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.ÿþserving in whichever parish they now found themselves residing.This created the unusual situationof vestries for the time being having more than twelve lay members.The law further specified thatfor the future no new vestrymen could be elected or chosen in the four affected parishes until theirnumbers fell below twelve.Church, 262.38.St.Paul s (Hanover) Vestry Book, 1 October 1726, 115 16, 28 September 1728, 118 20.39.Bristol Parish Vestry Book, 50 137.40.St.Mark s Parish Vestry Minutes.41.Petitioners in Accomack County in 1748 requested Liberty to Choose a Vestry every threeYears. Accomack County Court Order Book 1744 53, 22 June 1748, 276.The assembly turned adeaf ear to such requests for fundamental change in vestry elections.Further details in dissolutionpetitions can be found in Hening, 5:274 75, 380, 381, 6:259, 272, 502 3, 517, 518 19, 7:144, 153, 246,301, 303 4, 416, 616, 8:432, Church, 322 23, 432, 450 51.453.The 1772 legislative provisions for newvestries in Southam and Dale Parishes included for the first time the prohibitions against bribery,entertaining, or treating that had long been part of the laws governing elections for the House ofBurgesses.Does this indicate that vestry elections were becomming more hotly contested affairs inthe decades just prior to the Revolution? Hening, 8:604 5.See also JHB, 12:225 32, for an unusuallydetailed account spread across the pages of the House journal regarding Party Spirit dividing St.John s Parish in a matter related to the glebe.See also Paul K.Longmore, From Supplicants toConstituents: Petitioning by Virginia Parishioners, 1701 1775, VMHB 103 (1995): 407 43.42.JHB, 6:29, 44, 47, 52.Acting on its own initiative in the disputed arena of ecclesiastical mat-ters where the House of Burgesses already claimed primary jurisdiction, the Council in1708 ordereddissolution of the Charles Parish vestry.Thereafter, petitions asking for the dissolution of vestrieswere referred to the House.EJC, 3:168, 185 86, 192, 197, 205, 207 8, 218, 222, 225.43.JHB, vols.7 13.Carl Bridenbaugh argues that the vestry was under attack after1750 both fromdissenters and some enlightened gentlemen who viewed it as an outworn institution serving alonethe interests of the gentry.Bridenbaugh, Myths and Realities: Societies of the Colonial South (Baton Rouge,La., 1952; pbk., New York, 1963), 34.44.Truro Parish Vestry Minutes, 1 October 1744, 15 April 1745; Newport Parish Vestry Minutes,5 November1745, 27 June1746.The Truro Parish minister, Charles Green, presumably was the authorof a curious note signed with the initials C.G. placed in the margins of the vestry minutes,claiming a petition for dissolution that alleged the illiteracy of several vestry members was greatlyexaggerated.The only illiterate member of the vestry, C.G. asserted, was Edward Ennis, who,following dissolution, was reelected.It is difficult to believe that the House of Burgesses would havesupported a call for vestry dissolution on such narrow grounds.45.St.Patrick s Parish Vestry Minutes, 16 January 1759, 14 August 1759; Dettingen Parish VestryMinutes, 24 March 1757, 8 October 1757.In the Dettingen vestry there were internal disputes overacceptance of a new church building at Quantico and the failure to complete contracted work onthe glebe.It is not clear whether these matters contributed to the dissolution.46.Suffolk Parish Vestry Minutes, 2 November 1758, 26 June 1759.47.Hungars Parish Vestry Minutes, 17 April 1770, 11 September 1770; Augusta Parish Vestry Min-utes, 22 November1769, 22 November1771.Dissenter presence was cited as the reason for the Augustadissolution.48.In 1759 the Assembly acknowledged that many vestrymen in this colony have, since the timeof their election, dissented from the communion of the church of England, and joined themselvesto a dissenting congregation, yet still continue to act as vestrymen. To remedy the situation, theAssembly directed vestries to report the names of all such persons to the respective county courts.The courts in turn were to ascertain their affiliations and, if dissenters, to remove them from thevestries, which in turn were authorized to select replacements.In extreme cases where six or morevestrymen were dissenters, remedy was to be sought by application to the Assembly rather than thecounty court.What is not clear are the dimensions of the problem: how many were many ? Courtorder books fail to disclose efforts to carry out the dictates of the Assembly.Hening, 7:302 3.Adissenter majority was given as the reason for the dissolution of Augusta Parish vestry in 1769.Ibid.,8:432.346 notes to pages 38 40
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