A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 24

Author: Ross, Peter. cn
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1188

USA > New York > A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time > Part 24

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of the English Puritan. According to a pas- sage in Drake's "Founders of New England," Youngs, with "Joan, his wife, aged thirty- four years, with six children,-John, Thomas, Anne, Rachel, Mary and Joseph,"-applied to the proper ecclesiastical authorities for per- inission to proceed to Salem "to inhabitt." The request was refused. This was in May, 1637 ; but about a year later we find him safely located with wife and children at New Haven and engaged in "preaching the Word."

Of the personal history of Youngs little has come down to us. He seems to have com- bined in his make-up many of the qualities of the statesman with those of a minister. He was a Calvinist of the strictest school, and had no toleration for the doctrine that the church should be separated from the state; nay, he believed that the church was the state, that the two could not be separated without the church failing in its mission and the state be- coming a Godless and an unwholesome thing. He believed in the acquisition of wealth, be bought as largely as he could of real estate in the township, and in all his policy and con- duct he was in every way a pattern to his neighbors, an exemplary friend, a loyal mem- ber of a compact commonwealth, and a zealous and hard-working clergyman. He was a man of considerable learning and possessed a fair working library (valued after his death at £5), only one of the treasures of which is now extant,-"the Writings of William Perkins, of Cambridge," the leading English exponent of Calvinism of his time-which is now pre- served in the stores of the New Haven Colony Historical Society. He continued in the pas- torate of the Southold church until his death, in 1672, and on the stone over his grave was engraved the following :

"Here lies the man whose doctrine life well knowen

Did show he sought Christ's honour, not his owen ;

In weakness sown, in power raised shall be By Christ from death to life eternally."

Mr. Youngs' descendants continue to the present day to loom up prominently in Suf- folk county history.

The death of Mr. Youngs occurred in the depth of winter (February 24) and it was im- possible to begin in that season a hunt for a suitable successor. On the succeeding April I, however, the people held a meeting at which it was "agreed that the inhabitants would provide themselves of an honest, godly man to perform the office of minister amongst theni, and that they would allow and pay to the said minister sixty pounds sterling by the year."

Captain Jolin Youngs, son of the deceased minister, was intrusted with the task of cross- ing over to New England "and use his best endeavor for the obtaining of such a man above mentioned to live amongst us," and for his trouble was to receive £5. His journey was not immediately successful, but in the fol- lowing year he brought to Southold the Rev. Joshua Hobart, son of the Rev. Peter Hobart, of Hingham, Massachusetts, the first minister of that town and by whom it was named in honor of the Norfolk town from whence he came. Very likely the Youngs and Hobart fam" ilies were neighbors in the old land. Joshua Hobart was born in England in 1629 and came to this side of the Atlantic with his parents in 1635. He was graduated at Harvard in 1650. After several years in Barbadoes he settled in London, England, until 1669, when he re- turned to America. At first he seems to have simply acted as "supply," possibly with the conscientious desire of making sure that his ministrations would be acceptable to the peo- ple before finally casting his lot in their midst. Changes of ministers were not then made as easily or as heartlessly and heedlessly as now, and an aged pastor was not expected to bow gracefully to the inevitable and make way for a younger man. In October, 1674. however. the period of trial was over, and Mr. Hobart was ordained to the charge. His salary was fixed at fSo a year, and four years later it was advanced to froo, and in addition he re-

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ceived a gift of thirty acres of land "toward the North Sea" and some other pieces of real estate. He was also lodged in a dwelling which cost £100, so that altogether the good man's lot must be regarded as having fallen in pleasant places. So far as we may judge he took up most of the work and wielded much of the political influence of Mr. Youngs, but not by any means to the same extent, for he was not the pioneer patriarch, the father of the colony. His ministry was a successful one, however, and continued until the end of his life-long journey, February 28, 1716, and then his people summed up his virtues on his tombstone by saying "He was a faithful min- ister, a skillful physician, a general scholar, a courageous patriot, and, to crown all, an emi- nent Christian."

