USA > New York > Dutchess County > Founding of the Episcopal church in Dutchess County, New York; an address delivered November 29, 1894 > Part 1
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02210 2591
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TRINITY CHURCH, FISHKILL, 1895.
THE FOUNDING
OF THE
EPISCOPAL CHURCH
IN DUTCHESS COUNTY,
NEW YORK.
1
AN ADDRESS
Delivered November 29, A. D., 1894,
BY THE
REV. HORATIO OLIVER LADD, M. A., RECTOR OF TRINITY CHURCH, FISHKILL, N. Y.
PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.
TIMES PRINT FISHKILL.
I
1533321
INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THE RT. REY. HENRY C. POTTER, D.D., LL. D., BISHOP OF NEW YORK.
Any man renders a substantial service to his fellows and to history who gathers the memor- ials of our parish Churches and preserves them in permanent form. My friend and brother, the present rector of Trinity Church, Fishkill, the Rev. Horatio O. Ladd, has done more than this; for he has grouped his materials with sin- gular felicity, and touched them all along, with the charm of a picturesque and interesting nar- rative.
The period covered by these records is one of the most eventful in American history; and the planting and growth, amid manifold and grave obstacles, of the Church in Fishkill is a monu- ment of Providential ordering and of brave and unselfish service. Paul has planted and Apollos has watered, but God has given the increase, and to Him be all the glory !
H. C. P.
Diocesan House, New York,
Feast of Annunciation, A. D. 1895.
II
The following resolution, offered by the Rev. P. C. Creveling, was unanimously passed at a meeting of the Clericus of the Highlands, Jan- uary the 15th, 1895.
" Whereas, it has been our privilege to listen this afternoon to the reading of a paper which deals largely with the early history of the Church in this diocese, particularly in that portion of the same whose ministers are members of this Clericus of the Highlands; and whereas, we ap- preciate its merits and realize the importance of preserving and imparting such information as it contains, therefore be it resolved:
That this Clericus respectfully ask of our brother the Rev. H. O. Ladd, his consent to the publication of his essay, and that the Chairman of the meeting is hereby instructed to appoint a committee of this body, of which the author shall be Chairman, to have the same printed and bound at the expense of this Association."
Whereupon, the Chairman, the Rev. Arch- deacon Thomas, D. D., appointed the Rev. H. O. Ladd, A. T. Ashton, Thomas Burgess, Rufus Emery, Francis Washburn.
L. R. Dickinson, Secretary.
III
TRINITY RECTORY, FISHKILL, N. Y., January 15, 1895.
Dear Mr. Ladd,
The Clericus of the Highlands has directed us to thank you for your excellent paper on the Founding of the Episcopal Church in Dutchess County, to which we have just listened with so much pleasure, and to ask that you allow us to publish it in pamphlet form.
Very Sincerely Yours A. T. Ashton, Thomas Burgess, Rufus Emery, Francis Washburn.
IV
Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1895, by H. O. Ladd, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, in Washington.
TRINITY CHURCH
ORGANIZED IN-COMMUNION. WITH-THE CHURCH . OF . ENGLAND BY-THE- REY . SAMUEL. SEABURY -1756 THE FIRST . RECTOR . REY.JOHN - BEARDSLEY-OCT 26-1766
REINCORPORATED-OCT:13-1785 -AND - OCT-16 .1796 THIS.BUILDING WAS ERECTED ABOVT-1769 OCCUPIED-BY. THE.NEW-YORK PROVINCIAL-CONVENTION WHICH-REMOVED FROM-WHITE.PLAINS-SEPT-3-1776 USED-FOR-A-MILITARY-HOSPITAL-BY.THE .ARMY OF -GEN. WASHINGTON-UNTIL DISBANDED JUNE . 2:1783 PRO · DEO · ET· PATRIA 1756 1894
A
MEMORIAL TABLET, ERECTED 1894.
The Anglican Catholic Church was first estab- lished in Dutchess County, in the Province of New York, by the founding of Trinity Church Fishkill, as declared by the historic tablet, the gift of James E. Dean, Esq., of Fishkill, N. Y., erected to-day over the door of this ancient edi- fice.
Its inscription is the subject of this memorial address, which is a humble effort to fill in some measure the blank pages of the record of Trinity Church, for the first thirty years of which even the traditions of nearly one hundred and forty years in this community, have given no account. Itaims to establish from several widely separated and remote sources certain interesting facts con- cerning the earliest and most trying years of Episcopacy in this vicinity, in which the Church was true to the principles of her faith and name.
