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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 02955 2863
Gc 974.702 N4223s Smith, J. Carpenter. History of St. George's Parish, Flushing, Long Island
from Mier Emma J. Peck. October 25, 1897.
J. J. Harriman.
ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH, BUILT 1854.
HISTORY
OF
SAINT GEORGE'S PARISH
FLUSHING, LONG ISLAND
BY
J. CARPENTER SMITH, S. T. D.
FLUSHING ST. GEORGE'S SWORD AND SHIELD 1897
Allen County Public Liess 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-
1897. Press of the Flushing Evening Journal, Flushing, N. Y.
PREFACE
The following history of Saint George's Parish, with the exception of the first and the last chapters, has been compiled from a series of articles written for SAINT GEORGE'S SWORD AND SHIELD by the rector of the parish- the Rev. J. Carpenter Smith, S. T. D. The editor's work has been to condense and arrange the material thus fur- nished. He has not undertaken to verify, by indepen- dent research, dates or statements of historic fact. The history appears in the fiftieth year of Dr. Smith's rector- ship. The publishers beg that it may be accepted as their offering to commemorate this half-century of faithful ser- vice.
The editor is indebted to the Rt. Rev. William Stevens Perry, D. D., LL. D., for several illustrations which have been taken from his HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN EPISCOPAL CHURCH ; to friends and relatives of former rectors, for help in securing portraits ; to Miss J. L. Delafield, for the portrait of Francis Lewis; and also to Mr. E. A. Fairchild for assistance in preparing the following pages for publication.
Whitsun-tide, 1897.
H. D. W.
THE HISTORY
OF SAINT GEORGE'S PARISH.
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT AND EARLY HISTORY OF FLUSHING .*
L ONG ISLAND was known by many different names before its present one was accepted. The last to be discarded and forgotten was Nassau Island, which is the name we find in our parish charter.
That portion of the Island which now comprises the town of Flushing was originally held by the Matinecoc (or Martinecock) tribe of Indians and was purchased from them by the Dutch. At the time when our history begins-about the middle of the seventeenth century- the English held the eastern part of the Island, while the western half was under the control of the Dutch. In 1641 the Dutch Governor and Council agreed to allow the English to settle on Long Island if they would take the oath of allegiance to the States General and the Dutch West India Company. The towns of Hempstead, Flush- ing, Jamaica and Newtown were originally settled by the English under these conditions. Flushing was first set-
*Wood's Settlement of Towns of Long Island. Flint's Early Long Island.
2
HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
tled in the year 1645 by "a band of English planters who had lived in Holland. They came hither from Lynn." A patent for sixteen thousand acres was made out to Thomas Ffarington, John Lawrence, John Townsend and others. They called their possession Vlissingen, after the Dutch town. The name afterwards appears as Vliss- ing, and finally, Flushing.
These English settlers became Dutch subjects and were permitted to hold land, enjoy the liberty of conscience and choose their own magistrates, subject to the approval of the Governor. The magistrates were empowered to hold court-civil and criminal-and to make ordinances for the government of the town. The first charter of Flushing gave the inhabitants authority to elect only a Schout, or constable, who had power to preserve order and was to report all cases of importance to the Governor. Later magistrates were given to Flushing as to the other towns. The rule of the Dutch government was regarded as tyrannical, and in 1653 a convention of delegates from Brooklyn, Flatbush, Flatlands, Gravesend, Newtown, Flushing and Hempstead was held, to protest against what they deemed arbitrary rule. Nothing was accom- plished by this protest and in 1662, at a meeting held at Hempstead, the towns agreed to put themselves under the jurisdiction of Connecticut. This never came to pass, for two years later, in 1664, the Colony of New Neth- erland was surrendered to the Crown of Great Britain. In 1673 the Dutch again gained possession, and in the following year, 1674, the Colony finally passed under the control of the English.
The Rev. Francis Doughty, who is described as an " ecclesiastical firebrand," was the first minister in Flush- ing. We read that his salary of six hundred guilders was never paid. Mr. Doughty had been vicar of Sod-
3
EARLY HISTORY OF FLUSHING.
bury, in England, and was silenced for non-conformity. He came to New England, but found-his son-in-law tells us-that he "had got out of the frying-pan into the fire." He came to Long Island in 1642 and settled at Mespat.
