USA > New Jersey > The New Jersey coast in three centuries; history of the New Jersey coast with genealogical and historic-biographical appendix, Vol. I > Part 30
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The term Middletown Church is misleading without explanation. It comprised two congregations in the township of Middletown-one in the village of that name, known as the "Lower Meeting-House," and that at "Baptisttown" (now Holmdel), known as the "Upper Meeting-House." This distinction was maintained until 1836, when the two congregations formed separate church organizations, that worshipping in the "Lower Meeting-House" retaining the name of Middletown Church, and the other being known as the Second Middletown Church.
The first church ( Middletown village) was from the beginning the most important of the two bodies. It is believed that James Ashton was ordained as its minister in 1688. He was succeeded by the Rev. John Burrowes, who, among his useful labors, laid the foundation of what be- came the Baptist Church in Freehold. His successor was the Rev. Abel Morgan, a man of sound learning and excellent judgment. He left to the church his library and sermons, all of which are carefully preserved.
The congregation worshipping in the "Upper Meeting-house" num- bered among its constituent members Jonathan and Obadiah Holmes,
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grandsons of the Rev. Obadiah Holmes, who was a Baptist minister and one of the Monmouth patentees, though he did not become a resident on that tract. John Bray was a resident and property owner in 1668, the year of the reputed organization of the church. His name does not ap- pear among the constituent members, but in later years he appears as a preacher, and he was a sincere and Godly man. He made a gift of land for church purposes, and upon this was built (as asserted by the Rev. T. S. Griffiths, the church historian) "certainly the first Baptist parsonage in New Jersey, and doubtless the first meeting-house built by Baptists for their own use." In 1738 the church was aided by a bequest of £400 (a large sum then) from Jonathan Holmes, Jr., a great-grandson of Obadiah Holmes, and a minister. In 1809 a new house of worship was completed, and out of this has grown, by successive improvements, the present edifice.
The Baptists appear to have formed a society in what is now Ocean County, at Manahawkin, in August, 1770, under the ministry of the Rev. Benjamin Miller, and this probably grew out of the missionary visits of a traveling preacher, the Rev. Mr. Blackwell. The church organized with nine members, and increased to fifteen, when it was disrupted by the Rev- clutionary war. It was resuscitated in 1801, with four members. In 1805 a church was formed where is now Burrsville; this was called the Baptist Church of Squan and Dover, and numbered forty -- five members in 1807-a goodly congregation.
One of the strongest of the early day Baptists was the Rev. Nathaniel Jenkins, who was minister of the Cape May Church in 1712-1730. He was a Welshman by birth, and a man of only fair education but great natural ability. He was a member of the Assembly in 1821, when a bill was introduced providing for the punishment of such as denied the doc- trine "of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures." The bill, which was designed to fasten the doctrines of the Established Church upon the people, was antagonized by Mr. Jenkins, who said "I believe the doctrines in question as firmly as the promoters of that ill-designed bill, but will never consent to oppose the opposers with law, or with any other weapon save that of argument." This spirited display of independence had its effect. The bill failed, as remarked by Morgan Edwards, "To the great mortification of them who wanted to raise in New Jersey the spirit which so raged in New England."
According to Dr. Morgan Edwards, the first Baptists to arrive in Cape May county were George Taylor and Philip Hill, in 1675. Taylor conducted services in his own house until his death, in 1702, after which Hill continued to conduct meetings until 1704, when he also died. In
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1712 the first church was formally organized, by the Rev. Timothy Brooks, of Cohansey, and of this organization Mr. Edwards says it "may be deemed an original church, having sprang from none other, but having originated in the place where it exists."
The Protestant Episcopal Church of to-day had its origin under the Established Church of England. In the year 1700 Lewis Morris, who was. then President of the Council of East New Jersey, in a letter to the Bishop of London, said that about one-half the people at Freehold were "Scotch Presbyterians and a sober people;" in Shrewsbury there were about thirty Quakers, and "the rest of the people are generally of no religion." "The youth of the whole Province are very debauched and very ignorant, and the Sabbath day seems to be set apart for rioting and drunkenness." There was not then a Church of England in either West or East Jersey, and, (so wrote Morris), "except in two or three towns there is no place of any public worship of any sort, but the people live very mean-like Indians."
