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 38
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its present pastor, Mr. Stubblebine, has succeeded in maintaining itself in the midst of many neighborhood obstacles to Presbyterian effort. The First Church has under consideration a substantial contribution toward erecting a building for social work. In 1907 Mr. Stubblebine published, in the manual and directory, an excellent history of the church.
The Memorial Presbyterian Church, South Orange avenue and Seventh street, was organized April 20, 1881. During the summer of 1877 a mission
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in the neighborhood had been opened by Robert J. Baldwin and his brother, Rev. Lucius H. Baldwin. Services were held in the abandoned St. Paul's Lutheran Church on South Tenth street. The first chapel on the present site was dedicated February 9, 1879. Subsequent alterations and enlarge- ments have been made. The pastors have been: Rev. Lucius H. Baldwin, 1877-1880; Rev. Charles A. Brewster, April 27, 1882, to April 4, 1883; Rev. Albert F. Lyle, D. D., November 14, 1883, to December 9, 1885; Rev. Ford C. Ottman, May 12, 1883, to December 15, 1902; Rev. Joseph Hamilton, October 6, 1903, to April 3, 1907; and the present pastor, Rev. Andrew S. Zimmerman, installed December 11, 1907. There are 471 members.
The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, Park (formerly Fifth) and Roseville avenues, was organized October 14, 1889, in the Roseville Avenue Church, which dismissed to it sixty-nine members. The chapel edifice had been completed the previous February, and in March the Sunday School had been organized. In 1890 the manse was built and the chapel enlarged. In 1899 the present handsome stone edifice was built. In 1913 a parish house for social needs was erected. The pastors have been: Rev. Hugh B. Macauley, April 10, 1890, to October 28, 1896; Rev. Sartell Prentice, Jr., March 3, 1898, to April 6, 1904; Rev. Joseph Hunter, the present pastor, installed May 11, 1905. There are 443 members.
The Few Smith Memorial Church, 36 Hudson street, was organized November 19, 1891. It had been a mission of the Second Church. The original edifice was on Jay street, behind the present church. The pastors have been: Rev. Isaac H. Polhemus, December 11, 1891, to July 18, 1894; Rev. George H. Bonsal, October 18, 1894, to November 8, 1898; Rev. John J. Bridges (after an interim in which the church again reverted to the care of the Second Church and relinquished its organization), February 19, 1903, to October 3, 1906; Edgar C. Mason, May 15, 1907, to February 6, 1913; and the present pastor, Rev. George B. Broening, installed November 14, 1913. There are 401 members. This church is noted for having for years conducted a day nursery.
The Emanuel German Presbyterian Church, 236 Verona avenue, was organized October 10, 1894, with forty-four members. The present building was dedicated April 4, 1897. Sunday School rooms were added later. The pastor is Rev. Henry H. Hoops, who engaged in missionary work in this field during his theological course at the Bloomfield Seminary. He was installed June 14, 1897. To his patience and enterprise the field largely owes its being. The church has 110 members.
The Manhattan Park (German) Presbyterian Church, at Grove street and Fourteenth avenue, was organized October 20, 1897. It has 114 mem- bers. The pastors have been: Rev. Otto H. Dietrich, June 10, 1898, to October 3, 1900; Rev. Martin H. Qual, November 22, 1900, to July 25, 1904, and the present pastor, Rev. Frederick E. Voegelin, installed October 12, 1904. There are 88 members.
The West Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Littleton and Eleventh avenues, was organized June 15, 1902. This was formerly the Bruce Street Mission, of the Roseville Avenue Church, established in 1862. The first building was erected in 1865 on Bruce, near Warren street. Later a brick structure was substituted, in which the organizing took place. In 1907 the new site was occupied. The pastors have been: Rev. John R. Fisher, D. D., October 31, 1902, to June 7, 1906; and the present pastor, Rev. Harold C. Harmon, installed February 15, 1907. There are 372 members.
The Third Church, South, previously the Clinton Avenue Presbyterian Church, at the corner of South Sixteenth street, was organized February
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15, 1906. The site, and the original chapel, dedicated April 18, 1904, were secured through a gift of $10,000 by an unnamed donor, and the additional aid of the Committee of Church Extension. Rev. Davis W. Lusk, chairman of that committee, located the site and suggested the enterprise. The first Sunday School was held April 24, 1904. The first trustees were: J. Frank Beers, president; Laurent A. Busby, secretary and treasurer; George Z. Beardsley, Theodore E. Heyden, James Prentice, W. J. Lawrence, Arthur G. Mason, George G. Williams and William L. Brice.
