USA > New Jersey > Essex County > Newark > The history of Newark, New Jersey : being a narrative of its rise and progress, from the settlement in May, 1666, by emigrants from Connecticut to the present time, including a sketch of the press of Newark, from 1791 to 1878 > Part 6
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34
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48
RELAXATION OF THE MOSAIC LAW.
pastors, but was raised by voluntary subscription. The original plan seems to have been deviated from during the ministry of the younger Pierson, in 1687. Subsequent to that, indeed, there is no evidence of a tax being levied indiscriminately and without consent of parties for the support of the ministry. It is evident, as already observed in the matter of the voting power, that as soon as " strangers " began to gather in Newark in sufficient number to have weight and influence, the old "Fundamental Agreements" order of things began to experience serious alteration, and the severity of the Mosaic institution to relax gradually and melt away before the light and liberality of the new dispensation.
Pastor Wakeman must have been a person of far more than ordinary ability. He was only in his twenty-first year when he took sole charge of the church here. He was amiable, accomplished, learned and popular in the pulpit ; a reverend youth of great piety. He had scarcely completed his fifth year of pastoral labor when he died. His death occurred October 8th, 1704, and greatly touched the finer feelings of the community. Mary Crane, wife of Deacon Azariah and daughter of Captain Robert Treat, died the same year with the young pastor.
For a period of five or six years subsequent to the death of Mr. . Wakeman, the church was without a regular pastor, though Rev. Mr. Prudden kept the people from entire destitution of spiritual ministration. At first the eyes of the church were turned on a Mr. Samuel Sherman, but proper inquiry caused the congregation to have " no further treaty with him." He seems to have made some unspecified acknowledgment to the church, which abruptly terminated negotiations. A record dated May 17th, 1706, sets forth that " it was voted and agreed upon to improve Mr. Samuel Whittlesey in the work of the ministry among us for the space of one year." Mr. Whittlesey declined to settle here, though he preached in Newark for a considerable time, afterwards settling as the pastor of the Wallingford Church, in Connecticut.
Meanwhile, before introducing the actual successor of the saintly young Wakeman, it is essential to a proper appreciation of the condition of affairs in the town that we pause and take a brief general retrospect of the Province during the years preceding the events narrated. .
Charles II. died in February, 1685. His successor was the Duke
49
JAMES II. AND HIS AGENT, ANDROS.
of York, under the title of James II. Scarcely had the royal diadem taken the place of the ducal coronet before James began to show himself in his true colors-a person void of honor, and utterly unscrupulous as regards either moral or legal obligations. He seems to have had a remarkable elasticity of conscience, and to have considered that his solemn promises and agreements as a Duke were rendered null and void by his elevation to the throne. The " divine right of kings," according to his interpretation, was a license to abrogate the most solemn obligations. At all events the new King, in his course towards New Jersey, entirely ignored his pledges as Duke. In spite of the remonstrance of the Proprie- tors, in which they reminded James that they had acquired ownership, not by benevolence but by purchase, under his own confirmation of their title, he trampled upon their rights and sent out his fit representative, the arbitrary and rapacious Andros, to assume control not alone in New England, but New York and New Jersey. In August, 1688, Andros formally took possession of the government of the last named Provinces, making his residence at Boston. Perceiving that remonstrance and appeals to equity and justice were alike vain, the Proprietors made a formal surrender of their patent, which James readily accepted. The effect of all this was to curtail the rights originally guaranteed to the people, and to excite dissensions about titles to the soil. In the meantime the population slowly increased, and material prosperity continued, but the general improvement of the Province was not up to the measure of the desires or expectations of the Proprietors.
It is simple justice to say that Andros in his control of New Jersey manifested none of the arbitrariness for which he was elsewhere noted. Here he was wise, considerate and forbearing, making no change in the Provincial executive officers and occasioning none of the dissatisfaction and disorder which were anticipated upon his assumption of authority. His rule ended abruptly in 1689. The people of New England, spurred by the revolution in the mother country which put William and Mary on the English throne, arose and put an end to Andros's rule, even as the English people had put an end to the rule of his master, James, than whom a more cowardly and imbecile ruler never sat on the English throne.
