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ENGRAVED BY J. SARTAIN CHARLES BEATTY JOURNALS OF CHARLES BEATTY hi 1762-1769 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Edited with an Introduction by GUY SOULLIARD KLETT Research Historian of the Department of History of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 1962 THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS University Park, Pennsylvania PRESBYTERIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PUBLICATIONS THE PRESBYTERIAN ENTERPRISE, edited by C. A. Anderson, M. W. Armstrong, L. A. Loetscher (Westminster Press, 1956) THE PRESBYTERIAN MINISTRY IN AMERICAN CULTURE, by Elwyn A. Smith (Westminster Press, 1962) JOURNALS OF CHARLES BEATTY, 1762-1769, edited by Guy S. Klett (The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962) HOOSIER ZION: A STUDY OF PRESBYTERIANS IN INDIANA TO 1850, by L. C. Rudolph (to be published by Yale University Press, 1963) PRESBYTERIANISM IN NEW YORK STATE: A HISTORY OF THE SYNOD AND ITS PREDECESSORS, by Robert Hastings Nichols, edited and completed by James Hastings Nichols (to be published by Westminster Press, 1963) Copyright © by The Pennsylvania State University Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 62-20761 Manufactured in the United States of America 34SS FOREWORD In view of the tremendous advances in travel on land, on sea, and in the air in recent decades, it is amazing that two hundred years ago a man could make the journeys which the Reverend Charles Beatty completed under the difficult conditions of travel in the eighteenth century. Furthermore, it is striking that journals of three of his trips exist without there ever having been an American edition published. Of these three journals, two deal with trips to the British Isles and one with a journey through Pennsylvania to the Ohio country. One of these trips to Europe took place in 1762 and the other, in 1769; the wilderness trip to the Ohio country was made in 1766. The original journal of the 1762 trip is in the Library of Congress where the Reverend Alexander Mackie of the Presbyterian Minis ters' Fund located it and had a photostatic copy made for the Pres byterian Historical Society. The manuscript of Beatty's journey to the Ohio country in 1766 and that of his trip to England in 1769 were acquired by the De partment of History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America through the efforts of Dr. Thomas C. Pears, Jr., a former manager of the Department. His negotiations with Mrs. J. Beatty Howell and Mr. Lawrence Day Howell in 1937-38 resulted in the documents being placed, along with some other Beatty manuscripts, in the library of the Department. The last group of manuscripts of Charles Beatty consists of documents and letters. The latter are of particular interest because they contain some revealing comments on the political situations in England during the 1760's. The editor acknowledges with deep gratitude the willingness of Mrs. J. Beatty Howell and Mr. Lawrence Day Howell to place within the care of the Department of History the two journals and the other manuscripts that show how diligently Charles Beatty labored to extend the work of the Kingdom of God in the great "American Wilderness" under the direction of the Presbyterian Church. The editor is particularly grateful to the Board of Directors of the Presbyterian Historical Society for their interest in this project and for providing the funds to make possible the printing of this source material on colonial America, and to the Manager of the Department of History of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, William B. Miller, for his diligent labors in furthering this project. Guy S. Klett April 4, 1962 CONTENTS Foreword ^ v Introduction H£ xi Journal of Beatty's Trip to the British Isles in 1762 * 1 Journal of Beatty's Trip to the Ohio Country in 1766 ^ 41 Journal of Beatty's Visit to England in 1769 lir 77 Appendix: Some Manuscript Letters and Documents of Charles Beatty *§t 107 Index * 143 INTRODUCTION ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ INTRODUCTION It may be presumed that you are not wholly strangers to the circumstances of these parts; how many poor souls are scattered to and fro in this wilderness, under awful danger of perishing for lack of vision. And it must needs be a mat ter of great satisfaction to you, to be informed of the earnest breathings of many small and poor places among us, after the most precious privileges of gospel ordinances, and of the late addresses of sundry of them to us for supply.1 Such was the concern of the members of the Synod of the Pres byterian Church as expressed in a letter, dated September 17, 1718, and written in Philadelphia, where the Synod was meeting, to the Reverend John Boyse, a minister in Dublin. This letter voiced a con dition that, in the succeeding decades, was to grow in an amazing manner because of the great migration of Scotch-Irish to the Ameri can wilderness. The ships that entered the Delaware Bay and River brought thousands of these poverty-stricken migrants