USA > New York > Our diocese : a study of the history and work of the Church in the Diocese of Central New York > Part 1
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 06589 0250
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CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER
I
Physical Geography
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5
II
Early History
15
III Formation of New Dioceses - 28
IV Our Three Bishops -
37
V Contributions to the Church -
44
VI
Missionary Problems
51
VII Missionary Problems, (Con't) -
65
VIII
Institutional Work
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79
IX Religious Education -
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90
X Social Service - -
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101
XI Diocesan Organization -
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109
XII Diocesan Organizations - 115
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130
XIII
Diocesan Finances
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CONCLUSION
144
3
INTRODUCTION
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MAP OF DIOCESE
OUR DIOCESE
A STUDY OF THE HISTORY AND WORK OF THE CHURCH IN THE DIOCESE OF CENTRAL NEW YORK
INTRODUCTION
T HIS modest hand-book tells something of the past and gives a glimpse into the possibilities of the future in our diocese.
It is well to remember the past. I had the good fortune to be born in a town full of historic associations. I was ordained to the priesthood in the church where the first conference was held leading to organization of the American Episcopal Church after the Revolutionary War. Some of the happiest years of my ministry were spent in a city rich in patriotic sentiment-no one who lived near Fort McHenry could hear unmoved the strains of The Star Spangled Banner. Thank God that I have had, therefore, a reverence and love for things past.
There is much to kindle the emotions and warm the blood in the story of the beginnings of church life in that section of the Empire State which is now the Diocese of Central New York. It is good to know something of this history. That knowledge will warm our hearts to new zeal for the church's work in these days. One cannot read of the small beginnings at Paris Hill-the Mother Church of the Diocese-and of how devout laymen organized a parish and planned for a church long before any clergyman had set foot on Central New York soil, without realizing what an influence the Church would have now, with laymen of like zeal for the extension of the Kingdom.
So this book tells us something of the self-sacrifice and devotion of other days. Those who read its pages will learn to love their home diocese. It occupies a land worthy of our affection. From the Thousand Islands in the North to the beautiful valleys of the South ; from the foot hills of the Adirondacks on the East to the peaceful finger lakes dis- trict of the western section of our jurisdiction ; with the historic Mohawk Valley, and its tale of early missionary
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OUR DIOCESE
work among the Indians and its Oriskany battle field, where Herkimer's victory made possible the eventual defeat of the British and the establishment of a new nation ; with . its honorable ecclesiastical history, its first splendid Bishop, its great contribution of men who have adorned the min- istry-who that reads can fail to find a new affection awakened for the diocese in which we serve ?
And then the book tells of our problems and opportuni- ties today. They are such as may challenge the very best in us.
The volume, however, is not a complete history, nor is it a perfect survey of present needs. It is merely an outline of history and a suggestion for further work. If made a basis for instruction in study classes, it will quicken loyalty and devotion and point the way to fuller service.
Our thanks are due to many who have worked over its pages ; in particular to the Rev. Theodore Haydn, former secretary of the diocese, who gathered the material, and to Professor H. N. Ogden, of Cornell University, a faithful laymen who gave the book its present form.
CHARLES FISKE
CHAPTER I
OUR DIOCESE
Limits of the Diocese. Some English parishes have a custom of "beating the bounds" of the parish during Rogation Days, that is, the people of the parish in solemn procession, march around its boundaries. Should we " beat the bounds" of the Diocese of Central New York, and start southward from Utica, the See City, which is on the eastern border, we would pass through a thinly settled hill country -the foot hills of the Catskill mountains-part of the way
ALBAN
CENTRAL NEW YORK
WESTERN NEW YORK
MAP OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK SHOWING THE FIVE DIOCESAN DIVISIONS
NEW YORK
LONG ISLAND~
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OUR DIOCESE
following the beautiful valley of the Unadilla River until we reached the Pennsylvania border. There turning westward, we would go straight along the Pennsylvania line, through the valley of the Susquehanna, where the hills are higher and the valleys wider, until we came into the Chemung River valley. At the farther corner of Chemung County we would turn and pass northward, following a very irregular line through the Finger Lakes Region, and skirting the shores of Seneca Lake for almost its entire length. Leaving the fertile farms and narrow waters of the Finger Lakes, we would continue north, through vine and fruit orchards, until stopped by the waters of mighty Ontario. Following its shores, sometimes rocky and rugged, sometimes bordered by sandy beaches and summer cottages, eastward and northward we would come to the point where the waters of the Great Lakes pour into the River St. Lawrence. Here we would take boat along the International Boundary line as it winds its way through the vistas of the Thousand Islands, whose natural beauty has charmed travelers from every land. When the islands began to be few in number, we would land and continue eastward along the northern boundaries of Jefferson and Lewis counties, and then turn again southward, this time, through the foothills and woodlands that fringe the Adiron- dacks, and so finally reach our starting point, the city of Utica, after a journey of something more than five hundred miles, and having surrounded an area of about 12,000 square miles.
