USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > Trenton > History of the Presbyterian Church in Trenton, N.J. : from the first settlement of the town > Part 21
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HISTORY OF THE
since, under the incitements of a growing population, and of expand- ing business, and the impulse and guidance of a faithful and effective ministry."
On the third May, 1841, the congregation unanimously resolved to recall Dr. Alexander, who was still in the pro- fessorship in the College at Princeton, to which he had been transferred from his charge in Trenton; but upon being assured that it would not be in his power to comply, it was prosecuted no further. A new election on the last day of May resulted in the choice of Mr. JOHN HALL, of Phila- delpia, who immediately took charge of the congregation, and was both ordained and installed August 1I, 1841. The Rev. Dr. Cooley presided, Dr. Yeomans preached (Ephe- sians 4 : II8), Dr. J. W. Alexander and Dr. S. C. Henry gave the charges.9
The incidents of the last eighteen years' history of the Church in Trenton must be despatched in a few particulars.
The statistics are as follows :
Communicants received on examination, 217
Communicants received by certificate, 262
Communicants dismissed by certificate, 262
Present number of communicants, 312
Infants baptized, 290
Adults baptized, II4
Funerals, 335
Marriages, 216
The Brick Church, already spoken of as once occupied by Mr. Boswell's congregation, was purchased, refitted, and opened for public worship with a sermon by Professor Al- bert B. Dod, July 24, 1842. The Second Presbyterian Church was organized there November 15, 1842, and the Rev. Baynard R. Hall was its first stated supply. The Rev. Daniel Deruelle, of Pennsylvania, was installed its pastor May 21, 1843. In September of the same year a small lecture-room was built adjoining that church. Mr. Deru-
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elle's pastoral relation was dissolved February 1, 1848, and on the ninth October the Rev. Ansley D. White, of Indiana, was installed. In 1851 the church was enlarged to twice its original size, and was reopened September 27. In 1857 a spacious building was erected, of two stories, for a lecture- room and Sunday-schools. The church was organized with eleven members from the First Church; the present number of communicants is two hundred and sixty-five.
In the year 1846 there remained a debt of six thousand seven hundred dollars for the building of the First Church. By a general subscription in the congregation at the close of that year, the entire sum was at once obtained, and all obligations cancelled.
In April, 1849, thirteen communicants of the First Church, and four from other churches, were organized as the Third Church. Twenty-five others from the parent body were soon afterwards added. The new congregation first met for public worship June 17, 1849. The Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler was installed pastor October 3, 1849, and their house of worship was opened November 7, 1850. Mr. Cuyler resigned the charge April 27, 1853, and the Rev. Jacob Kirkpatrick, Jr., was ordained, and installed November 3, 1853. The decline of his health compelled his resignation February 2, 1858. The communicants then numbered about two hundred. A parsonage was provided during Mr. Kirkpatrick's incumbency. On the eighth of February, 1859, the Rev. Henry B. Chapin, of Ohio, was installed as pastor.
A mission chapel, built (at the cost of twenty-two hun- dred dollars) in the northen extremity of the city, on ground given by Mr. John S. Chambers, was opened for religious services January 8, 1854, and a Sunday-school organized. Worship was conducted on the afternoons of the Sabbath by the pastor of the First Church, with occa- sional assistance, until May, 1856, when Mr. John H. Sargent served statedly as the chaplain for one year.
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In 1853 the First Church was extensively improved by the building of an iron fence and laying a stone pavement along the entire front of the lot, introducing gas, painting the interior walls, and other repairs, at a cost of thirty-four hundred dollars, mostly defrayed by private subscription. While the work was in progress, the congregation worship- ped with the Third Church, then without a pastor.
On the sixth November, 1858, the FOURTH Church was organized, with a few members from the First, and sixty from the Third Church. On the twenty-fifth February, 1859, the Rev. EDWARD D. YEOMANS, son of Dr. John W. Yeomans, was installed their pastor.
In 1845 Mr. Hall, finding many German families of the Lutheran faith who attended no church, many of them unable to understand English, wrote to Rev. Dr. Demmé, of Philadelphia, suggesting a visit from him to explore, or the sending of a missionary. In 1848 services were held in the First Church lecture-room by German missionaries, and the work thus begun resulted in the organization of the German Lutheran church.
