USA > New Jersey > Mercer County > Trenton > History of the Presbyterian Church in Trenton, N.J. : from the first settlement of the town > Part 29
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3. Among Mr. Armstrong's papers I found a pamphlet of six pages, entitled "A plan for the Establishment of a Bible Society in the State of New Jersey. New Brunswick. Printed for the Committee by Ambrose Walker." It gives proceedings "at a meeting of the ministers of New Brunswick, with a number of other gentlemen, in the city of New Brunswick, on the 4th day of Oct., A. D. 1809," when "the New Jersey Bible Society" was formed. A contribution of three dollars was to constitute a member and one dollar annually was to be paid in. Twenty-five dollars would constitute a life member. Bibles were to be obtained from the Philadelphia Bible Society. Subscribers were to meet at Princeton, on the first Tuesday of December, to choose managers. Then follows a list of gentlemen throughout the State who were requested to obtain subscribers and donations. Among these are Rev. Dr. Wharton and Isaac Collins, of Burlington; Rev. Mr. Armstrong and Messrs Waddell and Harris, of Trenton; Dr. Smith and Samuel Bayard, of Princeton; Messrs. Clark and Cross, of New Brunswick ; Rev. Mr. Brown and Charles D. Green, of Maiden- head; Finley, of Basking Ridge; Vredenburg, of Raritan; Cannon, of Six-Mile-Run; Labach (gh?), of Sourland-worthy representatives in this catholic body, of the Reformed Dutch, Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal and Quaker denominations.
To this was added a leaf of signatures of subscribers: "J. F. Arm- strong, Gov. Bloomfield, B. Smith, Peter Gordon, A. Chambers, Nath'l Burrowes, Jas. F. Wilson, E. Howell, Chas. Higbee, J. Oram, Sam. Dickinson, L. (Lambert) Cadwalader, Henry Waddell, Robt. Mc- Neely, Garret D. Wall, Lucius H. Stockton, A. D. Woodruff, Jas. Ewing, Ogden Woodruff, Dr. Beatty, Daniel Fenton, Saml. Paxson, Geo. Sherman, Eliz'th Stockton, Ellet Howell."
The pamphlet is now in the library of the American Bible Society. 4. In 1809 Mr. Armstrong preached twice on II. Corinthians. This memorandum is on the MS .: "The last preached, June 18, ISog, on a
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particular dispensation of Divine Providence,-a professor of religion, under great fear of mind, having, as supposed by some, been accessory to his own death, tho' uncertain."
5. There are MS. "Notes for the day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer appointed by the General Assembly, July 30, 1812," and the same MS. "for the day of humiliation and prayer appointed by the President of the United States, Aug. 20, 1812."
6. On April 7, 1881, Miss Mary Armstrong (age 93) gave me the printed slip of which the following is a copy, which she said was writ- ten by her father on a child of a parishioner :
"AN ACROSTIC
UPON A CHILD BORN BLIND.
Sovereign benign, of love, of life, of light ! At whose command I'm born deprived of sight, 'Midst darkness and 'midst dangers ever nigh, Unseen a father's face, a mother's watchful eye, Eternal! who 'midst darkness mak'st the light arise, Lighten my mind, and give me heavenly eyes.
Rise, Sun of Righteousness, with feeling light, Oh! grant me Faith's unerring, saving sight ; Shine inward, that my enlight'ned soul may raise Eternal anthems to my Saviour's praise."
7. Mrs. Armstrong survived her husband until February 13, 1851, when she peacefully and triumphantly departed, in the ninety-third year of her age. I had the privilege of the friendship of this most estimable lady for ten years after becoming pastor of the church, and the dis- course delivered on the Sabbath after her funeral has been published under the title of "The Divine Promise to Old Age." One of the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, was the wife of Chief Justice Ewing, who died in Trenton, July 4, 1816. Their son, Robert L. Arm- strong, a member of the bar at Woodbury, died in Trenton, September 22, 1836. Three unmarried daughters long survived both their parents ; Frances, who died June 22, 1868, aged 75 years ; Susan, May 18, 1878, aged 87; Mary Maturin, March 21, 1882, aged 94.