Early in the summer of 1755, a clergyman of the Church of England and a missionary of the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, entered the village of Fishkill. He wore a three-cornered hat and small clothes and top-boots, and rode well a strong sorrel horse, with his saddle bags strapped to his saddle. He was about fifty years old, strongly built but not tall, and had a countenance which was intelligent and kindly, and bore the marks
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of decision and firmness. He had come thus a distance of eighty miles, over the thickly wooded island of Manhattan, in a bad season for travel- ing, and over roads deep with mud. An entire stranger to this region, he would probably have entered the village by the old Post road, through Cold Spring gap, and as near the mountain, he turned his horse down this valley, we may look with his eyes upon the few houses that in the year 1755 constituted this settlement past which he rode to his destination in its lower part.
On his right was a house, long and low, but larged roofed, with a piazza. He may have stopped to ask about its owner, and been glad- dened by the name, familiar to him even in this distant mountain-girt valley; for Cornelius Van Wyck, who had built this mansion, had left St. George's parish in Hempstead, twenty-two years before, in 1733, had purchased 959 acres of land of Madame Brett, on the Cold Spring road, built this house, and was still here to welcome this missionary from his former townsmen in Long Island. He was under the roof of the since famous Wharton house, celebrated in Cooper's "Spy."
The road then ran on close to the site of an- other house, where Richard Southard lived, and where, in a few years, Richard Rapelje, Esq., built his statelier home, the homestead afterward of Isaac E. Cotheal, Esq., and now of Mr. William T. Blodgett, all of whom, except Mr. Rapelje, are numbered among the faithful vestrymen of Trinity Church.
HOUSE OF CORNELIUS VAN WYCK.
5
Beyond the meadow, on the brow of this low plateau, on which Trinity Church stands, was the house of Robert Brett, son of Madame Brett, with a farm of 650 acres, extending to Osborn hill, on the north side of the main road. A little farm house stood on the present site of Trinity Rectory. There was no other building till the traveler reached the old stone Dutch Reformed Church, which had been built twenty-four years before, in 1731. Near where now stands the house on the corner of the Wappingers Falls road and Main street, was the small house of Abraham Smith, long afterward the birth-place of the donor of the historical tablet we have erected to-day.
Farther down, our missionary passed a country tavern, on the vacant lot, where its successor, the Union Hotel, was burned, below the brick block of stores. He looked back and saw on the south side of Main street, only the Baxter house, op- posite the Dutch Reformed Church, now repre- sented by the dwelling, at the corner of Broad and Main streets. Somewhere also, in the direction of Broad street, amid far extending acres, bordering on the farm lower down, which he was trying to reach, a farmer named Rosa- cranze had his house. But as he rode on, this tired traveler saw where Stephen Purdy lived, opposite the lot on which the old brick bank now stands. Near by was a little school house, on the same side, and the store and house where now Isaac Cary. resides. He could see also William Van Wyck's dwelling, on the east side of the road that led up that hill, the cutler's
6
shop of J. Bailey, on the north side of Main street; and, perhaps, the house and tannery of a Dutchman named Tryce. Further down was the house of John Bailey, the ancestor of H. D. B. Bailey, Esq., whose writings on old Fishkill and its romance are so entertaining and instructive.
But on the east side of the road which turned south and ran into an older road, still traceable along Dingee Mountain, was the house of Jo- hanus, or Jacobus, and perhaps also of Henry Terbus, where now is the mansion occupied by Lewis B. White, Esq.
Here, our interested but perhaps wearied mis- sionary, in whose mind a thousand thoughts revolve prophetic of the events and scenes we present to-day, will probably pass the night, for he will be among friends, who have invited him to come into this little village of thirteen or four- teen dwellings only, besides a church, a tavern and a school house.
But Fishkill was a township in the precinct of Rombout, which, as we shall find, was much more populous than this its central village would indicate.
We have thus sketched the probable route and quite veritable impressions of the Reverend Sam- uel Seabury, M. A., on the first known mission- ary visit to Dutchess County of an Episcopally ordained clergyman. He has been invited here by Messrs. John Bailey and Thomas Langdon, Esquires, in their public character of Church Wardens. These were territorial parish officers appointed by the Governor, under the Vestry
VIEW IN THE GAP FROM OLD FORTS NEAR FISHKILL.
