He weren't no saint...

When Jasia announced the 100^th Carnival of Genealogy I immediately knew my subject. My ancestor Philip Mulkey (b. 1732) was a powerfully charismatic backwoods Separate Baptist preacher in South Carolina when he ran afoul of his neighbors and church for reasons only recently made clear.

I was raised on stories (note the word) of Philip's religious fervor, patriotism and virtue. His church at Fairforest (founded in 1760) grew rapidly and fueled the Baptists' rapid expansion in South Carolina's backwoods to the frustration of the Anglican authorities. Charles Woodmason wrote of Mulkey after he toured the area in the 1760's attempting to win back the Baptist converts.

Would any Mortal three Years past have dreamd or imagin’d that such a Person as the infamous Mulchey [sic], who came here lately in Rags, hungry, and bare foot, can now, at his beck, or Nod, or Motion of his finger lead out four hundred Men into the Wilderness in a Moment   At his speaking the Word---Without asking any questions or making the least Enquiry for what or for why….[i]

Later the Welsh Baptist minister Morgan Edwards wrote

… neither is there anything extraordinary in his [Mulkey’s] natural endowments, except a very sweet voice, and a smiling aspect; that voice he manages in such a manner as to make soft impressions on the heart and fetch down tears from the eyes in a mechanical way… [Others] might learn from Mulkey to spin that sound and mix it with awe, distress, solicitude, or any other affection.[ii]

But there were also references to gross misconduct during his lifetime, excommunication in 1790 and evidence of Loyalist sympathies uncovered by 20th century Mulkey researchers.

My grandmother and her Mulkey cousins set great store by their descent from Philip. They included him in their D.A.R. applications, referring to his participation in Col. William Christian's Cherokee Expedition in 1776 (citing Summer's Annals of Southwest Virginia, 1769-1800). They defended him against the calumnies of what they perceived as jealous minds and bigots.[iii] Wonderful family historians and histories were damned should they even suggest Philip might have strayed from the paths of virtue and revolutionary fervor. I admit to some trepidation writing this even now, almost two decades after my grandmother's death. For she and her cousins were wrong.

Mulkey's political loyalties leading up to the Revolution were divided. He publicly avowed his loyalty to the Crown several times in 1775 as tensions rose. He was present in September when the backcountry loyalists signed the Treaty of Ninety-Six, agreeing not to actively support the British against South Carolina. He apparently left for Tennessee (where his son Jonathan had settled) soon after. He was not arrested in South Carolina, nor is there evidence that his lands were confiscated. Indeed, he returned there following the war and spent many more years preaching. His motives for supporting the Crown and then joining the Cherokee Expedition the next year are unknown, but Philip Mulkey Hunt suggests he may have been less interested in politics and more concerned about the results of the political confrontations on his church members. Thus he might side with the loyalists in South Carolina where many felt the colonial government had been more abusive than the King and fight with the Col. Christian the next year to protect his family and neighbors from the Cherokee raids.[iv]

Mulkey’s reputation suffered far more from the rumors of improper behavior than his political leanings. As early as 1772 Morgan Edwards suggested as much when he wrote “a thorn was put into his flesh about 4 years ago which will … teach his votaries that he is but a man.”[v] By 1790, Mulkey had been excommunicated by the Charleston (SC) Baptist Association and its members warned of his

enormous crimes; such as adultery, perfidy and falsehood, which have been attended with very aggravating circumstances, often repeated and continued in for years; and part of the time, united with his highest pretensions of zeal and piety.[vi]

These were no light charges and historians writing about Mulkey agree that he ended his days an outcast and wanderer. His apologists (sorry Grandmother) have suggested the charges were rooted in his political disputes in South Carolina and maintain no evidence existed to support these charges. Not so.

In June, 2009 Chris DeMarco posted a link to a 1767 letter in the Brown University archives on the Mulkey Family Genealogy Forum.  The letter, written by Oliver Hart, a Baptist minister, to James Manning, president of the newly founded Brown University makes it clear that Philip Mulkey (married since 1750) had recently had an illegitimate child.

