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| Killed with a gun by his son-in-law M. Guyon (Kakaskia Historical records, Vol. 2, 1778-1790) Notes for ICHABOD CAMP,REV.: This line was furnished by Lauren Elaine Markham (LLJCKHENRY@aol.com) The following is from "Camp, Jones, and Related Families" by Nell Jones Carter, 1977, Page 4: "It has also been established that the Rev. Ichabod Camp was the son of John Camp who was the son of Edward Camp (2nd) of Milford,Conn." After Ichabod's death in 1786 at Kaskaskia, his wife and daughters moved to St Louis. There his granddaughter,Marguerite Susanne deReilhe, married Alexander McNair, who became the first Governor of Missouri. Tuckahoes and Cohees:The Settlers and Cultures of Amherst and Nelson Counties1607-1807, Catherine Hawes Coleman Seaman, Sweet Briar College Printing Press, Sweet Briar, Virginia 1992. About two pages on Icabod Camp. The references by the author used are: Walker,Frances M. 1964: The Early Episcopal Church in theAmherst-Nelson Area Lynchburg, J. P. Bell Co. Inc. Amherst Deed Book E:218 Brown, Alexander, The Cabells and their Kin; 1895, republished 1978 Harrisonburg, Virginia, C. J. Carrier Company.P. 222 (Tuckahoes & Cohees) In 1785, Lexington Parish the firstpost-Revolutionary parish, was established, and the vestrycontracted for the sale or removal of Maple Run Church In order to build St. Mark's Church. According to Howell (1973), the congregation that had worshipped In Maple Run moved Its "church house" to Clifford. Whether this means the old Maple Runbuilding Itself was moved, or that the congregation moved into another building at Clifford Is not clear. Relying on the records of the great. great. great-granddaughter of the first rector of Amherst Parish, Ichabod Camp. Howell writes that St.Mark's was standing P.223. (Tuckahoes & Cohees) before 1776 and was possibly a wooden structure. The present brick church was constructed by 1817. All denominations apparenfly used the building, a common practice at the time, but it was eventually deeded to the Episcopal Church in 1844. Back to 1761. theAnglican congregations of the newly formed Amherst County elected twelve vestrymen who voted to purchase 254 acres for a Glebe. On 14 August, 1762, they bought fifty acres from Carter Braxton and on 6 September the same year, 204 acres from Aaron Higginbotham. According to Walker, (ibid: 50) the Glebe was probably not erected until 1765, the Anglicans first building alog house for the clergy man, Mr. Camp, and his family until construction was completed. The property was later sold toAmbrose Rucker who then sold the house and 254 acres to Gabriel Penn on March 6, 1780 (Amherst Deed Book E:218). Camp left the area in 1778. selling his furniture to Colonel Cabell (Brown,1895:116), and going to the west with the army of George Rogers Clark (Percy, 1961:34). Unfortunately, Mr. Camp took the parish records with him when he left. However, the records may be still extant, since Mrs. Howell, above, was able to get Information from Camp's great, great, great-granddaughter. Walker writes (ibid: 84), that Camp served as a missionary to the Indians until the end of the Revolution. He then went to the Mississippi River where, Percy writes, he was killed in 1789. (Percy.1961:34). His family continued in the western area, his granddaughter, Susanna Marguerite de Reihe, marrying Alexander McNair, the first govenor of Missouri (Brown,1895:87). Rev. Camp's record reads: "Moved with my family 6 June 1760 from Middletown, CT. arrived at Wilmington, N. C. in nine days *** Moved with my family 6 May 1761 arrived at Cornwall, VA., Lunenburg 5 June 1761 -- Moved 22 March 1762 arrived at Amherst, VA, 1 April 1762. Moved 1 June 1778 -- going down the Mississippi and Mary Anne died at Natchez -- When he returned to and settled in Illinois." He was the son of John and Phoebe (Canfield) Camp, baptized Milford, Conn., Feb 20, 1726; graduated from Yale in 1743; married first Content, dau. of Capt. Meacock Ward. She died Dec. 2, 1754. He died at Kaskaskia, Ill. in 1786. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE REVEREND ICHABOD CAMP, FIRST AMERICAN PREACHER ON THE OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS OTTO LOHRENZ In the 1880s Lyman C. Draper, the collector of historical records, placed eleven pages of material on the Reverend Ichabod Camp in his "George Rogers Clark Papers" on the assumption that Camp had descended the Ohio River "with Clark's little army" in 1778. In 1896 the historian Reuben T. Durrett wrote that Camp, a Virginia Anglican rector, had "accompanied" Clark down the Ohio River to the Falls in 1778. There Camp had "preached the first sermon ever heard on the site of Louisville." When Clark resumed his voyage down the Ohio, Camp "accom-panied" him as far as Fort Massac. "Here they parted," Durrett explained, "General Clark going by land to Kaskaskia and Mr. Camp to Natchez by water."' Upon reaching Natchez, local annalists of Virginia have more recently insisted, Camp became the first Anglican, and by implication the first American, min-ister "to preach as far west as the Mississippi River."2 Who was the Reverend Ichabod Camp? What was his background? What brought him to the West in 1778? Was he an associate of Clark's in any way? Was he a precursor of the Anglican church in the West? What eventually became of him? This article will attempt to answer these and related questions by presenting a bio-graphical sketch of Camp. The record of Camp's background is fairly complete. Camp recorded the important events of his life in a journal. Several histories and a published family genealogy have biographical material about him and his family.3 Camp was a fourth-genera-tion American, his great-grandfather having come from Huns-don, Herts, England, to New Haven, Connecticut, about 1643. He was the son of John and Phoebe (Canfield) Camp and was born in Durham, Connecticut, on 15 February 1726; baptism by the local Congregational minister followed five days later.4 In September 1739 he entered Yale College, where he studied theolo-gy, taking his B.A. degree in 1743 and his M.A. degree in 1746. At some time he probably studied medicine and accepted an honorary degree because in his will Camp referred to himself as "Doctor of Divinity and Fisick."5 In 1745 the New Haven Association licensed Camp to preach, and for about the next two years he served the Congregational church in Sharon, Connecticut. By May 1748, however, he had abandoned the church of his ancestors and had embraced the faith of the Church of England. This manifestation of his in-dividualism must have been somewhat disconcerting to his Con-- OTTO Lohrenz, Ph.D., teaches history at Kearney State College in Kearney, Nebraska. He wishes to thank the Research Services Council, Kearney State College, for financial assistance in the research and prepara-tion of this article. 1 Draper MSS, 18J125-36, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison; Durrett, "Origin of the City of Louisville," in J. Stoddard Johnston, ed., Memorial History of Louisville from the First Settlement to the Year 1896 (2 vols.; Chicago, 1896), I, 40-41. William Henry Egle, the Pennsylvania historian, apparently was the first to write that Camp went with Clark in 1778. "Notes and Queries," Harrisburg Telegraph, 30 September 1852, Draper MSS, 18J125. 2 Frances Moorman Walker, The Early Episcopal Church in the Amlzerst-Nelson Area; Also Short Sketches of the Early Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches (Lynchburg, Virginia, 1964), 51; Alfred Percy, Piedmont Apoclypse (Madison Heights, Virginia, 1959), 35. Egle appar-ently also originated the suggestion that Camp was the first American to preach on the Mississippi. "Notes and Queries," Harrisburg Telegraph, 30 September 1882. 3 Draper collected material about Camp in the late nineteenth century; he copied short sections from a few printed sources and included a sum-mary paragraph of his own; his chief source was Frederick Louis Billon, who interviewed Camp's great-granddaughter in Saint Louis and who copied Camp's will and journal and a few minor documents which were in her possession. Billon to Draper, 29 January 1884, and 12 February 1884, Draper MSS, 18J125-36. Some of the same material is found in Billon, comp., Annals of St. Louis in Its Early Days under the French and Span-ish Dominations (Saint Louis, 1886), 231-32, 461-63. For another sketch of Camp, see Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Grad-uates of Yale College (6 vols.; New York, 1885-1912), I, 729-31. For the most recent genealogical and biographical account of Camp and his family, see Nell Jones Carter, Camp, Jones, and Related Families of Connecticut, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi-ana, Texas, and Points West (Tallahassee, Florida, 1977), 5-78. Carter has reproduced Camp's will, journal, and excerpts from some Camp family letters. 