USA > New Jersey > A history of Baptists in New Jersey > Part 3
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Very rarely indeed do we meet such histories as these.
Under date of October, 1785, "agreed, that there should be a man hired at the expense of said Church members, for one, two or three months, as occasion may require, for the benefit and service of the Rev. Mr. Abel Morgan in his infirm and low state of body; and the expense of wages for the hire of said man so employed shall be levied on each mem- ber, according to their estates."
The next January (1786) Abel Morgan, their late pastor, being dead, the following minute is entered :- "Some repairs on the dwelling house of the late Abel Morgan not yet paid for: agreed, that each member shall be assessed according to their estates to pay the said costs." A memorial act, both of the Church and of the man, grander and more enduring than granite or iron.
Forty years later, in January, 1826, an act of justice and appre- ciation was performed to their living pastor, Thomas Roberts, quite in harmony with that done in behalf of their dead pastor. The sum of $300, besides the parsonage and his fuel, being stated as the salary pledged to Mr. Roberts for the year, the record continues :- "Now be it known, being satisfied that the money subscribed was intended by
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those who subscribed, for the said Thomas Roberts, and there being the past year paid to him by the trustees of said Church, the sum of $355.69, it is, therefore, considered as his do (due) for his service for the year ending January 1st, 1826." A like appreciation of pastors, and award to them of their "do," would diffuse an immense enjoyment in the Zion of God, and bear fruit in great and precious blessings upon her borders.
Of the residence of the pastors it is merely a supposition that Mr. Burrows and Abel Morgan occupied for a while the first parsonage at the "Upper Meeting-house." Samuel Morgan was the last pastor who resided in it. Mr. Hand lived in the Academy in Baptisttown, and taught the school there.
Mr. Elliot was the first occupant of the new parsonage, in the sum- mer of 1818. The church of which Mr. Elliot had been pastor, object- ed to his coming to Middletown, that he would have to live "in a house with mud walls." He came, however, landing at Brown's Point, and he made his home with Daniel Ketchum, near Baptisttown, until the parsonage was made habitable. Mr. King also lived in it. Mr. Roberts resided in it until 1826, when having bought a "place" north and east of the village of Middletown removed there.
A striking illustration of the pastor's personal influence in the neigh- borhood of his residence, and the bearing of his location upon the growth of the Church, is afforded in these records.
So far as I can determine, the locality of those who were added to the Church under Samuel Morgan's ministry, excepting the additions from Long Branch, a large proportion were in the vicinity of his resi- dence. Of the nineteen received by Mr. Elliot, fifteen were baptized at the "Upper House." Thirty were added during Mr. King's oversight of whom twenty-two were baptized at the "Upper House." The growth of the Church within the limits of the "Upper Congregation" was very marked down to 1826, when Pastor Roberts removed to his own home in "The Lower Congregation." The increase of the Church during the last ten years of his ministry in the communities in the midst of which he lived, manifests the power of the pastor's personal contact with the people about him. It i a significant memorial of the man, and satisfactory explanation of the greater numerical strength of "The Lower Congregation," at the division of the Church.
John Bray was a resident and property owner in 1688, the reputed year of the organization of the Church. Mr. Bray came from England. One of his descendants, Richard Bray, has a deed of 1688, of land to him, a part of the "Lawrence tract." He (John Bray) bought a part of the
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Holmes tract, lived and died upon it, having given the land on which the Church and parsonage are. The Church minutes speak of him as a "man of gifts." He was a preacher, but we do not know that he was or- dained; evidently an earnest man, he took a deep and active interest in the welfare of Zion.
To him we are indebted for the property in Holmdel-parsonage, meeting-house and burial grounds.
The grounds at Holmdel, including the parsonage and house of worship and burial ground, contain four and one-third acres, and were the gift of John Bray, already spoken of .*
Obadiah Bowne and ¡Jaret Wall in a deed of acknowledge- ment of trust, dated December 18, 1705, address themselves to "all Christian people," and declare " 'that John Bray and Susanna, his wife, on December 14, 1705, on mere special trust and confidence, for the only use, benefits and behoofs of the society, community or congregation called Baptists," gave, &c., describing the property; and further bind themselves to convey the property to the Church, when it shall have a legal existence. Not incorporated until December, 1793, the title was thus held for 88 years. The original deed of trust is now in the keeping of the Trustees, and is the oldest deed held by any Baptist Church in the States. This land, since bought from the Duke of York, has been owned by Baptists.
