History of the First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City, New Jersey : in four discourses preached in the month of July, 1876; also, the discourse preached at the close of services in the church building, Sunday morning, April 29, 1888, Part 4

Author: Imbrie, Charles Kisselman, 1814-1891
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: New York : Randolph
Number of Pages: 152


USA > New Jersey > Hudson County > Jersey City > History of the First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City, New Jersey : in four discourses preached in the month of July, 1876; also, the discourse preached at the close of services in the church building, Sunday morning, April 29, 1888 > Part 4


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With what particular person the idea originated of under- taking the novel enterprise of conveying a stone edifice so far and reproducing it in its original proportions, I do not know; although, as I said, it is quite certain that it came from this side of the river .* The building originally stood on the north side of Wall Street, between Broadway and Nassau Street, and nearly opposite New Street.


And now, as the enterprise was a novel one, and espe- cially as this beautiful building, which has so long been an ornament to our city, has a history, I may turn aside in closing this discourse to speak a few words of what was the First Presbyterian Church of the city of New York.


The history of the church building which we occupy goes back to the very rise of Presbyterian worship in the city of New York, and hence we must extend our view to that point. The rise of the Presbyterian Church in New York dates from the year 1707, almost one hundred years before the beginnings of Presbyterian preaching, as I have shown you, in Jersey City. The materials for forming such a church in New York at that time were a number of French Protestant Huguenots and of Presbyterians from Scotland and Ireland. The first motion toward organic life was in the preaching of two Presbyterian ministers- the Rev. Francis McKemie and the Rev. John Hampton from Virginia, in the house of Mr. William Jackson, in the lower part of Pearl Street. These gentlemen were arrested by the order of Lord Cornbury,t Governor of New York province, for preaching without a license in the province. Mr. McKemie was confined two months, and after trial, though set free, was sentenced to pay as costs £83 7s. 6d. This was in 1707. This persecution did not kill Presbyte- rianism, however. The congregation worshipped in private houses. Ten years later the first organization took place.


* Mr. Andrew Clerk's recollection was, I believe, that it was first proposed by Mr. David Henderson.


t Disosway's "Earliest Churches of New York," p. 131.


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First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City.


In 1717 John Nicholl, Patrick McKnight, Gilbert Simpson, and Thomas Smith, with a few others, were organized as a Presbyterian church and connected with the Presbytery of Philadelphia. They called the Rev. James Anderson, of that Presbytery, who was thus the first settled Presbyterian minister of New York City.


About this time a small diversion was made by some who preferred the usages of the New England churches. An inconsiderable number left the new organization and were served by Mr. Jonathan Edwards, then a young man of 19, and afterward the world-wide-known President Edwards of Northampton Church and of Princeton College. This di- vision, however, soon. subsided. Mr. Edwards declined to remain, and the party who had withdrawn returned. The Wall Street church was thus always Presbyterian, and never Congregational, as has been asserted.


The First Presbyterian Church of New York at first wor- shipped in the City Hall, which then stood where now the United States Treasury building stands, at the corner of Nassau and Wall Streets. And they continued there about three years. * They were not, however, all this time with- out thinking of building. In 1718, or one year after their organization, they had purchased lots on Wall Street, near Broadway, the same site on which the building we now oc- cupy formerly stood. And in 1719 the first Presbyterian house of worship in that city was built. Funds for the purpose were obtained not only in this country, but from abroad. A charter was obtained from " the Council." But the Vestry of Trinity Church interfered. They had great influ- ence at court, and the authorities for more than half a cen- tury refused a charter of incorporation to the Presbyterian Church in New York, and what was more, they thus pre- vented the church from receiving as a corporate body any legacies. I ought to add now, that this act of intolerance on the part of Trinity was more than atoned for, however,


* Disosway's "Earliest Churches," p. 133, et seq.