4 Carter, Camp, Jones, 5-25. 5 Camp's Will, ibid., 45-46; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, I, 729. congregational family and friends. Immediately he began reading services to the Anglican families in Middletown and Walling-ford, and two years later he "formed an Episcopal Society in Cheshire." 6 Camp was a successful lay reader. In 1748 Samuel Johnson, who was the most prominent Anglican clergyman in Connecticut and who would soon become president of King's College in New York, recommended Camp to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG). Camp was "a sensible, studious, and discreet young man," Johnson wrote. A year later Johnson informed the SPG that Camp's churches had "further increased" and that he was reading to them "with good success."7 In other letters Johnson reported that Camp was "much esteemed by his people," who were urgently requesting his ordination to the priesthood. 8 In Connecticut the public tithes supported the Congregational, not the Anglican, church. Voluntary contribu-tions by the relatively few parishioners could hardly support a minister, and Johnson wanted the SPG to accept Camp as a missionary upon his ordination and to supplement his local in-come with a stipend.9 Since there was no Anglican bishop in America, an ordinand had to hazard the voyage to England. In late 1751 Camp em-barked with two supportive letters by Johnson and five other New England Anglican ministers addressed to the Bishop of London. Johnson also sent a letter directly to the bishop in which he explained that the "only objection against Mr. Camp ... is a Defect in his left Hand"; but by practice Camp had "acquired such a Dexterity in the use of it," Johnson continued, that he was able to hold the paten and administer the sacrament prop-erly.'° Camp encountered no difficulties in London where Dr. John Thomas, the Bishop of Lincoln, ordained him deacon on 22 March 1752 and priest three days later. On 26 March Dr. Thomas Sherlock, the Bishop of London, the diocesan of the colonial churches, licensed Camp to officiate in New England." Ordination meant that Camp had passed the several examina-tions on secular knowledge, church doctrine, and theology, and that he had taken the oaths of allegiance and canonical obedience to the king and to the Church of England. 12 After his ordination Camp returned to Connecticut to serve the churches in Middletown, Wallingford, Cheshire, and North Haven. 13 He began his ministry in July 1752 and continued as rector until June 1760. There was a glebe that Camp may have occupied at first, but in August 1754 the family moved into its own house in Middletown. Thereafter he may have collected rent from the glebe. His annual salary was £30 sterling.14 An annual subsidy from the SPG, which pled monetary scarcity, was not 6 Charles F. Sedgwick, A History of the Town of Sharon, Litchfield County, Conn., from Its First Settlement (Hartford, Connecticut, 1842), 27; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, I, 729; Charles Henry Stanley Davis, History of Wallingford, Conn., from Its Settlement in 1670 to the Present Time, Including 1VSeriden, Which Was One of Its Parishes until 1806, and Cheshire, Which was Incorporated in 1780 (Meriden, Connecticut, 1870), 442. 7 Johnson to the SPG, 29 September 1748, and 28 March 1749, in E. Ed-wards Beardsley, The History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, from the Settlement of the Colony to the Death of Bishop Seabury (4th ed.; 2 vols.; Boston, 1883), I, 159, 161. 8 Johnson to the Bishop of London, 20 October 1751, Fulham Papers, Lambeth Palace Library, London (University Microfilms, 1963), XXI, 40; Johnson to the SPG, 5 October 1750, in Herbert and Carol Schneider, eds., Samuel Johnson, President of King's College: His Career and Writings (repr. ed.; 4 vols.; New York, 1972), III, 238. 9 Johnson, Ebenezer Punderson, and Richard Mansfield to the Bishop of London, 11 September 1751, Fulham Papers, XXI, 36; Johnson to the Bishop of London, 25 September 1751, Schneiders, eds., Samuel Johnson, I, 151. 10 Johnson, Punderson, and Mansfield to the Bishop of London, 11 Sep-tember 1751 ; Johnson et al. to the Bishop of London, 15 September 1751; Johnson to the Bishop of London, 20 October 1751, Fulham Papers, XXI, 28, 36, 10. 11 Fulham Papers, XXXVIII, 67, 315; XXXIX, 4, 37. 12 James B. Bell, "Anglican Clergy in Colonial America Ordained by Bishops of London," Proceedings o1 the American Antiquarian Society, 83 (1973): 135. 13 Dexter, P.iographieol Sketches, I, 729, wrote that Camp's churches were in bliddletown, Wallingford, and Cheshire. Davis, History of Walling-ford, 245, also stated that Camp's appointment was for Middletown, Wal-lingford, and Cheshire. Camp in his journal mentioned officiating in Mid-dletown, Wallingford, and North Haven. Carter, ('amp, .lanes, 24. 14 Johnson to the Bishop of London, 11 September 1751, Fulham Papers, XXI, 36; Carter, Camp, Jones. 24. immediately forthcoming. In 1754 Johnson addressed the SPG on Camp's behalf: "Mr. Camp proves a worthy and useful man ... and can be but very poorly supported. I wish the Society would be pleased to contribute to his better support." Camp is "a Faithful laborious young clergyman who has not yet been provided for by the Society," Johnson beseeched the SPG in 1757; "I humbly beg leave to intercede that something may be done for him, as he can but poorly subsist without some help."ls On 12 April 1758, the SPG did appoint Camp as one of its mis-sionaries at an annual salary of £20 sterling; Johnson thought it should have been £40 or £5016 The growth of his churches in numbers and the construction of new church edifices during his incumbency suggest that Camp was a capable and respected minister. At the beginning of his tenure there were ten subscribers or families in Middletown, thirteen in Wallingford, three in Cheshire, and two in North Haven. In May 1760, a month before Camp left Connecticut, there were forty-five Anglican families in Wallingford and fif-teen in Cheshire. The additions to the congregation in Middle-town during Camp's ministry averaged "six new families a year." Under Camp's energetic leadership the churchmen in 1755 built Christ's church in Middletown, described as "a handsome church, with steeple and bell." It was "a matter of record," the Middletown church historian wrote, "that most of the success of the building progress was due to the great efforts" of Camp. In 1758-1760 the parishioners erected churches in Wallingford, North Haven, and Cheshire.17 Two of Camp's sermons delivered in Connecticut are extant, and they are additional testimonials to his abilities. Camp preached one on 2 May 1759, in Christ's church in Middletown before Captain Timothy Hierlihy and his company; the sermon, entitled Of the Duty of Soldiers, was "Preached and published" at the captain's request. At this time England and her colonies were involved in the French and Indian War. Hierlihy and his company were preparing for the campaign against Crown Point and Ticonderoga later that year. The most important duty of the soldier, according to Camp's sermon, was to fear God; each soldier should consider himself accountable not only to his mili-tary superior, but, more importantly, to God. Other duties of officers included "Skill, loyalty, and Fortitude," and of common soldiers "Submission, Fidelity, and Obedience." He also asked his listeners to realize that they were not engaging in the war "to gratify the Pride and Ambition of your Prince," but to de-fend "your Liberty, your Property, your laws, and your Religion" against the French "attempts of arbitrary Power and Popish Superstition" and against the "Blood -thirsty" Indians.18 The second of these sermons was first preached in the Middle-town church on 27 April 1760. Its title was Men Have Freedom of Will and Power, and Their Conduct, Whether Good or Evil, Is of Choice. It was "Printed at the Desire and Charge of some of the Hearers." It was an able refutation of the Calvinistic doctrines of the Congregational church and a sincere advocation of the free-will tenets associated with the Church of England. 15 Johnson to the SPC, 25 March 1754 and 21 December 1757, Schneiders, eds., Samuel Johnson, III, 254; IV, 43. 16 Billon to Draper, 12 February 1884, Draper MSS, 18J135- Alice Bridge Richter, History of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Middletown, Connecticut (Middletown, Connecticut, 1963), 17; Johnson to the SPG, 25 November 1760, Schneiders, eds., Samuel Johnson, IV, 75. 