An extensive brick wall which surrounded the church and guarded the graves of the dead was torn down and used for hearths, chimneys, and other purposes, all the county round. The interior of the house soon sunk into decay and was carried piecemeal away. For many years it was the common receptacle of every beast of the field and fowl of the air. It was used as a granary, stable, a resort for hogs, and every thing that chose to shelter there. Would that I could stop here! but I am too credibly informed that for years it was also used as a distillery of poisonous liquors; and that on the very spot where now the sacred pulpit stands, that vessel was placed in which the precious fruits of Heaven were concocted and evaporated into a fell poison, equally fatal to the souls and bodies of men; while the marble font was circulated from house to house, on every occasion of mirth and folly,-being used to prepare materials for feasting and drunkenness,-until at length it was found bruised, battered, and deeply sunk in the cellar of some deserted tavern. But even that sacred vessel has been redeemed, and, having been carefully repaired, has resumed its place within the sacred enclosure. Although the doors of the house had been enlarged, by tearing away the bricks, to make a passage for the wagons that conveyed the fruits that were to be distilled into the means of disease and death; although the windows were gone and the roof sunk into decay, the walls only remaining,-yet were they so faithfully executed by the workmen of other days as to bid defiance to storms and tempests, and to stand not merely as monuments of the fidelity of ancient architecture, but as signals from Providence, held out to the pious and liberal to come forward and repair the desolation. Nor have these signals been held out in vain to some fast friends of the Church of their fathers

in the parish of North Farnham. At an expense of fourteen hundred dollars, they have made Old Farnham one of the most agreeable, convenient, and beautiful churches in Virginia. It should also be mentioned that the handsome desk, pulpit, and sounding-board now to be seen in Farnham Church were once in Christ Church, Baltimore, when the Rev. Mr. Johns officiated in the same. They were a present from the minister and vestry of that church; and few events could give more pleasure to the congregation at Farnham than to see them again occupied by the former tenant, and to hear from his lips, if only one or two of those impressive appeals which have so often been heard from the same."

LUNENBURG PARISH, RICHMOND COUNTY.

The first information we have of this parish is from communications made to the Bishop of London by the Rev. Mr. Kay, its minister, between the years 1740 and 1750, as well as my memory serves me, not having the documents before me at this time. A most painful and protracted controversy took place between him and a portion of his vestry,-especially Colonel Landon Carter. Though the doors of the church were closed against Mr. Kay, such was the advocacy of him by a portion of the vestry and many of the people that he preached in the churchyard for some time. The dispute appears to have been about the right of Mr. Kay to the parish in preference to another who was desired by some of the

vestry and people. The cause was carried before the Governor and Council, and from thence to the higher court in England. The sympathy of the Commissary and the clergy appears to have been with Mr. Kay. How it was finally settled in the English courts does not appear, but we find Mr. Kay in Cumberland parish, Lunenburg county, in the year 1754.* In that year the Rev. Mr. Simpson becomes minister of Lunenburg parish, Richmond county. How long he continues, and whether any one intervenes between him and the Rev. William Giberne, who becomes the minister in 1762, is not known. The name and memory of Mr. Giberne have come down to our times with considerable celebrity. The first notice I have of him is in a letter to the Bishop of London, in which he inveighs with severity on some things in the Church of Virginia. On the Bishop of London's writing to Commissary Robinson concerning them, the Commissary denies the charge in its fulness, and says that it comes with ill grace from Mr. Giberne, who himself sets an ill example, being addicted to card-playing and other things unbecoming the clerical character.

young.

All the accounts I have received of him correspond with this. He was a man of talents, of great wit and humour, and his home a pleasant place to the like-minded, especially attractive to the He lived at the place now owned by the Brockenbrough family, near Richmond Court-House. He married a daughter of Moore Fauntleroy and Margaret Micou. Her father was Paul Micou, a Huguenot who fled from Nantes in 1711.† In the following communication from a friend in Richmond county there is more particular mention of Mr. Giberne, in connection with some inte resting particulars about the two churches in Lunenburg parish.

