The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 112

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, publisher
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Philadelphia, Galaxy publishing company
Number of Pages: 924

USA > New Jersey > The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century > Part 112

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

HANDLER, THOMAS BRADBURY, D. D., Protestant Episcopal Clergyman, latc of Elizabeth- town, New Jersey, was born at Woodstock, Con- necticut, April 26th, 1726. He was a descendant of William Chandler, who, with his wife, Han- nah, and four children, Hannah, Thomas, John and William, came to this country from England, and set- tled at Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1637. IIis son John, born in England in 1635, united in 1686 with several of his neighbors in the settlement of Woodstock, Connecticut, of the church of which he was chosen deacon, and where he died April 15th, 1703. Thomas' early years were spent on the paternal farm, and he graduated at Yale College in 1745. In 1747 he was invited to serve as Catechist at North Castle and Bedford, Westchester county, New York, but declined in favor of St. Peter's Church, Westchester. Immediately after the decease of Rev. Mr. Vaughan, how- ever, he went to St. John's, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, about the Ist of December, 1747, and, highly recommended, was appointed by the " Venerable Society," in May, 1748, their | promote principally by the circulation of controversial tracts,

498

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.

copies of which he desircd might be sent him from abroad. " But that supply being precarious, his own pen was pres- ently called into action." On the occasion of Rev. George Whitefield's visit to Elizabethi in November, 1763, he re- fused to grant him the use of his pulpit. Popular as he was among all classes, this refusal created a division in the par- ish, and many people were offended at what they consid- ered a discourteous action. The number of communicants was reduced to about seventy-five, of whom seldom more than fifty were gathered together at one time. The revival of religion which prevailed in the town during 1764 also tended to embarrass him in his ministrations, opposed as he was to everything of the kind. Matters began to wear a more hopeful appearance at the close of the ensuing half year; the church services were better attended, and an en- largement of the parsonage was provided for by a gencrous subscription. But, at the opening of the following year, lie was constrained, in consequence of the stamp act agita- tion, then at its height, to feel and say that " the duty of an Episcopal missionary in this country is now become more difficult than ever." While deprecating the continuance of the policy of the government, he still professed his fixed resolution to abide by the eause of Parliament rather than by that of the people-a resolution from which he never swerved. In 1766 the University of Oxford conferred on him, at the solicitation of Rev. Dr. Johnson, of New York, the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Up to this time he had published nothing. The struggle in reference to an Ameri- can Episcopate was now in progress, and exciting deep and wide-spread interest. Several pamphlets had already ap- pcared on both sides, from the pens of Mr. Apthorp and Drs. Johnson and Caner for, and of Dr. Mayhew against the project. At the request of Dr. Johnson, whose infirmi- ties would not allow of his undertaking the work himself, and by appointment of the clergy of New York and New Jersey, met in convention at Shrewsbury, October Ist, 1767, he, " stimulated thereto, doubtless, by the anti-Episcopal Convention at East-town in November," prepared and pub- lished in New York in June, 1767, his " Appeal to the Public in behalf of the Church of England in America : Wherein the Original and Nature of the Episcopal Office are briefly considered, Reasons for sending Bishops to America are Assigned, the Plan on which it is proposed to send them is stated, and the objections against sending them are obviated and confuted." Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncy, of Boston, Massachusetts, responded, 1768, in a pamphlet entitled " The Appeal to the Public Answered, in behalf of the non- Episcopal Churches in America, containing Remarks on what Dr. Thomas Bradbury Chandler has advanced," etc. Soon after this he published "The Appeal Defended, or The Proposed American Episcopate Vindicated," etc. This drew forth a rejoinder from Dr. Chauncy, January, 1770, with the title: "Reply to Dr. T. B. Chandler's Ap- peal Defended," which was answered in 1771 in a pam- phlet of two hundred and forty pages, entitled " The Appeal

