USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > Raritan > Forty years at Raritan : eight memorial sermons with notes for a history of the Reformed Dutch churches in Somerset County, N.J. > Part 27
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A colleague had been provided for him just before he died, but had not yet been installed. The Rev. John De Witt ministered at Millstone from 1850 to 1863, when he was chosen Professor of Languages in the Seminary at New-Brunswick, and was suc- cceded by the present incumbent, Rev. E. Tanjore Corwin.
In 1855, the congregation was divided, and the inhabitants on the east side of the river became organized as the Church of East-Millstone. Giles Vandewall served them for two years, Rev. David Cole for five years, Rev. Mr. Berger for three years, Rev. Mr. Phraner for two or more, and Rev. Mr. Williams is the present incumbent, and the church is prosperous.
THE CHURCH OF BEDMINSTER.
BEDMINSTER was originally an outpost of Raritan, and the necessity of a church there grew out of the settlement of certain families of influence in that vicinity. We may mention Jacobus and . Peter Vanderveer, Matthew Lane, Guisbert Sutphin, and others as among these families. The first record which remains,
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having reference to the church at Bedminster, is found in the Book of Minutes belonging to the church at Raritan, and is dated December 25th, 1758. It is in the handwriting of J. R. Harden- bergh, and recites that at a meeting of the consistories of North- Branch, Neshanie, Bedminster, Millstone, and Raritan, at the house of J. R. Hardenbergh, in Somerville, Dominies Leydt and Hardenbergh, "a proponent," being present, when it is stated, among other things, that the elders, Jacob Banta and Jacob Van- derveer, and the deacons, Rynier Van Neste and Cornelius Lane, were chosen as overseers (opsienderen) for the first time in the congregation of Bedminster. This, then, is the first consistory, and this is properly the organization of the Church of Bed- minster.
The next is dated December 13th, 1759, and proceeds to fix upon a line between Bedminster and Raritan, and states that this shall be the lane or line running easterly and westerly between Paulus Auten and Hendrick Van Arsdalen, provided the persons on either side were willing to go to Bedminster or Raritan respec- tively. Again, June 24th, 1759, the following persons were ap- pointed " helpers" in the respective congregations : For Raritan, Cornelius Kozyne; Bedminster, Fredrick Banta; Millstone, Jaco- bus Van Arsdalen.
In 1761, November 25th, at a meeting of the consistory of Bed- minster, at the house of Jacob Vanderveer, Johannes Haas and Jan Voorhees were admitted to communion on confession of their faith, and Matthew Lane by certificate.
March 8th, 1762, Jacob Vanderveer was continued as an elder, and John Voorhees chosen deacon, in the place of Rynier Van Neste.
December 31st, 1764, Maria Folkerson, wife of Folkert Folkerson, Maria Woertman, wife of Jan Woertman, and Cathrine Bordt, wife of N. N. Bordt, were admitted to communion on confession of faith, and on the 1st of April were baptized. We have gather- ed these items from the minnte-book of the Raritan Church, in the handwriting of Dr. Hardenbergh.
There are no records which enable us to determine when the first house of worship was built, but it was probably commenced that same year, or the next at furthest, making its date 1759 or 1760. 4
It was built upon land donated by Jacobus Vanderveer. It
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was a wooden structure, and stood fronting to the south on the same ground upon which the present church stands. The front door was directly opposite the pulpit, and the galleries were in the two ends. It was longer in front than in depth, never painted, but had a board ceiling and pews, and in its general appearance resembled the old church at Readington, after which it was pro- bably patterned. It stood until 1816, when it was removed to make way for a new building.
The present register of baptisms dates November 15th, 1801, when the ministry of John Schureman began, and has been con- tinued until the present. The first infant, baptized was Jane, daughter of Peter Lane; and the same day Simon Ilageman, John Van Duyn, Cornelius Powelson, and Cornelius Doty had their children baptized.
The history of the church of Bedminster is involved in that of the church of Raritan- from its first organization, in 1758, to the close of the ministry of Theodor F. Romeyn. It had one third part of the services of Dr. Hardenbergh, as well as of Romeyn, during this period extending to 1787. Then Peter Studdiford supplied it, in connection with Readington, for thirteen years up to 1800. From the time when John Duryea resigned his call at Raritan he served this church, in connection with an unorganized body of hearers at Potterstown and White House, for a year or more. During all this time the most of what was done in receiv- ing members into the communion and choosing elders and deacons is to be sought for in the records of these more promi- nent churches. The pastors recorded, as was natural, in the Book of Minutes of their own churches the ministerial acts they performed in Bedminster. But the days of its pupilage were now ended. It had grown into prosperity scanty as the supply of spiritual food had been, and felt the developing energies of mature life. It determined to call a pastor of its own.
