Rev. George Duffield and Elizabeth Blair
Husband Rev. George Duffield 1 2
Born: 7 Oct 1732 - ? Lancaster Co, PA 1 2 Christened: Died: 2 Feb 1790 - Philadelphia, PA 3 4 Buried:
Father: George Duffield ( - ) 1 2 5 Mother: Margaret [Unk] ( - ) 5
Marriage: 8 Mar 1756 1
Other Spouse: Margaret Armstrong ( - ) 1 2 - 5 Mar 1759 2
• Biographical Sketch: Alfred Nevin, D.D., LL.D., Men of Mark of the Cumberland Valley, Pa. 1776-1876 (Philadelphia, PA: Fulton Publishing Co., 1876).
To read this brief biographical sketch of his life and career, click here.
Wife Elizabeth Blair 1
AKA: [Unk] Blair 6 Born: Christened: Died: Buried:
Father: Rev. Samuel Blair (1712-1751) 6 7 Mother: Frances Van Hook ( - ) 8
Children
General Notes: Husband - Rev. George Duffield
An eminent patriot and Presbyterian divine, of Carlisle and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
He received his academical education at Newark, Delaware, where afterwards he officiated as Tutor. He graduated at Nassau Hall, joined the church under the care of Rev. Robert Smith, of Pequea, and shortly afterwards commenced the study of theology under his supervision. He was licensed to preach the gospel by the Presbytery of New Castle, March 11th, 1756. He received a call from the united churches of Carlisle, Big Spring and Monohan (later called Dillstown), and was ordained at Carlisle, September 25th, 1761.
At the time of his settlement in Carlisle and the united congregations, each ten miles distant from the borough, the Indians were numerous in the vicinity and often made hostile demonstrations, which required the body of the male members to arm themselves in self-defense. In all these dangers he participated, cheerfully accompanying his flock to the camp, to administer to them there the consolations of religion. The church at Monohan was in such an exposed situation, that as a protection during the hours of worship, fortifications were thrown around it; behind which, while those stationed on the ramparts kept watch, the congregation might, without distraction or fear, engage in the worship of God. His deep interest in and sympathy with a population thus periled an suffering on the frontiers, rendered him, throughout the whole of that region, exceedingly popular. So strong was the attachment for him, that in all perilous adventures, especially during the Revolutionary struggle, the men who had to take up arms for their homes, their liberties and their lives, always welcomed his visits in the camp with the most cordial good-will.
Mr. Duffield was a bold and zealous assertor of the rights of conscience, an earnest and powerful advocate of civil and religious liberty. During the pendency of those measures which were maturing the Declaration of Independence, while the prospects of the colonies seemed most gloomy, his preaching contributed greatly to encourage and animate the friends of liberty. He was not in the habit of writing out his discourses in full; but, having made a skeleton, and arranged his thoughts, awaited the inspiration of the occasion for the filling up. Several of these unfinished discourses which remain, breathe a spirit of the most pure and lofty patriotism, and withal are strikingly prophetic of the religious scenes which were to open out of all that darkness in which the country was then enveloped.
During his ministry at Carlisle, he was twice earnestly called by the Second Presbyterian church of Philadelphia, then worshipping at the northwest corner of Arch and Third streets, to become their pastor; and the commissioners with great zeal prosecuted their call before the Presbytery. Both the Presbytery and himself, however, judged that his presence at Carlisle was of more importance at that time than at Philadelphia.
In the year 1766 Mr. Duffield was deputed by the Synod, in connection with the Rev. Charles Beatty, to make a missionary tour and visit the families that had made their way along the great valley that stretches through Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The object of this mission was to administer the offices of religion to those families which had settled in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania, and through the range of country where Greencastle, Hagerstown and other villages now stand, as far as the Potomac, with a view to the organization of churches.
Some time after this, Mr. Duffield was called to the Third Presbyterian church in Philadelphia, where he officiated during the sessions of the Colonial Congress, anterior to and during the Revolutionary struggle. That church had been originally a branch of the First Presbyterian church, under the care of the Rev. Dr. Ewing. A controversy arose between them and the parent church, relative to their independence. Both the Presbytery and Mr. Duffield judged that it was his duty to accept the call and remove to Philadelphia. The circumstances under which he was translated to that charge, in connection with the old feuds that had divided the church, produced obstacles in the way of his labors at the commencement of his ministry. He was greatly admired as a preacher, and was recognized as a bold, animated and decided Whig, resolutely contending against the encroachments on civil and religious liberty made by the government of Great Britain. On an occasion shortly after his appearance in Philadelphia, the large church edifice, then standing on the corner of Third and Pine streets, which the First church claimed to have under its control, was closed and barred against his entrance, by their order, notwithstanding an appointment had been made for his preaching in it for the congregation accustomed to worship there, and by their direction. The house was opened by the officers of the Third church, and Mr. Duffield was assisted through the throng that had assembled to hear him, and introduced through a window. News of the people assembling on Sabbath evening spread, and application was made to Mr. J. Bryant, the King's magistrate, to quell what was called a riot. The magistrate proceeded to the spot, and, shortly after the commencement of public worship, pressed his way into the aisle of the church, before the pulpit, (on the very spot where afterwards Mr. Duffield's remains were interred), and in the name of the King, read the riot act and required the people to disperse. The congregation was composed of zealous Whigs, who could not endure Tory influence or authority. The principal officer of the congregation, a Mr. Knox, rose and ordered the magistrate to desist. He refused and went on with his reading. A second time the zealous champion of liberty, in hearing of all the congregation, with loud voice, demanded that the magistrate cease from disturbing the worship of God. He still refused; when, without further ado, he seized the magistrate, who was a small man, and lifting him up carried him through the crowd out of the house, and ordered him to begone, and not come back there to disturb the worship of God. The magistrate bowed to the stern assertor of popular