It was not until 1720 that the pastorate was again filled, when the Rev. Benjamin Woolsey was installed. He was a native of Jamaica, Long Island, and a graduate of Yale. . all the rules of Christian prudence and order. For sixteen years he continued to hold fortlı at Southold and then he resigned and took up his abode on an estate which had been be- queathed to his wife by her father, John Tay- lor, at Glen Cove in Queens county. Woolsey renamed the property Dos-Oris (Dos Uxoris, a wife's gift), and Dosoris it has been called ever since. Notwithstanding his wealth, he did not abandon entirely his work as a min- ister, but continued to officiate in vacant pul- pits as general pulpit supply wherever his services were needed until the end. He seems to have been a most lovable man, and his death, in 1756, was deeply regretted over a wide section of Long Island. Mr. Woolsey left Southold in 1736 and it was nearly two years later ere his successor, the Rev. John Davenport, was installed. The story of this man, which has been held to "form an im- portant element in the history of the Long Island Churches," may be briefly summed up by saying that he was born at Stamford in 1710, was graduated from Yale in 1732, or- dained minister of Southold in 1738, dismissed

in 1746, and afterward settled at Hopewell, New Jersey, where he died in 1755.

Regarding his ministry and the features that made it famous, we cannot do better than copy the details which are given in Prime's "History of Long Island:"

About two years after his settlement at Southold, Davenport became satisfied that God had revealed to him that his kingdom was com" ing with great power, and that he had an ex- traordinary call to labor for its advancement. He assembled his people on one occasion and addressed them continuously for nearly twen- ty-four hours, until he became quite wild.

After continuing for some time in exerting labors in his own neighborhood, he passed over into Connecticut, where the same spirit has been developed and was producing dis- astrous results in many of the churches. "He soon became animated by a famous zeal," says Dr. Miller, in his life of Edwards, "and im- agining that he was called to take a special lead in the work, he began to set at naught and to give the most unrestrained liberty to his fanatical feelings. He raised his voice to the highest pitch in public services, and ac- companied his unnatural vehemence and can- tatory bawling with the most vchement agita- tions of body. He encouraged his hearers to give vent, without restraint, both to their dis- tress and their joy, by violent outcries in the midst of public assemblies. When these things prevailed among the people, accompanied with bodily agitations, he pronounced them tokens of the presence of God. Those who passed immediately from great distress to great joy, he declared, after asking them a few questions, to be converts ; though numbers of such con- verts, in a short time, returned to their old ways of living, and were as carnal, wicked and void of experience as ever they were. He openly encouraged his new converts to speak in public, and brought forward many ignorant and unqualified persons, young and old, to address large assemblies in his own vehement and magisterial manner. He led his followers through the streets singing psalms and hymns. He was a great favorite of visions, trances, imaginations and powerful impressions, and made such impulses and inward feelings the rule of duty for himself and others. He claimed a kind of prescriptive right to sit in

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judgment on the characters of ministers, and, after examining them as to their spiritual right in private, would often pronounce them in his public prayers to be unconverted. Those who refused to be examined were sure to suffer the same fate. He made his prayers the medium of harsh and often indecent attacks on ministers and others, whom he felt dis- posed, on any account, to censure; and in his harangues he would inform the people that their ministers were unconverted, and tell them that they had as good eat ratsbane as hear an unconverted minister. On more than one oc- casion he publicly refused to receive the sacra- mental symbols, because he doubted the piety of the pastors. Congregations were exhorted to eject their ministers, and dissatisfied mi- norities were encouraged to break off and form new churches, and in this a number of con- gregations were greatly weakened and others nearly destroyed."

It is stated on good authority that he de- claimed much against pride of dress, which he styled idolatry ; and on one occasion, at New London, he kindled a large fire at a place pre- viously designated, and calling upon his fol- lowers to come forward and destroy their idols, and not only many useless ornaments but numerous garments and other valuable articles were committed to the flames! In a like manner, under the guise of rooting out heresy, many books, and some of them of sterling excellence, such as Beveridge's and Flavel's works, were cast into the fire. Of his manner of preaching and the extravagant measures he pursued the following description is given by Dr. Bacon :

"He would work upon the fancy until they saw, as with their eyes, and heard, as with their ears, the groans of Calvary, and felt as the Popish enthusiast feels when, under the spell of music, he looks upon the canvas alive with the agony of Jesus. He would so describe the surprise, consternation and despair of the damned, with looks and screams of hor- ror, that those who were capable of being moved by such representations seemed to see the gates of hell set open and felt as it were the hot and stifling breath, and the hell-flames flashing in their faces. And if by such means he would cause any to scream out he consid- ered that as a sign of the special presence of the Holy Spirit, and redoubled his own exer- tion till shriek after shriek, bursting from one quarter and another in hideous discord, swelled the horrors of the scene."

