Return to the Pettis
County Lineages
Chronology of the life of the Reverend Benedict Swope,
Sr.
(Schawb, Schwob,
Schwop, Schwope)
Prepared in
1981 by Gary Farley
(Note from the County Coordinator--Even though this chronology pertains
to other areas and not specifically Pettis County, it is going to be of
interest to anyone researching the surnames related to the Swope Family.)
1730 --Born in York, PA. Son of John Geo. Swope who came
to America in 1727 from Liemen, Germany. His mother was named
Ana Maria Keydel. His siblings--Ana Maria, 1719, Johann Michael,
1727, Margaretha, 1733, and John Jacob, 1745. (The Michael was likely
the Col. in Continental Army. Captured at Ft. Washington. His
home stands in Alexandria, Virginia.)
1752 --Married Susanna Walker. Their children were John, Benedict,
Pollie, Jacob, George, Susanna, David, and Sally. He seems to have
also been called Benjamin. Apparently he was an innkeeper during this decade.
1754 --Signed Church Order as a member of the York, PA. Reformed
congregation. (Wm. Otterbein was pastor of the York Church
briefly in 1755. Apparently a friendship was developed which greatly effected
the destiny of both men.)
1763 --A ruling elder at Pipe's Creek Church (DR) --subsequently
known as St. Benjamin's and as Krider's Church. Westminster, MD.
Otterbein visited the church in 1766. He baptized several of the
Swope children there. At this time he was in the midst of a nine-year
pastorate of the York church. The Swopes moved to Maryland in about
1756.
1768 -- His name appeared on a petition to move the Carroll County
seat to Baltimore.
1769 -- Examined for ordination by the Reformed Synod of Germantown,
PA. He may well have been preaching at Pipe Creek by then.
Significant controversy followed.
1770 -- (Otterbein is visiting in Germany.) Otterbein was
an early
advocate of German pietism. Apparently, a segment of the
Baltimore Reformed congregation became pietistic and was dissatisfied with
their pastor, Rev. Farber. They asked Swope to come from Pipe Creek
to minister to them. At about the same time they formed a second
Reformed congregation. Farber appealed to the synod and blocked Swope's
ordination for a time. However, a
committee investigated and gave Swope a clean bill of health.
It seems that they hurriedly ordained Swope without the usual approval
of the Dutch coetus. They responded with only a light reprimand.
Swope pastored both churches for the next several years. The Baltimore
church subsequently became the mother church of the United Brethren and
is known as the Otterbein church. Now a Methodist shrine, it is located
between the Inner
Harbor and the Camden Yard Station.
1771 -- Toward the end of the year or early in the next he became
acquainted with FrancisAsbury, newly arrived from England to begin
the work of Methodism. He was impressed. When Otterbein returned
to America he introduced the two and they became good friends. (Things
seem to come full circle. The German pietists were the source of
the Wesleys' methods and inspiration and now Asbury inspires the Germans
to move more into the Wesleyan/Pietist practice.)
1772 -- Discussed with Asbury the possibility that his friend and
neighbor, Robert Strawbridge, the first Methodist teacher in America be
ordained. According to some Methodist historians, Swope did in fact
ordain Strawbridge. Given his own unusual ordination, this is an
interesting fact.
1773 -- Sought to get Otterbein to become pastor of Baltimore congregation.
1774 -- Otterbein came. Other Reformed ministers in MD join
with them in promoting Pietistic/Wesleyan type renewal. From 1774
to June 1776 they meet
semi-annually at Pipe's Creek with Otterbein as president and Swope
as secretary. Asbury mentions meeting with them in October 1777.
So Swope may have left Pipe's Creek, and no one took minutes.
1776 -- Asbury mentioned Swope being with him in West Virginia.
Swope
may have had kin there. He preached in German. Eldest
son John entered land at Shelbyville, KY. Records at Pipe's Creek indicate
Otterbein was pastor in 1776.
1777 --Ref. to BS in Asbury's Journal (Dec. 16) would indicate Swope
was not then in pastorate. B.S. Jr. married Margret Keener in Baltimore.
(Rev. B's
daughter Susannah married Christian Keener and their grandson became
Methodist Bishop of New Orleans in late 19th century.)
1778 --Took Oath of Fidelity to the USA. Held money for the
use of
the army. This qualified him as a Patriot.
1779 --Son Benedict moved to Lincoln County, KY and took 1800 acres
of land. (I think that this is correct. But it is difficult
to separate out the several Benedicts in the family.)
1780 --At least by this time he moved to near Logan's Station, KY.
(Others claim he came as soon as 1774 and made several trips back and forth
to Baltimore during the war.)
1781 --He bought 1000 acres on the Dicks River adjoining Baughman's
Settlement. (Family tradition holds that this sons built
William Whitley's brick mansion at Crab Orchard about this time.
Son David was an artist and George a tanner by trade.)
1782 --George Stokes Smith wrote in his journal about hearing Swope,
a
Methodist preacher, preach at Gilbert's Creek Baptist Church (L.
