates. Though in his travels throughout Virginia, Woodward had used the name of Jones, sometimes he would become intoxicated and callout in the streets, "Here is Ben Woodward, the money maker." Arthur's testimony showed that agents in Richmond, Norfolk, Maryland, and North Carolina had prospered. Gold dust for the coins was secreted in trunks and conveyed from place to place. Paper for the certificates had been obtained from a mill in Maryland and brought to Virginia by Jesse Woodward, Benjamin's brother.

THE CRIMINAL CAUGHT

At length, however, Benjamin Woodward was caught in Augusta, Georgia, which may be taken to prove that crime doesn't pay. On October 12, 1791 Governor Beverley Randolph sent to William Rose, the jailor, the following letter, which must have excited all the law-abiding citizens of Dinwiddie :

Sir, Mr. Longstreet with a guard, who have in custody Benjamin Woodward, who is taken up under a proclamation of the State, intend to lodge at your house this night. Their necessary expenses will be paid by the Executive. You will be good enough to provide for them the most secure room in your house, as the Culprit cannot be regularly committed to GOAL in this county.

I am, Sir,

Your Ob't Serv't.

Woodward's identity had been established at no little trouble and expense. Robert Dixon, William Nicholson, and George Poythress, who knew him well, had traveled all the way to Augusta to look him over. Though 15 years had passed since Woodward escaped from jail in Dinwiddie, the three men recognized him and testified under oath that he - was "the indentical person who was formerly a resident of Dinwiddie County, in the State of Virginia, and has long been noted for his vilany for counterfeiting the public papers of that State."

As soon as Richard Bate, the mayor of Petersburg, heard that Benjanin Woodward had been caught, he requested "any person that can give evidence either for or against the said Woodward, touching the said offence" to be ready to attend the examination. Woodward was taken from Augusta, Georgia to Charleston, South Carolina and then was brought to Richmond, where he arrived under guard on October 12, 1791. He was sent the next day to Dinwiddie in the custody of Richard Zourtney and Larkin Philips, who continued to guard the prisoner because - for some strange reason - they were obliged to take him out of the custody of Mr. Rose the other night." Broken records obscure the 2nd of Benjamin Woodward's career. It is clear, however, that he escaped a second time from Dinwiddie, for in 1795 he can be traced to Maryland, where he was arrested for horse-stealing and identified as the notorious Virginia counterfeiter, though he had adopted the good old Dinwiddie name of Peter Jones. The man was undoubtedly clever, for Edward and John Pegram - sent from Dinwiddie in 1795 to bring back the fugitive from justice-returned without him. It can only be hoped that Benjamin Woodward at last received the extreme penalty for his major crime - "death without benefit of clergy."

NEW RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN THE COUNTY

The case of Benjamin Woodward has advanced the story of Dinwiddie a bit too rapidly. While the state and the county were grappling with counterfeiters, they were also playing their parts in the growth of a nation. Among the many changes a new order imposed, none was more far-reaching than that touching upon religion. In early colonial days the Church of England was established in Virginia as it was in the Mother Country. Dissenters trickled into the colony, it is true, and were treated sometimes tolerantly and sometimes harshly. Catholics were few in Virginia - discouraged as they were by the cool reception given to George Calvert (Lord Baltimore), who came to Jamestown in 1629 intending to cast his lot with the Virginians. Though here and there were members of the Olden Faith, the only Catholic settlement in colonial Virginia was the one that centered about the Brents in what are now Stafford and Prince William Counties. If there were Catholics in colonial Dinwiddie, they practiced their religion so quietly as not to appear in the records.

Quakers reached the area as early as 1691, before either Prince George or Dinwiddie was cut from Charles City County. Later, Gravelly Run Meeting, near present Dinwiddie, was the center of the Society of Friends in Dinwiddie and surrounding counties. George Fox had established the society in England in 1647. The Quaker strong hold in America was, of course, Pennsylvania. Fox's visit to the colonies in 1672 gained many converts and resulted in widespread establishment of the society. Of all the non-conformists in Virginia, the Quakers received the worst treatment - undoubtedly because they fought the institution of slavery and refused to bear arms. The Quakers of Dinwiddie, like all others in the colonies, protested against the requirement that they serve in the militia.

BAPTISTS AGITATE

Yet, the Baptists in Dinwiddie, as elsewhere throughout Virginia, were far more troublesome to the Established Church than were the Quakers, for they consistently fought for the separation of church and state and continued to preach without license. Though individuals had probably held Baptist views for many centuries, the modern Baptist Church had its origin in 1600 under the leadership of one John Smith not the hero of the Jamestown colony, however. In America Roger Williams was the great Baptist -pioneer: Banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, he took his followers to Rhode Island, where he established the first community in the world to practice religious toleration. Baptists began to appear in Virginia as early as 1714, but a Baptist church was not founded in Dinwiddie until 1773 - and then in the southern part of the county near the Brunswick line. The Reverend Jeremiah Walker was the organizer and first pastor. For many years before the establishment of the church he, Samuel Harriss, and James Childs had preached throughout the county. Walker, a native of North Carolina, became pastor of Nottoway Church in 1769 and not only ministered to his own flock but organized more than 20 churches south of the James River. According to Robert B. Semple, historian of the Baptists, "Later in life he fell into immorality and adopted erroneous views of doctrine, which cast a blemish on his character and impaired his usefulness." The Baptists of Dinwiddie joined with their brethren throughout Virginia fighting the civil authority of the Established Church. In 1776 Jeremiah Walker and Elijah Craig were appointed by the Association to lay before the General Assembly the grievances of the Baptists. The two elders were instructed to make known Baptist opposition to an assessment for the support of the Church and to the exclusive right "that the clergy of the former Established Church suppose themselves to have . . . of officiating in marriages."