The greatest appearance we have had, for some years pass, has been among the Separatists: and especially under one Mr. Philip Mulkey. But He, poor Man, has sadly fallen, having become the Father of a spurious Child by a widow woman, a member of his own church. On account of which religion has suffered much, especially in those parts; and among that People.[vii]

That’s as clear a piece of evidence as we are ever likely to find supporting Edward’s 1772 “thorn” reference and leads me to believe there were other transgressions over the years that had nothing to do with the American Revolution or politics. It seems the Charleston Baptists were simply stating the facts when they warned their members.

Philip Mulkey, though an extraordinarily gifted preacher, had far more in common with today’s fallen televangelists than any reputable minister. He’s the most colorful and interesting ancestor I’ve come across, and though proof of his perfidy may set Grandmother spinning, I suspect a few other members of my family are grinning. We needed a scoundrel to offset all those generations of virtue and propriety. 

---

[i]The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution: The Journal and Other Writings of Charles Woodmason, Anglican Itinerant, Richard J. Hooker, ed., ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1953), p. 112.

[ii] John Sparks, The Roots of Appalachian Christianity: The Life and Legacy of Elder Shubal Stearns (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001), p. 83.

[iii] See Ella Mulkey Range’s pamphlet The Life of Reverend Philip Mulkey, His Ancestors and Descendants, 1650-1950 (n.p.).

[iv] Philip Mulkey Hunt, The Mulkeys of America (Portland, OR: n.p., 1983) pp. 56-60.

[v] Sparks, p. 83.

[vi] “1790 Minutes of the Charleston Baptist Association”, cited by Floyd Mulkey in The Strange Career of the Rev. Phlip Mulkey (Chicago: n.p., 1976).

[vii] “James Manning papers, 1761-1827,” Brown University, Brown Archival & Manuscript Collections Online (http://dl.lib.brown.edu/bamco/ : accessed 17 Nov 2010), letter, “Oliver Hart to James Manning, 23 Dec 1767,” p. 2.

Church Record Sunday: Sinking Creek Baptist Church (Carter County, TN)

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During 1930s the Federal government’s Works Progress Administration (WPA) transcribed historical records. One project (#465-44-3-445) in Carter County, TN was to transcribe the records of Sinking Creek Baptist Church, founded about 1775. The 1783 log church still stands on the property. The WPA transcribed records dating from 13 Jan 1787 to 1879.  The records have been grouped into one volume and published by Mountain Press.

Sinking Creek was in Washington County when the records begin.  Carter County was formed on Apr. 9, 1796.

The WPA transcription of Record Book II – (A) (dated Apr 13, 1794 -Feb 1803) includes the following references that pertain to the Mulkey and Hampton families  (names searched for were Mulkey, Hampton, Eton/Acton, Baylis, Lacey, Howard, O’dell) or to probable slaves living in the area:

• On Apr. 13, 1794 the church is “Under the care of the Revd Mr. Jonathan Mulkey”. (p. 1 original document)

• On the same day the minutes note that Hannah Hays and Sarah Mulkey were issued Letters of Dismission. Sarah Mulkey’s name is crossed out. (p. 2 original document)

• On June 15, 1794 “a negroe woman named Jane Recd. under Recommendation at Sinking Creek Meeting House”. (p. 2 original document)

• On July 12, 1794 “Read by the Revd Mr. Jonathan Mulkey, the Minutes of the association held at Cedar Creek on the fourth Saturday in May”. (p. 3 original document)

• On Sept. 6, 1794 “a charge was had & Laid in against Mary Odle … & She appeared Criminale, the Church therefore thought her worthy of Excommunication, & the Said Mary Odl has agree’d not to Blame this Church JC”. (pp. 4-5 original document)

• On Sept. 6, 1794 “The Church agrees to Cite James Edin to Church Meeting at Sinking Creek the Second Saturday in October….” (p. 5 original document)

