DR. COKE IN VIRGINIA.

1785-1791.

IT would be an interesting book that should give the history of missions in this country. That godly man, Nicholas Ferrar, who was so active in the affairs of the London Company; the good minister of Jamestown, who came with the first supply; the pastors of the congregations that settled in Massachusetts; the Jesuit fathers; the emissaries of the Society of Friends; the Presbyterians from the north of Ireland and from Scotland; Whitefield, Asbury, Coke—how large was the share of these men in the making of America. Among them, Dr. Thomas Coke was not the least. He was nine times in this country and covered a great part of it as then known, including the islands of the British and several of the French Indies.

Dr. Coke was born in 1747, and was graduated B. A. at Oxford in 1768. In 1775 he was made D. C. L., and had considerable prospects of church preferment, but was reckoned a Methodist after 1776. His bishop reproved him, but declined to remove him. His rector dismissed him. Wesley employed him for a time to assist in answering his voluminous correspondence. In 1782 he was the first president of the Irish Conference, and held the office for the rest of his life, with a few intermissions. In 1784 he drew up a plan for missions, and was appointed superintendent, with episcopal functions, in America. That year he came to this country and ordained Asbury, at Baltimore, as deacon, elder and superintendent. Wesley was very indignant at the change of the title superintendent to bishop, and the confirmation of the change led in 1792 to the O’Kellyan schism. Dr. Coke possessed a private fortune of £1,200 a year. He died in 1813 on a voyage to India. His work in the field of missions was cosmopolitan, and to him more than to any other the creation of the vast network of the Methodist foreign missions is due.

September, 1784, Dr. Coke sailed from King Road, Bristol, for New York. In November he was on the Eastern Shore. Returning to Philadelphia and Baltimore, he was at Alexandria March 9, 1785. This great man was able to enjoy the country. He was born in Wales. But he does not seem to have been skilled in the art of cross-country horsemanship in all weathers. He writes (March 9th): “In my ride this morning to Alexandria through the woods, I have had one of the most romantic scenes that ever I beheld. Yesterday there was a very heavy fall of snow and hail and sleet. The fall of sleet was so great that the trees seemed to be trees of ice. So beautiful a sight of the kind I never saw before.”There was no one to pilot Dr. Coke from Alexandria, and his servant had overstayed his time on a visit to the Eastern Shore. Between Alexandria and Colchester there were two runs to be crossed, both greatly swollen from the sudden thaw. “A friend who lives in Alexandria came with me over the first run, and everybody informed me I could easily cross the second if I crossed the first. When I came to the second (which was perhaps two hours after I crossed the first) I found that I had two streams to pass. The first I went over without much danger; but in crossing the second, which was very strong and very deep, I did not observe that a tree, brought down by the flood, lay across the landing place. I endeavored, but in vain, to drive my horse against the stream and go around the tree. I was afraid to turn my horse’s head to the stream and afraid to go back. In this dilemma I thought it most prudent for me to lay hold on the tree, and go over it, the water being shallow on the other side. No sooner did I execute my purpose so far as to lay hold of the tree (and that instant the horse was carried from under me) but the motion that I gave it loosened it, and down the stream it instantly carried me.” The tree, with passenger, lodged below at a little island, and then there floated down another tree. The doctor, besides being thoroughly wetted, was near losing his life. After more than a hundred years the suggestion may be offered that the first tree should never have been laid hold of. “I was now obliged to walk,” continues Dr. Coke, “about a mile, shivering, before I came to a house. The master and mistress were from home, and were not expected to return that night. But the principal negro lent me an old ragged shirt, coat, waistcoat, breeches, etc., and the negroes made a large fire and hung my clothes up to dry all night.” Before bedtime the horse, having got around the tree, was recovered and brought in by a neighbor, who supposed the rider to be drowned. “As he seemed to be a poor man, I gave him half a guinea. I trust I shall never forget so awful but very instructive a scene.”

After this March welcome to Virginia, Dr. Coke passed through the State into North Carolina, and returned to Alexandria May 23d. He was at Fredericksburg and Williamsburg (where inquiring for a Methodist he was told there was one in the town, who proved to be “a good old Presbyterian” and hospitable), at Smithfield and Portsmouth, in Mecklenburg County, at New Glasgow, towards the mountains, and in Culpeper County. These sojournings are specified. There was a bad season in May that year, and near Alexandria the creeks were again difficult at the crossings. It was observed on this, the first tour, that in Mecklenburg County “they have a great variety of fruit pies—peach, apple, pear and cranberry, and puddings—very often.” About New Glasgow (on Buffalo River, just north of Amherst Courthouse) Dr. Coke remarks: “The wolves, I find, frequently come to the fences at night, howling in an awful manner; and sometimes they seize upon a straying sheep. At a distance was the Blue Ridge, an amazing chain of mountains. I prefer this country to any other part of America—it is so like Wales, my native country. And it is far more populous than I expected.”In April, 1787, Dr. Coke was a second time in Virginia, scarcely a fortnight. He had come from England to the Island of Antigua, and sailed from St. Eustatia in a large Dutch ship, February 10th, for Charleston. “In the course of our journey through North Carolina I preached at the house of a gentleman near Salisbury, who was formerly a dancing-master, and has amassed a considerable fortune, with which he has purchased a large estate. In traveling through Virginia our rides were so long that we were frequently on horseback till midnight after preaching in the middle of the day. Since I left Charleston I have got into my old romantic way of life, of preaching in the midst of great forests, with scores and sometimes hundreds of horses tied to the trees, which adds much solemnity to the scene.

