USA > New Jersey > Cumberland County > History of the early settlement and progress of Cumberland County, New Jersey and of the currency of this and the adjoining colonies. > Part 11
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A second Presbyterian church was organized in 1838, and the stone church on Pearl Street erected in 1840, at first in connection with the New School Presbytery of Philadelphia, but afterwards united with the Presbytery of West Jersey. It has 120 members. Recently, in 1869, a new building has been commenced on Com- merce Street, and a church organized called the West Presbyterian Church of Bridgeton.
A Presbyterian church was organized at Port Elizabeth in 1820, but was soon removed to Millville, where most of the elders and members resided. In 1838 a house was erected in the latter place which was enlarged in 1855. There are now 73 members. There is also a new church at Vineland. The whole number of Presby- terian churches in the county at this time being nine, three of which are in connection with the New School Presbytery, and six with the West Jersey Presbytery, Old School, numbering together about 1250 members.
Smith, in his Ilistory of New Jersey, published in 1765, describ- ing the then condition of Cumberland, states that the places of worship were Episcopalians one, Presbyterian four, Baptist two, Seventh-day Baptist one, Quakers one. What place of worship of Presbyterians besides those at Fairfield, Greenwich, and Deerfield, he refers to, is uncertain. Probably it was a church erected by the German settlers in Upper Hopewell, near the place now called New Boston, about the year 1760, which it appears by the deed was called the German Presbyterian Church. It is not known whether it ever had a regular pastor, the building never having been finished. It stood, however, until about the year 1812, and the graveyard still remains. The worshippers united with the neigh- boring Presbyterian churches. The Swedes erected a church on the east side of Maurice River, opposite Buckshootem, in 1743, in which worship was maintained by the Missionaries from Sweden, until after the Revolutionary War, when it went to decay, and has long since entirely disappeared.
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An Episcopal church was erected at Greenwich about the year 1729, by Nicholas and Leonard Gibbon, of the established church in England, on land belonging to the last named. It is not known whether it was ever regularly consecrated and received as a regu- lar church edifice, although it was occasionally used for service by the rector of the Salem church. After the removal and death of the founders, it seems to have fallen into neglect. The building, which was of brick, or a part of it, was for some years occupied as a stable, and some thirty years ago was entirely taken down. Leonard Gibbon and his wife were buried in the chancel. Recently their remains were carefully removed by some of their descendants and deposited in the Presbyterian graveyard. It was found upon this occasion, although the gravestones were in the proper positions, that, either by mistake or design, the husband had been buried at the side of his wife, with his head in the direction of her feet.
A church of the Episcopal order was established in Bridgeton in 1860, which has erected a handsome edifice on Commerce Street, and settled a rector, having -- members. There are also Epis- copal churches in Millville and Vineland, in which there are regular services by a missionary.
There are also Roman Catholic chapels in Millville, Port Elizabeth, and in Bridgeton.
The German population of Bridgeton to the number of about 100, in conjunction with others in Millville, maintain a Lutheran minister, who preaches at the two places on alternate Sundays in the German language. A new church building has been com- menced on York Street, Bridgeton. There is also a neatly erected chapel in Upper Deerfield, in connection with the Lutheran church that has long existed at Friesburg, in which the preaching is now in the English language.
Mark Reeve and others at Greenwich applied, in 1690, to the Salem monthly meeting of Friends, to assist them in building a meeting-house, which was erected where the present old Friends' meeting-house now stands, on a part of Reeve's sixteen acre lot. It was what is termed an indulged meeting, or meeting for worship only, being under the care of Salem meeting, and continued so until 1770, when this and the meeting at Alloway's Creek were united and formed one monthly meeting, to be held alternately at each place. The number of Friends that settled at Greenwich or else- where in the county was never large. At the time of the great
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division of the society in 1836, into the two parties generally called Orthodox and Hicksite, the former being the most considerable in number, retained the old building where they still worship. The members of both sexes number about -. The other party built a new house on the main street about a mile northward of the old one, and continue to worship there. They number about - members.
A Friends' meeting-house still remains at Port Elizabeth, built in 1800, but the society is now nearly or quite extinct.
