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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY CLASSIS-R. C. A.
w.nr. Dailey
.
Leage Finale 30 January 1975 New Browserk New Jersey
1
Risi Dominus Frustra
THE
HISTORY
OF
Montgomery Classis
R. C. A.
TO WHICH IS ADDED SKETCHES OF MOHAWK VALLEY MEN AND EVENTS OF EARLY DAYS, THE IROQUOIS, PALATINES, INDIAN MISSIONS, TRYON COUNTY COMMITTEE OF SAFETY, SIR WM. JOHNSON, JOSEPH BRANT, ARENDT VAN CURLER, GEN. HERKIMER, REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERI- CA, DOCTRINE AND PROGRESS, REVOLUTIONARY RESIDENCES, ETC. ::
BY
RECORDER PRESS AMSTERDAM NEW YORK 1916
Eendracht Maakt Macht
PREFATORY
THE VALUE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH
History has been spoken of as a mere chain of facts, which serve the purpose of comparing knowl- edge, but this is the lesser half of the truth, for while we need the guidance of established facts, systemati- cally arranged, and their true connection with pre- ceding and succeeding events, we submit that by far the larger purpose of history is to unite ourselves with these facts, to fix our personal responsibility as heirs of the past, and to determine our present duty to ourselves and to others, in the light of such knowledge. If men and women were unrelated and individual units of humanity we might review the past and forecast the future with such pleasure as comes naturally from historical research, as we weave into one body the warp and the woof of the story of the centuries. But history, as we interpret it, is not knowledge merely, but in a higher sense it is power, for it is inclusive of those fine relationships that link men to their homes, their country and their God. In recent years there has been a wholesome revival of histor- ical study, which finds development in local and general celebrations, in state and national expositions, in pageants and antique loans, in translation and reprint of the church records, cemetery inscriptions, and the papers preserved in the archives of state and nation. This is not a work of vanity or of self-aggrandizement, but a wholesome exercise of the mind and soul of the people, through which we get life's true bearings, and gain courage and inspiration with which to meet the days before us. Such study and research as may be provoked by this Classis History cannot help but weave its influences into our lives, and thus mould our character and direct our conduct. Imagination takes us back along fascinating footsteps that lead to history-making scenes in both church and state-to the first settlers in the valley of the "Mohaque," indomitable in spirit and Protestant in faith-to the church of our fathers, built before they reared their homes, and built, too, better than their homes-to the kindred, and friends, and childhood scenes-to the familiar woods with their blazed trails-to the men and women, most of them asleep in unmarked graves in God's Acres close by these churches, who lived to toil, and fought and died, that they might hand down to us this glorious heritage of a land swept by the spirit of liberty, where God dwells
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continually in the midst of His people. Our purpose in these pages is to record the incidents and facts of the churches of the Classis and their environment. No attempt is made to consider the organic development of the life of the communities in which they are found, especially the churches and fields of a century ago. It is this study of local history, the development of a passion for our countryside and our church, this practical demonstration and administration of God's kingdom in our midst that will put holy zest into our character, and thereby equip us for life's highest duties. The environment of these stories, the Valley of the Mohawk, is unsurpassed in the grandeur of its picturesque scenery. Through it ran the old Indian trails, which for two hundred years after the coming of the white man, were the pathways for the armies. Then they were the roads by which the hardy pioneers traveled westward, to return, later, with the commerce of the western world. How rich with historic incident, with legendary lore! No other section of our land is more replete with romantic and tragic story than this valley. We have come to this study and research in an honest attempt to give the reader the vision splendid as we see it, of this wonderful heritage that God and our fathers have conserved for us in these old Reformed churches of this Classis, praying ever that the vision may lure us away from any lower levels of contentment or indifference, unto the higher and broader fields of opportunity for worship and service through the church of God. In some such way we will be able to realize in the character and conduct of our daily life the ideals and hopes of the founders of these churches.