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when (after the war of the Revolution) the Vestry of that church generously opened their doors-St. George's and St. Paul's chapels-to the Presbyterians of Wall Street and of the Brick Church, whose edifices had been left by the British untenantable, to hold regular services. And these were used by the Presbyterians until the year 1784. And especially was it atoned for when the same Vestry donated, for the support of the oldest Presbyterian minister in New York, a house in Beekman Street, the interest of which (about $500, I believe,) was enjoyed for years by the Rev. Gardiner Spring, D.D., and since his death is to-day, I be- lieve, received by the Rev. Dr. McElroy, the oldest living minister now in New York .* As the authorities denied incor- poration the Presbyterians were obliged to vest their title for building and ground in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. And so the title stood for sixty years, or until after the Revolution, and then the Trustees of the General Assembly reconveyed the property to the Trustees of the Wall Street church.| The building thus erected in Wall Street in 1719 remained until 1748.


And now we reach the interesting occasion for erecting the second Wall Street edifice. In 1740 the Rev. George Whitefield came to America. The Rev. Ebenezer Pemberton had been, from 1726, the pastor of the Wall Street church, in the place of Rev. Mr. Anderson, who had resigned. And Mr. Pemberton was the only minister in New York who would open his pulpit to Whitefield. To this congregation


* In 1876.


+ " William Smith, in his ' History of the Province of New York,' published in London, 1757, states that the grant of a charter of in- corporation was refused by Col. Schuyler, also by Gov. Barbour, and those who held the title to the church property in Wall Street con- veyed it March 16, 1730, to the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; and the General Assembly, August 15, 1732, executed, under seal, an instrument declaring that the property was held for the use of the Presbyterians residing in or near New York." (Notes in MS. by Hon. B. F. Randolph.)


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in Wall Street thus is due the honor, under God, of paving the way for Whitefield's influence in New York. The effect of Whitefield's preaching, in the additions to the Wall Street church, was so great that the house became too strait for the families of worshippers. And this led to the construc- tion of the second Wall Street building, which was the same one of 1719 thoroughly renewed and enlarged in 1748. Mr. William Smith, in his "History of New York," pub- lished 1757, just referred to,* describes this reconstructed building as "being of stone, railed off from the street, 80 feet long and 60 wide. The steeple was raised on the south- west end (i. e., in front and toward Broadway), and was 145 feet high."


The congregation in 1757 consisted of from twelve to fourteen hundred souls, and was under the charge of the Rev. David Bostwick. And then Mr. Smith adds what I want you particularly to note: "In the front, toward the street, between two long windows, is an inscription, gilt and cut in black slate, six feet in length." I wish you to note this because there is a singular coincidence which I have discovered, which links that fine old Wall Street building of 1748 with our own history, and the removal of the later building (its successor) to Jersey City. That tablet was not of black slate, as Mr. Wm. Smith says, but of black marble, as I will show you presently. He does not give the inscrip- tion. But the inscription was this-it was written in Latin :


.


Auspicante Deo Hanc Ædem Cultui Divino Sacram In perpetuam Celebrando A. D. MDCCXIX Primo fundatam Denuo penitus Reparatam Ampliorem et Ornatiorem A. D. MDCCXLVIII Constructam


* Randolph's Notes in MS.


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History of the


Neo-Eboracensis Presbyteriani In suum et suorum usum Condentes In hac Votiva Tabula D. D. D. Q.


Concordia, Amore, Necnon Fidei, cultus et morum Puritate Suffulta clariusq' Exornata Annuente Christo Longum perduret in Ævum.'


That is,-


Under the good hand of God, This temple Sacred to the perpetual celebration of Divine Worship, First erected In the year of our Lord 1719, and afterwards thoroughly reconstructed and built larger and more beautiful A.D. 1748, The Presbyterians of New York, Building it For the use of themselves and their children, In this votive tablet Give, Devote and Dedicate.


May it, supported and Far more illustriously adorned By concord, love, and also by Purity of Faith, of worship and of discipline Under Christ's favor Endure through a long distant future.


