Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 108

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074

USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 108

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The church architecture of St. Louis, before the Civil war, was something of which the city could boast. The church of the Messiah, Dr. Eliot's, on Ninth and Olive, where the Century building stands, cost $100,000. It was of massive masonry. Seventy tons of iron were used in the metallic parts. The construction was not given out by contract, but was done under the direction of a committee. The spire, 167 feet high, was a model in proportions. The church itself was considered one of the most beautiful in the country.

Union Presbyterian church on Locust street was unlike any other church edifice in St. Louis. Architects of that period called it the "Lombardio style." There were two towers at the corners, one was 104 feet, the other 160 feet in height. This church was built by Henry D. Bacon, the banker. It cost him $70,000. The finest organ in the west was installed. When the building was ready for dedication, Mr. Bacon offered to deed the property to the trustees for $30,000, making his contribution $40,000. The offer was accepted. The $30,000 was subscribed in three days. The Union Presbyterian church was or- ganized in 1850. The pastor was Rev. William Holmes, who became an edi- torial writer on the Missouri Democrat.

Missionary Activities of the Catholics.

The missionary activities first of Bishop Rosati and second of Archbishop Kenrick, from 1830 to 1860, are part of the history of St. Louis. See after see

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was created and the bishop to take charge was consecrated at St. Louis for the new field. Diocese after diocese was cut off from what had been the original diocese of St. Louis. From St. Louis priests went to the Indians far in ad- vance of settlement. They were assigned to the posts of the fur traders. They camped with the lead miners. They traveled through the West finding and bind- ing anew to the church the families of scattered Catholics. They went with the. armies of railroad builders. And all of the time that the work went on in the field, parish after parish was organized, and church after church was blessed in the growing city of St. Louis. Rosati was a man of unlimited capacity for detail. Kenrich was as methodical as a clock. He had time for everything. Year in and year out he walked westward from the archbishop's house, taking his exercise so regularly that people on the route had a saying that it was safe to set the family clock by the archbishop's daily constitutional.

Italy and France had been represented in the bishop resident at St. Louis. Right Reverend Peter Richard Kenrick, who arrived in the winter of 1841-2, was of Dublin birth and education. In Maynooth Seminary he went through his higher studies. He was only thirty-six years old when he came to St. Louis as Bishop Kenrick. One year he had given to the priesthood in his native Dub- lin, and nine years he had passed in Philadelphia as president of the seminary, rector of the cathedral and vicar general to his brother, Bishop Francis Patrick Kenrick.

The year after his arrival Bishop Kenrick established and opened three parish churches in St. Louis. These were St. Francis Xavier's, St. Mary's and St. Aloysius. That year Chicago was made a see with Illinois for the diocese and at the same time Little Rock became a see. In 1845 Bishop Kenrick opened three more parish churches in St. Louis. These were St. Patrick's, St. Joseph's and St. Vincent's.

In July, 1847, by papal bull the diocese of St. Louis became an archdiocese, and Bishop Kenrick was appointed Archbishop of St. Louis. The spread of the Catholic church, under the management of the head at St. Louis, justified the recognition. The census of that year showed 50,000 souls, notwithstanding the dioceses of Illinois and Arkansas had been created out of the diocese of St. Louis. The missions and stations of that year were forty-two. In 1848 Pius IX. decreed that Archbishop Kenrick should be invested with the pallium. The ceremony was performed at Philadelphia by the elder brother, the archbishop of Philadelphia, who just fifteen years previously had sent to Dublin the money to pay the passage of the younger to this country.

The Prayer Book Church.

"The Prayer Book Church" was the historical theme of Rev. Dr. David Claiborne Garrett at St. Peter's Episcopal church on Centennial Sunday, in 1909. For that occasion the processional hymn, most appropriately chosen by Charles Galloway, was "Ancient of Days." Dr. Garrett said :

"The first public service in St. Louis by a priest of the prayer-book church, and as far as known west of the Mississippi river, was on October 14, 1819. The beginning of the work of the church west of the great river was in a little one-story frame building on the corner of Second and Walnut streets. Rev. John Ward, from Lexington, Ky., was the

BISHOP C. F. ROBERTSON Episcopal

BISHOP CICERO STEPHEN HAWKS Episcopal

CHRIST CHURCH IN 1840

Located on Broadway and Chestnut Streets, now the site of a hotel. The Centennial of this. the first Episcopal or Prayer Book Church in Missouri, celebrated in 1919

Vol. 1-62

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THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

missionary. Only two persons, and they men, were ready, with prayer books in hand, to respond. From that small start a parish was organized November Ist, All Saints' Day, following.