On our trip we would have almost encompassed the so- called "Finger Lakes," which were the inspiration of the four fountains represented on our Diocesen Seal and the words found upon its border, "Super Aquam Refectionis- Besides the waters of Comfort."*
Bounding the Diocese as they do in geographies, we find
* See Cover Page.
% ... .
TAUGHANNOCK FALLS
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OUR DIOCESE
that Central New York is bounded on the north by Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River and the Diocese of Albany ; on the east by the Diocese of Albany ; on the south by the State of Pennsylvania and on the west by the Diocese of Western New York, Lake Ontario, and the St. Lawrence River.
Scenery. Far famed beauty spots mark our Diocese as one full of rich and inspiring scenery, Taughannock Falls, near Ithaca, and Watkins Glen, Chemung County, being of striking examples of such a character. The gulches of Jefferson County appeal to geologists by their exposure of "Lorraine Shale." The hills of Onondaga, Oneida and Chenango counties are raked over by students of Indian archeology for relics of the Iroquois. And the turbid and placid St. Lawrence with its Thousand Islands on the northern border are visited by thousands of tourists who come even from Europe and Asia to view its mighty waters.
In addition to the St. Lawrence, the swift running Black River, named so because of the blackness of its waters, flows northward through Lewis County and thence breaks abruptly westward through Jefferson County to Lake Ontario. Along it, early settlements were made and lumber and paper mills erected which have long been famous.
Farther south the Salmon River, the headquarters of which are well known to trout fishermen, crosses Oswego County. Just before it emerges from the "Big Woods," it takes a sudden drop of one hundred and ten feet, and these "Falls of the Salmon," while not comparable in grandeur to Niagara, in natural beauty once rivalled the greater falls. They have been harnessed now, and the electric power derived from them runs factory wheels and street cars as far distant as Syracuse.
The Oswego River, with its tributary the Oneida, drains the Finger Lakes and controls a drainage area of 5,000
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OUR DIOCESE
square miles, nearly one-half of the Diocese. Along their banks, flour and knitting mills were a nucleus for early settlements. In a similar way, towns and villages sprang up along the Tioughnioga and Chenango rivers which, running southward through Cortland and Chenango Coun. ties, and converging at Chenango Forks, pour their united waters into the Susquehanna, the southern line of early settlement. The Chemung River, another tributary, gives its name to the valley and county in which Elmira is located.
Railroads. Most of the well known railroad systems of the East pass through the Diocese. The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad crosses its center from east to west and by tributary lines serves the northern section. The Erie and Lackawanna Roads run through the southern counties, the latter extending its lines northward to Ithaca, to Oswego and to Utica. The Lehigh cuts across the west- ern section from Sayre, Pennsylvania, through Ithaca, to Geneva, branching north and east to Auburn and Canastota. The Ontario and Western traverses the Diocese from Sidney through Norwich to. Oswego, with a branch line tapping the See City. The Delaware and Hudson strikes across the southeastern counties in its route from Albany to Bingham- ton, and the Pennsylvania has a branch line through Che- mung County. Nor should we forget the Unadilla Valley Railroad, running from Bridgewater to Unadilla, and often called the "dilly-dally."
These many railroad systems contribute to ease of travel, but because of their peculiar locations and directions it is generally easier to get into or out of Central New York than from one part of the Diocese to another, as the Bishop and the Archdeacon will testify. But there are also electric railway systems and a rapidly developing network of state highways on which "light cars" can run, which help to simplify the problem of intra-diocesan travel.
IO
OUR DIOCESE
Industries. But we did not begin this chapter to give a scenic guide book or a railroad time table. The reader wants to know what sort of a diocese we live in-what are its industries, its institutions, its peoples. When we have learned something of these facts we shall know something of the religious problems that the church in such a diocese must try to solve.