The first Sunday school taught in the county was opened in the Academy on Bank Street, Bridgeton, by Ebenezer Elmer, in 1816. In the course of a few months a regular society was formed and a school commenced in the old court-house, which continued to be taught there until 1829, when it was removed to the new session- house at the corner of Commerce and Pearl Streets. While kept in the court-house although most of the teachers and scholars were Presbyterians, it was a union school. At first, owing to a strange misconception of the true object of such schools, which is to teach religious truths and other learning, only as a means of acquiring religious knowledge, many even religious and well-informed per- sons opposed them. Some thought they would interfere with that family and pastoral instruction of youth which Presbyterians especially had always practised, while others held back from that reluctance to understand and engage in a new enterprise which is so common. At first these schools were looked to mainly as a means of instruction for the poor. Soon, however, the great good found uniformly to result from their establishment, not only to the poor and neglected classes but to all the youth, recommended them so strongly that they were gradually introduced at different places. About 1830 they were adopted by the churches of all denominations, lost their union character, and are now carried on in connection with most of the places of religious worship in the county by the different societies using them.
The Methodists made but little progress in the United States until after the Revolution. Almost all the preachers were from Great Britain, and all imitated John Wesley in their hostility to the resistance made by the colonies to the measures adopted by the King and Parliament. It was not until 1784 that they became an independent society, and adopted the name of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. Prior to this time the
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sacraments and other ordinances were administered only by the bishops and priests of the Episcopal church, or in rare instances by the ministers of other denominations, to which the converts to Methodism happened to be attached. The first annual conference, which was held in 1773, appointed John King and William Wat- ters to travel and preach in Jersey. Watters is said to have been the first native American appointed as a travelling preacher. The salary allowed in 1784 was sixty-four dollars, and the same sum to the wife if there was one. The preachers, however, were entertained without charge to them by their converts and other friends, who commonly had some allowance made to them for doing so by the societies.
As early as the year 1780 there were some converts to Methodism at Port Elizabeth and its vicinity. The first church building in the county for the exclusive use of this society was erected there in 1786, on ground donated for the purpose by Mrs. Bodley. A Mr. Donnelly, who was a local preacher there, died before this time. In 1798 Dr. Benjamin Fisler, who commenced his ministry in 1791 and preached in Camden, and in 1797 travelled on the Salem Circuit with William McLenahan, which included Salem, Cumberland, Cape May, and a considerable part of Gloucester County, on account of his feeble health, located at Port Elizabeth, where he was an acceptable local preacher for half a century. He was an intelligent man, who had read a good deal, and although a firm believer in the doctrines taught by Benson and Watson, had no respect for Dr. Clarke's Commentary, which he thought contained many dangerous errors. He once told the writer he would not allow Clarke's Life of the Wesley Family, interesting as it is, to be read by his children, on account of the currency it gives to the story of the ghost, thought to have haunted the house of John Wesley's father, which practised rappings some- thing like those made by the modern spiritualists. In those days ghosts were received with more credit than now ; Wesley's belief in them having influenced many of his followers.
About the same time Eli Budd, from Burlington County, belong- ing to a family of Friends, who were among the original settlers of that county, several of whom became Methodists, and some were preachers, purchased land on the upper part of Manamuskin, and. commenced making iron. IIis son Wesley was quite distinguished as a preacher, and in 1799 rode the Salem Circuit. Afterwards he established iron works at the place long called Cumberland Furnace,
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now Manamuskin Manor; but in the language of Raybold, whose " Reminiscences of Methodism in West Jersey," contains many in- teresting particulars of which free use has been made, "he made a shipwreck of his character, happiness and hope," and it may be added that he also made shipwreck of his worldly prosperity, having failed in 1818, and being unable to retrieve his fortune, soon left the State. His father and brother maintained a good character. Early in this century a church was built near the iron-works and a society organized, which, however, when the works were aban- doned in - soon became nearly or quite extinct. Recently it has been revived. Fithian Stratton, a famous but very eccentric preacher, also gathered a society at his settlement on Menantico. He was originally a member of the Presbyterian church in Deer- field, and fell under church censure for improper conduct appa- rently growing out of his violent temper in 1779, and appears to have afterwards abandoned that church and joined himself to the Me- thodists. Preachers of this denomination began to gather societies within the bounds of the Deerfield congregation as early as 1780, in which and in subsequent years some members of that church were censured for irregularly withdrawing from its communion and joining the Methodists without a regular dismission. In 1799, Mr. Stratton, who had then become a Methodist preacher, sent a written request to the pastor and session to be permitted to preach in the church; but this was denied on the ground of his previous conduct. He died in 1811, soon after which his projected borough at Schooner Landing came to an end.