7
act of 1683, in the Colony of New York. But this invitation had been also at the request of a number of other persons in sympathy with the Church of England. Some of them, like Mr. Cornelius Van Wyck, had moved from Hemp- stead into Dutchess County as early as 1732 or 1733, and thus we can trace the influence that selected the rector of that parish to found the first Episcopal Church in Dutchess County.
The history of Churches largely depends on the character of those who as the appointed min- isters of Jesus Christ establish them and instruct their members in the truth. Mr. Seabury was overshadowed somewhat by the more conspicu- ous life of his very distinguished son, the Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury, D.D., of Connecticut, the first Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal church in the United States. It is appropriate, there- fore, that we give our attention to the life and work of the Bishop's father whose relation to the founding of the Church in Dutchess County, has not been generally understood in this vicin- ity.
The Rev. William H. Seabury, D. D., of New York, thus writes of his quite remote ancestor:
"It is not so very remarkable that some con- fusion should be found in the later records of earlier days in your parish. Especially, as the most conspicuous Samuel Seabury was the Bishop, and the next most conspicuous was my father. * There is to-day an impression in some quarters that the present Rev. Seabury's name is Samuel, that he has been rector of the
8
Church of Annunciation for a half-century or so, and that he is the son of the Bishop, if not the Bishop himself. People remember a name in some connections, and they sometimes uncon- sciously overlook the lapse of time: and besides, the more eminent is apt to overshadow the ob- scure."
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
The Rev. Samuel Seabury's ancestors were of Portlake, Devonshire, England. He was born in Groton, Conn., in 1706. His grandfather was a noted physician and surgeon of Duxbury, Mass., his father, John Seabury, a Congregational dea- con at New London, and his mother, Elizabeth Alden, was a grand daughter of John Alden, of the Mayflower. It was at a time when one could measure some disastrous results of the religious excitement brought about by the teaching of Whitfield and Tennant and others, that Mr. Seabury, while yet a young man, was licensed to preach by the Congregationalists. He was, however, never ordained by them as a preacher.
About this time he married Abagail Mumford, who was the mother of Bishop Seabury, and died in 1831. She was related to Dr. Mc Sparran, an Episcopal clergyman, and rector at Narragan- sett, Tower Hill, R. I., and by him Mr. Sea- bury's inclination to the Episcopal ministry was strengthened. This had begun while Mr. Sea- bury was at Yale College, during the angry strife and confusion that arose over the announcement by Dr. Timothy Cutler, the President of the Col- lege, that he had become a Churchman.
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Mr. Seabury, in order to pursue his studies more quietly, transferred his connection to Har- vard College, where he graduated in 1724. In 1730 he went to England for Holy Orders, bear- ing a letter of commendation from the Rev. Dr. Cutler, then rector of Christ Church, Bos- ton, and the Secretary of the Venerable Soci- ety, and also one from Dr. Mc Sparren. He is described in this recommendation by Dr. Cutler as "a person who upon true and regular convic- tion, is come into the bosom of our excellent Church, and now humbly desires a mission from the Society in her service."
Dr. Mc Sparren wrote of him, May 20, 1730. "Mr. Samuel Seabury was educated at the Sem- inaries here, and did for some time preach to the Dissenters, by whom he is well reported of for a virtuous conversation. He has for some- time past conformed to our Church, and mani- festing a desire of going upon the Society's mis- sion, I thought it became me to encourage a person of his merit by recommending him to the Society's notice."
Mr. Seabury was ordained by the Bishop of London, and on August 21, 1730, he received an appointment as missionary of the Society to New London, Conn., opposite his native town of Groton. During a stay of over a year in Eng- land, he preached some notable sermons, two of which were printed and one is still preserved. Having received his second ordination as priest in 1731, he returned to this country in 1732. For ten years he was a diligent, able and suc-
IO
cessful minister, as rector of St. James' Church, New London, showing in his sermons "a firm grasp of the subjects treated and a vigorous common sense."
Mr. Seabury was called to the rectorship of St. George's Church, Hempstead, Queens County, L. I., in October, 1742, and was "inducted by mandate of the Hon. George Clark, Esq., Lieu- tenant Governor of said Province, December 10, 1742, into personal and actual possession of the Parish Church of Hempstead; of all the Rights, Glebes, and Rectory thereunto belonging. On the 13th of February, 1743, he declared his unfeigned assent and consent to all and every- thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and the other Rites and Cere- monies of the Church, according to the Church of England, together with the Psalter and the Psalms of David, pointed as they are to be sung or said in the Churches, and the form and man- ner of making, ordaining and consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons."
