Historic Christ Church-Archives

Home > History > Archives > November/December 2003

From the Archives

November/December 2003

Questions

What type of record related to Christ Church Parish during the colonial period is this document? What sorts of information does it provide us about the parish?

Answers

This document is a page from the Vestry Book of Christ Church Parish, 1739-1786. Recorded at a meeting held November 19, 1770, it shows a list of the parish’s annual expenses. As was customary, the first line noted the 16,000 pounds of tobacco the Reverend David Currie received annually by law for his services to the parish. Immediately below that was an 8% allowance (4% from each of the two churches in the parish, Christ Church and St. Mary’s White Chapel) given Currie for cask, or packing the tobacco, as well as for loss in the crop from what the Assembly called “shrinkage of the tobacco.” Below these lines were two payments of 1,400 lbs. tobacco each to James Newby and Bailey George, who served as clerks of St. Mary’s White Chapel and Christ Church, respectively.

After a 600 lb. payment to Dale Carter for his work as clerk of the vestry, there were two payments made to the church sextons, who cleaned the church buildings and liturgical accoutrements. Sexton was the only position open to women in colonial Virginia’s Anglican establishment, and although St. Mary’s White Chapel, the upper church, employed John Robinson as sexton, the lower Christ Church indeed had a woman, one Elizabeth McGregor (spelled here as McGrigor), fulfilling these duties. McGregor’s husband John had served in the same role from at least 1759 to around 1766-1767, when Elizabeth took over. She served until 1773-1774.

The remaining entries deal mainly with payments made to individuals for various cash accounts they held against the vestry or for their work in supporting the parish poor, a social function carried out by the vestry in colonial Virginia. There are three entries, for example, of 200 lbs. of tobacco each paid to men for “cloathing” needy parishioners, while two lines note payments made to individuals—one of whom is the sexton, Elizabeth McGregor—for “keeping” (provide housing and food) other impoverished members of the parish (200 lbs. per person) over the past year.

At the bottom of the list, the clerk has totaled the expenses for Christ Church Parish for the year: 32,889 lbs. tobacco. On the next page, he went on to divide this total by the total number of tithables, or taxable persons, in the parish (a tithable was any male over age 16 and all black, mulatto, and Indian women over age 16). Each head of household was then responsible for paying in pounds tobacco a set levy for each tithable person in his or her house. In this particular year, with 1749 tithables in Christ Church Parish, the levy worked out to 18 lbs. tobacco, or about 2 shillings, 4 pence, per tithable (after deductions the clerk made for deposits already held by the “Collectors” of the tobacco).