The church now called Woodruffs, in the neighborhood of CarlIsburg, was composed originally of several Presbyterians from the Deerfield church. The meetings were held at first in a school- house; Preston Stratton, the class-leader, being a brother of Fithian. In its best days this class had about twenty members. When Preston Stratton left, his place was supplied by Joel Harris, but he also soon moved away. and the class went down, the members join- ing another class in Broad Neck. Preaching was resumed in 1823 and a new class established in 1824, of which the late Judge Wood- ruff became the leader. In 1829 a house was built to be used as a school-house as well as for preaching, and after this there was regu- lar preaching. In 1841 the existing church building was erected, the membership then being twenty-five. This church has never been a principal station, but has been either a part of a circuit, or
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of some other station, sometimes Bridgeton, sometimes Willow Grove, sometimes Pittsgrove in Salem County, and now of Cohan- sey.
Port Elizabeth circuit has connected with it five other churches one of which, viz., West Creek, where there were Methodists as early as 1790, and a church edifice was built in 1826, is in Cape May. Some of the members, however, reside in this county. At Heislerville the gospel was preached first in a private house in 1800. A meeting house was erected in 1828, superseded in 1852 by a new and larger edifice. Leesburg society was commenced, about 1806, and the old church built about 1816, taken down in 1864, and a new and handsome building substituted. It is called " Hickman Church." Dorchester is a branch from Leesburg, formed in 1856, and a house built the same year. The old church, which was at one time the place of worship of a flourishing society while Cumberland furnace was carried on, but which had become dilapi- dated and the society almost extinct, had its place supplied by a new edifice in 1862, and the prospect now is that its congregation will steadily increase.
Michael Swing was the pioneer of the Methodists in Fairfield, to which place he came from Pennsylvania about the year 1790. He began, according to the usual practice, to hold meetings in private houses, and being a man of property and the owner of a farm adjoining the old Presbyterian graveyard on Cohansey Creek, which in his lifetime belonged to the Rev. Daniel Elmer, he in 1719, very much at his own expense, built the church near New Englandtown Cross-roads, which has ever since been known as the Swing meeting-house. It was for a long time the only Methodist meeting-house in the township, and was the third or fourth in the county.
Raybold tells us that in 1800, R. Swain and R. Lyon travelled the Salem Circuit, and that on one occasion Lyon announced at a meeting held in Fairfield, that on that day four weeks he would be there, " preach, pray, work a miracle, and have a revival." Swing (Irving he calls him) disapproved this proceeding, and wrote to Swain to try and meet Lyon at Fairfield, in order to keep bim in order. Both the preachers attended at the appointed time, and there was a great crowd, excited by the announcement of the miracle. Swain preached ; then Lyon arose and proclaimed, "Lyon is here, and he will yet preach ; the miracle is there," pointing with
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his hand; "whoever saw the Presbyterian minister and his flock here before ? Now, I shall preach, and the Lord will do the rest; we shall see the revival." He did preach, and a great revival followed, and the whole affair passed from the minds of the people, who were too happy in grace to be very critical. This proceeding, strange as it now seems, was very much in character with many things done by the early preachers, and the part assigned to Mr. Swing agrees with his character. He was a prudent man, an ex- cellent preacher, and much esteemed not only by his own society, but by pious people of other denominations. He was a zealous and active member, and officer of the Cumberland Bible Society until his death in 1834, at a time when most of the Methodists declined to unite with it.
The church he built is now a separate station; called from the name of the town near by, Fairton. Formerly it belonged to Cumberland circuit, and was then made a station in connection with Cedarville, where a society was formed in 1833 and a church edifice erected in 1836. Cedarville became a separate station in 1861.