8. Occom was a Mohegan (Connecticut) Indian, and the first of his race educated by Dr. Wheelock at Lebanon. In 1766 he collected more . than £100o in England for the Wheelock School. His agency is men- tioned in the celebrated case of Dartmouth College: Wheaton's Re- ports, vol. iv. See Sprague's Annals, vol. iii., 192.
9. In 1765 the Supreme Court required lawyers to wear bar-gown and band as in England. This was repealed in 1791. "Proceedings of New Jersey Historical Society," 1862, vol. 9, p. 66.
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10. For Mr. Dubois's genealogy, see the "Record of the Family of Louis DuBois, who emigrated from France to America in 1660,"-only 150 copies printed, 1860, p. 38.
Mr. Nicholas Dubois bequeathed $100 to the church, which was realized on the death of his widow in 1861.
II. The "Narrative" of the General Assembly of 1811 mentions the establishment of a Sabbath-school for poor children in New Brunswick.
12. Mr. Sherrerd died at Belvidere May 26, 1871, aged seventy-seven.
13. I have since been informed that Mr. Probasco was a Baptist. Rev. James Briggs Bowen, another of the first teachers, called on me June 18, 1868. He said he was a Baptist minister, settled in the West.
14. For Bishop McIlvaine's account of the first Sunday-school in Burlington, see Hills' "History of the Burlington Church," p. 393.
15. Mary Ann Tucker married James Wright in 1820, and died, his widow, Dec. 14, 1877, aged eighty-two. Mary A. Howell married John R. Vogdes, of Philadelphia. Catherine Schenck married Wm. Morse. At her death she bequeathed $100 to her pastor. Hannah Hayden died Sept. 21, 1867.
16. Miss Rice maintained her active interest in the School until her death in May, 1855. She served the general cause as a writer. Two of her books, "Alice and her Mother," and "Olive Smith," were pub- lished by the American S. S. Union; three others, "Consideration, or the Golden Rule," "Florence Patterson," and "Maria Bradford," by the Massachusetts S. S. Society.
17. Miss Jackson's name and Trenton associations frequently occur in the Memoir of Mr. Sanford, by Dr. Baird, pp. 28, 63, 66, 86, 97, 118, I2I.
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CHAPTER XX.
I. In October, 1823, Dr. How became pastor of the Independent Presbyterian Church of Savannah; in 1830 President of Dickinson College; and subsequently returned to New Brunswick upon a call to take the pastoral charge of the First Reformed Dutch Church in that city. He died in New Brunswick, March 1, 1868, having resigned his pastoral charge there June 14, 1861. He received the degree of D.D. from Union College in 1830.
2. As throwing somewhat amusing light on the comfortable and simple manners of the time, William Cobbett's Journal, March, 1818, says: "I am at the stage tavern, Trenton, New Jersey, where I have just dined upon cold ham, cold veal, butter and cheese, and a peach pie; nice, clean room, well furnished, waiter clean and attentive, plenty of milk ; and charged a quarter of a dollar. I thought that Mrs. Joselin (Joline?) of Princeton, Mrs. Beesler, at Harrisburg, Mr. Slaymaker, at Lancaster, and Mrs. McAllister were low enough in all conscience; but really this charge of Mrs. Anderson beats all. I really had not the face to pay a quarter of a dollar, but gave the waiter half a dollar and told him to keep the change."
3. So far as known, there is no record of when or how often he preached in the church before his election.
4. It is pleasant thus to meet with names, now well known, while in the uncertainties of their novitiate. Mr. Armstrong preached at the ordination of "C. C. Beatty," in 1822; and at the same meeting of Presbytery trials were assigned to "Mr. Albert Barnes." "Mr. Francis McFarland" preached his trial sermon, and was ordained. "Messrs. Robert Baird and John Breckenridge" were licensed.