to Pennsylvania during the next four decades. As land-hungry people many of these newcomers pushed west ward from Philadelphia through Chester and Lancaster Coun ties to the Susquehanna River. In the early 1740*s they crossed that river and settled along the courses of the numerous streams flowing through the rugged country that stretched to the westward. The Appalachian Mountain barrier was surmounted and the Ohio country reached by settlers before Charles Beatty and George Duf- field made their journey in 1766. Within the span of one generation the number of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian settlers with an intermix ture of Scots, English, Welsh, Dutch, and French had increased to such an extent to the west of the Susquehanna River that the Presbyterian Church made contact through its ministers with its adherents on the rapidly expanding frontier. Official recognition of this expansion took place in 1732 when the Synod of the Presbyterian Church set up the Presbytery of Donegal to take care of this ever-widening frontier in Pennsylvania and to the southward. The minutes of this presbytery abound in requests from groups of settlers for ministerial supplies and in as signments made by the presbytery to meet these demands. With the distress that befell the frontier settlers during the French and Indian War and Pontiac's uprising from 1754 to 1763, the need for the 1 Records of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America ( Phila- delphia, 1904), p. 53. This work will be designated as Records in subsequent notes. INTRODUCTION xiv Church's ministrations increased. Through various agencies the Presbyterian Church sought to alleviate the suffering and distress on the frontier. One of the agencies that brought relief to the frontier situation was the "Corporation for the Relief of Poor and Distressed Presby terian Ministers, and of the Poor and Distressed Widows and Chil dren of Presbyterian Ministers." It was incorporated in the colony of Pennsylvania in 1759. To help in advancing the work of this organi zation steps were taken to solicit aid from the various congregations of the Presbyterian Church in the colonies and from individuals in Scotland, Ireland, and England. The man to whom the Corporation turned to carry out this project abroad was the Reverend Charles Beatty. Charles Beatty had been one of the stream of immigrants who had come to America in the first half of the eighteenth century. It is 2 estimated that he was about fourteen years of age in 1729 when he left Ireland with his widowed mother, Christiana Clinton Beatty. The activities of his early days in America are rather obscure. One account claims that he earned a livelihood as a pedlar, and on one of his trips through Pennsylvania stopped in the Neshaminy area where the Reverend William Tennent conducted a school for the education of young men for the ministry. Tradition has it that Beatty's ability to speak Latin, his piety, religious knowledge, and general education prompted William Tennent to persuade Beatty to enter the ministry.3 He completed his course of study and was licensed "for preaching the everlasting Gospel" on October 13, 1742, and was ordained to the ministry and installed over the congrega tion at Neshaminy on December 14, 1743.4 During his ministry of al most thirty years, until his death on August 13, 1772, in the Island of Barbadoes, he remained the pastor of this church. While min ister at Neshaminy he travelled widely on missions to neighboring congregations or on assignments made by his presbytery, by the Synod, or by some other church body. His grandson, the Reverend Charles C. Beatty, writing from Steubenville, Ohio, on February 21, 1857, stated: "Accounts agree 2 Record of the Family of Charles Beatty who emigrated from Ireland to Amer ica in 1729 (Steubenville, Ohio, 1873), p. 9. 3 Samuel Miller, Memoirs of the Rev. John Rodgers, D. D. (New York, 1813), p. 109. * Minutes of the Presbytery of New Brunswick, I, 43, 60. INTRODUCTION in representing him as a minister of great activity, enterprise, and industry, both in his own congregation, and as a missionary through the churches; often visiting and preaching in distant vacant places, 0 and bringing their cases before the judicatories of the Church." The records of the various presbyteries for which he labored re veal the extent to which he made long trips under trying conditions for the extension of the Church of God and also gave much of his time and energy in the service of his country in the capacity of chaplain. In September 1754 the Synod of New York appointed "Messrs. Beatty, Bostwick, Lewis, and Thane, each of them to make a visit to those parts [Virginia and North Carolina] for the space of three months, and the seasons to be agreed upon by themselves." The Synod reported a year later that Beatty and Thane had "fulfilled 6 their appointments to go to Virginia and Carolina." With the outbreak of the French and Indian War it was not long before he sought to be of some help in the frontier struggles.

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