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Home : Quarterly Archives : Volume 33 |
Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society |
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Source: April 1995 Volume 33 Number 2, Pages 61–70 Parson Currie For more than forty years, beginning in 1737, the Reverend William Currie served as the missionary from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to the Anglicans in this area. His parishes included the congregations at St. David's, at St. Peter's, originally known as Montgomery at the "upper end" of the Radnor parish, and, across the Schuylkill River near Evansburg, at St. James, also known as Perquahoma or Perkiomen. He was born in Glasgow in Scotland in about 1708 or 1710 and was educated at the University of Glasgow. There, it is reported in Henry Pleasants1 history of St. David's Church, he was "much esteemed as a man of learning and sound judgment". While still in his early 20s, on the recommendation of the faculty of the University, in 1730 he was selected to tutor a member of the wealthy Carter family in Virginia and came to America. Upon completion of his tutoring assignment he left Virginia and came north to New Castle, Delaware, where, in 1734, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery there. While in New Castle he met and fell in love with a young widow, Margaret Ross Hackett, the daughter of the Rev. George Ross, an early missionary for the Church of England and one of the founders of the Anglican Church in the colonies. (Her late husband, the Rev. Uri Walter Hackett, had also been an Anglican missionary.) According to tradition -- Dr. Pleasants described it as "romantic tradition" -- the young widow set as a condition to their betrothal and marriage that Currie withdraw from the Presbyterian Church and become a member of the clergy of the Church of England. So not only did he become an Anglican, but he returned to London to take the Holy Orders of that church and be ordained. With the great need for missionaries in the colonies, he then returned to America.
St. David's of Radnor Despite the fact that he was a Scotsman, in 1737 he was assigned by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to the parish of Radnor, with its still predominantly Welsh congregations. He was the first missionary to the parish who was not of Welsh descent and who did not speak the Welsh language. Thus no longer would the weekly services be held in Welsh, though, as Eberlein and Hubbard observed in their history of the Church of St. Peter in the Great Valley, "it seems reasonable to assume that by the time of his arrival amongst them most of the parishioners could [also] understand English". Two years later the Rev. William Currie and Margaret Ross Hackett were married. Their life together he described, on her tombstone after her death in 1771, as "a happy Union of 32 years", during which time he "Tenderly loved her Person and admired her Virtues". The Curries had seven children, six sons and one daughter: John, James, William, Richard, Alexander and Ross, and Elizabeth. (Apparently five of them predeceased their father, as only John and William were mentioned in his Will.) It has been said that he educated not only his own children but also "a number of [other] young men in his parish, ... preparing them for college". John, his eldest son, later became a lawyer, and three of his sons, James, William, and Alexander, became physicians. His daughter Elizabeth also married a doctor. One of Currie's first challenges in his new assignment was the wave of Methodism in this country in the wake of the arrival of the evangelistic George Whitefield. In a letter to the Venerable Society back in London on July 7, 1740 he complained about "how much pains and Labr ye Revd. Mr. Whitefield has lately spent among us to Rob us of our characters and then of our hearers". He further reported, "This strolling preacher, what by a musical voice, by an agreeable delivery, a brazen forehead, impertinent assentations, uncharitable assertions and impious imprecations upon himself, if what he says is not true, has raised such confusion among the people of this province as I believe will not be laid [to rest] in haste and (which I am troubled about) has made a very great rent in all the congregations belonging to the Church of England. The generality of my hearers not only run after, but adore him as an oracle from heaven. "They look upon all he says," he continued, "to be ye immediate dictates of ye Holy Ghost only because he confidently asserts it to be so & imprecates ye most dreadful curses upon himself if what he says is not true. ... This deceiver pretends to be ye only true minister of ye Church of England now in America & yet he has a Criminal Regard for all those who have ever been ye avowed enemies of ye Church of Engd. When he left this Province last he conjurd all his hearers [and] especially those of the Church of Engd to leave their own teachers because their Doctrine was Damnable, and cleave to his Dear Bror Mr. Gilbert Tennant & his Brern as ye only true Gospel preachers in the whole country. ..." It was therefore obviously with great relief that ten months later, with his semi-annual Notitia Parochialis report to the Society in May of 1741, that he was able to report, "All the people in my congregation who were smitten with Whitefield are again returned to their former principles, So that I have the same number of communicants in Radnor I used to have ad in Perqua the number is considerably increased. In Radnor there were last Easter [presumably in both congregations] upwards of forty [in attendance] and in Perqua about twenty." Similarly, six months later, at Michaelmas, he reported, "I have two flourishing congregations. Some of my hearers were like to be drawn away by Whitefield & his followers but through the blessing of God upon my Endeavours I have not only kept such to their profession but have brought over Several others Since his departure, to be my constant hearers & two persons who were Dissenters before have read the Sacrament from me." In his May 1741 report, incidentally, he also noted that on "one Sunday in every seven weeks" he was "obliged" to preach at Christ Church in Philadelphia, there temporarily being no missionary assigned to it. In 1741 he also purchased a "plantation" at Plymouth as a home for his growing family, having been, he wrote, "turned out" of the place where he lived before. The cost of the plantation was 160, "one-half whereof" he was obliged to pay immediately.