THE METHODIST SOCIETY

These were dark days for the church that had long been entrenched in Virginia. Reformers from within and dissenters from without were attacking the institution. The early leaders of the Methodist Society had no thought of separating their followers from the Church of England. The founder of the society, John Wesley, was merely concerned to bring about within the Church a revival of personal religion and "to spread Scriptural holiness throughout the land." It is not strange, therefore, that the introduction of Methodism into Dinwiddie County should have been brought about through the cooperation of Devereux Jarratt(1733-1801), rector of Bath Parish. Before the arrival of Mr. Jarratt in1763, there had been troublous times in the parish. In 1757 "the Freeholders and House-Keepers of the Parish of Bath, in the County of Dinwiddie, complaining of illegal and arbitrary Proceedings of the Vestry of the said Parish," had petitioned the House of Burgesses to "make an Enquiry, and take the same into their Consideration." When Bath was cut from Bristol Parish, a vestry was chosen by popular vote. Vacancies filled by the vestry had not been in accordance with the wishes of the parishioners. The petitioners further declared that the vestry had pocketed money collected for "the purchase of the glebe and of public buildings belonging to the parish." Though the committee of the House of Burgesses to which the petition was referred reported that in its opinion the grievances were reasonable, the General Assembly rejected the petition. Whereupon, Leonard Claiborne - prominent in Dinwiddie and already mentioned as a burgess - declared that he could prove every allegation made in the petition, and that John Jones, a member of the House, owed the parish E27, which Claiborne affirmed "he would make him sensible of by bringing Suit against him as soon as the Assembly was over. Becoming increasingly angry, Claiborne said that one member of the House from Dinwiddie had been "obliged to leave his lodgings, being unable to pay for them." Furthermore, he threatened to take 'Richard Bland, a member of this House, by the Nose after the rising of the Assembly, for his, the said Bland's Behaviour in this House." The upshot was that Leonard Claiborne was taken into custody of the sergeant-at-arms and that the Bath Parish petitioners were far from happy because of the treatment accorded them. A petition sent two years later, upon which favorable action was taken, resulted in the dissolution of the vestry of Bath Parish and made clear that the activities of the dissenters in the county had caused the trouble. The act authorizing the election of new vestrymen explained that many vestrymen since the time of their election had joined dissenting congregations without resigning their posts in the Established 'Church. Then to prevent the recurrence of the situation in any part of the state, the General Assembly enacted that "all vestrymen . . . who. . . shall become members of any dissenting congregation" shall cease to be vestrymen.

A CLERGYMAN BECOMES EVANGELIST

Devereux Jarratt, who became rector of Bath Parish in 1763, was foremost among the clergymen who believed that the Established Church could survive only through deepening the spiritual life of its people. He was born in New Kent County in 1732/3, had learned and given up his father's trade of carpentry, had taught school in Albemarle County, and later had planned to enter the Presbyterian ministry but in England had been ordained as a clergyman of the Established Church. When he reached Dinwiddie, Jarratt was disturbed to find that the three churches of his parish had distressingly few communicants. Sometimes there would be no more than seven or eight persons in his congregation, and most of these the aged. Soon the young man became an evangelist. At the end of ten years his parishioners numbered almost a thousand. Jarratt wrote of Butterwood Church that "one large wing, and then another, were added to it, but yet room was wanting." In England Jarratt had heard John Wesley and George Whitfield. Undoubtedly he was present in Blandford Church in 1765 when Whitfield preached the new doctrine to a congregation of the old Established Church of Virginia, and undoubtedly he was fired again with evangelistic zeal. The great orator's visit to Petersburg is described in a letter that Philip Slaughter, in A History of Bristol Parish, Va., declared to have been written by a great-great-grandson of the Princess Pocahontas. Here is the letter:

Petersburg, April 1765.

On Friday last, the Rev. Mr. Whitfield arrived from the southward to Appomattox. The following Sunday being within the year since Englishmen were formally taxed without representatives to regulate the taxation (a detestable and ever memorable era in the history of Britain and North America, as the inhabitants will one day know to their sorrow). I say it was the April after the accursed September of 1764, that the Rev. Mr. Whitfield ascended the rostrum of the Brick church, near Blandford; composed was his deportment, his countenance sanctified. He arose, and lo! there was a great silence, or as Dryden sagaciously expresses it, "a dreadful silence did invade our ears." He spoke, and there was no more silence. This admirable divine gave the Deists a sly blow from behind, tacked about and fled for life from these human brutes, imitating not, in this particular, the sage Warburton, who stands manfully to it, and gives them the most polite Billingsgate in the world, from one end to the other of his preface to the Divine Legation. He got out of this bustle as soon as he could, and then proved a demonstration that candles when the sun shines are unnecessary, but at night are very convenient; that whoever erects a fabric on which he is to expend his fortune, begins very ill if at the weather-cock, and descends thence to the cellar. He said a contrary method were far more eligible, but unhappily, Mr. Bousar, the great undertaker was not present to improve by his instructions - being on a visit to his friends in Georgia. He next abused good works all to naught, yet by way of consistency, exhorted all to live as if persuaded they were to be saved by good works alone; a very wicked doctrine, as an article of our Church declares, that good works, not done in Christ, partake of the nature of sin. Now it requires no logic to prove that Whitfield or the Church must be in error. Much vilipended he, good works again, and declared upon his veracity, he therein, and the Church went hand in hand - that faith was of another efficacy. He demonstrated that Jesus Christ was the basis of the Christian Religion, and other propositions not sufficiently demonstrated before.

