North Carolina History (1663) from The Original 13-A Documentary History of Religion in America's First Thirteen States (Amerisearch, Inc., 2009):
<Carolina was originally granted to Sir Walter Raleigh by Queen Elizabeth in 1584 in England first attempt to colonize America. In 1629 King Charles I granted land to Sir Robert Heath, but he made no attempt to colonize it, though a few settlers from Virginia, New England and the Barbados, found their way there.
When Charles II returned to the throne, he wanted to reward eight friends who supported him, so in 1663, he separated Carolina from Virginia and granted a charter to Sir George Carteret and seven others for land on the Atlantic coast between Virginia and Florida. They were "absolute lords proprietors" of the province of Carolina, with full powers to make and execute such laws as they deemed proper.
Though originally given the name Carolina by the Frenchman Ribaut in honor of King Charles IX of France, the Englishmen who took possession of it kept the name in honor of King Charles II of England.
In 1669, the lords proprietors set forth the "Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina" attributed to philosopher John Locke, which established the Church of England in the colony.
In an effort to attract settlers, the lords proprietors issued a "Declaration and Proposal," declaring: "We will grant, in as ample manner as the undertakers shall desire, freedom and liberty of conscience in all religious and spiritual things, and to be kept inviolably with them, we having power in our charter so to do."
In 1664, the proprietaries entered into an "Agreement" with certain "adventurers," desiring to come from Barbados and elsewhere to Carolina, that:
"8. No person...shall be any ways molested, punished, or called in question, for any difference in opinion or practice in matters of religious concernment, who do not actually disturb the civil peace,...but all and every person and persons may, from time to time and at all times, freely and fully have and enjoy his and their judgments and consciences in matters of religion throughout all the Province, they behaving themselves peaceable and quietly, and not using this liberty to Licentiousness, nor to the Civil Injury or outward disturbance of others; any Law, statute or clause, usage or custom of this realm of England to the contrary hereof in any wise notwithstanding.
"9. No pretense shall be made from the charter right of advowsons to infringe the liberty above conceded...and we grant unto the General Assembly power to appoint ministers and establish maintenance. Giving liberty besides to any person or persons to keep and maintain what Preachers or Ministers they please."
In 1665 Charles issued a second charter in which the concession of religious liberties was repeated, though making it clear that that Carolina had established the Church of England.
Due to the offer of religious freedom, dissenters of all denominations came to Carolina. The earliest being Quakers fleeing Anglican Virginia, settling mostly in the north. They acquired political power and challenged the proprietaries' establishment of the Church of England.
Scotch Highlanders, called Covenanters, fled from the ruthless John Graham of Claverhouse, called "Bloody Clavers" who was appointed by Charles II to suppress Presbyterian meetings, known as Conventicles. Scottish supporters of King James II, called Jacobites, also fled from to Carolina. It was the descendants of these Scottish immigrants, who. at the beginning of the Revolutionary War wrote the Mecklenberg Declaration.
Irish Presbyterians came fleeing from persecution and famine in Ulster.
In 1709, persecuted Germans Protestants of the Rhineland-Palatinate fled from the French, arriving as refugees in England. From there, many were sent to Carolina, of which a large number died in the voyage.
Swiss settlers, led by Christoph von Graffenried settled at New Bern, but most were killed by Tuscarora Indians. German Moravians, or Church of the Brethren, settled Wachovia, Bethabara, Bethania and Winston-Salem.
Protestants of France, called Huguenots, were persecuted until King Henry of Navarre protected them by the Edict of Nantes. In 1685, King Louis XIV revoked the edict, denied Huguenots religious freedom, and forbade them from leaving on pain of death. Some did escape to Holland, England and to America, settling in Carolina on the banks of the Cooper and Santee.
In 1683, Joseph Blake, brother of the great Admiral Robert Blake - "Father of the Royal Navy," settled Charleston with a large company of Protestant English dissenters, including Baptists. In 1684, a Baptist Church migrated from Massachusetts under the direction of their pastor, William Screven.
After the British took New York from the Dutch and began to enforce the Church of England, two shiploads of Dutch Reformed left and arrived in Carolina.
In 1674, the population of Carolina was about 4,000. The large number of dissenting immigrants in the first 20 years of the colony were greater than the proprietaries had expected.
Dissenters gained such political power that attempts to bring them under the Church of England were resisted. The first appointed governor, Sir John Yeamans, was instructed to oberve the promise of religious liberty but begin to dissuade non-conformists.
The laws to attract new settlers also had provisions allowing settlers to come without having their outstanding debts paid and exempting them from taxes for a year. This resulted in some undesirables, known as "poor whites," arriving, causing some in Virginia to refer to Carolina as "Rogues' Harbor." The slave trade also sprang up, as Africans exhibited greater physical endurance in the hot climate and marshy ground where rice was grown.
Though the Church of England was legally established in the Carolinas by the "Fundamental Constitutions," it never had popular appeal among the people. Attempts to force dissenters to conform to the Church of England met resistance.