A beautiful inscription and a prayer truly answered. Now for the coincidence. This building stood until 1810 (sixty- two years), and then gave place to the present building with- in whose reconstructed walls we now sit. In putting up the building of 1810 in Wall Street, however, or afterward, that old tablet, praying for a long continuance of divine worship


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in the edifice, seems to have been mislaid until it was for- gotten. But when the church was sold to our trustees, to be transferred to Jersey City, suddenly the old tablet (now seen to be of black marble) is brought to light. And, in searching the records of the trustees of the First Presbyterian Church of New York, I find that at the very same meeting of the Board, April 22, 1844, which records that the contract for the sale of the building to the Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City had been signed, there follows immediately this notice, viz .: " The Treasurer re- ported that he had found in the old church-yard grounds in Wall Street, a Tablet of black marble executed in 1748 with the following Latin inscription" (which is there given as above), "which tablet he had caused to be removed to the new grounds, and recommends that the same be inserted in the Tower of the new church in Fifth Avenue." It was in- serted, as the present pastor,* the Rev. Wm. M. Paxton, D.D., informs me, in the pastor's study in the church, and there it remains to this day. Thus, at the very time when the church building was about to be demolished and then transported in a renewed form for a new generation, the old prayer written in marble ninety-six years before, comes to light as a witness that the prayer was heard and answered. And now I must state another singular fact regarding Wall Street church and Whitefield. While Whitefield was in Phila- delphia preaching on one occasion at night, there stood a young boy holding a lantern to give light to the preacher. The boy became absorbed in the preacher's theme, and when Whitefield, at length threw the fervor of his soul into one of his tremendous appeals, the boy, overcome, dropped the lantern, which was dashed to pieces. That boy, then converted, was afterward the celebrated Dr. John Rodgers, a native of Boston, called in 1765 from the Presbyterian Church at St. George's, Delaware, to be the pastor of the Wall Street church, and under whose abundant labors that


* A.D. 1876.


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church became doubled and even trebled in attendants, and who is styled the father of Presbyterianism in New York. A grandson of his, as you know, and others of his descendants were, until their removal elsewhere, worshippers with us in this church almost from its organization. Years after the occurrence above narrated, and when Dr. Rodgers was set- tled, Whitefield recalled, it is said, the circumstance to his recollection.


During the existence of the building put up in 1748, the numbers of Presbyterians had so much increased, that soon after Dr. Rodgers' installation, a new brick building was erected and a congregation gathered as a Collegiate church with that of Wall Street. This building was placed on the triangular lot at the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets, called "The Vineyard." For funds to build this church, Dr. Rodgers solicited subscriptions "literally from door to door." It was known as the "Brick Meeting-House," and was dedicated January 1, 1768. During the war of the Revolution the Wall Street church became a barrack for soldiers, and the "Brick Meeting-House " a hospital where scenes, terrible to relate, are recorded to have happened .*


Some time after the war the Wall Street congregation purchased a lot alongside of the church and erected a charity school under the care of the Session and trustees. It went into operation in 1799, and was supported by annual collections, and was finally placed under the Public School Society.


The Rev. Jas. Wilson, made colleague of Dr. Rodgers in 1785, remained two years, and in 1789 the Rev. Samuel Miller was ordained and installed ; and he, with Dr. L. Mc- Knight and Dr. John Rodgers, the senior pastor, were Collegi- ate pastors of the two churches. In 1798 a third Collegiate church was built in Rutgers Street, with the Rev. Philip Milledoler, D.D., as the first pastor, with the understanding that he should serve that church entirely. So things con-


* See Disosway, p. 145, et seq.


First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City. 49


tinued until the year 1809, when the collegiate plan being found burdensome, the churches amicably separated. Dr. Samuel Miller was pastor of the Wall Street church and the Rev. Gardiner Spring was soon settled over the Brick church, Dr. Rodgers continuing his connection with both. And Dr. McKnight voluntarily resigned .*


Here once more I pause, to resume this history on the next Sabbath.


Beloved Brethren : As we review this picture and repeat the many honored names of the past, what a deep impres- sion we get of the changeableness of all that is here. We see in this present day, as in all the previous history of God's people, that the " fathers pass away and the prophets do not live forever." And yet, how true it is, that the faith of God's real people is always the same, and its fruits as mani- fest at one time as at another. And how God's people are linked together by their distinctive principles, by their char- acter and by their deeds of piety, from generation to gen- eration.


" Let saints below in concert sing With those to glory gone ; For all the servants of our King In earth and heaven are one.


" One family-we dwell in Him- One church, above, beneath, Though now divided by the stream, The narrow stream of death.


" One army of the living God, To His command we bow. Part of the host have crossed the flood And part are crossing now."