The following ruling elders have been elected and or- dained, in the First Church, during the present pastorate: Samuel Roberts, January 16, 1846.
Jonathan Fisk,
George S. Green,
June 6, 1858.
Augustus G. Richey,
NOTES.
I.
NICHOLAS JACQUES EMANUEL DE BELLEVILLE was born at Metz, France, in 1753; studied medicine under his father; passed seven years in the schools and hospitals of Paris,10 and came to Trenton under the circumstances related in the following note furnished to me by Phile- mon Dickinson, Esq., as heard from the Doctor's lips :
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"He happened to be, in the spring of 1777, on a visit to a gentleman, an acquaintance of his father, who lived in the south of France, whither he usually repaired in the winter season, on account of the delicate state of his health. He there met and was introduced to Count Pulaski, who had just come from Italy, where he had been obliged to take refuge on account of the active part he bore in the well-known attempt to restore the liberties of Poland.
"The Count was then on the eve of his departure for this country, and having taken a liking for the Doctor, invited him to accompany him. For some time he hesitated, by reason of his want of money, but the gentleman at whose house he was, when informed of this fact, told him if a hundred guineas would be sufficient for his purpose he would supply him, and that his father could reimburse him. He further sup- plied him with every thing necessary for the voyage, and on the last day of May, 1777, he left Paris, and embarked at Nantes on the ninth of June, for the United States.
"The vessel in which he sailed was a sloop-of-war, mounting fourteen guns, with a crew of one hundred and five men. She had on board about sixteen hundred stand of arms for the American troops. On the twenty-second July they arrived in Massachusetts, and the first town he entered was Salem, where he staid some days and afterwards went to Boston.
"He attended the Count, in the capacity of surgeon, in the different parts of the country to which he went for the purpose of recruiting a legion, which the Count was authorized to raise by the Provincial Con- gress.
"Pulaski remained some time at Trenton for that purpose, where Belleville became acquainted with Dr. Bryant, a physician of eminence, who took a fancy to him, treated him kindly, and endeavored to per- suade him to give up the army and settle in Trenton; offering to do all in his power to introduce him into practice. Dr. Belleville, however, attended Pulaski to the South, and while stationed there he received a pressing letter from his friend, Dr. Bryant, repeating his offer, and urging his leaving the army; representing the improbability of his succeeding there so well as by settling down to the practice of his pro- fession. This letter he showed to Pulaski, who told him it was not his wish to stand in the way of his advancement, and if he thought he could do better, to accept the offer of Dr. Bryant. He did so, and in the fall of 1778 took up his residence in Trenton, where he remained until his death."
Dr. Belleville was eminent in his profession, and highly esteemed for his social qualities. He was sometimes called to attend the exiled King of Spain at Bordentown, and was his almoner on at least one occasion, (February 5, 1831,) when the Female Benevolent Society of Trenton acknowledged fifty dollars "from the Count de Survilliers, by Dr. Belle- ville." Mrs. Belleville was a communicant; the Doctor was a pew-
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holder and occasional attendant, but was too fond of his elegant edition of Voltaire to relish the Gospel. He was buried in our church-yard, and one of his pupils, Dr. F. A. Ewing, in addition to a discriminating obituary in the State Gazette of Dec. 24, 1831, furnished the inscription for his tomb :
"This stone covers the remains of Dr. NICHOLAS BELLEVILLE. Born and educated in France; for fifty-four years an inhabitant of this city. A patriot warmly attached to the principles of liberty; a physician emi- nently learned and successful; a man of scrupulous and unblemished integrity. On the seventeenth day of December, A.D. 1831, at the age of seventy-nine years, he closed a life of honor and usefulness; by all respected, esteemed, lamented."
II.
For a more extended notice of Chief Justice CHARLES EWING, than I can find room for now, I must refer to the eulogy, pronounced in the church at the united request of the Council of Trenton and the bench and bar of the State, by his intimate friend, Governor Southard, and to the memoir furnished by the same hand to Longacre's "National Portrait Gallery.""1 He was born July 8, 1780; prepared for college at the Trenton Academy, when it was under Mr. Armstrong's direction ; took the first honor at Princeton College at his graduation in 1798; read law under Mr. Leake, and was admitted to the bar in 1802. The next year he was married to a daughter of the Rev. James F. Arm- strong. He was appointed Chief Justice in October, 1824, and reap- pointed in 1831. He died of cholera, August 5, 1832. Mr. Ewing was a punctual and leading member of the board of Trustees, and of the congregation, from his election, April, 1814, till his sudden death. Mr. Southard declared in his public discourse that he was in the habit of holding up the entire character of the Chief Justice as a model for aspirants after professional honors, and said that "his exposition of the system of jury-trial, before the Literary and Philosophical Society of New Jersey, [January 28, 1826,] is the most finished and beautiful exhibition of its merits which is to be found, in the same compass, in our language."