Farther Defended, in answer to the farther Misrepresenta- tions of Dr. Chauncy." Notwithstanding this pamphlet controversy, he continued in the regular discharge of his parochial duties, occasionally going forth on missionary tours. In July, 1770, he refers to the fact that "the Dis- senters, of late, have become more friendly in appearance than ever," sometimes excecding in number, in their attend- ance on special occasions, his own people. In the course of the two or three following years, the congregation had increased so greatly as to determine the people to enlarge the capacity of the church edifice. In 1774, however, it was resolved to erect an entirely new building; materials were collected, and money subscribed to defray the cx- penses. But the first shock of war put an end to the work, not to be resumed by that generation. He then found his situation painful and unpleasant, as well from the active part which he deemed it his duty to take, as from the vio- lent feeling generally entertained against the church of which he was a minister. These considerations caused him to think of leaving the colonies and crossing over again to England. Just before his departure he received a letter from John Pownall, Undcr.Secretary of State, bearing date April 5th, 1775, as follows : " I am directed by the Earl of Dartmouth to acquaint you that ITis Majesty has been gra- ciously pleased, from a consideration of your merit and ser- vices, to signify His Commands to the Lords Commissioners

of the Treary that they do make an allowance to you, out of such funds as their Lordships shall think proper, of two hundred pounds per annum, the said allowance to com- mence from the first of January last." He continued to officiate in Elizabeth until the middle of May, 1775, when, probably alarmed by the sacking of the house of his friend, Dr. Myles Cooper, at New York, on the night of the 10th of May, he found refuge with him on the "Kingfisher," Captain James Montague, a British ship-of-war, lying in the harbor of New York. On the 24th of May, in company with Dr. Cooper and Rev. Samuel Cook, he sailed in the "Exeter " for Bristol, England. The congregation were then left without a supply for the pulpit; public worship was at length suspended, and the church edifice became unoccupied on the Sabbath. As houses were nceded for hospitals and barracks, resort was had occasionally to the churches. The fences were used for fuel, and even wooden memorial tablets, ctc., consumed in the hour of need. St. John's suffered most severely, as it was not used on the Sabbath; nearly all the wood-work of the interior was de- stroyed, while "two attempts to hurn the building by putting fire under the pulpit were providentially defeated." About 1779 or 1780 the congregation began to reassemble in a private house for public worship on the Sabbath. After the destruction of the Presbyterian Church, in January, 1780, many, who had been accustomed to worship there, resorted to the Episcopal Church, especially when Mr. Ogden, Mrs. Caldwell's cousin, was to preach. Dr. Caldwell remained in exile the full period of ten years-a pensioner upon the

499

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA.

royal bounty-his family continuing to occupy the rectory, as before, through all the gloomy period of the conflict. The home government gladly availed themselves of his long experience in American affairs, and often sought of him information and advice. Says Professor McVickar: "From a manuscript journal kept by Dr. Chandler during his ab- sence, and now (r836) in the possession of the author, we find him still laboring for those whom he had left ; raising funds for his destitute brethren ; urging upon the government plans of conciliation, and upon the bishops with whom he seems to have lived in habits of intimate friendship the completion of his long-cherished plan of an American Episcopate." Dr. Berrian affirms that "he was received with such a marked and universal respect into the society of the most distinguished persons as has very rarely been rendered to any one from our country in private life." In the State Paper Office at London is preserved a " Petition of Thomas Bradbury Chandler, D. D., Rector of St. John's Church, Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and others, to the King," supposed to have been presented early in 1777, to the effect that "in consideration of their eminent services to IIis Majesty, and that, having at considerable expense discovered a tract of land on the waters of the Ohio, in the Province of Canada, the settlement of which must soon take place," they pray His Majesty to grant them a manda- mus for 100,000 acres of land in the said spot. He contin- ued to cherish " almost to the last" the expectation of the restoration of the royal authority in America; and, as late as December 3d, 1781, wrote from London to Rev. Abra- ham Beach, of New Brunswick, New Jersey: "The late blow in Virginia (Cornwallis's surrender) has given us a shock, but has not overset us. Though the clouds at pres- ent are rather thick about us, I am far, very far, from dc- sponding. I think matters will take a right turn, and then the event will be right." About the year 1780 a small scab on his nose, a relic of the small-pox of. 1757, developed in the form of a cancer, and gave him much concern. Every expedient for a cure proved unavailing. He spent a sum- mer on the Isle of Wight, living mainly on goat's milk, but did not reap the anticipated benefit. In May, 1783, after the proclamation of peace, several of the Episcopal clergy of New York and Connecticut, Drs. Leaming, Inglis and Moore, with others, wrote, by Rev. Dr. Seabury - on his way to obtain the episcopate-to the Archbishop of York a letter of commendation, in which, strengthened by the warm support of Sir Guy Carleton, they requested his appointment as Bishop for the Province of Nova Scotia. It was estimated that not less than 30,000 refugee royalists had removed from the States to Nova Scotia, many of whom were from New York and its vicinity. Ilence the zeal to provide an episcopate for their benefit, as very few of them pertained to any other body than the Church of England. Dr. Chandler desired the appointment, but a decision was so long delayed that he finally, pressed by the necessity of change for his health, desired to forego all claim thereto