Central New York is a great agricultural region. From its famous dairies train-loads of milk go daily over the rail- roads to New York and to other large cities. The northern section produces vast quantities of hay. There are great cheese factories there also. Maple sugar and honey make some of our counties famous for their sweets. Madison county is renowned for its hops and peas; Chenango, for its butter and milk. Fruit farms, vineyards and woodlands produce much of the wealth of the Diocese. Thousands of dozens of eggs, truck loads of strawberries, trainloads of grapes, apples and grain, car loads of lettuce, onions and celery ; many more of potatoes and cabbages and forests of Christmas trees-all these are among the things our farms and fields export to supply the needs and increase the happiness of man.
Ours also is a great industrial region, and many of its towns are industrial communities. Who does not know of the paper mills of Carthage, Brownville and Dexter, of the brake shops of Watertown, of the shoe factories of Endicott and Johnson City, of the harvesters made in Auburn, the typewriters and automobiles made in Syracuse. Syracuse was once the "Salt" city, but now it has a host of other industries and its salt vats are falling to ruin. It has great steel mills, iron foundries and gear factories. On its out- skirts are located the Solvay Process works, producing soda ash and many other chemicals. Utica is a center of cotton and knitting mills. Rome has its brass and wire factories. Sherrill and Kenwood produce the famous "Oneida Com-
II
OUR DIOCESE
munity Silver." Groton, once builder of massive iron bridges, now produces the smallest of folding typewriters. Oswego makes almost everything from candy to matches, and its starch has a world wide reputation. Norwich in addition to being the heart of one of the finest dairy sections of the Diocese is the home of the Maydole hammer works and of the Norwich Pharmacal company. Bingham- ton, once famous for its cigars, is now a varied industrial community, with a great photographic supply manufacturing company as one of its chief employers of labor. Elmira, Fulton, Phoenix, Seneca Falls, Waverly, and many another city and town are largely industrial in character.
Colleges, Hospitals, etc. We train minds as well as build machinery in Central New York. The whole region is full of educational institutions. There is Cornell University at Ithaca whose founders were men of strength and vision- Ezra Cornell of far-seeing enthusiasm; Dr. Andrew D. White, a pioneer in university planning. Then there is Syracuse University, a "poor man's college ; " and like Cornell, co-educational. For young men only there are Colgate University, located at Hamilton, and Hamilton College at Clinton. For girls only, there are Elmira College at Elmira and Wells College at Aurora, the former, one of the first colleges for women in America. State Normal Schools are found at Cortland and Oswego. Cazenovia has a Seminary, and Manlius a Military Academy.
Educational institutions are not our only claim to interest. Here are also homes for the aged, famous the country over, and other institutions of first importance for public care of the unfortunate and depraved.
There are State Hospitals for the insane at Binghamton, Utica, and Willard ; in Rome there is a State Custodial Asylum ; in Syracuse, an institution for the Feeble Minded. There is a State Prison at Auburn, a Penitentiary at James- ville, and a Reformatory at Elmira. In Freeville, the
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OUR DIOCESE
George Junior Republic has been established for the training of wayward boys and girls, a truly wonderful place, and adopted as a model not only in several States in this country but also in Europe.
There are military posts at Sacketts Harbor and Oswego, and a Home for Soldiers and Sailors and their Widows at Oxford. Near Utica, the Grand Lodge of the State Masonic Fraternity main- tains a Home and the Odd Fellows are now building a magnificent home, three miles north of Ithaca.
The People. Within the Diocese there are just about a million people. Of these there are more than 4,000 Negroes, and about 700 In- dians. The Negroes are JACKETS HARBOR N Y scattered through the cities of the Diocese, the largest SACKETTS HARBOR, N. Y. number being in Syracuse, while the Indians are found chiefly in Onondaga County. It is rather difficult to secure accurate statistics as to foreign people among us. The Census gives us only the number of foreign-born; but there are also the children of foreign-born people to be computed in race statistics. For example, out of the 21,000 people in Rome, 5,200 are foreign-born ; but the superintendent of schools states that more than half the children in school are the children of foreign-born parents, and it is obvious that the proportion of people of a foreign racial stock must be con- siderably higher than the proportion of those of foreign birth. Thus Syracuse has 6,756 inhabitants who were born in Italy ; but Italians estimate the number of people of
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OUR DIOCESE
their race in Syracuse as between 10,000 and 18,000. Utica has 27,000 Italians.