• On Dec. 13, 1794 “The Deacons for the Church of Christ at the Buffaloe Ridge met at the House of Joseph Crouch….
… agreed to Choose a Moderator for this Church, when the Revd Brother Jonathan Mulkey was unanimously chosen JC.” (pp. 5-7 original document)

• On Jan. 18, 1797 “The Church … doeth Excommunicate John Carr on Sartain Chargis Lade in by the Church at the fork of Little which is these 1st he is Gilty of persuadeing a Negro to Run a way from his Master By his own Confestion ….” (p. 15 original document)

• An undated list of “Money Collected for the Contingency of the Church by Deacon Hendrix” is included on pages 17-19 and includes the name of Sister Ecton. She paid 9 pence. (p. 18 original document)

• On Mar. 18, 1797 a list of payments made includes Phillomon Lacey and Elizb Ecton. Lacy paid 6 pence. Ecton paid 1 shilling 6 pence. (p. 26 original document)

No further records were found.

A New Recipe

We define ourselves by race, by ethnicity, and some of us, by our religions. I am far more interested in tracing my religious lineage than the others. My son is getting married soon, and joyful as that is, the planning has prompted more reflection on the role of faith and church in our lives and the choices we've made. I chose to change churches after I married, as my parents did before me.

John Newmark wrote about about religion and genealogy recently at TransylvanianDutch. I agree with him. I am wholly Roman Catholic (holy? alas, no); wholly American. I am not the sum of an ancestral equation or even sprouted from ancestral roots. Way too hybrid for that. If there is a metaphor, perhaps its a recipe - something new (and yummy) created out of a cup of this, a pinch of that. I may have to change the name of this blog... Nolichucky Soup?

That said, my passion is researching those ingredients - or roots - or equations. Only in adulthood did I match Carpatho-Rusyn, Scots-Irish, English and German ethnic labels to my Greek Catholic, Presbyterian and Baptist grandparents and ancestors. (I suppose the Germans were Lutherans at one point, but by the time they landed in Tennessee they were somewhat casual Baptists.) Many of the family stories revolved around their churches. Certainly their lives did. We visited their churches as regularly as we visited their homes.

My husband's family is of English and German ancestry, centuries removed from their immigrant forebearers. They might label themselves as Marylander or western rancher, if pressed. The German heritage is still mentioned over beer. But they, too, define themselves by their church.

Perhaps the religious labels are so strong because each of us came from "mixed" marriages of Catholic and Protestant; marriages not universally celebrated by our parents' families. Perhaps it's because our families did have real roots in their respective Churches. My Baptists have been Baptists since the Great Awakening, preaching and building churches as they moved with the frontier - defining their communities by their churches. My husband's Roman Catholics maintained their faith despite more than a century of oppression in this country and full-blown war in England before that. My Greek Catholics clung to their traditional church when they came to this country, fighting numerous court cases against the Roman Catholic Church (and each other) to worship with their married clergy in this country, as they had in Europe. They finally broke their ties to Rome in 1938. Each family devoted as much, if not more, energy to their religious identity as to their political, racial or ethnic identity.

So, when I research our families, I study their churches as much as any other part of their lives. I get my thrills from the itinerant preacher and missionary priest, the merchant who sent his nephews and nieces to Catholic schools, a long ago Salem witch (alleged) or a hint of Jewish ancestry.

Further reading:  Two brief articles outlining the separation of some Carpatho-Rusyn immigrant churches in America from Rome can be found below.  For far more detail see John Slivka's 1978 work Historical mirror, sources of the Rusin and Hungarian Greek Rite Catholics in the United States of America, 1884-1963.

http://quotes.orthodoxwiki.org/Orestes_(Chornock)

http://www.tccweb.org/bridgeport.htm

On a Mission

I've been housekeeping - sorting through some of the  old photo albums I've inherited.  I've no idea who some of them belonged to, probably great-aunts or cousins long gone from this world.

