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Gc 974.702 J22L 1533312
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01147 9497
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/originhistoryofg00ladd_0
REV. HORATIO OLIVER LADD, A. M., S. T. D.
THE
ORIGIN AND HISTORY
OF
GRACE CHURCH
Jamaica, New York
BY HORATIO OLIVER LADD, A. M., S.T.D.
Rector Emeritus
PARTIBVS
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EVANGELIO.
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THE SHAKESPEARE PRESS 114-116 E. 28th St. New York 1914
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WILKES-BARKE
HIST.
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COPYRIGHT, 1914, By HORATIO O. LADD.
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1533312
To the memory of faithful and tried Servants of Jesus Christ and Minis- ters of the Church of God this History is given by one who has entered into their labors.
TOMINO
WILKEG-BARRE
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15805
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1
THE PUBLISHED WORKS
OF REV. HORATIO OLIVER LADD, A. M., S. T. D.
"Memorial of John S. C. Abbott, D. D." 1878, pp. 36, 8vo, A. Williams & Co.
" The War With Mexico," 1883, pp. 328, 8vo, Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.
" The Story of New Mexico," 1891, pp. 473, 8vo, D. Lothrop Co., Boston.
" The Founding of the Episcopal Church in Dutchess County, N. Y.," 1894, pp. 46, 8vo.
" Chunda, a Story of the Navajos," 1906, pp. 257, Eaton & Mains, New York.
"The Trend of Scientific Thought," 1909, pp. 29, The Gorham Press, Boston.
" Ramona Days," 1887-1889, pp. 242, 8vo.
" Grace Church Chimes," 1897-1910, Quarto.
" Origin and History of Grace Church," 1914, pp. 475, 8vo, The Shakespeare Press, New York.
Sermons and Addresses -- Pamphlets.
" Memorial of Archdeacon Cooper."
" Gambling and Its Brood."
" Historical Address," Trinity Church, Fishkill, 150th Anniver- sary, 1906.
"Story of the Temptation," 1906.
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GRACE CHURCH, JAMAICA, Exterior, 1906. (Photograph by Charles C. Napier.)
CONTENTS
PART I THE DUTCH COLONIAL PERIOD.
Origin, Population and Settlement of Long Island. Political Divisions and Successions of Authority during Dutch and English Occupations. Conflict of Denominations and the Church of Eng- land. Legislation to establish the latter in authority in the Province of New York. Contemporary conditions of the people.
PART II THE ENGLISH COLONIAL PERIOD.
The Church of England in Queens County. Building of a church in Jamaica. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel organ- ized in England. Its object and principles. Application of Grace Church for a missionary rector.
PART III
PERIOD OF THE COLONIAL MISSIONARIES-1700-1770.
The religious needs of the Colonies. The character of the mis- sionaries. The mission of Rev. Patrick Gordon-original informa-" tion from the archives of the Venerable Societies. The mission of Rev. Messrs. Bartow, Honeyman, Urquhart. Beginnings of a sectarian controversy. The ministry of Rev. Thomas Poyer. The Poyer controversy-legal aspects and decisions. Legislation. Appeals to the Queen's Council. Settlement of English polity in the Provinces resulting therefrom. Relations of St. James Church of England in Newtown and St. George's in Flushing to Grace Church, Jamaica. United rectorships under the Revs. Thomas Colgan, Samuel Seabury, Joshua Bloomer. The American Revolu- tion in its effects on the Church of England in America. The religious conditions of the period. The representations of the urgent need of an American episcopate. Separation of the three Churches from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and from one another.
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PART IV
THE POST-REVOLUTIONARY RECTORSHIPS-1795-1896.
Revs. William Hammell, Elijah D. Rattoon, and Calvin White. Rev. Gilbert Hunt Sayres's ministry to Grace Church, 1810-1830. The long rectorship of Rev. William Lupton Johnson, 1830-1870. Build- ing of the new church. Memorials and memorial gifts. The mod- ern period, 1892-1896-Rev. Dr. Williamson Smith, Rev. Edwin B. Rice, Rev. Wm. M. Bottome.
PART V
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE RECTORSHIP OF THE AUTHOR-1896-1910.
Developments of church life and worship and structure. Grace Churchyard and its associations. The inauguration of Rev. Rock- land Tyng Homans as rector, and the building of the Memorial Parish House of Grace Church.
PART VI
The charter of Grace Church, 1761. With photographic reproduc- tion of first page.
