USA > New Jersey > Middlesex County > Piscataway > History of the First Baptist Church of Piscataway : with an account of its bi-centennial celebration, June 20th, 1889, and sketches of pioneer progenitors of Piscataway planters > Part 1
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Bi-Centennial Qnuiversary 1689-1889.
First Baptist Church of Piscataway.
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02236 7400
GENEALOGY 974.902 P67PI
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HISTORY
OF THE
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF PISCATAWAY
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF ITS
BI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
JUNE 20th, 1889,
AND SKETCHES OF
PIONEER PROGENITORS OF PISCATAWAY PLANTERS.
STELTON, N. J, 1889.
-
GEO. DRAKE, - P. A. RUNYON,
Committee W. H. STELLE,
on Publication.
1
NEW YORK : PAKENHAM & DOWLING, STEAM PRINTERS, 12 and 14 Spruce Street.
1889.
1578797
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS OF THE CHURCH, APPOINTMENT OF
COMMITTEE, INVITATION, ETC 4
BI-CENTENNIAL PROGRAM
5-7
RESOLUTIONS OF THANKS BY THE CHURCH
8
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH . By Dr. J. F Brown. . . 10-76 BI-CENTENNIAL SERVICES, ADDRESSES, HYMN, POEM, ETC. .. . . 78-110 SKETCHES OF PIONEER PROGENITORS. By O. B. Leonard, Esq . 111- 118 INDEX 119-120
4
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
At a regular Church Meeting held May 26, 1889, the following resolutions were passed :
"Resolved, That this Church deem it in every way fitting and due that we hold suitable memorial services at our approaching Bi-Centennial, and that a committee be appointed to prepare and submit to the Church a program for the celebration, including time, subjects, speakers and other arrangements for the occasion.
"Resolved, That such committee consist of the Pastor, Rev. J. W. Sarles, and brethren P. R. Letson, and P. A. Runyon."
After full consultation the committee appointed Thursday, June 20th, 1889, as the day for the Anniversary, arranged a Program for the celebration, and sent the invitation appearing below to all the Baptist Churches in New Jersey and such churches and individuals elsewhere, as were for special reasons, interested in the occasion.
-
-GREETING .-
DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS:
The Piscataway Baptist Church will (D. V.) hold its Bi-Centennial on Thursday, June 20th, 1889.
On an occasion of so much gratitude to us, and of such common interest to the whole Baptist family of New Jersey, we shall be happy to see the faces of so many of you, and your associates in the Sanctuary, as can spend the day with us.
Exercises are to begin promptly at 10.30 A.M., and continue through the day and evening.
REV. J. W. SARLES, P. A. RUNYON, P. R. LETSON,
Bi-Centenary Committee.
5
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
BI-CENTENNIAL ROGRAM.
-: FORENOON, 10.30 O'CLOCK .:-
1. Organ. - Miss Maria C. Sarles.
2. Doxology.
3. Invocation,
4. Anthem,
By the Pastor. By the Choir.
5. Scripture, Ps., 48:1-14, Rev. M. MacGregor, New York.
6. Prayer, Rev. C. J. Page.
7. Hymn, No. 271, - "All hail the power of Jesus' name."
8. Greeting,
By the Pastor.
9. History of the Church (Part 1st), by J. F. Brown, D.D., Pastor from 1868-78. 10. Hymn, No. 748, - "Zion stands with hills surrounded,-"
11. Middletown Baptist Church, 1688. Pastor Rev. E. E. Jones. 12. Cohansey Baptist Church, 1690, Pastor Harry Tratt (not present) 13. Hymn, No. 637. "I love thy kingdom, Lord."
14. Scotch Plains Baptist Church, 1747, Pastor J. H. Parks, D.D.
15. Prayer, Rev. Mr. Livermore, of New Market, N. J. 16. Hymn, No. 416, " Rock of ages, cleft for me."
17. Benediction, - - Rev. R. T. Middleditch, D.D , New York,
COLLATION.