At length he began, like Felix, to be much moved, and proclaimed aloud to his dear hearers that he was going to cry. Thrice rolled he that one of his eyes that had not renounced his allegiance thrice smote he with his snowy Dexter his swelling breast; thrice the Holy Gospels (which might have been treated with more tenderness); thrice the velvet cushions of the pulpit, and thrice were the under standers overwhelmed with clouds of dust which issued there from. He could not, in decency of this preface, avoid complying with his promise of weeping and inconceivable were his efforts for that purpose; but finding the enterprise fruitless he consoled himself as well as he could in a belief that lamentations which resounded copiously from the Ethiopians in the gallery, sufficed, as he might be supposed perhaps to perform that drudgery by these, his proxies. A criminal measure, was this really his policy, for it being the Sabbath Day they ought to be exempted (say the Scriptures) from all labour whatsoever. After the sermon he ascended his chaise, together with a cub-bear who ministered unto him, and who is no doubt far gone in the mystic devotion of his principle, and will carry on the business, probably, when he (Whitfield) becomes an inhabitant of Abraham's spacious bosom. I say he mounted his chaise (a convenience which the Apostles never used) but the use of which I do not find they have anywhere forbidden, and retired to the hospitality of the gentlemen in the neighborhood, where he received the compliments of the gentry of these parts, with a most amiable and condescending politeness of which he certainly seems a great master. He is now continuing his apostolic peregrinations lessening wherever he goes (as the old proverb has it) the-of his auditors. But alas! this comet of grace . . . will totally disappear (so I heard him say) from the North Americans, who are hereafter frequently to be illumined by the cub aforesaid, with all the horrors of spiritual darkness.

METHODISM RECEIVES CONVERTS

It was largely due to Mr. Jarratt that Methodism got its start in Dinwiddie. The Reverend Jesse Lee, once chaplain to Congress, tells of "an out-pouring of the spirit" that was brought about in 1770 and 1771 through the preaching of Mr. Jarratt and that resulted in the organization of "the people into a society, that they might assist and strengthen each other." "In the year 1772," Mr. Lee continues, the revival was more considerable, and extended in some places, for fifty or sixty miles round." Early the next winter Mr. Jarratt welcomed to Bath Parish one Robert Williams, a Methodist exhorter, who had reached Norfolk the year before. Since at that time Methodism had not broken away from the Church of England, Jarratt gave to the society his support with the hope that through religious revival the Established Church might be able to resist the inroads of the Baptists, then rapidly increasing throughout Dinwiddie. Day by day the great revival gained momentum, as Devereux Jarratt's testimony bears witness. "In the counties of Sussex and Brunswick," he wrote, "the work from the year 1773 was chiefly carried on by the people called Methodists. The first of them who appeared in these was Mr. Robert Williams who, you know, was a plain, artless, indefatigable Preacher of the Gospel. . . . He came to my house in the month of March, in the year 1773. The next year others of his brethren came, who gathered many societies, both in this neighborhood, and in other places, as far as North Carolina. In 1773 the Petersburg Circuit was formed. The following year the name was changed to the Brunswick Circuit, more territory was added, and Mr. Jarratt requested that Bath Parish be included -still with no thought that the Methodists would become a separate church. In May of 1775, according to Jesse Lee, "a quarterly meeting was held at Boisseau's (commonly called Bushill's) chapel, about twelve miles from Petersburg. At that meeting the windows of heaven were open indeed, and the rain of divine influence continued to pour down for more than forty days. . . ."The work was great on that last day of the quarterly meeting, thatthey continued in the meeting house till night, and then sent for candles,1 and continued till sometime in the night before they broke up. I left them about the setting of the sun, and at that time their prayers and cries might have been heard a mile off. . . ."In the course of the summer, Mr. Thomas Rankin came to Virginia, and on the last day of June he preached for the first time at Boisseau's (i. e. Bushill's) chapel, where Mr. Shadford mett him, and they had preaching in the afternoon, . . . but before the last sermon was ended such a power descended, that they fell to the floor, and seemed to be filled with the presence of God. The Chapel was full of people, and many were without that could not get in. Look which way one would, they might behold streaming eyes and faces bathed in tears: and but little could be heard, except groans and strong cries to God for mercy."

REVIVAL SWEEPS THE COUNTY

It was during this great revival that Jesse Lee, the chronicler of early Methodism and a native of Prince George County, became a convert to the new society. George Shadford, to whom he refers, was born in England in 1739. As a lad he enlisted in the army, "fell sick of a violent fever, and found himself 'horribly afraid of death.' " In this state of mind he attended a Methodist meeting and was converted. Later discharged from the army, he became an exhorter and was accepted by John Wesley as a missionary to America, where he worked first in Philadelphia and then in Baltimore. In 1775 he was sent to Brunswick Circuit, with Petersburg as his headquarters. William W. Bennett, writing of early Methodism in Virginia, tells the following story: Under almost every sermon sinners were convinced and converted; often three or four at a time. Among the first converts was a dancing master. On week days he came to meeting dressed in scarlet, on Sundays he appeared in green. He invited Shadford to preach in his own neighborhood; he could not at that time, every day being engaged. Still the dancing-master followed him, and brought another of his profession. Going to an appointment one day, a friend said to him, 'Mr. Shadford, you spoiled a fine dancing-master last week.' And so it proved. He was cut to the heart, and so burdened that 'he couldn't shake his heels at all.' "While the great Methodist Revival was sweeping Dinwiddie and leaving scarcely a portion of Virginia wholly untouched, the colony was defying the rule of Great Britain, whose church was the Established Church of Virginia. On July 4, 1776 the colonies adopted their Declaration of Independence, officially severing all connections with Great Britain. The Fifth Virginia Convention had already declared Virginia a free and independent state and had adopted a state constitution. At once the question of church establishment became of vital importance. The Baptists, now grown in numbers and strength, were uncompromising in their stand for absolute separation of church and state and for the sequestration of all church property. The Methodists, however, not yet having broken with the Church of England, feared that disestablishment would retard the progress of religion.