Moved by pious zeal to remove these irreligious conditions, Morris procured the appointment of the Rev. George Keith to come to these (so he deemed them) benighted regions. Keith was supposed to be endowed with peculiar gifts for his mission-for reasons heretofore given. He arrived in 1702, and preached at Perth Amboy, whence he came to Mon- mouth county. There he attended a yearly Quaker meeting in Freehold township, and was permitted to preach. . At times during the years 1703-4 he held services in Freehold and elsewhere.
Mr. Keith returned to England in 1704, and after his departure the Rev. Alexander Innes held services in Shrewsbury, Middletown and Free- hold. He donated ten acres of ground upon which stands the church at. Middletown, and, during his ministry, Queen Anne made her gift of the communion service which is now sacredly treasured in the Shrewsbury Church. Mr. Innes died about 1713. In the absence of records it is not known who ministered to these congregations from this time until 1733. The church at Shrewsbury and the one in Middletown were one, with two congregations, until 1854, when the property was divided and they became separate bodies.
The first Christ Church edifice was probably erected about 1715, and its successor, the present building, was erected in 1769. It is a frame building, with shingled sides, extremely plain, and will seat about four hundred people. The small steeple is surmounted by an iron crown, and this ornament excited the ire of the patriot soldiers during the Revolution- ary war, when they occupied the building as a barracks. Making a target of it, their bullets nicked it in many places, but failed to destroy it. They
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then endeavored to burn the building, but William Parker, a Quaker, smothered the flames with his coat.
The interior of the building is after the old English country church style. The chancel, in the southern end, has an elevation of about four feet above the floor. The chancel chairs were made out of the wood of a giant oak tree which yet stands near the building, and which meas- ures something more than sixteen feet in circumference at a point three feet above the ground. The Bishop's Chair is a beautiful
specinien of the wood carver's art. In the southeast corner of the chancel stands a superb memorial to the Rev. Harry Finch, who was for thirty-four years the rector of the church. This is a white marble cross entwined with ivy, imposed upon a black marble base which rests upon a pedestal of white marble. It bears the name of the deceased rector, and the mottoes "Semper Paratus" and Semper Fidelis." The pulpit bears two venerable volumes-one a Bible printed in 1717, at Ox- ford, England, the gift of "Robert Elliston, Gent., Controller of Her Ma- jestie's Customs of New York in America," and bearing the Elliston coat- of-arms with the motto "Det Bene Deus." This is a beautiful specimen of typography, and contains many illustrations designed by Thornhill, and engraved on copper by Du Bose. The other volume is a Book of Common Prayer, printed at Cambridge, England, in 1760, and presented to the church by Governor William Franklin in 1767. A priceless relic which is preserved with religious care is a communion service, consisting of a silver cup and platter, the gift of Queen Anne, in 1708. On either side of the church and near the chancel is a canopied pew, occupied in olden times by the Governor of the province and the rector of the church. Such is the church to-day, save that it was subsequently frescoed and refurnished. At the same time a new altar font and lectern were provided by Mr. George De Hart Gillespie, who had previously placed in rear of the chancel one of the most beautiful cathedral glass windows in the country, in memory of many of his ancestors whose remains repose in the church yard ad- joining the sacred edifice.
The Rev. John Forbes was missionary in Monmouth county from 1733 to 1738, and was succeeded by the Rev. John Miln, who labored until 1746. The Rev. Thomas Thompson, who was missionary from 1746 to 175I, kept a diary (printed in 1758) in which he records that he had three churches in Monmouth County immediately in his charge, and he also went as far as Manasquan and Shark River. The Rev. Samuel Cooke, who came to Shrewsbury in 1751, was rector when the present Shrewsbury Church was erected, and in 1766 it was the scene of a meeting of clergy to consider the feasibility of creating an American Episcopate. At the
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commencement of the revolution Mr. Cooke joined his fortunes with the royalists, leaving his congregations to become scattered, while he became a chaplain in the British army.
Christ Church of Shrewsbury, the parent Protestant Episcopal Church in Monmouth County, entered upon a new existence in 1788 under the Rev. Henry Waddell, the first rector after the close of the revolutionary war. In 1830 the Rev. Harry Finch became rector, and during a term of service covering nearly thirty-four years the separate parishes of the Nave- sink, the Highlands, Red Bank and Long Branch were organized from among the people to whom he ministered, and at a later day the parish of Eatontown was formed.