5. Memoir and Sermons, edited by Rev. Hollis Read, 1853, pp. 31 and 104. A visitor in Trenton thus wrote, November 4, 1822: "I heard Mr. Armstrong preach a most eloquent sermon yesterday morn- ing. He is one of my favorites. At night Mr. L-, the Methodist, a very good preacher ; the coolest Methodist I ever heard. The Tren- tonians say that the Presbyterians have got the Methodist preacher, and the Methodists the Presbyterians."
6. The excellent man here referred to, was Mr. JOHN VOORHEES, 4 who was admitted to the communion in Trenton in April, 1822; and elected a ruling elder in 1829. He emphatically discharged the duties of his office "well," until the removal of his residence to Washington, in 1843, where he died October 28, 1849.
Concerning Mr. Armstrong's strong character, see also Rev. Dr. James W. Alexander's letter in "Forty Years' Letters," vol. 2, p. 59.
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7. Mr. Smith was born at Wethersfield, Sept. 2, 1797, licensed April 20, 1822, married Esther Mary, daughter of Attorney-General Aaron D. Woodruff, Sept. 1I, 1826, and died in Stamford, Conn., at the house of his son, James D. Smith, Feb. 20, 1874, in his seventy-sev- enth year. He was buried from the Presbyterian Church of Stam- ford, Feb. 23d.
8. George Whitefield Woodruff was a brother of Aaron Dickinson Woodruff. He died at the family farm, near the Asylum, in 1846, at the age of eighty-two. He was an Episcopalian. See S. D. Alexan- der's "Princeton in the Eighteenth Century," p. 218.
9. Gibbs' Federal Administrations, ii. 468. In Mr. Jeremiah Evart's journal of April 18, 1827, he mentions a meeting in the Theological Seminary at Princeton on the subject of Foreign Missions, when Dr. Alexander "was followed by Mr. Stockton, a lawyer of Trenton, who spoke with great feeling." (Tracy's Life of Evarts.)
IO. Not many steps from this monument are those of two brothers, (Douglass and Philip F. Howell), on one of which it is said that the deceased "lost his life by a fall from his horse" (1801), and on the other that the deceased was "thrown from his gig, and died in a few minutes" (1833).
II. Mr. Leake's widow survived him until March 13, 1843, when she died in her eighty-ninth year. Two of their daughters long survived both their parents in the family mansion and in the communion, Sarah dying Nov. 25, 1858, an adult member of the church from May, 1815; Clara dying Jan. 16, 1870, a member of the church from October, 1815, a period of fifty-five years.
Dr. Maclean's "History of the College of New Jersey" produces a minute of the Trustees of April, 1774, from which it appears that Mr. Leake, whilst a Senior, was engaged in some pranks that were re- garded as too disorderly an outbreak of the rising of the American spirit of independence to pass without censure, and hence they passed a resolution that "the Board being informed that the said Samuel Leake, notwithstanding his conduct, hath been appointed by the Faculty to the honor of the Salutatory Oration at the coming Commencement, this Board doth highly disapprove of his designation to that honor, and do hereby vacate that choice, and direct the President of the College to appoint another Orator in his room." Dr. McLean's com- ment on the proceeding is that the Faculty sympathized, to some ex- tent at least, with their pupils in the patriotic demonstration they had made, and were not willing to deprive young Leake of his claim to a position at the Commencement, as "the first scholar in his depart- ment."
There was another Samuel Leake, a native of Virginia, in the Prince- ton class of 1764, a Presbyterian minister in Albemarle county.
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12. Major Beatty is mentioned by Washington in a letter of May, 1788, and there are letters from the Commander-in-Chief to him, of 1779, in Sparks's Writings of Washington, v., 393; vi., 295, 351.