St. Peters in the Great Valley It was also early in Parson Currie's stay here that a new stone church was built for the congregation in the "upper end" of the Radnor parish, replacing the old log chapel. (The foundation for a new church building had been laid nine years before his arrival, in 1728, but it was not until 1744 that further work was done on it.) The progress of the construction work was reported in his letters accompaning his Not itia Parochialis to the secretary of the Society back in Charterhouse in London. On September 23, 1744 just before Michaelmas, for example, he noted, "My Congregations at Radnor and Perqua Continue much as they were when I wrote last. I acquainted the Society in a former Lettr that ye upper part of my parish at Radnor were about to make an addition to their Chapel, But instead of that, they have built a New Stone one, for wch they humbly Pray ye Venerable Society for a Bible and Prayer Book." And on Lady Day the following March 26th he wrote, "My congregation being much the same as when last I wrote in September That I have nothing new to add but that the Church in the Valey [sic] wch was then in building was Since Opened by the Revd. Dr. Jenny by the name of St. Peters in the Great Valey. There I preach once a month to a Large & Regular Congregation who humbly pray the Venerable Society for a Bible and Prayer Book." (To the repeated requests for a Bible and a Prayer Book, incidentally, the Society replied that "... it is with Pleasure the Society hears of new Churches rising in Pennsylvania, and have ordered a Folio Bible and Common Prayer Book for that of St. Peters in the Valey".) Throughout most of his ministry to the congregations of St. David's, St. Peter's in the Valley, and St. James, Parson Currie's health was, as Dr. Pleasants described it, "at best most feeble", as he himself noted in a number of his letters to the Society in London. These letters, Eberlein and Hubbard also noted, "are not those of an hypochondriac or chronic cornplainer. His disorder, whatever it was [they suggest a kind of nervous indigestion], was real." In his letter with his semiannual report to London in September of 1747, for example, he reported that he had "labored under a very ill state for sevl years", and three and a half years later, in the spring of 1751, he reported an "ill state of health which rather grows worse than better". In the spring of 1755 he similarly noted that he was "frequently ready to faint during the Service with a Spasmodic pain" from which he was never free and which seemed "worst when Speaking in Publick". At this time there was discussion about granting him a leave of absence for eight or ten months so that he might take "a voyage by sea", perhaps to his native Scotland, to help him recuperate, with it recorded in the Society's Minutes that "the Revd. Mr. [William] Smith. Provost of the College in Philadelphia, has promised to supply Mr. Currie's place when- ever he shall undertake his intended voyage". His health, however, apparently showed some improvement shortly afterwards, as the proposed leave of absence and sea voyage never took place. By the spring of 1751 he was able to report that "notwithstanding my sore affliction I have been enabled to attend my churches without intermission ever since my last letter by ye help of an anodyne taken every morning before I go out". Over the next few years his health continued to improve. As Eberlein and Hubbard noted, in October of 1765 he reported that his health was "better this half year than for several years before", and six months later he informed the Society that he was "able with ease and pleasure to attend ye Duties of my sacred function". In March 1768 he wrote, "Blessed be God, I enjoy a much better state of health than I did some time ago so that I am able to attend my numerous Congregations more consistently & with a good deal more pleasure now [when] I am sixty years of age than when I was forty." And, finally, three years later he noted, "Blessed be God your aged svt in the 63rd [year] of his life performs the duties of his function with more pleasure & greater ability than when 15 years younger, having received a better state of health." Despite his ill health his congregations continued to grow. Where in 1741 at Easter there had been "upwards of forty" in attendance at Radnor, fifteen years later, at Easter in 1756, the number of communicants was ninety. And in September of 1763 he reported to the Society, "I have the pleasure to acquaint you that my congregation at Radnor and Valley daily increase", though "at Perquihoma [the number] rather declines as the