. CHRIST CHURCH, SHREWSBURY.
The old graveyard adjoining Christ Church bears mute but eloquent testimony to the lives of a Godly people who were useful in their genera- tion, and whose works do follow them.
Prior to 1774 all New Jersey comprised two Methodist Episcopal circuits, with a traveling preacher in each. In 1779 but one hundred and fifty Methodists were reported in this entire territory. During these years it is presumed that occasional meetings were held at Blue Ball, a hamlet three miles from Freehold. Here was organized the first Methodist Epis- copal Church in Monmouth County, for many years known as the Metho-
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dist Church of Monmouth, and afterward as Bethesda Methodist Church. This was probably organized about 1780. Among the original members was Honce Richmond, said to have been the first Methodist in all that region, and Job Throckmorton. The latter named made his house a home for preachers, and it is supposed that Bishop Asbury was his guest while passing through the country at intervals after 1782. Bishop Asbury notes in his diary that he preached in Monmouth in 1785, and again in 1791. In 1795 he was at "Emlay's Church," where "the great revival of religion was some years ago."
The date of church building at Blue Ball has never been ascertained. The earlier meetings were said to have been held in a barn owned by Jonathan Croxson. In 1797 a church building was in use, and to it came the Methodists of Freehold, Keyport, Bethany, Cheesquakes and Bennett's Mills-a wide scope of territory. Among the early preachers was Thomas Morrell, who had been a major in the revolutionary army and was wound- ed in the battles at Germantown and at Long Island. In 1785 Ezekiel Cooper was licensed to preach, and of him it is narrated that he was cor- verted, when thirteen years of age, under the preaching of Freeborn Gar- retson. The present church edifice was erected in 1849.
Freehold Circuit is first mentioned in the Conference minutes of 1793, when it was separated from Trenton Circuit, and when James Wilson and John Fountain were appointed to the charge. After the division, Free- hold Circuit ( which probably included all the territory east of Trenton) numbered four hundred and seventy-seven members, leaving but one hun- dred and seventy-four members in Trenton Circuit.
Edwin Salter has put on record his belief that Methodist preachers traveled along the Ocean county shore during the revolutionary war, and he names among these Thomas Webb and Barbara Heck, the former named of whom "may be claimed as the founder of Methodism in the United States." The Rev. Benjamin Abbott preached at Toms River in 1778. Tradition points to a Methodist Church at Tuckerton, about 1800, as having been built upon ground donated by one Morgan, a schoolmaster. A church was established at Manahawkin in 1803. In 1809 a church was organized at Good Luck, under the ministry of the Rev. Noah Ed- wards, and this body purchased a meeting-house which had been used by the Universalists. In 1828 the first Methodist Church at Toms River was erected, and the following year one was built at Barnegat.
In southern New Jersey there were at various times some forms of religious expression which were unique, from the standpoint of the ordi- mary religionist.
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In 1737 a society of Quaker Baptists settled where is now Waretownl. These were followers of John Rogers ( and hence were known as Rogerine Baptists ) who were equally opposed to rigid Puritanism and to Established Church ritualism. They held one day to be as sacred as another, and per- sisted in working on the Sabbath. Some went so far as to take their tools- and material to their meeting-house, where, while services were being held, the men would make axe-handles or basket splints, and the women would do their sewing or knitting. It was not unusual at these meetings for members of the congregation to interrupt the preacher with spoken com- ments, and even contradictions.
Universalism in New Jersey had its origin in a circumstance so strange and romantic that the narrative would be regarded as fiction were it not well authenticated.
In 1766 one Thomas Potter was living at Good Luck, in Ocean county. He was a man of considerable means, but was wholly illiterate, being unable to read or write. Of a deeply religious nature, he had built a meeting-house in which he permitted any traveling preacher (papists. excepted) to hold services. While he tolerated all preaching, and was an intent listener, he accepted the entirety of nothing which he heard, but he evolved out of his own thought, based upon such scripture as he had memorized from hearing, a doctrine of his own which was almost identical with what came to be known as universalism.