The epitaph on his monument, written by President Carnahan, of Princeton, is as follows :
"Beneath this marble rest the mortal remains of CHARLES EWING, LL.D., Chief Justice of the State of New Jersey.
"In intellect, vigorous and discriminating. In industry, assiduous and persevering. In integrity, pure and incorruptible. In manners, affable, dignified, and polished. In morals, spotless. A profound jurist and upright magistrate. An accomplished scholar, and patron of litera- ture and science. The advocate and supporter of benevolent institu-
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tions. He won, in an eminent degree, the respect, the love, and confi- dence of his fellow-citizens. Happy in his domestice relation, home was the theatre of his most endearing virtues, and the sphere in which he loved to move. He reverenced the doctrines and practiced the pre- cepts of the Christian religion. In the vigor of his mental and bodily powers, surrounded by blessings, cheered by the approbation of his fellow-men, with an extended prospect of service and usefulness before him, he was attacked with a violent disease, which suddenly terminated his life on the fifth day of August, A.D. 1832, in the 53d year of his age."
III.
The Rev. WM. BOSWELL had been for sixteen years pastor of the Baptist congregation of Trenton and Lamberton, when (1823) he issued an address to its members, on account of his adoption of some new tenets, which leaned to Swedenborgianism. His address was answered by a longer letter from the Rev. John Burtt (first editor of "The Presbyterian" in Philadelphia), who was then preaching in Trenton. Mr. Boswell died June 10, 1833, at the age of fifty-seven. His grave is in the rear of the building where he last preached-now the Second Presbyterian Church. Near to it is that of another prom- inent Baptist minister, the Rev. BURGESS ALLISON, D.D., who died on a visit to Trenton, February 20, 1827.12
The First Baptist Church of Lamberton was opened November 26, 1803; when the sermon was preached by Dr. Staughton.
Mr. Boswell's was called "The Reformed General Baptist Meeting- House." It was built (of brick) in eleven weeks, and was opened October 19, 1823. The dimensions were fifty-four feet by forty.
IV.
THOMAS WILSON, an intelligent colored man, was received to our communion on certificate from New York, November, 1839. He was a shoemaker, but was bent upon becoming qualified as a missionary in Liberia. For this purpose he removed to Easton, and studied under the direction of his late pastor, the President of the College. He sailed for Africa, as a missionary of our Board, in April, 1843. His wife and infant died soon after their arrival, and a second child not long afterwards. Wilson's station was Sinoe, where he opened a day-school and Sunday-school, and preached every week. In 1845 he opened a small building as a church, and undertook to teach a school of native children in a neighboring town, and an evening school of adult colonists. He persevered manfully through great hardships till
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HISTORY OF FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
September 8, 1846, when he died of an illness of a few days. In the artless language of one of his children who sent me the intelligence: "I hope he is resting, for when he did labor he labored hard, and suffered much from want of food and clothing." The Annual Report of the Board in the next year, says: "His death is a great loss to the Church and to Africa. His experience and knowledge, his indus- try and perseverance, fitted him for usefulness in this important sphere of labor."
Another colored member of our church, ELYMAS P. ROGERS, was ordained by our Presbytery, March 6, 1845, and became pastor of a large congregation in Newark. He afterward went to Liberia, to investigate the colony, and died of the acclimating fever in 1861.
V.
By the will of Miss JANE LOWRY, who died November 1851, the sum of two hundred dollars and her pew were bequeathed for the benefit of the poor of the church. By the will of Mr. James Brearley, who also died November, 1851, the sum of five hundred dollars was left to the Trustees, without specific directions.
VI.
