USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume II > Part 32
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The Rev. George Foot, "a talented and highly esteemed
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minister," as Vincent in his " History of Delaware " justly styles him, says " Old Drawyers," situated about three-quarters of a mile from Odessa, is the next oldest Presbyterian church in the State. Mr. Foot delivered an " Address on the Early History of Delaware and of Drawyers Congregation," May 10, 1842, in that church of which he was then pastor, which in the opinion of the writer is the finest of the many treatises he has read on the early religious and secular history of Dela- ware. He says, "The field of this congregation began to be settled about 1671, and at various points and rapidly settled. At what period a congregation was formed in the vicinity of Old Drawyers we are unable to decide." Dr. Reed says "it was about the year 1700." And then, after giving the dates of the arrival of a number of families, he continues : "They probably had some place of worship at an early day. At that period one of the first things after the settlement of a neigh- borhood was the formation of a church. The Swedes, Dutch and Quakers established their churches as soon as they arrived, and it is reasonable to suppose that while the Quakers, who fled from the intolerance of Charles II, had their church at Hickory Grove, and the Welsh Episcopalians their church at St. George's, the Presbyterians had their place of worship in this vicinity. This much is known, that in 170S the Philadelphia Presbytery received a letter from parties resid- ing here respecting the ministrations of the gospel, and that they ordered the Rev. John Wilson, of New Castle, to preach to this people once a month on a week day." Mr. Foot says further, " the Drawyers congregation was probably gathered by the Rev. Nathaniel Taylor, long previous to 1700, since this family were settled there in 1683, and he seems to have been acquainted with this section."
The original church was of wood, and was several times enlarged, once in 1736. The present substantial edifice was built in 1773, but not wholly finished till 1823. As Mr. Foot well says, " In materials and workmanship it is a noble monu- ment of the fidelity of the building committee and of the
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DRAWYER'S MEETING HOUSE, NEAR ODESSA. BUILT A. D. 1773.
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affection of that generation for the decency and order of divine worship." Mrs. Mary Hill, wife of Joseph Hill, an elder, and granddaughter of Peter Alrichs, an early Governor of Dela- ware, gave £100 to the building and £30 to buy plate for the communion table, and Mr. David Van Dyke left a legacy of £20 and Mr. J. V. Hyatt and Miss Sarah Hyatt each further sums of £100 towards the building's completion. The Rev. John Wilson was the first pastor, in 170S, and the Rev. H. J. Gaylord, under whom the numbers rose from forty-seven to ninety, was the seventeenth and last pastor of the old church, closing a ministry of six years in 1861, when the new Draw- yers Church was dedicated in Odessa, and wherein services are now held, after a closure of the building for some years.
In 1832 protracted meetings were held in the old church by the Rev. Nicholas Patterson, and the greatest revival in the history of the church resulted, thirty-one persons being added to the church. The Rev. Geo. Foot was installed as pastor, November 18, 1839, and remained until the summer of 1848. He was a splendid type of the cultured, devoted clergyman of other days. He died May 2, 1867, at Odessa, universally esteemed as a learned and faithful prophet of God.
Old Drawyers was not used after the erection of the new church in Odessa, but in 1895 a society called the " Friends of Old Drawyers " was organized to " care for, repair and pre- serve the ancient building known as Old Drawyers' Presby- terian Church, so that it may continue to stand as an evidence of the character of its builders, and as one of the early land marks of the New World." Lewis C. Vandegrift, Esq., was elected president, Miss Cornelia Bowman, secretary, and George Janvier, treasurer. The society arranged for religious services to be held in June of each year in this well preserved memorial of the piety of their forefathers. One such service was held therein June 12, 1898, in memory of the Rev. George Foot, upon which occasion his daughter, Mrs. Harriet Foot Moore, whose son is the well-known Professor Moore of Har- vard College, contributed her "personal recollections" of the
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delivery of the original " Address " in 1842. This interesting paper has been printed as " addenda " to a new edition of the " Address."