On October 28, 1776 the Methodists of Virginia had sent the following memorial to the "General Convention of Virginia Assembled at Williamsburg : "

The People Commonly called Methodists humbly sheweth - That your petitioners being informed the disenters are preparing to lay a petition before your House for abolishing the present Establishment of the Church, and Whereas it may be that we also come under the Denomination of Desenters & Desire the same thing.-We beg leave to set forth that we are not Desenters, but a Religious Society in Communion with the Church of England, - that we do all in our power to strengthen and support the said Church - and as we conceive that very bad consequences would arise from the abolishment of the establishment - We therefore pray that as the Church of England ever hath been, so it may continue to be Established. Signed in Behalf of the whole Body of the people Commonly called Methodists in Virginia, consisting of near If not altogether three thousand members.

When in 1780 Francis Asbury - whom John Wesley had appointed, with John Coke as coordinate, to be superintendent "over our brethrenin North America7'-traveled through Dinwiddie County, the Methodists were still considered members of the Anglican Church, though they were looked upon with disfavor by many of the conservative clergy. Entertained on September 9 at the home of Edward Pegram, where he spoke to about 70 people, Asbury wrote in his diary that he "was under great dejection; and spoke with very little life." Sunday he addressed four hundred people at Bushell's Chapel. The following Tuesday Dinwiddie friends presented the preacher a dress of rough Virginia cloth-the material of which slaves' garments were made. Asbury wrote in his diary that the gift was welcome, "as my dress approached raggedness." Devereux Jarratt - still rector of Bath Parish, though in disrepute among his brethren because of his too hospitable treatment of a society that was beginning to appear dangerous - gladly received the visitor. "I had some close talk with Mr. Jarratt," Asbury recorded. "He seems willing to help what he can, and to come to the conference."

Devereux Jarratt, however, never officially aligned himself with the Methodists but, despite the cold shoulder that was turned his way whenever he attended diocesan meetings, continued loyal to the Anglican Church and minister of Bath Parish until his death in 1801. In December1784 at a conference held in Baltimore the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized, and Asbury and Coke were unanimously elected its superintendents. Meanwhile the new state of Virginia had not settled its religious probIems. The Protestant Episcopal Church was seeking to be incorporated and to continue the functions that had been exercised by the former Anglican Church. Many honest people feared that disestablishment predicted the sounding of Christianity's death knell. Among the petitions that flooded the General Assembly was the following, sent from Dinwiddie on December 1, 1784: We your Petitioners of Dinwiddie County, being sensible of the excellence and Importance of the Christian Religion, of the Necessity of a gospel Ministry and that the Ministry of the Gospel should meet with all proper Encouragement, and have some certain Support for their Services, and not be left to the precarious Dependence of annual Subscriptions, which an Experience of seven Years has sufficiently evinced to be very inadequate - And being fully persuaded that Religion and the sacred Institutions thereof, would have more Influence, and command a greater Respect, under the Smiles, & support of the Government, than they now have and do, lay before you this our earnest Petition, . . .. . . that Christianity may be by a Law, made and declared to be the established Religion of this Country, and that every Citizen shall by a general Assessment be obliged to pay some certain Quota, for the support of the Gospel and its Ordinances, every Denomination not withstanding to be left at Liberty to pay their Quota to that particular Church to which they belong or would choose. The petition was signed by the following prominent citizens of the county: Robert Walker, James Greenway, Joseph Goodwyn, James Thweat, Robert Sturiivant, John Roberts, Richard Fargusson, Will Turner, John Bumell, William Withers, John Carter, John Pegram, Thomas Moore, George Willson, John Hardaway, Antoney Overby, John Hood, Miles Lewis, Buckner Rainey, Battey (?) Smith, Thomas Hardaway, Jr., John Holliway, Richard Burch, Robert Mitchell, Joseph Baugh, Thomas Scott, Jr., Philemon Hawkins, John Mitchell, Bradock Goodwyn, Robert Turnbull, William Thomson, Edward Wyatt, John Jones, Joel Pennington, Harklis Morris, Philip Jones, Harry Brodnax.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AT LAST

By 1784, the year that the Methodist Episcopal Church was formally organized, the question as to whether or not the Protestant Episcopal Church should be incorporated was one of the principal issues in Virginia. When the question was put to a vote on December 22, 1784 and passed with 47 ayes and 38 noes, Joseph Jones, Dinwiddie delegate, voted in the affirmative, and William Watkins, the other delegate, did not vote. In 1785, when "An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom" was written into law, Mr. Watkins and Mr. Jones voted for its passage. Step bv step Virginia continued to divorce religion and government. On January 6, 1787 there was no recorded vote on the act that repealed "the act for incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church." On December 4, 1787, when a vote was taken to authorize sale of the glebe lands, the proceeds to be put to public use, Mr. Jones and Mr. Watkins voted in the negative. When the question came to a vote a gain in 1790 and 1791, Peterson Coodwyn and Robert Bolling represented Dinwiddie. Mr. Goodwyn voted in the negative and Mr. Bolling did not vote. In 1794 and 1795 Alexander McRae did not vote when the measure was again before the house. Peterson Goodwyn cast a negative vote in 1794, and Joseph Jones in 1795. When the act authorizing the sale of the glebes passed in 1802, the Dinwiddie delegates-then Mr. Goodwyn and Mr. Watkins-were silent. Finally a sweeping piece of legislation started on January 18, 1799 repealed all acts pertaining to church or religion except the act for religious freedom, thus writing into law the principle for which Baptists had contended-namely, that the church should not fall under the jurisdiction of the state. Peterson Goodwyn voted in the affirmative and John Pegram, Jr., not at all.