The colonial law of 1691, relating to the Sabbath forbade all secular work and require "all and every person and persons shall on every Lord's Day apply themselves to the observance of the same by exercising themselves of piety and true religion."
An Act of 1696 giving "liberty of the Province to Aliens," stated that: "All Christians...(Papists only excepted) shall enjoy the full, free, and undisturbed exercise of their consciences, so as to be in the exercise of their worship according to the professed rules of their religion, without any hindrance, or molestation by any power either ecclesiastical or civil whatever."
In 1698, the Legislature passed an act to settle the maintenance of a minister at Charleston, Samuel Marshall, the first clergyman of the Church of England in Carolina. The legislature was moved to the action by its special pleasure in Mr. Marshall's character and conduct, and appropriated to him and his successors forever a yearly salary of £150 out of the public treasury.
In 1704, the Legislature established the Church of England and disfranchised non-conformists. The resentment to this was so high that the proprietaries had to yield, appointing the Quaker Archdale to be governor. Archdale wisely put together a council with only one third of its members being Church of England.
After Archdale returned to England, the Church of England party, passed two acts which caused an outrage. The first, an "Act for the Protection of Government," required all members of the legislature take the sacrament in the Church of England. The second "for establishing Religious worship according to the Church of England," gave regulations for the erection of Churches, support of ministers, glebes, parishes, and the choice of ministers, vestries, clerks, sextons, and set up an ecclesiastical court having Episcopal powers to remove ministers.
Other laws were passed requiring French settlers to "conform to the Church of England and use a French translation of the Book of Common Prayer."
Commissary Blair of Virginia describe Carolina in 1704: "The country is divided in four sorts: 1st, The Quakers, who are the most powerful enemies to Church government, but very ignorant of what they profess; 2d, A great many who have no religion, but would be Quakers if they would not be obliged to lead a more moral life; 3d, A sort something like Presbyterians, upheld by some idle fellows who have left employment to preach and baptize, without any orders from any sect; and 4th, Those who are zealous for the interest of the Church."
Quakers resisted the forced paying of tithes to the Church of England. In 1711, Governor Spotswood of Virginia wrote that Quakers were "not only the principal fomenters of the distractions in Carolina, but made it their business to instill the like pernicious notions into the minds of his majesty's subjects in Virginia."
In 1711, Carolina was divided into two colonies. In 1715, a law required every vestryman to take the oath, "I do declare that it is not lawful on any pretense whatever to take up Arms against the King, and that I will not apugne the Liturgy of the Church of England."
In 1720, John Hassell was fined £25 for saying that he "had never been beholden to God for anything." The court judged the offense worthy of punishment as "to the dishonor of God Almighty and his Attributes, and against the Holy written Profession and Religion, now allowed and professed by authority in his now Majesty of Great Britain's Dominions, and subverting of all the faithful and true believers and professors of the Protestant Church and Religion now by Law Established and Confirmed."
In 1729, the King purchased back the domain and Carolina became a royal province.
The Constitution of 1776 stated: "No person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the Divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State."
In 1833, William Gaston, a Catholic, was elected associate justice of North Carolina's Supreme Court. While still on the bench, he was elected a delegate to the State Constitutional Convention of 1835. He gave a speech against the clause requiring office holders to be Protestant.
The clause was subsequently changed in North Carolina's 1835 Constitution to: "No person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Christian religion, or the Divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State."
In 1868, North Carolina's State Constitution changed the requirement to hold office to its present form: "The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God."
As of 1910, the Legislature opened with prayer, laws required observance of Sunday, and punishes any disturbance of religious congregations. Ministers of the Gospel are exempt from jury duty and their private libraries are exempt from taxation.
Originally, marriages could only be solemnized by Church of England ministers. This was extended to justices of the peace in 1741, Presbyterian ministers in 1766, and ministers of all denominations in 1778.
In 1884, Catholics in North Carolina erected Belmont Abbey in Gaston County, its first abbot being Right Reverend Leo Haid. He was appointed Vicar Apostolic of North Carolina in 1887.
At Belmont is also a college for the higher education of women under the Sisters of Mercy, an orphanage for girls and a preparatory school for boys. As of 1910, North Carolina had approximately 11,000 Catholics in 15 Catholic Churches with 33 priests. There are parochial schools at Asheville, Charlotte, Salisbury, Durham, Newton Grove, Raleigh, and Wilmington.
Though not quite one percent of North Carolina's population, the Jewish population has had a presence, which the following information attests:
The city of New Bern has a cemetery under Craven Street with at least one Jew was buried there: Rabbi Yakov Abroo, who died before 1790. New Bern has had an active Jewish congregation since before 1824. In the 1850's, Jews settled in the counties of Jones, Carteret, Pamlico, Craven and New Bern.
In 1865, following the Civil War, the "Hebrews of New Bern" purchased land next to the National Cemetery for a Jewish Cemetery. Many late 19th-century tombstones are inscribed in both Hebrew and English. In 1908, Temple Chester B'nai Sholem Synagogue was completed and in 1919, New Bern's Jewish population was 99.