The Rev. Joseph F. Folsom, having been released November 19, 1904, from the pastorate of the Knox Presbyterian Church of Kearny, New Jersey, began preaching here as informally called chapel minister on Sunday, November 20, 1904. He was installed pastor April 5, 1906. The first elders were: J. Frank Beers, Duncan McAllister, Josiah Duncan, George Z. Beardsley, William E. Jackson and Charles F. Condit. There are 532 mem- bers. In 1912 the church accepted the invitation of the Third Church to become a part of its collegiate system, and to be named the Third Church, South, carrying over its pastor and officers. Under the new conditions, the Third Church provided funds to enlarge the chapel edifice for Sunday School and social work, and to build a commodious and beautiful house of worship in English gothic, to be completed in 1914.
The Kilburn Memorial Presbyterian Church, South Orange avenue and Norwood street, was organized by the Presbytery of Morris and Orange, February 9, 1898. It was received into the Presbytery of Newark on October 17, 1905. The change was made largely because the Vailsburg section, in which community the church is located, became a part of Newark. The first pastor, Rev. Thomas B. Shannon, was installed September 27, 1901, and died October 14, 1911. The present pastor, Rev. Smith Ordway, was installed December 7, 1911. A new church edifice was dedicated in 1913. There are 289 members.
The First Hungarian Presbyterian Church, West Kinney, between Charlton and Prince streets, was organized December 13, 1908. This work was begun under the auspices of the Third Church, the original members having been first received there. The minister in charge is Rev. John Dikovics, who is also an instructor in the Bloomfield Theological Seminary. The church has 74 members. The building occupied was formerly used by the parish of St. Matthew's German Protestant Episcopal Church.
The First Ruthenian Presbyterian Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Beacon street, was organized June 20, 1909. Rev. Waldimir Pyndykowski was the minister in charge until April 9, 1912. Rev. Basil Kusiw became the minister in May, 1912. He is a graduate of Bloomfield Theological Seminary, where also he taught in the academic department. The church has 128 members.
The Weequahic Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Meeker and Peshine avenues, was organized April 15, 1910, with 158 members. The original location was on Watson avenue. The chapel there was removed to the present site during 1911, and remodelled and enlarged to form the present attractive stuccoed building. The pastor is Rev. Sherman H. Marcy, installed April 15, 1910. The church now has 264 members.
The First Italian Presbyterian Church, 293 Plane street, was organized May 13, 1891, but later the organization was dissolved, and it is now a Presbyterian mission. Rev. Francesco Pesaturo was the first minister. The building, dedicated November 23, 1893, is the first edifice in America erected for an Italian Presbyterian congregation.
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THE EPISCOPAL CHURCHES.
Trinity Church, on Military Park .- The Church of England, later to become the Protestant Episcopal Church, was next in order after the Presbyterian to become established in Newark. When the Episcopalians began to meet for worship, the time was long past in Newark when only members of the Congregational Church could become citizens, and that original church itself had gone over to the Presbyterian form of government.
History greatly loves those odd causes from which so often unexpected effects have flowed. Such causes appeal to human interest and add features romantic or picturesque to the narrative of events. The founding of Trinity Protestant Episcopal parish is associated with an incident which long has been considered a resolving force to have helped to bring about that result. The saving of his good wheat by Josiah Ogden one Sabbath in 1733, and the consequent disciplining he received from the Presbyterian church, of which he was a member, led him to change his denomination and later to use his strong influence to procure for Newark an Episcopal church. This incident, and its result, having long ago passed the stage of local gossip, should be looked at from the purely historical viewpoint.
It should be known that several years before Colonel Ogden saved his wheat, there were held Church of England services in the town. Rev. Edward Vaughan, who for almost forty years was the missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, with head- quarters at Elizabethtown, held services in Newark long previous to the Ogden episode. He wrote in a report to the society, dated October 6, 1731, the following:
"My congregation encreaseth, not only in this Town ( Elizabeth), but in the neighboring Towns of Newark, Whippany, and the Mountains (Orange) where I visit and preach to a numerous assembly occasionally and in the wilderness and dispense the Sacraments to them. I have baptized here and elsewhere, within the compass of two years last past, 556 children besides 64 adults, and find in the people a general disposition to receive the Gospel according to the way and manner taught in the Church of England."