17 Benjamin Trumbull, A Complete History of Connecticut, Civil and Ec-clesiastical from the Emigration of Its First Planters, from England, in the Year 1630, to the Year 1764; and to the Close of the Indian Wars (2 vols.; New London, Connecticut, 1898), II, 457; Franklin Bowditch Dexter, ed., Extracts from the Itineraries and Other Miscellanies of Ezra Stiles, D.D., LL.D., 17.55-178d, with a Selection from His Correspondence (New Haven, Connecticut, 1916), 76, 85; Davis, History of Wallingford, 248, 442; Richter, History of the Church, 16-17. For a pictorial illustration of Christ's church in Middletown, see ibid., opposite page 16. 18 Ichabod Camp, Of the Duty of Soldiers: A Sermon, Preached in Christ's Church, in Middletown, Before Capt. Timothy Hierlihy and His Company, on the Second of May, 1759 (New Haven, Connecticut, 1759), 1-16. A photo-copy of the sermon was provided by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manu-script Library, Yale University Library, New Haven. For a biographical sketch of Timothy Hierlihy, see Gregory Palmer, Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984), 384-85. By the citation of many scriptural references, by the application of logic and reason, and by the use of illustrations and analogies, Camp developed four points: God had offered salvation to "all men indiscriminately"; God had endowed all men with freedom of will, as well as with the power,- to choose or reject salvation; men were entirely responsible for the choice they made; and God sincerely and even importunately desired all men to choose salvation. It was clear that Camp was a genuine and fervent convert from Congregationalism to Anglicanism.19 Camp first married Content Ward, daughter of Meacock and Hannah (Tyler) Ward of Meriden, Connecticut, in 1749, but she died in 1754, leaving a daughter, Sarah, and a son, Samuel, both of whom attained maturity. Camp then married Ann Oliver of Boston in 1757, and she survived him and bore him eight chil-dren. Son John was born in Middletown but died soon after birth; son George was born in North Carolina; six daughters were born in Virginia; the youngest daughter, Caroline, died in her eighth year. George and five daughters - Mary Ann, Stella, Catherine, Charlotte, and Louisa - reached adulthood.20 By 1759 Camp had concluded not only that his present income was insufficient but also that the prospect for its future growth was poor. He, therefore, wrote to Arthur Dobbs, governor of North Carolina, inquiring about clerical opportunities. In North Carolina the economic rewards were better because the SPG subsidized clergymen and the legislature provided tax support. Anglican clergymen received £100 North Carolina currency annually as salary and £25 annually in lieu of a glebe. On 11 January 1760, Dobbs informed the SPG that he had "lately" received a letter from Camp, whose "small allowance" in Connec-ticut "cannot support him," and he "is inclinable to come here, if there is any encouragement." Dobbs planned to let Camp know "that we have sufficient vacancies for many." His letter to Camp a short time later must have been very encouraging, for, as Johnson later observed, Camp was "induced partly by his neces-sities, and partly by the persuasion of Governor Dobbs to move to North Carolina." On 26 June 1760, Camp and his family de-parted from Connecticut and nine days later arrived in North Carolina.21 It took a large measure of courage and determination for Camp to leave his native province. His parents disapproved, re-alizing that they would probably never see their son and his family again. The parents of Content Ward, his first wife, ob-jected to his taking their grandchildren so far away. Camp, according to descendants, felt obliged to leave Sarah and Samuel behind with his deceased wife's family. It is thought that Camp never saw Sarah again, and that Samuel finished his education in Connecticut before joining the family in Virginia. His depar-ture antagonized his parishioners, who could not fill the resulting vacancy. Yet when Camp a year later wished to return, the people, as Samuel Johnson reported, were still "so displeased at his leaving them, that they will not invite him back."22 Camp remained in North Carolina for only eleven months. What his clerical assignment was in that period is unknown. It is known that on 12 April 1761 he preached a sermon before the House of Assembly, which thanked him and requested a copy in order that the sermon might be printed. A year later the House received a petition from the printer for payment "for printing 19Iehabod Camp, Men Have Freedom of Will and Power, and Their Conduct, Whether Good or Evil, Is of Choice: The Substance of Two Ser-mons Delivered in St. Paul's Church, in Wallingford, the 4th of May, Anno Domini, 1760, and at Christ's Church, in Middletowx, the Lord's Day Preceeding (New Haven, Connecticut, 1760), 1-19. 20 Carter, Camp, Jones, 21, 24; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, I, 730; William Chaunce,y Fowler, History of Durham Connecticut, from. the First Grant of Land in 1662 to 1966 (Hartford, Connecticut, 1866), 111. 21 Camp's Journal, in Carter, Camp, Jones, 24; Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. "Dobbs, Arthur"; Dobbs to the SPG, 22 January 1760, in William L. Saunders, ed., The Colonial Records of North Carolina (10 vols.; Raleigh, 1866-1898), VI, 223; Johnson to the Archbishop of Canter-bury, 12 July 1760, Johnson to the SPG, 25 November 1760, in Schneiders, eds., Samuel Johnson, I, 294; IV, 75. 22 Billon to Draper, 12 February 1884, Draper MSS, 18J135; Carter, Camp, Jones, 16, 29, 30, 62; Johnson to the SPG, 15 May 1761, Beardslcy, History of the Episcopal Church, I, 197. and dispersing four hundred copies of Camp's sermon." The sermon, however, is not extant and the title is unknown. The fate of northern colonists who went south was illness, Johnson observed, and Camp soon found that he was no exception. "He has lost his health," Johnson wrote, and he "doubts whether he can live till he gets moved northward again, which he earnestly desires, and I have put his old people upon inviting him back." But they would not have him back. On 6 May 1761, Camp and his family left North Carolina for Virginia23 In Virginia, Camp first settled as the minister in Cornwall Parish in Lunenburg County for ten months. In the Old Domin-ion the Anglican church was the established church and was viable without SPG assistance. On 1 April 1762, Camp became the first rector of the newly created Amherst Parish in Amherst County24 Here he remained for sixteen years. Camp conducted Sunday worship in the several churches of the parish25 He also officiated at baptisms, marriages, and funerals for which he received the usual perquisites. Virginia law provided that the parish minister annually receive 17,280 pounds of tobacco (16,000 pounds plus the percentages for cask and shrinkage) and that he have the use of a glebe of at least two hundred acres with a suitable residence and appropriate outbuildings for agricultural production. 26 The Amherst glebe contained 254 acres and was located near present-day Clifford, Virginia27 Camp conducted a school and probably practiced medicine in Amherst County28 In Amherst, Camp and his family were content and prosper-ous until the Revolution. Here his six youngest children, all daughters, were born. The rectory - a two-story brick house with "eight or nine roams" - was comfortable and suitable for his growing family29 His ministry was probably acceptable to his parishioners, for no incidents or complaints have been re-corded. He and his family enjoyed social relationships with the leading planter families of the county. His income as minister, planter, physician, and schoolmaster was considerable, enabling him to become a landowner. On 4 September 1767, for £37 10s. Virginia currency, he purchased a tract of land lying on both sides of Rocky Run, a branch of Buffalo River, "containing by Estimation one hundred and sixty Eight acres more or less." A survey must have found that it was more rather than less, for when it was sold in 1776 the tract contained 205 acres.30 This meant that Camp had the use of 459 acres - his own acres plus the glebe lands - available for agriculture. Family tradition held that Camp owned "a great many" slaves, and contemporaries later reported that he had "a very handsome living" and "besides a very considerable private estate"; but Camp was also indebted 23 Saunders, ed., Colonial Records of N. C., VI, 684, 688, 824; Johnson to the 5PG, 25 November 1760, in Schneiders, eds., Samuel Johnson, IV, 75; Camp's Journal, in Carter, Camp, Jones, 24. 