In 1770 the British brig "Hand-in-Hand," bound for New York, being driven out of her course, put into the mouth of Toms River in quest of provisions. The supercargo, John Murray, came ashore and fell in with Potter, who at once insisted that he was convinced when he first saw the vessel that it bore some man who came to preach the Gospel as he himself understood it, and that this Murray was he. Murray proved to be a Universalist himself, a preacher in England, who had left his country to escape from his calling, to which he felt impelled by a sense of duty, but which was distasteful to Him. He reluctantly yielded to the solicita- tions of Potter, and delivered a discourse, with the result that he resumed. preaching in Potter's meeting-house, which thus became the first Univer- salist Church in America. The property was devised to Murray by Potter by will, May IIth, 1777, and was used by the Universalists until 1809, when it was sold to the Methodists. Two churches of the sect have grown. .
out of it.
Mormon missionaries appeared in 1837 at New Egypt, in Ocean coun- ty, where a congregation of fifty members was formed. In 1840 Josephr Smith, the founder of the faith, visited the place and "sealed" a considera- ble number of converts. William Smith, a brother of Joseph Smith, and John:
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Taylor, who succeeded the "Prophet" in the leadership of the Church in Utah, at times preached and baptized converts in Toms river and Forked river. Churches were erected at various places, but these finally disap- peared, and there is no longer a trace of this peculiar people. It is to be noted in this connection that all the preachers of this faith studiously re- frained from any advocacy of polygamy.
There is no well authenticated evidence of Roman Catholic churches until 1853, when one of this faith was organized at Freehold, under the pastorate of the Rev. John Schollard. Other churches are of more recent date.
An efficient agency for good was established in 1817 in the Mon- mouth County Bible Society. It was during a time when there were but. few organized churches or ministers, and certain philanthropic people became impressed with the conviction that an effort should be made to. furnish a copy of the Scriptures to families not already provided.
The Society was organized in Freehold, with the Rev. Dr. John T. Woodhull as President and Corlies Lloyd as Secretary. It was made auxiliary to the New Jersey Bible Society-an organization which was un- represented in southern New Jersey. Funds were secured by gifts from well-disposed people, and Bibles were given to destitute families, to schools. and to jails, as far away as Squan Neck.
In course of time the Society ceased to perform an active work, but it was resuscitated in 1827 through the effort of Luther Halsey, Sr., who had been an army officer during the Revolutionary War. A deeply pious man, believing that many families were unprovided with the Scriptures, he visited various portions of the county and found far greater destitution in this respect than he had imagined. As a result of his investigation a meeting of former members of the old society was held. Representation was made of the "deplorable destitution of the Scriptures in the county," and as a result it was resolved that before a year every destitute family in the county should be furnished with a copy.
It is stated by contemporaneous observers that this action on the part of the Monmouth County Bible Society was decidedly the most important that had ever been made in the Bible cause, arousing the religious people of the entire State to an urgent duty. For, one week later, at a session of the Nassau Hall Bible Society in Princeton, the Rev. Job F. Halsey and the Rev. Dr. John T. Woodhull, delegates from the Monmouth County Society, introduced a resolution to the effect that the Nassau Hall Bible Society, with the co-operation of the other Bible Societies in the State, should resolve to supply, within one year, every destitute family in the
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State of New Jersey with a Bible, and this, with slight modification, was adopted.
A philosopher has written poetically of the "growth of an idea." He would have delighted in the illustration afforded by the effect of this resolution. Other counties and States followed the example; two years later the American Bible Society resolved to supply all destitute families in the United States; shortly afterward the New Jersey Bible Society deter- mined to supply the natives of the Sandwich Islands with such portions of the Scriptures as had been translated into their tongue, and in 1833 the American Bible Society laid plans looking to supplying the entire ac- cessible population of the globe within a given time.
