A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 28

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 28

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

for all these the old church occupied a very central position." It was pulled down in 1810 and a new building for the congregation erected on what is now Joralemon street.

Although the Rev. Mr. Selyns was un- doubtedly the first minister called to Brook- lyn, he seems to have been regarded as a part of the establishment of the church at Flat- bush, a collegiate pastor, and as such appears to have frequently filled its pulpit. For many years after he left the pastors of the senior Brooklyn church were identical with those of Flatbush. This arrangement fell through- how, it is not exactly clear, probably by a process of evolution-about the beginning of the century, for in 1802, when the Rev. John Barent Johnson was called to the pastorate of the Brooklyn church, his ministrations were to be confined to it. His death took place August 29, 1803, about eleven months after his installation. The congregation re- mained without a pastor, Flatbush filling the pulpit as regularly as possible, until 1806, when the Rev. Selah Strong Woodhull was installed to the charge. It was under him that the erection of what is known as the third church was brought about. The cor- ner-stone was laid May 15, 1807, by the Rev. Peter Lowe, then one of the ministers of the parent church at Flatbush. It was completed at a cost of $13,745-53, and dedicated 011 December 23 of the same year, when tlie sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Jolın H. Livingston.

Mr. Woodhull in 1825 resigned the pastor- ship on becoming Professor of Ecclesiastical History, etc., in Rutgers College, and tlie Rev. Ebenezer Mason, son of the famous Dr. John Mason, of New York, became pastor. Two years later another change was made, and the Rev. Peter J. Rouse was installed, October 13, 1828. He was succeeded in 1833 by the Rev. M. W. Dwight, and within a month the congregation began taking steps to erect their present building-the fourth- which was completed and dedicated in May, 1835. The succeeding pastors have been

Revs. A. P. Low Giesen, 1855-59; A. A. Wil- lets, 1860-5; Joseph Kimball, 1865-74; H. Dickson, 1875-1877; Dr. D. N. Vanderveer, 1878-1896; and J. M. Farrar, 1896 -.

This survey practically completes the story of the pioneer churches on the island in its different divisions, and the history of the others calling for particular mention on ac- count of their historical or other interest will be found treated in the local sections of this work. We have taken up these churches in their order, just as their respective histories told us they were formed without any heed to their denominational affiliations, and we may now enter on a somewhat wider field of survey by speaking of the introduction, on the island, of the various great divisions of the Christian fold.

The churches at Southold and Southamp- ton were, properly speaking, Congregational, and as such their story might be held to mark the date of the advent of that body, while if we could accept the church at Hempstead, of which we have spoken as Presbyterian, then the advent of that body is also determined. Such affiliations, however, would be strenu- ously objected to. The institution of the church at Flatbush in 1654 gives that date beyond question as that on which the Re- formed Dutch church began its labors. For a time the island was given over to these two bodies (if we may be permitted to class the early Congregationalists or Presbyterians as one body, which they practically were), in which the Dutch church showed the union of Church and State, with the authority of the latter paramount, while the other was purely democratic-church and state com- bined, with the church as the ruling influ- ence.

But they were not permitted very long to retain their undisputed sway over the spiritual destinies of Long Island, for in 1702 we find that the Episcopalian body began with the advent to the island of the Rev. George Keith, whom we have already met in a previous chapter. He was accompanied by the Rev.

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Peter (or Patrick, the names there being in- terchangeable) Gordon, who, it seems, had been sent out to America as a missionary by the English "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." His work on Long Island was assigned for him before his departure, and so was his title of "Rector of Queens County." His acquaintance with his rectorial field was, however, very brief. He was suffering from fever when he reached Jamaica, which was to be his headquarters, and about a week later, July 25, 1702, he was dead. He was buried beneath the stone church or meeting-house which had been erected about 1700 by the trustees of Jamaica by means of a tax levied on the inhabitants, after a plan of voluntary subscription had fallen through. On that fact was based one of the most noted conflicts between Church and State which the history of the island records.