The oldest Presbyterian church in Kent County is at Dover, where so far back as 1711, there were a number of that faith. After several years of growth, this congregation and several others were placed in 1727 under the charge of the Rev. A. McCook, who was succeeded in 1748 by the Rev. John Miller, widely known as a divine, patriot and scholar. He was born and educated in Boston. His was truly a heroic personality. The two churches at Dover and Smyrna promised him the niggardly support of $240 a year and even this pittance was not paid ! Still he accepted the laborious, thankless task and faithfully served these towns for forty-two years. This useful career was made possible by the generosity of Delaware's first chancellor, the Hon. William Killen, who gave him a good horse, bridled and saddled, besides a tract of land upon which he lived and supported a family, giving each of his five sons a liberal education. He twice received the highest honor his church could then confer in the Moderatorship of the Synod. He was always deeply interested in public affairs, and a zealous advocate of civil and religious liberty.
Several days before the signing of the Declaration of Inde- pendence this outspoken patriot-saint preached from the sig- nificant theme of Jereboam's revolutionary protest on behalf of Israel against the unbearable tyranny of Rehoboam, his text the words, " we have no part in David nor any inherit- ance in Jesse ; to your tents, O Israel," 1 Kings, 12, 16. Rev. John Miller's eldest son, Edward, was a surgeon in the Ameri- can Army, and his son, Samuel, became the renowned Pro- fessor Miller of Princeton Seminary. John Miller toiled to the very last, and died July 22, 1791, in his sixty-ninth year. A remarkable proof of the force and scope of his character and the magnitude of the role he played, is seen in the fact that the church was pastorless fifty years after his death, awaiting, perhaps, a second Miller who never came. In 1843 the church
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was revived, Rev. Thomas G. Murphy becoming its pastor from 1844 to 1869. Since then the church has prospered. Its present minister, the Rev. Joseph B. Turner, assumed charge in 1894. The minutes of 1904 give the Dover Church a membership of 121 and a Sunday-school of 74.
Samuel Lewis, a London missionary, preached as early as 1691 at Lewes to a number of Scotch and Irish Independents, and may have formed a congregation. The Rev. George Keith says he had a small congregation there at that time. The first Presbyterian church at Lewes was built in 1707, a better one in 1727, which was replaced in 1832 by a new one, and later a bell and organ were added ; finally, in 1887, the church was entirely modernized and a parsonage built, making it altogether one of the finest churches in the southern part of the State. The Presbyterian church at Smyrna was probably organized in 1733, Rev. Robt. Jamison, its first pas- tor, serving about ten years. By 1791 the church had become extinct, but was revived in 1818, and the old building re- paired. A new one was built in 1846, another in 1884, a handsome edifice of serpentine in the English Gothic with a lofty tower. The church has a seating capacity of 300. Its membership in 1904 was ninety, and its present pastor is the Rev. J. L. Estlin.
The old " Three Runs" Presbyterian Church at Milford is supposed to have been organized late in the seventeenth or early in the eighteenth century. It was abandoned in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. A church with seven mem- bers was organized soon after the Rev. G. W. Kennedy visited Milford in 1849, and in 1850 a building was erected, the pulpit being filled by him for six years. From 1857 the pastorate has been unbroken. The minutes of 1904 give one hundred and seventy members, a loss of fifty-one since 188S. The present minister is the Rev. H. L. Bunstein.
The largest and most flourishing churches in the denom- ination, nine in number, are in Wilmington. Their pioneer church there is the First, formed in 1737, by certain early
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settlers of Scotch and Irish descent, who upon building their church in 1740, chose Robt. Catheart as their first pastor. A split occurred in 1774, and resulted in the formation of the Second Presbyterian Church, and the severe crippling of the First for a period of sixty-seven years. The Rev. Samuel Gayley was in 1833 almost the sole champion of the First Church, preaching without stated salary, often without a single auditor, and at times, himself furnishing fuel and lights for the church, " constituting in one, minister, sexton and con- gregation," says Rev. Charles D. Kellogg in his history of the church. The latter tells how its foes had curbing put in front of the church in order to have it sold for taxes, and how they almost succeeded. The differences being finally healed in 1839, the congregation united in building a new church, which was enlarged in 1859, and under the charge of the Rev. S. R. Wynkoop entered upon a highly prosperous career, three hundred and ninety being brought into the church fold.
Hanover Street Church, as the successor of the Second Church, was formed in 1774, the Rev. James Smith being the first pastor. Their present building was erected in 1829. To this church is ascribed the high honor of having formed, in 1814, the first Sunday-school in Delaware, and though stand- ing fourth in point of membership, this church is surpassed by but one, the West Church, in the number of its Sunday- schools, which discloses, along with the church's two hundred and fifty-four members, the superb total of seven hundred and ten Sunday-school scholars. The Rev. Robert L. Jackson is its present pastor.