It is an outworn figure of speech which calls America a great "melting pot " of the races ; but in the great center of population of our Diocese, the variety of nationalities present testify to the accuracy of the figure. Few perhaps realize how serious the problem of caring religiously for all these nationalities is, and fewer still know how rapidly it has forced itself upon the church here in Central New York. Even in such rural counties as Lewis, Chenango, or Tompkins, the foreign-born whites number from five to ten per cent of the population. In others, as in Jefferson, Oswego, or Broome Counties they are from ten to fifteen per cent ; while in Oneida and Onondaga Counties the proportion rises to fifteen and twenty-five per cent. This means that if the Church were really influencing all the people, the parishes of Syracuse ought to have a foreign family in every fourth pew on Sundays. Of the cities of the Diocese, Utica has the largest proportion of foreign-born, although Auburn, Rome, Syracuse have large numbers of Italians and Poles, while Oswego and Watertown have many French Canadians.
Almost all races are found among us, some in large num- bers and some with only a few representatives. There are only 31 persons of Japanese birth and 88 Chinese, of whom 35 live in Oneida County. But there are larger numbers of many others, such as Armenians, Austrians, Greeks, Rus- sians, Lithuanians, Swedes, Norwegians, Welsh, Syrians, Swiss, Spanish, French as well as smaller numbers of many other races.
Problems. And so we have in the diocese our problems to solve. There is the problem of the foreign-born and their immediate descendents : how to make not merely loyal Americans of them-but how to make Christian Americans of them, or how to keep them Christians while
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OUR DIOCESE
they are becoming Americans, and how to bring them into the circle of the common life and fellowship-a problem not always of how to change them, but of how to change ourselves as well, that a community of interest may be established and a point of contact found.
There is the industrial problem : how to win and hold the working people, who often regard the Church as allied with capitalism or as dominated by capitalists.
There is the rural problem : how to reach and serve, attach and retain, economically and yet effectively, not only the people of small hamlets and villages, but the isolated farm dwellers.
There is the student problem : how to steady and strengthen the faith and morals of young people away from home among those who are not always sympathetic with the ideas and ideals the Church would have them reverence and cherish.
There is the problem of ministering effectively and regu- larly to the inmates of, and the workers in, penal and curative institutions.
Problems for all ; work for all ; rewards for those who labor zealously.
CHAPTER II OUR EARLY HISTORY
H OW many of our people know much of the early his- tory of the Church in New York ? There is nothing which so creates loyalty and zeal as right sentiment. And nothing so arouses such sentiment and affection as a full understanding of the earnest labors and faithful endeavor of men and women of the past.
A study of the history of our diocese gives many records of those through whose pain, care, and cost parishes were established which through all the years have kept the light of faith burning. If we know something of what was done by others, into whose labors we have entered, we might do more that others may enter into our labors. This chapter will tell something of our earliest history, beginning when the whole of the present state of New York was one diocese .*
Central New York as a separate diocese dates only from 1868. Many of its parishes were formed when the whole state was a single diocese, and many more when this por- tion of the state was included in the Diocese of Western New York.
Missions to the Indians. We begin with the earliest efforts to plant christianity in what was then a wilderness. The first missionaries to visit these regions were Jesuits of Quebec, who made their way up the St. Lawrence River, and across Lake Ontario to the seats of the Confederacy of the Iroquois, in what are now the counties of Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. Le Mercier, Dablon, Le- Moyne and L'Allemant were Christian pioneers who, in the 17th Century with great devotion and heroism braved the dangers of the wilderness, and in some instances suffered
* The Material for this Chapter was chiefly taken from Hayes' His- tory of the Diocese of Western New York.
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OUR DIOCESE
torture and martyrdom, for the faith of Christ. For half a century these brave men toiled and labored, but all trace of their work disappeared during the wars between English and French, although Churches were built by them at Oneida Lake, near Jamesville or Manlius, and at Cayuga Lake. A stone cross near Uuion Springs commemorates these early martyrs.