PART VII
The register of Rev. John Poyer. With photographic reproduction of first pages, 1710-1731.
PART VIII
Grace Church registers to 1840. Private register of Rev. Gilbert Sayres, D. D., to 1867.
PART IX
The Book of Burials and inscriptions of tombstones to 1846, com- piled by H. Onderdonk, Jr. With photographic reproductions of two pages.
PART X
Pewholders and Communicants.
INDEX
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INTRODUCTION
By the Right Reverend Frederick Burgess, D. D. Bishop of Long Island.
This History of Grace Church, Jamaica, the first Church founded by the Anglican Communion on Long Island, is full of interest not merely to the parishioners, but to all students of early American history. In its clearly written pages Dr. Ladd has traced the struggle of the adherents of the English Church in maintaining the public worship of God according to the Use of the Book of Common Prayer. The thoughtful reader will see the steady growth of the Church through periods of neglect and persecution, until it emerges into the position of influence and honor which it holds to-day. I feel that the writer has in this work, which indicates careful study and thoughtful selection, done a distinct and valuable service not only to the Dio- cese of Long Island but to the Church in America. It is a privilege to commend it to all who are interested in the religious development of this country, and more especially to those who see in the Anglican Episcopate and all it represents, the true promise of stability for the Faith and Communion of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in the United States of America.
FREDERICK BURGESS, Bishop of Long Island.
April 28, 1914.
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List of Illustrations
Sketch of Grace Church, by Bayard Jones. Cover.
The Author. Frontispiece.
The Seal of the S. P. G. Title Page.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thos. Tenison.
Queen Anne.
The Chalice and Paten presented to Grace Church by Queen Anne's Bounty.
Rev. James Honeyman. Rev. Thos. Bray. Rev. Thomas Poyer.
Rev. Thomas Colgan.
The Rectory, between Flushing and Jamaica, 1774.
The Deed of Gift of Land for Church and Churchyard.
The First Grace Church.
The Right Rev. Samuel Seabury, D. D., First Bishop of the Church in America.
The Royal Charter of Grace Church.
The Rev. Gilbert Hunt Sayres, S. T. D.
The Second Grace Church.
The Hon. Rufus King, from Painting by Gilbert Stuart.
The King Manor House, 1840.
The Rev. Charles Seabury. The Rev. Timothy Clowes. The Rev. William Lupton Johnson, D. D.
Grace Church Interior.
Two Views of the Sanctuary and Churchyard.
The Rev. George Williamson Smith. The Rev. Edwin B. Rice. The Rev. William M. Bottome.
Interior of Grace Church, 1903-1910.
The Right Rev. Frederick Burgess, Bishop of Long Island.
The Napier, Johnson and Cogswell Memorials. The Denton and Stocking Memorials. The Sayres Memorial.
The Rev. Arthur Sloan.
Grace Memorial House, 1913.
The Rev. Rockland Tyng Homans.
Photos of The Register of Thomas Poyer, The Book of Burials, Inscription.
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PREFACE
This book is written with the conviction that the per- sonal and dramatic elements of history are as important as the principles which are motives to its development. In moral and social progress men and women become the visible actors and representatives of passions and truths that lead to the self-denials and deeds which ennoble the life of a community or nation.
Church associations and movements are interesting and stimulating to succeeding generations in the measure that individuals stand out in the incidents and results that make up history.
Therefore this effort to promote loyalty to the past of Grace Church aims to preserve to another century the memorials of more than two hundred years of human and Christian activity and beneficence. Much more has been set aside than has been presented here, to show the force of Church ideals and conflicting principles and passions. They have been judged with calmness and impartiality. As such I hope the treatment of individuals and measures may be accepted by my readers.
Special acknowledgment of large and valuable collec- tions of material for history made by Mr. H. Onderdonk, Jr., has been made elsewhere in the text. For the genea- logical information which he gathered before it perished by the hand of time, he has put future generations in debt. The records of his work are here preserved.
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The Venerable Society, in London, gave access to all their archives, with a courtesy which the author here gratefully acknowledges. The New York State Docu- mentary History and the publications of the New York Historical Society have made possible the collation of many papers and facts to illumine and strengthen the statements of this narrative. The Vestry of Grace Church have most kindly offered their records to complete and make it authentic.
There are references in the text to other sources of in- formation which have been consulted. The author asks only that charitable judgment which must be allowed where there is such an amount of detail, covering nearly three centuries.
