USA > New York > New York City > A history of the parish of Trinity Church in the city of New York, pt 1 > Part 32
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The "Heirs of Anneke Jans" start up again like Jack-in-the-box. As if excited by the inflammatory state of the atmosphere, they renew their efforts to get posses- sion, by hook or by crook, of the Church property, think- ing, perhaps, that the maintenance of unfounded claims would be easier in a state of general turmoil. In the "Remonstrance " already referred to they represent, that
"On the 30th day of May, 1775, a number of rioters, commissioned by Dr. Auchmuty, and Elias Desbrosses, Esq ; and headed by Alderman Matthews, entered Mr. Bogardus's enclosure, and broke down his divi- sion fences, carried them off and burned them, kicked a poor woman in the eye, and wounded her husband, who attempted to defend her."
This shows the complainant's peculiar manner of describ- ing such rencontres,1 which occurred again in 1784. The Corporation, as may readily be concluded from this ac- count, were acting with firmness, having law and equity
1 They also say, though the date is not evident, that " John Noblet, a tenant, who possessed the land under Mr. Bogardus's title, sowed a field of rye in the Fall, it stood on the ground until the next Summer ; when the grain began to grow hard, and near fit for harvesting, a number of ruffians acting under the authority of the Corpora- tion of Trinity Church, pulled down, and carried off Mr. Noblet's fence, and de- stroyed the field of rye, the bounty of Heaven."-New York Hist. Soc. Coll., 1870, P. 356.
1
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on their side; the Bogardus party stigmatized the agents of two corporations as " rioters," while the fact remained, and they themselves recognized it, that not an alderman in the city would grant a summons against the agents of the Church, though every alderman was applied to in turn. The fact shows who were the aggressors. It was then, as now, well known to the people that the title of the Church to the lands was perfect, the court having so decreed, while the decision has been reaffirmed by every authority, by which it has been considered, down to the present day.
Governor Tryon had been ordered back to New York ; he arrived June 25th, at eight o'clock in the evening. A more confusing day can hardly be imagined ; one of the strangest in our annals. On the 21st of June, 1775, George Washington, enveloped in the cloud and mist of a destiny as yet uncertain, set forth from Philadelphia to go to Boston, by the way of New York. The city was expecting Governor Tryon, whose return from England was looked for hour by hour ; and now Washington was expected also. Quoi faire ? The Provincial Congress voted to receive with military honors whichever should arrive the first. As it chanced, both came on the same day. Washington made his appearance on the morning of the 25th of June. He was received and congratulated, yet somewhat cautiously ; he passed on. In the evening came Governor Tryon ; and on the following day he had his reception. It was cordial and earnest ; the conserva- tive classes had no heart for what was coming ; nor did they wish as yet to be independent of the mother coun- try.
Governor Tryon, on arriving in the province, found himself face to face with a hopeless task. He had been notified by the Earl of Dartmouth of the King's
" firm Resolution to exert every power which the constitution has
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placed in His hands to compel obedience to the Laws and authority of the supreme Legislature. To that end, orders have been already given for augmenting our Naval Forces in America, and we think we shall soon be able to make such addition to the Army under General Gage as will enable him to withstand the utmost efforts of that Rebellion into which the People of the four New England Provinces have so rashly plunged." 1
On the 7th of August, writing to Dartmouth, after re- ferring to the battle of Bunker Hill and the profound secrecy with which the Americans were concealing their plans, he goes on to say :
" The Americans appeared to have lost sight of first principles & first causes, and have gone on to adopt measures & prosecute Plans of the most determin'd opposition and resistance, and I fear are fatally aban- doned to the Resolution of hazarding everything rather than to submit to the principle of Parliamentary Taxation."
He therefore recommends a repeal of the duty on tea, which
" would be removing the original ostensible cause of discontent and greatly abate the early prejudices among the Populace and Peasantry of this Province. Five or six thousand or more, Regulars, being then sent to New York, supported by three or four regiments of Americans, which I am confident might then be raised in this Province & the Jer- seys, the authority of his Majesty's government, now entirely prostrate through the Colonies, might, at least, be reinstated." ?
