In the first years of its existence, the vestry of St. Mark's parish was mostly concerned with the physical plant of a new church. They purchased a farm for the pastor. They built a glebe house for him. Repairs were made to the church at Germanna and to the chapels. And it was decided to build a new church. The area to the west of Germanna was filling up with people, so the new church was located further out.
A year and a half after the parish was formed, the vestry met at John Finlason's Path on Germanna Road. (Notice the reference to a path, which is a commentary on the roads.) It was at this meeting that the vestry ordered a new church to be built " convienent to the two Springs ". The availability of water was always a factor in locating churches and chapels. The nails of the burnt church were ordered sold.
In October, the Vestry met to lay the parish levy. Before computing the levy, bills were paid, which seem to be mostly of a mechanical nature. Francis Kirtley was paid 375 pounds of tobacco for meat, corn, and service. Probably, he had taken care of the sick or poor and he was being reimbursed. Henry Field, a warden, received a larger payment, probably for similar reasons.
The Vestry was charged with watching the morals of the citizens, and perhaps taking action. At this meeting, John Coalt, a bastard child, was bound over to Francis Kirtley until he (the child) was 21 years old.
Payments were made to Rev. Debuts for thirty sermons, to include, with the 9,240 pounds of tobacco, " Chask and Convenienece ". [The word ' chask ' is a misspelling of cask, but the meaning of ' convenience ' escapes me. I suspect it means the tobacco was to be delivered, not to Rev. Debuts, but to a warehouse. Does anyone have a thought on this?]
The levy was 69 pounds of tobacco per tithable. There were 755 tithables. The previous year there were 704 tithables, and they were levied 35 pounds of tobacco. So people were in for a shock when the tax bill for the parish came; it had nearly doubled in the year. The population had grown by about 7 percent in the year. Among the Germanna citizens, we know there was a small boom in the early 1730's as several people came from Germany then.
The next meeting, after the fall meeting for making the budget and laying the levy, did not come until the next May. A statement, which covers much of what was written in the last note, was, "It is ordered that the Reverend Mr. John Becket being Recommended to us by the Governour and Commissary we doe Entertain him as Minister of our Parish and that he is to be paid as the Law directs." It was also ordered that the Rev. Becket was to live on the glebe land, in the house which was being built (to which he agreed). It is not entirely clear who was doing the "ordering," but it appears that it was meant to reflect the vote of the Vestry; however, the vestry had the "recommendations" of the Governor and the Commissary. The Rev. Mr. Debuts was discharged as of the last service in April.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.