When the church and its adjoining min- ister's house were completed they were given over to the Presbyterian minister by vote of a town meeting, although there was some un- derstanding that other Protestant denomina- tions were to be permitted to use the church for their services when occasion required. In this way Keith seems to have preached from its pulpit. When Lord Cornbury became Governor in 1702 he ordered the English law of uniformity in religion to be enforced throughout the province and ordained that all meeting-houses and parsonages erected out of public moneys, by tax or otherwise, should belong to the Episcopal body, which he de- clared to be the established church. The mis- sionaries of that body, thanks to this viceregal patronage, were then very active, and the ad- herents to the Church of England in Jamaica were consoled by frequent visits from them. Emboldened by Lord Cornbury's order, they not only held services in the stone church, but claimed its possession as a right. The crisis came on July 25, 1703, when the Rev. John Bartow visited Jamaica. On the day before he announced that he would hold serv-

ice in the stone church, but the Presbyterian minister got into the building on the follow- ing morning ahead of liim and so held the fort. Bartow walked into the sacred edifice and ordered John Hubbard, the Presbyterian divine, to stop his service. This the latter re- fused. In the afternoon the tables were turned, for the Episcopalian got into the build- ing before the Presbyterian arrived. The latter announced that he would preach under a tree and so drew away the bulk of Mr. Bartow's auditors. Not only that: those who went out carried with them benches and re- turned for more, so as to make Mr. Hub- bard's hearers comfortable, and the noise and confusion that ensued forced the "estab- lished" divine to stop for a time. He finished,. however, locked the door of the church, and handed the key to the sheriff as the repre- sentative of law and order. The other body soon afterward broke a window in the church wall, helped a boy through the aperture, and, on his opening the door from the inside, en- tered the church and put back the benches. They, however, took away the pulpit cushion, which they would not permit any to use but the Presbyterian minister.

Cornbury, when the matter was reported to him, summoned Mr. Hubbard and the heads of his congregation before him, laid down the law and threatened them with its penalties. He also defined the statute as to the church building itself and forbade Mr. Hubbard from preaching in it. As it was either submission or prosecution, they sub- mitted, and the stone church passed from their hands. But their humiliation was not yet ended.

In 1704 the Rev. William Urquhart was appointed "Rector of Queens County," and when he arrived at Jamaica and viewed his domain over he claimed the house and lands on which the Rev. Mr. Hubbard dwelt as a parsonage, they having been set aside for the use of the preacher in the stone church by the same process of taxation. This view was indorsed by Cornbury, and on July 4, 1704,

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

the sheriff ordered Hubbard to vacate, which he did, and the triumph of the Episcopalian church in Jamaica was complete. The further history of the stone church litigation really belongs to the local story of Jamaica.

There is a good deal of similarity between the early history of the Episcopalian Church in Hempstead and in Jamaica except in the way of disturbance and legal conflict. In the former place work was begun about 1701, by the Rev. John Thomas, who was sent out from England as a missionary and given charge of Hempstead by Lord Cornbury. He also took possession of the old Presbyterian church building and minister's house, but the Presbyterians at the time had no minister and had dwindled down in numbers, so that Mr. Thomas, who appears to have been a soft- mannered and agreeable sort of man, a verit- able peacemaker, not only induced them to acquiesce in the charge without much grum- bling, but persuaded many of the weak-kneed brethren among them to become regular at- tendants at his service. So the "established church" continued slowly to spread, backed by the Gubernatorial authority, and in some instances stiffened by royal gifts; for we read that in 1706 Queen Anne "was pleased to allow the churches of Hempstead, Jamaica, Westchester, Rye and Staten Island each a large Bible, Common Prayer Book, Book of Homilies, a cloth for the pulpit, a communion table, a silver chalice and paten." Churches were established at Newtown in 1734 (the charge of the rector at Jamaica extended over Newtown and Flushing), at Flushing in 1746, at Huntington in 1750 and at Brookhaven in 1752; but it was not until 1766 that one was established in Brooklyn. This date seems to have been fixed by tradition, for there is really no evidence to substantiate it.