The next missionary effort to the natives of the central. part of the state was made by the Church of England more than half a century later. The Rev. Wm. Andrews, "will- ing to try what good he could do among another nation, travelled to the Castle of the Oneydans" from Albany, along a narrow Indian path, and met with a glad reception about 1712. In 1760, the Rev. John Ogilvie records his experience, saying, "The Oneidas met us at the Lake near their Castle and as they were acquainted with my coming, they brought ten children to receive baptism, and young women who had been previously instructed came likewise to receive that holy ordinance." He also says in his report, "I am informed that there is not 'a nation bordering upon the five great lakes, or the banks of the Ohio and the Miss- issippi all the way to Louisiana, but what are supplied with (Roman Catholic) priests and schoolmasters and have very decent places of worship with every splendid utensil of their religion. How ought we to blush at our coldness and shameful indifference in the propagation of our most excel- lent Religion."
Queen Anne showed her interest in Indian Missions by the gift of altar plate for the chapel of the Oneidas, and also for a chapel among the Onondagas, which was never built. This latter altar plate may be seen at St. Peter's Church, Albany, a more modern and less historically interesting set having been given by this parish to the present Church of the Good Shepherd on the Onondaga Reservation.
Between 1750 and 1754, two Moravian missionaries visited
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OUR EARLY HISTORY
Onondaga and made some converts. In 1766 a Congrega- tional missionary, Samuel Kirkland began forty years labor among the Oneidas, and was presented by the state with five thousand acres of land near Oneida. Out of a plan of education for the Five Nations, grew Hamilton Academy, now Hamilton College, to which he gave a large endow- ment of this land.
The first white child born in the limits of the Diocese of Central New York was Esther White, whose parents came in 1784 to the mouth of the Sauquoit Creek. It was about this same time that settlement began near Rome, Syracuse and Auburn.
In this way Christians of our own and other communions sought to establish the faith of Christ. Often their efforts came to little, because in those days as in these many were indifferent ; money was not given and men were not sup- ported in their no less than herculean endeavor to make sufficient beginnings. Yet God blessed their efforts and many churches of today are the fruit of their labors.
Our own church had its special difficulties, because we had no Bishops and the Mother Church of England could not be made to see our needs ; but at last, in New York State, a beginning was made.
THE DIOCESE OF NEW YORK
Samuel Provoost, the First Bishop. The Rt. Rev. Sam- uel Provoost was consecrated first Bishop of New York (and third bishop of the American Succession) in Lambeth Palace, London, in 1787. There were five priests to wel- come him when he organized his first Diocesan Convention. Special missionary organization apparently began in 1796, when a committee of three clergymen and three laymen, among whom was Hubert Van Wagenen, was formed for Propagating the Gospel in the State of New York. The
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OUR DIOCESE
Rev. R. G. Wetmore was the first missionary sent out. He visited the Oneidas, Bridgewater and Paris Hill. Before his arrival, St. Paul's Church, Paris Hill, had been organized on Feb. 13, 1797, with a vestry of eleven men, one of whom Eli Blakeslee, sold his' farm at a sacrifice and moved there, solely to help in the estab- lishment of the Church. This was the first parish, not only in the present limits of Central New York, but also of the whole part of the State which afterward became Western New York. It was called the "ox-cart Church ", because the first consultation about it was held in an ox-cart. The people first met for wor- ship on Advent Sunday. Gideon Seymour offered the prayers and Eli Blakeslee read a sermon. Services were held for two years in private houses, and then a temporary building was purchased for $250. The first church was built in 1808; the present building dates from 1818. As early as 1801 a bass viol was purchased for the use of the Church.
CHURCH AT PARIS HILL
Philander Chase, The Missionary Bishop. Philander Chase, the great Missionary Bishop of the West, began his labors here. He visited Paris Hill. Chase found the present site of Syracuse one dreary salt marsh, with two or
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THE DIOCESE OF NEW YORK
three cabins for boiling salt the only sign of civilized life. At Hardenburg's Corners (now Auburn) he found a Mass- achusetts Church family, the Bostwicks, and held services, baptized the children and gathered a congregation, the nucleus of St. Peter's Church. At Oquaga Hills (now Harpursville) he found a flock of Connecticut Churchmen whom he organized into St. Luke's Church, April 15, 1799. Lay services had been held in Manlius, where families from the neighborhood and from Pompey used to "assemble at each other's dwellings and conduct worship after the Episcopal manner". An appropriation for building a Church at Constantia was made by Trinity Church, New York City, in 1797, but nothing came of this action.
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