6
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
-: AFTERNOON, 2.30 O'CLOCK. :-
1. Anthem.
2. Invocation, Rev. Geo. H. Gardner, South River, N. J.
3. Scripture. Ps., 67: 1-7. 20. 1-9, Rev. G. F. Love, Princeton, N. J.
4. Prayer, - Rev. Mr. Young, Allentown, N. J. 5. Hymn, No. 553, "Oh, could we speak the matchless worth."
6. History of the Church (concluded), - Dr. J. F. Brown.
7. Note from Mrs. C. L. Lee and Mrs. C. P. Farson, surviving daughters of the 7th Pastor, Rev. Daniel Lewis.
8. Bi-Centennial Hymn, Abraham Coles, L.L.D.
9. Geneological Sketches, - O. B. Leonard, Esq.
10. Letter - from Ezra M. Hunt, M.D., Trenton, N. J.
11. Morristown Baptist Church, 1752, Pastor Rev. Addison Parker.
12. Hymn, No. 413, - "Jesus ! lover of my soul."
13. Philadelphia Baptist Association, 1707-1791, Moderator J. W. Willmarth, D.D.
14. Philadelphia Baptist Association, President of the Board, Hon. Horatio Gates Jones.
15. New Brooklyn Baptist Church, 1792, Pastor Rev. A. Armstrong. 16. Hymn, No. 982, "Jerusalem, my happy home."
17. First Baptist Church, New Brunswick, 1816, Pastor Rev. H. C. Applegarth, Jr.
18. Wm. H. Parmly, D. D., President of the N. J. Education Society.
19. Rev. W.V. Wilson, Helper of all Good Institutions, (not present.)
20. Hymn, No. 213, " What are those soul-reviving strains."
21. Benediction, Rev. G. E. Horr, Summit, N. J.
SUPPER.
7
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
-: EVENING, 7.30 O'CLOCK. :-
1. Service of Song.
2. Scripture. Jno. 15:1-16, Rev. R. T. Middleditch, D.D., New York.
3. Prayer, - - - Rev. F. R. Morse, D. D., New York.
4. Hymn, No. 280, " Come, let us join our cheerful songs.' 5. First Baptist Church, Plainfield, 1818, Pastor D. J. Yerkes, D.D. 6. New Market Baptist Church, 1852, Pastor Rev. J. A. Cubberley.
7. Warren Randolph, D. D., of Newport, R. I., Licentiate. Letter.
8. Hymn No. 968, " Who are these in bright array."
9. Rev. C. J. Page, Pastor of this Church from 1857 to 1867.
10. Remsen Avenue Baptist Church, New Brunswick, Rev. M. V. McDuffie.
11. Hymn, No. 743. "Happy the church, thou sacred place."
12. Rev. C. C. Smith, of Hempstead, L. I., Licentiate. Poem.
13. Rev. W'm. Rollinson, of Rahway, N. J., one of the Senior Pastors. 14. Prayer.
15. Closing Words.
16. Hymn, No. 985, " Beyond the smiling and the weeping,"
17. Benediction, - - Rev. M. V. McDuffie.
"It was regretted by all, that three of the Brethren were prevented, for want of time on the day of the Celebration, from responding for their churches or societies. Two of them, at the solicitation of the Publication Committee furn- ished the substance of their intended remarks and they appear in this volume. The remaining brother, Dr. Parmly, was absent from home when the request was made, which probably prevented him from complying with it.
8
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
RESOLUTIONS OF THANKS ADOPTED BY THE CHURCH.
" WHEREAS, Our former beloved Pastor, Rev. J. F. Brown, D. D., very kindly acceded to our request to prepare for our Bi-Centenary a history of this church ; and
" WHEREAS, He has withheld neither time nor labor to make it ex- haustive and complete, and has thereby secured for us and for our children a rich legacy bequeathed to us by the fathers and mothers in this Church who have gone before us; therefore
" RESOLVED, That we tender him our united thanks, assuring him that we keenly appreciate this generous and unrequited contribution to our spiritual advantage.
" RESOLVED, That we also extend our thanks to O. B. Leonard, Esq , of Plainfield, N. J., for his interesting paper on the " Pioneer Progenitors of Piscataway Planters.
" RESOLVED, That our warm thanks are due and are hereby ten- dered to the organist and choir from Brooklyn, for the inspiring music that did so much to move our hearts and enhance the enjoyment of all the other services of our Bi-Centennial.
" RESOLVED, That we thank Mr. James Rogers, of New Bruns- wick, for doing so much to add to the comfort of our guests at table.
" RESOLVED, That we tender to Mr. White, representative of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, our united thanks for the use of the house located at Stelton, for the accommodation of our guests June 20, 1889, at the celebration of the Bi-Centennial Anni- versary of our Church.
" MOVED, That a copy of the foregoing Resolutions be sent to each of the parties named and that they be entered upon the minutes of the Church."
1
AHISTORYE
PREFATORY NOTE.