Dr. Cooper, like the rest of the clergy, entered warmly into the arena of politics, defending the Church against all comers, and sometimes getting roughly handled by his own pupils. The president held his ground with such zeal, that finally a personal attack was planned against him, his apartments being entered by a mob, incited largely by a letter from Philadelphia, dated April 25, 1775, and signed under the pseudonym of "Three Mil- lions " addressed to " Messieurs Delancey, White, Colden,
1 N. Y. Col. Docs., viii., 587. ? Ibid., 598.
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Watts and Cooper of New-York." It ascribes to their action the strong support given in New York to the King, and charges upon them the blood of the men slain at Concord and Lexington on April 19th, together with all the horrors of civil war. They were advised, therefore, " Fly for your lives, or anticipate your doom by becoming your own executioners." 1 On the 10th of May, as Jones relates, though he erroneously places the occurrence in August,
" a select party of republicans, of which John Smith and Joshua Hett Smith were the most forward, collected together in the evening at a public-house, and after swallowing a proper dose of Madeira, set off about midnight with a full design of seizing the Rev. Dr. Cooper, then President of Kings College, in his bed, of shaving his head, cutting off his ears, slitting his nose, stripping him naked, and turning him adrift (as the expression was). Luckily for the President, a student who had been out that night, in returning to his chambers, and overhearing their conversation, instantly took to his heels, and by turning into alleys, and taking a nearer course than the assailants, he arrived at the President's room just time enough to give him information of his danger. Rising from his bed, and huddling on some of his clothes, he jumped out of a back window, a few minutes before the rascals entered the front door of the College. Having luckily escaped the intended violence, he took refuge in the house of a friend, was concealed till the morning, and then safely conveyed on board one of his Majesty's ships in the harbour, from whence he sailed for England." ?
It may be added here that the Rev. Benjamin Moore, now an assistant minister of the parish, was appointed to the temporary charge of the college. When the Com- mittee of Safety took possession of the buildings for the accommodation of the American troops, in the year 1776, the library and scientific apparatus were deposited in the City Hall, but were nearly all lost, only about seven hun- dred volumes being found some thirty years later, with other books belonging to the Society Library and to Trinity
1 Force's Am. Archives, ยง 4, ii., 389.
? Jones's History of New York, i., 59.
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Church, in a room in St. Paul's Chapel. Eight years later the college once more appears as a living institution, doing its appointed work.
On the 10th of October, 1775, Governor Tryon retired to the Halifax packet then lying in the harbor. Novem- ber 11th, he wrote to Dartmouth that since the thirtieth of the previous month he had been on board the Duchess of Gordon, protected by the guns of the man-of-war Asia.1 He added that within the fortnight the spirit of rebellion had nevertheless abated ; that the counties of Westchester, Dutchess, King, Queen, and Richmond were well affected ; and that he only needed those five or six thousand regu- lars. He says, "The Sword, My Lord, is drawn, and it is that must now establish a constitution." ?
Among the funerals in the parish at this time, some have more than a passing interest :
"On Monday last died Mr. Andrew Barclay, an eminent merchant and brother of the Rev. Dr. Barclay, late rector of this parish, a most worthy and exemplary citizen, universally beloved by all who knew him." 3
"On Monday last died at Brunswick, in the 63d. year of his age, on his way to this city, the Hon. James Habersham, Esq., President of his Majesty's council of Georgia. He was a man of great probity, in- tegrity, and honour, an able counsellor, an affectionate and tender par- ent, and well acquainted with the delicacies of true friendship. In his life he was greatly beloved, esteemed, and honoured by all his friends, and his death is equally regretted by all who had the honour of his ac- quaintance. His remains were on Thursday evening interred in the family vault of Nathaniel Marston, Esq., in Trinity Church yard." 4
Captain Michael Cresap, of Virginia, had greatly dis- tinguished himself in the frontier military service. This young and gallant officer was one of the first of the Vir-