Methinks I hear the sound of time, long past, still murmuring o'er me and whispering thro most these pages,-like the lingering voices of those who long within their graves have slept.
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T WO hundred years ago there came into the vir- gin valley of the Mo- haque a company of Christian settlers. { In the wil- derness, thro sorrow and suffering, they toiled for civil and religious liberty. Times changed; settle- ments became thriving cities and villages; stages and packets gave place to steam and electricity; can- dle and oil were lost in the glare of the mazdas; beautiful churches were built; the wilderness of the Mohaque was no more. '? Time will come when those Christain settlers and their successors thro the centuries in the Reformed Dutch Church of America, and their accomplished work, will be
but a fleeting memory.
Now
to keep inviolate the story of this service of two hundred years the record has been transcribed in these pages, -a task that has been a labor of love.
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CONTENTS
Page
I Prefatory
II Introductory
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III Montgomery Classis Churches 11
IV Churches Extinct and Independent 109
V Cayuga and Geneva Classes
132
VI Reformed Churches Listed 138
VII Montgomery Classis Ministers
142
VIII Reformed Church History 157
IX Mohawk Valley History 164
X Biography 187
XI Bibliography 197
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Introductory
MONTGOMERY COUNTY
The Province of New York in 1771 included what is now Vermont, and was further divided into the counties of Albany, Cumberland, Dutchess, Kings, New York, Orange, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk, Ulster, and Westchester. On March 12, 1772, Charlotte and Tryon counties were set off from Albany. At the time the Province had a population of 168,000 including 20,000 negroes. Charlotte county was composed of the western half of Vermont, and included what is now Clinton, Essex, Franklin and Washington counties. Tryon (Mont- gomery) county included all west of Charlotte county to the St. Lawrence river, and west of a line running nearly thro the centre of Schoharie county to the Utsayantha Lake, the source of the west branch of the Delaware river, thence down the west branch to the Pennsylvania line.
Originally Tryon county included about a third of the State's area, and was named after the royal governor of the Province, an intimate friend and ardent admirer of Sir William Johnson, by whom he was royally entertained at Johnson Hall. At the time there were eight million acres in the county, but thro the years this has been reduced unto its present size of some three hundred thousand.
Governor William Tryon, after whom the county was originally named, was popularly known in the Province as "Bloody Billy." He was Governor of North Carolina prior to his appointment over New York. In 1777 Tryon became almost a savage in his treatment of the colonists. He charged Washington with burning a quarter of New York and plotted to assassinate him and blow up the fort. His personality was so intensely offensive to the patriots of the Mohawk valley, who were to all intents the first "Independents" in the Colonies (cf Note on Tryon Co. Com. Safety) that the name of the county was changed April 2, 1784, to that of Montgomery, in honor of Gen. Richard Montgomery, the brave American officer who had lost his life in an attempt to capture Quebec. The history of Tryon county's twelve years of existence would fill a volume whose pages are largely carmined with the life blood of those Christian patriots who for the most part were allied with the Dutch church. When the glad tidings of peace were announced Tryon county was a desolate blood- stained wilderness. Today the traveler, speeding along the old Indian trail in palatial splendor, is entranced with the beautiful vista of the valley of the Mohawk and is reminded on the journey at Schenectady and Canajoharie of its Indian occupancy, while at Pala- tine his thots go back to the Rhine of the Fatherland. But only in the musty pages of forgotten tomes will one ever come upon the name of Tryon. Herkimer and Otsego counties were formed from Mont- gomery this same year (1784). In 1780 a state road was begun leading from Schenectady to Utica, sixty-eight miles. There were toll gates established at the terminals, and others at Cranesville, Canajoharie,
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY CLASSIS
Schenck's Hollow, Garoga Creek, St. Johnsville, East Creek Bridge, Fink's Ferry, Herkimer, and Sterling. At this time Montgomery county had a population of 15,057.