Methodist circuit riders, local preachers, and exhorters appear to have established meetings in many different parts of the county between 1780 and 1800. The whole county, and most of the time Cape May, belonged to the Salem circuit until about 1809, and the district of New Jersey included the whole State and a considerable part of New York. In 1811 the district was divided into two, but was united in 1816 and so remained until separated in 1823. In 1847 the upper part of the State became a part of Newark Confe- rence, the lower part, south of Elizabeth, being the New Jersey Conference, comprising four districts, with each a presiding elder.
The labors of the itinerant preachers were very arduous and self-denying, and were greatly blessed in the conversion of many sinners. Raybold gives this illustration of what he terms a cure for the itinerant fever, as related to him by one of the circuit riders : " Many years ago I travelled Cumberland circuit. There was residing upon the circuit a brother P-, a most devotedly pious young man, and a local preacher of some few years' standing. He resided upon a good farm of his own, where with his small family he could live very comfortably indeed, and make money too ; but whenever I went there he could talk of little else than travelling to preach the gospel more fully. He was of rather a
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feeble frame and delicate health, and I informed him, it was my judgment he never could stand constant labor in preaching, while he could make himself very useful in his present position. The Lord, I told him, did not require of men a work for which they were physically unfitted. All my reasoning would not satisfy him ; so at last, during the winter, I requested him to meet me at a cer- tain point and take a tour of two weeks on his native circuit, and after that he could tell, perhaps, whether travelling and preaching agreed with his constitution. At the appointed time and place we met. For a week the appointments required two sermons a day ; and on Sundays three sermons, besides meeting classes and other business matters; travelling for many miles through the woods and over bad roads on horseback, in weather severely cold, for a greater part of the time. I kept him at work steadily, occasionally meeting the class myself. Towards the end of the second week, I found he was becoming too feeble to go on much farther.
"One morning, as we started for the next daily task, heavy clouds hung over, the wind howled among the trees, and snow began to fall quite thickly. Brother P -- stopped his horse, and said, ' Had we not better put up somewhere? it will be a storm.' 'A storm,' I replied; 'we never stop for a small snow-storm.' Poor P- wrapped himself closer in his overcoat, and said no more. That night finished the work of the circuit for the time; we had finished the two weeks, and he was anxious to start for home, distant some forty miles. The family where we stayed were up at three o'clock to start for market, and brother P- entreated me to arise at breakfast and start for home. To please him I did so. We were soon on the saddle, and in the clear moonlight of an intensely cold morning we rode about twenty miles without a word of conversa- tion. As the sun arose we came in sight of my residence, but he had to travel twenty miles farther to reach his home. When we were about to part, he stopped his horse, and I said, 'Now, P-, what do you think of the itinerancy ?' 'Ah, brother,' said he, 'it will not do for me; I cannot stand it; I had no idea of the toil and ex- posure, the privations and sufferings.' ' Why, my dear brother,' said I, 'you have been on the lightest work, and in the best part of the circuit; if this specimen discourages you, I do not know what you would say to other scenes.' 'Ah,' said he, 'I had better stay at home and attend to my family and farm, and leave the itinerancy to those who are stronger than I am; this trial will satisfy me.' Poor
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P- went home, and had a spell of sickness, but he was cured of the travelling fever."
Bridgeton was for several years within the Salem circuit. John Walker, one of the preachers, formed a class about the year 1804, several Methodists having before this moved into the place. William Brooks, who then carried on a tannery at the southeast corner of Broad and Atlantic Streets, on the west side of the river, was the class-leader, and his house was usually the place of meet- ing and of entertainment for the preachers. Among the early converts was Jonathan Brooks, who was for many years a local preacher, and the leading Methodist of the town.
He was a good specimen of an old-fashioned Methodist. An illiterate man, knowing very little but what he learned from the Bible, and his own experience as a Christian, of good practical sense in all matters not too much influenced by his prejudices, an earnest exhorter, and maintaining a character above suspicion, he exercised a great and deserved influence, not only in his own society, but among the Christian people of other denominations. He had no toleration, however, for any departure from the early usages of the society; thought a minister would be spoiled by rubbing his back against a college, and opposed till the last, singing in church by note, or with the aid of a choir. Having been him- self ordained as a deacon, and not entitled to administer the sacra- ments, he considered himself deprived of a privilege he ought to have, and was earnest for a reform, which he did not live to see. When the first Conference, at which Bishop Hedding presided, was held in Bridgeton in 1838, he groaned not only in spirit, but very audibly, that only one minister appeared with the old Wesley coat, and but very few exhibited any other than white pocket hand- kerchiefs, remarking to the writer, that the passion for an educated ministry, singing out of music-books., &c, with which all the young people were so taken, he feared would ruin the church.