and return to his family and parish. Archbishop Moore would not consent to the abandonment, but consented that he should visit his family. He accordingly sailed for America, and reached New York, Sunday, June 19th, 1785, but found himself too infirm to resume his parochial charge. In the course of the following year the long-sought episco- pate of Nova Scotia was offered him, but his health was too seriously impaired for him to think of performing its duties, and he was compelled to decline it. At his suggestion the office was conferred on his friend, Rev. Charles Inglis, D. D. He was very rarely able to perform any offi- cial services after his return, five times only officiating in the marriage service (for Elias B. Dayton, George Joy, Michael Hatfield, Aaron Ogden, and Captain Cyrus de IIart), and occasionally at a funeral. At the request of the vestry, however, he retained the rectorship and rectory as long as he lived. IIe was married, in 1752, to Jane Emott, daughter of Captain John Emott and Mary (Boudinot) Emott, daughter of Elias Boudinot, Sr., and died, at his home, June 17th, 1790, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. He had six children, one of whom married a son of General Elias Dayton, and another Rev. John Henry Hobart, after- ward Bishop of the Diocese of New York.

ARBY, REV. JOHN, M. D., Presbyterian Minis- ter, of Parsippany, Morris county, New Jersey, Jate of that place, was born in New Jersey, about 1725, and was a son, or grandson, probably, of William Darby, of Elizabethtown. He gradu- ated at Yale College in 1748; was licensed by the Presbytery of Suffolk, Long Island, in April, 1749; and appointed to preach at Lower Aqueboque and Matti- tuck, remaining in this service for two years. During the ensuing six years, and more, he supplied other congrega- tions on the island, and subsequently, November 10th, 1757, was ordained by the same Presbytery as an Evangelist at Oyster-Ponds (Orient). His ministry at Connecticut Farms commenced in 1758, and continued about two years. In 1772 he withdrew from the Presbytery of New York and connected himself with the Presbytery of Morris county. After leaving the farms he settled at Parsippany, Morris county, where he not only preached the gospel, but prac- tised medicine, having acquired a medical education. " As such he made himself quite useful during the revolu- tionary war." His degree of M. D. was conferred by Dartmouth College in 1782. He died in December, IS05, aged ninety years. Ile was twice married. By his first wife he had one son and two daughters; the eldest, IIcster, married a British officer named Fox. Ilis second wife was IIcster White Iluntting, a widow of East Hampton, Long Island; by her he had one son, Henry White Darby, M. D., of Parsippany, and two daughters, Helen, wife of General O'Hara, and Lucinda, wife of Christian de Wint.

500

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA:

ONGSTREET, HENRY II., M. D., Physician, of | portions. Ile had the faculty attributed to Lord Mansfield, Bordentown, was born, Jannary 11th, 1819, in Monmouth county, New Jersey, and is a son of Hendrick and Mary ( Holmes) Longstreet ; his father was engaged during life in agricultural pursuits, and both parents were also natives of New Jersey. Dr. Longstreet received his preliminary edu- cation at a select school in the village of Middletown Point, now known as Mattawan, New Jersey, and completed the same in a seminary at Lenox, Massachusetts. Having de- termined to embrace the medical profession, he became a student under the supervision of Dr. Robert W. Cooke, of Holmdel, and continued his studies with Dr. John B. Beck, Professor of Materia Medica and Jurisprudence in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, in the city of New York; in which institution he subsequently attended several courses of lectures delivered there, and duly graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1842. In the month of May of that year he commenced the practice of his pro- fession at Bordentown, New Jersey, where he has since con- tinued to reside, and where he has been constantly engaged in the control of an extensive and lucrative practice ; and during all this time, being over one-third of a century, has never been absent three months altogether from the scene of his labors. He is thoroughly devoted to his profession, and takes great interest in the several medical societies with which he is connected ; and has held many offices in both the County and State Medical Socicties, having been a delegate to the latter organization very many times. He has also been prominently identified with all the improvements that have been projected in and around Bordentown since he first became a resident, and is at present a Director of the Bor- dentown Banking Company ; also in the Water Company, and of the Vincentown Mail Company. In political belief he is a strong and ardent Democrat, but is not an active worker in the party, as his time is wholly engrossed by his professional duties. He was married, in 1848, to Hannah Ann Taylor, of New Jersey, who died in 1857. IIe was married a second time, in 1869, to Elizabeth, daughter of the late Joseph Newbold, an old merchant of Wrightstown, New Jersey.