In 1774 a lottery was proposed for the erection of a church conformable to the doc- trines of the Church of England, but the mat- ter either was unsuccessful or was allowed to be dropped owing to the political exigencies of the times. During the British occupation

there is no doubt Episcopalian services were regularly held and some of the discourses then preached by the Rev. James Sayre are still preserved. It was not until 1784, after the cloud of battle had passed away, that those who adhered to the Episcopalian Church set up a tabernacle of their own. Says Furman : "It scarcely took the form of a church : there were few, very few Episcopalians in this town or country at that period,-so few that they were not able to settle a minister among them and were supplied with occasional serv- ices from the clergymen of the city of New York, for which purpose they assembled in a room of the old one-and-a-half-story brick house known as No. 40 Fulton street, Brook- lyn, then called the Old Ferry Road, owned by Abiel Titus, Esq. There is no reason to believe that this little congregation was ever incorporated as a church or had any regular officers. The first regularly established Epis- copal church in this town or county was that formed in the year 1786. The congregation was at first very small, not having in it more than fifteen or sixteeen families, and they were not able to go to much expense about erect- ing a church. They therefore hired the old and long one-story house owned by Marvin Richardson on the northwesterly corner of Fulton and Middagh streets." The Rev. George Wright was chosen as the pastor of this little flock, and from this humble begin- ning sprang the now famous Church of St. Ann's.

The Methodist Episcopal church appar- ently antedated the Established Church of England on Long Island. The pioneer preach- er was Captain Thomas Webb, of the Britishı army, who held services in a house he rented in New York, and in 1766 frequently crossed over to Brooklyn and held forth there. He had some relatives in Jamaica and preached in that village regularly, building up, Dr. Prime tells us, a society of about twenty-four persons,-half of them negroes. The prog- ress made, however, was slow. In 1785 a congregation was formed in Sands street, in

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a cooper's shop, by Wollman Hickson, and from that beginning developed the once famous Methodist church in Sands street, now only a memory, although its name is still re- tained in another structure. In 1793 Joseph Totten and George Strebeck were appointed to take charge of the entire island, laboring alternately one month in Brooklyn and a month elsewhere. In 1794 the Brooklyn church was incorporated and in 1795 its peo- ple had completed the purchase of a site and erected a place of worship on Sands street, the site now being part of the territory oc- cupied by the big bridge. In 1795 its mem- bership was given as twenty-three whites and twelve negroes. In 1820 a church was estab- lished at Southold, and another ten years later at Riverhead.

Although we read of the appearance of Baptists in America as early as 1662, it was not till long afterward that the denomina- tion really won a foothold on Long Island. A congregation was formed at Oyster Bay in 1700, one at Brookhaven in 1747, and one at Newtown in 1809; but it was not until 1823 that a church was organized at Brooklyn,- with ten members.

In another chapter we tell of the early ex- periences of the Quakers in this country and their reception at the hands of the Dutch au- thorities and Governor Stuyvesant, and so need only remark that the earliest trace of a meeting-house is found in the story of Oyster Bay, where we are told one was set up in 1659. The visit of George Fox to America in 1672 did much to strengthen the Friends, and we know that he made several visits to Gravesend where the doctrines of his people had been known and welcomed to a more or less extent since 1657. It was at Jericho, a few miles from Oyster Bay, that the first Long Island meeting-house of the society, of which we have record, was erected, in 1689, and in 1694 another was erected at Flushing. About the last named year small houses of worship were also erected by the Friends at Bethpage and Matinicock. A meeting-house

was maintained at Brooklyn before 1730, and slow progress was made until in 1845 they had twelve meeting-houses in Kings and Queens counties and two in Suffolk. It can hardly be said that their numbers have much in- creased, compared, at least, with other re ligious bodies.

Oyster Bay township was for many years the centre of Quaker activity on Long Island. owing to the zeal and work of Elias Hicks, a most remarkable man, of whose labors and life an account appears elsewhere in this work.