The individual upon whom their choice centred was John Schureman, a native of New-Brunswick, a graduate of Queen's College, a pupil and friend of Dr. Livingston, and a descendant of that Schureman who came over from Holland with Theodorus .Jacobus Frelinghuysen in 1720 as a friend, an assistant, and a teacher. His call was dated Nov. 13th, 1800. HIe wasin the 23d year of his age when he accepted, and gave to Bedminster the freshness of his mind as well as his religious affections. That
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such a young man as Schureman was should be greatly admired and more loved in Bedminster was no more natural than it was necessary. His memory is yet cherished in many households, and his name connected with not a few. He served the church faithfully for six and a half years, and went on, being called, to Millstone; to New-York, after being there only two years, and then to New- Brunswick and to an early grave in 1818, regretted by all who knew him. His dismission is dated May 25th, 1807.
In July, 1808, Charles Hardenbergh was called from Warwick, New-York, and served until May, 1820, twelve years, and then went to New-York City as pastor of the church in Greenwich Village, and died there of yellow fever after a little more than a year's service. Ilis remains were first deposited in a vault belonging to the church, but were subsequently removed to Woodlawn Cemetery, and the tablet erected to his memory inserted in a monument, where it can yet be seen. He did a great work in Bedminster; a new church was built in 1817 and 1818, a classical school founded, and the cause of education generally encouraged and elevated. The sermon which he preached at the dedication of the church, April 18th, 1818, was published, and remains an evidence of his scholarship as well as his piety. It has become exceedingly scaree.
Charles Hardenbergli was a native of Rosendale, in the County of Ulster, and was a direct lineal descendant of Johannes Hardenbergh, the proprietor of the Hardenbergh Patent, and was born about 1780. He studied under Dr. Froeligh and was licensed by the Classis of Paramus in 1802. He preached as a candidate for more than a year in several churches, and finally settled in 1804 in the church at Warwiek. Here he was ordained and commenced his pastoral work. He came to Bedminster a comparatively young man. He had a fine presence and a nobly developed person. His voice was sonorous and sweet, and his accentuation proper, impressive, and indicative of fine taste. It was his habit, in discussing any point, to glide away from argu- ment and illustration into a strain of devotion. In this way one third of his sermon was in reality a prayer. The effect was often impressive and solemn. He was in the effects he produced a winning preacher. His countenance preached; and his voice and accentuation had as much effect as his matter. This, however, was always sensible and scriptural. Under his labors the
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church grew to be one of the largest and most efficient congre- gations in Somerset County. It was a day of weeping in Bed- minster when he left, and there were many who never hoped ever to sec his like again.
After remaining vaeant for one year, the church, July, 1821, called the candidate Isaac Morehead Fisher. He came to Bed- minster in his youth, served faithfully for seventeen years, went away for one year, and came back to her with her second call to him in his hand, and died February 14th, 1840, aged 44 years. Mr. Fisher was a native of New-York City, and was born in 1796. Ile graduated at Columbia College 1817, and from the Theological Seminary at New-Brunswick, and was licensed in 1820. Mr. Fisher was a zealous, earnest man, and did his work in the spirit of a devoted Christian man. He was a powerful and im- pressive preacher, highly evangelical and practical in his matter and in the tone in which he put it forth. In the pulpit he was active, full of gesture and varied in the intonations of his voice. He made you feel that he was in earnest and desirous of convinc- ing every one of his hearers. He had a military air, and his walk and action indicated authority, self-reliance, and command. Yet he was genial, social, and attractive in his familiar inter- course. He wrote his sermons, especially in his younger years, and delivered them memoriter; hence there was freedom, fullness, and command of language, which became at times truly impres- sive. He was rigidly orthodox, and had the system of Christian theology fully before his mind in all his parts, and he was a man of many sorrows. Dr. Ferris, his classmate, said of him, " He was a capital theologian and a most able defender of the doctrines of our church. No man among us in the seminary was so familiar with the system of Dr. Livingston and could more intelligently explain and illustrate it. His critical acumen had been sharp- ened by the great Hopkinsian controversy, which had pervaded the New-York churches a few years before ; and with all its points, both theological and metaphysical, he had made himself at home. A most honest and upright man in his principles, he enjoyed the confidence of all who knew him, and the remarkably upright physical man seemed the index of the spirit within." He was, as we ourselves can well testify, all this. His people mourned him truly when they carried him to the grave. His wife had preceded him, and there was only one son left behind. On his
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tomb you read, "This tomb covers the mortal remains of Rev. Isaac M. Fisher and Margaret C. Martin, his wife. They departed this life, the former on the 14th of February, 1840, aged 44 years ; and the latter on the 31st of March, 1838, aged 42 years."