1 N. Y. Col. Docs., viii., 643.
2 Ibid.
3 Rivington's New- York Gazetteer, June 22, 1775.
4 Ibid., Sept. 7, 1775.
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ginians who became a sacrifice to the cause of American freedom. The militia and "the most respectable citi- zens " attended the remains to their place of burial in Trinity Churchyard.1
The original tombstone erected in Trinity Churchyard now stands in the vestibule of the New York Historical Society. It bears the following inscription, besides some rude attempts at ornament :
In Memory of Michael Cresap, First Cap: Of the Rifle Batalions, And Son to Co! Thomas Cresap, Who Departed this Life October the : 18 : 1775 : "
Notwithstanding the turmoil and uncertainty of the times, the children of the Charity School and the poor were not forgotten.3
1 The daily papers give considerable prominence to the funeral. The order of the procession is thus given :
"On the 12th Instant arrived here on his return from the Provincial Camp at Cambridge, and on the 18th departed this Life of a Fever, in the twenty-eighth Year of his Age, MICHAEL CRESSOP, Esq. ; eldest Son of Col. Thomas Cressop, of Potow- mack, in Virginia : He was a Captain of a Rifle Company now in the Continental Army before Boston. He served as a Captain under the Command of Lord Dun- more, in the late Expedition against the Indians, in which he eminently distinguished himself by his Prudence, Firmness, and Intrepidity, as a brave Officer ; and in the present Contest between the Parent State and the Colonies, gave proofs of his Attach- ment to the Rights and Liberties of his Country."-The New - York Gazette, October 23, 1775.
? Brantz Mayer's Logan & Cresap, 144, which gives an engraving of the stone ; also A Biographical Sketch of the Life of the Late Captain Michael Cresap, by John J. Jacob.
3 " Yesterday Forenoon a Charity Sermon was preached at Trinity-Church, by the Rev. Mr. Moore, and a large Collection made for the Use of the Charity School in this City ; and next Sunday another Charity Sermon for the like laudable Purpose will be preached at St. Georges Chapel. Mr. Moore's text was from Psalm XLI. v. I., Blessed is he that considereth the Poor and Needy ; the Lord shall deliver him in Time of Trouble."-The New- York Gazette, Dec. 4, 1775.
" Next Sunday Morning, the first anniversary Sermon will be preached at Trinity Church for the Benefit of the Poor Children belonging to the Charity School ; on the
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Entry of Lee into New York 373
Early in January, 1776, Washington, then at Cam- bridge, hearing that Sir Henry Clinton was about to sail on a secret expedition, and fearing for the safety of New York, agreed with General Charles Lee to raise troops in Connecticut ; and within a fortnight twelve hundred men were on the march for New York, Lee having that famous "Son of Liberty," Captain Sears, afterward a member of Trinity Corporation, as his adjutant. As the Connecticut men approached, many of the Royalists fled with their families and effects to Long Island and New Jersey. The Committee of Safety objected to Lee's entrance into the city, as Captain Parker of the Asia had threatened to bom- bard the town. Lee, paying no attention to either party, marched in and encamped in "the Fields," the present City Hall park, declaring, " If the ships are quiet, I shall be quiet," his aim being simply to save the city to the Re- publicans. Parker excused himself from opening fire on the ground that Lee desired the destruction of the city, and that he would not gratify him. This decided the Americans, and the Provincial Congress voted to fortify and garrison the city with two thousand men.
Governor Tryon wrote on the 8th of February, from his winter retreat in the cabin of the Duchess of Gordon :
"Gen! Lee came into this Town last Sunday, escorted by a com- pany of Rifle men, his body guard, and a Regiment of Connecticut men commanded by Colo Waterbury.
"The day before Yesterday Lord Sterling at the head of four Com- panies of Jersey troops also arrived here, and more are expected. The City is in Terror and confusion : One-half of its inhabitants have with- drawn their effects, hundreds without the means to support their fami- lies." 1
Sunday following, the second at St. George's Chapel ; and the third, the Sunday after at St. Paul's.
" Should the Weather on any of these Sundays be unfavourable to the Design, the Sermon will be postponed to the Sunday following."- The New- York Journal, Nov. 30, 1775. 1 N. Y. Col. Docs., viii., 667.
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Part of the public records had been placed on board the Duchess of Gordon, and Tryon stood ready to transfer all the rest to secure their careful preservation for the benefit of the public. He says, however, that the indications point to hostilities against the King's ships, and that the Asia and the Phoenix have been obliged to draw near the wharfs, being in the way of the floating ice, but he trusts that the severity of the season is past.
General Clinton had now come out from England, and to a large extent the responsibility lay with him.
