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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Petition from inhabitants of Rowan County concerning North Carolina vestry laws [Extracts]
No Author
1770
Volume 08, Page 219

-------------------- page 219 --------------------
[Reprinted from Williamson's History of North Carolina.]
Extracts of a petition from sundry Inhabitants of the County of
Rowan.

To the Governor, His Majesty's Honorable Council and the House of Burgesses of North Carolina.

The petitioners complain “That his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects in this country who adhere to the liturgy and profess the doctrines of the Church of England as by law established have not the priviledges and advantages which the rubrick and canons of the Church allow and enjoin on all its members. That the Acts of Assembly calculated to forming a regular Vestry in all the counties have never in this county produced their happy fruits. That the County of Rowan above all Counties in the province lies under great disadvantages as her inhabitants are composed almost of all nations of Europe and instead of uniformity in doctrine and worship they have a medley of most of the religious tenets that have lately appeared in the world, who from dread of submitting to the National Church should a lawful Vestry be established, elect such of their own community as evade the Acts of Assembly and refuse the oaths whence we can never expect the regular enlivening beams of the Holy Gospel to shine upon us.