24 Camp's Journal, in Carter, Camp, Jones, 24. Bishop William Meade's statement, repeated by others, that Camp had been rector of St. Anne's Parish in Albemarle County in the early 1750s is incorrect; Meade's state-ment that Camp was rector of Lexington Parish from 1773 to 1776 is also incorrect; Lexington Parish came into existance in 1779 after Camp had left Virginia. Meade, Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1857) II, 48, 57; William W. Aening, ed., The Statutes at Large: Being ¢ Collection of All Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619 (13 vols.; Richmond, 1810-1823), VII, 421, IX, 567. 25A church historian of Amherst has identified four churches in the parish during Camp's tenure; they were the Maple Run church, Rucker's church (which was also called the Harris Creek church), Key's church, and the Rockfish church. See Walker, Early Episcopal Church, 50. 26 Heninz, ed., Statutes at Large, III, 151-53; IV, 204-2n8; VI, 88-90. In 1775 comnlainants reported that the Amherst vestry had "laid the tithe in money." The House of Burgesses ordered the vestry to meet and "fix a rate at which the people ... shall pay their levies in tobacco." Ibid., IX, 238. 27 In August and September 1762 the churchwardens purchased 204 acres from Aaron Higginbotham for £120 and 50 acres from Carter Brax-ton for £5 for a glebe for Amherst Parish. Alexander Brown, The C¢bells and Their Kin: A Memorial Volume of History, Biography, and Genealogy (2nd ed.; Richmond, Virginia, 1939), 86-87. The rectory was reported to be standing as late as 1977. Carter, Camp, Jones, 30-31. 28 T. 79/95, 43, 72, British Public Record Office (microfilm copy in Li-brary of Congress). 29 Carter, Camp, Jones, 30-31. 30 Amherst County, Virginia, Deed Book B (1765-1769), 242, and Am-herst County, Virginia, Deed Book D (1773-1778), 360 (microfilm copy in Virginia State Library, Richmond), to two British mercantile firms for a total of £143 4s. 8 _ d.31 In 1774 Camp attended a historic clerical convention in Wil-liamsburg. That was the year of the Coercive Acts, including the Boston Port Bill, which Parliament had enacted in response to the Boston Tea Party. The port of Boston was closed until pay-ment for the destroyed tea was made. When the House of Bur-gesses appointed 1 June -the day the Port Bill was to go into effect-as a day of prayer, fasting, and humiliation, Governor Lord Dunmore prorogued both the House and the Council. There-upon eighty-nine Burgesses withdrew to the Apollo Room of Raleigh Tavern and on 27 May drafted and signed the Virginia Association. The document protested English policies, resolved on a general boycott, and recommended the convening of a gen-eral congress of all the colonies. By coincidence the Anglican clergy had been meeting in convocation, and some of them were still in Williamsburg.32 Thirteen of the clergy, including Camp, endorsed the Association with their signatures.33 In observance of the fast day, Virginians were to repair to their churches to hear appropriate sermons by their rectors. In all likelihood Camp preached a suitable sermon in his parish; he had endorsed the Association organized by the Burgesses and could be expected to countenance their appointed fast day as well. Thus in the early stages of the Revolution, Camp was supporting the colonies in their quarrel with the mother country. As the Revolution progressed toward separation from the mother country, however, Camp experienced a dramatic change of heart. The Treasury Papers in the British Public Record Of-fice-which writers dealing with Camp have heretofore not utilized-show that Camp did not remain a patriot as has previously been assumed, but that he became an ardent loyalist.34 He considered the English policies unjust and oppressive but could accept neither independence nor the trend toward internal revolution. William W. Hening, later the compiler of Virginia's Statutes at Large, was the special agent of the United States assigned to investigate and report on the British mercantile claims against American debtors in Amherst County. In his official report in 1801 Hening wrote that Camp had been "vio-lently opposed to the principles of our revolution," and that he had exhibited "an incorrigible aversion to the independence of the United States." Hening's report was especially based on the deposition of William S. Crawford, clerk of the Amherst County Court, who had been one of Camp's pupils "immediately before his removal." Many residents of Amherst could corroborate Crawford's testimony, Hening continued.35 Camp was not the only Virginia parson to shift from one side to the other during 31 Billon, comp., Annals of St. Louis, 462. The Treasury Papers in the British Public Record Office show that Camp owed £61 8s. 51/zd. to William Cunningham & Co. and X81 16s. 31/ad. to Spiers, Bowman & Co. T. 79/95, 42-43, 56-57. These debts were still outstanding in 1801 and apparently were never paid. 32 The vestry of Drysdale Parish had charged its rector, Andrew Moreton, with "divers Immoralities." On the first Tuesday in June Moreton was to appear before the governor and Council to answer the charges. Commissary John Carom called a convention of the clergy for 26 May to deal with what he considered improper civil interference in clerical affairs; this event explains the clergy's presence in Williamsburg upon this historic occasion. When Dunmore prorogued the Council on 26 May and the vestry induced Moreton to relinquish his benefice, the potential civil-church crisis dissi-pated. Purdie and Dixon's Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg), 5 May 1774; Council Minutes, 20 April 1774, in Henry R. McIlwaine et ¢l., eds., Execu-tive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia (6 vols.; Richmond, 1925-1966), VI, 556. 33 Henry R. McIlwaine et al., eds., Journals of the House of Burgesses o f Virginia, 1773-177G (Richmond, 1905-1915), xiii-xiv. The twelve other clergymen who signed were William Harrison, William Hubard, Benjamin Blagrove, William Bland, Henry John Burgess, Samuel Smith McCrosky, Joseph Davenport, Thomas Price, David Griffith, William Leigh, Robert Andrews, and Samuel Klug. 34 See, for example, Edward Lewis Goodwin, The Colonial Church in Virginia; with Biographical and Other Historical Papers, Together with Brief Biographical Sketches of the Colonial Clergy in Virginia (Milwaukee, 1927) 258; George MacLaren Brydon, "The Clergy of the Established Church in Virginia and the Revolution," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography %LI (1933) : 129. Descendants have registered Camp as a patriot on the rolls of honor of the Daughters of the American Revolution. DAR Patriot Index, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (2 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1966-1979), I, 111. 35 In attestation of the depositions made to Hening, two seals were an-nexed: that of Crawford as clerk of Amherst County Court and that of Samuel Meredith, a justice of the peace of the county. T. 79/95, 42-43, 56-57, 72, British Public Record Office. the Revolution, and he was one of three clerical signers of the Association to become a tory.36 In 1778 Camp left Amherst County and took most of his fam-ily to the Natchez district in British West Florida on the lower Mississippi River.37 Natchez had been part of the Spanish empire until Spain in 1763 transferred Florida to Britain; the British then divided their new acquisition into East and West Florida. One local historian stated, without documentation, that Camp from patriotic motivations had gone with George Rogers Clark to the West as chaplain.38 Both Reuben T. Durrett and Lyman C. Draper, as noted above, also implied that Camp and Clark had been associated. Another annalist suggested that Camp had caught "the mania" and was moving "with the crowd" to the "garden spot of our country."39 This claim may have some valid-ity since Camp had previously demonstrated a restless and ad-venturous spirit. The cheerless clerical outlook in Virginia may have contributed to Camp's decision to relocate. The Virginia legislature first suspended and then permanently ended clerical stipends from public sources as of 1 January 1777.40 After that, salaries had to be raised by subscription from parishioners un-accustomed to voluntary contributions. The result was that rec-tors often received little more than the perquisites and the bene-fits they could derive from their glebes. There can be little doubt, however, that Camp left Amherst mainly because he had "determined not even to live within the jurisdiction of the United States," as Hening learned through his interviews in Amherst in 1801.41 What events and considerations influenced Camp's timing in his final decision to leave Amherst for Natchez? He may have anticipated his departure as early as 8 January 1776, when he sold his tract of land for £70 Virginia currency.42 The Continen-tal Congress's decision for independence in mid 1776, according to Hening, troubled him greatly. Yet he continued to act as rector, for as late as February 1778 William Cabell, the most prominent resident of Amherst, recorded in his diary that he had paid £8 "for my son James Subscription and my own to the Rev. Mr. Camp."43 The new liturgical prayers, decreed by the Virginia Convention in July 1776 -that henceforth rectors pray for the Virginia magistrates rather than for the king- must have been distressing.44 Camp probably simply omitted all references to political figures in the services he conducted; that is what some tory parsons in Virginia are known to have done. Another vexing revolutionary requirement, imposed by the new state of Virginia, was that each free, adult male renounce his allegiance to the king and swear true fidelity to the Common-wealth before 10 October 1777. 