Rev. J. M. Fisher was succeeded, in October, 1842, by George Schenck, a candidate just from the Seminary of New-Brunswick, who ministered to the congregation for twelve years and then died. He was born at Matteawan, New-York, in 1816, graduated at Yale College in 1837, and was licensed by the Classis of Poughkeepsie in 1840.
Mr. Schenek was ordained and installed pastor at Bedminster in the presence of the Classis of New-Brunswick, then in session, December 25th, 1840. Rev. J. C. Sears, of Six-Mile Run, preached the sermon. Rev. Dr. Messler, of Somerville, gave the charge to the pastor, and the Rev. J. K. Campbell, of North-Branch, the charge to the people.
Rev. George Sehenek, when he assumed this extensive charge, was just from the seminary, a man in feeble health and lame; but he proved himself one of the most efficient pastors. He was a small man in stature, but not in mind or in temperament. A friend characterizes him as " an humble, meek, and fervent Chris- tian, marked by more than an ordinary degree of spirituality, yet of a lively disposition, of a ready wit, and a foe to sanctimo- niousness. He was a man of unbending integrity, and strictly conscientious in all his sentiments. He possessed great acti- vity and perseverance. His small and diseased frame con- tained as brave and resolute a spirit as ever came from the Almighty's hand. He had warm sympathies and great tender- ness of feeling, and was devoted in his work. He spoke the whole truth with faithfulness and pungency, not fearing the face of man. Yet his fidelity was unmixed with harshness. The love of souls glowed in his heart and the law of kindness was on his lips. With a good intellect and habits of study his public services were instructive and interesting."
The following is the inscription on his tomb: "Sacred to the memory of Rev. George Schenck, born January 27th, 1816, died July 7th, 1852. He was pastor of this church eleven years." His health had been enfeebled, but he died suddenly. He was suc- ceeded by Rev. William Brush in September, 1852, who served
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the congregation thirteen years and resigned December, 1865. He is now pastor of the church of Fordham, New-York. The pre- sent pastor, the Rev. Charles H. Pool, was installed over the congregation in July, 1866.
In connection with Bedminster it is natural to think of Rev. Robert J. Blair, who was born and educated within the precincts. of the congregation, and died and is interred in the graveyard at- tached to the church. He was the son of John J. Blair, Esq., of the Cross Roads, and born December 8th, 1800. Ilis classical learning was obtained at the academy near the church, of which he was principal for a time. He taught some time in Accomac County, Virginia, on the eastern shore; studied theology in the seminary at New-Brunswick, and was licensed by the Classis of New-Brunswick, in 1823. He served as a domestic mis- sionary until 1825 at Prinectown, Guilderland, and Salem, in Albany County, was settled in Helderburgh from 1825 to 1830. His health failed him, and he went first to Georgia, then to the Island of St. Thomas, West-Indies, but returned to his native place a confirmed invalid, and died January 19th, 1858.
" IIe is remembered," writes a friend, "for his eminently con- sistent life as a Christian, and as a minister of Christ; for the evangelical character of his preaching, and his zeal. Meek and inoffensive as he was, few men have been more faithful in the dis- charge of pastoral duty, preaching the Gospel by the wayside, and from house to house. Few men have been more willing to speak to their fellow-men for their good, and for the honor of the Master.
" It pleased God that he should glorify him by patient suffering, often intense, for many years. But few of his friends at the time of his death ever knew him as a well man. Ile was for weeks to- gether the welcome guest of many families, in different parts of New-York and New-Jersey, which still retain the sweet savor of his godly example and pious conversation. His latter years were spent in Bedminster, where he finally fell asleep." R. D. V. K.
