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PRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENTS IN N. CAROLINA.

CHAPTER IV.
COMMENCEMENT OF PRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENTS IN NORTH CAROLINA.

ABOUT the year 1735, a race of people diverse in habits, manners, forms of religious worship and doctrinal creed from those who had previously taken their abode in Virginia and the Carolinas, and destined to exert a grand and controlling influence on the enterprise, wealth, and prosperity of those States, began to erect their habitations along the western frontiers, and form a line of defence against the savages of the mountains and the great west, by their strong neighborhoods of hardy, enterprising men, in that region of country extending from the Potomac river to the Savannah, which now forms the heart of these States, and is most abundant in resources of men and things.

Previously to that date, the emigrants to Virginia, whose descendants had spread out over the lower counties, and were progressing towards the mountains, were chiefly from England, with a few Scotch and Irish families intermingled, with one colony of Germans in Madison county, and one of Huguenots a few miles above Richmond, each having its own peculiar forms of religious worship, and ministers proclaiming the gospel in their native tongue.

In North Carolina the first permanent settlements had been formed by fugitives from Virginia, who sought refuge in the mild climate and extended forests of this unoccupied region,—some from the rigid, intolerant laws of that colony, which bore so heavily on all that could not conform to the ceremonies of the established church,—and some from a desire to escape from the jurisdiction of all law, delighted with the license enjoyed in the plains and swamps of a country which, previous to the 18th century, scarce knew the exercise of civil authority. When the Puritans were driven from Virginia, some eminently pious people settled along the seaboard, safe from foreign invasion, and free from the domestic oppression of intolerant laws and bigoted magistrates. Next to these were the emigrants from the West Indies and from England, who preferred the advantages offered by this uninhabited country to those of a more populous state. About the year 1707, a colony of Huguenots was located on the Trent river; and one of Palatines at Newbern,