For many years subsequent to the events related there was no regular government in New Jersey. Nevertheless, with a population
50
INTER-PROVINCIAL DISPUTES.
of about ten thousand in East Jersey, the enforcement of local laws by local magistrates appears to have met all the reasonable requirements for the conservation of order. At length, in March, 1692, the Proprietary Government was reorganized with Andrew Hamilton as Governor-a man of considerable personal popularity. General Assemblies began to be once more regularly held and a more satisfactory state of internal affairs set in. But soon, again, came a period of general turmoil. Among the inducements held out to emigrants at an earlier period to settle in New Jersey was that it was "worthy the name of Paradise," because, in addition to its natural advantages, it had " no lawyers, physicians or parsons." Things now had greatly changed. At the period we write of the demand for lawyers was very great. It was said subsequently " no men grow rich here so fast as gentlemen of the bar." In 1697 Gov- ernor Hamilton was removed. Jeremiah Basse was appointed in his stead. Basse was very obnoxious to many people from the outset, and his authority was denied by them. In 1694, under authority of the General Assembly, there was established at Perth Amboy a custom house. There all vessels bound for East Jersey were required to enter. This and other trade measures gave great offence to the New York authorities. Governor Fletcher wrote: " They (the New Jersey people) are now making war upon us in point of trade, they will draw the shipping thither and establish a free port, to the great prejudice of this place, and sink the trade of it ; they pay no duty to the king, and all will flock to it." It was the dispute of Andros and Carteret in another form. Fletcher was succeeded as Governor of New York by Lord Bellamont, who precipitated matters. The commercial question was referred to England, and there it was decided that the Jerseys were not entitled to the privilege of ports. Bellamont was instructed to "take care that the rights and privileges of the Province of New York be not infringed." He issued his proclamation accordingly. It was resisted by Basse, who issued a counter proclamation and defied Bellamont. Finally matters came to a crisis. A vessel named the Hester, 120 tons burthen, of which Basse was part owner, arrived at Amboy. Basse had her loaded with 28,000 barrel-staves, and put in readiness to sail. Before she cleared, however, Bellamont seized her with a force of forty men. Basse refused to receive her back under the condition required that she should clear at New York. The result
51
REBUKING AN INVASION OF RIGHTS.
was her condemnation in the Court of Admiralty. In his position Basse was not sustained, because his firm action was attributed, not to his interest in the public good, but to his selfish considerations. Therefore, when the Assembly in 1699 voted £675 to defray the expense of remonstrating, &c., against the action of the New York authorities, the grant was strongly opposed. In this connection we have in the archives of the New Jersey Historical Society the following document, which has a local as well as a general interest ;
To ye Townes of Perth Amboy, Woodbridge, Freehold, Bergen, Shrewsberry, Middletown, Piscataqua, Aquechenonck, &c.
Gentlemen :
The meetings of our towns have considered An Act entitled an Act for redressing a force of our Neighbour Province; and we find yt the money ordered to be raised by that act is put into such hands as we have no reason to truste, nor are we any waies secured yt ye money will be applied for ye country's good ; but have great reason to believe ye contrary, which has made us resolve not to pay it, but to resist all force which shall be used for ye gathering of it, and because the taking away of ye ship Hester has been made the only pretense for raising ye money mentioned in that act, we have thought fit to let ye proprietors know yt the country was ready enough to have defended her, and that we are owing only to ye towardness of ye Governor for her loss, and we have also thought fit to Acquaint you how he has invaded our rights and privileges.
These be things, friends and neighbours, we thought fit to write unto you, Hoping you'l Joyne with us in Hindering the execution of so unreasonable an act, and to remonstrate our gricvances.
We are your friends, Signed by order of ye Towne of New- ark, Aprill ye 21, 1699: NATHANIEL WARD, Clerk. Signed by order of Eliza : Towne Aprill ye 2Ist, 1699 : SAML. WHITEHEAD, Clerk. Signed by order of Perth Amboy, Aprill 25th, 1699 : JOHN BARCLAY, Clerk.