A house of worship and parsonage were built contemporaneously alongside of each other on the southwest corner of this property, imme- diately adjoining the burial grounds of the Bray family and of the Church .¿ By whom, and when, erected the Church record is silent.
The buildings were put up prior to 1705. The Baptist families in the vicinity probably contributed to their erection. From the little known of John Bray, he is supposed to have had considerable force of character as well as to have been large-hearted. We incline to the opinion that he bore the brunt of the cost of these buildings; from the fact that the Meeting-house was for many years known as the "Bray Meeting-house." In 1735, it is referred to in the Church book as "The
*Morgan Edwards, in his "Materials for the History of the Baptist Churches in New Jersey," states "that the ground was partly given by John Bray and partly by Obadiah and Jonathan Holmes." This is a mistake. Obadiah and Jonathan Holmes did not come into possession of their father's lands until after his decease in 1713, eight years subsequent to the date of the deed given by John Bray. Their father may have added to the Church lot and probably did.
+Ancestor of the late U. S. Senator Garret Wall, of New Jersey. Jaret, the original of Garret.
The great-grandson, of Holmdel Church, tells me that John Bray built both church and parsonage. This was certainly the first Baptist parsonage in New Jersey, and I feel quite sure, the first meeting house built by Baptists for their own use. Tradition says the first house at Middletown was built for town purposes, and the Church used it. This was the case of Piscataway.
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Old Meeting -House near John Bray's." Some who worshipped in that built at Middletown, have left word that they "were as much alike as two peas." "The Old Bray Meeting-house was probably the model of the other.
At a Church meeting, September 18th, 1794, Mr. Bennet, pastor, "A subscription was ordered for a new meeting-house on Bray's lot." No further mention is made of how much, or by whom, or by what means the funds were secured for this object. Fifteen years elapsed, years of trials and of constancy, when, October 29th, 1809, having worship- ped in the old house more than a century, the minutes read: The first Communion Season was held in the new meeting-house on Bray's lot." This was a dedicatory service. Beside the pastor, Mr. Bennet, Pastors Wilson, of Hightstown, and Boggs, of Hopewell, and Bishop, of "Upper Freehold" were present. Mr. Wilson, who, twenty-four years before had preached the funeral sermon of Abel Morgan, and, two days after, the ordination sermon of Samuel Morgan, and who was also one of the two ministers at the ordination of Mr. Bennet, preached on Lord's Day morning, from Psalm cxxxii: 15; Mr. Boggs, in the afternoon, from Exodus xx: 24. On Monday, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Boggs each preach- ed again. The house was thirty-six feet by forty-five. It has since undergone enlargements and improvements. Many interesting asso- ciations belong to the old sanctuary. Here, July, 1792, the Trustees were instructed to obtain an act of incorporation; and, at the same meet- ing, Mr. Bennet was called to ordination, "as a transient minister," not pastor, as is graven upon his tombstone. Six months later he was in- vested with the pastor's office. Mr. Bennet never was a member of the Middletown church.
An entry in July, 1816, reads: "Appointed John Beers to superin- tend the building of a house on the meeting-house lot of the upper house, commonly called the Bray Meeting-house, of the size of twenty-five feet square, two stories high-no ceiling overhead and the same John Beers to proceed in the business so far as the money raised will go." The same house is still the parsonage of the Holmdel Church, 1886. Like the house of worship by which it stands, it has been improved and enlarged at vari- ous times; but we know not at what expense or how provided for, ex- cept that in 1819, the Trustees ordered money at interest to be called in to pay the balance due on the building. A room was prepared in the house for the library of Abel Morgan, to which by vote of the Church, in June, 1818, it was ordered to be removed.
Elliot, King, Roberts, Hires, Nice, Mulford and Wilson have succes- sively occupied as a study this "prophet's room over against the wall." Prior to the separation of the church into two bands, in 1836, she owned
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no other parsonage Mr. Bennet alone, of all the pastors since 1705, is known not to have lived in either the first or second parsonage. A wood lot of twenty-two acres was bought by "The Upper Congregation," for uses of the Church, in 1825. Thenceforth, beside his salary in money, the pastor received the parsonage, and "his fuel carted to his door." Up to the present settlement this has continued to be "the portion" of the Holmdel pastors. When "The Upper Congregation" was organized into "The Second Middletown Church," this property, really theirs by gift and purchase of themselves, and which, for so many generations, they had freely given for the use of the whole Church, they bought for $550.00.