The writer of these sketches preached his funeral sermon, in the village of Pluckemin at the house of the lady-a cousin-who nursed him and cared for him until he died-from 2 Timothy 4 : 6, 7. On his tombstone is engraved, " Rev. Robert J. Blair. Died Jan uary 19, 1858, aged 61 years, 8 months, and 11 days." .
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LEBANON-ROCKAWAY IN LEBANON.
THE church at Lebanon has a twofold history-first as a German Reformed, and second as a Dutch Reformed Church. Originally it was formed out of German emigrants, who are said to have come from the vicinity of Halberstadt, in Saxony. They left their native land in 1705, and removed, in the first instance, to Neuweid, on the Rhine. From thence they came to Holland ; and in 1707 sailed for America, intending to land at New-Am- sterdam, or New-York, and to settle among the Hollanders either in New-York or New-Jersey. But adverse winds finally brought them to the mouth of Delaware Bay, and to the city of Philadel- phia. Fully bent still on their original purpose, they set forth to reach their intended destination by land. Traveling up through Pennsylvania, they crossed the Delaware at New-Hope and Lam- bertsville, and by "the old York road" came to Ringoes, in Hunterdon County, and thence to Lebanon Valley and German Valley. Not probably all at the same time, or all in the same company, but from time to time, others following on in the foot- steps of the first pioneers.
The first unquestioned documentary notice which we have of a colony of Germans settled in that part of our State is from the journal of the Rev. Michael Schlatter, a missionary sent by the Classis of Amsterdam to the Germans in Pennsylvania. Under date July, 1747, he says, " When I had safely arrived at home on the 3d, I found a very earnest and moving letter written by several congregations in the Province of New-Jersey, viz., at Rockaway, Fox-hill, and Amwell, in the region of the Raritan, distant about seventy miles from Philadelphia. They urge me with the strongest motives,-yea, they pray me for God's suke, to come over and pay them a visit, that I may administer to them the Lord's Supper, and by baptism incorporate their children with the church, who have already during three or more years remained without baptism."
" Rockaway," mentioned in this extract, was the first name of what is now " the Reformed Church of Lebanon." Amwell, after having been sustained as a German Reformed Church for seventy years, became a Presbyterian Church, and Dr. Kirkpatrick minis- tered in it half a century and more, and Fox-hill is now the Presbyterian Church in German Valley, unless, perhaps, we
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should say it is a church of the Presbyterian order by itself. Mr. Schlatter continues, " On the 13th, I undertook the journey to the three congregations in New-Jersey, from which I had, on the 3d of July, received a most friendly and pressing invitation to meet them. On the 14th, after a journey of sixty miles, I came to Rockaway. Here I received twenty young persons into the church as members, after they had made a profession of their faith ; preached a preparatory sermon on the 15th, and on the following day administered the Holy Supper in a small church to an at- tentive and reverent assembly."
He went next day to Fox-hill and performed the same services, and then preached what he calls "a thanksgiving sermon after the communion." On the 20th he returned to his home in Phila- delphia, "joyful in heart and giving thanksgiving to God for the support which he had rendered me." He adds, "I can not re- frain from referring, briefly, to the fact that these three congrega- tions, from gratitude for the services I had rendered them, handed me a pecuniary reward ; and this was the first money which, . since my arrival in America up to this time, I have received from any congregation for my labor and pains." Certainly it is well that he recorded this in their praise.
We have, then, this important guiding historical fact, that in 1747 the inhabitants of Lebanon had built for themselves "a small church," in which they worshiped the God of their fathers according to their German Protestant faith. Whatever previous members there may have been, now they had an addition of twenty to the number. This house, no doubt, stood in the old burying-ground, and was antecedent to the old Rockaway Church, in which Caspar Wack, until the year 1809, preached and admi- nistered the Holy Sacrament.