TOWARD STRONGER UNION

Just as Virginians had assumed national leadership during Revolutionary years, so in the early days of the new republic Virginia statesmen were seeking to accomplish stronger union of the 13 states. Under the Articles of Confederation, by means of which the states were looselj united, the government had no power to regulate trade, raise revenue: or make foreign treaties. James Madison, working toward the adoption of a constitution, moved with cautious diplomacy. William Watkins and Joseph Jones represented Dinwiddie in the House of Delegates of 1785 and voted affirmatively on Madison's resolution by which commissioners from Maryland were invited to meet commissioners from Virginia to discuss common problems of trade and navigation. The conference, which opened in Alexandria in March of that year and was continued at Mount Vernon, resulted in the two states' joint regulation of commerce and led directly to the constitutional convention. The second step in Madison's plan, upon which Watkins and Jones of Dinwiddie also voted favorably, took the form of an invitation from the Virginia General Assembly to all other states to meet in Annapolis, Maryland in order that the trade of the United States might be considered. When only five states sent representatives to the Annapolis Conference, an invitation was extended the other states to meet in Philadelphia on May 14, 1787. Only Rhode Island failed to send delegates.

The "Virginia Plan," which had been drawn by James Madison and was presented by Governor Edmund Randolph, served as the basis of the convention's deliberations. The seven Virginia delegates were George Washington, who was elected president of the convention, George Wythe, George Mason, James Madison, Edmund Randolph, John Blair, and James McClurg. These men fought to include in the Constitution a bill of rights, the immediate abolition of the African slave traffic, and a progressive program by which slaves would be emancipated. Because no bill of rights was written into the Constitution, because the slave traffic was continued until 1808, because no plan for emancipating Negroes was set forth, and because a mere majority of the Congress and not a plurality - was permitted to determine tariff policies, George Washington, James Madison, and John Blair were the only Virginians who signed the instrument; and they did so in the belief that the Constitution could be quickly amended to correct the defects.

RATIFICATION OF FEDERAL CONSTITUTION

When the Virginia Ratification Convention opened on June 2, 1788, William Watkins and Joseph Jones took their seats as delegates from Dinwiddie. Watkins, it will be recalled, had represented the county at the Second Virginia Convention, which was held at St. John's Church in Richmond and which heard Patrick Henry's great speech. His death in 1799 ended 50 years of public service. Joseph Jones had been a member of the House of Delegates from 1784 to 1787. Later he served as postmaster of Petersburg and as general of militia.

The omissions from the Constitution caused the delegates to the Virginia Convention to be split into two bitter factions-those opposing ratification and those favoring it and holding Madison's belief that immediate amendments would be adopted. George Mason and Patrick Henry, encouraged by Richard Henry Lee, headed the opposition; James Madison, George Wythe, and Edmund Pendleton, reinforced by frequent letters Washington wrote from Mount Vernon, worked for ratification. When the vote was taken, Jones voted against ratification, and Watkins did not vote. By a majority of 89 to 79, Virginia was the tenth state to ratify the Constitution.

THE UNITED STATES A COUNTRY AT LAST

On April 30, 1789 George Washington became the first President of the United States. Theodorick Bland of Prince George County was the representative in Congress of the district that included Dinwiddie County.

In the year 1790 definite statistics were made available for the first time through the taking of a national census. The population of Dinwiddie was found to include 13,934 persons, of whom 7,334 were slaves, 361 were free Negroes, and 6,039 were whites. Eight years before, of the 840 tithable whites in the county, 633 were slaveholders. More than half of these, however, owned from one to five Negroes each - 95 having only one, 66 having only two, 71 having three, 45 having four, and 50 having five. Thus, 327 people owned 870 slaves, and 306 people owned all the others. The exact number of slaves in the county in 1782 is not available. It is safe to assume, however, that the number was only slightly smaller than the 7,334 reported in the census of 1790 and that 306 people owned approximately 6,000 slaves-an average of almost 20 each. Many large planters, having grown exceedingly rich, owned greatly in excess of that number. Among these were Colonel John Banister, with Robert Turnbull, with 81; Colonel William Diggs, with 72; John Jones, with 69; Major Thomas Scott, with 57; William Yates, with Robert Walker, with 52; Mrs. Mary Bolling, with 51; Francis Muir, with Gray Briggs, with Richard Taliaferro, with 43; John Burwell, with Winfield Mason, with 40. The rich in Dinwiddie were, accordingly, too rich and concentrated in their hands a wealth and power that made toward inequitable distribution.