13. The foundation stone of the first pier was laid by General Beatty, May 21, 1804, and on the thirtieth January, 1806, the completion of the bridge was formally celebrated with a procession, an address by the President, and a dinner. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar (1825) was "sorry for the great hurry" in which he had to take the boat for Phil- adelphia, "because I should have liked to have examined Trenton; it is a very handsome place *
* There is, moveover, at Trenton a remarkable bridge crossing the Delaware. It consists of five great suspended wooden arches, which rest upon two stone abutments and three stone piers. The difference between this bridge and others con- sists in this, that in common bridges the road runs over the tangent, but in this bridge the roads form the segment of the arch." (Travels through North American, vol. i., 136.
In contrast with this description of the bridge, we have this entry in the journal of the Rev. Jeremy Belknap, historian, of New Hamp- shire, who in October, 1785, visited his friend, Ebenezer Hazen, in Philadelphia : "We passed through Princeton about noon, and got to Trenton to dinner, then passed the Delaware in another scow (the first was at New Brunswick, 'open at both ends and the scow was propelled across by a rope') which was navigated only by setting poles." "Life of Jeremy Belknap," Harpers, New York, 1847, p. 115.
14. It appears from the following letter from Gen. Beatty to the Rev. Mr. Armstrong that he had declined a nomination for the elder- ship, in 18II :
"BLOOMSBURY, Sat'y morning, Oct. 5th, 1811. "REV. AND DEAR SIR:
"The proposition of my becoming one of the Ruling Elders of the church at which you preside has been the subject of much serious meditation through the week. Were I to be governed solely by the opinion of other persons, the pride of office so incident to human nature might have led me to have accepted the appointment. But as often as I came to commune with my own heart, and to view the little progress it had made in the Divine life, and especially its de- ficiency in those attainments, gifts and graces which would qualify me to fulfil the high and responsible duties which attach to the office of an Elder (who ought to walk as a light in the church, in all things adorning the doctrine of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ) I felt abased and discouraged. Believing, then, as I sincerely do, my un- worthiness as well as unfitness to minister in holy things, I cannot reconcile it with my duty to enter on the appointment, even though the nomination should meet the general acceptance of the congrega- tion. In communicating this determination to the Session, I pray them,
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and you, sir, to be assured that I shall retain a grateful sense of this distinguished mark of their attention towards me.
"With sentiments of respect and esteem,
"I am your friend and humble servant,
"J. BEATTY."
Fuller notice of the Beatty family may be found in the "History of Neshaminy Presbyterian Church," by Rev. Douglas K. Turner, Philadelphia, 1876.
15. "Aprés l'office divin que nous entendimes dans l' eglise Presbyte- rienne." Levasseur's Lafayette en l'Amerique.
On the occasion of Lafayette's presence Mr. Peter O. Studdiford, of Lambertville, preached. In his prayer he said, "Let us remember that we are here to worship God and God alone." Mr. Tyler made one of the prayers.
The following is from an article by Dr. Coleman in the Trenton "Public Opinion," February 14, 1874 :
"Sunday morning the General attended Presbyterian Church in Market street, now State street. The minister at that time was William J. Armstrong, a thin, bilious, nervous and energetic man. He was a good preacher, and his wife was an estimable lady. She was a Stockton, daughter of Lucius Horatio Stockton, Esq., whose position __ "
"May I ask friend Pepys what that has to do with Lafayette?" said Clunn. "True, very true, nothing," replied Pepys.
16. It may have been a revival of this scheme that was contemplated in November, 1814, when a public meeting was called to form an association "to supply the town with fire-wood by water."
17. The remains of Judge Ewing have been removed from the church-yard to Riverview Cemetery, and the grave is designated by this inscription :
"In memory of James Ewing, Esq., one of the Judges of the Com- mon Pleas of the County of Hunterdon. Born at Greenwich in the county of Cumberland, the 12th of July, A. D. 1744 (O. S.). Died at Trenton the 16th day of October, A. D. 1823."
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CHAPTER XXI.