The writer of the following historical sketch is greatly in- debted for valuable information to O. B. Leonard, Esq., of Plain- field, who has made the study of Colonial times and the gene- alogy of the early settleis a specialty ; also, to Miss Henrietta Dayton, of Stelton, for the loan of old minutes of Associations which have been handed down by her ancestors for nearly a hundred years; also, to Mr. Samuel E. Stelle, Mr. Peter A. Runyon, Mr. Peter R. Letson and Miss Laura J. Runyon for statistical accounts, investigations of a various nature, family genealogies, etc., and especially to " Whitehead's History of New Jersey under the Proprietors," a work of inestimable value to the student of Colonial times. J. F. B.
II
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
HISTORY OF THE
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH,
OF PISCATAWAY, N. J.
BY J. F. BROWN, D. D.
Two centuries have elapsed since this Church was constituted an independent Church of baptised believers in Christ Jesus. Since then, generation after generation has passed away, but the Church still lives, and, to-day, with a spiritual force not only unabated but the rather greatly augmented, stands on the threshold of the third century, strong in faith, and bright with the hope that He, who was with their fathers, will also be with them in the power of his Spirit, and with their children and children's children, and work out through them his purposes of grace and glory.
It is eminently fit and proper that this Church, in view of the com- pletion of its bi-centennial life, should commemorate the fact in general assembly with representatives of sister churches, and abundantly utter the memory of the Lord's great goodness, and unite in thanksgiving and praise for the grace that has been so signally displayed throughout its history. "Let Israel rejoice in Him that made him." "One genera- tion shall praise Thy works to another, and shall declare Thy mighty acts."
To me has been assigned by the Church the onerous but not un- welcome task of gathering and arranging the materials of its history, and thus tracing it connectedly from its organization to the present time. It is a deplorable fact that no records or minutes of the Church exist prior to the month of August, 1781. They were destroyed during the Revolutionary war, either by marauding bands of British soldiers
I 2
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
when their army was in possession of New Brunswick,1 or-which is more probable-they were carried off or destroyed by the Clerk of the Church at that time who, according to tradition, was a Tory. From whence, then, are our sources of history ?- From Colonial documents, township records, the researches of Morgan Edwards and Dr. Benedict, the Century Minutes of the Philadelphia Association and fragmentary papers on early Baptist history. From such sources we learn that this Church was constituted in the year 1689, the very year following that of the great revolution in England which secured the overthrow of the last of the Stuart Dynasty, and led to the elevation of William and Mary to the throne.
But whence came the constituent members ; and when, and why ? To answer these questions intelligently we must have recourse to Col- onial history. New Jersey was at this time under what was known as the " Proprietory " form of government. In the year 1664, Charles II, King of England, made a gift of territory lying between the western side of Connecticut River and the east side of Delaware Bay to his brother, James, the Duke of York, afterwards King of England under the title of James II. The Duke, not caring to take the personal super- vision of this territory, transferred so much of it as is now New Jersey to Lord John Berkley, Baron of Stratton, and Sir George Carteret, of Saltrum, in Devon. The Dutch, who had been in possession of a con- siderable portion of this territory and had formed many settlements and exercised governmental rights, yielded to the superior power of Britain, and by the treaty of Breda, in 1667, the possession of New Amsterdam ( New York ) and of New Jersey was confirmed to the English.2
Lord Berkley and Sir George Carteret having thus become sole pro- prietors of New Jersey, were disposed, with a view, doubtless, to the rapid peopling of the territory, to grant very liberal terms to new settlers. On the 10th of February, 1664, O. S., they signed a constitu- tion which they issued to people far and near, under the title of "The Concessions and Agreements of the Lord Proprietors of New Jersey to and with all and every of the Adventurers and all such as shall Settle and Plant there." One item of these Concessions was as follows : " That no person qualified as aforesaid within the said
1. The same is true of the records of the First Presbyterian Church, of Newark. "It is much to be regretted that the records of the Church, extending from the year 1696 to the time of the Revolutionary war, were destroyed when the British troops had poses- sion of the town in 1776, and those which remain date back only to 1781."-Dr. Stearns" Historical Discourses.
