USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume II > Part 31
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III. THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCHI.
The next church to establish its worship in Delaware, was the Protestant Episcopal. As already stated, it succeeded to the
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Swedish Lutheran churches in 1790; this will seem less strange when we remember that both churches are episcopal in govern- ment, and differ but slightly in doctrine, polity or mode of worship. That their early fraternization conduced to this result has likewise been shown. The Rev. John Yeo, who appears to have had his clerical credentials recognized by the Court at New Castle in December, 1677, " was the first minister of the Church of England who held services on the Delaware river." He settled at New Castle, June 4, 1678, and probably ministered to the people there for some months, and after- wards to a limited extent until 1681. Scharf says, " Although the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New Castle properly begins with the year 1703 when the movement was begun which resulted in the founding of Immanuel Church, it appears that a quarter of a century earlier a congregation existed at New Castle for a few years." On the other hand, the Rev. George Foot, whose "Sketch of Old Drawyers " be- tokens very careful research, says, "The Episcopal Church at New Castle was founded in 1689, and there is no evidence that any other church existed earlier."
The Dutch Calvinistic authorities there being little pleased with the Rev. Yeo and his Episcopalianism, with Governor Andros' permission, called the Dutch minister Tasschemaker, heretofore referred to, whereupon Yeo went to Calvert County, Maryland, and afterwards to Baltimore, thus becoming the first Church of England clergyman in that State also, where he formed a permanent church. Both Yeo and Tasschemaker had to invoke the processes of the civil courts to get their meager salaries. The date when the last Dutch minister left New Castle marks the founding there of Immanuel Church, the first permanent Protestant Episcopal church in Delaware. The west wall of the church tower bears a tablet with the inscription "Founded 1689, enlarged 1820." "There are no records of the proceedings at the organization of its congrega- tion or parish, but there is most convincing circumstantial evidence that such organization was effected at the time indi-
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cated," Holcomb declares, and proceeds to set out the proof in question.
No regular minister was stationed at Immanuel Church for some time after its founding. The building was begun in 1703 and opened 1706, the Swedish minister, Andrew Rud- man, preaching occasionally. Rev. George Ross was the first rector, from 1705 to 1708, and again from 1714 to 1754. Rev. Thomas Jenkins was rector from 1708 to 1709, when he · went to Appoquinimink, where he died. The Rev. John Talbot, in a letter dated September 27th, 1709, says: “Poor brother Jenkins at Appoquinimink was baited to death by mosquitoes and blood-thirsty gal-knippers, which would not let him rest day or night till he got a fever and died of a calenture ; nobody that is not born there can abide there till he is mosquito-proof." From the date of the pastorate of Rev. Jacob Henderson, in 1712, the succession of rectors in Immanuel Church has been almost continuous. The Rev. George Ross was rector for forty-three years.
After Holy Trinity, "Old Swedes," Wilmington, came under the control of the Episcopal Church in 1790, worship was continued in the original Swedish building until 1830, when the aged church having become unfit, the members re- moved to a new structure on the corner of Fifth and King streets. In 1836 efforts were made to rescue the honored old sanctuary from ruin, repairs to roof and windows being made. Finally the building was entirely renovated, the sum of seven hundred dollars having been bequeathed by Miss Henrietta Allmond for that purpose, and on August 25, 1842, it was re- opened for occasional services. Bishop Lee and the Rev. J. W. Mccullough officiating on the occasion. In his sermon the rector drew a striking picture of the utter ruin into which the venerable pile had been allowed to fall between 1830 and 1842, through shameful neglect and wanton, scandalous dese- cration of both building and grounds at the hands of ribald vandals. In 1849 it was decided to hold services there every Sunday afternoon. Continuous services were not held from
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1859 to 1868, though the Rev. William Murphy served the church from 186S to 1877. Since the year 1877 services have been regularly held in this historic house of God, which is now happily launched upon a career of lasting prosperity, let us hope. The Delaware Diocesan Journal for 1904 gives the present number of communicants at one hundred and eighty.