The first Quakers came to Flushing in 1657. Robert Hodgson was their leader. They, for some time, met with rough treatment at the hands of the Dutch-were
LONG ISLAND SOUND.
+
WHITESTONE
+
U.S. Property
+
COLLEGE POINT
5
FLUSHING BAY
LITTLE KECK DAY
NORTH
FLUSHING
+ Attle Ntek
+
Bayside +
Douglaston
HEMPSTEAD
NMOIMIN
Town farm
JAMAICA
HEMPSTEAD
MAP OF FLUSHING. THE LOCATION OF A CHURCH OR CHAPEL IS MARKED BY A CROSS.
fined and imprisoned. To shelter a Quaker for one night was an offence punishable with a fine of £50, and any vessel bringing Quakers to the Province was liable to be confiscated. In spite of all this the Friends increased.
Meetings were first held in the woods and when, in 1661, the Bowne house was built, it was used as their place of worship for over thirty years, Their founder,
1
4
HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
George Fox, visited Flushing in 1672, and preached un- der the oaks opposite the Bowne House-where he was en- tertained during his visit. The Friends' Meeting House was built in 1695, and is still in a good state of preservation.
In 1660, some newly arrived Frenchmen settled in Flushing and began the industry of horticulture, for which the town has ever since been famous.
These are the various elements and influences that have made the Flushing we know.
There were no post offices on Long Island until 1793. The people of Kings and Queens counties received their mail at New York ; Suffolk was served from New Lon- don. A post route was established in 1764 and mail was carried fortnightly along the North Shore by a horseman, who returned by the South Side.
· The ownership of slaves was almost universal among the well-to-do, and there are few wills, up to the begin- ning of this century, that do not contain bequests of slaves. Slavery gradually disappeared in New York State after 1799, but there are, no doubt, negroes still living who were born in slavery on Long Island.
The town of Flushing extends from Flushing Creek, on the west, to the town of North Hempstead, on the east -a distance of about seven miles ; and from the North Shore to the boundaries of the towns of Jamaica and Hempstead, on the south, about five miles. The ground is fertile and slightly undulating. The population in 1890 was 19,803. Within the town are the villages of Flush- ing, College Point, Whitestone, Bayside, Douglaston and Little Neck-all originally within St. George's parish.
CHAPTER II.
THE VISIT OF KEITH AND TALBOT.
N the year of our Lord 1702, Flushing was a quiet, farming hamlet, the majority of whose inhabitants were members of the Society of Friends, and the "Old Quaker Meeting House " was the only place of public worship. It was in this year that the first clergymen of the Church of England visited the village. The "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," sent out the Rev. George Keith on a " preliminary mission of inquiry." He was to travel throughout the colonies, seek the scattered families of the Church and awaken the peo- ple to a sense of their religious duties. The selection was a happy one : Keith was pre-eminently fitted for the work. He had been a zealous follower of George Fox, and was the most learned of his supporters. He knew well the field. While a Quaker, he had been sent to the Colony of Pennsylvania to aid its founder, William Penn. He was a propagandist by nature. Tireless in zeal and energy, he was one of those men who are always found near the battle flag, where the fight is thickest and the work hardest. While a Friend, he was a distin- guished travelling minister and had attended yearly meet- ings in Flushing and Oyster Bay. Discovering danger- ous tendencies in the peculiar tenets of the Friends, and foreseeing their results, he severed his connection with them and returned to England, ultimately to take Holy Orders in the Church.
6
HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
In April, 1702, he started on his mission to the Colo- nies. He came in an English warship, which brought the Governors of New England and New Jersey to their provinces. The Rev. John Talbot came with them as chaplain. With them also was the Rev. Patrick Gordon, who was sent out as missionary to Jamaica, L. I.
Mr. Talbot, the chaplain, became so enthusiastic about Keith and his mission, that he begged to become a fellow laborer and a companion in his travels. His proposal was accepted and in due time, at the solicitation of the Rev. Mr. Gordon, the Venerable Society appointed him Keith's assistant. Their ship reached Boston in June, 1702, and after a few days the two men began their jour- ney. It is not our purpose to follow them from the Pis- cataway river, in New England, to the swamps and wilds of North Carolina. They went from hamlet to hamlet and house to house, preaching wherever they could gain a hearing, baptizing hundreds, gathering the wander- ing sheep into organized folds, and making provision to build churches wherever that work could be done.
