Читать книгу Legends of the Skyline Drive and the Great Valley of Virginia - Etta Belle Walker - Страница 10

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Lending an air of uniqueness yet to the Valley towns is that religious sect called Dunkards. One sees the women of that denomination, with their little black bonnets, on almost any street in any town along the Lee Highway.

At one time the sect was called Tunkers. They are an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Baptists and had their beginnings in the Valley a little after 1732.

When Dr. Thomas Walker passed through the section on his way westward he noted in his journal on March 17th, 1750, "The Dunkards are an odd set of people, who make it a matter of religion not to Shave their Beards, ly on Beds, or eat Flesh though at present, in the last, they transgress, being constrained to it, as they say, by the want of a sufficiency of Grain and Roots, they having not long been seated here. I doubt the plenty and deliciousness of the Venison and Turkeys has contributed not a little to this. The unmarried have no private Property, but live on a common Stock. They don't baptize either Young or Old, they keep their Sabbath on Saturday, and hold that all men shall be happy hereafter, but first must pass through punishment according to their Sins. They are very hospitable."

The Dunkards built a part of their faith around their disapproval of violence, even for self-defense, and their submission to fraud or wrongdoing rather than resorting to court trials.