"The standing of this church in the city from the very beginning, its influence in the social, political and commercial world, is illustrated by the remarkable fact that among the signers of the articles of association for our first parish were the first United States senator, who represented Missouri for thirty years; the first governor of this state, the first mayor of the city, the surveyor-general, judges of the supreme court and a time-honored judge of the probate court. Thus, in the earliest days, the church and the city were closely associated.

"Mr. Ward's rectorship was brief, through no fault of his own or of the parish; he was obliged to return to Kentucky. For a number of years services were held, but the coming of a Virginia clergyman, Rev. Mr. Horrell, in the fall of 1825, gave a new impetus to the languishing work. We owe a debt to the Methodists and Baptists for the use of their places of worship for short periods, showing that Christian unity is not as some seem to think a thing of the present days. A lot was bought on the corner of Third and Chestnut streets, and the new church was finished in 1829. It cost $7,000, all of which but $1,100 was paid, Mr. Clemens contributing $1,300.

"Another devoted missionary of those first days was Rev. William Chadderton, from Philadelphia, who came in 1832, and put new life into the work so well begun by Mr. Horrell. On May 25, 1834, the church, finished five years before, was consecrated by Bishop Smith, of Kentucky, who at the same time confirmed a class of twenty-six. This was the first church consecration and first confirmation west of the big river and north of Louisiana. Mr. Chadderton resigned in 1835, through some false modesty in regard to his own inability to do the work needed. Bishop Smith praises him highly, and speaks of the 'marvelous refinement and delicacy of his nature.'

"The great forward movement of the church in the city and throughout the whole Middle West, radiating from St. Louis as the center, began in the memorable year of 1836. That was the year that marked a wonderful change all over the new West. Prosperity set in with full swing. Pioneers and settlers poured in by the thousands, scattering all along the river northward. It was fortunate for the church that at last the East had awakened to a realization of its missionary duty and opportunity. And it was more fortunate that the first missionary bishop of the great Northwest should have been the saintly and schol- arly and hard-working Jackson Kemper, another Philadelphian. Christ Church parish elected the newly consecrated bishop its rector, promising an assistant.

"A new lot was bought at Fifth and Chestnut; the old church was sold to the Baptists, reversing the order at the beginning, when we were glad to borrow a building from our Baptist brethren. A new church was begun. Services were held in the basement. Bishop Kemper did a grand work. The church was consecrated February 17, 1839. A further evidence of the good-fellowship among Christians of all names, and an interesting incident which doubtless is gratefully remembered today by our Lutheran friends, is the story of how Bishop and Rector Kemper appealed to his vestry to permit the Lutherans to occupy the basement of the new church, reminding our own people of 'how highly esteemed the early Lutherans were by the English reformers, and with whom our glorious martyrs, Cranmer and Ridley, and others, had much early intercourse.' In the record of the second confirmation in the city we find the name of one whose memory should be honored today for his long and faithful services to mother church, Rev. J. P. T. Ingraham.

"In connection with the coming of Bishop Kemper, your rector feels a personal interest and may perhaps be permitted a personal expression of gratitude, for what he owes to the church in the city of St. Louis. In March, 1836, on the first trip of the steamboat Olive Branch up the opened river, Bishop Kemper started on his first missionary journey, and his first converts to the church were a young Virginia lawyer and his wife, going with their two children to what was then Flint Hills, Michigan Territory, now Burlington, Iowa. That Virginian was my grandfather, and the little three-year-old daughter my mother. The prayer book which the bishop gave to my grandmother was the efficient cause of the con- firmation of both husband and wife and the baptism of the children at the first visit of the bishop. It may be said to be the final cause, under God's providence, of my being here today a clergyman of the old church, a rector of a parish which was a missionary offshoot

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CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI

of Bishop Kemper's parish. I hold that prayer book in my hand, and I shall say our final prayer today from its pages.