Yes ; passing on to the Kingdom prepared. Here, for a time only to do our work in our own day and to do it in


* Disosway, p. 149, says, "Dr. McKnight voluntarily continued his connection with both churches." This is doubtless a typographical error by repetition of the previous lines about Dr. Rodgers.


4


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faith and love and hope. Let us gather zeal and courage from those whose labors we have been contemplating, to do our part faithfully ; and here, in this city, where we inherit the labors of those gone before us, let us show by our deeds that we are indeed followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.


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First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City.


SERMON III.


" And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it : for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."-REV. xxi. 22, 23.


THIS is one of the texts which not only convey a truth, but teach another truth by contrast. The description is that of the heavenly city, the symbol of the heavenly rule over the kingdom of God on the renewed earth. And the meaning is that our condition will be so changed that the glorified saints will not need, as now, those appliances for social worship and for near approach to the King of glory, but will have direct and immediate vision of and access to Him. The truth by contrast is that in our present state of preparatory training, and of "absence from the Lord," we do need these helps. And hence all through the experience of the Church we have these temples for God's worship, and they have a history-a history often of the deepest interest- a history of man's labor and self-denial and liberality, and also of God's gracious favors-a history which will be bright with holy gladness forever as it is remembered that " this and that man was born there." The memory of them will not die out then in the future, but will live, and God will be praised for these aids to us while passing on to glory.


Let us, then, turn again to review further God's mercy toward this church where He has gathered us.


On the last Sabbath I gave you an account of the suc- cessful attempt to revive the First Presbyterian Church in Jersey City in the year 1844, with the antecedents of that effort. This seemed to render needful a summary, in part, of the history of the First Presbyterian Church in New


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York, including the early beginnings of that congregation in 1707 ; their organization in 1717 ; the building of the first edifice in Wall Street in 1719-its enlargement in 1748; the subsequent collegiate history with the Brick church and then with the Rutgers Street church, under the pastoral care of Drs. Rodgers, McKnight, Miller, and Milledoler, up to 1810, when the collegiate relation ceased. Throughout all this time the Wall Street church building of 1748, already described, remained. The time was now arrived when the congregation in Wall Street determined to rebuild again, and this time on a still larger and handsomer scale. This brings us to the erection in New York in 1810 of the pres- ent building in which we now are. This edifice was in the course of re-erection from December 9, 1809, to August II, 18II. The congregation meantime worshipped in the old French Huguenot church in Pine Street. In May, 1811, when the Presbyterian church was nearly finished, Dr. Rod- gers died, and Dr. Samuel Miller was left the sole pastor. The new edifice was built by the voluntary contributions of the members of the congregation, and is described as a " costly, noble, and large brown-stone edifice." It cost forty-seven thousand dollars. To give some idea of the ap- . pearance of the building as it then stood in Wall Street, I am indebted to our elder, Hon. B. F. Randolph, who has gathered the following particulars from an article published March 20, 1830, in the New York Mirror, which gives a brief account of six of the early churches of New York City, accompanied by small engravings of the same .* One of these represents the Wall Street Presbyterian church "with the iron fence in front. The front of the church was then as it is now. The steeple was different. There was a base for the steeple, extending from the second-story window in front as now, above the ridge of the roof. Above this were two cupola-shaped structures, one over the other, of which the upper one was the smaller, each having six, or perhaps eight,


* New York Mirror, vol. 7, p. 89.


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First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City.


windows, with a column between each two of the windows. Over the upper cupola was a small dome, with a rod extend- ing upward from the centre, on which were first a ball, then an ornament resembling a star with rays, and over that a vane. The fence and yard were level with the street, and the entrance to the church seems to have been level with the street also." The Mirror article states that " the edi- fice of 1810 is 95 feet in length and 68 feet in width. It is built of brown freestone, with pillars of the same in demi- relief, with Corinthian capitals." The yard is small but neat, and is inclosed with an iron railing. The congre- gation is under the pastoral charge of Rev. Mr. Phillips."


Dr. Miller continued to be the pastor for three years after- ward, when, in 1813, he was called to the chair of Ecclesias- tical History in the Theological Seminary newly established at Princeton, New Jersey. He was succeeded first by the Rev. Philip Melancthon Whelpley, D.D., in 1815, who died very young in 1824, and then by the Rev. Wm. W. Phillips, who was called from the Pearl Street church, New York, and installed January, 1826. Dr. Phillips was still the pastor when the building was removed in 1844 to Jersey City.