After this long missionary journey, they began a visi- tation to the waste places of Long Island. Keith knew well that Flushing was a stronghold of Quakerism. It was probably less than a score of years since he had vis- ited the meeting there as an accepted ministering Friend. He knew the opposition which awaited him. This would not deter him-indeed, we suspect he would rather like it. As a canny Scotchman and quondam Quaker, he was a man of peace, i. e., when things around him made for peace, but when otherwise he could be equal to the emergency.
On a bright Thursday morning in September, 1702, Keith, in company with the Rev. William Vesey, Rec- tor of New York, the Rev. John Talbot and some others,
7
VISIT OF KEITH AND TALBOT.
REV. GEORGE KEITH.
entered the meeting-house-the same building which still stands on Broadway. The Fifth day of the week, as well as the First day, or Sunday, was then, as it is now, the appointed day for meeting. Mr. Keith took his seat in the preacher's gallery and awaited during the solemn silence, which is an impressive form of the Friends' worship. At the proper time he rose and began to speak. He soon announced himself as a minister and missionary of the Church of England, whom the Queen and Bishops had sent to preach in the Colonies. A loud protest and remonstrance followed on the part of the Friends. Keith had no moral right to obtrude his servi- ces upon the Friends in their own meeting-house, con- trary to their remonstrance. It was a breach of Christian
8
HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
charity. But it was A. D. 1702, and not A. D. 1897. We are not apologists for the disturbance, much less for the disturber. But Keith had been a zealous disciple of George Fox, and that eminent master and his early fol- lowers in England had entered churches or "steeple houses" and meeting houses, and obtruded their "testi- mony to the truth " upon unwilling congregations, under the plea of a sense of duty.
The scene which followed was not to edification. It was too much for even the peaceable spirit of the Friends. The intruder was an apostate from the faith-a renegade who now strove to destroy what he had formerly sought to build up. His presence among them added insult to injury.
Mr. Keith says that as soon as he began to speak he " was so much interrupted by the clamor and noise of the Quakers that he could not proceed. After this, one of their speakers began to speak, and continued speaking about an hour. The whole was a ramble of nonsense and perversion of Scripture, with gross reflections on the Church and the Government. When he had done he went away in all haste. I stood up again in their meet- ing, but they made a new interruption, and threatened me with being guilty of a breach of the Act of Toleration, and that by so doing I had put myself in the Queen's debt twenty pounds." In answer to this, Keith denied that he had " interrupted their meeting, but had remained silent all the time their speaker was speaking." They disputed his right to speak in their meetings. Instead of resting this denial on the rules and discipline of the Friends, which Keith well knew, they appealed to the Act of Tol- eration. Keith saw his advantage and calmly told them that he had a better right to speak there than any of their speakers had. They expressed wonder and asked how
VISIT OF KEITH AND TALBOT.
he could say that. They had bought the ground and built the meeting-house at their own expense, but he had contributed nothing. It was their own, not his. This appeal to common sense and justice seemed to arouse the already indignant Friends. One sprang up, and with as much heat as a Friend is allowed (the pre- cise degree is a variable quantity), ordered him to go out of the house.
Mr. Keith replied : "None of your speakers have any right to speak in your meeting-houses, because you have not your meeting-houses licensed as the Act of Tolera- tion requires. Nor have any of your preachers qualified themselves as that act expresses ; viz., to sign to thirty- four of the XXXIX Articles of the Church of England. This you have not done, nor can you do; whereas I am qualified as the Act requires."
It would have been a cruel mockery to demand such subscription from a religious society like the Friends, yet such was the law in the Mother Country and in some of the Colonies. Keith and his opponents assumed that it was the law in the Province of New York. This was a debatable question, as the Church of England had not been formally established by the Provincial Assembly.