"Our own beloved parish of St. Peter's may not claim an ancient history; it is com- paratively young, but of all the parishes of the city growing out of mission movements it stands today the strongest in service and influence. It began as a mission of Christ Church in February, 1868, the grand old priest and prophet, Dr. Schuyler, giving to it his help and blessing. On October 27, 1872, it was organized into a parish. If we call the roll of rectors we find only five, including the incumbent, a record which reflects credit on both parish and priest. We find Berkeley, the first rector, who left the parish free from all debt after eleven years of service; Bishop Brooke, whose short ministry was terminated by his eleva- tion to the episcopate; then William Short, D. D., whose rectorship was the longest of all and crowned the work of his predecessors by the erection of the noble buildings we use and enjoy today."

Montgomery Schuyler's Versatile Career.

Forty-two years Montgomery Schuyler was a well-doing citizen of St. Louis as well as a conspicuous, constructive clergyman. He was preeminently one of the St. Louis clergymen whose activities were not limited to their churches. His influence was marked upon public morals and upon public spirit. The list of good works of these men is long and varied. No history of the city could omit some mention of the profession in its relation to the better development of St. Louis, apart from the growth of the church. When Montgomery Schuyler died the diocese recorded that he was "a typical priest of the church and a faithful member of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Giving up the practice of law because he had acquitted a man he felt sure was guilty of murder, Montgomery Schuyler speculated in a Michigan real estate boom; he operated a saw mill; he interested himself in a stage line between Detroit and the village of Chicago; he was a suc- cessful merchant. None of these occupations brought satisfaction. Montgomery Schuyler turned to the Episcopal priesthood when he was well toward thirty years of age. The supreme test of this man's character came with the outbreak of the Civil war. Christ church, on Fifth and Chestnut, had been sold. The con- gregation was worshiping in Mercantile Library hall. Included in the member- ship were many, perhaps a majority, who sympathized with the South. Of the old Schuyler stock of New York, with Revolutionary traditions of the family binding him, the rector was a Union man. When-the hostilities began Dr. Schuyler talked of resigning. He made no concealment of his political sentiments, although he preached no political sermons. His southern members would not listen to any change of rectors. Montgomery Schuyler stayed on. His patriotism found expression in association with Yeatman, Eliot and the rest of that noble band which became glorious as the Western Sanitary commission. The rector of Christ church was made chaplain to all of the army hospitals at St. Louis. To the inherited Dutch courage and determination which yielded nothing of principle, he joined a wealth of sympathy, ways that were winning and gentleness of manner. It was Montgomery Schuyler's ambition to establish a downtown church. Old Trinity of New York was his ideal. With this in view the location at Thirteenth and Locust was chosen. It was part of his life plan to found a mission which should remain in the business section. Montgomery Schuyler min- istered to rich and poor. His- monument is Schuyler Memorial house.

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THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

Some Notable Pastorates.

A pulpit career remarkable for length and steadfastness was the period of thirty-nine years through which James H. Brookes preached. This career began with the Second Presbyterian church when it was on Broadway and Locust in 1855, and ended in the Compton avenue church. Year after year Dr. Brookes ministered to the same congregation with unfailing vigor and freshness. He preached from the Bible, of which he was a devoted student. He edited for twenty-three years a monthly publication called "The Truth," and found time to write half a dozen books, the results of his Bible study.

Notwithstanding the rule of the Methodist church requiring frequent pulpit changes, several ministers of that denomination became identified with St. Louis by long residence and exercised much influence upon the life and development of the city. A thorough St. Louisan was Rev. Dr. Joseph Boyle, born in Balti- more. He came to this city in 1842 in charge of the First Methodist church. St. Louis was practically his home for thirty years, until his death. He was a delegate to the general conference at Louisville in 1844 when the Methodists divided into the Methodist Episcopal church and the Methodist Episcopal church, South. Dr. Boyle labored to bring about reconciliation of the wings. The immediate cause of the division was the proposition advanced that Bishop Andrew of Georgia be asked to suspend the exercise of his duties so long as a certain impediment existed. The impediment was the fact that his wife owned slaves. Dr. Boyle was presiding elder of the St. Louis district in 1860, 1868 and 1869. He preached in the First church three periods; in Centenary, two.