Most of the photos are not labeled and I only recognize a very few people.  But one album contains pictures that must have been sent by Baptist missionaries in Manila around 1915 - next to photos of friends and neighbors on picnics, grannies rocking on porches and young men looking a bit like Clyde Barrow - or Warren Beatty.

It's a strange juxtaposition until I remember how fiercely devoted those aunts and grandmothers were to the missions.  My feelings can be described as ambivalent, at best.  But they set great store in their missionaries, recorded their names with pride, kept and shared the letters mailed home and treasured the photographs.

Today, to my modern and more than jaundiced eye the photographs seem manipulative and exploitative, but no more so, I suppose than those we see on the news - or YouTube.  So why are they so disturbing to me?  Freud would have a field day.

Tombstone Tuesday - or Is It?

When is a tombstone not a tombstone?   In the Buffalo Ridge Cemetery (Washington County, Tennessee) it's when the stone is put up more than a century after death.

This monument commemorating early Baptist preacher Jonathan Mulkey was put up as part of an effort to mark significant spots in Baptist history.  Behind the scenes was a genteel jockeying for position for the designation of oldest church in Tennessee.  Buffalo Ridge and Cherokee Creek Churches in Washington County and Sinking Creek Church in Carter County each lobbied for the designation, parsing language in ways that would make the most meticulous of lawyers proud.

The dates on the marker for Jonathan Mulkey are correct according to current research.  Some will argue whether he was the first preacher in Tennessee, but he was certainly one of the earliest.  And he was buried in the Cemetery.

But the wives, the wives.  On the bottom of the marker are the names Nancy Howard Mulkey and Anna Lacey Mulkey.  No dates, just two names, neither of which appeared on his original tombstone.  Their names were extracted from Baptist histories more concerned with religious content than genealogical accuracy.  My grandmother and great-grandmother were involved in placing this monument.  I asked Grandmother about the wives' listings and she said they were not the point of the monument.  I asked her if there was any evidence that they were buried there and she said she assumed they were since their husband was.  Really big assumption.  I now wonder if there were two unmarked graves nearby that were thought to be his wives.  I should have asked.

This monument with it's names etched in stone has been referred to more times than I can count as "evidence" that Jonathan had two wives and as "proof" they are buried in the cemetery.  It is neither.  

No evidence of Nancy Howard as Mulkey's first wife exists that I am aware of, beyond an early reference to his marrying a Howard daughter and a strong family tradition.  Some Mulkey descendants point to a family Bible naming his wife Sarah, making Anna Lacey Mulkey (the only wife for whom there is a marriage record) possibly his third wife.  Further research has supported this theory, though it has not been proven.  My pet theory is there were three wives, and that an unknown Sarah married him before 1788 following his first wife's death and died in 1813, according to the family Bible.  But that's not the point.  Regardless of how many wives predeceased Jonathan, I know of no evidence proving where they are buried.  And there is evidence that his widow Anna Lacey Mulkey did not stay in Washington County.

Anna Lacey bore at least two children following Mulkey's death.  Thomas Anderson of Maries County, Missouri named two daughters, born in 1832 and 34, as his illegitimate children of Anna Lacy in his will written in 1854, probated in 1860.  He names both daughters as being known by the surnames Anderson, Mulkey, Baker or Lacy.  The girls were raised in Mississippi by their paternal aunt from a young age, suggesting their mother had died or given them up.  They eventually settled in Maries County near their father.  Whenever and wherever she died, it seems unlikely that her body was returned to Washington County to be buried near Jonathan Mulkey.

Such a rant.  I truly hadn't intended on writing so much.  We all have our hot buttons.

Sources:  Philip Mulkey Hunt's book The Mulkeys of America published in 1982 is still the best single source I know of for information on Jonathan Mulkey (pp. 72-81).  It is available on microfilm through the Family History Library.  Information on Thomas Anderson's family is from History of Maries County by Everett Marshall King (Cape Girardeau, MO: Ramfre Press, 1968), pp. 219-223.  Photograph by Daryl and Cookie Smith, from Scott Harp's website The Restoration Movement.