Though confined on board his ship, Tryon carried for- ward his work to the best of his ability, and was aided through Rivington's paper, the Gazetteer; the office of which, at the foot of Wall Street, was finally invaded one day at noon by Captain Sears, supported by a party of seventy-five light horsemen from Connecticut, who de- stroyed the press, and carried off the type to make bul- lets. On their way home they stopped at Westchester, seized the Rev. Samuel Seabury, and took him to New Haven.1
On April 18th, Tryon wrote that he had gone down to Sandy Hook on the Duchess of Gordon, where he was protected under the guns of the Phoenix, and that the Gen- eral Assembly had been prorogued by the Council, who, however, had not been permitted to consult him on the subject. Four hundred of "the enemy " appeared yester-
' Lossing's Field Book, ii., 798. "Gaines's political creed, it seems, was to join the strongest party. When the British troops were about to take possession of New York in 1776, he left the city and set up his press in Newark ; but soon after, in the belief that appearances were against the ultimate success of the United States, he privately withdrew from Newark, and returned to New York. At the conclusion of the war he petitioned the State legislature for leave to remain in the city, and having ob- tained permission, his press was employed in book-printing, etc., but his newspaper was discontinued when the British army left. . He died April 25, 1807, aged eighty-one years."-The History of Printing in America, by Isaiah Thomas, i., 301
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day, he says, on the Hook. While he lay there he learned of the Declaration of Independence ; in due time he was back in New York again.
At this time a plot was originated, it is said, by Tryon, to capture Washington and murder his general officers. Washington refers to the subject June 28th. He then thought that no regular plan had been concerted, though the matter had been "traced up to Governor Tryon." Thomas Hickey, one of the guard, was condemned to death, and Mayor Hicks appears to have been a princi- pal agent in it. He was arrested with other citizens. Some five hundred persons were said to be in the plot, which was to have been executed upon the arrival of the British army.1
The Rev. Charles Inglis took a prominent part in public affairs at this critical point in the history of the province and city. Writing to the Society, October 31, 1776, he gives a detailed account of the Church, declaring that all the missionaries in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut were loyal to the Crown, while the clergy not employed by the Society maintain the same policy, having prevented thousands from joining in the rebellion. He says that they continued to go on with their duties, con- fining themselves in their sermons to the Gospel and not dealing with politics. They were accordingly threatened, reviled, and treated in an unmerciful manner ; some found their way into prisons and jails ; some were actually pulled out of the reading-desk for praying for the King ; others were warned to appear at militia musters armed and equipped and were fined for not obeying. Some likewise had had their houses broken into and plundered by parties in search of treasonable papers. In fact he maintained
1 See Sparks's Writings of Washington, iii., 440 ; Force's Am. Archives, vi., 1064 ; and Lossing's Field Book of the Revolution, ii., So1.
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that a true account of the hardships endured by the clergy were scarcely inferior to those sustained in the great re- bellion of the previous century, and would form no bad supplement to Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy.
Referring to these statements of Mr. Inglis, it may be well to add a few words in justification of the conduct of our clergy at that period, and in corroboration of the charge of ill-treatment on the part of the more violent of the revolutionary party. The clergy of the Church of England, in taking the oath of conformity, had also sol- emnly sworn to follow in all their ministrations the lit- urgy and offices of the Book of Common Prayer. That book contained prayers for the King. When the inde- pendence of the colonies was proclaimed, the revolution- ists demanded of the clergy, everywhere, that they should desist from saying those prayers in the public use of the offices of the Church ; while the clergy, considering them- selves bound in conscience not only by their oath of alle- giance but also by their promise of conformity, and not recognizing the authority of the newly constituted Con- gress, refused, with few exceptions, to comply.1
The prayers for the King became, in this way, the test, where such was needed, of each man's disposition towards the popular movement and the index to his sympathies ; and there was no escape from the publicity into which it brought him. And now, wherever the revolutionary side had the upper hand, commenced a series of assaults on the
1 " Since the declaration of Independency the alternative has been either to make such alterations in the Liturgy as both honor and conscience must be alarmed at, or else to shut up our Churches, and discontinue our attendance on the public Worship. It was impossible for me to hesitate a moment in such a case, and I find that many of the Clergy in Pennsylvania and every one in New Jersey (Mr. Blackwell only ex- cepted) have thought it their indispensible duty in this perplexing situation to suspend our public Ministrations rather than make any alteration in the established Liturgy." (Letter from Dr. Odell to the Secretary of the S. P. G., Hist. of the Church in Bur- lington, by the Rev. George Morgan Hills, D.D., 317.)
