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- In the year 1751, the Rev. Samuel Davies, then residing in Hanover, Virginia, made an excursion for preaching, to the Roanoke. In the course of his journeyings, he became acquainted with Henry Pattillo, then a young man desirous of commencing his studies in preparation for the gospel ministry, and invited him to come and commence his course with him in Hanover. This invitation Mr. Pattillo at first declined, as he had engaged to go to Pennsylvania with another young man, and commence his studies under the care and tuition of the Rev. Mr. John Thomson, who was at this time in Carolina on a mission to the new settlements.
In the year 1744, in compliance with a “representation from many people in North Carolina - showing their desolate condition, and requesting the Synod to take their condition into consideration, and petitioning that we would appoint one of our number to correspond with them,- Mr. Thomson, of Donegal Presbytery, was appointed by the Synod to correspond with them. He was this time on a visit to these petitioners, and others in Carolina.
source: Henry Foote, William. Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, Illustrative of the Principles of a Portion of Her Early Settlers. New York: Robert Carter, 1846, p. 213.
- Mr. John Thomson, who was appointed to correspond with the supplicants, a member of Donegal Presbytery, visited them in person in 1751. On his journey to Carolina, the arrangement was made with Mr. Pattillo and another young man, to return with him to Pennsylvania, and commence their studies in preparation for the ministry. Mr. Thomson made a long stay, and in the meantime the young man relinquishing his design of study, and Mr. Davies giving Mr. Patillo an invitation to his house, the design of going to Pennsylvania was abandoned. There remain no memoranda either of the correspondence of Mr. Thomson with those desirous of ministerial labor, or of his visit to them. Neither is there any document that may give any particular account of the visits that were made by the various missionaries sent out by the two Synods of New York or Philadelphia, till the years 1755 and 1756, when Hugh M’Aden, a licentiate of New Brunswick Presbytery, made a tour of a year, a concise journal of whose journeyings and preaching is still preserved, and makes part of another chapter.
source: Henry Foote, William. Sketches of North Carolina, Historical and Biographical, Illustrative of the Principles of a Portion of Her Early Settlers. New York: Robert Carter, 1846, p. 225.
- The Rev. John Thomson was pastor of the church of Middle Octorara at the time of the erection of the Presbytery of Donegal, having been installed there in the fall of 1730. He had come from Ireland in 1715, and had been settled for a number of years as pastor of the church in Lewes, Del.
source: Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. The Centennial Memorial of the Presbytery of Carlisle: A Series of Papers, Historical and Biographical, Relating to the Origin and Growth of Presbyterianism in the Central and Eastern Part of Southern Pennsylvania, Volume 1. Harrisburg, PA: Meyers Printing and Publishing House, 1889.
- Supplications for ministers were sent from North Carolina to the annual conventions of the Synod of Philadelphia as early as the year 1744, following a missionary tour made by William Robinson through the settled portions of Carolina in the winter of 1742-43. The Rev. John Thomson, a Presbyterian minister who had removed from the Chestnut Level, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, to the Virginia valley about 1744, was ordered by the Synod in May of that year, to correspond with “many people” of North Carolina, who had petitioned the Synod for supplies. Either before or after that date, a daughter of Mr. Thomson had married Mr. Baker, who was one of the earliest settlers on Davidson’s creek, locating about five miles from Beattie’s ford, within the bounds of what afterwards became Centre Congregation, in Iredell county. Mr. Thomson visited this settlement in the summer of 1751, probably with the intention of remaining there. He was the first minister of any denomination to preach in that region. It is supposed by his biographer that he went at the solicitation of Moses Winslow, George Davidson, and other settlers in the vicinity of his son-in-law, who had known him in Pennsylvania. In 1751 Mr. Baker lived between the present Centre Church and Statesville. While in North Carolina, Mr. Thomson visited the new settlements within a radius of twenty miles from his home. He had a preaching station at William Morrison’s near the present Concord Church, on Third Creek (an affluent of the South Yadkin), six miles northwest from Statesville; another station was within the bounds of what is now Fourth Creek Church; another, in Third Creek Congregation; another at Cathey’s Meeting-house, afterwards Thyatira, ten miles from Salisbury; another, at what was then Osborne’s Meeting-house; another, just below the present village of Davidson College, in Mecklenburg county. Mr. Thomson may also have had another preaching station farther south, within the bounds of what afterwards became Hopewell and Sugar Creek congregations. He died near Statesville in 1753.
source: Hanna, Charles Augustus. The Scotch-Irish, or The Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America, Volume 2. London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902, pp. 38-39.
- Mr. John Thomson, of the Presbytery of Donegal, visited Virginia in the year 1739 and spent some time at the Opequon settlement. He also visited Augusta county, Rockfish in Nelson, Cub Creek, Buffalo, and Campbell county. “He took up voluntary collections for preachers of the gospel,” says the manuscript History of Lexington Presbytery,” and in doing justice to his memory it is proper to observe that he was active in promoting the Presbyterian cause in Virginia.” Through his instrumentality, Messrs. Black and Craig were sent by Presbytery, the one to the Triple Forks and the other to Rockfish. Thomson labored for a short time at Buffalo, to which place the Rev. Richard Sankey, his son-in-law, afterwards removed with his congregation from Hanover, Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, and served there are pastor for many years. Mr. Thomson removed to North Carolina in 1751, and there died within the bounds of Centre Congregation.
source: Hanna, Charles Augustus. The Scotch-Irish, or The Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America, Volume 2. London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902, p. 49.
- THOMPSON, JOHN: educ. Glas., 1706: lic. By Coleraine Pres. 1713: to Amer., 1715: ord. at Lewes, Del., Apl., 1717: res, 1728: ins. Middle Octorara, 1730: Chesnut Level, 1732: intinerated Virginia Valley in 1738: in N. Carolina, 1744 and 1751: author of “an Exposition of Shorter Catechism.” d. Centre, N.C., 1753. “A narrow and opinionated man.” “The father of all the discord and mischief in the Amer. Pres. Ch.” (Briggs, 186 aec.).
source: McConnell, James and Samuel G. McConnell. Fasti of the Irish Presbyterian Church 1613-1840. Belfast, UK: The Presbyterian Historical Society, n.d.
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