In 1881 the congregation at 5th and King streets removed to Adams street and Delaware avenue, where a church, now known as the Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church, was erected. It has four hundred and four communicants, rank- ing next to St. Andrew's. Other leading Episcopal churches in Wilmington are Saint Andrews, built 1829, burned 1840, and rebuilt the same year. It is the largest church of the denomination in Delaware, the Journal for 1904 crediting it with four hundred and fifteen communicants ; St. John's, begun in 1855, through the earnest efforts of Alexis I. Du Pont, which resulted later in the erection of a handsome stone building ; the church has three hundred and four com- municants ; Calvary, built in 1859, with three hundred and one communicants in 1904. Saint Michael's and Immanuel on the Highlands are recent additions.
The Protestant Episcopal Church, though not in numbers so strong as several others, is nevertheless well represented throughout the State by many prosperous organizations, sev- eral of them quite old. Among these last are St. George's Chapel founded in 1728, being the earliest organized religious effort in Indian River Hundred ; and Prince George's Chapel, certainly founded early in the eighteenth century, if not be- fore that time, for Rev. George Ross in his Journal, dated Lewes, August 6, 1717, mentions its enlargement by Gen. John Dagworthy. This famous Revolutionary hero lies buried under its chancel. A movement has been recently started looking towards the erection of a suitable monument to his memory.
Christ Church at Dover, the largest Episcopal church in Kent County, is one of the oldest in the denomination. So
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early as 1704 Rev. Thomas Crawford, in response to the peti- tions of twenty-two citizens of Dover, was sent thither as a missionary, by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. He remained till 1711, marrying a daughter of Arthur Medstone, or Meston ; and the daughter born of this union afterwards became the mother of the celebrated Cæsar Rodney, the only one of our three Signers of the Declaration of Independence born in Delaware. A church was built in Dover at an early date and one of brick was begun in 1740.
In 1758 under the ministry of Rev. Charles Inglis, who went to England to be ordained, the church was markedly prosper- ous for six years. He was rector of Trinity Church, New York City, in 1765, and later Bishop of Nova Scotia. He held radi- cal, not to say rabid Tory views ; but his successor, Rev. Samuel Magaw, whatever might have been his early hopes of an honorable reconciliation between England and America, came to share the views of their patriotic Bishop White, for in a sermon preached in Christ Church December 29, 1779, at the request of and before the Masons of Delaware, after speaking in the highest terms of commendation of "His Excellency, Cæsar Rodney, Esq., Governor, etc., the friend of his country, etc.," and naming distinguished Masons from Tubal and Enoch to Franklin, closed with a eulogistic reference to " the illustrious Cincinnatus of our age in Washington."
Like many of the Episcopal churches in America, Christ Church suffered through the breaking-out of the Revolution, and was probably vacant during the whole of that period. Indeed its history from that time till about 1859, " was that of almost constant decline" says Bishop Lee. "In 1841 the present writer found the church deserted, and the whole aspect of the weather-beaten structure, somber and dejected," says the Bishop in a historical sermon delivered May 17, 1860, when the thoroughly renovated church " was solemnly and joyfully consecrated to the worship of God."
Bishop Lee, in an address delivered in St. Andrew's Church, Wilmington, in 1842, drew a sad picture of the con-
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dition in which he then found the Episcopal churches in Delaware after a tour among them : "But four ministers in the State, and only one below New Castle ; only seven par- ishes with regular services; the number of communicants reported to the General Convention of 1841, 539." Certainly in striking contrast with the figures of 1904 as given in the "Living Church Annual ": Ministers, 34 ; parishes, etc., 39; communicants, 3,657.
Scharf, writing about St. Peter's Church at Lewes, says : "Visiting clergymen held services in all the larger settle- ments prior to 1700," and the Rev. C. H. B. Turner, the present rector, writes as follows: "Lewes, March &, 1905, Crawford's Notes in the Congressional Library at Washington state, so I am told, that Crawford held the first service in this town in 1705." Scharf further states that Rev. William Black held meetings at Lewes for about a year in 1708-9, " but that the interest created was not sufficient to attempt the founding of a church, and that it was nearly twelve years before that was done."