Dutch [German] buy out the English and settle in their room". In a note in the Society's Minutes in 1755, when the leave of absence was being considered, it was noted that "Mr. Currie has been missionary at Radnor for eighteen years next May, during which time he has never had the least difference with any members of his numerous congregations ..." Parson Currie's "personality and outstanding characteristics" have been projected by Eberlein and Hubbard from "existing correspondence and persistent local tradition". "He was undoubtedly possessed," they concluded, "of vigor, endurance and conscientious fidelity in the discharge of his pastoral duties. He likewise had qualities that endeared him to his parishioners. Had he not been vigorous and enduring, he could never have coped with the tremendous physical difficulties confronting any missionary attempting to cover a field as extended as the triple cure of Montgomery, Radnor and Perkiomen, with the unbridged Schuylkill between the two former and the latter -- and that in all extremes of winter cold and storms or the parching heats of summer. Had he not been able to enlist the abiding affections of his flock, there would not have been the many memories of devoted attachment that still endure. ... We know, too, that though wiry and blessed with Scottish tenacity, he was not robust. ... Along with his other traits, he had the proverbial Scottish carefulness and there is frequent evidence of solicitude for the comfort and welfare of his family. This latter trait is perhaps reflected in his on-going and continuing request for a "convenient habitation" for himself and his family. As noted earlier, in 1741 he had purchased a "plantation" at Plymouth, and in 1757 he bought property in Tredyffrin [it later became Brookmead Farm], on which his son Richard resided. Nonetheless, in the early and mid-1760s there are numerous requests that a residence or Glebe House be provided him. As early as in March of 1760, in his semi-annual letter to the Society, for example, he wrote that "hitherto I have lived upon a piece of my own purchasing, but as my ill state of health rendered me incapable of managing it any longer I have parted with it and am now destitute of a habitation for my numerous family ..." He also pointed out that there was "a small Glebe belonging to Perquihoma Church but no house on it", suggesting that "ye Society may enjoin ye Congregation [there] to rebuild ye house or purchase one more convenient [presumably nearer to the Radnor parish]". Over the next few years he also made repeated requests to the congregations at Radnor and Valley to furnish him with a "convenient habitation". By the fall of 1765, however, he had concluded, as he wrote in his letter to the Society, that "ye congregations of Radnor & the Valley are like to do nothing towards providing a Glebe" and that therefore he "intend[ed] with ye Society's leave to move my family to ye Glebe at Perquihoma, ye House whereof is almost finished by that generous handful of people and my own assistance". In May of 1766 the Society consented to the move. Although Eberlein and Hubbard have stated that "he seems to have gone [there] soon afterwards" and that "for some time after the removal, freed from the anxiety about 'place of habitation' ... the Parson was vastly more comfortable in mind and body", it would appear that perhaps the move may never have occurred. As Eberlein and Hubbard also noted, "There is much uncertainty, however, as to just where the Curries lived at various times." And as late as at Michaelmas 1775, in his report to the Society, Currie still complained, "The Glebe land belonging to my Mission [at Perkiomen] consists of 46 acres with a little residence House upon it which wants repairs because ye Congregation at Radnor declines to assist ye Congregation at Perquihoma, alledging it as too far distant from their Church" and that "in ye meantime I am obliged to provide a habitation at my own expense". In March 1771, after "a happy Union of 32 years", Margaret Ross Hackett Currie died unexpectedly at the age of 57. Her death, he described in his letter to the Society later that month, was "the sorest stroke that I ever met with", and the epitaphs on her monument in the burial grounds at St. David's have already been noted. He remained a widower for only about eighteen months, however. Inhis report to the Society in September 1772 he confided, "Being extremely desti- tute and uncapable of managing my numerous Family consisting of Children, Grandchildren and old Negroes, without a wife, I was induced to marry again. I made a choice of a widow Gentlewoman