"The church here, which I remember, was situated near the public road, near our court-house, and was surrounded by large and beautiful trees, affording a fine shade in summer to those visiting the church. The ground was enclosed by a brick wall, which was finally overthrown by the growing roots of a magnificent oak. Like most of the old churches in Virginia, it was built of brick, finished in the best manner, and cruciform in shape; the pulpit was very elevated, and placed on the south side at an

* In different vestry-books I find the name sometimes Kay and at others Key. There may have been ministers of both names.

At the old Port Micou estate on the Rappahannock may still be seen the large, heavy, iron-stone or black marble tombstone of this Paul Micou, the first of the name who came into this country. By reason of its weight and the lightness of the soil, it sinks every few years somewhat beneath the earth, but is raised up again The inscription is as follows:- Here lies the body of Paul Micou, who departed this life the 23d of May, 1736, in the seventy-eighth year of his age."

angle near the centre of the building. The aisles were floored with large stones, square and smoothly dressed, and the pews with planks. They were high at the sides and panelled, and better suited for devotion than our churches at the present day. The church was claimed by an individual, when in ruins, and the materials from time to time removed and used for various domestic purposes.

"It was built. according to the recollection of an individual now living, in 1737, and he remembers to have seen the date marked in the mortar, 'Built in 1737.' This building remained until about 1813, when its walls were thrown down by the outward pressure of the roof, which had fallen from decay. The Rev. Isaac Wm. Giberne was the pastor of this church. He was an Englishman, and I think the nephew of the Bishop of Durham. I ascertained the fact from an inscription in an old Prayer-Book, which was in the possession of Mr. Giberne, and which after his death came into my hands. It had belonged to her Majesty Queen Anne, and was used by her in her private chapel: on her demise it was retained by her chaplain. The inscription further stated it was intended to be presented to the 'Bodleian Library,' in which the Prayer-Books of two of the crowned heads of England had been preserved.

"Mr. Giberne commenced his services in this church in January, 1762, as we learn from the parish register, and continued to officiate in this and the Upper Church,' as it was called, until incapacitated by age. He was a man of great goodness of heart and Christian benevolence, highly educated, well read, and extensively acquainted with the ancient and English classic writers.

"After an interval of some eight or ten years or more, Mr. Giberne was followed in his pastoral duties by the Rev. W. George Young, an Englishman, who, I believe, occupied the glebe in 1800 or 1802. I am unable to learn how long he continued, but he removed, and the glebe, like many others, was sold under an Act of Assembly.

"The silver vessels consisted of a massive silver tankard, goblet, and plate. These remained in the keeping of our family until sold by a decree of the Court. They were purchased by the late Colonel John Tayloe, of Mount Airy, and by him presented to St. John's Church, Washington.

"The principal families attached to the old church here were the Carters, Tayloes, Lees, (Colonel F. L. Lee, of Manakin,) Beckwiths, Neales, Garlands, Belfields, Brockenbroughs, Rusts, Balls, Tomlins, &c.

"The Upper Church,' as it was commonly called, situated in the upper part of this county, has been long a ruin, the spot marked only by the mounds of crumbling bricks. Mr. Giberne was the last minister who regularly officiated in it. The families chiefly belonging to its congregation were the Fauntleroys, Lees, Belfields, Beales, Mitchells, Jenningses, &c. It would be impossible to ascertain at this time, I presume, when this church was built.

"There was but one other church in old times' in the county of Richmond it was Farnham Church, which continued in tolerable repair until after 1800. I think in 1802 there was regular service in this church by a Mr. Brockenbrough, a minister of the Church, a remarkably small man, as I recollect him, so diminutive that he required a block in the pulpit to stand on. He did not live at the glebe, but at Cedar Grove, the property of a Miss McCall, and kept a grammar-school there. After this time the church became dilapidated, and no service was performed in it; in truth, it was completely desecrated, and served as a shelter for cattle, hogs, and

horses for many years.

Its walls, however, were permitted to stand, and its magnificent oaks allowed to grace the place and to give their friendly shade to the weary traveller who halted at the neighbouring tavern to refresh himself and horse. When we look back on this period of infidelity and heathenism in this eunty, when the old churches were pulled down or permitted to fall to decay, when no religious instruction was to be found, no declaration of the Gospel but by an itinerant preacher, little calculated to awaken the slumbering people, we are led to wonder how the land escaped some signal mark of divine vengeance,-that some calamity had not overshadowed it to call its thoughtless and wicked inhabitants back to the Christian fold.