This fine edifice of 1810 remained an ornament to the city of New York until 1834. On September 13th, in that year, from some unknown cause, it took fire and was partially consumed. You see from this that the building, as we re- ceived it, was the church of 1810 repaired. The following particulars of that fire, gathered by B. F. Randolph, Esq., are of interest. The Journal of Commerce, in an article copied into the New York Observer, September 20, 1834, stated that " On Saturday, September 13th, at about half- past five o'clock in the afternoon, the elegant church in Wall Street, known as the First Presbyterian Church, was discovered to be on fire between the ceiling and the roof, as indicated by smoke issuing through fissures of the latter." When the writer reached the upper window of the residence of a friend, which overlooked and nearly adjoined the church, he says : " A sheet of flame was streaming through the roof


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a little to the east of the ridge and about two-thirds of the distance from the steeple to the rear of the building. For a considerable extent in every direction from this flame smoke was pressing upward through the shingles, and ere long the whole body of the roof was a mass of living fire, sending forth volumes of flame. Several thousands had congregated and were gazing with intense interest. The fire ascended the steeple both within and without ; the bell in the meantime being rung until the rope burnt off and portions of the roof fell through the ceiling into the body of the church. The steeple burned with more fury than the roof. The bell tumbled through the floors." The top of the cupola was but partially burned when the timbers that supported it gave way, and it came down with a heavy crash into the body of the church. The woodwork was de- stroyed. " The walls stood firm, and the stonework of the tower extended to the height of perhaps 60 feet. The insurance is $20,000. Most of the furniture was saved, such as chandeliers, cushions, and books," including the Bible and Psalm Book, valued as having been used in the time of Dr. Rodgers. " The origin of the fire is unknown, no fire having been carried into the building, to the knowl- edge of the sexton, for two months."


Hon. Rynier H. Veghte, of Somerville, New Jersey, then residing in New York, was, at the time, connected with the fire department of the city of New York, and aided in the attempt to save the church. The longest ladder reached the base of the steeple, and with hose in hand Mr. Veghte ascended the ladder after Mr. George Robinson. As the latter was entering the building from the top of the ladder, Mr. Veghte, from his lower position, discovered the extent of the destruction already occasioned by the fire to the roof, and hastening to Mr. Robinson, succeeded in drawing him back just in time. They descended instantly to the street, when the roof fell in, and then the roof came crashing down, falling outward toward the street. The roof, steeple, and windows were entirely destroyed.


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First Presbyterian Church of Jersey City.


Within one year after this disaster the church was rebuilt at a cost, as I find from the books of the Trustees, far ex- ceeding the insurance of $20,000, and renovated into the beautiful edifice which, nine years later, we received at their hands, and which we now occupy.


The great fire of 1835 in New York, did not reach it. It was reopened for divine service, as we find by a notice in the New York Observer of September 5, 1835, on Sunday, Sep- tember 6, 1835, on the very anniversary of the day when it was last occupied a year before. When completed it pre- sented in Wall Street exactly the same appearance as it does now in Jersey City, with the following exceptions: The building was then longer by one window ; there was in Wall Street no basement such as we now have. And the uphol- stering was of a light blue, which we also used for a number of years and then substituted eight years ago the present drab color. And the pulpit in Wall Street was of the same shape and appearance as it used to be here previous to the year 1868.


This brings the history of the Wall Street church up to the year 1844, and its transfer to this city.


The reason which led to the sale of the building was, of course, the determination of the congregation in New York to remove to the upper part of the city. For a number of years the tide of population, and especially of attendants in the churches, had been tending up-town. And the draught made upon the churches began now to be more and more seriously felt. In the case of the Wall Street church there were also additional reasons. I find from the records, that in rebuilding their edifice after the fire, they had expended more than double what was received by insurance. This difference had been raised by loans, and it lay as a debt upon the congregation. Besides, owing to the diminishing numbers in attendance the expense of maintaining the church and meeting the interest, occasioned for several years an annual deficit of over $4,000; until the debt amounted to what they call (and truly so for those times), the enor-




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