"The Upper Congregation," thus providing the parsonage, a house of worship, wood-lot, and incomes which, for a hundred years, made it possible to obtain and support with ease an able ministry, none would suppose it to be the same place and people which the sketch of First Middletown, in 1867, refers to, in the statement that the house built on Bray's lot, in 1808, was a "preaching station." With more propriety was the village of Middletown "a preaching station" visited by the pastors for one hundred years, on alternate Sabbaths.
The Church was equally identified with both places in every par- ticular of worship, ordinances and business meetings. The Middletown Church was not that body which met in the village of Middleton, but that which held its assemblies in the township from which it was named .*
Of the pastors who have died within the bounds of the Church, two, Abel Morgan, and Thomas Roberts, are buried at Middletown. Two, Samuel Morgan and Benjamin Bennet, are buried at Holmdel. Sam- uel Morgan, after his resignation, lived and died (1794) about a mile from the "Upper Meeting-house." Mr. Bennet died October 8th, 1840.
It has been said that this is a mistake: that Holmdel is a poetic name given at a town meeting, when a name was chosen for the Post Office. But I am informed by the oldest residents that Holmdel was a familiar and popular name, used interchangeably with Baptisttown long before that meeting.
Stout tract is identified as part of the Hendrickson and Longstreet farms, near Holmdel. Penelope Stout is believed to have been buried in an old grave yard nearly one hundred yards south of the residence of the late John S. Hendrickson.
*Middletown was probably named by the Holmes'. They had come from Middletown, Rhode Island, where the homestead farm of the first Obadiah was, and which Jonathan, his son, inherited by his father's will. The homestead in Rhode Island has only very lately passed out of the family.
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The farm on which the venerable James Crawford now lives was the homestead of Obadiah Boune, passing by marriage into the Craw- ford family.
Ancestor of Deacon G. Mott, First Church, Trenton, and father of Gen. Mott, of Bordentown.
A minister and ancestor of Ashton, the first Baptist in Upper Freehold.
In 1713, Rev. John Burrows, of Pennsylvania, became pastor, ac- cepting the advice of the Council of the former year and signed the Keach "articles of faith and covenant." Rev. George Eaglesfield followed in 1731. Allusion is made to his death, 1733. Five years later, 1738, Abel Morgan settled as pastor, remaining till his death, November 24th, 1785, forty-seven years. He was abundant in labors; traveling far and wide and devoted himself untiringly to the great field under his care.
The American revolution occurred in his pastorate. His meeting- house was used by the English for barracks or for a hospital. He states in his diary: While the house of worship was in their use, "I preached at Middletown in mine own barn, because the enemy had took out all the seats in the meeting-house." "At Middletown" meant on his farm opposite Red Bank, the river being the boundary between Middletown and Shrewsbury. Mr. Morgan did not keep account of the number of sermons he had preached, nor a record of how many he had baptized. His diary notes more than forty places in which he preached. Mr. Morgan bequeathed his library of three hundred volumes to the Church for the use of his successors. The big volumes were printed in Latin and his marginal notes showed that the books had been well read. His manuscript preparations of sermons, each numbered and dated, were ten thousand were also given to the Church. By its order, a room was prepared in the parsonage at "The Upper Meet- ing-house" (Holmdel). But in 1837 Pastor Stout found what was left of them in the garret of the house of a member of another denomination. When Pastor Roberts moved from the parsonage to his farm, the volumes were taken from their proper place, but whereto is not known. The remains of the library are now in Peddie Institute library. Some of the books are very old: One, an edition of Cicero's works, was printed in 1574; John Calvin's works, were printed at Geneva in 1617. On a flyleaf in Mr. Morgan's writing are these lines:
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"Prayer contains in its several parts:
"Call upon God, and love, confess, 'Petition, plead and then declare;
"You are the Lord's, give thanks and bless,
"And let Amen, confirm ye prayer."
