Settlement in Pamlico County, North Carolina, was dictated by geography. Only about 15% of the land was drained enough to support agriculture in 1930, and that was done with manmade ditches. [1]
The Minnesott Ridge, used by the north-south road at the center right on the map below, was the remains of an ancient sea shore. Land sloped eastward from 30' to 20' to an escarpment, that was marked by the north-south road that meandered at the right side of the map. Beyond that break lay wetlands, identified by the green. [2]
Better land lay west of the sand ridge, where three north-south rivers flowed south into the Neuse River. Closest to the western edge of the peninsula was Upper Broad Creek. It extended as far north as New Bern and formed part of the county boundary. Next to it was Goose Creek, and east of that was Beard Creek. The mouth of the last appears on the map.
New Bern was founded on the Neuse in 1710 as a refuge for Anabaptists being expelled by Bern. [3] The site selected by Christopher deGraffenried infringed on lands of the Tuscarora, who killed most of the settlers living between the Neuse and the Pamlico river on the eastern side of the county peninsula. [4] He tried to sustain the community, but incurred debts that allowed a local speculator to foreclose on the land purchased from the Carolina proprietors. [5]
deGraffenried returned to Bern, and his oldest son moved to Virginia. [6] Christopher’s great-grandson, Trezevant deGraffenried, [7] migrated to Sumter County, Alabama. One of his slaves was later interviewed by Ruby Pickens Tartt. [8]
The fate of the New Bern settlers is obscured by the confusing labels applied to Baptists then and now. [9] Swiss Anabaptists did not believe original sin condemned individuals to do evil. They thought people had the will to do both good and bad, and that baptism was a ritual that confirmed they had chosen to follow God. They also believed in the agency of the Holy Spirit. [10]
Free Will Baptists were founded by John Smythe after he met Anabaptists in Amsterdam during the rein of James I. [11] He rejected the formal liturgy of the Anglican church because any use of the Bible, including psalms, was a manmade impediment that quenched the spirit. [12] He focused on gifts from the Holy Spirit that sustained individuals’ relationships with Christ. [13]
Paul Palmer spread Smythe’s ideas in Craven and Beaufort counties. Between 1735 and 1739 he established congregations on Broad Creek, Goose Creek, at Flea Point on the Bay River east of the area shown on the map, and on Greens Creek to the south. He also met with people on Swift Creek [14] about six miles south of modern Vanceboro [15] where Minnie Lee’s family lived in 1910. [16]
The First Great Awakening in Craven County arrived when George Whitefield preached in New Bern in 1739. He claimed his audience was "uncommonly attentive, and most were melted to tears." [17]
The immediate effect was organized hostility toward Free Will Baptists. When Swift Creek requested permission to build a church under the Acts of Toleration in 1740, it not only was refused, but the members were jailed and whipped. Two of the Baptists were John James and Nicholas Purefoy. [18]
Congregants at Flea Point petitioned to build in 1741, but nothing is known about the outcome of their request. Among those who signed the petition were Jonathan West, mentioned in the post for 6 February 2019. Five of the men, including Nicholas Purefoy, had been involved with the Swift Creek request. [19] Purefoy Gut empties into Beard Creek toward the upper left hand corner of the map.
Whitefield returned to New Bern in 1764. The local Anglican minister told him local Methodists rejected infant baptism and accepted the "heretical doctrine of the irresistible influence of the [Holy] spirit." [20] Whitefield responded by preaching against "the ‘rebaptism’ of adults and for the baptism of infants, in order to make it plain that the Baptists did not belong to his flock." [21]
Particular Baptists were aroused by the discovery of Arminians who believed in free will.
Their theology derived from the thinking of John Spilsbury. This Englishman accepted predestination, but argued individuals shouldn’t be baptized until they had heard
"the Word of God ‘which is to fit and prepare the matter for the form.’ The preaching of the Word assaults the pride of man, smooths his ‘hard and rough turbulent’ spirit, aligns his ‘crooked and Serpent-like nature,’ and brings him humbly to embrace the ‘low and mean condition of Christ upon His cross’." [22]
Particular Baptists talked to ministers and enough members of Free Will Baptist churches to gain control of the their buildings and land. [23] Less than 5% of the members would accept original sin and repent of their sins. [24] They were not deemed to be part of the Elect, and thus not genuine Baptists.
Separate Baptists emerged in New England as a response to Whitefield. Shubal Stearns moved to Sandy River, North Carolina, in 1755 [25] where he preached
"that to be saved one must be born again; that no regular and prolonged course of instruction was necessary to bring one into acceptance with God, but only repentance and faith; that to as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God; that this was brought
about by the irresistible influence of the Holy Spirit; that the one saved had immediate revelation of it in his soul." [26]
Elnathan Davis recalled there was "a trembling and crying spirit among" his listeners. He, himself, "had not been long there before the trembling seized him also; he attempted to withdraw; but his strength failing and his understanding confounded he, with many other, sunk to the ground. When he came to himself he found nothing in him but dread & anxiety, bordering on horror. He continued in this situation some days, and then found relief by faith in Christ." [27]
After the American Revolution, Free Will Baptists congregations in Swift Creek and Goose Creek, which had been taken over the Particular Baptists, affiliated with the Sandy River Association in 1784. [28] However, the Particular Baptists had already absorbed them. [29]
End Notes
1. John T. Miller and Arthur E. Taylor. United States Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. Soil Survey of Pamlico County, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, August 1937. 2.
