Francis Makemie, born in Ramelton, County Donegal, Ireland, in A.D. 1658(?), was educated at Glasgow University in Scotland and came as an ordained evangelist to the American Colonies in A.D. 1683 at the request of Col. William Stevens of Rehoboth, Maryland. A devoted and able preacher of the Gospel, he labored faithfully and freely for twenty-five years in Maryland, Virginia, the Barbados, and elsewhere. He was also regarded as a Christian gentleman, an enterprising man of affairs, a public-spirited citizen, and a distinguished advocate of religious liberty, for which he suffered under the Governor of New York. He is especially remembered as the chief founder of organized presbytery in America in A.D. 1706 and as the first moderator of the General Presbytery. He died at his home in Accomack County, Virginia, in the summer of A.D. 1708 and was buried in his family cemetery on this spot.