The necessity for the excellent effort of the Monmouth County Bible Society is evidenced in the fact that, in the first year, that body found in their county (which then included Ocean county) one thousand families destitute of the Bible. The work was prosecuted from time to time with excellent results, which were epitomized in an address delivered by the Rev. Dr. William Reiley, of Holmdel, upon the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Society, held in Freehold, on September II, 1866. To that time the Society had placed in the county of Monmouth 10, 151 Bibles and 5,817 Testaments, and, in addition, more than 2,500 Testaments to soldiers in the army, at an aggregate cost of more than five thousand dol- lars, while it had contributed far more than that sum to the American Bible Society for its general work. Certainly the speaker was justified in saying "No one can tell this day how much the Monmouth County Bible Society has done to raise the standard of intelligence and morals in the county."
The anniversary occasion practically marked the end of local neces- sity. Well supported churches and Sunday-schools and the era of cheap printing has well nigh provided for all at home. But there remained the lately liberated slaves, the Indians and peoples beyond the seas, and to liberally aiding to supply the wants of these the effort of this beneficent or- ganization was thenceforth devoted.
CHAPTER XI.
EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ..
Information concerning educational conditions during the early Co- lonial times is exceedingly meagre. It is probable, however, that the first organized school in the State was in the town of Bergen, now a part of Jersey City, in 1662. The school was maintained out of a tax levy, and, ten years after its establishment, litigation arose out of the refusal of some to make payment, their refusal being based upon the assertion that the school was too far distant to admit of their children attending it. The courts, however, decided against them. The first teacher was probably Steenhuysen Englebart, who was a preacher as well as a schoolmaster, and he used the school building for church purposes on Sunday. On the ground. which was occupied by this pioneer school now stands Public School No. II, of Jersey City, with it's twenty-four teachers and its accommodations. for a thousand pupils.
In 1682, in various settlements, a share of the common lands was set: apart for school purposes, and the local annals of Middlesex county refer to schools held intermittently. The first school established in West Jersey,. of which there is any record, was at Burlington, in 1683. The income de- rived from the revenues of an island in the Delaware, opposite the town, was set apart to defray the expenses of the school. The fund thus estab- lished is still in existence, and the income is appropriated for public school. purposes.
In 1693 the proprietary authorities enacted that the inhabitants might meet and choose three men to make a rate and establish the salary of a schoolmaster for as long as they should think proper.
In 1769, in the reign of George III, the School Trustees of Wood- bridge were incorporated by royal charter, and the phraseology of this document is noticeable, proving as it does for "the maintenance of a free school." "Of fully as much interest is the scant reference found with re- lation to the interest taken by the people in educational enterprises. In
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Woodbridge they were peculiarly active, for there, in 1765, four years prior to the granting of the charter referred to, a proposition to devote a portion of the school land money for "ye Schooling of Poor People's children" was brought to vote. It was defeated at the election, but in 1789 an almost similar measure was enacted, and, with it, a provision that the amount of tax assessed upon dogs should also be devoted to that particular purpose. In 1793 the famous Woodbridge Academy was built, the funds being provided by popular subscription.
The great difference between the school of the Colonial period and its modern successor was that in the former moral and religious training were the most important features, while in our day secular education in the public schools takes precedence of all else.
The old-time schoolmaster was little better than an inferior assistant to the minister, "the minister's man," as the kaleyard novelists and the Scotch story-tellers call him. It is impossible to estimate very clearly the value of his school in the way of secular training. That it was the means of instilling into the minds and hearts of several generations a knowledge of God and His commandments, a reverence for the Scriptures and all things sacred, and won for the people of New Jersey most deservedly a reputation for being a God-fearing, honest, moral and reliable race, is certain ; but it certainly failed to make the mass educated, which, in modern times we would interpret as what was most to be desired in any system of education. The letters and manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which have come down to us show equally a sovereign con- tempt for spelling and capitalization; grammar was an unknown quantity, and punctuation a mystery beyond human ken. We question if, say in 1750, an ordinary boy could be found who would be able to define the boundaries of the Province in which he lived, or who could repeat the names of a dozen men outside of his own circle of acquaintances, or tell the whereabouts of a dozen places in the country apart from the section in which his own days were spent. Of history he knew nothing beyond a few bare facts concerning Holland or England or Scotland, which came to him more in the form of traditions than as actual incidents. He took his notions of civil government from his church, and the minister was his guide, philosopher and friend, at once his spiritual and his secular director, his prayer-book and his encyclopedia. As he advanced in life, his leading idea about government was that it was good when it interfered the least with his movements and cost the smallest amount in taxes.
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