Francis Makemie

Francis Makemie (1658–1708) was an Ulster Scots clergyman, widely regarded as the founder of Presbyterianism in the United States.

Makemie was born in Ramelton, County Donegal, Ireland part of the province of Ulster. He attended the University of Glasgow, where he experienced a religious conversion and enrolled as "Franciscus Makemus Scoto-Hyburnus". He was ordained a minister by the Presbytery of Laggan in West Ulster in 1681.

At the request of Colonel William Stevens, an Episcopalian from Rehobeth, Maryland, Rev. Makemie was sent as a missionary to America, arriving in Maryland in 1683. He initially preached in Somerset County, Maryland, and established the Rehobeth Presbyterian Church, the oldest Presbyterian Church in America, near the Coventry Parish Church which Col. Stevens attended. The ruins of Coventry Parish Church still stand nearby.

Makemie also supported himself as a merchant and travelled among other Scots-Irish communities, many of which were isolated and often suspicious of each other.

In eastern Somerset County (which became Worcester County, Maryland in 1742, where All Hallows Episcopal Church would be erected about a decade later), Makemie founded the first Presbyterian community in the Town of Snow Hill, established in 1686 and named after a London neighborhood. Snow Hill was become the centre of the Presbytery of Snow Hill, which received a charter from Maryland's General Assembly, but was never activated.

Nonetheless, a Presbyterian Church was established early on in Snow Hill. The current Makemie Memorial Presbyterian Church is the fourth building on the site and the congregation's third location in Snow Hill. The first building was situated near the Pocomoke River, the primary means of travel in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Makemie often travelled along the river to visit his congregations at Rehoboth and other distant locations, as well on what later became U.S. Route 13 down the Delmarva Peninsula. This original log building was eventually replaced by a frame structure, located a big further away from the water but still prone to flooding.

Makemie spent the rest of his life travelling widely along the American coast between North Carolina and New York. He was involved in the West Indies Trade. He also helped establish churches in Salisbury, Princess Anne, Berlin and Pocomoke City and two places on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, all in Accomack County further down the Delmarva Peninsula.

In 1691, Makemie published a Catechism which challenged some of the beliefs of the Society of Friends and led to Abolitionist Quaker George Keith publishing a reply. Makemie responded with the 'Answer to George Keith's libel'. Congregational Rev. Increase Mather praised the 'Answer' as the work of "a reverent and judicious minister".