Notwithstanding the defeat of the Friends in this battle of words, they had yet a reserve to call to their aid. They abandoned the Act of Toleration as too dan- gerous in its recoil, and, through a venerable speaker, · brought up the familiar charge of a "hireling ministry." "They accused me," Keith says, "that I came not in love to preach to them, but was hired by the Bishops to come, and that the love of money brought me to Amer- ica, not the love of souls." It was the old charge which George Fox had made with great success and some truth. No doubt, at that time, to the shame of the Church and
IO
HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
the hurt of religion, there were among her clergy in Eng- land many who richly merited the odious title of " hire- ling priests." But, according to a wise authority, "the bearing of the observation is in the application of it." It applies only where it is true. Keith's and his co-labor- ers' small stipend, their abundant labors, their "journey- ings oft " and dangerous, proved that a "ready mind " to do good, and not a "love of filthy lucre," was the power that brought them to the Colonies. Keith de-
QUAKER MEETING-HOUSE, BUILT 1695. ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH IN THE DISTANCE.
clared the charge to be false. "It was true," he said, " that God had raised up kind friends who assisted him with money in his chargeable undertaking." In this he had the example of the Apostle who was helped in his journey. But this, he retorted, "was no more than the Quakers in London did, who largely supplied the travel- ling Friends who come over from England to America, with money out of their national stock, besides what these travelling Friends gather from the several meetings
II
VISIT OF KEITH AND TALBOT.
they visit in America." It is a well known fact that the Friends did give pecuniary aid to their travelling minis- ters. Commissary Bray, when pleading for the unpaid clergy of Maryland, urged upon the Society the fact, that while the Quakers amply supported their travelling minis- ters the Church had left hers to starve. It was a paid ministerial service after all, under whatever pretext or name the money was given.
They replied that they never knew of any money given by their meeting to any travelling Friend, and asked if he had ever received any money from their meeting while he was a travelling Friend among them. "Yes, said I, from this very meeting I have received money." They asked " of whom and when ?" Keith replied, "from an honest woman, yet living not far distant." He knew too much. They asked him, "Art thou not a treacherous man to tell this?" Keith naively added, "it is a thing well enough known to themselves that they have collec- tions at their monthly and quarterly meetings, one chief use whereof is, to furnish the travelling Friends with money." And thus ended the first attempt to introduce the Church in Flushing.
However, he was not discouraged. He returned on the second of December, 1702, less than three months after his first memorable visit. He had obtained a let- ter from Lord Cornbury, the Governor of the Province, directing two justices of the peace to go with him to protect him from interruption. This was a mere parade of power, for Keith knew too well the principles of his former co-religionists to fear any bodily harm. It was on "First Day," or Sunday morning, and a full congre- gation would be present, as the Friends in those days made it a matter of conscience to "attend meeting." The invaders entered the meeting-Keith and his associ-
I 2
HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
ate, Mr. Talbot, and the representatives of the magiste- rial power, in the Governor's two justices of the peace. It was the Law and the Gospel. It would seem that without any preliminaries the visitors began their work. They broke in upon the "silent meeting," which always begins as soon as a Friend enters the meeting, whether he be the first, or whether hundreds have entered before him. Mr. Talbot produced the Governor's letter to the justices, authorizing them to prevent the Quakers from any interruption. It was read to the meeting. We are prepared to hear Mr. Keith's complaint. " They took no notice of my Lord Cornbury's letter, more than if it had been from any private person." Nor were they awed in the least by the justices, "but," says Keith, "re- newed their former interruption." Of course they did, and that rightly and righteously.
After a stormy meeting most of the Friends left the meeting-house. Many who were not Quakers remained, and Keith and his more amiable associate had the meet- ing to themselves. Some of them, no doubt, were Church of England men, glad to hear once more the word "spoken in their own tongue." It would bring to the air and re- kindle the coals long smouldering and hidden under dis- use and the absence of all the forms of religion. It was to them like the old hearth-stone song of early days, in a strange land. It revived old memories.
As far as we have documentary evidence thus ended the last visit of Keith and Talbot to Flushing. Al- though we must not "make history," we may legiti- mately refer to the well-known course of Keith and his associate in their missionary work. They were no mere itinerant preachers, but workers and builders. Wherever a possibility existed, the scattered members of the Church of England were sought out and gathered together, and
I3
VISIT OF KEITH AND TALBOT.
some attempt at organization was made. Keith was a man of rare executive ability, a clever organizer, and had great power in inspiring men to work. He and Talbot gathered the nuclei of congregations, and be- gan the work of building churches everywhere. The venerable Parish of St. Mary's, Burlington, N. J., was thus begun, and Talbot was long its Rector. In Hemp- stead and Jamaica the work received a successful impe- tus. At Oyster Bay, Huntington and elsewhere on Long Island, a beginning was made. It is no flight of fancy then, to suppose that a like effort was made in Flushing, and the few scattered families of Mother Church were commended to the care of the Rector of Jamaica. Keith and Talbot began the work in Flushing, and their visits here are memorable events in the history of St. George's Church. They at least "staked out" the future parish, and in faith left the result with God.