In 1788 Montgomery county was enlarged to take in the lands of the Iroquois which extended from its west boundary line. On Nov. 5, 1768 the Iroquois had made with England the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, receiving in lieu of certain lands $50,600. Later their rights to these lands were declared forfeited by the Crown. In 1789 Ontario county including all the land west of Seneca lake, two million acres, was set off. In 1791 Hamilton and Tioga counties were formed. Hamilton county was put back into Montgomery in 1797 but again set off in 1817. In 1838 Fulton county was formed, its creation being due to the effort to move the county seat from Johnstown to Fonda. From Montgomery County have been carved the following New York State counties,-Alleghany, Broome, Cattaraugus, Cayuga, Chautau- qua, Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, Erie, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Genesee, Hamilton, Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Livingston, Madison, Monroe, Niagara, Oneida, Onondaga, Ontario, Orleans, Oswego, Otsego, St. Lawrence, Schoharie, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga, Tompkins, Wayne, Wyoming, and Yates.
GENERAL RICHARD MONTGOMERY
This distinguished patriot- soldier, after whom the County is named, was born in Dublin, Ireland, December 2, 1736, en- tering the army of Great Britain at the age of twenty, serving seven years in the French and Indian war. When the Regi- ment to which Montgomery be- longed was ordered to enforce the Stamp Act he and others re- signed, an act due, doubtless, to the influence of Fox and Pitt, with whom for some years he had been intimate. He visited England later, and sought cer- tain honors, failing of which he returned to America and went to live in New York City. He bought a large estate in Dutch- Maj. Gen. Montgomery ess county, facing the river and soon afterwards (July, 1773) married Janet Livingston, whom he had first met when he was a captain in the British army. She was the sister of Chancellor Livingston, one of the three men to organize Montgomery Classis in 1880, and daughter of Robert R. Livingston, one of the judges of the King's bench. Here he settled down to the peace and prosperity of his quiet home. However, it was of short duration, for he soon joined the ranks of the colonists, and enlisted in the army of General Schuyler which was preparing for an attack on Quebec He parted
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY CLASSIS
from his beloved Janet at Saratoga, never to see her again. In 1775 he was second in command with the rank of Brigadier. Illness of Gen. Schuyler threw the entire command upon Montgomery. He succeeded in taking St. John, Chambly, and Montreal. Congress made him Major General. Forward thro the December snows he pressed to join Arnold in the attack on Quebec. For three weeks the city was besieged, and on the morning of Dec. 31, 1775, amid the falling snow, an attempt was made to take it. Montgomery was killed at the very beginning of the attack while leading a division along the shores of the St. Lawrence beneath Cape Diamond. Arnold also was wounded and the expedition failed .. Among the prisoners taken at St. John was Capt. Andre who was later exchanged and joined the English army under Gen. Clinton, and became Major Andre. Major Andre had an intimate friendship with "Peggy" Shippen, the daughter of the radical Tory of that name of Philadel- phia, whom Benedict Arnold married as his second wife. For two years prior to the West Point affair a correspondence was kept up between Major Andre and Arnold and Mrs. Arnold.
For forty-three years the remains of Montgomery rested within the walls of Quebec. When time for exhuming the body came, one James Thompson, a man of eighty-nine, was found, who inad originally buried Montgomery, and also had the sword that Mont- gomery wore when he was killed. In 1818 at the request of Janet Montgomery, who had lived all these lonely years at the "Montgom- ery Place" (Rhinebeck), thro action of the New York Legislature the body was brot back to America and New York. It lay in state at the Capitol, Albany, on Independence Day, 1818. On the following day Mrs. Montgomery stood alone upon the broad piazza of her home and for hours watched the funeral cortege wending its way down the Hudson past the General's former dwelling. On July 8, 1818, it was buried in St. Paul's churchyard beneath a mural monument ordered by Benjamin Franklin and provided by Congress. He was in his fortieth year when he died, tho the monument says but thirty-seventh. His only original portrait reproduced here was made at twenty-five when he first came to America.