Before resuming our strictly local duty, it is proper to remark that in 1701 New Jersey was reaffirmed in her original rights to establish ports of entries ; that Governor Basse returned to England; that, an absurd objection against him being removed, Governor Hamilton was reinstated ; that his second period of rule was not one of peace and quiet, but the reverse ; and that, finally, the powers of government were relinquished by the Proprietors and surrendered to the Crown. Queen Anne, who succeeded William, accepted the surrender in April, 1702, and, the Proprietors failing to agree upon a Governor, gave control of the Province, together with New York, to Edward Hyde, Lord Viscount Cornbury, Anne's cousin, and the
-
52
PERSECUTION OF PRESBYTERIAN PASTORS.
grandson of Clarendon the Chancellor. Earl Cornbury's government was most arbitrary and oppressive. His private character appears to have been beneath contempt. Good authority asserts that : " We never had a Governor who was so universally detested, nor any wlio so richly deserved the public abhorrence ; in spite of his noble descent his behavior was trifling, mean, and extravagant." "It was no uncommon thing for him to dress himself in a woman's habit and then patrol the fort in which he resided. Such freaks of low humor exposed him to the universal contempt of his people; but their indignation was trebled by his despotic rule, savage bigotry, insatiable avarice and injustice, not only to the public, but even to his private creditors." That this is not an overdrawn or too severe picture of this ignoble noble, a single illustration will attest. He was especially instructed by Queen Anne to "permit a liberty of conscience to all persons except Papists, so they might be content with a peaceable and quiet enjoyment of the same." He seems, however, to have early taken an opportunity to persecute Presbyterians and Congregationalists, ostensibly in the interest of the Established Church of England. On the shallowest and most miserable of pretexts he caused to be arrested and thrown into prison Rev. Francis Makemie, who is sometimes referred to as the Founder of Presbyterianism in America, and who was certainly a most excellent man and a true servant of God. The offence alleged was his non-possession of a license. Upon a long trial he was acquitted, the jury declaring, upon being questioned, that "they believed in their conscience they had done the defendant justice," and that he "had not transgressed the law." The prisoner was discharged, but compelled to pay the costs of court, &c., which amounted to £80-a cruel persecution.
It is notable that just a year or two before this piece of villainy in the name of law and justice was perpetrated, the people of Newark, ever cautious, prudent and careful, agreed in meeting " to petition my Lord Cornbury for a license, that we have leave to get and settle a man in the work of the ministry of the Gospel, according to our own persuasion." Messrs. Prudden and Pierson and Sergeant John Morris were chosen to draw up the petition, the town clerk was to sign it for the town, and Mr. Pierson was "to present it to my Lord Cornbury." In the Makemie matter the Newark congregation did not escape annoyance. It was known that he had some warm
53
QUEEN ANNE'S PUSILLANIMOUS COUSIN.
sympathizers and perhaps helpers among the Newarkers. Major Sandford, of the Governor's Council, was therefore ordered to institute an inquisition, with a view to obtaining testimony against the persecuted man of God. Jasper Crane was put upon oath, but nothing was elicited which could be used to the prejudice of Mr. Makemie. Within a year after the outrage on this worthy divine, the detested Cornbury was deposed by the Queen, who, to her honor be it recorded, declared that she "would not countenance her nearest relations in oppressing her people." Immediately after his deposition Cornbury was seized by his creditors in the Province he had so monstrously misgoverned, and imprisoned there until the death of his father elevated him to the peerage, thereby legally enforcing his release from jail, despite the judgments against him.
It has already been noted that a period of five or six years elapsed after the death of Mr. Wakeman before a fifth pastor was procured. The delay was largely owing, doubtless, to the generally disturbed state of affairs just outlined. In March, 1708, Theoph- ilus Pierson was appointed by the town to proceed to Connecticut, still the " great clerical hive,"and search out a spiritual guide. He reported in favor of extending an invitation to Mr. Nathaniel Bowers, who had been recommended by the elders. Mr. Bowers was duly invited. He came, and after preaching a single Sunday, was unanimously invited to fill the pulpit for a year, on trial. At the end of the year he was duly installed with a salary of £80 and the use of a parsonage-" he keeping it in repairs." His pastorate extended six years, until his death in August, 1716, aged 43 years. His remains were laid alongside those of Prudden and Wakeman.