I. The ruling elders during Mr. Alexander's term were : I. NATHANIEL BURROWES; first an elder in Pennington, and received into the Trenton session December 24, 1815. His monument is inscribed : "A memorial of Nathaniel Burrowes, who died January 29, 1839, aged seventy-one years. An elder of the Presbyterian Church for forty years." 2. ROBERT MCNEELY, who came to Trenton in 1791, was ordained to the eldership 1817; died January 27, 1852, in his eighty- fifth year. He was for eighteen successive years annually elected Mayor of Trenton. 3. JOHN VOORHEES, who is mentioned in the pre- ceding chapter. 4. SAMUEL BREARLEY, elected with Mr. Voorhees in 1829, and died May 27, 1848.
Mr. McNeely was Presidential elector in 1817. See an article respecting him in "Beecher's Magazine," Trenton, vol. i., 1870. Mr. McNeely was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, not far from the site of the "Log College," February 23, 1767.
2. Dr. Alexander did not live to see this History. When he wrote the letter of February, 1859, he was pastor of the congregation whose church stood at the corner of Fifth avenue and Nineteenth street, New York, now Fifth avenue and Fifty-fifth street. Soon after- wards his declining health led him to try the climate of Virginia, and he died at the Red Sweet Springs, July 31, 1859, in the 56th year of his age.
3. Mr. Yeomans was licensed while a tutor at Williams College, October, 1826, by the Berkshire Association, and was pastor at Pitts- field in the spring of 1831.
4. The preceding structures stood upon the western part of the church lot. The present one was placed in the central part. The dimensions are one hundred and four feet length; sixty-two feet breadth; steeple one hundred and twenty feet. Dr. Yeomans' dedica- tion sermon was published. For the very accurate and artistic sketch of the church from which the frontispiece was engraved, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. J. FLETCHER STREET, of the Normal School.
In the "Emporium" and "True American," of January 18, 1839, is a "Notice to Builders," for proposals for the erection of the new church, signed by Messrs. B. Fish, T. J. Stryker, Armitage Green, C. Blackfan, J. S. Scudder, and S. Evans, Building Committee.
In the same, August 23, 1839, is an advertisement of a fair to be held in the City Hall, September 3, "to raise a fund for the purchase of furniture for the church."
On January 3, 1840, there is a notice that "Pews will be sold on
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January 13. The church will be dedicated on the 19th. S. G. Potts, Chairman of the General Committee."
The text of Dr. Yeomans' dedication discourse was Psalms 65 : 4, "Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts: he shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple."
The people were slow in giving their consent to introduce an organ into the public worship of the new church. Much of the success in securing this innovation is due to the influence of Elder Francis A. Ewing, and to the ingenious manner in which, by his own playing on the instrument, he confined its use to a quiet accompaniment of the voice, without interlude or flourish. The reconciliation of the scruples of some of the worshippers became so entire, by habit, that in 1871 the first organ was superseded by a larger one, with a paid organist and choir.
5. The elders were JAMES POLLOCK, AARON A. HUTCHINSON, and FRANCIS A. EWING, M.D. The deacons were JOHN A. HUTCHINSON, BENJAMIN S. DISBROW, and JOSEPH G. BREARLEY.
In the year 1836 THOMAS J. STRYKER and STACY G. POTTs were elected and ordained elders.
6. "I preached in the church" says Mr. Webster in a letter written at my request, "in the morning and evening; in the afternoon attended the Sabbath-school. Once a month I took my turn of preaching in the State prison and visiting the cells. One evening in the week I lectured at private houses in Bloomsbury, Lamberton, or Mill Hill, and occa- sionally at Morrisville (on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware) in the afternoon."
Mr. Webster died at Middletown Point, N. J., December 28, 1862, in his seventieth year.
7. The total additions to the communion in Dr. Yeomans' pastorate were seventy-two on examination, eighty-five on certificate. Dr. Yeo- mans died in Danville, Pa., June 22, 1863.