45 Surely Camp refused this test oath which would have directly repudiated his ordination vows, 36 Thomas Price and William Harrison were the other two signers who became tories. At least a dozen clergymen - including Camp, Price, and Harrison-shifted political positions during the Revolution. After wavering had ceased, twenty-two percent of the Virginia ministers were tories, sixty-six percent were whigs, and virtually all of the remaining twelve percent died too early to take a position. Otto Lohrenz, "The Virginia Clergy and the American Revolution, 1774-1799" (Ph. D. diss., University of Kansas, 1970), 23-220; Otto Lohrenz, "The Right Reverend William Harrison of Revolutionary Virginia, First `Lord Archbishop of America,"' Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church LIII (1984) : 25-43; Otto Lohrenz, "The Discord of Political and Personal Loyalties: The Experiences of the Reverend William Andrews of Revolutionary Virginia," Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South XXIV (1985) : 374-97. 37 From the mouth of the Yazoo River the Natchez district extended 110 miles down the east side of the Mississippi; it was ten miles wide at the upper end and forty miles wide at the lower. Wilbur H. Seibert, "Loyalists in West Florida and the Natchez District," The Mississippi Valley His-torical Review II (1916): 468 (hereafter abbreviated MVHR). 38 Percy, Piedmont Apocalpse, 35. Another local historian mistakenly insists that Camp had gone west to avoid falling into the hands of the British and Hessian soldiers who were about to overrun Amherst. Walker, Early Episcopal Church, 51. 39 Billon, comp., Annals of St. Louis, 462. 40 Hening, ed., Statutes at Large, IX, 164, 287-88, 312, 469, 587-89; X, 197-98. 41 T. 79/95, 42, 56, British Public Record Office. 42Ichabod and Ann Camp to Peter Joyner, 8 January 1776, Amherst County Deed Book D, 360. The local officers did not "examine" Ann Camp "as to dower rights" until 3 March 1778. Ibid., Deed Book E (1778-1785), 35. 43 Diary of William Cabell, 26 February 1778, photocopy, Virginia State Library, Richmond. 44 Peter Force and M. Clair Clarke, eds., American Archives: Fourth Series (6 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1837-1846), VI, 1614-15. 45 Hening, ed., Statutes at Large, I%, 282-83. but this mandate may well have been the final determining factor in his decision to leave Virginia. By early 1778 Camp began to dispose of personal property in preparation for his departure. Four times from February to May 1778 William Cabell noted in his diary that he had paid Camp for furniture and for "a pair of Dogs.46 Some factors discouraged Camp's removal from Amherst to the wilds of Natchez. Many of his parishioners may have im-plored him not to abandon his flock. His social peers probably advised him to make his peace with the new republican order and to continue his several professional and economic pursuits in Amherst County. But Camp had an independent spirit, and his whiggish churchmen could not dissuade him. The illness of his eight-year-old daughter Caroline may have delayed his de-cision to depart; she died on 28 January 1778. His family did not want to exchange the comforts of home and the enjoyment of friends for the distant, primitive West. Son Samuel and his wife Mary would not go with the family. Mary Ann, the eldest of his last six daughters, was "engaged to be married to a gentleman of worth" in Amherst and was extremely unwilling to leave. But, as noted by descendants, Camp expected "extreme reverence" and total obedience from his children. The parson's contempor-aries informed Hening that Camp had been so totally adverse to independence and the resulting social order that he "compelled his wife ... and family ... to accompany him to the savage set-tlements of the western world."47 Camp was one of thirteen Virginia Anglican clergymen to become tory refugees. Most of the other twelve went to England, often by way of New York City, which was occupied by British troops throughout the Revolutionary War.48 But Natchez had a special attraction for Camp. Phineas Lyman, the distinguished military leader of the Connecticut forces in the French and Indian War, had obtained a large land grant in the Natchez district for his new colony, Georgiana - apparently named for King George III. The Company of Military Adventurers, a group of Connecticut military veterans, planned to colonize the grant. Like Camp, Lyman was a native of Durham and an alumnus of Yale; the two were probably well acquainted. In 1774 Lyman and the first contingent sailed to New Orleans and then ascended the Mississippi River to their destination. Additional Connecticut settlers, including Lyman's family, followed in the ensuing years; among them were former residents of Durham, Middletown, and Wallingford. In Natchez Camp could associate with fellow loyalists from his native province, many of whom he would per-sonally remember.49 There he could also live under the flag and rule of his sovereign, King George III 59 In the spring of 1778 Camp set his slaves under the leadership of "Uncle Billy, an old negro genius," to work on the construc-tion of big, flat-bottomed boats on the Monongahela in order that the family could descend the river to Fort Pitt. On 1 June 1778, according to Camp's journal, the family began the journey. With Camp and his wife were son George, aged eighteen, and 46 Diary of William Cabell, 26 February, b April, 27 April, 9 May 1778. 47 T. 79/92, 39-40, T. 79/95, 42-43, British Public Record Office; Carter, Camp, Jones, 24, 34-35. 48 Lohrenz, "Virginia Clergy," 23-48, 88-93; Otto Lohrenz, "The Reverend Thomas Feilde, Loyalist Acting Rector of St. Andrew's Church: An Iden-tification," Staten Island Historian, New Ser., II (1984) : 16-19; Lohrenz, "Discord of Political and Personal Loyalties," Southern Studies XXIV (1985) : 374-97; Otto Lohrenz, "The Reverend John Hamilton Rowland of Revolutionary America and Early Shelburne," Nova Scotia Historical Re-view VII (1987): 64-82. 49 DAB, s.v. "Lyman, Phineas"; Timothy Dwight, Travels in New Eng-land and New York, ed. Barbara Miller Solomon and Patricia M. King (repr. ed.; 4 vols.; Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969), I, 223-26; Albert James Pickett, History of Alabama, and Incidentally of Georgia and Mis-sissippi, from the Earliest Period (2nd ed.; 2 vols.; Charleston, 1851), II, 16-19; D. Clayton James, Antebellum Natchez (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1968), 12-17; Anthony Haswell, ed., Memoirs and Adventures of Captain Matthew Phelps ... Particularly in Two Voyages, from Connecticut to the River Mississippi, from December 1773 to October 1750 (Bennington, Ver-mont, 1802), Appendix, 60-63. 