Craig's famous traveling church). Son John was killed by Indians
at Long Run, Jefferson County. Rev. David Rice, Presbyterian, arrived
in KY.
1784 --Attended the famous Methodist Christmas Conference in Baltimore.
Helped ordain Asbury as Bishop. His attendance is confirmed by records
of land sales and his empowerment of son Jacob to act as his attorney.
(I sense that he and his sons were involved in buying land and selling
it to people in Baltimore who were interested in moving to KY.)
1785 --Rev. Swope bought an additional 1000 acres on Dicks River
in
Lincoln County.
1786 --First regular Methodist ministers came to KY.
1788 --Ref. in Lincoln County Court Order Book. Produced credentials
and made bond to perform weddings. Presbyterian. (Renewed
in 1792.) I found several weddings that he performed.
1789 --Listed by the United Brethren in Christ ministers who met
in
conference that year as one of their number, absent. He was
also listed the following year. When again they met in 1800 he was
not listed. (Tradition is that he continued to preach both in German
and English until 1808.)
1792 --Elected to serve as a member of the state constitutional
convention in Danville. He was one of seven ministers.
He was listed as an anti-slave delegate. (Owned 4700 acres--but this
may be too much and a confusion of Sr. and Jr.'s land. Interestingly,
in 1789 tax returns, he listed a slave in his household.) One of
the first acts of the new legislature was to authorize him along with Jacob
Kizer to hold a lottery to raise $500 for the construction of a church
for the German Presbyterian Society (Dutch, High Dutch). Without
an exhaustive search of Bluegrass area county court records I have found
references of two congregations by this unusual name near Jeffersontown
and one near Danville. All four passed out of existence by 1820.
United Brethren historian Drury suggests that when Christian Newcomer,
a major leader of that denomination, first came to the Jeffersontown area
in 1816 these people were the beginning of the United Brethren churches
in Kentucky. As far as I can discover, there is no
information available either from Presbyterian, German, Dutch Reformed,
or United Brethren denominations. Concerning the fate of these churches,
I wish that Benedict Swope had followed the practice of his friend Asbury
and kept a Journal. If the records of one of the churches had survived,
this might have been informative. But thus far, I have reached only
a dead-end. The German Reformed denomination was formed in 1792 out
of the Dutch. A century later it reunited with the Dutch. Incidentally,
the anti-slave position lost in the convention. He does not seem
to be a major figure. His colleague from Lincoln County, Isaac Shelby,
was and became governor.
1795 --Mrs. Swope died.
1797 --Goodin's Fort in Nelson County passed into the hands of B.
Swope Jr., not Sr., as a Filson article stated.
1808 --Asbury met Swope by chance in Nelson County. He indicated
that
Swope was not as well-preserved as Asbury. But Swope was
10-20 year his senior.
1810 -- Asbury noted Swope's death. Suggested that he had
not been as
useful as he might have been. But Asbury was critical of most people.
He died in Lincoln County at the home of his son Jacob. He suffered
from gout. I do not know where he is buried but I have searched.
1812 --Asbury and Boehm preached to some followers of Otterbein
and Swope as noted in his journal. Location at Brunnertown.
The next entry in the Journal is from Beargrass Creek. So his
may have been one of the churches in the Jeffersontown area, or perhaps
a fifth German Presbyterian congregation. (Another may have been in Bardstown.)
1823 --Methodist Magazine says that B. Swope called Otterbein to
translate the general rules of Methodism and explain them to the German
brethren. About the same time but from a late source, Asbury is quoted
as saying at the funeral of Beohm that Swope was the first to discover
the necessity of discipline.
__________________________
Certainly to Swope must go the honor of being either the first Reformed
minister to bring the light of the Gospel to the "Dark and Bloody"
ground. Many unanswered questions remain. Interestingly, many
of his descendants moved on to Missouri and became Baptists. Most
who I have met in Kentucky became Disciples of Christ.
(Records of the Methodist Conference and of the Presbyterian Synod
have
jurisdiction over KY during the lifetime of B.S. but do not list
him as a member.)
The best known German church early in the Bluegrass was the Mud
Meeting
House of the Dutch Reformed near Harrodburg. It was begun
in the early 1790s and by 1820 had disbanded as the members had been anglicized.
I was surprised that there is no record of Swope's involvement with this
church. But since it was Dutch and B.S. German, this would seem to
explain things. So my guess is that Swope was involved in the planting
of German speaking
Reformed congregations in Kentucky. The name German Presbyterian
was descriptive of their nature. But they were never really accepted
by the Scottish Presbyterians in Kentucky not by the United Brethren who
really did not get started until around 1815 and the work of Christian
Newcomer. (I have not searched the German Reformed records in Lancaster,
PA, but was
told by the archivist in the Reformed Library that he knew of no
record of these German churches on the frontier.)
But while I imagine that he was a mix of land speculator/agent and
missionary at the end of the 18th Century, the question remains
as to the source of pastors for the churches of the German Presbyterians.
Related, it should be noted that none of his sons or sons-in-law became
ministers.
Revised: July 14, 1994