We have given all that the records furnish of the visits of the Rev. George Keith and the Rev. John Talbot to Flushing. These early pioneers deserve more than a passing notice. Our old Long Island parishes owe them a debt of grateful memory.
Mr. Keith had been a member of the Society of Friends for more than thirty years when he left England for the Colony of Penn. He came as a Quaker and a propagan- dist of his sect, and labored with his characteristic zeal. For a time he was Surveyor-General in "East Jersey," but was better known as an eminent public Friend. He soon discovered among the Friends in the Colonies ten- dencies to dangerous errors which had not appeared among the more conservative Quakers in England. The fundamental doctrines relating to the death and resurrec- tion of our Lord, and to the reconciliation of man through Him, were ignored or denied. Quaker though he was,
The Contents of this BOOK
T món Pray
6 The Chia how the ich of the Holy Sal
psore is appointed to be read.
The Kalender, with the Table of Lall en.
to The Ordet for Moming Frayst
The Dider Er Eroding Parya
The Ligny
Prayers and Thanksgivings upon kurs Occasions:
The Collects, Epifiles and Golpels, to be
**
To the
THE SEAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL.
15
VISIT OF KEITH AND TALBOT.
he held the dogmatic faith as the Friends in England held it. There was a bitter contention, and soon a clear-cut schism. In "East Jersey " and other localities "Meet- ings" were formed of the "Keithians " who claimed to be the original Friends. It was from these that Keith and Talbot afterward persuaded so many to return to the Church of England. After Keith's retirement the schism seemed to disappear. But the cause of it survived, to reappear later in the Hicksite controversy, and the final separation of the Orthodox Friends as a distinct body in 1827.
In 1700 Keith published his " Reasons for Renouncing the Sect called Quakers," and became a candidate for Holy Orders. As soon as he was ordained he was sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel on his famous " mission of observation," to discover and study the state of religion in the Colonies, and report where missionaries could be sent and missions established. It was while he was on this important mission that he vis- ited Flushing in 1702.
Because of his ardent temperament and tireless energy, Keith's zeal may not always have been tempered with moderation. He had the fault of his times in a dogmatic and impatient spirit. Strong in his convictions, bold and outspoken, he naturally made many enemies. The ven- erable Society sent out no missionary more self-sacrific- ing and successful than George Keith. He began the work and laid the foundations on which others built.
The early Quakers had in him their strongest and most learned advocate, and when he left them the Church found in him a most faithful and competent agent for the work assigned him.
John Talbot was a man of different temperament. Amiable, fluent and eloquent, a scholar and gentleman,
16
HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
he was not less zealous and successful than his older companion. They worked together as brothers, in love and mutual appreciation, in their "mission of observa- tion " through the Colonies. Keith was the hammer -- malleus haereticorum-while Talbot with gentler hand, smoothed the way and persuaded men. Talbot may be called the builder of congregations and churches. He founded the parish and built the old Church of St. Mary's, Burlington, and was its first Rector. He ranked as the oldest missionary in the Colonies when he retired, and in his influence he stood first in the Church in East Jersey and Pennsylvania.
But after more than twenty years' successful labor, a cloud settled upon his course, under the deep shadow of which he died. This introduces a startling peril with which the Church in the Colonies was menaced, and a bit of history with its instructive warning. He had long felt the indispensible need of actual supervision of the Colonial Churches by a bishop. No one wrote oftener to the Society on the subject. But it was all in vain. The bishops could not act without the Government, and the Government cared little and did less for the Colonial Church. Talbot despaired of ever seeing a bishop in this country. He seems suddenly to have called to mind the non-juring bishops of England. As is well known, cer- tain bishops of that kingdom had refused to take the oaths to William and Mary, after the revolution of 1688. They were deprived of their sees for their loyalty to the Stuarts, and others were put into their places. Some of them lived for many years, and took pains to keep up the succession by conferring the episcopal authority on others.
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