[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.ÿþ3.The Parish s   Twelve Bishops  :The Vestryon 7 October 1725 Col.John Robinson, Capt.John Smith, Mr.GeorgeWortham, John Grimes, Esq., Mr.Roger Jones, Col.John Wormeley, Mr.Oliver Segar, Mr.Matthew Kemp, and Maj.Edwin Thacker met with theReverend Mr.Bartholomew Yates at the Middle Church in Christ ChurchParish, Middlesex County, Virginia.These ten gentlemen together with threeothers of their kind Sir William Skipwith, Mr.Christopher Robinson, andMr.John Price, who were absent that day comprised the vestry of ChristChurch Parish.1 And what they were met to do on a fall day in1725 representedtheir most important responsibility in the yearly round of eighteenth-centuryVirginia parish activities.2Between late September and the end of December similar meetings wereheld in each of Virginia s parishes.3 The Christ Church gathering was givenover to fashioning a line-item record of the expenses incurred in the courseof the year.Three-fourths of these expenses went for salaries and the main-tenance and repair of the parish s three churches.4 The balance of the parish sobligations reflected its other major responsibility to care for those unableto care for themselves, the destitute, sick, orphaned, and handicapped.5As the public authority most immediate to the people, the vestry s concernswere substantial and diverse: selection, support, and supervision of a minister,a parish clerk, readers, and sextons; construction, maintenance, and renova-tion of churches and chapels as well as the parson s glebe; equipping clergyand churches with items essential to worship; caring for parishioners in need;presenting persons whose conduct was offensive or disruptive; overseeing pro-cessioning; recruiting parishioners for work delegated to the parish by county33 [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]