While the year in which Vaughan began to hold services cannot from the above foregoing report be ascertained, it is evident that for two years previous to 1731 he had been administering to the flock at Newark. It is probable that Vaughan was the first Church of England clergyman to hold regular services in this town. It should be stated that Vaughan's prede- cessor as missionary of the society, Rev. John Brooke, who served from 1705 to 1707, had charge of the Episcopalians at "Elizabethtown, Amboy and the adjacent towns." In a report sent to England, August 20, 1705, he said: "There are five Independent (Congregational) ministers in and about the places I preach at, and the greatest part of the people are followers of them." In Brooke's time, Rev. John Prudden was the Inde- pendent pastor at Newark; there were also two at Elizabethtown, one at Woodbridge, and another at Piscataway. The churches they served became Presbyterian not long afterward. It is highly probable that Brooke visited the few of his denomination who resided in Newark, and that they attended his services at Elizabethtown.
From what has been exhibited of documentary evidence, it should be plain that Colonel Ogden did not originate in Newark the Church of England movement, and that the result of saving his wheat was simply to bring about his uniting with a body of people who had for some time been wor- shipping according to the forms of that church. That his wealth and
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influence gave fresh impetus to the growing body, and brought sooner to pass the organization of Trinity parish and the erection of a church building, probably no one will deny. Spleen, which too often has been the cause of new churches, is not responsible for Old Trinity. Dr. Alexander Macwhorter, of the "Old First," in his "Century Sermon," preached in 1801, refers to the wheat-saving as having been in the mind of Colonel Ogden'a work of necessity. He states also that while the Presbyterian session of the "Old First" censured Ogden, the Presbytery acquitted him. When at last he withdrew there were others who went out with him. One of the by- products of the secession was a controversy, interesting in those days, over the points of Calvinism, and the points advocated by the Church of Eng- land. Rev. Jonathan Dickenson, of the "Old First" of Elizabethtown, was the Presbyterian champion. He was answered by Rev. John Beach, the Episcopal minister at Newtown, Connecticut. Dickenson's first challenge was a sermon preached at Newark, June 2, 1736, entitled "The Vanity of Human Institutions in the Worship of God." Beach responded with some exceptions, entitled "An Appeal to the Unprejudiced." They kept at it for several years.
To the north of the tower in the porch of stately "Old Trinity" the passer-by can to-day see preserved the tombstone of Josiah Ogden. It is worth while to turn aside to read the simple epitaph, and to reflect amid the haste and rumble of the city's traffic upon the character of a man, who, feeling himself misunderstood, was yet loyal to his religion though impelled by circumstances to change its form. "Here Lyes Interred ye Body of Col. Josiah Ogden, Who Died May 17th, A. D. 1763, in the 84th year of his age."
Among the early adherents of the parish were the Sandfords, the Kingslands and the Schuylers, of Barbadoes Neck, located across the Passaic. Major William Sandford (2nd) died in 1732. He was a member of Governor Cornbury's council. His tombstone until twelve years ago was seen in the little Sandford burying plot on Schuyler avenue, Kearny. Some commercially inclined vandal, it is thought, then stole it for building pur- poses, but fortunately a photograph remains. Colonel Peter Schuyler, famous for colonial war services, whose seat, Petersborough, was opposite the present Gouveneur street, Newark, was for many years a liberal supporter of the parish. His portrait hangs in the library of the New Jersey Historical Society.
