The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1904-10-11
NEWBERRY OF THE
DAYS LONG PAST
JUDGE J. M. CROSSON WRITES
FROM TEXAS.
Old Covenanter Families Who Lived
In the Newberry of Long Ago.

WoOdV1lle, lexas.
September E, 1904
<'Oh, where will be the birds that
sing,
A hundred years to come;
The flowers that now in beauty
spring,
A hundred years to come;
The rosy lip, the lofty brow,
The heart that beats so gaily now,
Oh, where will be loves beaming eye,
Joys pleasant smile and sorrows
sigh,
A hundred years to come?
We all within our graves shall sleep,
A hundred years to come;
No loving soul for us shall weep,
A hundred years tc come;
But other men. Our lands will till,
And others then Our streets will fill,
While other birds will sing as gay,
AS Light the sunshine as today,
A hundred years to come"
In a late number Of your excellent
contemporary, f'The Observer" I read
OF the visit of my old friend, DR.. S.
G. Welch and J. A. Chapman to the
Covenanter's graveyard, with much
interest; for in the restful peace that
pervades, that&oA graveyard lie the
bodies of my paterna1 ancestors and
kindred.
The last time I visited the old log
church. it bore the marks of gradual
di1apidation of time, and there was
a touching pathos in its decay; now
the last vestiges Of it are gone. Let
us visit the graveyard; how solemn
and rnournful; the dead reign there
alone.
"The golden sun, the planets, all
the infinite hosts of heaven, are shin
ing on the sad abodes of DEATH" The
1nossy marbles rest on the lips that
we have pressed in their bloom; and
the names we loved to hear have been
carved for many years on the tombs.
All is silent and still save the crying
of the wind in the pines, and the tril
Ing OF the birds around their nests.
Graves neglected, desolate; the SOL
emnity of the place inspires us with
profound and mysterious awe; press
es on our souls and bushes us into a
noise1ess reverence. Pathos touches
our hearts and we recall how, one
by one. the old Coveaanters of this
vanished congregation, when the
work and worry. the sorrow and sin,
of this life was ended, were laid with
closed eyes ami calm faces in the
gathering place Of the dead Rev.
Donnely, who lived in York county,
preached the last sermon in the old
church. Among the now vanished
congregation may have been seen
those mentioned in J. A. Chapman's
article, viz: Boyds, Reeds, Chalmers,
Henrys, and Clarys and others.
Crossons, McDills, and Sloans, with
still others, all good old, strong and
true Covenanters. They. were a
grand old people, intensely Calvin
istic and fervently religious. Lord
Moncrieff writes of them, ''Whatever
of birth and culture, Of manners, OF
learning, Of intellectual power which
Scotland could boast, was at that
time unquestionably to be found in
the ranks of the Covenanters." They
were prosecuted in Scotland with
great barbarity and driven to the
north of Ireland; for over a century
they remained there, but were then
driven thence. A writer has said,
"Again out of the darkness came the
command. go forward; with prophet
ic eye they beheld the shores of the
new world far beyond the storm
tossed ocean, and they came and
builded their altars and homes" :"
Three sects, the Quakers, Tunkers,