Authorities differ as to the time of the erection of the second meeting-house. Dr. Macwhorter gives the year 1708 as the date, but Dr. Stearns, after careful examination of contemporaneous facts, thinks it probable that the true date is somewhere between April, 1714, and August, 1716. This edifice was built of stone. It was forty-four feet square, and had a steeple and bell. Speaking of this structure, Dr. Macwhorter observed, over a century ago: "It ' was an exceeding great exertion of the people to erect it; and it was the most elegant edifice for public worship at that time in the Colony, however mean it may now be considered. There were very considerable difficulties and contentions in the Society to get it as large as it was. It was hardly believed that the inhabitants of
5
54
SECOND MEETING-HOUSE-THE MOUNTAIN SOCIETY.
the town would ever become so numerous as to fill it." Dr. Macwhorter repeats the tradition, that "when the walls were knee- high, all the inhabitants-men, women and children-could have sat upon the same." There are grounds for suspecting that this is altogether legendary. As early as 1682, thirty odd years before the probable date of erection, Newark was a place of four hundred inhabitants. It is not to be doubted that the population of the town increased somewhat in the interim referred to, but even four hundred persons would have had very hard squeezing to get seated on the knee-high walls of a forty-four foot square building, even if the female portion made no demands for extended skirts. It is said to have been thirty years before the interior of the building was entirely finished. This house stood a little to the north of the first meeting-house. What may be regarded as additional evidence of the inaccuracy of the estimated population of Newark already referred to, is the fact that within a couple of years after the death of Pastor Bowers the membership of the church had grown so that a separate and distinct congregation was set off and established at Orange.
In the year 1681 the town ordered the laying out of the highway as far as " the mountain." The probabilities are that about that. time some of the original settlers had taken up quarters in that then far-off part of the town. In 1715 Deacon Azariah Crane . (who, " in the overturn of the government by the Dutch," in 1673, was "betrusted with the concerns of his honorable father-in-law- Mr. Robert Treat ") is spoken of by himself as having been " settled " for many years at the mountain. So, at the same time, testified Edward Ball. By the year 1718 the settlers at the mountain had grown so numerous that they began to consider the advisability of organizing a new congregation. Accordingly, in the year 1719, the " Mountain Society " set up a church of its own. In time it became the "Second Church in Newark." Still later, it changed to what it is now-the First Presbyterian Church of Orange. Mr. Bowers was succeeded temporarily by a Mr. Buckingham, another New Englander, whose stay in Newark, however, was very short.
The sixth regular pastor of the First Church was Rev. Joseph Webb, a graduate of Yale College in 1715. Mr. Webb was ordained by the Presbytery of Philadelphia, October 22d, 1719. Among the ministers present were Rev. Messrs. Joseph Morgan, Jonathan
55
PROGRESS IN CHURCH AND STATE.
Dickinson, John Pierson, son of Abraham, junior, and grandson of the senior Pierson, and Robert Orr. His salary was placed at £70, with probably the usual "accommodations." His settlement in Newark was attended, at first, with harmony, peace and quiet ; but subsequently with dissensions and disorders which gave birth to important consequences. The Presbyterian ordination and settle- ment of Mr. Webb is the first indication which appears of the people turning aside from "the Congregational way." Though the leanings of the second Pierson were towards Presbyterianism, the form of worship in his time and during the time of his successors until Mr. Webb's advent, was Congregational. There is no record of the precise time of the change. Indeed, the difference between the two forms was comparatively so slight, that from the first, in New England and in New Jersey, persons of both persuasions lived in peace, harmony and good fellowship together, except when fire- brand zealots appeared in their midst and sowed discord. About the year 1682, when half of the twenty-four Proprietors were Scotch, great numbers of that race arrived and settled in New Jersey. In 1685, George Scot, of Pitlochie, who wrote an elaborate de- scriptive advertisement of New Jersey, which was designed to spur emigration, embarked from Scotland for New Jersey with a company of two hundred emigrants. Scot and his wife both died on the passage, but the two hundred arrived safely. Other Scottish companies followed, and thus, as the historian Grahame remarks, " American society was enriched with a valuable accession of virtue that had been refined by adversity and piety and invigorated by persecution." The Scotch were rigid Presbyterians, and of personal character which commanded much influence. The stream of emi- gration seems to have continued steadily, if not in great volume, and we may be sure Newark gave a permanent asylum to a full share. There were continuous accessions from Connecticut also. The town and the church grew apace. About the year 1726 there was established at Second River, or Belleville, a Dutch congregation. Belleville, like Orange, was within Newark town limits at this time. In 1727 the Dutch organization is spoken of in the Newark " Town Book " as " the new church and congregation there created." There had also been created " the church at Aquackanonck." Both were attended to by one minister appointed "to dispense the Word and Ordinances of God unto them." These separations were in no wise
56
THE NEW DISPENSATION-EPISCOPACY INTRODUCED.
due to discord or dissensions. They were the natural fruit of community increase.