OOD, GEORGE, Lawyer, late of New York, was born in Burlington county, New Jersey, about 1780; graduated at Princeton in 1808; studied law under the supervision of Richard Stockton, and was admitted to the bar in 1812, taking up his residence in New Brunswick, New Jersey. " It was not long before he rivalled his master, to whom in some respects he was superior. His intellect was of the highest order, entitling him to rank with Mr. Webster. His power of analogical reasoning was very striking ; the most difficult subject seemed to arrange itself in his mind in its true pro-

of so stating a question as to make the mere statement a sufficient argument."-MIon. L. Q. C. Elmer. He gen- erally spoke from mere short memoranda in pencil, and was so accurate in the use of language that what he said would, when written down, prove entirely correct. After a few years practice at the bar of New Jersey he removed to New York, where he took rank among the leaders, and showed himself the equal of all, if not their superior. Until his death in 1860, he was constantly engaged in the most im- portant causes, not only in New York but in other States ; and was among the few eminent lawyers of the country who held no office. Upon the decease of Judge Thompson in 1845, he was strongly recommended to President Tyler to take his place on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States, and " there can be no doubt he would have adorned the station." His political education inclined him to take sides with Federalist views and measures, but he never man . ifested any marked desire to interest himself personally in the political questions or conflicts of the day, and never sup- ported the Republican party. Not long before his demise he spoke at a public meeting in New York, strongly in favor of maintaining the compromises of the constitution, and thus obtained from several of the Radical papers the honorable and honoring designation of " Union-Saver." " In my early practice it was my fortune several times to encounter him at the bar, and a most formidable adversary he was. The last time I heard him was in the year 1855, when he ap- peared before the New Jersey Court of Appeals, in the case of Gifford vs. Thorn, reported in I Stock. 708. I have always thought his speech in that case, upon the whole, . the ablest to which I cver listened. It combined almost every kind of eloquence ; in solid reasoning quite equal to that of his leading opponent, Charles O'Connor; in playful wit, in occasional appeals to the sympathy of the judges, and in impassioned declamation quite superior." On one note- worthy occasion, Mr. Van Arsdale, an old lawyer of New -. ark, was his opponent in a case which was conducted with singular dexterity. He had filed a bill to foreclose a mort- gage more than twenty years due; and set out with great particularity several payments alleged to have been made on it by the mortgageor. The answer sworn to by Van Arsdale positively denied the alleged payments, and denied also that any payments had been made. When he took the ground on the argument that, after twenty years, payment of a debt was to be presumed, the chancellor remarked with an amused smile, "How can I presume a payment which the party himself positively denies ?" The dilemma seemed then for the first time to be perceived by the counsel, and the ludicrous manner in which he exclaimed, " Is my client to lose his money by such a trick as that ?" caused a general laugh, in which the court could not help participating. One of the more remarkable cases in which he was engaged was that of Smith vs. Wood, a bill in chancery for the sale of mortgaged premises to raise a large sum of money. It lasted

Galaxy Pob. Co.Philad"

Henry Ha Longstreet M .D.

501

BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPÆDIA.

ten years, and was argued nine times-three times before a master; once before Chancellor Williamson, who went out of office before he had time to make a decree; once before Chancellor Vroom, whose opinion is reported in Saxton Ch. R. 74; three times before the Court of Errors and Appeals ; and once before Chancellor Philemon Dickerson. Hc dicd in New York in 1860.

IRKPATRICK, HENRY AUGUSTUS, M. D., late of Stanton, Hunterdon county, New Jersey, son of the Rev. Jacob Kirkpatrick, D. D., for more than half a century pastor of the United Presbyterian Churches of Amwell, Hunterdon county, was born in 1816. Having read medi- cine in the office of Dr. Cicero Hunt, of Ringoes, he entered the Jefferson Medical College, was graduated thence M. D. in the spring of 1841, and in the same year established himself at Stanton. During the remaining ten years of his life he acquired a large practice, being skilful as a physician and popular as a man. IIe was twice married : first to Mary Servis, of Ringoes, and second to the daughter of Mr. Jacques Quick, of Readington. He died September 29th, 1851.