The largest Presbyterian church in the city and State is the West Church, founded in 1867, the Rev. George H. Smyth being its carliest pastor, in 1869. The church now used was built in 1871 at a cost of $70,000. Its membership numbers seven hundred and ninety-six, and its Sunday-school eleven hundred and sixty-nine. Its last pastor was the Rev. A. N. Keigwin, who relinquished the charge after a long and faithful service. The pulpit is now (1905) temporarily vacant. Central
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Church is second in size, and grew out of a Sunday-school formed in 1849 with twenty scholars under Mr. Edward T. Taylor as superintendent. It numbers to-day (1905) six hun- dred and eight members and five hundred and sixty-five Sunday-school scholars, and its pastor is the Rev. Thomas A. McCurdy.
Previous to 1742 the people of Middletown and vicinity worshiped at "Old Drawyers." Consequent upon the great division in that year of Presbyterianism into the old and new schools, the adherents to the new school withdrew from Draw- yers and formed the Forest Presbyterian Church, one mile from Middletown, and that at St. Georges, which were under one pastorate until 1771. Because of scandals affecting their minister, the Rev. Mr. Cheally, the Forest Church began to decline in 1792; the church property was lost, and finally in 1840 the old building standing in the present Forest cemetery was torn down. In 1851 a new church was built in Middle- town, and a congregation formed through the efforts of the Rev. Dr. Handy. This edifice has been several times enlarged and beautified. The church has now one hundred and forty- one members, under the pastoral care of the Rev. F. H. Moore. The minutes of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church for 1904 give the following statistics for Delaware : Number of churches, thirty-five, of which number six are without pastors; total membership of churches, 4,867; total membership of Sunday-schools, 6,227.
VI. THE BAPTIST CHURCHI.
Prominent among the original settlers upon the " Welsh Tract," some 30,000 acres of land around Iron Hill in Pen- cader Hundred, being the larger part of the Penn grant, were the founders in Delaware of the first Baptist church. With the Rev. Thomas Griffith as their minister, they emigrated from Pembroke and Carmarthenshire in South Wales in 1701, and coming to this State in 1703, erected the log meeting- house in Pencader Hundred wherein they worshiped until
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1746, when their present brick church was built. This was the third Baptist meeting-house founded in America, the first being in Rhode Island by Roger Williams and the second in Swansea. The Gospel was preached in the Welsh Tract Church till 1800, in the Welsh language. This venerable old building, known as the Welsh Tract Meeting-House, though now one hundred and fifty-nine years old, is in a good state of preservation, and its walls bid fair for many a long year yet to ring with the sacred melodies of the fatherland. By the courtesy of its present officials, the Historical Society of Dela- ware has been permitted recently to copy and publish its records. The congregation is small in numbers and the elder Eubanks has been their pastor since the year 1902. From this early church have sprung the Pedee River churches in South Carolina, the London Tract, the Duck Creek, Wilming- ton, Cow Marsh, and Mispillion churches.
According to the Baptist Cyclopedia, by the Rev. Wm. Cathcart, D. D., a number of the oldest Baptist churches in the lower part of the State have ceased to exist, among them, Sounds 1779, Gravelly Branch 1785, Bethel in Sussex, Bethel in New Castle, Mount Moriah 1781, and Mispillion 1783. In 1830 the Delaware Association became anti-mission and anti- effort, which change led to the formation of the Second Bap- tist Church in Wilmington upon an avowed missionary basis. In 1852 a Baptist church was founded at Dover, their build- ing being dedicated the same year.
The Baptists are strongest in Wilmington, where they have six churches. Their pioneer church there is the First Baptist Church, organized in 1785. Scharf says "it was opposed by the other denominations, save the Presbyterian Church, whose pastor with commendable fraternity, put his pulpit at the dis- posal of the Baptist minister, the Rev. M. Hughes." The Second Baptist Church followed in 1835. In 1885 it cele- brated its semi-centennial anniversary with special exercises, in which a number of noted divines took part. The pastor Rev. R. B. Cook, prominent in official station in the church
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BISHOP JOHN J. MONAGHAN.
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and also in letters, preached an historical sermon. The church now numbers three hundred and seventy-seven.