"Although this deluded man," adds Prime, "did not enact his wildest extravagances in the churches on this (Long) island, yet even here his labors were productive of many unhappy results. Dissensions and divisions were pro- duced in many congregations, the effects of which are visible at the present day (1845), and although much good was done and souls were hopefully converted, yet many prejudices against the work of grace were exerted and the enemies of the cross emboldened to blas- pheme. It is due to the memory of Mr. Davenport to add that, after pursuing this disorderly course for a few years, he became deeply sensible of the error of his ways and published to the world an ingenuous confes- sion in which he acknowledges that he 'had been influenced by a false spirit in judging ministers, in exhorting their people to forsake their ministry ; in making impulses a rule of conduct ; in encouraging lay exhorters, and in disorderly singing in the streets.'"

It is not likely that in the present day the conduct of Mr. Davenport would be regarded as being so fully liable to the censure which Dr. Prime and others have passed upon it. The Rev. Dr. S. D. Alexander, of New York, in a recent work describes him as "the bril- liant and eccentric pastor of Long Island." While guilty of a few extravagances, due to the time and circumstances, his course was hardly different from that of many of our modern evangelists; and it is easy to recall conduct very similar to his which has been ap- plauded in these modern days, and by 110 class more heartily than by the clergy-the modern clergy-themselves. It is no longer the fashion to sneer at lay exhorters ; and while we seldom hear of ministers sitting in judg- ment on their fellows the records of almost each presbytery furnish evidence that the prac- tice has not altogether fallen into disuse. At the same time, in a settled community, in a deeply religious community like Southold, a community anchored to the cool and merciless logic of Calvinism, we are not surprised to find that Davenport's sensational methods were

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not congenial, and to find that most of his wild work was done elsewhere. But even in Southold his performances caused trouble, and we learn that its effects hampered the useful- ness and disturbed the equanimity of his suc- cessor, the Rev. William Throop, who was installed September 21, 1748, and ministered in Southold until his death, September 29, 1756. A still. shorter career was that of Smith Stratton, who took up the work which Mr. Throop laid down. He was ordained to preach in 1755 and died March 10, 1758. He acted as pulpit supply, probably the state of his health preventing his assuming the full duties of the pastorate. It was while he oc- cupied the pulpit that a case of church dis- cipline arose which occasioned considerable comment then and after. In the records of the Suffolk County Presbytery it is stated as follows :

A member of this church married the sister of his deceased wife, who was likewise a mem- ber of said church, which affair occasioned an uneasiness and grievance in the church. The deacons of the church did (in behalf of the church) relate the case to this Presbytery, and desire the opinion of the Presbytery relating to the case, both as to their present duty and to the lawfulness of the marriage. The Pres- bytery, after considering and conversing upon the case, gave it as their opinion and judg- ment that the aforementioned marriage is un- lawful and sinful; and that consequently the married couple should be set aside from the sacrament, when it is administered, till satis- faction be made.

In the line of pastorates the sixth occupant of the office was the Rev. John Storrs, who when he was inducted August 15, 1763, was the first to introduce into the ecclesiastical history of Long Island a name that has since been held with peculiar reverence by the people of every class and creed. He was born at Mans- field, Connecticut, December 1, 1735, and de- scended from the old Nottinghamshire family of Storrs of Sutton. He was graduated from Yale in 1756. He had married, soon after his

graduation, Eunice Conant, widow of Dr. Howe, of Mansfield. She died on March 27, 1767, and was buried in the churchyard at Southold, and in December of the same year Mr. Storrs married one of his parishioners, Hannah Moore. In 1776 the British troops compelled him to leave his church and Long Island, as his sympathies with the Patriot cause were too outspoken to be ignored; but he continued his clerical work as a chaplain in the Continental army. He was gazetted to that office in the Second Battalion of Wads- worth's Connecticut brigade in 1776, and in 178I was attached to Colonel Waterbury's Connecticut brigade. On the close of hos- tilities he returned to Southold and took up his old work there, and so continued until 1787, when he was dismissed at his own re- quest. He then removed to Mansfield, where he died, October 9, 1799.