THE CLASSIS OF MONTGOMERY
Among the churches of the Classis of Montgomery of this day are or- ganizations that carry us back to the very first settlements of the Mohawk valley, as Fort Herkimer which was organized in 1723. Nearly half of the present membership of the Classis are churches which were founded more than a hundred years ago. Still the terms "old" and "new" are relative and indefinite since what Caughnawaga Church may seem old to ns is after all but new in the light of other history. And yet we are proud of these old Dutch churches of the valley of the "Mohaque," some of whose buildings take us back to the begin-
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY CLASSIS
ning of things in this section of New York State, as the church at Fort Herkimer whose foundations were laid before 1740, and whose quaint architecture, bold and strong, has almost entirely escaped the despoiling hand of the modern. These pages tell the romantic-often tragic story, of the provisions made by these first settlers to supply the religious needs of the community, and is worthy of repeated telling, that the people of this day may know something of the price paid for the heritage handed down to them.
Named after the County in which its churches were for the most part originally situated the Classis of Montgomery was formed on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 1800, at the Caughnawaga (Fonda) Dutch church. On Friday, June 13, 1800, General Synod had appointed a committee of three, Rev. Dr. John Livingston (afterwards Chancel- lor), Rev. Dr. Dirck Romeyn (pastor of the Ist Dutch church at Schenectady, and founder of Union College), and Rev. Dr. Solomon Froeligh (later organizer of the "Wyckofite" church), all three pro- fessors in the Theological Seminary, to organize the Classis. At this Synod there were seventy-two ministers and elders present, thirty-one of whom were from the Classis of Albany. Among the delegates were Rev. Conrad Ten Eyck (cf Owasco) and his elder, Lowrens E. Van Nalen from the Veddersburgh (Amsterdam) church, Rev. Abram Van Horne and his elder from the Caughnawaga church, and Rev. Dirck Romeyn and his elder, Garret S. Veeder, from the First Dutch church at Schenec- tady. At this time the Reformed Protest- ant Dutch Church of America had five classes, Albany, Hackensack, Kingston, New Brunswick, and New York. In 1800 General Synod divided the Classis of Al- bany, Kingston and Hackensack into seven classes, Montgomery being one of the bodies set off from Albany, and containing twenty-four churches. With Albany the churches of the Classis of Rensselaer, Rev. Dr. Livingston Montgomery, and Ulster formed in 1800 the original Particular Synod of Albany (formerly called the Circle of Albany). This was made up of the churches of Albany, Charlotte, Cumberland, Gloucester, Schenectady, and Schoharie counties.
Rev. Rynier Van Nest of Schoharie became the first President of the Classis of Montgomery, and Rev. Abram Van Horne of Caugh- nawaga the First Stated Clerk. The churches forming the Classis at its organization were the following: 1. Amsterdam (not present Am- sterdam); 2. Andrustown (merged in Columbia); 3. Canajoharie ("Sand Hill"); 4. Charlestown (extinct); 5. Chenango (Presb. and extinct); 6. Florida; 7. Conradstown (merged in Colum- bia); 8. Conewago (Caughnawaga i. e. Fonda); 9. Curriestown (Curry- town1); 10. Duanesborough (Presb. and extinct); 11. Fonda's Bush (Presb.); 12. German Flatts (Fort Herkimer); 13. Herkimer; 14. Lower Schoharie (Schoharie); 15. Mayfield (Presb.); 16. New Rhine- beck (Lawyersville); 17. Owasco Lake (Owasco); 18. Remsens Bush (Florida); 19. Sacondaga (extinct); 20. Schoharie Kill (extinct); 21. Sharon (Schoharie Classis); 22. Snellsbush (Manheim): 23. Store Arabia; 24. Upper Schoharie (Middleburgh).