In 1717 the Rev. George Ross, in his tour through lower Delaware with Rev. George Keith, preached in the court- house at Lewes, August 6th, and came again in 1718, staying a week, and baptizing over one hundred persons at Lewes, Cedar Creek and in the Indian river country. Through his influence Rev. William Beckett came as a missionary, locat- ing in 1721 at Lewes as a central point for his work. The first church was built about 1721, the second in 1SOS and the third in 1853, which in 1870 was enlarged and improved. Since Mr. Beckett there have been thirty-two rectors, the present incumbent, the Rev. C. H. B. Turner, having been rector for several years.
It is proposed during the present year to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of St. Peter's Church at Lewes with religious and commemorative exercises.
St. Anne's, near Middletown, is one of the oldest Episcopal churches in the State. The date of its origin is not precisely
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ST. ANNE'S P. E. CHURCH, NEAR MIDDLETOWN. BUILT A. D. 1768.
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known, but that it was prior to 1704 is shown by a grant to Richard Cantwell dated the Erst of the ninth month, 1704. The Rev. Mr. Jenkins was the first settled minister, in 1708, " though the Rev. Mr. Sewell, of Maryland, and Rev. Thomas Crawford, the missionary, preached occasionally before his coming." Mr. Jenkins soon died, and the church was with- out a pastor for a long time, though Rev. J. Chubb and Rev. George Ross visited them, and that zealous, tireless servant of God, Erick Bjork, preached for them once a month. The Rev. Philip Reading, a young Englishman, was their pastor for about thirty-four years, and being unable, as a Royalist, with a good conscience to continue to use his clerical office to the satisfaction of his parishioners, he felt it his duty, August 25th, 1776, to close the church. Bishop Lee says "the church was not opened again during his life." He died in 1778, and his tomb is in the old graveyard near the church entrance. He was a good man, and acted from conscientious motives against his own temporal interests in the stand he took, as did many another of his brethren in those troublous days.
In the year 1872 a handsome church built of green stone was erected in Middletown, a mile distant from the old church, and dedicated April 4th, Bishop Lee giving an his- torical sketch in his sermon. This building was destroyed by fire in 1882, but was at once rebuilt. The present old St. Anne's Church was built out of brick brought from England, it is said, in 1768, in the reign of Queen Anne ("Good Queen Anne," as history deservedly styles her), whose name it bears, and who presented a covering for the communion table with the initials of her own name, "A. R., Anne Regina," worked upon it in satin embroidery, with her royal fingers most probably. This precious relic was saved at the time of the fire in 1882. The old church, so deeply cherished for its hal- lowed associations of years long past, is in fine condition and carefully cared for, and once a year services are held within its consecrated walls. Near it stands a majestic oak of giant size and height, in whose "aged top the century-old crow
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might have died." One huge horizontal arm of this Briareus of the wood stretches for a distance of forty-five feet over the church pathway almost to its very portals, as if in perpetual benison upon the worshipers.
The Diocese of Delaware, formed in 1791, embraces the entire State, and contains thirty-nine parishes and missions with forty-five churches and thirty six clergy men.
The Diocesan Journal of 1904 returns the total number of communicants as 3657, Sunday-schools 270, Sunday-school scholars 2462.
The Diocese of Delaware has had but two bishops. Alfred Lee, the first Bishop of Delaware, came of sturdy English stock, and was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, September 9, 1807. A graduate of Harvard University, he pursued his ministerial studies at the General Theological Seminary in New York. After a few months of service in New England, following his ordination as a priest, in 1837, he became rector of Calvary Church, Rockdale, Pennsylvania. Here he served until elected Bishop of Delaware in 1841. He was consecrated bishop in St. Paul's Church, New York, October 12, 1841, at the age of thirty-four. His election as bishop was by the unanimous vote of the convention.
The diocese was weak at that time, with but three hundred and thirty-nine communicants and but four clergymen in the active work of the ministry. In ISS1, in an historical sermon preached by him at the Diocesan Convention of that year, he reported that in his forty years of service as bishop twenty- four churches had been built, 4,327 persons had been con- firmed and 10,082 persons baptized. He became the senior bishop of the Church in 1SS4, and as such was the presiding officer of the general conventions.
Hle became the rector of St. Andrew's Church in 1843, and continued as such during the remainder of his life, thus unit- ing parochial and episcopal duties. IIe won and held the tender regard of the entire community by the sanctity and sincerity of his Christian life. In the fullness of years, with
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BISHOP LEIGHTON COLEMAN.