One of his sons, Richard Salter Storrs, was for a time a teacher at Clinton Academy, Easthampton. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Suffolk and took charge of the parishes of Islip and Smithtown, but after- ward became minister of the Congregational church at Braintree, Massachusetts. He died there, August II, 1873. His son, the Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs, was the famous pastor of the Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, whose death in 1900 was regarded as a loss not only to the ecclesiastical life of Long Island but to all its best interests.

Since the resignation of the Rev. John Storrs the pulpit of the old church at Southold has been filled by the following :

Rev. Joseph Hazzard from June 7, 1797, to April, 1806; Rev. Joseph Huntting, from June, 1806, to August, 1828; Rev. Ralph Smith, from July 15, 1836, to December, 1840; Rev. H. F. Wiswall, June 18, 1845, to No- vember 12, 1850; Rev. Epher Whittaker, D. D., from 1856 to 1892, since which time he has been pastor emeritus, the active work of the pastorate having been since carried on by the Rev. James B. Freeman and by the present pastor, the Rev. W .. H. Lloyd.

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

In addition to these, many brilliant men served the church from time to time as pulpit supply, and their memories are yet precious inheritances in a community which still ad- heres to many of the lovable characteristics and to much of the devout and practical faith of the fathers. Some of those ministers and supplies will be found spoken of at length in other parts of this work.

The pastor emeritus of the church, Dr. Whitaker, was born at Fairfield, New Jersey, March 27, 1820. He was educated with a view to the ministry and after his graduation from Delaware College, in 1847, he continued his studies in the Union Theological Seminary, . New York, taking the full theological course. On leaving there he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New York, April 9, 185[. He was ordained the eleventh minister of Southold September 10, in the same year, and now after almost half a century of work con- tinues the duties of his sacred office as zeal- ously as ever. Far beyond the confines of Southold, however, the name of Dr. Whitaker has been known as a writer, historian and antiquary. In 1865 he published "New Fruits from an Old Field," a volume of essays and discourses; and his later work, "History of Southold: Its First Century, 1640 to 1740," is pre-eminently the local authority on facts, dates and family history. It was published in 1881, and in the following year he issued a work of much interest to the local student, "Old Town Records." He has been a con- tributor to magazine literature for over half a century and his work is invariably char- acterized by clearness and force. He never writes without having a story to tell or a point to illustrate or drive home, and he pre- sents it to his readers in plain, nervous Eng- lish and in simple yet captivating and con- vincing fashion. Some of his pulpit dis- courses are models of their kind. In 1877 he received the degree of D. D. from Delaware College.

The first settlers of Southampton also had a clergyman as their leader, a good man, a

man, so far as we can learn, of many brilliant parts, but not so gifted by any means as was the pioneer statesman-preacher, John Youngs, of Sonthold. The Rev. Abraham Pierson was a native of England, a graduate of Cambridge, and is said to have preached the Word in his home land before he cast in his lot with Amer- ica. He was ordained in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1640, as minister of the church colony then about to proceed to Long Island and so became the first pastor of Southampton. He was one of those who witnessed the Indian deed in December, 1640. It is supposed that the church structure was by that time erected and

SOUTHAMPTON.

in use, and of course could this be proved be- yond question the honor in that matter would rest with Southampton and the claims of Southold be completely shut out ; yet we fear the matter will ever remain one of the mooted points of local history, one of those little co- nundrums which are so useful in the way of developing an interest in historical and anti- quarian study. At best, however, the church edifice at Southampton, standing in 1640, was a flimsy affair, probably only a structure of logs, hurriedly put together. We judge so from the fact that in March, 1651, a new meet- ing-house was erected, and the contracts called for a structure thirty feet long and twenty-four feet wide, the laborers receiving two shillings in wampum for each day's work. The con-