A newspaper of August 2, 1868, contains the following notice, headed "Eighty Years a Communicant":
"Mrs. Janet Davis, who died at Trenton, New Jersey, on the 2d inst., was two months over ninety-six years of age. She went to her first communion in Paisley, Scotland, when she was sixteen, was received by the First Church of Trenton in 1819, and continued there till her death; consequently she was eighty years a communicant. Can your correspondents furnish a parallel instance of ecclesiastical longevity? It is pleasing to be able to add that Mrs. Davis retained in her memory the Scriptures and hymns with which her long Chris- tian life had made her familiar, and that her faith, like her faculties, though not childish, was eminently childlike."
CHAPTER XXII.
1859-1884.
(Collated chiefly from Dr. Hall's supplementary notes.)
In 1870 it was thought desirable to renovate the in- terior of the church by an entire change in the style of the pews, frescoing the walls, attaching a small room to the pulpit, and other improvements. From September 18 to December II the congregation worshipped in the morning in a large public hall, and in the evening in the church lecture- room. On the 18th of December the use of the church was restored. The improvements left an outstanding debt of nearly three thousand dollars. Knowing how such debts become troublesome by delay in providing for them, the pastor, without revealing his purpose to anyone, adopted a plan of prevention which proved entirely successful. On the Sabbath of January Ist, 1871, his sermon was on "Re- deeming the Time," in the closing pages of which he slightly alluded to the suitable opportunity of the new year to can- cel the cost of the renewal of the house. When he had fin- ished he requested the gentlemen of the congregation to remain after the service, without stating the purpose. When they had been arrested, the proposal was made that the con- gregation should practically obey the doctrine of the sermon by redeeming the debt of the past year, and in a few minutes it was pleasantly, somewhat amusingly, accomplished, to the surprise of all.
It was at this time that the first organ, placed in the church of 1840, was replaced by the large one, built by
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Erben, of New York, which has assisted our worship so appropriately during the past years.
On the Sabbath after the paying of the debt, January 8th, a room annexed to the chapel, for the separate use of the infant-school, was used for the first time.
A strong temptation to begin a permanent endowment fund, for the financial benefit of the corporation, was felt in 1875-6, when an offer of thirty thousand dollars for sixty feet of ground on the eastern side of the church-plot was received. The Trustees submitted the proposal to a meet- ing of the congregation, October 5, 1875, but as the plot, although seldom used for burial at that time, contained the graves of several generations, the sale was refused.
The volume we are supplementing closed its history at the date of its publication, March, 1859. Our churches had increased from the single one of the first chapters to the Fourth, which was opened in that year. According to the location of these churches, two were near the center of the population, the others nearer the southern and eastern boundaries of the city, and the mission chapel mentioned in the preceding chapter was growing into the organized Fifth
congregation of 1874. In October, 1864, Rev. Ansley D. White, who had been pastor of the Second Church for a time, but had, serving elsewhere for some years, returned to Trenton and was invited to supply regularly the congre- gation assembling in the chapel. So prosperous was the work done there that the Presbytery, on February 23, 1874, organized the Fifth Church with twenty-eight members, three of whom were from the First Church. Mr. John S. Chambers, who had been an elder of the First Church, and Mr. Albert S. Drake, were elected and installed elders, and on October 26 Rev. Ansley D. White was installed pastor.
The location of these five churches left the western sec- tion of the city to be provided for. Members of the First Church living in that part of the city interested themselves
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in the organizing and conducting of a Sunday-school, which met in unoccupied houses on West State street, until the desirability of a new church organization became ap- parent. On August 11, 1874, the cornerstone of a church building, at the corner of Prospect and Spring streets, was laid, and on April 25, 1875, the Presbytery organized the Prospect Street Presbyterian Church, with seventeen mem- bers from the First Church, six from the Third and twelve from other churches. Augustus G. Richey, an elder of the First Church; John T. Nixon, an elder of the First Church of Bridgeton, N. J .; Samuel C. Brown, an elder of the South Reformed Church of New York, and Frederick J. Slade, an elder of the Third Church of Trenton, were elected and installed elders. On October 14, 1875, Walter A. Brooks, a licentiate of the Presbytery of Bloomington, was ordained and installed pastor.