8. The substance of the sermon (on "the pastoral office") appeared in the Biblical Repertory for January, 1842.
9. I insert with great satisfaction a paragraph from a letter of Dr. Yeomans, of August 15, 1859, after the publication of the "History":
"There was one little item in the history of the transition of the church from my pastoral care to yours which is of a kind so unusual and in itself so interesting as to be worthy of notice. It was the fact that your ministry there began on the Sabbath after the termination of mine, so that the congregation was not without a virtual pastor any Sabbath and the pulpit was not declared vacant."
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IO. Dr. Belleville was in Paris in 1774 when Louis XVI. came to the throne and used to tell of his hearing the populace cry, (in allusion to the tradition of Henry IVth's wish that every peasant might have a fowl for his pot-pie,) "Poule-au-pot! poule-au-pot!"
II. There is also an extended notice of his character in an address by Lucius H. Stockton, published in the New Jersey Gazette, Sept. 15, 1832. For further matter concerning the life of Chief Justice Ewing, see "Life of Dr. Miller," ii., 168-171.
12. An obituary notice of Dr. Allison is in the Trenton Emporium, February 24, 1827. He was born in Bordentown, Aug. 19, 1753, was educated under Dr. Samuel Jones of Lower Dublin, Pa., and received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Brown University, in 1804. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society and for some time its secretary. He was for four years chaplain to Congress.
APPENDIX II.
History of the Proposal to Make Trenton the Capital of the United States.
In the notice of Doctor Cowell's will, on page 292, it was stated that one of his legacies was to the United States, in case Congress should make Lamberton-then a precinct of Trenton-the seat of the National Government. Although this gives the subject a very slender connection with the title of this volume, I depend on the local interest it possesses, to make acceptable what I have digested from the Journals of the Congress of the Confederation.
The Congresses before the Constitution held their sessions in different places, but principally in Philadelphia and New York. In June, 1783, preparation was begun to select what was called a "permanent residence" for Congress, by appointing the first Monday of the following October, to take into consideration such offers as might be made from the places that aspired to that distinction. In the same month in which the resolution was passed by Congress, the Legislature of New Jersey agreed to offer to yield to the United States, jurisdiction over any district to the extent of twenty miles square, and to grant £30,000 in specie for the purchase of lands and the erection of buildings.
On the sixth of October, 1783, the question was taken, "In which State buildings shall be provided and erected for the residence of Congress; beginning with New Hampshire, and proceeding in the order in which they stand." Upon this vote all the States were suc- cessively negatived. On the next day a motion was made by Mr. Gerry, "That buildings for the use of Congress be erected on the banks of the Delaware, near Trenton, or of the Potomac near George- town, provided a suitable district can be procured on one of the rivers aforesaid, for a federal town." By amendment the names of the towns were stricken out, and the rivers left; and it was finally resolved on that day, first, that the federal town should be erected on the banks of the Delaware; and then, that the site should be "near the falls," that is, near Trenton on the New Jersey side, or in Pennsylvania on the opposite. A committee of five was appointed to view the re- spective situations, and report.
The question of locality now became a subject of agitation be-
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tween the North and the South. On the day after the appointment of the Committee, a motion was made to reconsider the proceedings, "in order to fix on some other place that shall be more central, more favorable to the Union, and shall approach nearer to that justice which is due to the Southern States." This failed. On the tenth, a motion of Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, was unsuccessful, which pro- posed that the present Congress (then in session at Princeton) should adjourn at once to Philadelphia, sit there till June, and then adjourn to Trenton. A motion of Mr. Duane, of New York, also failed, which called for an immediate adjournment to Trenton. On the eleventhi, Mr. Ellery, of Rhode Island, moved for an adjournment to Annapolis till June, and then to meet at Trenton. The latter clause was stricken out, and the words, "for the place of their temporary residence," were joined to "Annapolis ;" but the amended motion was lost .*
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