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tractors were Ellis Cook and Richard Post. The fate of the pioneer building seems strange. At a town meeting held in April, 1651, it was agreed "that Richard Mills shall have the old meeting-house with the appurtenances to help to enlarge his house, for which gift the said Richard Mills doth engage himself to keep an 'ordinary' for strangers for diet and lodging. Long before this new sanctuary had been erect- ed, or probably before it was even thought of, Abraham Pierson had resigned the pastorate, having a difficulty with the people on a ques- tion of church prerogative in local affairs, and, with a number of his congregation, removed to Branford, Connecticut, in 1647. Mr. Pier- son moved to Newark, New Jersey, in 1662, or soon after that year, and there set up an- other tabernacle, the supremacy of the church over all secular affairs being to him a burning question ; and the progress of events in Con- necticut made such a claim no longer possible there. He continued his ministry at Newark until his death, in 1678. It is said that when he quitted Branford he left the town without an inhabitant, all the people going with him to New Jersey, and he carried away all the local church records and papers. For some twenty-three years he exerted a great amount of political influence in Connecticut. Gover- nor Winthrop, one of his warmest friends, spoke of him as "a godly man" and he won the approval of the Rev. Cotton Mather. In the question of the evangelization of the red men he took a deep interest. He studied their language and prepared (1660) a catechism for their use. In the campaign against the Dutch in 1654 he served as chaplain to the forces.

Mr. Pierson was succeeded in the charge of Southampton by the Rev. Robert Fordham, minister at Hempstead, who took up the bur- den in 1648, at a salary of £60 for the first year and £80 a year thereafter. Mr. Fordham continued to hold the pastorate until his death, in 1674. Of his personal career more par- ticular mention will be made later on in this chapter. Some time before his decease he was incapacitated from active work by bodily in-

firmity, and in 1674 the Rev. John Harriman was installed as his colleague and successor. As salary, it was arranged Mr. Harriman should receive from Mr. Fordham £40 a year -ore-half the regular salary-and £20 from the people, besides the use of thirty acres of land and of "a good house of two stories with a brick chimnie and two chamber chimnies." A provision was also made that if Mr. Ford- ham could take no part in the work the salary of his young colleague was to be made up io £80.

Mr. Harriman seems to have been a gentle- man with an eye constantly open to improving his own worldly prospects and appears to have been absent from Southampton very frequent- ly, turning up as a candidate in vacant churches where the stipend was more liberal and the prospects brighter than in South- ampton. As a result the honest folks there were not over-particular in seeing to it that his salary was promptly forthcoming. This apparently led to squabbles, and when he finally resigned, in 1679, he claimed that half a year's stipend was due. This the people, after due consideration, finally and peremptor- ily refused to pay.

Harriman was succeeded, in 1680, by the Rev. John Taylor, a graduate of Harvard and a preacher at New Haven. In way of re- muneration he was most liberally dealt with, probably to remove any ill reputation which may have come to the place through the bick. erings with the departed Harriman. The people promised him "a salary of fioo and the sole use of the house and land formerly built and laid out for the ministry, together with another end to be built to the said house, and 100 acres of commonage." In addition they gave "to him and his heirs forever 100 acres in the woods or commons," and another small parcel of four acres. It was further stipulated that the salary of £100 should be paid in this manner :

In winter wheat at 5s the bushel. In summer wheat at 4s 6d bushel.

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In Indian corn at 2s 6d bushel.

In beef at 4os per cwt.

In pork at Ios per cwt. In tallow at 3d per lb.

In green hides at 3d per lb. In dry hides at 6d per 1b. In whalebones at &d per 1b.

In oil at 30s per bbl. All good and merchantable. To be col- lected by the Constable.

Mr. Taylor did not live long to enjoy his worldly prosperity, for he passed away in 1682. It was during the ministry of his successor, the Rev. Joseph Whiting, who seems to have entered upon the charge in 1683, that the sec- ond church was abandoned, in 1707, for a new edifice, which was completed in 1709, at a cost of £55 7s 5d. It was furbished up and a steeple added in 1751 ; improved, almost re- built, in 1820, and continued to serve the con- gregation until 1845, when the now existing church was erected. It is singular that each of these four churches occupied a different site, thus departing from the general usage.

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A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 24

Author: Ross, Peter. cn Publication date: 1902 Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1188

Author: Ross, Peter. cn
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1188