The Roman Catholic Church had a late beginning. There were few of that faith on Long in early times, and it was not until after the Revolutionary War that we find traces of the visits of missionary priests to the island ; but the results of their labor appears to liave amounted practically to nothing. Early in the present century quite a number of mem- bers of that church were domiciled in Brook- lyn, but they crossed the ferry and worshipped in old St. Peter's Church in Barclay street, New York. The late Cardinal McCloskey, in 1868, when laying the corner-stone of the still unfinished cathedral on Lafayette avenue, re- ferred to this when he said:

There are many here who hardly hoped to see this day. Of that number I can men- tion one, and it is he who now addresses you. He well remembers the day when there was neither Catholic church, nor chapel, nor priest, nor altar, in all these surroundings. He remembers when, as a youth, when Sun- day morning came, he, as one of a happy group, wended his way along the shore to what was then called Hick's Ferry to cross the river, not in elegant and graceful steamers as now, but in an old and dingy horse-boat; going, led by the hand of tender and loving parents, to assist at the sacrifice of mass in the old brick church of St. Peter's in Barclay street.

In fact it seems that the rectors of St. Peter's looked upon Long Island as part of their parish, and for many years were in the habit of sending priests across the ferry to hold services and perform the various offices

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

of the church. Mass was celebrated at times in private houses, and while smaller bodies would have rushed in and built a church un- der the circumstances, the Catholics were hin- dered from doing so by the scarcity of priests, their own poverty and the desire of the church authorities not to be burdened in their spirit- ual work by hopeless accumulations of debt. In the beginning of the second decade of the nineteenth century, however, the then exist- ing condition of things was really regarded as against the interests of Roman Catholicism, and on January 7, 1822, a meeting was held to consider the advisability of undertak- ing the erection of a church building. It was then found that only seventy of the pro- posed parishioners were able to contribute in money or in labor to the project, but it was finally determined to proceed. Cornelius Henry offered as a gift a piece of property at Court and Congress streets (afterward, 1836, used as a site for St. Paul's church) ; but it was thought that the eight lots at Jay and Chapel streets would be much more con- venient and these were secured. The price paid was $700. The erection of the building was at once proceeded with, and on August 28, 1823, St. James' church started in its history. From St. James' the church spread out all over the island. In 1835 a chapel was built in Flushing, in 1838 another at Jamaica. A preaching station was established at Islip in 1840, at Smithtown, at Sag Har- bor and so on. In 1845 there were ten Roman Catholic churches on Long Island: now there the eighty-eight in the borough of Brooklyn alone, and twenty-five in the borough of Queens.

Of the other religious bodies we need give little more than the dates of their first being represented by actual church buildings erected by them. The Hebrews in Brooklyn in 1856, having previously crossed over to New York to worship, hired a room which they fitted up as a synagogue, and it was retained until the Synagogue Beth Israel was built and opened for service in 1862. The Unitarians date from 1833, the Universalists from 1841, and the Lutherans from 1847.

A curious feature of the story of religion on Long Island is the long and patient strug- gle of the Swedenborgians. Dr. Prime in his history spoke of their first church as follows : "In 1813 or 1814 a member of the Congre- gational church at Baiting Hollow by the name of Horton imbibed the doctrines of Emanuel Swedenborg and in 1815 set up a separate place of worship. In 1831 a New Jerusalem church was organized, consisting of thirteen members. In 1839 a house of worship twenty-four by thirty-six feet was erected, but until recently Mr. Horton has been the principal conductor of their services. Since November, 1844, the Rev. Mr. Carll has been employed here a part of the time. From fifteen to twenty families attend. The present (1845) number of members is twenty-four."

In 1839 one of the members of that church, Elijah Terry, organized a society in River- head, with ten members. They built a church and school-house combined and engaged part of the labors of Rev. Mr. Carll, but made no further progress in numerical strength. It was not until 1856 that a Swedenborgian church was organized in Brooklyn, and it now has three, with a united membership of 249.

CHAPTER XIII.

PERSECUTIONS-RELIGIOUS-THE TROUBLES OF THE EARLY QUAKERS-TRIALS FOR WITCHCRAFT.