To the publishers who have not spared diligent effort and expense in the illustration and making of the book, and for the encouragement by those who have aided in its publication by advance subscriptions, and to the faith- ful copyists, the author is deeply grateful.
HORATIO OLIVER LADD.
Richmond Hill, N. Y., May 1, 1914.
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I
THE DUTCH COLONIAL PERIOD
GRACE CHURCH, JAMAICA
CHAPTER I.
The History of Her Origin-The Dutch Colonial Period.
A T the western end of what is now Long Island mingle the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, the Highlands of New York, and the great Sound into which the Valleys of Connecticut and Rhode Island and Massachusetts have been drained.
On the same shore was early cast the confluence of Dutch and English and French navigators and settlers of the Old World.
Nearly a hundred years before the Church of England worship was begun in Jamaica, Henry Hudson, an Eng- lishman in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company of Holland, attempted, in the Half Moon, a two-masted sail- ing vessel manned by twenty Dutch and English sailors, to enter the Rockaway inlet to Jamaica Bay. Wind and tide and threatening breakers prevented, and these Euro- peans passed further west and sailed up the "Narrows" of what is now New York Bay.
This voyage gave the first possession of what is now New York to the Dutch, but during that century Dutch and English and French people occupied these island shores, which their representatives under the brave Hud- son's command had opened up to civilization and the Christian religion.
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ORIGIN AND HISTORY
The West India Company soon made profitable trade with natives and settlers. They called the province New Netherland. It was governed by civil and military officers under oath of obedience to the States General. The grant of the English King to the Colony of Virginia including this part of the Atlantic coast did not establish a title to it. Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony, in his correspondence with Governor Minuit, when protesting that the Dutch were settled within the limits of the grants made to the Virginia Colony, received the spirited reply "the Dutch settlers derived their authority from the States of Holland and will defend it."* The protest of the Puri- tans of New England against the Hollanders' right to settle in New Netherland was void of truth and ineffective. The Puritans themselves had sought the protection of the Prince of Orange and the States General in their expedi- tions to these shores, asking that they might come as Dutch subjects. The Hollanders were in possession of Manhattan, and their claims to Long Island were as sturdily maintained.
The region of New York and Maryland, which was oc- cupied by prosperous Dutch settlements in 1625 and fol- lowing years, was included in the possessions of Holland by right of discovery. They had fortified places on the Hudson River, like New York and Albany, and were strong in their possession of that river. A treaty of alliance was made later on between Charles I and Holland under which Holland transferred her authority over New Netherland to the English Crown.
The English Colonies, in a spirit which still survives in the blood, asserted their right to dispose of all North
*History of the American People by Woodrow Wilson.
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OF GRACE CHURCH
America. William Alexander, the first Lord Stirling, pos- sessed by a grant from James VI, as represented by his biographer, three separate tracts of land within the original grant to the Colony of Virginia. These grants covered the immense country of Nova Scotia, the whole extent of Long Island and the country of St. Croix, or Sagadahock, adjoining Nova Scotia, and extending west to the Kenne- bec River, which was a large part of the territory subse- quently belonging to the State of Maine.
About the year 1635 Charles I had requested the direct- ors of the Plymouth Colony to issue a patent for these possessions, which was supposed to be included in the Charter to that Colony out of the possessions of the super- seded Virginia Colony. This patent was given to the Earl of Stirling in 1637. He was thus made the largest landed proprietor in America. He had maintained a thriving col- ony of several thousand families through the whole extent of Long Island, which was governed by his deputy. He died in 1640, and about the year 1662, the second Earl of Stirling conveyed his title to Long Island for a considera- tion of three hundred pounds per annum. This was in order to confirm the title of the Duke of York, (afterwards James II of England) which he then held by a grant from the Crown .*
Armed with this title a colony from Lynn, Massachu- setts, settled at Cow Bay, within the present limits of Queens County. This was the first invasion. A few peo- ple sided with them, but the settlement was soon broken up.
*The life of William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, by his grand- son, William Alexander Duer, LL. D., published by the New Jersey Society, 1847.
16
ORIGIN AND HISTORY
Thos. Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury
The Dutch Colonial Period.
The Dutch had secured in 1639, by purchase from the Indians, an equitable title to the land in Queens County, in which was reserved to the Indians the rights of hunting and planting. Governor Kieft was so liberal towards set- tlers that conflicts ceased, and those who chafed at the restrictions and persecutions of the Puritan Government in New England again came hither and lived in peace with the Dutch farmers. These later settlers were largely loyal to the Church of England in their faith.