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his work most faithfully done, and with no faults or blemishes to mar a life that was rounded and beautiful, the end came on April 12, 1887, and his mortal remains were laid to rest in the graveyard surrounding the Old Swedes Church.
On St. Luke's day, 1888, Leighton Coleman was consecrated second bishop of Delaware. At the time of his election to the bishopric, he was serving as rector of the Church of the Re- deemer at Sayre, Pennsylvania. Bishop Coleman, like his predecessor, Alfred Lee, came of English stock, his father being Rev. John Coleman, who for twenty years was rector of Trinity Church, Philadelphia. Bishop Coleman was educated in Philadelphia, graduated from the General Theological Sem- inary, New York, in 1861, and was ordained to the priesthood in 1862. After serving nearly two years as rector at Bustle- ton, Philadelphia, he became rector of St. John's, Wilmington, where he remained for three years.
After the year 1866 he served successively at Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, and Toledo, Ohio; and from 1880 to 1887 was engaged in clerical work in England. In 1874 he was elected bishop of Fon du lac, but declined that post. His adminis- tration as bishop of Delaware was signally successful. He infused new life into the affairs of the diocese. New churches were built at several points, and the number of communicants greatly increased. The wisdom of his selection was abund- antly shown. Bishop Coleman is recognized as not only a loyal churchman, but he was always found in the front of whatever tended to the betterment of the community or the advancement of humanity. He had a wide acquaintance throughout the city and state, was everywhere respected and revered, and his death, which occurred December 14, 1907, was universally regretted.
THE REFORMED EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
This denomination has now but one church in Delaware. The Reformed Episcopal Church of the Covenant of Wilming- ton was organized in 1878 by thirty former communicants of the Calvary Protestant Episcopal Church, and the Rev. J. L. Estlin was elected rector.
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The Reformed Episcopal Church of the Redeemer of Wil- mington was formed in 1881 by forty communicants from the Reformed Episcopal Church of the Covenant. After an ex- istence of but a few years both of these organizations went out of existence, and a few members from each organized Saint Luke's Reformed Episcopal Church of Wilmington, located at the corner of Eighth and Monroe streets. Services are still held and a Sunday-school maintained, but there is at present no pastor, and the outlook for a long continuance of the church is not encouraging.
Smyrna enjoys the distinction of being the birthplace of the founder and first bishop of this denomination, the Rev. David George Cummins. The Reformed Protestant Episcopal Church since its establishment in 1873 has come to have nearly one- half as many churches in the United States as the Protestant Episcopal Church.
IV. THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.
The fourth denomination to establish public worship in Delaware seems to have been the Society of Friends. In 1682 a number of Friends' families settled on the east side of the Brandywine, and on the 11th month, 7th day, 1687, one and a-half acres of land were given by Valentine Hollingsworth for a meeting-house and graveyard. This was called the " Newark Meeting House." About the same time meetings were held at New Castle in private residences, and in 1705 a meeting-house was built there, which continued till 1758, when it was raised, the members thereafter attending the Wilming- ton meeting. There is now no meeting-house at New Castle; the old brick building of 1705 was torn down in 1885.
Friends' meetings in Wilmington were first held in Win. Shipley's one-story house, and later at his new house on the corner of Fourth: and Shipley streets until the completion, in 1738, of the first brick meeting-house on West street near Fourth. In the ten years ensuing, the Society of Friends became quite large, great numbers from the Newark and New
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Castle meetings regularly coming there to worship, in conse- quence of which those meetings declined. In 1748 a second meeting-house was built on the site of the present one, a structure forty-eight feet square with a pyramid-shaped roof, whose truncated peak was surmounted by a little square tower through which passed the chimney. This was used until 1817, when the existing meeting-house took its place. This society divided in 1827 consequent upon the Hicksite contro- versy ; the followers of Hicks, who gained control at that time, have since used the Fourth street meeting-house. The Ortho- dox Friends built a meeting-house on the corner of Tatnall and Ninth streets, where they now worship.
