Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1903-08-12
a QUEER RELIGIOUS seer.
Driven Out Of Virginia and Warned to Steer
| Clear Of South Carolina.

Raleigh, August 5.This country
has known many strange religious
scots, but certainly none stranger
than the "Holiness" people, other.
wise known as "Lynchites," who q
few years ago created SO much ex.
citement on the Virginia and North
Carolina coasts. Joseph Lynch, the
founder of this sect, was from Chin
coteague, Va, and there began the
movement that was destined to de-
stroy the peace of many home. He
was fisherman and go were most O.
his male converts. He and they
soon gathered women around them
women whom they told that
to be "holy" they must forsake
, their husbands unless the lat
ter also became converts. The
devotional exercises were wholly
emotional. There was "jumping,'
which lasted for hours, also hysteria
and all sorts of frances, in which ii
was claimed visions were seen. The
authorities of Virginia soon expelled
from that State Lynch and his fol-
lowers, and the fanatics made their
way past Norfolk and to the south
ward, through the Dismal Swamp
and Albemarle and Chesapeake ca
nails, into North Carolina, where they
began their work in Camden county.
Their free.love propaganda was in
this new home broadened, until the
people became 80 aroused that Lynch
and his followers, who had built
themselves fleet of boats, were
forced to leave. -Four of these boats
were known as "arks," and were
quite spacious houses, 60 by Is feet
in dimensions, built upon very strong
scows. The sides of these "arks"
were peppered with bullets, fred by
the indignant people on shore. In
these "arks" sloop and some
schooners, the "holy" people made
their way through the large bodies
of water known in North Carolina
as sounds. These sounds differ
widely in character. The upper
ones, Currituck, Roanoke, Albemarle
and Pamlico (the latter over 40
miles in width) have absolutely no
sea tide, but only what is known as a
wind tide, while the lower sounds,
Core and Bogue, have sea tides of
three to six feet. The Lynchites
made slow progress through the
sounds, but finally reached the quaint
old town of Beaufort, which is be-
tween Core and Bogue sounds, and
which faces Old Topsail Inlet. Their
fleet presented queer sight as it
moved along, the "arks" with their
high weatherboarded sides and
shingled roofs, being towed by the
sloop and schooners. On arrival at
Beaufort the ssarks" and vessels were
anchored and the Lynchites began
business, holding open-air meetings
nightly in a grove. By day the
"holy" men were fishermen and oys-
termen, Lynch and others having
scured license for that purpose, and
they worked hard, shipping their
catch northward. They all lived in
their "arks," each of which con-
tained sitting room, used in COM
mon by all the occupants, the re-
naming space being used as a pas
sageway, with cabins or little living
rooms on each side, each with a
window. On each "ark" there were
over fifty people. Persons not of
the sect or cult of the "holy" peo-
pie spoke of the female occupants
of those arks as the "harem," but the
devotees kept their life 80 much to
themselves that no evidence of un-
lawful life could be secured against
them. A violent storm came up
one night and one of the arks went
adrift. Its inmates were rescued,
but it could not be secured and vas
swept away to sea, where it capsized
and sank. The Lynchites sold two
of the arks, one of which now stands
alongside of the "board walk" at
Beaufort. 1t is one of the sights of
the place, and is now used by it's
buyer partly as dwelling and partly
as storehouse for nets and other
hunting and fishing gear. Another
is used as fish house on an island
three miles from Beaufort, while the
fourth is at the mouth of the canal
to the northwestward. The Lynch
ties were not molested or driven out
OF Beaufort, but sailed away in their
vessels for the southwark, taking
with them only few local converts,
one woman who two years later
returned and was taken back by her
husband. The Lynchites let it be
understood that their plan was to al
ways go southwark, and the next
port they made after leaving Beau
fort was Southport, in North Caro-
lima, but near the South Carolina
line. There they also held open-air
meetings, but made few converts.
They were on the point of going to
South Carolina, when they were no.