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY CLASSIS
Churches of Montgomery Classis
AMSTERDAM: FIRST REFORMED CHURCH
Originally the church was the First Reformed (Dutch) Church of Port Jackson, and was organ- ized in 1850. Religious services had been con- ducted in the school house for some time during the early part of 1850, and before applying to Classis for recognition the found- ers of the church had se- cured a lot upon which they had already begun the construction of the building which cost about $3,000.00.
The church had applied to Classis on June 28, 1850, and on Sept. 8, 1850, the Rev. Douw Van Olinda of the Caughnawaga church installed the first consistory, elders John Freemyre, Don C. Bent, and Cornelius Phillips, and deacons William McClumpha and Frederick Vedder. Later on Sept. 17 the church was received into the Classis of Montgomery, but it was not until Feb. 8, 1851, that the first service of communion was held, and the charter members, of whom there were twenty-five (including the consistory), were received.
The dedication of the new church was held on Dec. 19, 1850, and at the same time the Rev. Garret L. Roof was installed. Mr. Roof was a Union College man, and had been practicing law for some years when he was called to the ministry, and had seen four years service at Glen and Auriesville before coming to Amster- dam. His ministry here ended April 10, 1855, and he served the church of Watervliet for the following nine years. Then occurred a ten year pastorate in the Lowville (N. Y.) Presbyterian church. He died in Troy, N. Y., in 1891. Cornelius Gates was next called (June 27, 1856) from the Classis of Philadelphia, but remained only a year, serving later at Wolcott in the Geneva Classis and at Minisink in the classis of Orange, where he died in February, 1863. The church at this time numbered fifty with the Sunday school about the same size, which was begun with the church in 1850. From the close of the Gates pastorate the church had no settled minister for six years, or until Henry Martin Voorhees was called, who began his work August 1, 1863. During this interim the pulpit was mainly supplied by Revs. Abram J. Swits and Isaac G.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY CLASSIS
Duryee of Schenectady. Mr. Swits on graduation from New
Brunswick k in 1820 had served as a Classical Missionary in Montgomery for some time. For the last twenty-five years of his life he lived retired at Schenectady, and for about three years supplied the pulpit of the Port Jackson church (Aug., 1857-July, 1859, and Nov., 1862-Aug., 1863). Mr. Swits died in 1878 at Schenectady. Rev. Isaac G. Duryee while pursuing his college course at Union showed his great courage in espousing the cause of the colored folks, securing for them a house of worship (only recently torn down) at Schenectady. He graduated at Andover in 1841 and for a year following was at the Yale Divinity School. He preached first for the Congregationalists. After a pastorate of six or seven years in the Second Reformed church of Schenectady he became the supply at Port Jackson, remaining nearly three and a half years at an annual stipend of $400. He left the church to enlist in the war and became the Chaplain of the 31st Regt. N. Y. Vols. He died soon after the close of the war, Feb. 8, 1866, at Schenectady.