A week-day meeting was held at Hockessin in 1730 at the house of William Cox, and in 1738 a meeting-house was built, which was enlarged in 1745 and used up to the year 1808. This building is still in good condition, and a few families are connected with the monthly meeting. A Friends' meeting- house was built in 1771 in Little Creek Hundred, Kent County, after the Friends there had, in 1711, for purposes of convenience, separated from the Duck Creek meeting. The first building was presently abandoned and another erected in 1802, which was regularly used until 1865, since when ser- vices have been discontinued there. The old burial ground is still used. At Lewes, Friends' meetings were held so carly as 1692, and in June, 1712, a weekly meeting was formed at the house of Cornelius Wilthank. This meeting was closed about 1800, the members connecting themselves elsewhere. The first religious organization to hold services in Duck Creek Hundred was the Society of Friends, in 1705; here, as in Little Creek, a meeting-house was erected some time before the Revolutionary war, but was not used to the end of the century. In 1830 the building was in ruins. There was a meeting-house built about 1703 by the Friends on the road from Port Penn to the State road and called " Georges Creek Meeting-house;" afterwards the site was occupied by what is known as the Hickory Grove Friends' burying ground. The
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meeting was removed to Cantwell's Bridge (Odessa), and the present small brick meeting-house erected there in 1780. In 1828 the Hicksite schism divided this meeting, the property remaining with the Hicksites. The church never prospered after that time, and the meeting was abandoned about 1881, the Allstons being the last family to worship there. The building is now falling into decay.
The country around Camden is a strong Friends' settle- ment. The Mifflins, Nocks, Lowbers, Howells, Jenkins and Dolboys are of that communion, and much of its history cen- ters around Camden, which has finally absorbed the other sects of the Friends in Kent County; their meeting-house, though the last to be established in the county, is now the only one held. John Hunn, Governor of Delaware from 1901 to 1905, is a Friend. The Friends Union Academy at Camden was organized in 1815, and was for a long time one of the most successful institutions in the State, giving to the youth of that town and vicinage a superior classical and academic educa- tion at the hands of as highly competent instructors as were then to be found in the United States. It continued till 1857, when it was leased to replace a burned public school house, and in 1885 was conveyed to the proper authorities for public school purposes. The Friends in Delaware, never numerous, have participated in the general decline into which their denomination has fallen elsewhere.
V. THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
The Presbyterian was probably the fifth denomination to establish its worship in this State. "The early history of the Presbyterian Church in this country," says Sprague in his " Annals of the American Pulpit," is involved in no little obscurity, owing to the scattered condition of its membership throughout the several colonies. It is evident that several churches were founded before the seventeenth century. "The church of Rehoboth, Maryland, was probably formed several years before 1690," says Sprague. But some assert that it was
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in New Castle that the first Presbyterian church in Delaware, and very probably in America, was founded.
The Rev. J. B. Spottswood says, " we are not able to desig- nate the precise locality of the 'small wooden church ' found here by the English in 1664 to which Penn refers in his letters to London in 1683 ; but there is good reason for believing that it was a part of the lot on which our new church has been erected and adjoining which is the graveyard of the old Dutch Church. It is a succession, or rather, continuation of the original Dutch Church founded 1657."
Spotswood says the Rev. John Wilson was the first Presby- terian minister to labor in New Castle, and that this was prior to 1703, because the Rev. George Keith wrote a letter in Feb- ruary, 1703, saying Wilson had been gone from New Castle about a year and a half. But Wilson returned and began planning a building to replace the " old wooden church " then both decayed and outgrown. The deed to the church lot is dated August 15, 1707. Spotswood continuing says, "It is quite probable that this is the oldest church of our denomina- tion in this country. The only other claimants are, the First Church in Philadelphia and the one at Snow Hill, Maryland, both of which had settled pastors in 1701. We have no means of knowing the precise date of our organization, but there is a strong probability that it was in 1684 or 1685. It appears before us in 1703 fully established for some time, with elders and trustees in numbers and wealth sufficient to justify them in building a house of worship."
There have been seventeen pastors of the New Castle Church from Rev. John Wilson to the Rev. S. Beattie Wylie, the present minister. Rev. John E. Latta, a leading divine of his time, was in charge from 1800 to 1824, and Rev. John B. Spotswood served most untiringly and faithfully as minister for a period of over forty-three years, until his death in 1SS5. The minutes of the General Assembly for 1904 show a mem- bership of 131, and a Sunday-school of 185.
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