N~ME: Mulkey, Philip, 1732-

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DATA: b. near Halifax, N. C., 14 May 1732, son of Philip Mu1ky; ord.Deep River (Chatham) N. C., Oct. 1757-1760; sett. Trent (Jones)N. C., 1757-1760; sett. S. C. (q.v.), 1760-1790; Bapt.

SOURCE: The Colonial Clerg~ of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolinaby: Rev. Frederick Lewi s Heis::

Page: 66

Explanation of Symbols, P-Facts Secured From Primary Sources: S-From Secondary Sources:a.

arrier; sketchesLibrary,

rs , Kateersville,

yc10pedias, (I own

ing Church"Orangein Orange

ere in 1760

ian warsof the moneys and taxRoyaluch worse ,this wasa Baptis~ "r three

BICENTENNIAL HISTORY OF'ROCKYby: John Samuel Staton

,\I'll !os; Ci'''''f~

RIVER~BAPTIST CHURCH

or more other lITraveling Chu r ch es " fromSandy Creek Association area coming throughRock}' River area in Anson County on their'Way to South Carolina and Tennessee. I havea copy of a map of North Carolina and SouthCarolina in 1775 (original in British Libraryin London, England); one in North CarolinaArchives in Raleigh, North Carolina, whichshows the surveys of Henry Muzon for Eng-land. This shows the forest trail of buffalo,and later Indian, and later our early .An1eri-can settlers. These became known as trad-ing paths. Three of these trails cross inOrange County, North Carolina, showing whythe Baptist and others were so thickly settledthere. The one we are interested in beganin our Waxhaw area and continues up throughthe southeastern part of Virginia. Down thistrail, came first Philip Mulky, later JonathanMulky, Joseph Murphy, Daniel Marshall, and'other ministers with their 11 Traveling Churches"on their way to South Carolina, and JonathanMulky's group ending up as the First BaptistChurch in Johnson City, Tennessee.

~ Philip Mulky (or ey) was born May 14,1732, near Halifax, North Carolina, accord-ing to Reverend J. D. Bailey. I believe heand Reverend Edmund Fleming Lilly werefriends and neighbors in Halifax County,North Carolina, because Lilly came fromHalifax County to Rocky River area in AnsonCounty. Mulky was four years younger thanLilly (born in 1728).

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II

Joseph Murphy and Philip Mulky were welltrained by Reverend Shubal Stearns in thestrict separate Baptist belief. Lilly wasperhaps reared and well trained in theAnglican Church in England where he waschristened. He needed special Baptisttraining and I believe Murphy or Mulky orboth at different times spent some timewith Lilly, perhaps two years, at RockyRiver helping him in Baptist work. Dr.,Paschal does not make this clear in Volume1, Pages 294, 295, and 386. There is a DeepRiver stream and a Deep River Church whereMulky and his Traveling Church started outfrom, and Rocky River stream might havebeen called Deep River in 1760; and there wasa Deep River stream near where Mulky andhis group settled in South Carolina, about ahundred miles or more south of our RockyRiver Church in North Carolina. Could thePee Dee have been called Broad River then?In the next two paragraphs, I will quote twosimilar (not the same) statements by Dr.G. W. Paschal (History of North CarolinaBaptist), first page 385--6:

liThe first body of Separates to gofrom North Carolina to South Carolina wasa large portion of the Deep River Church,which as a Traveling Church first went toBroad River. (Could this be Pee Dee andRocky River Church section?), and therein August, 1759 (Morgan Edwards says1760) established an organized worship withPhilip Mulky as minister. Those who formedthis church were Philip Mui ky and wife;

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this Onslowible records-ing is sub-s 1877-1!l5G,

J1

Tracing four generations:

1. l'HlLLIP MULKEY, 1732-1801, father of2. JONATHAN MULl\:EY,1752-18Z6, father of3. JGHK l\fULKEY, 1773-1845, father of4. JOHN NEWTON MUJ.,1\:EY, ] 806-1882_

THE MULKEY PREACHERS.

b 'j'j. as pre-establishedon In ]883.known for

ound warmhi" family,.rld. he left

ONSLOW'S OLDEST CHURCH by Charles Crossfield Ware

W_ Rogers. 1\

1. l'HILLIP l\1ULKK\', was born in Halifax County, N. C_,May 14, 1732.and died In eastern Tennessee about 1801. He was converted in HalifaxCounty, N. C_, by John Newton, and was baptized, Dec, 25, 1756, by ShubalStearns at the Sandy Creek Separate Baptist Church, near the present Lib-erty, N. C. He was ordained to the ministry there in 1757. He married AnnEJlis; children: David, Jonathan, Sarah, Philip, and Parry, (or Patty) . Heevangelized for Separate Baptists in Eastern North Carolina, 1757 to 1760,specially assisting at New River Church, in Onslow County (now UnionChapel), which was enrolled by Sandy Creek Association, parent Conventionof Separate Baptists. in 1758. From New River the cause spread to South-west Church in Lenoir County, four miles southeast of Kinston, this churchbeing established in 1762. Mulkey baptized John Dillahunty (Di llahunt ) ,in Jones County, who in 1761 became a leader at Trent church, and ministeredthere, 1781 to 1796, before removal to Tennessee. This Trent Church is todayidentified as Chinquapin Chapel Christian Church, worshipping near the siteof the old Trent Church, in Jones County.Philip Mulkey removed to South Carolina in 1760, taking with ntm almost

