tate Clan Boyd Society, International
 
 

                 REV. JOSEPH TATE

"Was received as a licentiate, by Donegal Presbytery, April
l, 1748, and was sent to Lower Pennsborough, (Silver Spring,)
Marsh Creek, and Conewago.  On the 14th of June, he was
called to Donegal; and, soon after, the Rev. Andrew Bay, of
the New Side Presbytery of Newcastle, accused him of having
preached false doctrine at the Three Springs, (Big, Middle,
and Rocky.).  He was acquitted, October 25, and accepted the
call from Donegal, they giving seventy pounds to buy a plantation
and seventy pounds salary. He was ordained, November
23, 1748: Samuel Thomson presided.  He spent eight Sabbaths
in the following fall in Virginia.  Immediately after his
installation he was married, December 15, 1748, to Margaret Boyd,
the eldest daughter of Adam Boyd, of Octorara.  Her father gave
her, besides a silk gown, a bed and its furniture, a horse and saddle,
and nearly every article for housekeeping; all of which are
carefully entered in his book.

"Tate found little or no satisfaction on the union, the two parties
in the presbytery being so nearly equal in numbers, and so
thoroughly divided in sentiment.  He withdrew, and, finally,
had leave, in 1768, to join the Second Philadelphia Presbytery.
He was sent by the synod to Western Virginia and North Carolina;
and, in the following March, he was called to Coddle Creek.
he presbyters asked his congregation, Should the call be placed
in his hands?, and they immediately requested that his relation
to them might be dissolved.  A committee was sent to reconcile the
difference, and they did not prosecute their demand fort his ' dish
mission.

"He died October 11, 1774, aged sixty-three. Dr. Martin says
"he was eccentric, but fearless in reproving vice and the errors
of the day "

"His son, the Rev. Matthew Tate (T1), graduated at the College of
Philadelphia, was licensed by Newcastle Presbytery, and was employed
as a supply in several presbyteries.  He visited the new settlements
west of Albany, and went to the Southern States.  He received holy
orders as a deacon from the hands of Bishop White, and was rector
of St. Matthew's, South Carolina, from 1789 to 1792, when he re-
moved to Beaufort, and had the charge of the parish till his death,
October 7, 1795.  His mother married James Anderson, the son of her
husbands predecessor, and her daughter Jane married his son.

"This seems to say that the mother of Rev. Matthew Tate, which
would be Margaret Boyd Tate, m. James Anderson and that Rev
Matthew Tate had a sister Jane who also married an Anderson.
While the second part is fairly obviously true, the first stretches
credibility a bit. The Rev Joseph Tate died 11 OCT 1774; Margaret
supposedly died the same year, although a specific date isn't available.
If the story is true, Margaret was widowed in October, and then
and remarried and died herself in a period of less than 3 months. "

A History of the Presbyterian Church from its origin until
the year 1760, Rev. Richard Webster, 1857

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