The German Baptist Church was formed in 1856 by the Rev. Jeremiah Grinnell, a refugee because of religious perse- cution from his native city, Marburg. The church was pros- perous under his charge and to-day, under the pastorate of Rev. Henry C. Baum, has one hundred members.
The Delaware Avenue Church was next formed in 1865, and has grown to be the largest Baptist church in Wilmington, with a membership of nearly five hundred. Grace Church was established in 1885, but was in existence only a few years.
Bethany Church was founded in 1878 and has made a steady and substantial growth, occupying a handsome brick structure of modern architecture and now under the pastoral care of Rev. L. J. Westfall. This church has a membership of three hundred and four and its existence is largely due to the lib- erality of William H. Gregg, who for many years was most untiring and devoted in building and maintaining it.
The First Swedish Baptist Church was founded in 1889. Its pastor is Rev. O. C. Wieden, and its members number seventy. The North Baptist Church with Rev. William L. Pettingill, pastor, was founded in 1894 and reports a member- ship of one hundred and thirty-six. The reports for 1904 show twelve Baptist churches in the State with a total mem- bership of eighteen hundred and forty-one and Sunday-school scholars numbering sixteen hundred and sixty-nine.
VII. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
The first Catholic known in Delaware was Cornelius Halla- han, a wealthy Irish gentleman who emigrated to the State in 1730 and settled in Mill Creek Hundred on an estate named by him "Cuba Rock." For many years his house was a hos- pitable " Perry Hall" home for the Catholic cause and its priesthood, and the first services of the Roman Catholic Church were held therein. The Jesuits from Maryland, and perhaps from Pennsylvania, visited Delaware before the secu-
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lar priests founded permanent churches. Father Whalen, who lived at Coffee Run, was one of the first of these. He was succeeded by Father Patrick Kenny, who found in 1805 a little log chapel there, in which he ministered to the wants of the Catholics in Wilmington, assisted by the Rev. George A. Carrell, afterwards Bishop of Covington, Kentucky. After the French revolution and the struggle of the blacks in San Domingo for freedom, a number of distinguished French Catholic families settled in and around Wilmington. The French priests who accompanied them seem to have attended solely to the wants of their own countrymen.
In 1816 Father Kenny built St. Peter's Church in Wil- mington, and labored both there and at Coffee Run. In 1830 the Sisters of Charity from Emmettsburg, Maryland, estab- lished an academy and orphan asylum nearly opposite St. Peter's; these are still under their charge. Father Patrick Reilly assisted Father Kenny, and on his death in 1842 suc- ceeded him. In 1839, at great personal sacrifice, he built and opened a school which afterwards became St. Mary's College; he also built a parochial school next to St. Peter's. In 1853 he withdrew from St. Peter's and devoted himself entirely to the college. In 1856 Bishop Neumann, recognizing his high services as a priest, directed him to build St. Mary's Church, to meet the wants of the increasing Catholic population in the eastern part of the city.
Under the charge of the Rev. M. A. McGrane, late Vicar- General of the Wilmington Diocese, and his brother, Rev. P. P. McGrane, St. Peter's was enlarged and improved, and in 1868, when the Rt. Rev. Thomas A. Becker, D. D., the first Bishop of Wilmington, entered its portals, he found a beautiful pro-cathedral ready to receive him. In the eighteen years of Bishop Becker's administration there were built the churches of St. Paul, St. James, St. Patrick, and the Sacred Heart for the Germans. St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Cath- olic Church was established as the result of a meeting of Catholics in St. Mary's study hall, January 17, 1858. The
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church was consecrated October 31, 1858. In 1866 a school house was built adjoining the church, and a residence for the Sisters in charge of the school, which was opened in 1867. The school was soon discontinued and the building rented to the Board of Public Education, but it was again reopened in 1887. The Sacred Heart Catholic Church was established by the Rev. W. M. Mayer, who in 1874 founded a mission at St. Mary's Church, a mission for the scattered German Catholics. On August 16, 1874, the corner-stone was laid for a fine church and parochial residence. The church is sixty-five by one hundred and forty feet, and is of Roman architecture, having twenty-eight stained-glass windows costing two thou- sand two hundred dollars ($2,200.00). Many costly gifts adorn the interior, among others the high marble altar, which cost fifteen hundred dollars, and two side altars.