A period is now approached in the history of the town and church full of serious excitement and importance. For upwards of half a century the Fundamental Agreements held sway in all essential features. The time had now nearly come when a most important feature, the exclusive church establishment clause, was to be ignored, broken, thrust aside forever, and a new dispensation introduced side by side with the old.
Up to the time of the infamous Cornbury, the Established Church of England had little or no footing anywhere in America. Under his rule, however, the seeds of Episcopacy were widely sown. He bent his efforts to persecute the Presbyterians and Congregation- alists, not from any loyalty to the Episcopal Church, but from a hateful spirit of prejudice and bigotry towards the former. During his administration a Church of England missionary, Rev. George Keith, visited this country, and, as he himself stated, met every- where with kindly consideration. Upon his return to England, missionary Keith published his observations in America. The condition of things in Elizabethtown seems to have particularly excited his approbation. "Many of that town," said he, "having formerly been a sort of independents, are become well affected to the Church of England, and desire to have a minister of the Church of England sent to them." Another Episcopal missionary, Rev. Mr. Vaughan, writing in 1731 from Elizabeth-town to his friends in England, states that not only in that town " but also at Newark, Whippany and in the mountains," where he " sometimes goes and preaches to a numerous congregation," he finds his hearers increas- ing. He adds, with a gravity which cannot fail to provoke levity among those who recollect the religious character of the Newark settlers, that he finds " a general disposition in the people to be instructed and settled in the Christian Faith." There appears to be no positive data on the subject, but it is supposed by Episcopal authorities that Episcopal services were held in Newark as early as 1729. It was several years later, however, before any Episcopal Church was organized. Singularly enough, that event was forced somewhat after the manner of the exodus to and settlement of Newark. A spirit of disciplinary intolerance seems to have given birth to both events.
COL. JOSIAH WARD SAVING HIS WHEAT ON SUNDAY.
57
COL. OGDEN-FIERCE RELIGIOUS CONTENTIONS.
Col. Josiah Ogden was a leading member of the community, a pillar of the First Church. He was a man of energy, wealth and influence. His father was David Ogden, who came from Elizabeth- town and settled in Newaik about the year 1676. Col. Josiah's mother was the noted Elizabeth Swaine, whose first husband, the gallant Josiah Ward, died soon after the settlement of the town, leaving her a comely widow. From 1716 to 1721 the Colonel represented the town in the General Assembly. He appears to have been a man of strong individuality, holding positive and decided views regarding things spiritual as well as things temporal. On a certain Sunday in the Fall of some year close to 1733, Col. Ogden, contrary to a rule of the First Church, went into his field and saved his wheat, which was exposed to serious loss from long continued rains. En passant, it may be remarked that Col. Josiah seems to have been, like many truly good and worthy Christian people of the present day, a firm believer in the New Dispensation which says that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. For his daring conduct he was subjected to the dis- cipline of the Church, accused of having violated the sanctity of the Lord's Day, and publicly censured. The Presbytery reversed the decision of the Church, righteously deeming the act of Col. Ogden one of imperative necessity, and tried to pour oil on the troubled waters. It was too late. Around Col. Ogden rallied a considerable body who openly began to declare themselves dissatis- fied with the Presbyterian form of Church government. A bitter controversy ensued. Col. Ogden carried the matter to the Phila- delphia Synod. For several years an animated correspondence took place. Jonathan Dickinson, the distinguished Presbyterian divine, was called to the pulpit to controvert certain strong points in Episcopacy, and controversial pamphlets passed between him and Rev. John Beach, a Connecticut Episcopalian.
" Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth !" Out of this trivial matter sprang the Episcopal Church in Newark, and a conflagration of local feeling which it took nearly half a century to entirely extinguish. "This separation," says Dr. Mac- whorter, "was the origin of the greatest animosity and alienation between friends, townsmen, Christians, neighbors and relatives that the town ever beheld. The storm of religious separation and rigor wrought tumultuously. The openly declared Episcopalians were
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