Again travelers through the county recorded their impressions. Count Castiglione wrote in his diary on January 6, 1786: I passed on to Petersburg through Osborne's. Blandford, Pocahontas and Petersburg are now incorporated under the name Petersburg. Great quantity of tobacco is brought to Petersburg, even from the North Carolina county, and is there exported to Europe as James River tobacco, which is the best sort. A mile from the town lives Colonel Banister a nephew of the famous John Banister, who gave up his place as professor of botany and librarian at the University of Oxford, and settling in this part of Virginia, at great pains and with rare judgment collected and described a number of the scarcest plants. From Colonel Banister's I went, on the 9th, to Kingston, a rich plantation belonging to Captain Walker, in the county of Dinwiddie. The following day I visited Dr. Greenway, by birth an Englishman, and an amateur of botany. I examined his collection with true pleasure, and the next day came again, since Dr. Greenway had given me leave to transcribe from his notes; I have included this material in my descriptions of American plants, relative to the medicinal practices of the aborigines. Five miles from Kingston the traveler passes the River Nottoway. . . .

PIONEER BOTANIST

Historians have done scant justice to the Dr. Greenway to whom the Count refers - perhaps because the man was interested more in science than in wars and politics. James Greenway he was, the son of a weaver who lived in England close to the Scottish border. The lad first learned the trade of his father, as was the custom in the Old Country, but of his own accord he studied Greek and Latin, French and Italian. After migrating to Virginia, he plied the weaver's trade while studying medicine. Later, as a doctor, he had patients enough; but he amassed his fortune as a business man, having run mills and farms and anything else that would turn a dollar. It was after he had established himself in Dinwiddie as a man of wealth and importance - somewhat Scottish as he was - that he turned his whole attention to natural history and botany. Some 40 volumes that deal with plants of Virginia and North Carolina flowed from his pen and won for him honorary membership in several European societies and friendship with scholars the world over. Thomas Jefferson, that great patron of learning, frequently corresponded with Dr. Greenway and gave consistent encouragement to the botanical investigations of the Dinwiddie scientist. Dr. Greenway had other accomplishments, moreover, besides those that centered about natural history and plant life. He was a musician of no small attainments. Living some 20 miles from Petersburg, he was unable to procure for his children instructors in music. In his youth, however, he had become a flutist and violinist. So he purchased a harpsichord, taught himself to play the instrument, passed on the technique to his eldest daughter, and laid upon the girl the obligation not to marry until she had taught the next sister. Thus it happened that the whole family became accomplished musicians - even the only son, who was taught by his father to play the flute and violin. Though Dr. James Greenway has been accorded by historians only a small place in Virginia history, his research proved to be an inspiration to Edmund Ruffin of the neighboring County of Prince George, who found a way to cure acid soil.

THE PEOPLE WERE GAY

In these post-Revolutionary days as before, there had been a frivolous side to life in Dinwiddie County. Soon after Abraham Wood took over Fort Henry and started the trading post that was continued by his son-inlaw, Peter Jones, taverns began to spring up. These were social centers. One of the best known of these was Long Ordinary, near the site of Ritchie's store. It served for a time as the headquarters of the British General O'Hara. Dinwiddie Tavern, which stood near the courthouse, was renowned for the high quality of its liquid refreshments. Hill Top, near Cherry Hill, attracted many guests, as did Bromleys in Petersburg, Rice's Tavern on Stage Road and Cattail Creek, and Eppes Ordinary, "lying about nine miles from Petersburg, near the Road leading thence to Dinwiddie Courthouse." At San Marino, near Birches, there were always tankards of ale and stout, tables that groaned with their loads of meat pies, beaten biscuits, and corn cakes, and there were pretty barmaids, who flitted back and forth to bring mint juleps or steaming hot pots for the much desired nightcap. Another tavern where guests were refreshed and entertained was Stark's, on the stage road from Petersburg to Warrenton. These, however, were only a few of the stopping places that made Dinwiddie a happy retreat for tired travelers, who would gather around the festive boards of whatever host they happened to be patronizing. There they would eat and drink, of course. Later, however, all sorts of sports were provided for their entertainment. At inns in Dinwiddie and elsewhere throughout Virginia card playing was popular from the earliest colonial days. Cock-fighting and horse-racing had their heydays, during Colonial, Revolutionary, and post-Revolutionary days. At all the taverns guests gladly won and gladly lost money betting on cocks that fought each other with pointed spurs and on the fine horses that Dinwiddie matched against the best from other Virginia counties or from neighboring states. Horse-racing in Dinwiddie, which had its start much earlier, was in full fling when Benjamin Henry Latrobe passed through the county in 1796 and on April 21 of that year wrote in his diary: Petersburg, April 21, 1796. Everybody here is so engaged in talking of Lamplighter, the Sharkmare, the Carolina horse, etc., that I am as much at a loss for conversation as if I were among the Hottentots. There indeed I should be much better off, for I could talk to the women without knowing their language. But the case is desperate in a house occupied by seventy men in leather breeches. I rode yesterday to see the race, accompanied by Mr. Thomas Shore. . . . The accommodations at Mrs. Armistead's are quite as good as you ought to expect at such a time as this. I slept in a garret with seven other gentlemen. . . .They snored so I couldn't sleep. The concourse upon the race mound was very great indeed - perhaps fifteen hundred persons. . . . Pride's Race Track, an adjunct of Pride's Tavern, saw for years the exploits of the most famous horses America produced - many sired, born, and bred in Southside Virginia. The course was in existence prior to 1766, for that year it was mentioned in the Virginia Gazette. In the correspondence of John Randolph of Roanoke are references to events that took place at Pride's Race Track. The celebrated Virginian attended the Petersburg races in 1799 and again in 1833 just before his death. In the intervening years there was not one during which he did not patronize the races either at Richmond or Petersburg. The immediate vicinity of Petersburg knew at least three other early courses - one "southside of the road to the west end of Banister's lane;" Gillfield, established by Captain Erasmus Gill; and Poplar Lawn, operated by Richard Bate. The Petersburg Jockey Club came into existence soon after the Revolution. At Bromley's Tavern in Petersburg on August 24, 1785 John Banister was chosen president. Among the notable members present that night were Erasmus Gill, John Shore, James Gibbon, William Haxall, Joseph Jones, Thomas Armistead, Thomas Shore, Lewis Stark, Robert Armistead, John Grammer, James Bromley, James Taylor, and Abraham Evans. Erasmus Gill, William Barksdale, and William Haxall were elected stewards; and John Grammer, secretary and treasurer. Many distinguished horses were run on the Dinwiddie courses: Tattersall's Highflyer; Coeur-de-Lion, Chariot and Botta Gohanna belonging to Theophilus Feild; Janus, owned by Colonel Lewis Burwell of Cloucester; Sumpter, Vanity, Rattler, Childers, and Elizabeth, owned by Colonel Wynn; Defiance, owned by Colonel Johnson; and several notable horses belonging to Thomas Randolph. Colonel William Wynn, whose home, Raceland, had formerly been Rice's Tavern, owned also Timoleon - a horse that was regarded as one of the greatest of all American racers. Wynn sold Timoleon to Colonel R. R. Johnson for $4,100,and Johnson in turn sold the horse to David Dancy for $4,300.The races at Pride's were great events for Dinwiddie and the surrounding country. People came from far and near, crowding the taverns and hospitable homes and making merry generally. There were dinners, dances, and parties of all kinds. Hostesses and their pretty daughters bobbed about, dispensing food, conversation, and entertainment. At allnight card games men willingly lost money; and in the moonlight belles and beaux as willingly lost their hearts. Thus the wealthy enjoyed their worldly goods, while the poor folk of the county plodded away at the dreary task of earning a livelihood.