50 Besides the people from Connecticut "and elsewhere" who had settled in Nachez before 1776, there were "numerous" Scotch-Irish loyalists from Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina who entered the country after 1776. Seibert, "Loyalists in West Florida," MVHR 11 (1916) : 468. five daughters, ranging in age from sixteen to nine, a number of slaves, furniture, and stock. Reportedly two other families from Amherst with similar floating craft went with the Camp family. From Fort Pitt the boats went down the Ohio River, stopping first at the Falls, the location of present-day Louisville, Kentucky. Some writers, as noted above, and descendants have assumed that the Camps "accompanied" George Rogers Clark and his men - who were on their way to attack the British forts in the West -from Fort Pitt to the Falls. Clark wrote that "about twenty families ... had followed me much against my Inclination" from Fort Pitt to the Falls, but the Camps could not have been in that group. Clark began his descent of the Monongahela from Redstone, Pennsylvania, on 12 May and reached the Falls on 27 May, but the Camps did not begin their journey until 1 June. On Corn Island at the Falls, Clark drilled his soldiers and built a blockhouse for his headquarters and supplies. In order to protect the location and to plant crops there, he left at least most of the settlers who had tagged along 51 While on Corn Island, Camp "preached the first sermon ever heard on the site of Louisville." His text was Psalm 139:9-10, "If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me." It was an appropriate text "for those island-bound adventurers in the midst of a wilderness as bound-less and terrible as the sea."52 Whether Clark and his soldiers were still there to hear Camp is not known, for on 26 June they had resumed their expedition. They continued down the Ohio River to Fort Massac, a little below the mouth of the Tennessee River. Here on 30 June they left the river to march overland to Kaskaskia, their first military objective. Clark made no men-tion of families going with him from the Falls to Fort Massac, but since the Camps could have reached the Falls by 26 June, it does seem possible that they and a few others followed Clark on the second leg of his voyage; if they did it would doubtlessly also have been "much against" his "Inclination." In short, Camp and Clark at best had only a coincidental relationship. The Camp family floated down the Ohio to its mouth and then down the Mississippi to the Natchez district, which they reached about mid or late July 1778.53 Natchez was an immediate disappointment for Camp and his family. The political situation was very unsettled. Captain James Willing and his men had come down the Ohio and Mississippi in February 1778, had confiscated property of British subjects in the Natchez district, and had forced the royalists there to sign oaths of neutrality. The next April, Willing had sent a small de-tachment up the river from New Orleans to see that the oath of neutrality was being observed, and a skirmish between Willing's men and the Natehez loyalists had ensued. Constant threats con-tinued to bedevil the settlers in Natchez after Camp's arrival in the summer of 1778. Economic opportunities turned out to be poor. The British had not approved the land grant and the hope-ful settlers of Georgiana obtained only squatters' rights. The location proved to be inhospitable. A number of settlers, includ-ing Phineas Lyman and his wife, came down with illness and died. Mary Ann Camp died 23 February 1779, leaving her lover, who had come West to claim his bride, completely devastated, according to Hening. Camp personally must have found the climate on the lower Mississippi as harmful to his health as it 51 Billon, comp., Annals of St. Louis, 462; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, I, 730; Louis Houek, A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements until the Admission of the State into the Union (3 vols.;, Chicago, 1908), II, 284; Walker, Early Episcopal Church, 50-51; Percy, Piedmont Apocalypse, 35; Carter, Camp, Jones, 24, 36; Clark to George Mason, 19 November 1779, in James Alton James, ed., George Rogers Clark Papers, 1771-178¢ (repr. ed.; 2 vols.; New York, 1972), I, 117-20. 52 Durrett, "Origin of the City of Louisville," in Johnston, ed., Memorial History of Louisville, I, 40-41. Durrett gives no documentation about Camp and his sermon. 53 Clark to Mason, 19 November 1779, James, ed., Clark Papers, I, 117-20. had been in North Carolina.54 By early 1779 Camp decided to make his exit from Natchez. 55 Kaskaskia in the Illinois country turned out to be the next and last home for Camp. When a military escort became available he and his family returned up the Mississippi, passed the mouth of the Ohio, and continued up the Mississippi for about another ninety miles to Kaskaskia, in present-day southwestern Illinois, recently taken for the Americans by George Rogers Clark. In his journal Camp noted that they reached Kaskaskia on 1 May 1779. The village was located on the Kaskaskia River, six miles above its confluence with the Mississippi. It was said to have included eighty houses, five hundred white inhabitants, and nearly the same number of Negroes.56 Kaskaskia had been in the possession of the French, who ceded it, as well as all their territory east of the Mississippi, to Britain at the end of the French and Indian War in 1763. The next year the British established a garrison there and controlled Kaskaskia until Clark captured it on 4 July 1778. In the following months Clark subdued the other British forts in the area. Virginia then extended its tenuous jurisdiction over the Illinois country for several years before the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which gave the region to the United States. Settlement in Kaskaskia in 1779 implied that Camp was willing to accept, at least temporarily, the jurisdiction of Revolutionary Virginia. When the British granted to the Americans indepen-dence and the territory east of the Mississippi River, Camp acquiesced in permanent American authority and separation from the mother country. The public assistance he provided to Virginia is further evidence of his reconciliation to the new order; in 1783 he presented claims, which the commissioners allowed, for medicines provided, for shirts made, and for work done by his slaves. 57The location of Kaskaskia was agreeable to Camp. In a letter, which apparently is not extant, to Gabriel Penn in Amherst County in 1779, Camp lauded the Illinois coun-try. "It is with pleasure I find you ... pleased with the country you are in," Penn responded. Son Samuel, who read his father's correspondence, wrote that "your letter hath set half the County agog about Coming out there." 58 The leading Americans in Kas-kaskia accepted Camp and his family, and he became "well and favorably known" in the area. 59 Camp lived comfortably in the town of Kaskaskia and acquired claims to considerable land in the vicinity, some of which he developed for agriculture. In his will he mentioned "the house and lot and buildings whereon I live" in Kaskaskia and the "improvements on the high land west of the Kaskaskia River, on a stream called Camp's Creek." His son George is also known to have improved land on the same creek, which took its name from Ichabod Camp. In 1810 the heirs of Ichabod Camp claimed two lots within the village of Kaskaskia and five four-hundred- 54 John Caughey, "Willing's Expedition Down the Mississippi, 1778," The Louisiana Historical Quarterly XV (1932) : 9-11, 27-28; Dwight, Travels in New England, I, 224-30; Seibert, "Loyalists in West Florida," MVHR II (1916) : 466-78; James, Antebellum Natchez, 12-28; Haswell, ed., Memoirs and Adventures, Appendix, 18-63; Kathryn T. Abbey, "Peter Chester's Defense of the Mississippi after the Willing Raid," MVHR XXII (1935) : 17-31; T. 79/95, 42-43, British Public Record Office. 55 After Camp's departure, conditions deteriorated. War erupted between Spain and England in September 1779, and the Spanish governor of Louisi-ana seized control of Natchez. In April 1781 the associated loyalists re-belled against the Spanish, but when the uprising failed they felt obliged to flee for safety to Savannah, Georgia, occupied by the English army. Among these refugees, who suffered great dangers and hardship, were many of Camp's Connecticut acquaintances. John Caughey, "The Natchez Rebellion of 1781 and Its Aftermath," The Louisiana Historical Quarterly XVI (1933) : 57-83; Seibert, "Loyalists in West Florida," MVHR II (1916) : 465-78; Dwight, Travels in New England, I, 224-30. 56 Camp's Journal, in Carter, Camp, Jones, 24; James Alton James, The Life of George Rogers Clark (Chicago, 1928), 69. 57 Camp's claims came to a total of £4 bs. "Journal of the Western Com-missioners," in James, ed., Clark Papers, II, 368. 58 Samuel Camp to Ichabod Camp, 10 July 1779, Penn to Camp, 19 Aug-ust 1779, in Carter, Camp, Jones, 65, 73-74. 