USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > A History of the city of Newark, New Jersey : embracing practically two and a half centuries, 1666-1913, Volume II > Part 35
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The pioneer and mother of Presbyterianism in Newark is the First Presbyterian church, located on Broad street, opposite Branford place. It came to the banks of the Passaic, though under another name, with the first settlers. It might fairly be said of these men that their object in com- ing here was to find a safe place for their church, where it might be protected from certain dangers thought to be imminent in Connecticut. The Colony of New Haven had been, in 1664, absorbed in the Colony of Connecticut, and under the new government it was not required that citizens to vote must be members of the church. The Milford and the Branford people who founded Newark had belonged to the New Haven Colony, and had been opposed to the union. They came to the Passaic in order to establish a little commonwealth with laws based on the Scripture, and in which no man should enjoy full citizenship unless a member of the Congregational church.
The Newark settlement has been characterized as the last attempt upon the American continent to establish a theocracy. The principle, to quote from the writer's comment upon this subject in "Bloomfield, Old and New," was doubtless narrow, and could not operate permanently, but the men who held it had broad brains and plenty of backbone. They were capable of widening their intellectual horizon.
These requirements for citizenship were deemed necessary steps in the making of a community that was to exhibit a positive character. Right training of a child prohibits promiscuous companionship until the char- acter is sufficiently strong. The family is the best judge of the kind of children it wants to adopt. Communities, at least in their struggling infancy, should have a right to select and control the elements that form character. While to-day in communities sectarian qualifications for citizenship are not countenanced, they were the usual order in the seventeenth century. The Newark people, while at first demanding conformity, made very just and kindly provisions to cover the cases of all who might subsequently find them- selves out of harmony or in antagonism with the community. The provisions were thus stated:
"It is agreed upon, that in case any shall come in to us, or arise among us, that shall willingly or wilfully disturb us in our peace and settlements, and especially that would subvert us from the true religion and worship of God, and cannot or will not keep their opinion to themselves, or be reclaimed after due time and means of conviction and reclaiming hath been used; it is unanimously agreed upon, and consented unto, as a fundamental agreement and order, that all such persons so ill-disposed and affected, shall, after due notice given thom from the town, quietly depart the place seasonably, the
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town allowing them such valuable considerations for their lands or houses as indifferent men shall price them, or else leave them to make the best of them to any man the town shall approve of."
The right of private judgment was not denied, and even for the loudest malcontent there was only charity and justice. For that age, Newark was an unusually tolerant community.
At a town meeting held September 10, 1668, the citizens passed definite resolutions regarding the support of their minister. He was to receive "Eighty pounds by the year for his carrying on of the Work of the Min- istry," the same to be paid in various kind of commodities, including u pound of butter for every milch cow in the town. A part of his salary was to be considered the building of his house. In addition, the town was to pay the charges for having his well dug, and he was to be free from all common rates, and the "Lord's Half Penny," due the New Jersey proprietors.
The first minister was Rev. Abraham Pierson, of Branford, Connecticut. His ministry began October 1, 1667. The Branford group had come one year previously, and the town had been without a settled minister for some eighteen months. Steps were taken toward erecting a church edifice at the same meeting that arranged for the support of the pastor. It was ordered to build a meeting house as soon as possible. The dimensions were proscribed as follows: "Four or Six and Twenty Foot wide, and thirty Foot Long, and Ten Foot Between Joints, which for the Better Carrying it to an end, the Town hath made choice of Five Men, Viz: Deacon Ward, Sarj. Harrison and his Son John, Sarg. Obdh (Edward) Rigs and Michael Thompkins."
Another item under the same date (September 10, 1688), records state that "the Town hath Bargained with Deacon Ward, Sarj. Richard Harrison and Sarj. Edwd Rigs for the sum of seventeen Pounds to Build the Same Meeting House, according to the Dementions agreed upon, with a Lenter (lean to) to it all the length which will make it Thirty Six foot Square, with the doors and Windows and Flue Boards at the Gable ends." On March 12, 1669, the materials being ready, the town contracted with Thomas Luddington and Thomas Johnson for £5 to raise the church, aided by the men of the town. It was to be a frolic-for the others. This work, after the raising of the frame, seems to have moved slowly. One year and a half later the flooring was completed, though it is probable the building was used with a dirt or stone floor during the interim.