RIFFIN, REV. EDWARD DORR, late of New- ark, formerly pastor of the First and later of the Second Presbyterian Church of that city, and for some years President of Williams College, was born in East Haddam, Connecticut, January 6th, 1770. His father, George Griffin, was a wealthy farmer of a strong mind and a good education; his mother, Eve (Dorr) Griffin, was a sister of Rev. Edward Dorr, of Hartford, Connecticut. From a very early age his parents destined him to the ministry ; and while yet a child of only four or five years he was the subject of deep religious im- pressions. " But though once and again strongly exercised on the subject of religion, and once to such an extent as to venture for a time to hope he was a true Christian, his con- version does not appear to have taken place till after the close of his course in college, when he had abandoned the purpose with which his early training and his parents' wishes had inspired him, and, according to his own ac- count, devoted himself to the law, and made up his mind to be a man of the world." The means of awakening him to a just sense of his spiritual need was a severe illness with which he was overtaken in the gayest period of his life. Ilaving given his heart to God, he now resolved to resume his original purpose, and devote himself to the service of Christ in the work of the ministry. IIe graduated with the first honors of his elass at Yale College in 1790, became a member of the church in Derby in the spring of 1792, and having pursued his theological studies under the direction of Dr. Jonathan Edwards, son of the first President Edwards, at New Haven, was licensed to preach the gospel by the

Association of New IIaven West, on the 31st of October, 1792. On the Ioth of November following, he preached his first sermon, and having supplied several pulpits for varying periods of time in New Salem, Farmington, Middlebury, and other places, in one of which he received a call, but did not actually settle, he was ordained as pastor of the church in New Hartford, June 4th, 1795. There he remained, car- rying on the work of the ministry with marked success, till 1800, when he departed on a journey on account of his wife's health, and spent the ensuing winter in the vicinity of Newark, New Jersey. The people of Orange, where he preached during a part of this period, and where fifty persons were added to the church under his ministrations, were desirous of inviting him to become their pastor ; but on the reception of a call from the First Church in Newark his pastoral relations with the church in Hartford were dis- solved, and he was installed as colleague pastor with Dr. Macwhorter by the Presbytcry of New York on the 20th of October, 1801, in the thirty-second year of his age. Dr. Macwhorter presided, Dr. McKnight preached a sermon from 2 Corinthians ii. 16, the last clause, and Dr. Rodgers gave the charge to the people. He took the charge of this congregation in the full spirit of a new era in the church's history, which he thoroughly believed began to dawn about the time of his entrance upon the ministry, and was destined to culminate only in the meridian of millennial glory. This belief he lost no opportunity of expressing in the strongest terms. " In the year 1792," said he, " three series of events commenced, which needed not a fourth to fill the earth with the knowledge of glory of the Lord. First, the series of missionary and charitable efforts. . . . . Secondly, the se- ries of revivals of religion. . . Thirdly, the series of judgments intended to destroy the nations which had given their power and strength to the beast." This belief, says Dr. J. F. Stearns, acting upon a lively imagination, an enthusiastic temperament, a powerful intellect, and an affec- tionate and devoutly pious heart, is the true key to many of the peculiar excellencies, and to what some may be disposed to mention as the peculiar defects of his character and ac- tions. It nerved his strength, it fired his eloquence, it ani- mated his hopes anew, when his heart would otherwise have sunk under discouragement ; it made him bold in discarding obsolete customs, and regardless of trifling difficulties, in carrying into effect what he considered as the best measures for the conversion of men, and the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. With these impulses was his whole ministry identified in an eminent degree. No sooner did he begin to preach than converts began to be numbered by hundreds. This was also the case in New Haven, when he was preaching there, even before his ordination ; and like- wise in East Hartford, during his mission of five years in that place ; and in Orange, where he spent the winter just before his invitation to Newark. His ministry in the last mentioned city, too, was exceedingly rich in spiritual fruits ; and the next year after he entered upon his pastoral duties

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

The biographical encyclopaedia of New Jersey of the nineteenth century, Part 112

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, publisher Publication date: 1877 Publisher: Philadelphia, Galaxy publishing company Number of Pages: 924

Author: Robson, Charles, ed; Galaxy Publishing Company, publisher
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Philadelphia, Galaxy publishing company
Number of Pages: 924