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Sufferings of the Clergy 377
unhappy clergy, which darken the annals of the history of our country. They were assailed and driven from the homes in which they had led their peaceful lives; no re- gard was had to length of service or bodily infirmity ; wives and children were turned adrift with their unfortu- nate husbands ; churches were burnt, libraries destroyed, organs broken to pieces ; men were dragged through mire and dirt, hunted into the woods, thrown into prison, threat- ened with death, and driven into banishment in their old age ; in short there was no kind of insult, outrage, or in- dignity that was not heaped upon them in the name of " liberty." It looks as if the hatred of Episcopacy, long repressed, seized that opportunity to make up for years of enforced abstinence from its congenial work ; and scenes, the counterpart of those witnessed in the old country under the Cromwellian usurpation, were re-enacted in the new land by the descendants of the Puritan and the Inde- pendent. The outrages to which I now refer occurred especially in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and other parts of New England. Some illustrations will in- form the reader of their character.
The Rev. Thomas Barton, a missionary in the coun- ties of York, Lancaster, and Cumberland, in Pennsylvania, writes to the Venerable Society, November 25, 1776, as follows :
"I have been obliged to shut up my churches to avoid the fury of the populace, who would not suffer the liturgy to be used, unless the collects and prayers for the King and royal family were omitted, which neither my conscience nor the declaration I made and subscribed when ordained would allow me to comply with ; and although I used every prudent step to give no offence even to those who usurped authority and rule, and exercised the severest tyranny over us, yet my life and property have been threatened, upon mere suspicion of being un- friendly to what is called the ' American cause.' Indeed, every clergy- man of the Church of England who dared to act upon proper principles,
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was marked out for infamy and insult, in consequence of which the Missionaries, in particular, have suffered greatly. Some of them have been dragged from their horses, assaulted with stones and dirt, ducked in water, obliged to flee for their lives, driven from their habitations and families, laid under arrests and imprisoned. I believe they were all (or at least most of them) reduced to the same necessity with me, of shutting up their churches." 1
The Rev. Mr. Preston, missionary at Amboy, N. J., on his return found
" his parsonage house so demolished that it was not habitable, the win- dows broken to pieces, the partitions torn down, and the outhouses and fences all burnt and destroyed."?
The Rev. Isaac Browne, after forty-three years' ser- vice on Long Island and in New Jersey,
" was forced at the outbreak of the civil war, to seek refuge in New York, leaving his wife, servants, and all the property of which he was possessed, in the hands of the enemy." 3
The Rev. Mr. Serjeant, of Cambridge, Mass., was obliged, with his whole family, to fly for the safety of their lives ; his fine church was turned into a barrack and the organ which it contained broken in pieces.4
Mr. J. W. Weeks, missionary at Marblehead, writes. under date of September 7, 1775 :
" The condition of your missionaries is truly deplorable : they have enemies all around them, and no friends but God and their consciences. I am now stripped of the comforts and conveniences of life ; my wife and a family of eight helpless children are obliged to seek shelter in a wilderness, the horrors of which they had never seen or felt before. And yet even there they have not been suffered to remain in quiet." 5
Many were the cases, like that of the Rev. Dr. Caner, who had been thirty years in Boston, doing work through-
1 Hawkins's Historical Notices, 139.
? Ibid., 161.
3 Ibid., 162. 4 Ibid., 245.
5 Ibid., 246. Anderson's Colonial Church, iii., 551.
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out Massachusetts and Connecticut, in which men fled at a few hours' notice, leaving all they had in the world, and escaping to places where their lives at least would be safe.
The Rev. John Graves, of Providence, R. I., writes, September 19, 1776, that after a ministry of twenty years, his two churches had been shut up, and all his means of support cut off, but that he still continued to baptize the children, visit the sick, and bury the dead, and do what work he could among the people.1
The Rev. Mather Byles, writing from Halifax, on May 4, 1776, states that not having been
" allowed to bring away my furniture, or anything that I possessed, but a couple of beds, with such articles as might be contained in a few trunks and boxes, I now see myself, without being guilty of any crime to occasion it, reduced within the compass of a few days, to the most distressing circumstances imaginable-an exile from my native country -pent up in one wretched chamber, in a strange place together with my five motherless children, one son and four daughters, deprived of every other earthly enjoyment, and entirely at a loss as to my future residence and subsistence.""
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