Whilst the churches were thus increasing with the popu- lation of the city proper, the suburb of Chambersburg had rapidly grown from a farming district to an incorporated borough of many thousand inhabitants. The name given in its charter was that of Robert Chambers, the original owner of much of the land, and a member of one of the oldest families in the First Church. A number of Pres- byterians, finding that the city churches required a long walk to reach them, determined to make an experiment for their greater convenience. Beginning with a Sunday- school and occasional preaching in a convenient school- building, the encouragement soon appeared to warrant the organization of a church and the erection of a substantial building. The Bethany Presbyterian Church was organ- ized by the Presbytery, on November 15, 1886, with three members from the First Church, and sixty-three from other churches. Professor George H. Voorhis and Mr. Thomas S. Morris were elected and installed elders. On November 29th the Presbytery transferred Rev. Daniel R. Foster
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from the pastorate of the Pennington Church to that of the Bethany Church. The new building, on the corner of Hamilton and Chestnut avenues, was occupied for services on the 6th of March, 1888. This may properly be called the seventh church of Trenton.
We might with some propriety make an eighth, not in numerical order, but in the total, from the church at Morris- ville, Pennsylvania, which is separated from Trenton only by the Delaware, and which was established and main- tained, in great part, by the Trenton churches, until it was transferred to the Presbytery of Philadelphia North, where it naturally belonged, but after which change it continued to receive neighborly assistance from Trenton. Mr. Samuel Roberts, an elder of the First Church, superintended the Morrisville Sunday-school, with scarcely a day's failure, for twenty years.
In 1880 the congregation of the First Church became interested in measures taken to establish a church and school for the emancipated colored population of Carthage, Moore county, North Carolina. The minister and teacher upon whose hands had devolved this undertaking had been a resi- dent of Trenton, where he had won the confidence of the most respectable families by his meritorious character and faithful service. Henry D. Wood entered Lincoln Uni- versity in 1872, and was graduated from the theological department of that institution in April, 1878. He was placed in Carthage by the Missionary Board for Freedmen. He found a church of thirty-five members and a Sabbath- school of twenty-five, numbers which rose to 168 and 175, respectively, besides two schools in country settlements. Mr. Wood was enabled by his friends to build, at the cost of a thousand dollars, a neat and commodious church, which was opened for religious services October 19, 1884, under the name of "John Hall Chapel," and in connection with the Yadkin Presbytery of our General Assembly. The
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Minutes of 1887 report forty communicants received in that year at Carthage.
During some months of the year 1883-4, Mr. Richard A. Greene, a licentiate of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, was employed as assistant to the pastor, and fulfilled a use- ful service in that relation.
Early in 1884 the pastor notified the congregation of his purpose to apply to the Presbytery for the dissolution of his pastoral relation to the First Church, after a pastorate of forty-three years. On April 8, 1884, the Presbytery com- plied with this request, and Dr. Hall became pastor emeritus.
NOTE.
I now subjoin the statistics of the entire period from the installa- tion in 1841 to the resignation of 1884:
Communicants received on examination, 465
Communicants received on certificate, 435
Communicants dismissed on certificate, 485
Infants baptized, 463
Adults baptized, 190
Funerals (estimated), 1,000
Marriages, 408
During the same period the pastor preached in the First Church, 3,452
Wednesday lectures, 1,631
He preached in other churches, 723
These figures do not include the many years' services every Friday evening, which were more or less expository as well as devotional, or the Bible classes of several winters.
CHAPTER XXIII.
JOHN DIXON, D.D., LEWIS SEYMOUR MUDGE, D.D.
1884-1901.
On February 21, 1884, the Rev. Dr. John Hall gave notice to the Session that on account of impaired health and the increasing infirmities of age he felt it to be his duty to shortly resign the pastorate. On May 4, following, Dr. Hall formally tendered his resignation, which, after much hesitancy, was reluctantly accepted. The Presby- tery of New Brunswick dissolved the pastoral relation and constituted Dr. Hall pastor-emeritus as requested by the congregation. Thus was brought to an end the active ministry of Dr. Hall, which he had fulfilled so long, so lov- ingly and with marked distinction and success.
While the dissolution of the pastoral relation released the congregation from its legal financial obligation to Dr. Hall, yet voluntary pledges were made towards a salary for him as pastor-emeritus, which amounted to over $2,100 per annum. The passing years wrought many changes by death and removal in the list of subscribers, yet such were the love and devotion of the people to him that the salary was fully kept up until the time of his death, which occurred May 10, 1894.
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