A contemporary styled Abel Morgan: "The incomparable Abel Morgan," as the Rev. Mr. Finley, President of Princeton College, found out to his sorrow. Alike as missionary and workman, his wisdom and piety are memorials of a noble life and of noble accomplishments for God and humanity. He was of the same class in activity as Benjamin Miller, Isaac Stelle, Peter Wilson, Robert Kelsay and in scholarship equal to any one. Providentially contemporary with Abel Morgan's settlement in 1738, at Middletown, was the death of Jonathan Holmes, Jr., son of Jonathan Holmes, of Middletown, now Holmdel, a grand- son of Obadiah Holmes, of precious memory. He was a minister, whether ordained or not is not written. Having settled his affairs and made his will, he visited the home of his fathers in England, in 1737. On the return voyage, he died at sea, 1738. He bequeathed £400 to the Church, a great sum in those days. Samuel Holmes, James Tap- scott, and Jamas Mott were his executors. The carefulness and integ- rity of these men and of their successors usually acting trustees of the Church up to its incorporation as is shown by its records, is the highest memorial of their Christian character and commends them to us as men whose memory is worth keeping.
It was loaned to Abel Morgan and he was enabled to live in his own house. It was repaid in the settlement of his estate. Samuel Morgan had the use of it, returning it when he resigned. It was husbanded and used to ensure the labors of Mr. Bennett for twenty-two years. In 1881, it was diverted from the support of the pastor, and part of it appropriated to complete the parsonage at "The Upper Meeting House." The balance, we imagine, was invested in the houses of worship now in use in Holmdel and in the village of Middletown. Let the memory of Jonathan Holmes and John Bray be cherished. Their works remain a blessing to the generations of men.
It has been a question how, through the fluctuations and poverty of a new country, the wreck of all financial interests in the Revolution, Middletown, a small country Church, could command for its pulpit and retain in long pastorates, the best gifts of the denomination. The gift of Church properties and parsonage, and the use of the legacy of Jona- than Holmes, Jr., solve the problem.
Abel Morgan was succeeded by his nephew, Samuel Morgan. De- spite the calamities under which the country was suffering at the close
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of the Revolution, his ministry was as fruitful as was anticipated and for diligence, all that could be rightfully asked. He kept up all the ap- pointments of the Church and sustained its usefulness and dignity in the six years of his service, dying in 1794, two years after his re- signation.
In 1792, Mr. Benjamin Bennett was called to be the pastor and was ordained as a "transient minister." He was a good preacher and an enterprising farmer. He first used marl as a fertilizer. Limiting him- self to Holmdel and Middletown village, he gave up the out stations. Had he followed up the work of Abel and Samuel Morgan, we would have had a large Church at Long Branch. There were many Baptists there and in other places within his reach. He had the opportunity of his life for God and humanity. It would have cost, however, self deni- als. The roads were "bridle paths" through the haunts of wild beasts and Indians. A settler's home might not be seen from morning to night. The loneliness of these long rides and the liability to suffer harm far from help, gives to us an appreciation of the men and of their services, who laid the foundations of our denominational growth, and of our attain- ment, in education, numbers and social place equal to any other Chris- tian people. About 1815, Mr. Bennett dropped into politics, was elected to Congress and that closed up his pastorate and his preaching.
During an intermission in the pastorate, Mr. Hand, a licentiate, principal of the Holmdel Academy "supplied" the Church for several years, most acceptably until, in 1818, when Mr. Elliot became pastor. The Church of which Mr. Elliot was pastor when called to Middletown, objected to his going to Holmdel: "That he would have to live in a house with mud walls," the new parsonage. Mr. Elliot was a desirable pastor to the people with whom he was. They believed him worthy of the best things. Mr. Elliot proved to be an efficient pastor; a man who could see and value a good thing. He found at Holmdel a Sunday- school, which Mrs. A. B. Taylor had formed in her own house in 1815. She was a member of the Middletown church of the "Upper Congrega- tion." Mr. Elliot at once started a Sunday-school in the church edifice at Holmdel. Fuller account of Mrs. Ann B. Taylor and her work in the missions and Sunday-schools will be found in chapters on Bible Schools and Missions.
How long Mr. Elliot was pastor is not clear. A Mr. King followed him, remaining about three years and disappeared mid two days; a bad man. There was a great contrast between him and Rev. Thomas Roberts who settled in 1825 and after a pastorate of twelve years, resigned, in 1837. Mr. Roberts was a good preacher, as well as a wise man. Several of his sermons were demanded for publi-
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cation. The fruits of his ministry were large and of abiding value.