2. Roy A. Goodwin, Jr. United States Department of Agriculture. Soil Conservation Service. Soil Survey of Pamlico County, North Carolina. Washington: Government Printing Office, August 1987. 1. The highway is Route 306.
3. Christian Neff. "Bern (Switzerland)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1955.
4. A. T. Dill. "Graffenried, Christoph, Baron Von." NC Pedia website. 1986.
5. Donald E. Collins. "Swiss and Palatine Settlers." NC Pedia website. 2006. Thomas Pollack was acting governor of Virginia, and using his contacts to amass large tracts of land. [30]
6. Thomas P. deGraffenried. History of the deGraffenried Family. New York: Thomas P. deGraffenried, 1925. 149.
7. Thomas deGraffenried. 253–255.
8. Oliver Bell was discussed in the posts for 15 September 2019 and 22 September 2019.
9. Collins simply said they "intermarried with residents of other nationalities, and the Swiss-German community blended into the population at large. Their family names, however-including Metz (Metts), Kernegee (Kornegay), Eibach (Ipock), Mueller (Miller), and Kuntz (Koonce)-are still prominent in eastern North Carolina." [31] Christoper deGraffenried noted that while some were pious, many who came to New Bern were the dregs of society who were selected by authorities eager to be rid of them. [32]
10. Tammy Graham. "Free Will from Luther to the Brethren." The Hanover Historical Review Spring 1995. She wrote, the Swiss theologian, Hubmaier Balthasar, "asserted that the soul, ‘awakened by the Word of God’ and ‘enlightened through the Holy Spirit,’ can choose between the way of the flesh and the way of the spirit." Her source was his "On Free Will." Reprinted in Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers. Edited by George Hunston Williams. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957. 124.
11. David Plant. "Anabaptists & Baptists." British Civil Wars Project website.
12. Jason Lee. The Theology of John Smyth. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003. 55.
13. Lee. 231.
14. George Stevenson. "Palmer, Paul." NC Pedia website. 1994. Palmer may have had a special understanding of the Holy Spirit because he met with the Perquimans Monthly Meeting of Friends between 1719 and 1722. This in turn may have made it easier for him to communicate with descendants of the New Bern Anabaptists.
15. Victor Jones reported experts agreed the Swift Creek church was now Kitts Swamp Christian Church in Ernul, North Carolina. [33] Disciples of Christ merged with Barton T. Stone’s Christian Church in 1832. While the official name is Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), many use just one designation or the other, without signifying descent from one or the other.
16. For more on Minnie Lee’s background, see the post for 8 December 2019.
17. George Whitefield. Quoted by Bill Hand. "When George Whitefield Came to Town." [New Bern] Sun Journal website. 28 April 2019.
18. George Washington Paschal. History of North Carolina Baptists. Raleigh: The General Board, North Carolina Baptist State Convention, 1930. 1:158, 1:160, 1:187. As mentioned in the post for 8 December 2019, John James Parsons was related to Minnie Lee. The same names may be coincidence, or one of those tantalizing clues to her past that lead to cul-de-sacs.
19. Paschal. 1:198.
20. James Reed. Quoted by Hand.
21. Paschal. 1:313.
22. Wikipedia. "John Spilsbury (Baptist Minister)." It appeared to be quoting Spilsbury’s The Lawfull Subject of Baptisme. London: 1643.
23. Paschal. 1:214.
24. Paschal. 1:212.
25. Morgan Edward. "Notebook on North Carolina Baptist." Reprinted by Pascal, 1:228. Based on the original in "the library of the American Baptist Historical Society, at Chester, Pennsylvania" and a "copy made by by Mr. J. C. Birdsong for the North Carolina State Library." [34]
26. Paschal. 1:308–309.
27. Betty G. Bunce. "Shubal Stearns and Separate Baptist beginnings in North Carolina." 1976. 7. Her source was Morgan Edwards. "Materials Toward a History of the Baptists, 1770-1772." Manuscript in Wake Forest University Library. 26–27.
28. Paschal. 1:317.
29. Paschal. 1:399–400.
30. W. Conard Gass. "Pollock, Thomas." NC Pedia website. 1994.
31. Collins.
32. Christoph de Graffenried. "Relation of My American Project." Translated by Julius Goebel. 74–118 in Thomas deGraffenried. 112.
33. Victor T. Jones, Jr. "Remember the Days of Old: A History of New Haven Church." New Haven Church, Ernul, North Carolina website.
34. Paschal. 1:224.
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