“In the course of my journey through this State I visited the county of Halifax, where I met with a little persecution on my former visit. I am now informed that soon after I left the county on my former tour a bill was presented against me as a seditious person before the grand jury, and was found by the jury, and ninety persons had engaged to pursue me and bring me back again. Another bill was also presented in one of the neighboring counties, but was thrown out. Many of the people, I find, imagined that I would not venture amongst them again. However, when I came they all received me with perfect peace and quietness. Indeed, I now acknowledge that however just my sentiments may be concerning slavery, it was ill-judged of me to deliver them from the pulpit. Many of the inhabitants at Richmond, I was informed, said that I would not dare to venture into that town. But they did not know me, for I am a plain, blunt man, that goes directly on. However, instead of opposition, the Governor of the State, who resides there, ordered the Capitol to be opened to me, and a very respectable and very attentive congregation I was favored with.” On the way from Richmond to Alexandria there was a plot laid for Dr. Coke by a company of agreeable men at one of the inns. “In the first dish of tea there was a little rum; in the second a little more, but the third was so strong that on our complaining of a conspiracy, it seemed as if the rum had sprung into our tea of itself, for both company and waiters solemnly protested they were innocent. On the last day of April Mr. Asbury and I arrived at Baltimore.”

The following year, 1788 (the Atlantic seems to have been but a ferry even then), Dr. Coke was in Virginia again for a few days, coming, as in 1787, from the West Indies by Charleston. “In traveling from North Carolina to Virginia we were favored with one of the most beautiful prospects I ever beheld. The country, as far as we could see from the top of a hill, was ornamented with a great number of peach orchards, the peach trees being all in full bloom, and displaying a diversity of most beautiful colors—blue, purple and violet. On the opposite side of a beautiful vale which lay at the foot of a hill, ran the River Yeadkin, reflecting the rays of the sun from its broad, placid stream; and the mountains which bounded the view formed a very fine background for the completing of the prospect. The two days following we rode on the ridge of a long hill, with a large vale on each side, and mountains rising above mountains for twenty, and sometimes, I suppose, for forty miles on each hand. In Halifax County, Virginia, where I met with much persecution four years ago, almost all the great people of the county came in their chariots and other carriages to hear me, and behaved with great propriety: there were not less than five colonels in the congregation. On the 18th of April we opened our first Virginia Conference for the State of Virginia in the town of Petersburgh. From Petersburgh we set off for our second Virginia Conference, which we held in the town of Leesburgh, visiting Richmond by the way.”

Dr. Coke’s fourth and last journey in Virginia (the last, that is, recorded in his book, published 1793) was again in April, year 1791. As in 1787 and 1788, the approach was from the south. “On Monday, the 11th of April, we arrived at Dickes’s Ferry, in Virginia. Our ride on that day was remarkably pleasing. The variety arising from the intermixture of woods and plantations along the sides of the broad, rocky river Dan, near which we rode most part of the time, could not but be a source of great pleasure to an admirer of the beauties of nature. Hitherto (April 15th) I might be said to have traveled with the spring. As I moved from South to North the spring was, I think, as far advanced when I was in Georgia as when I came into Virginia. But now it has evidently got the start of me. The oaks have spread out their leaves, and the dogwood, whose bark is very medicinal, and whose innumerable white flowers form one of the finest ornaments of the forest, is in full bloom. The deep green of the pines, the bright transparent green of the oaks, and the fine white of the flowers of the dogwood, with other trees and shrubs, form such a complication of beauties as are indescribable to those who have only lived in countries that are almost entirely cultivated.

“For about 800 miles which I have rode since I landed in South Carolina, we have had hardly any rain. But this day, the 16th, we were wetted to the skin. However, we at last happily found our way to the house of a friend by the preachers’ mark—the split bush.” This circumstance may appear to many immaterial; however, as it may convey some idea of the mode in which the preachers are obliged to travel in this country, I will just enlarge upon it. The method was to split two or three bushes, at the junction of several roads, along the road that should be followed; very useful to the itinerant at the formation of new circuits in the forest. Dr. Coke observes: “In one of the circuits the wicked discovered the secret, and split bushes in wrong places on purpose to deceive the preachers.”

The character of this great man appears in his book, written without artifice. The people were glad to see him. “On the 20th of April we opened our conference at Petersburgh. April 24th I preached in Richmond, in the Capitol where the Assembly sits, to the most dressy congregation I ever saw in America. However, they gave great attention. In the afternoon I rode to Colonel Clayton’s, about twenty-five miles from Richmond. April 20th I came among the cedar trees. This evening we arrived at Port Royal, where a numerous and very dressy congregation had been waiting for us about two hours with wonderful patience. A gentleman of the name of Hipkins, a capital merchant of the town, sent us a genteel invitation to sup with him, and lodge at his house. I accepted of it. Soon after I came in he observed that the Philadelphia paper had informed the public of the death of Mr. Wesley.[J] I gave no credit to the account, but, however, intreated the favour of seeing the paper. He sent immediately to a neighboring merchant who took in that paper, and about 10 o’clock the melancholy record arrived. I evidently saw by the account that it was too true.

“The next morning I set off for New York, in order to be in time for the British packet. At Alexandria the news was confirmed by a letter from London. On the 29th I crossed the run of water called Akatenke, down which I was carried by the flood. We were now come into a country abounding with singing birds. But alas! I could take no pleasure in them, the death of my venerable friend had cast such a shade of melancholy over my heart. The night being very dark, it was with great difficulty that my friend, who traveled with me, and myself found our way from Alexandria to Blaidensburg.”

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