Francis Makemie and Presbyterian Origins in America
By Donald Fortson - Posted at byFaith:
Just 20 years ago, we celebrated the 300th anniversary of America’s first presbytery, which assembled in Philadelphia in 1706. The key player in gathering seven Presbyterian ministers to establish this presbytery in the American Colonies was Francis Makemie. In memory of his efforts to create a Presbyterian structure in America, Makemie has been given the honorific title “Father of American Presbyterianism” by later generations. Many of his contemporaries knew Makemie best for his bold advocacy for religious freedom.Who was this man, and how did he help shape early Presbyterianism in America? Before we discuss the life and contributions of Francis Makemie, we will briefly explore the nascent Presbyterian footprint in America leading up to Makemie’s ministry in the New World. This background will provide a useful context for understanding the impulse to establish the first presbytery in America and the significance of Makemie’s fight for religious liberty in the British colonies of America.
Presbyterians Come to America
The first English settlement in the New World was Jamestown, Virginia, settled in 1607. Among the Jamestown immigrants were Puritan clergy from England, some of whom were of Presbyterian persuasion. Alexander Whitaker and George Keith were two early Virginia clergy with Presbyterian convictions. Whitaker immigrated to Virginia in 1611, serving a parish along the James River below Richmond. He was from a Presbyterian Puritan family. His father William was a divinity professor at Cambridge, a hotbed of Puritanism. One of Alexander Whitaker’s cousins would later serve as a member of the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s.George Keith was a Presbyterian Scot who entered the Virginia colony in 1617 and served several parishes. Keith did not use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and practiced Presbyterian polity. Keith wrote, “I have by the help of God, begun a Church government by ministers and elders. I made bold to choose four elders publickly by lifting up of hands and calling upon God.” 1
The early Presbyterian work in Virginia was interrupted when the Virginia Assembly in 1629 declared that all clergy in the colony must conform to the Church of England. Presbyterians were suppressed in Virginia, and over time were assimilated by the Anglican establishment of the colony.2
Reformed and Presbyterian immigrants began arriving in the South Carolina coastlands in the late 1600s. The French Reformers, known as Huguenots, entered Charles Town and surrounding areas beginning in 1669.3 Scots also entered the Carolinas during the 17th century. Some Scottish “Covenanters,” who had taken a solemn oath to only support national Presbyterianism, were banished to Carolina for their refusal to acknowledge the English king’s supremacy.
In Charleston, Scots joined with Scots-Irish brethren, English Puritans, and Huguenots to establish the Independent Church in 1690, which historically would be known by several different names, including “the Presbyterian Church.” One of the Independent Church’s ministers, Archibald Stobo, planted several South Carolina Presbyterian congregations after he left the Charleston congregation in 1704. Stobo and three other Scottish ministers in the Charleston region established a presbytery in 1722.4
Presbyterians also immigrated to Puritan-dominated New England, but without any Presbyterian ministers available, Presbyterians often joined the Congregational churches in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Congregationalists practiced church government by elders and ministers in autonomous congregations, but there were also connectional Presbyterian sentiments found among the growing New England population.
The influence of Presbyterian principles within New England Congregationalist practice was evident in the collaboration among the churches.5 Boston minister Cotton Mather, in his 1698 history of New England churches, claimed that over 4,000 Presbyterians had come to New England in the years up to 1640.6