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OF GRACE CHURCH
As early as 1645, there was more contention in Flushing by the heirs of Lord Stirling. Their agent was arrested and sent to Holland. A non-conformist minister of the Church of England, the Rev. Francis Doughty, made trou- ble in Newtown and Flushing by stirring up opposition to Dutch rule. But Jamaica attracted her English inhabi- tants from Independents further west on the island. Here were gathered Dutch, English, Presbyterians and adherents to the Church of England. A ship-load of members of the Society of Friends also distributed themselves over Jamaica and Flushing. The Dutch were opposed to their doctrines and practices, but they held meetings in Jamaica in the houses of those who would shelter them. Henry Town- send was arrested and banished by the authorities for this offense. Fines and confiscations were threatened to those who brought Friends to these shores or harbored them in their homes for a single night. Twenty-eight freeholders of Flushing and Jamaica braved the proclamation and wrath of Governor Stuyvesant, declaring they should be glad to see anything of God in either Presbyterian, Inde- pendent, Baptist or Quaker, and that they would be true to the law of Church and State, which was to do good unto all men as they desired all men to do unto them.
For this offense the magistrates and signers were ar- rested, but only the Sheriff among them all suffered pen- alties, being degraded from office and sentenced to pay a fine of 200 guilders or to be banished.
(1662-1665.) A small frame building erected by vote of a town meeting was sufficient for all religious assemblies and political meetings.
The persecutions of the Quakers continued, but they flourished more and more. Some of them became fanatics
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ORIGIN AND HISTORY
in opposing the authorities, but most of these Friends pre- vailed over their foes by good conduct, and under Charles Il's rule these people and their religion were protected, and they dwelt in peace with their neighbors.
The treaty of 1650 between New Netherland and the Colonies of New Haven and Connecticut gave all of Long Island east of Oyster Bay and that part of the main land east of Greenwich Bay to the United Colonies. The Eng- lish settlers, however, encroached upon what was reserved in this treaty in Long Island. Passing their boundary line, they came to the western extremity. This was the original movement of Independents into Hempstead, Middleburgh, and Jamaica, and these towns and Flushing, in order to make their independence of the Dutch complete, changed their names. Gemego, the original name of Jamaica, be- came Crafford, and Flushing was called Newarke, New- town or Middleburgh was changed to the name of Hast- ings. With Hempstead and Gravesend these towns united for protection and civic purposes under a President, Cap- tain John Scott, who was an English adventurer and formerly an officer in the army of Charles I. They were thus temporarily organized in the expectation that Charles II should establish a government over them. Both the Connecticut and Dutch authorities were displeased, and Scott was brought to trial at Hartford, Connecticut. The residents of Flushing testified that he had acted according to the will of the people, but Captain Scott was removed, and the authority of the General Assembly of Connecti- cut was established over these towns.
(1664.) At the close of this Dutch Colonial period of the history of the towns of Jamaica and Flushing and New- town, we find the people out of whom Grace Church
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OF GRACE CHURCH
sprang living in plain but comfortable conditions. The occupation of farming was most frequent. Their homes were suited to a farmer's wants. The floors were sprinkled with sand, the plates and dishes were of pewter, and some- times of silver, the chairs and settees had high backs, and, if cushioned, were studded with brass nails. Their ser- vants were kindly treated, being Indian or negro slaves. Marriages could only be performed under the Governor's license. Their funerals were conducted with great for- mality; badges were provided to be used in the processions, and feasts with liquors followed them. Sunday afternoon visiting was common. Christmas and New Year's Day were celebrated with noise and revelry, and Easter week was given up to joyous festivities. Trade was made by barter, and Indian wampum was the principal money in circulation. Punishments of crime were by whipping, branding or hanging.