2. Whitehead's New Jersey under the Proprietors, p. 27.
13
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
Province at any time shall be anyways molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question for any difference in opinion or practice in matters of religious concernment, who do not actually disturb the civil peace of the said Province, but that all and every such person and persons may, from time to time, and at all times, freely and fully have and enjoy his and their judgments and consciences in matters of religion throughout the said Province."1 This document has the ring of liberty, civil and religious. The rights of conscience are here recognized-the boon hitherto denied in all the settlements on the Continent, save in that of the Providence plantations, in Rhode Island, where Roger Williams, thirty years before, had founded a government on "the sanctity of conscience, or soul-freedom. " 2
On the same day that these Concessions were published, Berkley and Carteret appointed Philip Carteret, a relative of Sir George, the Governor of the Province, instructing him to carry out the provisions of the Concessions. He, in obedience to this instruction, immediately sent messengers into New England to make known the liberal charac- ter of the government of New Jersey. The effect of these Concessions on the minds of all in New England who had suffered from the intoler- ance of the Puritans, can better be imagined than described. Hence- forth the fertile plains of New Jersey, together with its salubrious climate, loomed up before them as a land of promise. Indeed, it is recorded by an old writer of that period that it was thought by some "worthy the name of Paradise," because, in addition to its natural advantages, "it had no lawyers, or physicians, or parsons" 3-a keen thrust, evidently, at Puritan parsons and those of the Church of Eng- land. It will occasion no surprise that people living in New England came into these parts in large numbers, singly and by families, or colonies, and formed settlements, generally as close to the sea as possible, and along the bays, sounds and rivers, stretching from Newark to Middletown and Shrewsbury. They came not all in one year, but at different dates extending from the time of a few original associates in 1666 and 1668 to the time of the transfer of the govern- ment from the Proprietors to the Crown in 1702. Nor did they all come from New England, but from the mother country and Scotland, and from New York, particularly from Long Island ; all influenced by a desire to advance their temporal comfort, many by a yet stronger
1. Volume Grants and Concessions.
2. Bancroft's History of the United States.
3. Whitehead's East New Jersey under the Proprietors.
..
14
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
desire to escape from civil and religious tyranny and enjoy freedom to worship God without molestation by civil magistrates. This state- ment, with regard to the settlers of Newark in 1666, is to be received with some qualification. They came from Connecticut and were Con- gregationalists or of the Standing Order, who, having become dis- affected towards the General Court of Connecticut because of the Half- way Covenant, formed a colony and emigrated to Newark with the design of there founding a government that should be ruled and con- ducted only by members of the Congregational Church. No others were to be " admitted as Freemen or Free Burgesses within our town upon Passaic River." No others were to be chosen to magistracy or to carry on any kind of civil judicature or as deputies or assistants, to have power to vote in establishing laws, and making and repealing them ; nor shall any but such church members have any vote in any such elections."1 Here was a repetition of Puritan folly, the first and last attempt to combine Church and State in the province of New Jersey, and which, happily, in the course of a generation, yielded to the more enlightened and liberal principles which then prevailed and had been embodied in the Concessions of the Lord Proprietors. Very different in opinion and purpose were the settlers in the districts of Middletown and Piscataway, some of whom had, in New England, suffered for conscience sake under the rule of the Puritans. The most of those at Middletown were Baptists. Some were Quakers, mostly from Long Island, who had endured oppression there under the Dutch administration. All these sought freedom, not for themselves alone, but for all who bore the image of God.
Middletown received its charter in 1665 ; Piscataway, December 18, 1666. The names of those to whom was made the first conveyance of lands by Deputy Surveyor under Carteret, were John Martin, Charles Gillman, Hugh Dunn and Hopewell Hull. They and their associates founded the town of Piscataway.2 In 1685 this township with its out- lying plantations was supposed to contain forty thousand acres of land, inhabited by eighty families or about four hundred people. This town- ship was reduced in size in the year 1798, and in 1870 was still farther reduced by the formation of another township out of it, called Raritan, in which township this house of worship is now situated.
'The names of those who came into the township after its forma- tion in 1665, were those of Dennis, Smith, Drake and Dunham in 1668 ;
1. Newark Town Records.
2. Whitehead's East Jersey under the Proprietors.
I5
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
of Fitz-Randolph, Langstaff and Hendrick, in 1669; of Sutton, Manning, Smalley, Bonham, 1670-'75 ; of Runyon and Wooding, in 1683 ; of Giles, Dayton, Bishop, Mullinson, Munday, Higgins, Laing, Coriell, Webster, 1680-1685 ; of Blackford, Pyatt and Field, in 1695 ; of Stelle and Clarkson, from New York, in 1705. Some of the earliest settlers came first from New Hampshire, on the left side of the Piscataqua River, but at a later date from Long Island. These were mostly Baptists. New Hampshire was at that time under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Company, and, of course, was not exempt from Puritan interference. Nevertheless, some of the sect everywhere spoken against, living near Dover, were wont to assemble at that point for divine worship. How long they had been settled in that region, history does not inform us. But they were there in the year 1638, for in the same year they were ministered to by the celebrated Hanserd Knollys. This gentleman graduated at the University of Cambridge, and in 1629 was ordained as a minister of the established Church by the Bishop of Peterboro. His labors, in connection with that Church, were abundant. In a short time he became convinced from study of the Scriptures, that he could no longer consistently remain in connec- tion with the establishment. Subjected to persecution on account of his dissent, he took passage in an emmigrant vessel bound for Boston. On his arrival there the Puritan Ministers, ever on the scent for opinions differing from their own, reported him to the Magistrates as an Ana- baptist, and, strangely enough and untruthfully, as an Antinomian, therefore a dangerous man and "unfit to remain in that patent." A stranger in a strange land and penniless, he was compelled to resort to daily labor in order to get bread for himself and wife. Providentially he soon fell in with one or two men who had come from Dover to Boston on business. By them he was invited to go with them to Dover. He accepted their invitation and there ministered to a congregation composed mostly of a few Baptist families. He remained till the close of the year 1641 and then, at the urgent request of his aged father, returned to England.1 Our limited space forbids a detailed account of the petty annoyances and trials to which these Dover Baptists were subjected by the oppressive Church and State jurisdiction of Massa- chusetts.