In 1867, the first Jewish Congregation in North Carolina received a State Charter. In July of 1876, the Jewish community of Wilmington built the Temple of Israel, the first permanent Jewish house of worship in North Carolina.
A Presbyterian cemetery in Charlotte, N.C., displayed the notation: "All over the Carolinas lie the remains of Jews who lived and died long ago in communities with no consecrated burial place for them. They are safe and remembered in Church cemeteries, like this grave in a Charlotte Presbyterian cemetery of a woman born during the Revolutionary War. The inscription begins, 'In memory of Mrs. Z. Penick who died April 12, 1854, 73rd year of her age, a mother in Israel...'"
There is a Hebrew Cemetery in Charlotte, N.C., on McCall Street at Statesville Avenue, which is the oldest and only cemetery that is predominantly Jewish. Elmwood Cemetery in Mecklenburg County has the grave of a Jewish Confederate soldier.
The Durham Jewish community traces its origins to the 1870's when German and Eastern European immigrants arrived to peddle and open stores in the growing tobacco town. In the early 1880's, their numbers increased with the arrival of Russian-Jewish cigarette rollers. The Durham Hebrew Cemetery, established in 1882, may be the oldest Jewish institution of record in this area. Owned by Beth El, it was the only Jewish cemetery for the surrounding geographical area. The Durham Hebrew Congregation was organized in 1887 and rented a hall on Main Street. In 1892, the congregants formally chartered the congregation and hired a Rabbi. In 1905, they purchased a small, wood-framed Church on Liberty Street which became Beth El Synagogue, Durham's first synagogue.
In 1919, the Jewish population in Durham was 500.
Congregation Oheb Sholom in Goldsboro, North Carolina, noted: "In February 1883, 33 Jewish men...united for the purpose of building a synagogue" in Goldsboro. The Jewish community already owned a Torah and was home to a Cemetery Association and a Ladies' Hebrew Assistance Society, indicating that Jewish life existed in Goldsboro prior to the formal creation of a congregation."
In 1891, Beth-Ha-Tephila Congregation was the first synagogue founded in Ashville, meeting at Lyceum Hall on Biltmore Avenue.
In 1898, the Bikur Holim Conservative Congregation was begun. In 1916, Beth-ha-Tephila, an Orthodox Congregation, built a synagogue, but it was unfortunately burned in an anti-Semitic crime.
Raleigh, N.C. has four Synagogues: Beth Meyer, Conservative, founded in 1875; Beth Shalom, Reform, located in Cary; Sha'arei Israel/Lubavitch, Orthodox; and Temple Beth Or, Reform. Raleigh's only Jewish cemetery has approximately 250-300 graves. The 1919 Jewish population of Raleigh was 120.
Greensboro, in Guilford County, had its first permanent Jewish settlers in the middle 1890's. They organized Temple Emanuel, called the Greensboro Hebrew Congregation, in 1907.
In 1898, Temple of Israel in Wilmington, Brunswick County, founded B'nai Israel Cemetery, also called B'nai Yisroel Bur Grd. In 1919 Jewish population of Wilmington was 400. The Gastonia Hebrew Congregation organized Temple Emanuel Cemetery on New Hope Road in 1913.
Temple Emanu-El Congregation in Weldon, Halifax County, was organized in 1912 and had a Jewish cemetery in Roanoke Rapids. In the autumn of 2004, Temple Emanu-El closed and gave its Torah scrolls and other Judaica to the Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina, who gave them to Havurat Olam, Cabarrus County's first Jewish congregation. A new congregation in Virginia Beach got one of its Torah scrolls and memorial plaques. The Kehillah, a new congregation in Chapel Hill, got the furniture, books, candelabras and lectern.
The 1919, the Jewish population of Statesville, N.C., was 55. They built historic Temple Israel and used Oakwood Cemetery.
In 1932, Temple Emanuel was established at Winston-Salem in Forsyth County. It has Mount Sinai Cemetery which adjoins the cemetery of Union Ridge United Methodist Church. The original cemetery grounds were purchased through the Ladies Aid Society of Winston-Salem Hebrew Congregation.
In 1936, the Pineview Cemetery in Rocky Mount, Edgecombe County, opened a Jewish section called Beth-el. In Chapel Hill, Orange County, there is the Judea Reform Congregation Cemetery, located on Jones Ferry Road. In High Point, Guilford County, there is Congregation Bnai Israel, led by Rabbi Jerome Fox, which has a cemetery north of town on Kensington Lane. In Lumberton, Robeson County, there is Temple Israel, which has not held services since the 1980's and gave its Torah to the congregation in Foxfire Village. Whiteville, in Moore County, did not have a synagogue so families traveled to Wilmington or Myrtle Beach to attend services until Beth-Israel Center, North Street was built.> 1663NC001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1663NC001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). North Carolina History, beginning in 1663, from William J. Federer, The Original 13-A Documentary History of Religion in America's First Thirteen States (Amerisearch, Inc., 2009).