As Jamaica is now a part of the Greater New York, the contemporary conditions of what is now Manhattan Bor- ough will give us an understanding of the difficulties and aids which were to be expected by the first ministers of the Church of England in what had been a Dutch Colony. New Amsterdam, as New York was named and as it ap- peared under Peter Stuyvesant, was built on the triangular point of the island of Manhattan between the two rivers, with an embankment surmounted with wood on the land side running across the island, where Wall Street now is seen. The houses were mostly of wood, a few of stone, built with low sloping roofs and their gable ends upon the irregular streets. The chimneys built of brick imported from Holland were on the outside of the houses. There were at first about one hundred houses, but under Stuy- vesant's administration a brick yard was started, and the
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ORIGIN AND HISTORY
town had taken on a more substantial and regular look, but the ample gardens and fruit trees were visible among the houses. There was a Stadt Huys and a Debtors' Prison. There was a Dutch stone church within the fort where one of the two literary characters of New York, Jacob Steen- dam and Nicasius De Stille, was married to Tryntie Crove- gers. This was a great occasion in Stuyvesant's official career, for Stille was his Councillor and a widower, with a family whose social connections brought a characteristic throng of friends to the wedding, in garb betokening their wealth.
The people of Amsterdam were as now a motley collec- tion of Dutch burghers and foreigners. The negroes, of whom there were many, were mostly slaves. The appear- ance of a church congregation on the wedding day of De Stille and his bride, who were of the rich and literary circles of the town, was not unlike a modern wedding in Fifth Avenue, except in the style of garments .*
"Into the church went the friends, women, some with petticoats of red cloth, some with skirts of blue or purple silk set off with rare lace, all with silken hoods over much befrizzled hair, and their fingers covered with glittering rings, and with great lockets of gold on their bosoms. Each had a Bible fastened to her girdle by links of gold-not the plain, strongly bound Bibles used by Jacob Steendam and his friends, but elaborately wrought in silver, with golden clasps. The men were just as gaily dressed as the women, for they wore long coats adorned with shining buttons and pockets trimmed with lace and colored waistcoats, knee breeches of velvet, silk stockings and low shoes set off by silver buckles. Outside the fort among the townspeople
*Literary New York, Hemstreet.
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OF GRACE CHURCH
of lower degree it was, too, quite a holiday. Men with coarse frocks and leather aprons, women in homespun gowns, turbaned negresses, swarthy negro slaves, dusky Indians-all made merry in their several ways, as though glad of an excuse. And the motley throng outside the fort and the elegant gathering within all made way for the wrinkled little bell-ringer, who carried the cushions from the Stadt Huys for the burgomasters and the schepens, who insisted on every bit of their dignity, come what would on this day or on any other."*
*Literary New York.
y CL
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II THE ENGLISH COLONIAL PERIOD
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OF GRACE CHURCH
CHAPTER II. The Church of England in Queens County.
A white thread of Church of England life and authority runs through the weaving of the history of Queens County for thirty years before her name was clearly written on the religious characters and works which began with her organization in the year which closed the seventeenth century.
The transference of government from the Dutch to the English in 1664 brought New Netherland under the control of James, the Duke of York, to whom King Charles II had given a patent. New Amsterdam was surrendered to an English fleet Sept. 8, and its name changed to New York. Governor Nichols ruled in the place of Governor Stuy- vesant, who went to Holland, but having there made his report, returned to live a few years in New York on his farm, where he was buried beneath a chapel which after- wards became St. Mark's Church. What now constitutes the boroughs of Richmond, the Bronx and Queens, became the county of Yorkshire, and Queens County, except New- town, became the North Riding.
(1664.) An assembly of delegates met at Hempstead the same year to make laws for Yorkshire, known as the Duke's Laws. These laws did not establish the Church of England in the Province, but they required that every town should build and maintain a church. No minister was allowed to officiate who had not received ordination, either from some Protestant Bishop or minister within his
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ORIGIN AND HISTORY
Majesty's domain or within the dominion of some foreign prince of the Reformed Religion. Two overseers in each town were to be chosen to make the rate of assessment for the support of the church and clergymen.
The people of Queens County were dissatisfied with these laws, and because they made no provision for a rep- resentative form of government dissensions arose. The inhabitants were arrested and fined for uttering seditious language. Governor Nichols reproved them in person during his official visits. Under the succeeding adminis- tration of Governor Lovelace the same agitations for rep- resentation broke out.
(1664.) The Hollanders were at the time of the surren- der of Manhattan Island to the English maintaining two churches on Long Island, one at Flatbush and one at Brooklyn. As their influence diminished under English rule they began to make more settlements on the western end of Long Island.
"The language of Holland was generally spoken; the architecture of Holland was reproduced in the construction of the houses; the steady industry and thorough agricul- tural methods of Holland were applied to the broad smooth lands; and the social and domestic customs of the old coun- try were still preserved under the quiet roofs of our earlier Long Island homes."*
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