Rev. Henry Martin Voorhees was ordained, and installed over the church on Oct. 27, 1863, having come to the work from New Brunswick seminary. He brot to the organization the enthusiastic and intelligent and permanent ministry that it greatly needed, and was greatly blessed in his work, which continued for sixteen months. Mr. Voorhees had several other pastorates, and died in 1895 at the age of fifty-five. The pulpit was soon again filled. Rev. A. Messler Quick, another New Brunswick senior being called, who was or- dained, and installed over the church soon after his graduation in May, 1865, and remained until November, 1869. Mr. Quick, after leaving Port Jackson, had a nearly quarter-century pastorate in the Franklin, N. J. church (Classis of Newark). He then went to Peek- skill (1882-1885) and then to the Ocean Hill Reformed church of Brooklyn (1885-1890). He is at present living in Brookyn, without charge. He i a frequent contributor to the "Intelligencer." After Mr. Quick's going the church was without a pastor for three years and a half, or until the coming of Rev. Mr. Minor in May, 1873. During this time the pulpit was supplied by Rev. Mr. Pettengill from July 1, 1870, to Oct. 1, 1872. John Minor had already served the Reformed church for about thirty years when he was called to the pastorate from the 1st church of Glenville. During his ministry here of seven years and a half one hundred and forty-seven were received in the church. He left the field in October, 1880, and spent ten years longer in the classis ministering unto the smaller churches, dying in 1890 while he was supplying at Fort Herkimer. On January 6, 1881, Rev. Joshua R. Kyle, the present pastor, was installed over what became the First Reformed church of Amster- dam. He was formerly connected with the United Presbyterian church, Monangahela, Pa. During his ministry besides liquidating a debt of $4,000 the church was extensively repaired at a cost of about $9,000, and a new organ was placed at a cost of $1,700. During Dr. Kyle's long pastorate of a generation great changes have taken place in the community and city, Port Jackson becoming a ward of the city which has grown from Vedder's Mills to be one of the greatest industrial centres of the Empire State. The late Luther L. Dean was an elder in this church for forty years, while Jacob .J. Johnson has been choir leader and Sunday school superintendent for
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY CLASSIS
thirty years. The present consistory is, William Servoss, John H. DeGraff, Jonas D. Friderici, Jacob J. Johnson, and James H. Doak, elders, and William J. Smith, John S. Sterling, Earl V. Servoss, Francis J. Johnson, and Ralph A. Hallenbeck, deacons.
AMSTERDAM: TRINITY REFORMED CHURCH
In the year 1890 certain church workers of the Second Presby- terian church recognized the fact that while the central portions of Amsterdam were well churched there was no organization in either the east end of the city or on what has come to be known as the Market Hill section. But the second church did not see the need for any similar organization in either of these sections, hence their own workers were forced to turn for aid to another denomination, which proved to be the Reformed church. Rev. J. H. Enders, the Synodical Superintendent, came to the field at once, and with the
......
workers decided to establish a religious work in the east end of the city. Here the work had hardly begun when the Methodist church also initiated a work in the same community, and the Reformed church workers moved out and upon the Market Hill section and began services in the old Academy building, hired for the purpose.
Besides Rev. Enders, Edward O. Bartlett and Jacob J. Johnson, the former a charter member of Trinity, the latter for more than a quarter-century superintendent of the First Reformed church Sunday school, were active in beginning the work. Jamas A. Smeallie and H. S. Vossler, elders, and E. O. Bartlett and W. H. Carver, deacons, were the first consistory. P. Henry Smeallie and N. W. Donnan were also active at the starting of the work. In December, 1891, a
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY CLASSIS
Sunday school was started in the Academy, FOR where preaching services had been held for NISI DOMINUS FRUSTRA D U some time, and in 1892, February, Rev. Jas. A. Beattie of Pekin, Ill., a Glasgow Uni- versity man, was called to the field and re- RINI CH REXEL mained thro a part of 1894 when he en- LOAMSTE MACHT + NDRACHT MAAKT tered the mission work of the Reformed H YORK S 892-NE church in Chittoor, India. It was dur- ing his ministry that the chapel was The Church Seal Adopted in 1910 built which served the congregation for some seventeen years, tho at the time of its building the plans called for the completion of the church the following year. The formal organization of the church took place April 5, 1892, and besides Mr. Bartlett, H. S. and Mrs. Vossler are the remaining active charter mem- bers. A fourth member is Mrs. Margaret Beattie of Chittoor, India. Other charter members not mentioned above were Mrs. W. H. Carver, Mrs. J. A. Smeallie, Mrs. P. H. Smeallie, and Mrs. N. W. Donnan. The land and the building cost $9,500 of which sum the Board of Domestic Missions loaned $5,000. Mr. Beattie was one of the thous- and passengers lost when the Lusitania was destroyed off the English coast on May 7, 1915.
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