Francis Makemie

Alfred Webb

A Compendium of Irish Biography

1878

Makemie, Francis, a Presbyterian divine, who was distinguished in the early settlement of Virginia. He was born in Donegal, and went to America in 1682. He preached principally in Virginia and the Carolinas, and was for a time engaged in the West India trade. For preaching without licence in New York in 1707, he was arrested by Governor Cornbury, and imprisoned for two months. Cornbury, in justifying his action, reported that Makemie was "a preacher, a doctor of physic, a merchant, an attorney, a counsellor-at-law, and, which is worst of all, a disturber of governments." He printed a Narrative of this affair, and many tracts, some of which have been since republished. His Answer to George Keith's Libel (Boston 1692) bears the imprimatur of Increase Mather. He died in Boston in the summer of 1708.

Sources

37a. Biographical Dictionary—American Biography: Francis S. Drake. Boston, 1876.

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