This church was Newark's first public building. It was 36 feet square, and 16 feet from the ground to the eaves in front. It stood about opposite the present site of the First Presbyterian church, facing the east. The gable ends were at the north and south sides. In the rear was an extension called a lenter or lean-to. Back of it was developed the graveyard which after- ward became known as the Old Burying Ground, to distinguish it from the new graveyard east of Broad, which still remains back of the present church. To the northwest was a marshy pond extending to Market street, near the present Washington. This first public edifice was both a place of worship and a place of business. For forty years all the affairs of the town, whether religious, civil or military, were transacted between its walls. On August 28, 1675, during the scare caused by King Philip's War, flankers, formed of palisades, were ordered built at two corners of the church in positions to command its four sides. In these were stationed soldiers to guard against possible Indian attacks. At the same time the building was "lathed and filled up with thin Stone and Mortar below the Girts," possibly as a further precaution.
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There is to be found in the Town Records but little material exclusively bearing on church affairs during these early years. The church was the town, and the town the church. One book seems to have included all the transactions during the Congregational period.
The first pastor, Abraham Pierson, remained until his death on August 9, 1678. He served the people eleven years. He was succeeded by his son, Abraham Pierson, Jr., who had labored with him during nine years as assistant and as co-pastor. Abraham Pierson, Senior, was born in York- shire, England. After graduating in 1632 at Cambridge University, he probably preached for a time in England. He came to Boston in 1639, and seems later to have resided at Lynn. He married a daughter of Rev. John Wheelwright, of Exeter, New Hampshire, and had at least four sons and four daughters-Abraham, Thomas, Theophilus, Isaac, Abigail, Grace, Mary and Rebecca. In 1640 he led as pastor a colony of Lynn people to Long Island, finally settling with them the town of Southampton. The object of the emigration was freedom to be more conservative, an object pursued by Pierson and his associates till finally achieved in Newark. The colonists became dissatisfied when their little colony on Long Island was annexed to the jurisdiction of Connecticut, and removed, in 1644, to Branford, in the New Haven Colony. During the next twenty-three years Pierson was the pastor of the Branford and Weathersfield churches. The Branford people removed as a, colony to Newark in the fall of 1666, and their pastor fol- lowed them in 1667. The interim of twelve months was probably spent in caring for the few families remaining in the Branford and in the Weathers- field church.
The first pastor of the Newark church received £80 annually, a comfort- able salary for the times. His estate at his coming was estimated at £644, and he left £822 at his death. A library of 440 volumes, valued at £100, was a part of the inventory, a large collection for that age in America. Its owner was termed by Governor John Winthrop a "godly learned man," and Cotton Mather in his "Magnalia" declares that "an illuminating tongue was that of our Pierson," and adds, "Wherever he came he shone."
The elder Pierson was granted by the town, on July 28, 1669, an assistant in the person of his son. This action had been hastened by a call for the young man's ministerial services coming from Woodbridge on June 6. The Newark people desired to secure his services, and voted him £30 the year. Two years later they increased the salary by £10, and on March 4, 1772, he was regularly called and ordained to be "joined with his father" as their "teacher." This co-pastorate continued until the death of the father. The elder Pierson on August 10, 1671, made his will. He died August 9, 1678, and was doubtless buried in Newark, but no man knows his sepulchre. Possibly he was buried in a plot of ground called by Mac- whorter "the first cemetery," which lay on the third small hill back of the original church, possibly beyond the present Halsey street. About 1700 it was abandoned and became private property. No trace remained in Macwhorter's day. That the grave of so prominent a citizen should have gone unmarked is improbable. The stone may have become eroded or shaled, and its inscription destroyed.
Abraham Pierson, Junior, became at the death of his father, August 9, 1678, the sole pastor of the Newark church. He remained until the spring of 1692. His entire ministry covered about twenty-three years, during four- teen of which he was the sole pastor. He was born at Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1641, and graduated at Harvard College in 1668. He resided for some
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months at Milford, Connecticut, where it is supposed he studied theology with Mr. Newton, and where he married Abigal, daughter of George Clark. He came to Newark, and was made assistant to his father on July 28, 1669.