wholly the personnel of the Deep River, N. C. Separate Baptist Church of theSandy Creek connection. He planted Fairforest, earliest Baptist Church inupper South Carolina; the site being in the present Union County, whereFairforest Creek flows into Tyger River, about midway between the presentcities of Clinton and Union. In 1775, he and most of this community becameTories. This domestic tragedy was due to their natural revolt against thetyrrany of American officials in leagued association at Char-leston, S. C.This they felt from bitter experience to be more cruel and unjust than thatof the remote King George III, himself. Hence contemporary Whig Baptistwriters wrote with unresolved contempt concerning the life and character ofPhilip Mulkey, and some later historians to a degree likewise. Mulkey andother Tories, at the mounting crisis fled to Natchez. Misstsstppi, then a British-protected Tory citadel. Similar vicissitudes made Tories of about one-thirdof the American colonials. No definitive report, fair and impartial, onPhilip Mulkey, after 1776, Is extant.

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2. .JONA'.rHAX l\[l'LhEY, son of Philip l\lulkey, was born in Virginia,Oct. 16, 1752, and died near Buffalo Ridge Baptist Church, Washington County,Tenn., Sept. 5, 1826, and is buried in the Cemetery there. He was the firstpreacher to appear on Tennessee soil. It was in Carter's Valley, near thepresent Rogersv!lle, in the fall of 1775. Having survived battles with savages,he founded Kendrick's Creek Baptist Church in the Holston Assoctat.iou,

and represented it at their annual meeting iu 1786. For seven years he wasHolston's moderator. First settlement made in Tennessee was in 1/68, nearthe present Elizabethton, Carter County. It included ten families trorn WakeCounty, N. C. Governmental" chaos on the eve of the American Revolutionaccelerated trans-mountain migration from southern seaboard areas. TwoTennessee Baptist churches are said to have been started prior to. 1770 butdisappeared in the wars of the period.

A. son of Jonathan Mulkey' was Isaac Mulkey, who became affiliated withBarton 'vV. Stone's Christians. In 1883, according to his own report he re-organized Post Oak Springs Christian Church. in Roane County, Tennessee,two miles east of the present city of Rockwood, on Federal Highway 70. Thischurch dating from about 1812 is sa id to be the oldest church of that faithnow functioning in Tennessee, the founder, Epbriam D. Moore, (1782-1859)being an early associate of Barton W. Stone.

3.. JOH:'I' :\ICLI';:EY, son of Jonathan Mu lk ey, was born in South Caro-lina, Jan. 14, 1773; removed to Monroe County, Kentucky, 1798. and died thereat Mulkey's Meeting House, in 184:;. This community is two miles southeastof Tompkinsville, Ky., on the present Park Road. After leaving South Caro-lina he had evangelized in Holston Valley, Tenn. He founded Mill CreekBaptist Church. Ky., (first name of Mulkey's M. H_), in 1798, and elevenyears later affiliated with Barton W_ Stone. He made Mill Creek a "BibleOnly" Church. and the log house, 157 years old, first such structure in south-ern Kentucky, is enshrined to-day as Mulkey's Meetinghouse. It is the onlyState Park in Kentucky to perpetuate the name and to commemcrate thehistory of a church. The congrega.tion long ago passed but with redolencethere yet appears the original twelve-cornered building, the cemeter y, andthe surrounding grove. Its antiquity has significance for Disciples. Pre-served is their old church record book with entries penned with poke berryink. Sustained by a diverse but effectual community sentiment it has beentaken over institutionally by the State but incIdentally it is a landmark inthe genesis of southern Kentucky Christians. However in literature and inlife there is all but total neglect for it by the whole of the present day hetrsof the Stone and Campbell movements.

~. ,JOHS SE\"l'OS )1t'LliJ<;\', S()l1 o f J oh u _'·ulkey. was born "e!J. I'.1806. at Mul key's M. H., and died at Glaago w. Ky., Sept. 26, 1882. His tombts in the cemetery alongside Mulkey's M. H. On October 6, 1824, he marriedNancy Laugh. After an initial ministry in eastern Tennessee, ant! at LibertyChurch in Clay County of that State. he gave lift y years to Kentucky evan-gelization in the Christian Church. Much of t h is time was given as a mis-sionary of the Kentucky Christian Missionary Society.. It is of record thathe preached "nearly ten thousand sermons and Immersed about as many be-lievers." For awhile he lived in Perry County, Ill., whers his first wife diedin 1880. He then returned to southern Ky. and married Nancy EVans. Heand his father for three quarters of a century were notable leaders of the"plain Christians" in pivotal areas.

1897.

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