of My own congregation, who being a prudent religious woman of a suitable age, fifteen years younger than myself, without any incumbrance & a remarkable good manager, seems every way qualified to render my future life comfortable. And as being far advanc'd in years, I know not but this may be the last opportunity I humbly beg leave to recommend her to the notice of the honble Society that she may have the same indulgence after my decease with other Missionarys' widows." His second wife was Mrs. Lucy Godfrey Jones, the widow of David Jones, a farmer in the Valley. They were married at Christ Church in Philadelphia by the Rev. Andrew Goeranson. Shortly after they were married they moved to a property on Yellow Springs road which the Parson had purchased on May 28, 1767 at public sale, in two parcels, one containing 100 acres, for 300, and the other containing 176 acres, for 368, from the estate of Thomas Jones. Both properties were described as "including houses, outhouses, buildings and improvements". [The property is more commonly identified today as the location of General Lord Stirling's quarters during the encampment of the Continental army at Valley Forge.] Conrad Wilson has suggested that the move to this property may have been made because Currie "did not want to continue living in the house associated with his [first] wife and the birth of their children". The Revolutionary War was a great blow to Parson Currie and his work. By his ordination vows to the Church of England he was obliged to pray for the King and royal family as a part of the regular services, and he did not feel that in good conscience he could omit these prayers, despite the fact that most of his parishioners were Whigs. To resolve this impasse, in May of 1776 he submitted his resignation to each of his three congregations, citing his advanced years as the reason. His letters of resignation reflect his abiding affection for his congregagations and his dedication to the ministry. "Age and infirmity having rendered me unable to officiate any longer," he wrote to the Wardens and Vestry of St. David's on May 16th, "I take this method to let you know that I shall decline attending your church any more, but though Providence has so ordered that I can serve you no more in public, yet God forbid that I should cease to pray for you in private. No, as I have taken the best care I was able to under my infirm state of health to shew you a good and right way, so while I breathe I will not cease to pray that God may give you his Grace to enable you to walk in it. And as I shall not cease to pray for you, I beseech you, neglect not to pray for yourselves. ... Thus, my dear little flock, I bid you heartily farewell and am with great love and affection your faithful pastor till death. William Currie" And at the same time, while he no longer officiated in public, he nevertheless did continue to baptize, perform marriage ceremonies, call on the sick, and bury the dead for his former parishioners during the war years. The war also brought rifts within his family. While he was considered a Tory, his first wife's brother, George Ross, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, as was George Read, he husband of one of her sisters. Three of his sons, William, Richard, and Ross, also served in the Continental army. (After Richard died of camp fever early in the war, in September 1776, however, his two brothers both resigned, and one of them, Ross, later became a Tory and fled to Canada.) While Pleasants has suggested that "it would seem that both Mr. Currie's adherence to the King, and the congregational adherence to the American Congress, protected the old [St. David's] church from very serious losses from either army", Parson Currie's claims for personal losses during the British occupation of the Valley prior to taking Philadelphia amounted to 106.13.4. In his claim he reported, "On ye 19th of Septr 1777, a Company of Soldiers from ye Camp came to my House & rob'd me of all my Cabbage, bacon, Cheese & butter, a bushel of fine Salt: of fine Sheets Table linen fine Shirts Shifts head dresses Stockings & a Table Silverspoon to ye value of 20 lb Specie. There is a strong presumption likewise that at ye same time they rob'd me of 200 lb Continental money in Sheets. And ye day following a foraging party took from me two waggon loads of Oates, one ditto of wheat, besides several Horse loads of both; a good Cart & Gears; all my waggon and plow Gears, Collars blind halters, & ropes; two half worn mens Saddles & three bridles, all of which I judge to be worth 20 lb Specie; the truth of all of which I will be