liberty, and Mr. Duffield went on with his preaching. But the next day he was arrested and brought before the Mayor's Court, and was required to plead to the charge of aiding and abetting a riot, and give bail for his appearance for trial. He politely and respectfully refused to put in any plea or give the bail, averring, that as a minister of Christ, he was performing the duties of his office and was no way accessory to a riot, of the existence of which there was no proof. The Mayor said that such a procedure would greatly embarrass the Court, who would be compelled to send him to prison if he did not; plead and offer bail. His brother, Samuel Duffield, M. D., or other of his friends whomsoever he might name, would, be accepted by him as bail. He still, with the utmost courtesy, declined. After some entreaty, the Mayor offered himself to be his bail, not wishing to commit him to prison. He cordially thanked his Honor for his unmerited kindness, but protested that he stood on the ground of principle, and that he was called, in the providence of God, to assert the rights and liberty of a minister of Christ, and of a worshiping assembly, and denied the legitimate interference and cognizance of the King's government in such matters. The Mayor delayed for several days deciding in the case, and requesting him to take the matter into consideration, suffered him to withdraw to his own house, under the assurance that he must again appear before the Court and give his definite answer. The occasion and procedure were productive of great excitement. The news that the King's government was going to put Mr. Duffield in prison, spread through the city and into the country, until it reached the region where he had formerly lived. Here the excitement became so great that the Volunteer forces, to whom he was well-known, and by whom he was much beloved, assembled, and resolved to hold themselves in readiness to march, though distant a hundred miles or more, to the city of Philadelphia, if he should be imprisoned, and set him at liberty in opposition to the King's government. The occasion and opportunity for their valor were never afforded; for he was never again brought before the Mayor's Court. He was allowed to pursue his ministerial duties unmolested, and the First Church settled their matters with the branch, and recognized their right to call the minister of their choice without dictation or control. Attempts, however, were made to prevent his introduction into the Presbytery to which the First Church and their pastor belonged. He insisted on his right, according to the social compact, to be received by them, refusing to commence his ministry in Philadelphia with allowed imputations of his character and orthodoxy. Eventually, when he had been so received, that his presence might not molest men who did not sympathize with him in ecclesiastical matters, he voluntarily applied for and received a dismission to the other Presbytery, with whose members he had more especial affinity.
During a part of the sessions of the Colonial Congress he was employed, with the Rev. Mr. (afterwards Bishop) White, as chaplain to that body. John Adams attended regularly on his ministry, and communed with his church during the sitting of Congress in Philadelphia.
Mr. Duffield was eminently a man of devotional feelings and habits, and was instrumental in establishing the first prayer-meeting in any Presbyterian church in Philadelphia. So much did he value prayer, and so important did he feel it to be to excite and encourage the men that had left their homes and periled their lives in the cause of freedom, to look to God and put their trust in Him, that he would occasionally, in the darkest hours of the Revolution, leave his charge and repair to the camp, where the fathers and sons of many of his flock were gathered, and minister to them in the public preaching of the Word, and in personal converse.
When the enemy were lying on Staten Island, and the American troops were on the opposite side of the Sound, on a Sabbath day he preached to a portion of the soldiers gathered into an orchard, having ascended into the forks of a tree for his pulpit. The noise of their singing arrested the enemy's attention, who directed several cannon shot to be fired toward the spot whence it proceeded. As the shot came rushing through the trees, he suggested that they should retire behind a hillock, and not remote from the spot where they were, which was done under the enemy's fire, without injury, and there they finished their religious exercises. He was with the army in their battles and retreat through Jersey, during that dark and nearly hopeless period of the Revolution, and was almost the very last man that crossed the bridge over the stream immediately south of Trenton, before it was cut down by order of the American general. For this preservation he was indebted to a Quaker friend, whom he had essentially aided in his hour of trial-though of politics opposed to his own-and whose deliverance he had been the means of securing. The British officers had put a price upon his head, and were particularly anxious to destroy him, because of the influence he exerted among the soldiers of the American army. After the retreat from Princeton, he had retired to a private house in Trenton to seek repose, and was not aware that the American army had taken up their line of march and had nearly all crossed the bridge, until his Quaker friend, having ascertained that he was in the town, sought him out and gave him the alarm, just in time for him to escape before the bridge was destroyed by the retreating army of Washington.
He continued the pastor of the Third Presbyterian church until the day of his death, and was greatly respected and beloved by them. He received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Yale College, in 1785. He died in Philadelphia, among the people of his charge, February 2nd, 1790, aged 57 years. [BHLC, 165]
1 Alfred Nevin, D.D., LL.D., Men of Mark of the Cumberland Valley, Pa. 1776-1876 (Philadelphia, PA: Fulton Publishing Co., 1876), Pg 87.
2 Alex. Harris, A Biographical History of Lancaster County (Lancaster, PA: Elias Barr & Co., 1872), Pg 165.
3 Alfred Nevin, D.D., LL.D., Men of Mark of the Cumberland Valley, Pa. 1776-1876 (Philadelphia, PA: Fulton Publishing Co., 1876), Pg 90.
4 Alex. Harris, A Biographical History of Lancaster County (Lancaster, PA: Elias Barr & Co., 1872), Pg 170.
5 —, Biographical Annals of Franklin County, Pennsylvania (Chicago, IL: The Genealogical Publishing Co., 1905), Pg 362.
6 J. Smith Futhey & Gilbert Cope, History of Chester County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: Louis H. Everts, 1881), Pg 483.
7 George Dallas Albert, History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: L. H. Everts & Co., 1882), Pg 325.
8
George Dallas Albert, History of the County of Westmoreland, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: L. H. Everts & Co., 1882), Pg 324.
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