Person:David Griffith (14)

Griffith, David : born in New York, 1742. K. B., New Jersey, September 3, 1770. Studied medicine in England and served as surgeon in British forces in Portugal, and in America, before his ordination to the ministry. Missionary of the S. P. G., appointed to Gloucester and Waterford, New Jersey, in 1770. Minister of Shelburne Parish, Loudoun County, Virginia, 1771-1776. Surgeon and chaplain, Third Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army, 1776 to 1779. Minister of Fairfax Parish, Fairfax County, from 1780 until his death in 1789. Was elected first bishop of Virginia in 1786, but resigned his election and died in 1789. Deputy to the first General Convention in 1785 and president in the session of 1786. [Goodwin; Brydon; Meade; D. A. B.; Sprague, Annals of the American Episcopal Pulpit; Historical Magazine, IX : 194-230; Heitman; Virginia Revolutionary Records.]

[Extract from Record]

Prominently sited on a hill above the scenic Goose Creek valley, the Glebe House of Shelburne Parish is a rare surviving example of a specialized type of ecclesiastical architecture. Although the house was later altered, it remains one of the few extant glebe houses for which the original specifications survive. Historically, Shelburne Glebe was the focus of a rare case of resistance to the final disestablishment of the Angelican Church in Virginia. Not until thirty-eight years after the passage of the legislative act which ordered the disposal of all glebe lands was the Shelburne glebe sold into private hands.

It has been suggested that the house was left unfinished in the American Revolution and that no interior woodwork was installed until the nineteenth century.

Shelburne Parish was set off from Cameron Parish in 1769 and named for William Fitz-Maurice, Earl of Shelburne and first Marquess of Lansdowne. In April 1771, the church wardens were directed to procure a cleric to preach once every three months at Leesburg and at the parish’s Mountain Chapel. Preference was to be given to a Rev. Mr. Scott, but in December of that year the Rev. David Griffith was elected to the position. His services came highly recommended and were eagerly sought after for their respective colonies by the colonial governors of both New York and Virginia. Griffith’s salary was adjusted to compensate for the parish’s lack of a glebe house and lands for his use. He later became a chaplain in the Continental Army, and no further notice of him appears.

In an effort to supply the lack of a glebe, the parish purchased 465 acres of land from Joseph Combs in 1773, after having hired Appolis Cooper in November, 1772, to build the house. They ordered, according to the vestry books . . .
We do not know whether the building was completed before Griffith’s departure in 1776.

Shelburne Parish resisted the 1802 legislative act ordering the sale of all glebes and the remittance of the proceeds to the county overseers of the poor. The case was finally settled in court in 1830, but it was not until 1840 that the Glebe was sold to John and Andrew Aldridge, according to the Loudoun County Deed Book. It was probably near this time that the house received its Greek Revival modernization.

In the twentieth century the property has been owned by the Gray, King, Eppes, and Cassidy familites. The Glebe was recently purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Archibald Kingsley.

Born in New York, New York. After attending school in New York, traveled to London, England, where he received a degree as a physician in 1762. He later entered the ministry and was ordained a priest by Richard Terrick, Bishop of London, August 24, 1770. The Church of England sent him to a mission in New Jersey where he remained a few years before accepting a position at Shelburne Parish in Loudoun County, Virginia. Becoming rector December 23,1771, not only preached, but taught and practiced medicine as well. An advocate of independence, preached before the Virginia Convention in December 1775. During the Revolution, he served as surgeon of the Prince William County, Virginia, battalion, then was appointed chaplain of the 3rd Virginia Regiment February 28,1776. When the regiment was mustered into the Continental Army, received a dual commission as chaplain and surgeon of the 3rd Virginia. After 3 years of service, he resigned from the army and went to Fairfax Parish with churches in Falls Church and Alexandria, Virginia. After the Revolution ended, helped form the Protestant Episcopal Church. He helped establish this church in Virginia and in the United States. He attended the General Conventions of the clergy, serving as president of the 2nd General Convention in 1786.He married Hannah Colville of New York and they had 8 children. He died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Biography of Rev. Dr. David Griffith, minister of Shelbourne Parish in 1770s.