ATTEMPTS TO BURN PETERSBURG

Rich and poor, however, had common cause for alarm in the years 1790 and 1791, when attempts were made to set fire to the town of Petersburg. On August 4, 1790 incendiaries tried to burn the house of Alexander Horsburg. Mayor Richard Bate, on November 28 of the following year, reported that "several attempts have lately been made to set this Town on Fire; particularly on the Night of the 23rd this present month." The distracted mayor besought the governor to offer for the arrest of the criminals "a reward proportioned to the magnitude of the offense." This, he believed, would "have the good tendency of deterring others." Ralph and Samuel Pope had discovered the house of Richard Blow to be on fire. Blow's house, moreover, was so situated as to endanger not only the tobacco warehouses but "the greatest part of the Town of Petersburg." If the evildoers were ever caught and given their just deserts, the curtain of time has dropped upon the story's sequel. Petersburg, however, was not destroyed by fire; and the county, in its new competency, as a political unit of a sovereign state, had only trifling matters to disturb the even tenor of its way. In 1785 John Banister, requesting for the second time to be relieved of his post as Lieutenant of County Militia, referred to the "time of profound peace" that had settled upon the country, adding that "the particular State of the County" did not seem to him to make his resignation improper. The militia was kept intact, however, and John Banister was not relieved of his post, even though he argued that the fall of a horse on his leg, which had injured an old wound, prevented his actively discharging his duties. He continued to serve until 1788, when Peterson Goodwyn was appointed to the office. A strange episode delayed the issuing of the commission to Colonel Goodwyn. In July 1788 Dr. James Greenway publicly accused Peterson Goodwyn of peculation while serving as deputy sheriff of the county, in other words of appropriating money entrusted to him. On December 26, 1788, therefore, the Council of Virginia suspended "the issuing of the Commission of Colonel to the said Peterson Goodwyn, unless it shall be certified to this board by a full court on or before the first day of Maynext, that in their opinion, he the said Goodwin is innocent of the aforesaidcharge." But the Court of Dinwiddie County certified to the Governor as "their unanimous opinion that Peterson Goodwin was innocent of the speculation with which he was charged by Dr. Greenway," and the commission was issued. The accusation of Dr. Greenway was apparently not taken seriously throughout the county, for Colonel Goodwyn remained in public life and later represented his district in the Congress. That Colonel Goodwyn made a good officer is evidenced by Dinwiddie's being among the seven counties that reported their militia strength in 1790. Though there were no immediate rumors of war, the Dinwiddie regiments kept in fighting trim.

POLITICAL PARTIES ARE FORMED

Virginians were increasingly interested in national affairs-what with their own George Washington serving as President of the United States and Thomas Jefferson in the cabinet as Secretary of State. Citizens of Dinwiddie, as elsewhere throughout the country, were divided between the two political factions that had come into being - the one led by Alexander Hamilton, who believed in strong centralized government and the rule of the few; and the other led by Thomas Jefferson, who advocated local self-government and the rule of the people. Soon the two great parties received their names: the Federalists, fathered by Hamilton; and the Republicans - later Democrats - fathered by Jefferson. In 1796 George Washington refused a third term, expressing regret that "the increasing weight of years" admonished him to retire to Mount Vernon; and John Adams, a Federalist, became the second President of the United States. The Federalists enacted in 1798 the Alien and Sedition Laws, which caused a furore throughout the country and found a strong champion in Dinwiddie County. One of these laws required a person to have been in the United States 14 years before he could be naturalized; another allowed the President to send aliens out of the country; and still another made criticism of the government or of Federal officials a crime. Most Virginians believed these laws a violation of personal liberty, and in contradiction to the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which had become effective in 1791.