Increase of population and of the congregations, and the demand for more ministerial labor in the bounds of the Church, had prior to 1834, led to the inquiry: How to meet the increasing claims of the field? A separation into two bands was an unwelcome subject. The breaking of ties that had been entwining for fifty years was to some un- endurable. The fearful saw ruin in separation. It was doubtful to the pastor if the time had come when two Churches could be sustained and occupy the field as well as the undivided body. Discussion ripened into action in the fall of 1834, when an invitation was sent to Rev. D. B. Stout, settled at Lambertville, to visit the Church, with a view of becoming joint pastor with Mr. Roberts. He came. The way was not yet fully prepared, and he returned home. Early in 1836, the Church sent a request to Rev. Wm. D. Hires, residing at South Trenton, to visit them. Having done so in due time, he accepted their call to a joint pastorate with Mr. Roberts.
After six months, "The Lower Congregation" worshiping in "The Lower House," in the village of Middletown, and "The Upper Congregation" taking the title of "Second Middletown," was recognized as an independent Church, September 1st, 1836, by a Council consisting of Pastors Roberts, and Hires, of Middle- town; C. J. Hopkins, of Freehold, and J. M. Challis, of Upper Freehold.
Mr. Roberts remained with "The Lower Congregation," in the midst of which he lived. Mr. Hires retained the oversight of "The Up- per," amid which he resided, receiving the same salary as had been paid by the whole body to Mr. Roberts.
Mr. Roberts had left the parsonage open for Mr. Hires; this, prob- ably, decided the location of the pastors. Mr. Roberts, knowing whence the support of the pastor came, gave another instance of self denial and real piety. Had the old Church divided, the historical truth of Middletown Church would have been preserved in its true relationship and the names of the constituency of Middletown would not have been found outside of itself, mainly in Holmdel and Upper Freehold and in Hopewell.
Upon the resignation of Mr. Roberts, "The Lower Congregation" called Rev. D. B. Stout and he began his charge in 1837. Mr. Stout had already been impressed with antinomian ideas, but new relations modi- fied his views, being a man open to convictions. These came to him through Rev. F. Ketchum, an eminent evangelist of his times, through whose co-operative labors, Pastor Stout baptized in one year two hundred and thirty-six. Mr. Stout was a loveable man, unassuming,
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genial, amiable and a preacher of righteousness. Not having had scholastic training, he did not make any pretense to it. His in- fluence was wholesome, having what is better than brains or education, "good sound common sense." Being human, he had faults and made mistakes. Mr. Stout was born at Hopewell in 1810, a place identified with the names of Eaton, Manning, Gano, and Hezekiah Smith. Pas- tor Stout was a descendant of Richard Stout. In a ministry of forty-
three years, he had two settlements: Lambertville, of which his father was a deacon and for years its only male member; where Mr. Stout had lived from early youth, been baptized, licensed, ordained as pastor, which he was for five years. Thence going to Middletown, where he was pastor thirty-eight years till his death on May 17th, 1875. He was a constituent of the New Jersey Baptist State Conven- tion and a member of its Board from its origin, till he died forty-five years, a longer time than any other had been. Four Churches were col- onised from Middletown where he was pastor. He was buried in the church yard, where Mr. Roberts had been and to which Abel Morgan's remains were removed in 1888. His successors have been E. J. Foote, 1876-82; the first pastor who lived in Middletown village, a new parson- age being built there in 1876; Rev. F. A. Douglass, 1883-6; Rev. E. E. Jones, 1887-92.
Under Mr. Jones, sheds were provided for the beasts, which brought the people to the house of God and he also had a baptistry put in the house of worship and for the first time in more than two hundred years the ordinance of baptism was administered in the village. In 1893, Rev. W. H. J. Parker became pastor and ministered ten years to the Church, till 1904.
"The Upper Congregation" had a large place in Baptist beginnings in New Jersey. The first Baptist Sunday-school in the State was begun there and all missionary societies and nearly all the contributions abroad came from that quarter. "The Lower Congregation" was solicited from there. The writer has the original subscription books and Sunday- school reports given to him by Mrs. Ann B. Taylor in her eightieth year for safe keeping. They will be given to her grandson, Prof. B.
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