Rectors in those days were as difficult to procure as to support. Ordination was received in England, and it was said that of those who went abroad to receive orders at least one-fifth died of small-pox or went down with the ships. For nearly ten years the new parish moved along without a settled rector. Among the ministers who at various times conducted serv- ices, or statedly supplied as missionary, were Rev. John Beach, previously mentioned, and Rev. Jonathan Arnold, missionary on Staten Island. In 1743 the parish petitioned to have appointed as their missionary, John Checkly, Jr., only son of the then well known Episcopal missionery, Rev. John Checkley, of Providence, Rhode Island. The father was born in Boston in 1680. He became a zealous advocate of the Church of England, and was greatly at odds with the New England Puritans. He wrote, as a layman, a number of controversial works, and finally, in his book, entitled "A Short and Easy Method with the Deists. To which is added a discourse concerning Episcopacy, in defence of Christianity, and the Church of Eng- land, against the Deists and Dissenters," so aroused the Congregationalists
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that he was prosecuted and forced to pay a fine of fifty pounds. The charges included an item stating that lie had made offensive allusions to the family then on the throne of England. He went to England in 1727 for ordination, but through opposition coming from his New England opponents it was refused. He was then forty-seven years of age, but, nothing daunted, he tried again in 1739, and at the unusual age of fifty-nine he was ordained by Bishop Weston of Exeter. His son John graduated at Harvard in 1738, studied divinity with his father, and crossed to England for orders. He was desired as missionary by the Newark church, but he died abroad of small-pox.
In 1743 was probably begun the erecting of a church edifice. In the missionary's report for 1743-1744, the dimensions are stated as being of "hewn stone, 63 feet long, 45 broad, and 27 high; with a steeple 95 feet high and 20 feet square." The building was completed in 1746, the evidence being an old stone said to have been found during the alterations of 1865 upon which were inscribed the words, "Anno Salutis, 1746." The "steeple" erected in 1746, as far as the masonry work goes, remains to-day exactly as it was when finished. It was not altered in the enlarging of the church in 1809, and is without doubt the oldest piece of public masonry in Newark. The site for the church, according to tradition, was granted by the town. It was a section of the public property called the Training Place, now Military Park. No mention of the matter is found in the town records. In 1746 a charter was granted the church by George II, in which a half-acre of land, "the ground on which the same stands," was confirmed to it. His right to grant Newark's land has been questioned, but no objection was made by the town. In 1787 there was passed a. statute of the State of New Jersey which has since removed any opportunity to contest the rights of "Old Trinity" to its site. The law provided that sixty years' occupancy, however originally compassed, gave a valid title.
About the time of the erection of the first building, Rev. Isaac Brown, of Brook Haven, Long Island, was appointed missionary at Newark. He graduated at Yale College in 1729, and went to Brook Haven in 1733. He removed to Newark in 1747. Through the efforts of the people, helped by the generosity of Colonel Peter Schuyler, the clergyman soon obtained a "good glebe and parsonage," and settled down as the first resident rector of the parish.
The good feeling on church matters among the townsfolk was strikingly exhibited in 1761, when a resolution was passed in town meeting granting equal rights in certain parsonage lands to "The Church of England, The First Presbyterian Society and the Mountain (Orange) Society." This was done in view of the stated fact that it was not contrary to the real intent and desire of a majority of the heirs and descendants of the first settlers of Newark.
Mr. Brown had also a mission at Second River, now Belleville, which as early as 1752 was described as "a good congregation." It is now Christ Church, Belleville. He ministered to the Newark and the Second River parishes during a period of thirty years. During the Revolution he was forced to remove with his family to New York because of his loyalty to the King. His name, along with many other so-called offenders and absconders, was published several times in lists made out in 1733, and in 1779 by Court Commissioners Joseph Hedden, Samuel Hayes and Thomas Canfield. In a let- ter he wrote on January 7, 1777, his flight is briefly narrated. He mentioned that his church was in use by the rebels as a hospital for their sick. After
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the war he removed, like many other loyalists, to Nova Scotia. He reached Annapolis in that Province in 1784, and there died three years later. Mr. Brown added the practice of medicine to his duties as clergyman. As in many similar cases, this combination at times aroused contention. People objected to bills for services rendered. Because of his practice of medicine he was not invited to succeed as missionary of St. Peter's, Perth Amboy, the Rev. Robert Mckean, who died October 17, 1767. He had obtained per- mission from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to remove from Newark, and had brought the matter before the vestry. The objection to receive him at Perth Amboy was to the effect that "his practicing as a physician had been a fruitful source of contention in Newark through bills rendered by him in that capacity, and as they had experienced some bad effects from Mr. Mckean's practicing, they thought it better to avoid the possibility of dissensions by procuring some other clergyman." Mr. Brown, in 1766, became at its second meeting a member of the New Jersey Medical Society, organized that year. His son, Samuel, who taught school and read services at Second River and elsewhere, also practiced medicine, later becom- ing a surgeon in the British army.