The building now used as a chapel, and standing at the corner of Bank and Washington Streets, was erected where the brick church now stands on Commerce Street, in 1807, and was consecrated by Rev. Joseph Totten, then the presiding elder of the district, whose residence was on Staten Island. Before long Cumberland Circuit was established, of which this church formed a part until 1832, when it became a separate station, and so remains. The new brick church was built in 1833. It deserves notice as showing
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the importance of the two towns; that now the district covering the southern counties of the State is called Bridgeton district, and Salem ranks as a station. The brick church on Fayette Street, called Trinity, was erected in 1854, and that on Bank Street, called the Central M. E. Church, in 1866. Nothing perhaps marks more decidedly the change in the Methodist church than that nearly all the circuits of the county have been abolished, and now most of the principal churches have separate pastors.
Millville contained a few Methodists as early as 1810. Long before this time a class existed at White Marsh, distant about four miles, between Millville and Fairfield. The meetings for preaching in the town were for some time held in a building erected as a school and meeting-house for all denominations. In 1817 it was a regular station of the circuit riders, and about the year 1822 a building of stone, commenced for a dwelling, was purchased and converted into a church. In 1844 the old church was taken down and the edifice, now called the First Church, erected in its place. In 1857, the Second Church, in the upper part of the town, near the cotton mills, was erected.
There were a considerable number of Methodists within the boundaries of the township of Downe as early as 1800, in which year a class was formed at Haleysville, a settlement a little west of Mauricetown. In 1811 a church building was erected there, which was occupied until 1864, when it was superseded by a new one. In Mauricetown the society worshipped in a school-house until 1842, when a church was erected, and this church now gives the name to the station. A Captain Webb, of the English navy, is said to have landed at Nantuxet before 1800, and preached a sermon in a barn, and thus commenced a Methodist society, who built a meeting-house in 1804, which was burned in 1812. The society after this used a store house. In - they erected the present building at Newport.
A society was commenced at Dividing Creek in the early part of this century, who erected a house in -.
There is also a mission station at Port Norris, one at Buckshutem, and another at Centregrove.
A class of Methodists was formed and met in the school-house at Jericho, some time before 1842, and in 1846 they erected the meeting-house in which they now worship at Roadstown. In 1856
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the house in Upper Hopewell, called Harmony, was erected. These two churches are now united in one station.
Full statistics of the numbers during the successive years that have elapsed since its commencement, if they could be obtained, would present us a proof of the peculiar adaptedness of this society to expand and fill up the waste places in the land, and of the re- markable and praiseworthy zeal and energy of the preachers and members. The number of members returned for Salem circuit in 1789 was 680, and in 1790 it was increased to 933. In 1808 the Cumberland circuit, which then included Cape May, returned 700 members. In 1832 Bridgeton station returned 357 members, one preacher, and Cumberland circuit 955 members and two preachers; returned, being only those belonging to the Conference, and not including the local preachers and exhorters, of which there were several. The Minutes of the Conference for 1864 returns Bridge- ton, Commerce Street, 542 members; Trinity, 220; Roadstown and Harmony, 98; Fairton, 133; Cedarville, 145; Newport, 160 ; Mauricetown, 273; Millville (Second Street), 460 ; Millville (Foun- dry) 175; Vineland, 35; Port Elizabeth, 504; Woodruff and Co- hansey, 86 ; numbering in all 2831 members, besides those returned as probationers. Some of the members returned as belonging to the Port Elizabeth Station, reside in the county of Cape May, but there are others connected with stations out of the bounds of the county who reside within it, so that the number in the county may be safely set down at 2800. Making all due allowance for the greater facility of becoming members of this society as compared with some other denominations, this certainly exhibits a wonderful progress. And when it is added, that the society has constantly employed about ten regular ministers besides twelve or more local preachers, and that the gospel is statedly preached nearly every Sunday and frequently on other days in at least twenty different houses, the evidence of zeal and industry is very complete.
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