Thus Mr. Seabury was not only a thorough Churchman, but he was also one whose minis- trations were very much esteemed. His services were sought for in all directions, and he improved every opportunity to extend the influence of the Church. He carried these into all parts of Queens County, east of Jamaica. His congregation in- creased in numbers. He went to Huntington and to Oyster Bay at regular periods, extending his rides so that he could not return the same day.
In 1746, he reported to the Venerable Society: "I have baptized many adults and a vast many children since my mission at Hempstead, many of whom have grown to years to join in public worship. It is a genuine work of charity to give them Prayer books."
The adherents thus made to the Church, were for the most part, constant and steadfast, though living in the wildest outbreak of religious en- thusiasm then caused by many of Whitfield's followers.
The Vestry of St. George's Church sent the Missionary Society a special letter of thanks for his appointment .* It was to be expected amid so much intolerance and bitterness prevailing on religious matters, that Mr. Seabury should be assailed. A preacher at Huntington declared that he was "a destroyer of souls and a hinderer of Christ's work." Mr. Seabury's reply was gentle and forbearing. The man then challenged him to a public discussion of their different religious systems. He replied, "I have no leisure for con- troversy nor delight in it. My great desire is to prosecute the commission and command of our Lord as given in Luke 24:47. 'That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations.'"
In one of his letters, Mr. Seabury says: "The Church in the Province of New York is to-day
* Samuel Seabury his son, afterward Bishop Seabury, was but fourteen years old when his father took the parish at Hempstead, but in 1748 he was training for his notable ministry, and though only nineteen years old, was appointed as catechist for Huntington.
militant, being continually attacked on one side or the other: sometimes by the enemies of Rev- elation, at other times by the wild enthusiasts, but in the midst of these, true religion gains ground," That Mr. Seabury's work was not for money so much as doing good in his Master's name, is evident from the fact that he received a salary of but £50, from the Venerable Society. And, though he had a rectory, he was obliged from 1754 to 1763 to conduct in it a school for boarding pupils at an advertised rate of £30 per
annum. He had for a library a grant of £10, and most gratefully records what seems strange to us, after the experience by our nation of the horrible effects of lottery gambling for a hundred and fifty years, that he had won $500 by a lottery ticket, which was a common and lawful investment in those days. The rectory in which he dwelt, and which was erected two years after he went to Hempstead, was in the style prevalent at that time in Long Island, a story and a half high in front, with a roof of a single pitch sloping down to one story in the rear. The ceilings were low both on the ground floor and above. There were fourrooms with a hall between and a kitchen be- hind, and three or four rooms above. In this he lived with his family consisting of his wife and seven children.
This rectory cost £74-5s .- or less than $400. It was from such a parish and home and work that he had been invited to extend his mission- ary labors into Dutchess County, and had made the journey in the late spring or summer of 1755.
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THE FIRST SERVICE OF TRINITY CHURCH.
It will seem perhaps presuming on your faith in human veracity for me to tell you the story of the first service of our Church in Fishkill, one hundred and thirty-nine years ago, of which I believe, there has hitherto been no record or reliable tradition known by our citizens. But what I shall now tell you comes from so good an eye-witness and participant in them as this ven- erable man, whom I have thus set before you in some of his personal traits and history, and who was the founder of Episcopacy in Dutchess County.
By that good Providence who brings good out of evil, there has been preserved an old pamph- let of eighteen printed pages, of which only two copies, and one of these an imperfect one, are known to exist. Happily my inquiries have brought to light this forgotten publication, and from it I am able and permitted by the Rev. William H. Seabury, D. D., the honored descend- ant of this godly man, with the aid of many other allusions to these events in other books and writings, to make a true and unquestionable narrative of the transactions so interesting and important to us who worship here in Fishkill, as inheritors "of the faith once delivered to the saints."