During this pastorate many of the original settlers of Newark died. Their strenuous labors past, they, "one by one, crept silently to rest." Their places were filled by their children and by new settlers from abroad. Among the new-comers were those who inclined to be less rigid in church polity, some of them inclining toward a moderate form of Presbyterian government. The result was controversy, and Pastor Pierson leaned toward the new side. This controversy was alluded to by Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, of Elizabethtown, in 1735, in a sermon in answer to criticisms of Presby- terianism by Rev. John Beach, an Episcopal minister of Connecticut. Dick- inson claimed that harmony existed between the Congregationalists and Presbyterians of New England, and said: "Some of the people of Newark have, indeed, formerly been culpable for managing a controversy with their worthy pastor on these points, and I hope your putting them in mind of it may conduce to their humiliation, if there be any of them yet living." Dickinson said also that the pastor thus troubled, "removed from their abuses to New England, was there received with great kindness and love, and advanced to the rectoral charge of their college, in which he lived and died in the highest honor and esteem among them all, notwithstanding his Presbyterian principles."
The controversy seems to have caused the voluntary removal of the pastor. No direct reference to the differences appear in the Town Records, but a significant entry on January 2, 1867-8, states that the usual way of rating or taxing for the minister's salary was "desisted from," and instead it was to be raised by contribution. During 1690-'91 no action on salary was taken, but following Mr. Pierson's resignation a resolution was passed on April 2, 1692, which provided for the paying of all arrears. Mr. Pierson soon afterward sold his house and lands, and removed to Connecticut. He became, in 1694, the pastor of the church in Killingworth, and a few years later was appointed the first rector of Yale College. His church, not wishing to release him, the college was temporarily established at Killingworth, and Pierson held both offices till his death on March 5, 1707.
It was said of Newark in a joint letter written home to Scotland in March, 1684, by David Barclay and others, that it was the only town in the Province that "hath a settled preacher that follows no other employment," and one Peter Watson, writing to Scotland in August of the same year, desired that some good and faithful ministers should be sent, and said, "We have none within all the Province of East Jersey except one who is preacher in Newark." Such comments spoke well for Newark and its preacher.
Rev. John Prudden, son of Rev. Peter Prudden, of Milford, Connecticut, was the third pastor of the Newark church. He was called by a resolution of the town meeting held August 23, 1692. The invitation was unanimous, and appears to have been given with considerable enthusiasm. John Ward, Thomas Johnson, John Curtis, Azariah Crane, Jasper Crane, Thomas Ludd- ington and Stephen Bond were a committee to arrange the details of the expected settling of the minister. The salary offered was £50 the year and firewood, to be raised by contributions. As Mr. Prudden was a man of some wealth, this salary, so much smaller than that of his predecessors, was pos- sibly deemed sufficient.
Mr. Prudden accepted the call the same day. it was given, apparently being present in Newark. The committee that day reported having come to terms with him regarding his settling.
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John Prudden was born at Milford, November 9, 1645. He was a class- mate at Harvard of the younger Pierson, graduating in 1668. In the spring of 1670 he was invited to preach for a term of one year at Jamaica, Long Island. Under this temporary arrangement he remained until 1674, and then of his own choice departed. Two years later he returned because a better provision had been made for his support, and remained until 1691. The records show that at his coming to Newark in 1692 the town received an accession of eleven Milford men. They were admitted planters on March 6, 1693. During this pastorate the church was, in 1692, repaired with new shingles, and the parsonage or church lands of 200 acres were confirmed through a deed given by the proprietors on December 10, 1696. Through this deed, according to Dr. Stearns, the church has ever since held title to its properties. Mr. Prudden remained but seven years as pastor, resigning on June 9, 1699. Previously, on January 2, the town had voted to pro- cure for him an assistant in the person of Mr. Wakeman. He continued to live in Newark until his death, December 11, 1725, frequently supplying the pulpit, or acting as pastor temporarily.
