89. Mary Bland Lee to Theodorick Bland Sr., 1 March 1748, in Charles Campbell, ed., The Bland
Papers: Being a Selection from the Manuscripts of Colonel Theodorick Bland Jr. of Prince George County, Virginia, to
Which Are Prefixed an Introduction and a Memoir of Colonel Bland, 2 vols. in 1 (Petersburg, Va., 1840), 1:4.
90. BCP, 2:745.
91. Ibid., 849.
92. Byrd Diary I, 6 June 1710, 188.
93. Ibid.,14 April 1710,165 66. Expenses for the funeral and burial of Thomas Bendrey in1709 in-
cluded ten gallons of rum, fifty pounds of butter, forty pounds of sugar, and four bushels of wheat.
VCA, 17:29.
94. A woman visiting the Daingerfield family of Belvidera plantation in March 1775 died on a
Friday. John Harrower, the indentured tutor who recounts these events, sat up all Saturday night
with the corpse. On Sunday at sunset, the body was dressed and placed in a black walnut coffin.
Again, Harrower sat up all night. The coffin was taken and placed in an open grave on Monday. Not
until the next day did the minister appear to read the service at the burial site (not a churchyard),
and the grave was then closed up. No explanation is offered for the delay in reading the service, but
it may be that the minister was unable to attend any sooner. Riley, Journal of John Harrower, 87 88.
95. Richmond County estate records include payments for funeral sermons. Peter Kippax received
600 lbs. of sweetscented tobacco (valued at Ł3.0.0.) in 1709. In 1713 John Bertrand was paid 1,000 lbs.
for his sermon at the funeral of Richard Metcalfe. Owen Jones received 500 lbs. (valued at Ł2.0.0.)
in 1713, and Alexander Scott was paid Ł5.0.0. for preaching at Thomas Fitzhugh s funeral in 1720.
VCA, 17, 29, 54, 77, 84. Robert Barrett received 500 lbs. of tobacco from Fredericksville Parish for
preaching the funeral sermon for Reverend Jonathan Arnold. Fredericksville Parish Vestry Minutes,
17 November 1751, 38. What determined the rate of compensation is not clear, but there appears not
to have been a uniform fee. Bishop Meade praised the funeral sermons of Alexander Finnie, minister
of Martin s Brandon Parish:   Whether they were rich or poor, high or low, he recommended their
good qualities and warned his hearers against their evil ones.  Meade, 1:437. Frances Madison, an
infant sister of the future president, died following birth on 25 November 1761. She was buried the
following Sunday but, if the family Bible record is accurate, the funeral sermon was not preached
until 30 December by James Marye. Patricia Clark, ed.,   Madison Family Bible Records,  VMHB 66
(1958): 81. Parsons appear also to have been paid for reading the service when burials took place at a
home. George Washington paid Lee Massey Ł2.6.3. for officiating at the burial of his stepdaughter,
Patsy Custis, who was buried in the family vault near the main house. Jackson, Washington Diaries,
20 June 1773, 3:188. Charles Clay (St. Anne s Parish, Albemarle), received 40s from Thomas Jeffer-
son for reading the funeral service at the burial of Jefferson s sister and another 40s for a sermon
preached at his mother s funeral. James S. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferon s Memorandum
Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767 1826, Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series,
2 vols. (Princeton, N.J., 1997), 1:371, 444.
96. Churchill cited the passage 2 Kings 20:1. Was he trying to make certain the parson would
have no difficulty in locating the text?   Churchill Family,  WMQ 1st ser., 7 (1899): 187. Churchill was
not alone in choosing the text for his own funeral sermon. Henry Lee reported in a 1764 letter that
his wife had chosen a passage in the Psalms for her funeral sermon which she desired David Currie,
her parson, to preach. WMQ 1st ser., 8 (1899): 35. For recurring themes in English funeral sermons
of the period, see Holbrooke, Death, Religion, and the Family, 305 6.
97. Jones, Douglas Register, 334 36. Passages from the Book of Job provided the texts for twenty of
the sermons, and another fifteen came from portions of the Psalms. Selections from the Gospels of
John and Matthew were favored from the New Testament. In contemporary English practice, New
Testament texts, especially from John s Gospel, the epistles of Paul, and the Book of Revelation
predominated. The single most popular text was Revelation 14:13. Holbrooke, Death, Religion, and the
Family, 306.
98. John Thompson Sermon Book, 31 59, 91 107. Thompson did not mince words:   It must in-
deed be own d, that Death is the great King of Terrors, that the Disolution of Soul & Body, & the
Thoughts of becoming a Prey to the devouring worms, carried in it something very shocking to
Human Nature.  Ibid., 32.
.
428 notes to pages 227 29


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