1. After Mr. Knollys returned to England, he was ordained pastor of a Baptist Church in Great St. Helen street, London, in the year 1645, and continued in that relation till his death in 1691, in the 93d year of his age. He was contemporary with Keach and Kiffin, and Bunyan, and held in universal esteem by all good men as a devout Christian, an accomplished scholar, and a laborious pastor. While in New England, Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, refers to him as " a godly Anabaptist, and having a respectable charac- ter in the churches of this wilderness."
.
16
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
Soon after the departure of Mr. Knollys, they too, seeing no hope of deliverance from their trials in New England, emigrated to Long Island, then under the Dutch government, where they remained until New York came under the power of the English in 1664. There new trials befel them. Harrassed either by officials of the Dutch gov- ernment, or by the tyrannical measures of the Episcopal establishment that followed the Dutch rule, they sold out their property, and, gladly availing themselves of the larger liberty proffered by the Proprietors, they came in the year 1666 to this part of New Jersey and found a permanent home. They did not come as a Church, nor is there any evidence that they maintained any organization after they left New Hampshire ; and even there, it was as a society or band of baptised believers that they existed, not as a regularly constituted Baptist Church. They were largely men of social influence and standing. Some of them were, as already noticed, patentees of the township which they chose to call, after that of their old home in New Hampshire, Piscataway ; or, New Piscataway, this latter name being so written in the Town Book. 1
How many of the settlers were Baptists, or became such after the original settlement, history does not state. More than one writer pre- ceding and succeeding the formation of the Church, alludes to them as forming no inconsiderable part of the population. An Episcopal rector who preached at Amboy in 1711, writing to the Secretary of the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," in- forms him that "the Anabaptists swarmed in these parts," and that they held meetings in the Town House. This Town House stood in the village then, as now, known as "Piscatawaytown," a place of more political importance then than now, being through a long period of Colonial times the seat of justice for a large extent of territory extend- ing over Middlesex and parts of what are now Union and Somerset Counties. The Colonial Legislature also held one session, if not more, in this place. New Brunswick then had no existence. The road
1. Whether Hanserd Knollys ever preached to any Baptists that formed the constitu- eney of this Church, is a matter of grave doubt. Nearly fifty years elapsed after he returned to England before this Church was organized. If, therefore, they sat under his ministry in New Hampshire, they must have been very young people then, or now of advanced years-at least 68 or 70 years of age-but some of them lived many years ; John Drake, fifty years after the organization of the Church, or about one hundred years after the ministry of Hanserd Knollys at Dover. He, at least, could not have been a member of the Dover flock in Hanserd Knollys' time. The same must be true of Edmund Dunham, (who lived many years after 1689), and indeed of the other four constituents, none of whom can we suppose to have been men just tottering on the verge of the grave when this Church was formed. The more rational supposition, therefore, is, that some of the constituents were sons and daughters of the old Dover Baptists of Hanserd Knollys' time, and that they, after their sojourn on Long Island, came to this neighborhood, and, strong in the faith of their fathers, planted a Church of the same faith.
I7
THE PISCATAWAY BAPTIST CHURCH.
passing through this village was the only one that connected Amboy with the settlements of Middletown and Shrewsbury. Passengers were ferried over the Raritan at a point opposite a tract on which now lies New Brunswick, called "Mion's Ferry." Asfor other roads they were little more than bridle-paths through forests abounding with deer and game of almost every sort. The Indians, from whom all the lands of East Jersey were bought for what they, in their innocence, considered a fair equivalent, were peculiarly peaceful and gentle, so that we read of no depredations committed by them on the property of the settlers, much less of their taking up arms against them.
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