Jabez Wakeman, son of Rev. Samuel Wakeman, of Fairfield, Connecti- cut, born about 1678, was the next pastor. He graduated at Harvard in 1697. He was, on January 2, 1699, invited to be the assistant of Mr. Prud- den, but upon the resignation of Mr. Prudden he was sought as pastor. The town voted to call him on August 8, 1699, and on October 2 he was voted £60 for his service on trial for one year. He was so acceptable that as early as April 15, 1700, the town voted unanimously to call him to the pastoral office. On November 11, 1701, his salary was increased to £80, the same as given both the Piersons. Mr. Wakeman was only twenty-one years old. His abilities promised a useful future, but his pastorate was brief, last- ing less than five years. He died of dysentery, on October 8, 1704. His only child, Samuel, had died of the same ailment nine days previously. After the death of Mr. Wakeman the church was without a settled minister for five or six years. Mr. Prudden was called upon to supply the pulpit until a minister could be found.
Mr. Samuel Sherman was, on October 1, 1705, by vote, invited to come on trial. Some unsatisfactory information about Mr. Sherman's previous career was received, and, though subsequently he personally cleared him- self by word of mouth, the town voted on February 19, 1705, that "they would have no further treaty with Mr. Sherman upon the account of a settlement." The same meeting appointed Mr. Prudden and three others to look for a minister. During the negotiations with Mr. Sherman, the town, on October 30, 1705, thought it wise to apply to Lord Edward Corn- bury, the Governor of New York and New Jersey, for permission to settle a minister. Cornbury, though instructed by his cousin, Queen Anne, not to infringe upon the liberty of conscience already granted to the colonists, had ordered that no one should be allowed "to preach without either a certificate from the Bishop of London or a license from himself." This restriction had been framed by the home government to apply only to Episcopal clergymen, but Cornbury, in his zeal for the established church, extended it to the Presbyterian and Congregational churches. Two years after Newark's submission to Cornbury's authority, Francis Makemie suf- fered imprisonment for preaching in New York. His trial resulted in his release, and led to Cornbury's fall, but the humble Maryland preacher was put to great pain and expense in defending the religious privileges of the people. On his journey to New York, Makemie had stopped at the home of
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Jasper Crane in Newark, and at the trial Crane was called as a witness to testify concerning private conversation there held.
The name of Mr. Samuel Whittlesey was presented at the Newark town meeting held on May 17, 1706. He was invited to come on trial for one year. His endeavors were apparently satisfactory. On March 31, 1707, the town voted him £65 annually, and promised him, should he accept the call, "a settlement in convenient season." Mr. Whittlesey declined the call, and later was settled as the second pastor of the church in Wallingford, Con- necticut.
Rev. Nathaniel Bowers was the fifth pastor of the Newark church. He arrived on June 16, 1709, a messenger having been sent by the town to meet him at Hudson's River and "wait upon him to Newark." On June 22 the town voted unanimously to keep him on trial for a year at £70. On August 28 he was unanimously called to be pastor, his salary previously having been advanced to £80 and the use of the parsonage, "lie keeping it in repair." The mention of a parsonage seems to imply that for the first time a permanent manse had been procured, former "settlements" having included the purchase of "accommodations" for the ministers. Except that he came from New England, nothing is known of the birth, education, or former ministry, of Mr. Bowers. His name is not on the roll of graduates from Harvard or Yale. He died August 4, 1716, after serving the church seven years, six of them as installed pastor.
There is a quaint nook in the burying ground back of the present "Old First" Presbyterian church on Broad street. Clustered together are three ancient tombstones bearing the epitaphs of three pastors of the church whose ministries all were completed during the first fifty years of its existence. Their names were John Prudden, Jabez Wakeman and Nathaniel Bowers. Formerly these stones stood for a century and a half in the Old Burying Ground west of Broad street, but about 1850 they were moved to their present location. They are easily seen from the railroad nearby, but one standing close beside them may fancy himself in an atmosphere of antiquity, and realize that in the memories awakened by these simple memorials there are many pages of history-and many stanzas of poems. Concerning these worthy men and others nearby, the lines of the poet seem to speak:
"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall raise them from their lowly bed."