The beginning of St. George's Episcopal church was a sermon preached by Rev. Dr. E. Carter Hutchinson in the Benton school on Sixth street, near Locust. Among the most entertaining and vigorous of St. Louis preachers was Dr. Hutchinson. He took for his text one Sunday morning: "David was a man after God's own heart." He described the career of David, his duel with Goliath and his other exploits wholly to his credit. It seemed as if the eloquent rector did not mean to refer to the discreditable event in his hero's career, but he did. Just before the close of the sermon the preacher said: "In the matter of Uriah, the Hittite, David must stand on the same platform with other sinners." The Rev. S. S. Gassaway. while rector of St. George's, was killed by the explosion of a boiler on the Alton packet, Kate Kearney, just as the boat was leaving the St. Louis levee.

"I Died at My Post."

"Tell my brethren of the Pittsburg conference that I died at my post," was chiseled in the stone which marked a grave in the Wesleyan cemetery on the Olive street road. Three times the stone had been put in place. It quoted the dying message of Rev. Thomas Drummond, an Englishman, who came to St. Louis to take charge of the Methodist church on Fourth street and Washington avenue. A year after his coming Mr. Drummond faced the cholera epidemic of 1835. He was advised to leave the city, but refused and was stricken. From his death- bed he sent the message to the conference with which he had been first asso- ciated in this country. His body has been buried in three cemeteries, being

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CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI

moved as the city grew. From Twenty-third and Franklin avenue, it was taken to Grand and Laclede, and later to the cemetery on Olive street road.

Before the Civil war, a popular hymn book with Missouri Methodists was called "Select Melodies," and in that collection one of the favorite hymns was Rev. Dr. William Hunter's "He Died at His Post." The hymn was based upon Thomas Drummond's farewell message. The hymn began:

"Away from his home and the friends of his youth, He hastened, the herald of mercy and truth; For the love of the Lord, and to seek for the lost; Soon alas! was his fall-but he died at his post."

Each of the five stanzas ended with Drummond's message. Rev. Dr. J. W. Cunningham, a Methodist pioneer in Missouri, said that was the first hymn and tune he learned to sing. Afterwards he heard it under such impressive circum- stances that when he came to St. Louis, in 1870, he sought the burial place of Thomas Drummond and found it near the corner of Laclede and Grand avenue, in the old Centenary Wesleyan cemetery as it was then known. The body had been removed from its first resting place in cholera days, at Twenty-third street and Franklin avenue. When the Grand avenue cemetery was given up, the remains of Drummond were removed to the third grave in a cemetery on the Olive street road near the North and South road, in St. Louis county. One summer morning during the World's fair, Mr. Cunningham awoke at dawn with the thought of Drummond in his mind. He got up and without waiting for breakfast made his way out into the country on a pilgrimage to his hero's resting place.

"A Chinese grave was as close to it as it could be dug. I counted many other Chinese graves as close as they could be placed on the south side. Handfulls of rice had been scattered over some of the elevations and in the spaces between. There were shells of exploded firecrackers and bits of red painted and partially burnt wood lying on the ground and some stuck in the graves. There were displayed the evidences of pagan living ones' remembrance of pagan kindred or friends. No flower or other evidence of affection or remembrance by preacher. man or woman of the first Methodist preacher that died west of the Mississippi river, and among his last remembered words said, 'I died at my post.' There was the marble headstone with such an accumulation of dirt upon it, that it had no appearance of what it really was. It was leaning eastward at a sharp angle and so far sunken that some of the lettering upon it could not be seen. I returned home with the desire that all that was left of the heroic Thomas Drummond should be removed to Centenary church and deposited there as might be determined. I thought of Centenary church because she had long been the custodian of all that remained of the three times buried martyr to duty. I called the attention of the Centenary pastor and of the preachers' meeting in that church building. The work has been done. The little that has been left of the buried mortality weighed but a few pounds and rests in a niche in one of the walls of Centenary church, and the marble slab has been renewed and beautified by the graver's tools, to be seen and read by all who visit the hall where it abides against the wall.",

Dr. Bullard's Church.