"I have never heard what became of the sacred vessels belonging to this church. The glebe was in the occupancy of Dr. Thomas Tarpley, a well-educated and highly-polished man; how it came into his possession I never knew,-probably by purchase at public sale."

After the Rev. Mr. Young, mentioned in the foregoing communication, I know of no minister until the Rev. Washington Nelson, in 1834 or 1835, who took charge of this parish in connection with those of North Farnham and Cople. At his death the Rev. Mr. Ward succeeded to all three of the parishes, and at his resignation, a young man, whose name I forget, was minister of Lunenburg for part of a year. He was succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Coffin for two

years.

The most remarkable of the old seats in this parish, known to the writer, are those of Sabine Hall, belonging to the Carters, and of Mount Airy, belonging to the Tayloes. Having in a preceding article given some account of the Carter family, which has so abounded in the Northern Neck, I subjoin a brief genealogy of the Tayloes, who have appeared on our vestry-books in the Northern Neck from their first settlement to the present time.

THE TAYLOE FAMILY.

"William Tayloe, (probably Taylor at that day,) of London, emigrated to Virginia about 1650. He married Anne, a daughter of Henry Corbin, (who was settled in King and Queen county,) the ancestor of the Corbins. John Tayloe, son of William and Anne, married Mrs. Elizabeth Lyde, daughter of Major Gwyn, of Essex county. Their children were William, John, Betty, and Anne Corbin. The first died young. John was the founder of Mount Airy. Betty married Colonel Richard Corbin, grandson of Henry Corbin. Anne Corbin married Mann Page, of Mansfield, near Fredericksburg.

"The last-named John Tayloe, of Mount Airy, was a member of the Council of Virginia, before the War of the Revolution, and was re-elected with his colleague by the House of Burgesses during the progress of the war. He died suddenly on the 18th April, 1779, leaving a large family. He had twelve children, of whom eight daughters and one son survived him. His wife was Rebecca Plater, sister of the Honourable Governor

George Plater, of Maryland, whom he married in 1747. She died in 1787. Their eight daughters married,-1st, Elizabeth, to Governor Edward Lloyd, in 1767, of Maryland; 2d, Rebecca, to Francis Lightfoot Lee, the signer of the Declaration of Independence in 1769; 3d, Eleanor, to Ralph Wormly, of Middlesex, in 1772; 4th, Anne Corbin, to Thomas Lomax, of Caroline, in 1773; 5th, Mary, to Mann Page, of Spottsylvania, in 1776; 6th, Catherine, to Landon Carter, of Richmond county, in 1780; 7th, Jane, to Robert Beverley, of Essex, in 1791; 8th, Sarah, to Colonel Wm Augustine Washington, of Westmoreland, in 1799.

"John, son of the foregoing John and Rebecca, third of the name, was born in 1771, the only son in a family of twelve. In 1792 he married Anne, daughter of Governor Benjamin Ogle, of Maryland. He died in Washington in 1828. Their children were fifteen, of whom three died young, and eleven (six sons and five daughters) survived their father. Their mother died in 1855, at the unusual age of eighty-three. Five sons and three daughters have survived her. Their eldest son, John, entered the navy, and was distinguished in the battles of the Constitution with the Guerriere and with the Cyane and Levant. After the first action the State of Virginia presented him with a sword. He was captured in the Levant by a British squadron whilst lying at Port Praya, Cape de Verde Islands. He died in 1824 at Mount Airy, having resigned, shortly before, his rank of lieutenant in the navy, to which he was promoted soon after his first action. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, the second son, resides in Washington. Three other sons- -William, Edward, and George-reside in Virginia, and one in Alabama,-Henry Tayloe, an active member of the Church in that State. John Tayloe, a grandson, resides at Chatterton, in the county of King George."

From the earliest accounts of this family, they have been either warm friends of the Church, or in full communion with it. Many of the male members of the family have been active and liberal vestrymen.