For about two years after the death of Mr. Bowers, the town had no settled minister. There came a candidate, according to Macwhorter's "Cen- tury Sermon," in the person of a Mr. Buckingham, who preached for a time, but was not settled because of great divisions among the people. Very probably the division was caused by the spreading leaven of Presbyterianism, and the two sides were doubtless the conservatives, who clung to Congrega- tionalism and the growing Presbyterian element. The Buckingham men- tioned was probably Thomas, son of Mr. Thomas Buckingham, from Wales, who became pastor of the Saybrook (Connecticut) church in 1669, and died in 1709. The elder Buckingham was one of the trustees of Yale College, and the commencements were held in his house in Saybrook for several years. As he was a Presbyterian and a mover in the Saybrook Platform, there is every reason to suppose that his son Thomas, who graduated at Yale in 1690, was imbued with his principles.
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The Newark church, while moving toward Presbyterianism, was not yet ready to take the final leap, and Buckingham was not settled. He after- ward became pastor of the Second church at Hartford. He died November 19, 1731. He had a brother, Stephen, who was graduated at Yale in 1693, and was pastor of the Norwalk church from 1698 to 1726.
During the latter part of Mr. Bower's ministry the second house of worship was probably built. It was constructed of stone, and measured forty-four feet square. It had a bell in the steeple, and was considered an unusually fine building. After 1791 it was used as the Court House. It stood west of Broad street, a little south of the first edifice, and about opposite the present First church. As no entries occur in the town record between April 12, 1714, and August 10, 1716, the details of the operations are lacking. On August 30, 1716, an entry refers to the death of Mr. Bowers, and to the choice of James Nuttman and Lieutenant John Morris as a committee to arrange for the "sittings" in the meeting house of the com- mittee of three who had already previously seated the congregation. This seems to mean the recent completion of the new church. It was in this second edifice that Whitefield preached and Brainerd was ordained.
During this period (about 1716) the "Mountain Society" was organ -. ized. It became later known as the Second church in Newark, and is now the First Presbyterian church of Orange.
The Rev. Joseph Webb, a son of Rev. Joseph Webb, of Fairfield, Con- necticut, one of the founders of Yale College, was the sixth pastor of Newark. The younger Webb graduated at Yale in 1785. He was introduced to the Newark people by Rev. Samuel Andrews, husband of Abigal Treat, the daughter of Captain Robert Treat, one of Newark's original settlers. The town on December 16, 1718, voted to accept him on trial for three-quarters of a year. He was ordained October 22, 1719, by the Presbytery of Phila- delphia. He remained nearly eighteen years. He was dismissed by the Presbytery of East Jersey in November, 1736. The sudden appearance in the records of the Presbytery of Philadelphia shows that the Newark church had ceased to be strictly Congregational, and had at least begun to be a Presbyterian church. The next year Mr. Webb attended the Synod of Phila- delphia, and thenceforth he attended both presbytery and synod. As far as known, the Newark church was first represented in the synod by a layman when Caleb Ward attended in 1725.
This change in government was an evolution which had its beginnings in the pastorate of Abraham Pierson 2d. There were apparently no theological questions at issue. In New England there were a number of pastors with Presbyterian leanings, preaching in the Congregational churches. The Yale men who came to Newark to candidate seem to have added fuel to the unrest. Prudden was the last old-line Congregationalist. The strong- est factor in the change was the Scotch element in New Jersey. These zealous Presbyterians began to come to the Province about the year 1782, and some of them married into Newark families. In 1707 the first presby- tery in America, that of Philadelphia, was formed, and in 1717 it was divided into four presbyteries. Out of these bodies a synod, that of Phila- delphia, was organized. One by one, the Congregational churches in New Jersey joined the Presbyterian bodies. For some time subscription to the Presbyterian standards was not demanded, and was opposed by prominent New England men in the synod, like Jonathan Dickinson, of Elizabethtown, and Jedidiah Andrews, of Philadelphia, but the Scotch and Irish members were highly in favor of it. In 1729 the "Adopting Act" was passed by the
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