If you missed my last post, be sure to catch up there prior to reading this post, here is a link – Methodists and Presbyterians – Oh My! It’s Chapter One of this particular never-ending story of history, and of people.
My theory of Adairs and Hollands in harmony, as it turns out, was quite the stretch. This is often the case when researching family history, and researching history in general – some of the truths we hold to be self-evident turn out to be completely wrong. I was so delighted to think of my people getting along, building a community, I got caught up in that story. The history I learned this week changes that theory drastically.
I spent the past weekend attending a Revolutionary War events at Hayes Station and Siege of Ninety-Six (thank you to Durant Ashmore!), working and exploring at the Holland Cemetery, and general galivanting-around Laurens County. As I always do when I am able to spend the weekend, I attended services at Duncan Creek Presbyterian Church. What better place to have an epiphany!!
On the back of the church bulletin, there is a nice historical write up. I have read this history, long ago, but sitting there before services, I re-read it. And talk about an UH-OH moment – see if you can find what leapt of the page for me…
My cooperative building-communities illusion was shattered as I put two and two together. I had even lived a similar episode, when I was a deacon at First Church, Congregational Old Saybrook, in Connecticut, more on that later.
My folks weren’t communing. They were fighting. That’s right, fighting over music.
From the bulletin:
“This rural congregation has always been a small fellowship; there have never been more than sixty active members at a time. Like much larger churches, though, it has had its own challenges in remaining one in Christ. There was a split in the church in 1778 over whether the congregation would sing Rouse’s or Watt’s version of the Psalms. The local Methodist and Baptist Churches came out of this split. It was also around the time that Reverend Kennedy was almost beheaded by angry congregants.”
Now THAT does sound much more like my family tree, way more believable than them being cooperative community builders! Getting violent over music is far more realistic.
This is a good article on the subject matter, with background and observations. (If you’ve never used JSTOR as a resource, you can access up to 100 free articles a month just by establishing a free account):
Bynum, William B. ““The Genuine Presbyterian Whine”: Presbyterian Worship in the Eighteenth Century.” American Presbyterians 74, no. 3 (1996): 157–70. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23333331.
So, it’s safe to say it was discord, rather that cooperation, that is what happened to establish my Holland and Adair lineage. Jane Adair Holland isn’t buried in her birth church of Duncan Creek Presbyterian – she is buried with her husband, Thomas Holland, at the Holland Cemetery, where a renegade, offshoot Methodist chapel once stood.
In my own personal experience, I dealt with the same situation at the Congregational church. In this case, we weren’t even trying to replace the existing hymnal – we were just trying to add a companion, modern hymnal. You can’t imagine how divisive that idea was to some of the congregants. One of my fellow deacons even responded to our Minister, who told a tale of community, and the ability to make visitors feel comfortable and welcome just by playing music that was familiar to them (even if not familiar to us), with a “well, they should go to their own church if they want to feel comfortable”. I kid you not. Times change, but people don’t seem to.
How Christians reconcile religious tenets, and their actual actions, is a subject that never ceases to amaze me. My devoutly Christian ancestors, fighting over music. The same folks that helped to not only bring slavery to the backcountry, but perpetuate it. They left their servants as property to their children in their wills. They bought and sold people. They also raised families, and fought for their new country. They helped establish churches and schools and businesses and communities.
I can only imagine the musical brouhaha in the Backcountry, all too well! I can’t tell you what a relief it is to know that none of my ancestors actually went through with beheading Rev. Kennedy back in 1778.
To note, I checked that fact out carefully before including it. Rev. Kennedy is buried at Duncan Creek Presbyterian, he died at the old age of 81, in 1846.
Not beheaded for a song.