During the Revolution, as stated by Mr. Brown, Trinity Church was used as a hospital. He complained that the seats of the church had been broken up and destroyed, and that the occupants had "erected a large stack of chimneys in the middle of it." Evidently they had for the needs of the sick installed fireplaces in the previously unheated church. Old Trinity was not singled out to be used for this purpose. At the same time the Presby- terian Church, the Court House and the Academy were in use as hospitals. Dr. William Burnet, of Newark, in a letter to Dr. John Morgan, director- general of the Continental Army, stated that he "had obtained the use" of these buildings for hospital purposes. This use was made apparently during the years preceding 1778, for the reason that in April of that year the vestry met to consider repairs. The next year they considered how to restore the services in Newark and Second River, and invited Rev. Uzal Ogden, of New York, a son of the warden of the church, to visit the parish. In 1785 he was definitely invited to become rector, and three years later, the parish having been vacant for some ten years, he was settled. He remained until 1804 or 1805, resigning, according to Henderson, because of differences. Ogden was an author. In 1795 he published a book entitled "Antidote to Deism, The Deist Unmasked," as a refutation of Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason." It was printed in two volumes by John Woods, of Newark. It is in part a compilation from other authors.
Rector Ogden was as zealous in the cause of independence as had been his predecessor, Browne, in quiet loyalty to King George. On rare occasions the collector of pamphlets will come upon another Newark imprint by Ogden with a title page as follows: "Two Discourses occasioned by the Death of General George Washington, At Mount Vernon, December 14, 1799, By the Rev. Uzal Ogden, D. D., Rector of Trinity Church, Newark in the State of New Jersey. Delivered in that Church and in the Church in Union with it, at Belleville, December 29th, 1799, and January 5th, 1800. Pub- lished by Desire, Newark: Printed and Sold by Matthias Day, MDCCC."
These two discourses when prepared for the press were dedicated to "John Adams, Esquire, President of the United States of America," and dated at Newark, January 12, 1800. The preacher's text, used for both the discourses, was II. Samuel, III., 38, "Know ye not that there is a Prince, a great Man fallen this day in Israel?" The first discourse is largely his-
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torical, Gordon's "History of American Independence" being the authority quoted. The second is historical and eulogistic.
This pamphlet is interesting historically because of its abundant notes. Here are full accounts of the funeral obsequies at Mount Vernon, and the funeral honors, or procession, in New York City on the last day of Decem- ber, 1799.
Ogden evidently was a great admirer of Washington, and avowed satis- faction with the results of the Revolution.
Dr. Ogden's comment upon the enemies of Washington was no mincing reflection. In it he scores Tom Paine. He said: "But, to the disgrace of human nature, toward the close of his (Washington's) administration, there were a few unworthy men, who had the audacity and impiety to open their lips of calumny against him! Men who, from the baseness of their hearts and wickedness of their views, were unworthy even to utter the name of Washington!"
In a foot-note the sermonizer states that Paine published in Paris a pamphlet belittling the character of Washington as a general. "This infamous performance tended only to render the infamous author still more infamous."
In 1806, Rev. Joseph Willard was elected rector. The next year he reported seventy communicants as being in connection with the church. The church during his incumbency, which terminated in 1813, did not greatly increase in membership, but he succeeded in bringing about the enlarging of the building. There was built at the same time a new parson- age. In 1808 the burying ground on Rector street was set off with lots at fifteen dollars each. The building committee for the church, composed of Archibald Mercer, Edward Blackford, Josiah James, Thomas Whitlock, William Halsey, John Crawford and Caleb Sayres, was appointed April 3, 1809. Josiah James was the architect. He was the son of David and Mary Parker James. He lived until April 6, 1856. He resided at 110 Broad, between Bridge and Lombardy streets, and conducted in his later years a cloth store at 144 Broad street.
James was given full discretion as to the use of materials and the engaging of workmen, and was to receive whatever compensation he should ask. James allowed the base of the steeple to stand as it was built in 1746. The height of the superstructure, or spire, was increased about seventy-five feet. He retained in the front the original round, or Romanesque, windows demanded by the steeple, but for the sides he designed Gothic or pointed windows. This combination, though arbitrary, is not jarring. It is scarcely to be doubted that the original church had the round windows at the sides in harmony with those in the steeple. The corner- stone of this enlarged building was laid May 22, 1809, and it was dedi- cated May 21, 1810.
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