69 The witnesses to Camp's will - Shadrach Bond, James Hunter, and James Willey-were prominent local residents who were evidently among his closest friends. Camp named his "Trusty friend Mr. James Moore Ex-ecutor" of his will; Moore was "a man of prominence and influence" in Kaskaskia. Camp's Will, in Carter, Camp, Jones, 45-46; Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, eds., Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and Jesse Heylin, ed., History of Fulton County, two titles in one volume (Chicago, 1908), 382; DAB, s.v. "Bond, Shadrach." acre tracts. The commissioners rejected four of the land claims because the heirs could not prove cultivation of the land. The commissioners, however, did allow one claim to four hundred acres as well as the two lots in Kaskaskia. The heirs of George Camp, who had died in 1784, claimed one four-hundred-acre tract that was allowed. 60 The two accepted claims were evidently the two tracts father and son had improved on Camp's Creek. What professional or occupational activities absorbed the time and attention of Camp in Kaskaskia? He must have employed his slaves in agricultural production on his land on Camp's Creek. It can be inferred from his public service claim, noted above, that he had a private medical practice. Since he purchased large amounts of "supplies and other goods" from several sup-pliers and pledged beaver fur as collateral for credit extended by his major supplier, it can be concluded that Camp engaged in the Indian trade in some manner. 61 Amherst County writers have held that Camp was the first American minister "to preach as far west as the Mississippi River." The erstwhile residents of Middletown and Wallingford in Natchez, some of whom may well have been his former par-ishioners, may have insisted that Camp preach and conduct services for them. Indeed, Camp may originally have anticipated services as the rector of Georgiana. Camp apparently acted as a minister in Kaskaskia at times but not as a salaried rector. After Clark's conquest, numbers of American Protestants had joined the French Catholics in Kaskaskia. Since Camp preached on Corn Island and in Natchez, it seems probable that he did likewise upon occasion in Kaskaskia. In a marriage contract of 1785 he was identified as a Protestant minister at Kaskaskia. Camp officiated at the marriage of Richard Brashear, a former captain in Clark's military unit, and Susie Brocas in 1782. There is no evidence, however, that he did missionary work among the Indians as Amherst annalists have supposed 62 An interesting letter of June 1783 from Camp to Piomingo, chief of the Chickasaw Indians, has survived. The Chickasaw, as well as the other four Civilized Tribes, had been allied with the British during the Revolutionary War. In the letter Camp congratulated the chief "upon the Peace concluded between us," reminded him that his "Messengers" had "promised to Deliver up the [Negro] Prisoners Amongst you," pointed out that the Cher-okee "long time ago ... carried in all the negroes whom they had Taken," and threatened reprisals if the tribe refused to give up its black captives.63 Camp may have been referring to an "Indian Talk" sponsored by George Rogers Clark held at "the Chickasaw nation" on 24 October 1782, because the Virginians and the Chickasaw did not conclude a treaty of peace until 5-6 November 1783 at French Lick, North Carolina.64 Descendants have incorrectly assumed that Camp was acting as an agent un-der the auspices of Virginia. 65 At the very same time John Dodge, 60 Camp's Will, in Carter, Camp, Jones, 45-46; John Reynolds, Pioneer History of Illinois, Containing the Discovery, in 1673, and the History of the Country to the Year Eighteen Hundred and Eighteen, When the State Government Was Organized (repr. ed.; Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1968), 138; "Report of the Commissioners on Land Claims in Kaskaskia, December 31, 1810," in U.S. Congress. American State Papers, XXI% (Public Lands, II), 11th Cong., 3d Sess., 140, 141, 145, 147, 162, 175, 177; E. J. Montague, A Directory, Business Mirror, and Historical Sketches of R¢ndolph County (Alton, Illinois, 1859), 34-3b. 61 Kaskaskia Manuscripts, 85:11:28:1, 86:4:15:1, photocopies, Randolph County Museum and Archives and Randolph County Clerk's Office, Chester, Illinois; Clarence Walworth Alvord, ed., Cahokia Records, 1778-1790, Illinois State Historical Library, Collections, II: Virginia Series, I (Springfield, Illinois, 1907), 255. 62 Walker, Early Episcopal Church, 51; Percy, Piedmont Apocalypse, 35; Kaskaskia Manuscripts, 85:8:3:1; Draper MSS, 18J126. 63 Camp to Ponemataha [sic], June [ca. 26], 1783, in William P. Palmer et al., eds., Calendar of Virginia State Papers and other Manuscripts, from January 1, 1782 to December 31, 1784, Preserved in the Capital ¢t Richmond (11 vols.; Richmond, 1875-1893), III, 503. 64 The American "interpreters" at the "Indian Talk" were Robert George and James Sherlock, who recommended peace and a resumption of trade to the Chickasaw chiefs including Red King and Piomingo. Ibid., 356-58. The Virginia Commissioners who made peace with the Chickasaw were Joseph Martin and John Donelson; Chiefs Red King and Piomingo represented the Chickasaw. Robert S. Cotterill, "The Virginia-Chickasaw Treaty of 1783," Journal of Southern History VIII (1942) : 483-96. 65 Lineage Book, National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, CII (Washington, 1928), 25-26. a leading resident, also wrote a letter to Piomingo, demanding the return of a certain "young Negro man which belongs to me."66 Camp and Dodge may have been acting as private persons or agents of local residents, but in any event their object was to recover slaves. The loss of slaves was a continual problem for Kaskaskians as well as for residents of Saint Louis; even after Camp's death, family correspondence mentioned the "dread-ful disasters among the Negroes of Mrs. Camp by deaths and the savages stealing them."67 Camp's death came suddenly and tragically when his son-in--law shot and killed him. In August 1785 twenty-year-old Cather-ine Camp had married twenty-three-year-old Jean Baptiste Guion, Jr., identified as having "studied at Montreal" and as a "trader residing ordinarily in Canada and now in Kaskaskia."68 Frederick Louis Billon, the nineteenth-century annalist, who had interviewed Camp's great-granddaughter in Saint Louis, gave the following account of the tragedy: This Guion, a passionate man and inclined to drink, treated her [Catherine] so unkindly that she left his house and sought shelter at her father's. This incensed Guion, and one night while somewhat in liquor he went there to force her away, and while the old gentleman [Camp] stood at the door remonstrating with his son-in-law, Guion drew his pistol, while crazy with passion, and shot him. He died immediately, April 20, 1786, and was buried in Kaskaskia 69 The great-granddaughter either did not know, or did not re-veal, that interference in his marriage was not the only grievance Guion had against Camp; he was also angry with him about commercial transactions that dated back at least to May 1784. Camp had purchased Indian goods amounting in value to more than £8,500 (apparently depreciated Virginia currency) from Guion on credit; Camp had refused to honor some of his debts. On 15 April 1786, five days before the fatal confrontation, Guion had registered a formal complaint against Camp with authori-ties in Kaskaskia. Thus it appears that bad blood between per-petrator and victim had been developing for a period of at least two years and had come to a head a few days before the shoot-ing.70 Guion apparently was not "prosecuted for this murder," according to Billon, but died a natural death soon after the shocking event.71 When he died in 1786 Camp was sixty years old. In his will of 20 October 1781, he left "the house and lot and buildings whereon I live" to his wife "during her widowhood." To his son George he devised the tract of land on Camp's Creek. Apparently Camp acquired the second lot in the village and the additional land claims, mentioned above, after 1781. The rest of his estate was to be divided equally among his wife, his son George, and his daughters Stella, Catherine, Charlotte, and Louisa. He did not mention his daughter Sarah or his son Samuel in his will. Whether the will was probated or how Camp's legacy was ac-tually divided is not known. Ann Camp, the widow, accompanied her daughter Stella and her husband to Saint Louis, then under Spanish control. There she acquired land that today is a part of the site of the Gateway Arch; her homesite, according to des-cendants, "was about 150-200 feet south and west of the south leg" of the Gateway Arch. Ann Camp did not remarry and died on 27 October 1803. Four of Ichabod Camp's children left des-cendants. A granddaughter married Alexander McNair, who became the first governor of Missouri.72 66 John Dodge to Ponemaughtehaw [sic], 23 June 1783, in Palmer et ¢l., eds., Calendar of Virginia State Papers, III, 500. 