T is often stated by newspaper and other writers-sometimes even by reputable historical writers-that Long Island has been free from those per- secutions which form a blot on the history of some of the other sections of this continent. Certainly, they tell us, there were persecu- tions on Long Island-there is no use deny- ing it-but they were not such as came from the malignant passions of the people, passions aroused by ignorance, or hysterical enthu- siasm, or prejudice, or popular caprice. Even those who admit the existence of such a blot assure us that what persecutions there were were official rather than popular. "It is true," says Dr. Prime (History, page 57), "that at an early period the Dutch Government of the New Netherland enacted severe laws against the Quakers and other sects whom they re- garded as heretics ; and in numerous other in- stances these laws were enforced with a de- gree of cruelty that was shocking to every feel- ing of humanity. But the people had no hand in the enactment of these laws and but few of them could be induced to take any part in their execution." But we must remember that these were persecutions, and also that these persecutions were rendered possible in spite of the arbitrary and paternal rule of the Dutch Governors only by the fact that the people either acquiesced in them or were indifferent to them. Obnoxious laws-that is, laws which were really obnoxious to the hearts and consciences of the people-could not

easily be enforced in New Netherland even in the days of the Dutch regime, and a peo- ple who could defy Governor Stuyvesant and bring him to terms were not likely to be coerced into actively supporting any law of which they did not more or less heartily ap- prove. The Director was a powerful poten- tate in the days when old Governor Pietrus stumped about, but he needed the help of tlie people when action was necessary.

There certainly were times of persecution on Long Island, as elsewhere; but they were never carried to the same extent as in many parts of New England; and indeed it seems to us that so long as a man behaved himself even in the western end of the island where the Dutch influence was most secure, his re- ligious or other sentiments were seldom, if ever, interfered with. When we went around proclaiming his differences with the ruling regime, or with the views held by the mass of the people, then trouble began. In the eastern end, where Puritan ideas held sway, each community passed judgment on each new-comer, and if he did not prove acceptable he was told to pass on. If he obeyed quietly, that was the end of the matter. But even . among the Long Island Puritans a Quaker or other heretic was never persecuted for the sake of his belief unless he persisted in proclaiming that belief "from the housetops."

That was the trouble with the Quakers at the beginning of their story in New Nether- land, and that really led to all that was done

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HISTORY OF LONG ISLAND.

against them in the way of persecution on Long Island. The Friends at that time were an aggressive body; and in the New World, where they expected that freedom of con- science would prevail, they never lost an op- portunity of preaching the Word and pro- claiming their doctrines. This aggressiveness led to their persecution in New England and to the severe penal laws there enacted against them. But penal laws have never yet been able to kill religious sentiment. Even the scaffold did not crush out Quakerism in Bos- ton, and public whippings and banishments and confiscations only served to show that these people were perfectly willing to suffer and even to die for the sake of the dictates of their conscience. They aimed to bring about a universal religion, they had no respect for mere forms, and believed the spirit coul:1 and did find utterance even through the most ignorant voice, and they put women, as public exhorters and in religious and all other mat- ters, on an equality with men. They scowled at form, at "isms," at lavishness in dress, and at mere liuman authority, whether manifested on a throne or in a pulpit. To them the theocratic notions of New England were as utterly unworthy of regard as the claims of the Church of Rome or that of England. It was a theocracy founded on work; their theocracy was founded of the Spirit ; it was a theocracy founded on worldly principles, on arms, on oaths, preserving social distinctions and upholding the authority of the civil mag- istrate, the representative of royalty, a com- bination at once of the cross and the sword; their theocracy was measured only by love. Their ideas of religious toleration were com- plete and thoroughgoing, the ideas of the Pu- ritans on that question were bounded by their meeting places and their church edicts. Cer- tainly these early Quakers were extravagant in many ways, even at times extravagant enough to shock all sense of decency and pro- priety ; but they were terribly in earnest and openly and vigorously proceeded, as they de- clared the Spirit impelled them, to denounce

what they regarded as the shortcomings of the Puritan system as practiced in New England as soon as they reached that favored land and surveyed its fleshpots and extravagances. To the Puritan, regarding himself as the most perfect product of the religious spirit of the time, the representative of the chosen prophets of old, the highest development of religious thought and toleration, the extravagances of the Quakers, and in particular the extrava- graces of the Quaker women, were all wrong and needed to be repressed with a strong hand; and the strong hand at once put forth all its strength.

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A history of Long Island, from its earliest settlement to the present time, Part 28

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