qualified to [swear]. But as to ye Continental money; tho' there is a strong presumption; as they certainly carried off a file of newspapers, upon which ye Sheets had been Strung some days before, yet as it is possible that some body might have taken them off ye file before that day, I do not feel freedom to swear to it." (Despite this inability to swear to it, the claim for the money was allowed, though it was depreciated by two-thirds, from 200 to 66.13.4.) He also suffered personal tragedy during the war years. In addition to the loss of his son Richard in 1776, Richard's widow Hannah Potts Currie died in 1778, leaving three small grandchildren to be cared for; and in that same year the Parson's second wife, Lucy, also passed away. (All three of them were buried at St. David's.) In the Minutes of the Society of July 16, 1783 it was noted, "War has reduced him [Parson Currie] to very low circumstances. He has lost not only most of his substance but likewise his wife and a son and his wife, with whom he lived in his old age. They all died of Camp fever and have left him in the midst of the Camp with one of the American Generals [Lord Stirling] and his suite quartered in his house. He is left with three orphan grandchildren, oldest seven when parents died. He blesses God that he had been enabled thro, grace in the midst of these difficulties to hold fast his integrity and he will die as he has lived a true son of the Church of England even tho he should have the misfortune to survive it." After the war was over, Parson Currie, somewhat to his surprise in view of his advancing years, in 1784 was invited to return to his two parishes. In a letter to the Society on September 30, 1785 he noted, "Blessed be God notwithstanding my great age I have been able to attend my former Churches in compliance with ye Society's continuing my Salary duly ever since November last, when I officiated to a crowded Audience and baptized a great number of children there being no Episcopal Mnr, within twenty miles of me but myself, for which services I make it a point to receive no lucrative Emolument, having made a firm resolution when I laid down my charge at ye Declaration of Independence never to take Wages of Subjects of a Government to which I cannot give my Test of Alleagance. ..." In the following month, however, he finally withdrew from all parochial duties. And over the next few years, following passage of an act by the General Assembly permitting the State Legislature to charter churches, the Anglican Church was reorganized, and the missionaries from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts were replaced by rectors appointed by the American Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Parson Currie continued to live in his home on Yellow Springs road in Tredyffrin with his granddaughter Margaret Walker, the wife of Thomas Walker. In October of 1791 he sold the property to his son-in-law Thomas Walker for 1100 "gold and silver money current in Pennsylvania", but kept on living there until his death on October 26, 1803, at the age of 93. His estate at the time of his death was valued at 3116.4.9. By his Will, as summarized in an abstract in the Chester County Archives, he left "To gr daus Margaret Hoffa & Sarah Steuben $50 each. To son John $150. To son Dr. Wm. Currie $525 out of $525 he owes me. To Dr. Nicholas Clark of St. Anns in Province of New Brunswick in Trust for use of my 2 gr chil by son Ross Currie ded'd $200. To gr son William Currie son of John $100 when 21. To gr dau Margaret Wife of Thomas Walker $400 and all Household furniture &c. To gr dau Ann wife of William Broadess Jr. $355. to Vestry of Radnor Church $10 for repair of graveyard wall. Rem to gr daus Margaret Walker & Ann Broadess." He is buried at St. David's. As was said of him some forty years before his death, in May 1760 when he was selected to preach at the next convention of the Clergy of the Province of Pennsylvania, he was a man "much esteemed in his Mission, which is a very extreme one, and [one who] neglects no opportunity that his Health will permit of doing his duty." TopA Note on Sources Most of the material from this article was found in Dr. Henry Pleasants' The History of Old St. David's Church [Philadelphia: John Winston Company, 1907; and The Church o_f St. Peter in the_ Great Valley by Harold Donaldson Eberlein and Cortland VanDyke Hubbard [Richmond: August Dietz and Son, 1944]. Also helpful were Frances Ligget's oral history reminiscences of the Great Valley [1965], and miscellaneous notes pertaining to Parson Currie in the collections of the Tredyffrin Library in Strafford. |