St. Paul's Catholic Church is one of the most prominent in the diocese. It was dedicated with imposing ceremonies by Bishop Becker and Rev. Joseph Plunkett and the entire clergy of the diocese, December 20, 1869. In 1875 the interior was handsomely frescoed at a cost of thirty-one hundred dollars ($3,100.00) by the famous Italian artist Costaggini. The church has a bell weighing nearly two tons. St. Patrick's Church followed a few years later in the northeastern section of the city, and under the fostering care of Fathers Flynn, Fallen, Kelley and Birmingham has become an important link in the chain of Catholic churches. Next in order came St. Ann's, at Union street and Shallcross avenue, and a little later St. Thomas, at Fourth street and Grant avenue. The latest addition to the city churches is St. Hedwig's, at Linden and Harrison streets, recently dedicated, with a church build- ing that for beauty and striking architecture is unsurpassed. St. Joseph's Church, for colored people, is maintained at No. 1012 French street.
There are now nine Catholic churches in the City of Wil- mington, and the same number in the State outside of Wil- mington at the following points : St. Paul's at Delaware City,
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Holy Cross at Dover, St. Polycarp's at Smyrna, St. Joseph's at Henry Clay, St. John's at Hockessin, St. Patrick's at Ashland, St. John the Baptist at Newark, St. Peter's at New Castle, and St. Joseph's at Middletown. Steps are now under way for the erection of Catholic churches at Milford and Rehoboth. Twenty-five priests are in charge of the work in Delaware. There are three orphan asylums in the State under the con- trol of the Catholic Church, one each for boys and girls in Wilmington, and one for boys at Reybold. There is also an industrial school for colored boys at Clayton, with an enroll- ment of sixty. A home for the aged is maintained in Wil- mington by an order of the church called the "Little Sisters of the Poor," and contains thirty inmates, and two thousand seven hundred and seventy-two (2,772) children are being educated in the parochial schools of the City of Wilmington.
Bishop Becker having been transferred to Savannah was succeeded by Rt. Rev. Alfred A. Curtis, D. D., who was conse- crated Bishop of Wilmington, November 14, 1886. After serving most acceptably in his high office for ten years, he re- signed, and was succeeded by the Rt. Rev. John J. Monaghan, D. D., who was consecrated May 9, 1897, and is still adminis- tering with marked ability and success the affairs of the Dio- cese of Wilmington. Bishop Monaghan by reason of his genial manners, has greatly endeared himself to the community, and both as a preacher and as an executive officer has firmly estab- lished himself in the leading ranks of the denomination to which he is so devotedly attached.
VIII. THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
Though among the last to establish churches in this State, the Methodist denomination stands to-day, as for a century past it has stood, indisputably first in point of numbers and influence. The United States census of 1890, gave the num- ber of Methodists in Delaware as twenty-five thousand seven hundred and eighty-six out of a total of forty-eight thousand six hundred and seventy-nine for all denominations. So, in a
GRACE M. E.CHURCH, WILMINGTON, BUILT A. D. 1866.
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round, parti-colored figure showing graphically the compara- tive numbers of the several denominations, the Methodist sec- tion occupied over one half the total area. Delaware's history has no pages more glorious than those which chronicle the unselfish services, the keen privations and sufferings of the founders of the great Methodist Church. And we of to-day may well feel proud that our State shares, with our sister State Maryland, the high honor of being the theater whereon was played the splendid drama of the first rise and early de- velopment of Methodism in America. It is a much-mooted question, but we believe the weight of the evidence shows that Robert Strawbridge's Log Meeting-House on Sam's creek, Maryland, in 1762, by several years anticipated Philip Em- bury's preaching in New York City. Lednum holds this view and gives a summary of the facts ; Rev. John Atkinson, D. D., in his " Beginnings of the Wesleyan Movement in America " (1896), takes the opposite view.
Especially proud should Delawareans be that the hospitable home of one of her jurists, Judge Thomas White, offered an asylum to the persecuted hero-bishop Asbury at a time when the now honorable name of Methodist was a term of reproach and an epithet of opprobrium. Moreover it is a fact which may rightfully be mentioned with gratulation that while Methodist ministers in Maryland were frequently cruelly persecuted, brutally beaten and thrust into jails, as were Garrettson, Gatch, Peddicord and others, and the great Asbury fined twenty-five dollars for preaching the gospel, and that while similar treat- ment was meted out to the early itinerants in New England and in many cities and States in the east and south generally, there is not a single recorded case where a Methodist preacher was ever injured by mob or private violence within the bound- aries of the State of Delaware.
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