Michael Schlatter, the first missionary to the Pennsylvania Germans, was born at St. Gall, in Switzerland, July 14th, 1716. He received a portion of his early education at Helinstadt, in the Duchy of Brunswick, but was fully educated and admitted into the ministerial office in Holland about 1745. IIe was soon after commissioned by the Synods of North and South-Holland a missionary to the Germans in Pennsylvania, and sailed on his mission on the 1st of June, 1746. He landed at Boston early in August, went thence to New-York, and thence to Philadelphia. Boston contained at that time, according to his estimate, about
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3000 houses, and was the largest city in the colonies. New-York had only about 2000. Philadelphia had seven streets running north and south, and seven running east and west, and about 10,000 inhabitants, and was the second city in the English posses- sions in North-America.
Ile made his home in Philadelphia, and became pastor of the German Reformed church in the city, in connection with another at Germantown. He was, however, rather a traveling missionary generally among the Germans in Pennsylvania, visiting them in their towns, and organizing churches as he found materials in their various settlements. He is, indeed, the father of the German Reformed Church in the United States of our day. He finally organized the churches which he had planted into a Coetus, and went to Holland and Germany in 1751, and secured for them £20,000 in money and 700 Bibles ; and £20,000 in addition were given him by George II. of England and his nobility. He died at Barren Hill, near Philadelphia, in 1790, full of years and honors, a good man, full of zeal and piety.
Schlatter visited the churches in New-Jersey again in June, 1788, and administered the Holy Sacrament, and again the third time on the 11th and 12th of October, the same year, and still a fourth time from the 22d to the 27th of May, 1749, and a fifth and last time in June, 1750, the same year that John Frelinghuy- sen came to settle at Raritan.
None of the churches in New-Jersey, it would appear, received any part of the money which was brought from Europe; for Schlatter reported that they were " able themselves to provide properly for the support of a minister, and also willing, with great cheerfulness, to do it ;" and added, before the Synod of North-Holland, that Fox-hill, together with Rockaway, "im- plores earnestly that God may at length send forth a faithful laborer into this harvest."
This prayer was soon answered in the coming of a pastor. The first permanent minister of the Church of Rockaway, in connec- tion with German Valley, was John Conrad Wirtz. He was a native of Switzerland, born in Zurich. He had emigrated to Pennsylvania before Schlatter came, and had been preaching with- out ordination somewhere in the vicinity of Easton. He appealed to Schlatter to ordain him ; but failing to obtain his consent, ap- plied to the Presbytery of New-Brunswick, and was ordained by
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them in 1752. He had been preaching in the churches of Rocka- way and German Valley two years before he was in this way admitted to the pastoral office. ITis memory has passed away almost completely from the present living, and the only tradition that has been given of him is in reference to his having preached at Rockaway that "marriage was a sacrament," in the sense of the Romish Church, a doctrine not received by the people.
In 1762, after ministering to the churches of Rockaway and German Valley for twelve years, he removed to York, in Pennsyl- vania. There his name is remembered, and "has the savor of his having been a good and pious minister."
In the mean time, Rev. William Kalls, who had been set- tled in Philadelphia, and had supplied Amwell from 1757 to 1759, seems to have preached occasionally, at least in the Rockaway Church. Then came Caspar Michael Stapel; then John Westley Gilbert Nevelling, also from Amwell, gave an . occasional service to the destitute church ; then Frederick Dalli- ker had Lebanon in connection with German Valley, Alexander, and Foxenburg, (Foxhill.) His services extended from 1770 to 1782. In 1782, Caspar Wack entered upon the pastoral charge of Rockaway, in connection with German Valley and Foxhill, and served these three churches until the year 1809, when he removed to Whitemarsh, Pa., where he died in 1839. He was a native- born American. His father emigrated from Wittenberg, Ger- many, to Philadelphia in 1748. Caspar Wack was born August 15th, 1752, and studied under Dr. Weybergh. Ile is represented as displaying in early life remarkable talents, and as having had " numerous" calls offered to him for his services when he was only eighteen years of age. His licensure was deferred to obtain the consent of the classis in Holland, to which all the German churches acknowledged subjection. He was invited to come over to Holland, and promised a free passage, but he declined to at- tempt this. In 1771, when he was nineteen years of age, he was examined and licensed as a candidate by the Coetus, as is evident from the following minute : "Mr. Wack was examined in the truths of God's word and as to the way of salvation, and, having rendered full satisfaction to the reverend Coetus, it was resolved that he should continue to catechise and preach in these congrega- tions [Tohicken, Indianfield, and Great Swamp,] as heretofore. His ordination, however, shall be deferred, for the present, till the reverend fathers [the classis] have been consulted in regard
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