67 Israel Dodge to Samuel Camp, 26 December 1808, in Carter, Camp, Jones, 49-50. Israel Dodge was the son of John Dodge and the second hus-band of Catherine Camp. Ibid., 55. 68 Father Gibault to the Bishop of Quebec, 6 June 1786, in Clarence Walworth Alvord, ed., Kaskaskia Records, 1778-1790, Illinois State Histori-cal Library, Collections, V: Virginia Series, II (Springfield, Illinois, 1909), 543. 69 Billon, comp., Annals of St. Louis, 231-32. 70 Kaskaskia Manuscripts, 86:4:15:1. 71 Billon to Draper, 29 January 1884, Draper MSS, 18J133; Billon, comp., Annals of St. Louis, 232. There are traditions about vengeance that des-cendants mention but discount. One is that Indians who were supposedly very fond of Camp took revenge by killing Guion; another is that "neigh-bors took Guion out into the middle of the river, weighted him and threw him overboard." Carter, Camp, Jones, 45. 72 Sarah Camp, who lived all her life in Middletown, Connecticut, mar- Marguerite Rielhe McNair The relationship between Camp and his oldest son Samuel was severely strained after 1776. Hening found that Camp's resentment stemmed from Samuel's support of the patriot cause in the Revolutionary struggle. "On the same day in which the father expatriated himself and abandoned his country," Hening reported, "the son set out to join the armies of the United States." Paternal deference had inhibited Samuel from doing so earlier. Samuel joined a company of Amherst County minute-men and did military duty in several locations. Hening also learned that because of his resentment, Camp had disinherited Samuel, whose name, as noted, does not appear in Camp's wi11.73 Samuel had also deeply offended his father by marrying Mary Banks, daughter of Gerrard and Ann (Stanton) Banks of Am-herst County, on 12 November 1776. Specifically how Mary Camp had angered her father-in-law is not known.74 In the summer of 1779 Camp sent a letter from Kaskaskia to Gabriel Penn in Amherst County. Samuel, who read it, wrote to his ried Sanford Thompson and had three children. Samuel and his wife, Mary (Banks) Camp, had eleven children and have left a great many descendants. George Camp died unmarried in 1784. Stella Camp married Antoine Reilhe, a prominent merchant of Saint Louis, and had three children; it was her daughter Margaret Susan Reilhe who married Alexander McNair. Catherine Camp had a daughter by Guion, her first husband, but she died at the age of two; by her second husband Israel Dodge she had no children. Charlotte Camp and her husband Moses Bates had no offspring. Louisa Camp mar-ried Mackey Wherry; from this union there were seven children. Carter, Camp, Jones, 25, 45-46, 53-57; DAB, s.v. "McNair, Alexander." 73 T. 79/92, 39-40, British Public Record Office. On Samuel Camp's mili-tary service, see Lenora Higginbotham Sweeny, Amherst County, Virginia, in the Revolution, Including Extracts from the "Lost Order Book," 1773-178? (Lynchburg, Virginia, 1951), 50. For Camp's Will, see Carter, Camp, .Jones. 45-46. There is no evidence to support the assumption of descendants that Camp had "settled" portions of his estate upon Samuel and Sarah before he left Virginia. Nor is there anything in the record to document the supposition that Camp was disappointed that Samuel did not become an Anglican priest or that he became a Universalist. Ibid., 34, 46, 69. 74 William Montgomery Sweeny, comp., Marriage Bonds and Other Mar-riage Records of Amherst County, Virginia, 1763-1800 (Lynchburg, Vir-ginia, 1937), 15. Camp may have objected to Mary Camp because she may have been a dissenter; or because she refused to accompany the family westward in 1778; or perhaps because he held Mary and her family respon-sible for Samuel's revolutionary proclivities. There are only speculative explanations. father stating that he would come to the Illinois country "did I think my company would be agreeable but I fear your aversion to my poor Innocent is so thoroly [sic] rooted as never to be totally eradicated. What confirms these apprehensions is your not mentioning one syllable of me in your letter to Cap [tain] Penn. . . ." Samuel went on to beg Camp's "pardon and forgive-ness for all the trouble and uneasiness I have occasioned you and I entreat you likewise to forgive my dear wife."75 Apparently Camp's resentment toward Samuel and Mary never dissipated. On 10 March 1786, six weeks before Camp's death, Samuel, who was now a resident of Georgia, complained to his father for refusing to correspond. "Having wrote so many letters to you without receiving any answer," Samuel repined, "I begin almost to despair now of ever hearing from you much less seeing you." The relationship between Camp and Sarah, his oldest daughter in Connecticut, was amiable for they are known to have exchanged cordial letters.76 One can not ascribe prominence to Ichabod Camp for having "accompanied" George Rogers Clark down the Ohio River. At best he may have been an unapproved or unwelcome follower of Clark from the Falls to Fort Massac. It would indeed have been remarkable to find that a Revolutionary military hero and a loyalist parson had collaborated in any way to wrest the Am-erican West from the British. That Camp was a tory was un-known to Durrett and Draper, to Amherst County writers, to Virginia church historians, and probably to Camp's descendants. Had they been aware of Hening's report found in the Treasury Papers in The British Public Record Office, a major miscon-ception could have been avoided. Camp, however, deserves some recognition for floating down the Ohio and Mississippi in 1778 and for becoming an early American settler in the new West. Indeed, he embodied many of the personal qualities that are sometimes associated with the. western pioneer. That he had a restless and adventurous spirit is amply demonstrated by his movement from Connecticut, to North Carolina, to Virginia, to Natchez, and then to Kaskaskia. That he did not lack in courage, determination, and individualism is supported by his switch from one faith to another, by his decision to leave family and friends in his native province, and by his several relocations, which were difficult and sometimes dangerous. That he had an independent and stubborn streak is shown by his refusal to accept the low salary in Connecticut and his rejection of the new republican order in Virginia. That he could be strong-willed and inflexible is confirmed by his un-fortunate relationships with son Samuel, daughter-in-law Mary, and son-in-law Guion. Camp, however, could accommodate him-self to reality; thus when North Carolina and Natchez proved to be unhealthy and intolerable, he quickly relocated; and when American independence and republicanism became inescapable, he acquiesced in their finality. Camp qualifies for some distinction as the first American to preach on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. There seems to be no reason to question the assertions made by Durrett that Camp "preached the first sermon ever heard on the site of Louisville" or by the Amherst County historians that he was the first Am-erican "to preach as far west as the Mississippi River." But in Louisville he delivered only one sermon, and in Kaskaskia he apparently preached or officiated only infrequently as oppor-tunities came up; it is conceivable that he conducted services with some regularity during the few months he resided in Nat-chez. Yet -although one should certainly respect and admire Camp for ministering to the spiritual needs of people in the West upon occasion, apparently without remuneration - one can hardly credit him with having been a significant pioneer churchman in the West. As a parish rector, for which he was well educated, Camp merits attention and respect. The growth of his churches in Connecticut, the quality of the extant sermons he delivered 75 Penn to Ichabod Camp, 19 August 1779, Samuel Camp to Ichabod Camp, 10 July 1779, in Carter, Camp, Jones, 65, 74-75. 76 Samuel Camp to Iohabod Camp, 10 March [1786], Sarah (Camp) Thompson to Ichabod Camp, 4 October 1785, ibid., 75-77, 46-48. there, and the positive testimony of contemporaries, all bear witness that Camp was a capable and dedicated minister. The record of his incumbency in Virginia is virtually silent, but it seems reasonable to infer that he was equally successful and committed there before the Revolution. In those provinces he served well his parishioners and his church. In more settled times, Camp might well have continued his ministerial career in Amherst County, which would have precluded his emigration to the West, spared his family the ensuing stress and grief, and averted the tragedy of his untimely death. | ||||||||||
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