BILL OF RIGHTS

These ten amendments, however, made up the Bill of Rights, which had been omitted from the Constitution and which the Virginia advocates of ratification had promised the people. The first nine had been introduced by James Madison, and the tenth by Richard Henry Lee - both Virginians, of course. They set forth in substance the principles of the Virginia Bill of Rights, written by George Mason and made a part of the Virginia Constitution adopted in 1776. The First Amendment forbids Congress to make laws establishing an official religion and laws curtailing freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, and freedom of petition. These liberties have continued to be the heritage of Americans: the right of the individual to worship according to the dictates of his conscience or not to worship at all; the right freely to express opinions on the platform or in print as long as slander, libel, obscenity, and advocacy of the government's overthrow by force are avoided; the right to assemble freely; and the right to petition Congress for redress of grievances. Other amendments permit the bearing of arms for the common defense; protect the privacy of the home by forbidding in time of peace the quartering of soldiers "in anv house without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law," and by providing that search warrants be issued only "upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation;" protect the individual by making it unlawful to hold a person for "a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, by guaranteeing that "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury, by providing the right of trial by jury "in suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars," and by eliminating "excessive bail," "excessive fines," and "cruel and unusual punishments." As a further safeguard of the people's rights, the Ninth Amendment affirms that the enumeration of rights in the Constitution "shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;" and, further to safeguard the rights of the states, the Tenth Amendment affirms that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." These ten amendments - the American Bill of Rights - briefly summarize the principles that people in the democracies have given their lives to achieve. Virginia's opposition to the Alien and Sedition Laws as violating the Bill of Rights was summarized in resolutions presented to the House of Delegates at the session of 1798-99 by John Taylor of Caroline, nephew of the great jurist, Edmund Pendleton. The leading opponent of the resolutions and staunch advocate of the laws was George Keith Taylor, delegate from Prince George, whose brother, Richard Feild Taylor, lived in Dinwiddie, and who had registered at the College of William and Mary in 1793 as a resident of Dinwiddie - probably because he had been living at the home of his brother. On December 13, 1798 the House of Delegates considered John Taylor's resolutions. The delegate from Caroline spoke eloquently. It was on December 21 that George Keith Taylor replied in a speech that lasted several hours. The resolutions of John Taylor of Caroline carried, though the vote was 100 to 63, instead of the overwhelming majority that had been anticipated. Peterson Goodwyn and John Pegram, representing Dinwiddie, did not stand with their neighbor from Prince George but voted for John Taylor's resolutions. When Thomas Jefferson became the third President of the United States in 1801, friend and foe knew that the Alien and Sedition Laws would be wiped from the national statute books. The one raising the number of years required for naturalization was repealed in April 1802; the one permitting the President to order dangerous aliens out of the country died at the end of the two-year period to which it was originally limited; and the sedition law expired in March 1801. Strangely enough, the last person to be tried under the Alien and Sedition Laws was John Thomas Callender, who, while living in Petersburg at the home of Thomas Field, wrote a pamphlet ridiculing President John Adams. The trial took place in Richmond in June 1800, Associatete Justice Samuel Chase presiding and showing on the bench an advocacy of Adams as full of partisanship as had been Callender's opposition of the President. Callender was fined and imprisoned.

DINWIDDIE COUNTY PIONEER IN PRISON REFORM

Whether George Keith Taylor was right or wrong in his support of the Alien and Sedition Laws, he was a citizen to whom Dinwiddie may lay its small claim proudfully, for he is still called the father of penal reform in Virginia. On November 16, 1795 he was appointed member of a House committee to propose amendments to Virginia laws relating to criminals. On December 1 of the following year he spoke eloquently in behalf of the bill recommended by the committee and set forth in his argument the principles now underlying the treatment of persons who violate the law. He declared the existing criminal system "a tyrannical infringement on natural rights." Winfield Scott wrote much later that George Keith Taylor was "the first in Christendom, who embodied the principles of Beccaria in the criminal code of a state, and founded a penitentiary, the complement of that enlightened measure." Cesare Bonesania Beccaria, an Italian writer, economist, and reformer, had published in 1764 his treatise On Crimes and Punishments. He advocated the prevention - rather than the punishment - of crime, and, where punishment was inevitable, promptness in giving and carrying out the sentence; and condemned capital punishment and torture. The treatise went into six editions in 18 months and was translated into 22 languages. George Keith Taylor was the first American to attempt to put Beccaria's theories into practice. The great address delivered before the Virginia House of Delegates showed clearly that he had read Beccaria's important little book, for it contained a restatement of the Italian's philosophy. On November 15, 1796 the House of Delegates ordered that "leave be given to bring in a bill, to amend the penal laws of this Commonwealth." George Keith Taylor of Prince George was chairman of the committee appointed to draft the bill, and Peterson Goodwyn of Dinwiddie served with him. The bill was drawn, printed, and circulated throughout the state. Later, however, Peterson Goodwyn, reversing his position, was given leave to bring in a bill "to suspend the operation of the act, 'To amend the penal laws of this Commonwealth.' " Mr. Goodwyn's bill passed by a vote of 59 to 42, thus undoing Mr. Taylor's work. Alexander McRae, however, the other delegate from Dinwiddie, did not support Goodwyn's bill. Though George Keith Taylor represented Prince George County, he touched life in Dinwiddie not only because he registered at the College of William and Mary as a resident of Petersburg but also because he and his wife were closely identified with much that was taking place in the town on the Appomattox. Mrs. Taylor was Jane Marshall, sister of John Marshall, the conservative second Chief Justice of the United States. She was more, however, than the wife and the sister of two distinguished statesmen. In the movement that in 1813 resulted in the organization of "a female orphan asylum in the town of Petersburg . . .for the support and education of poor female children," she was a dominant force. After her husband's death in 1815 she taught school, first in Petersburg and then in Richmond.