It so happened that an anonymous letter, of date April 19, 1756 was published about 1758, making an acrimonious and abusive attack upon this mis- sionary rector of Hempstead, for his intrusions with liturgical services and the teachings of
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the Church of England into Dutchess County. This drew out the good tempered but convincing reply of the Rev. Samuel Seabury, which was printed in 1759, under the title given here verbatim, with its two errors in printing:
"A modest reply to a letter of a gentleman to his friend in Dutchess County, lately published by an anon-i-mous writer. By Samuel Seabury, A. M., Missionary from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in foreign parts.
Est stulti accusare alterum p-a-ccati cujus ipse est conscius. New York: printed in the year MDCCLIX." *
The facts I take from the pamphlet are there given incidentally not in any form of consec- utive narration.
* Mr. Seabury in his pamphlet vigorously arraigns "the con- tention manifestly raised by a virulent spirit, gone forth and watching opportunities to strike some deadly blow, to wound and destroy if possible, the particular and general character of the missionaries, whose frequent attacks from hands known and un- known the missionaries have borne with a truly Christian meek- ness. If they do not however exert themselves with more than primitive zeal and industry, they are then represented contempti- ble and unworthy of notice. But if they exert themselves and by zeal and diligence, meekness, humility and charity draw the at- tention of the public and thereby recommend the Church, they pursue the base designs of unnecessary separation and most un- christian contention in the land." The Honorable Society also is defended by the author against such attacks "as a corporation not less ingenuous and open in their universal conduct than any corporation in Christendom, manifested in their submitting every transaction of their body to the examination of the Public."
"Nor is it strange that the Honorable Society, composed of gentlemen, both clergy and laity, of the most refined taste and sentiments and well able to distinguish, should see the spirit and give themselves time to believe the clamor of this sort of writers: nor yet is there the least foundation for this base insinuation of the Society, who never fail making the most strict inquiry into every complaint of their missionaries: and this gentleman's charge against the Society can justly amount to no more than this, that they will not condemn their missionaries unheard upon the bare word of their accusers."
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Judge Terbus with whom, because of his ev- ident prominence in receiving and aiding the missionary, we left Mr. Seabury after his long journey, with the assurance that he probably en- tertained him, was a man of note in this little village and in Rombout precinct. His brother Captain Henry Terbus, was the assessor of Dutchess County in the year 1752. We cannot dispute therefore the reliability of Mr. Seabury's printed statement that this County in 1755 had
a population of abont 10,000.
It consisted of the
precincts of Rombout, Poughkeepsie, Rhinebeck, North East, Crum Elbow, Beekman and Phillips, and extended fifty miles in length and twenty in width on the east side of the Hudson.
The persons assessed in Rombout were 292,
in Poughkeepsie I53,
in half of Crum Elbow 190,
635;
one tenth of these being single
63,
left heads of families 570,
which at five each and the addition of
the sixty-three single persons made 2913 souls in the three precincts in which it was pro- posed to establish this one Episcopal Church and missionary. For this population there were but three regularly ordained and accepted min- isters of any regular Christian body. There was a Presbyterian, whose meeting was not large and who was meditating removal on account of in- sufficiency of support, an Anabaptist with a very
16
small following, and in 1758, a young gentleman, a candidate for the Dutch Church of Pough- keepsie and Rombout.
These statements may well explain what seems incredible concerning the large congregation that on the Sunday following his arrival gathered to the Episcopal service conducted by Mr. Seabury. His coming had been made known in Rombout Precinct and probably far beyond it. The house of Capt. Terbus was the appointed place of ser- vice. It was much crowded, though the Dutch minister, Rev. B. Meynema, the second pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church of Fishkill, showed more than the usual courtesy of those times among Christians of the Province of New York. * He gave the use of his Church'in the latter part of the day, but "preached that same day at the Fishkills and continued long in the Church," having with true Dutch steadfast- ness to duty held his afternoon service. Pastor Van Nist, whose tombstone lies against the back of the Dutch Church with the record of a pastor- ate of only two and a half years, granted the same privilege on subsequent visits of Mr. Seabury.
* The following illustrates the spirit which was manifested in the King's College controversy and is in marked contrast. A dis- senter wrote from New Jersey, June 3, 1752, in a letter published in the New York Mercury Newspaper of June 4, 1753.
"O that the ministers of the gospel in your parts would excite the people to banish that rag of the whore of Babylon the Church of England out of your country."
"This pious minister was inspired by the fact that the charter of King's College required the President to be a communicant of the Church of England, though a liberal institution and governed by Trustees of other Christian bodies, 'first men of figure and character.'"
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