When Rev. Artemas Bullard came to St. Louis to be pastor of the First Presbyterian church in 1838 he thought the place of worship was too far from the center of the city. The location was near Fourth street and Washington avenue, but most of the worshipers lived east or south of the church. When the new church was built, Dr. Bullard found conditions so changed that he

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, FOUR- TEENTH AND LUCAS PLACE, BE- FORE THE CIVIL WAR

Courtesy Missouri Historical Society

Rev. William Potts, Presbyterian

Rev. Artemas Bullard, Presbyterian

EMINENT MISSOURI PREACHERS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR

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THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

advised a location at Fourteenth street and Lucas place. There was much opposition to the new site, many members claiming that this was a removal too far to the west. In its day the First Presbyterian church, on Fourteenth street and Lucas place, was regarded as having a very handsome exterior, and it was commented upon favorably by many travelers. At that time there were few buildings in the vicinity and the church edifice stood out bold and strong in all of its architectural impressiveness. The First Presbyterian church regarded as colonies or offshoots, the Second Presbyterian church, and the Third Pres- byterian church and the Pine street church, with which became identified for many years Dr. Niccolls, Dr. Post, Dr. Brookes and Dr. Rutherford.

The First Presbyterian church, the most costly up to that time, was com- pleted about the middle of the decade, 1850-1860. It was commonly called "Dr. Bullard's church," long after the beloved pastor met his death in the Gasconade disaster. Competition in church architecture, in those days, ran somewhat to spires. The First church had "the tallest steeple in St. Louis"-225 feet. When the western city limits were extended from Seventh to Eighteenth street, in 1841, there was strong opposition. The argument was that the population did not justify the enlargement; that streets were not opened. Thirteen years later, while people were still speaking of "the new limits," this, most costly of the churches, was built almost on the outer edge of the city.

Centenary Methodist church had a basement story wholly above ground. It was on Fifth and Pine streets, the southwest corner. Beside it was a parsonage.

The Unitarian Pioneer.

The coming of William Greenleaf Eliot was of far-reaching influence in Mis- souri. It meant much more than the founding of the First Unitarian church. From an old note book, Henry Ware Eliot, Jr., obtained historical material which he used in an interesting address before the men's club of that church in 1916:

"In 1834, Christopher Rhodes, a merchant of St. Louis, happened to make a trip to Boston, and before he left St. Louis he was asked by some of his friends to look around in Boston and see whether it was possible to get some Unitarian clergyman to come out to St. Louis. Mr. Rhodes inquired of the general secretary of the American Unitarian asso- ciation in Boston, and was told that, purely as a coincidence, William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr., then just graduated from the Theological College of Harvard University, had already con- ceived the idea of going out west and was looking for the opportunity. The source of Mr. Eliot's inspiration was partly his own pioneer spirit and partly the fact that his intimate friend at Cambridge, James Freeman Clarke, had taken a pulpit in Louisville. Mr. Rhodes forthwith made arrangements for Mr. Eliot to come out to St. Louis in the fall of that year.

"Mr. Eliot arrived on the 27th of November, 1834. There was then but one news- paper, a semi-weekly, published in St. Louis, and as the next issue was not till the following Monday, the news that Mr. Eliot was to preach on Sunday was printed on handbills and circulated about the city. The first meeting was held in a schoolhouse on Fourth street, be- tween Pine and Chestnut. There were several disadvantages about this schoolroom. In the first place, the seats were arranged so that the audience sat, not facing the minister, but with their sides toward him. In the second place the associations of the place were of quite the wrong sort, for it had been used previously largely for the infidel lectures which were conducted by a Dr. Prefontaine. A footnote in Dr. Eliot's own record of the church, in pencil, states that this Dr. Prefontaine shortly after landed in jail for the robbery and murder of a trader from Santa Fe. That should have settled definitely the status of the infidel contingent in the community.

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"A good many of the disciples of this Dr. Prefontaine attended Dr. Eliot's church in the schoolroom for awhile in the expectation that the doctrine of unbelief was to be enunciated by Dr. Eliot with perhaps more fiery intensity than it had been by his prede- cessor. The congregation, therefore, was at first large. Soon being disappointed, how- ever, the infidels ceased to attend, and the congregation in the winter dwindled to twenty- five, and on some days to not more than eight members.

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Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 108

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939 Publication date: 1921 Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company Number of Pages: 1074

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074