A history of the parish of Trinity Church in the city of New York, pt 1, Part 7

Author: Dix, Morgan, 1827-1908, ed. cn; Dix, John Adams, 1880-1945, comp; Lewis, Leicester Crosby, 1887-1949, ed; Bridgeman, Charles Thorley, 1893-1967, comp; Morehouse, Clifford P., ed
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: New York, Putnam
Number of Pages: 1084


USA > New York > New York City > A history of the parish of Trinity Church in the city of New York, pt 1 > Part 7


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44



64


History of Trinity Church


[1685-


the Bishop of London, whom the Church in the colonies regarded as the ordinary. The King, as the secular representative of the Church, performed what he con- sidered his duty ; for the Church and State were one, and he felt that he should be amenable to the people and incur serious risk if he failed to act. The situation was embarrassing for a Roman Catholic, but there was no alternative; and, therefore, distinguishing between James Duke of York and James King of England, he issued his orders. Dongan, his Governor, made the same distinction, and while keeping the Jesuit Harvey as his private Chaplain, he faithfully did his duty to the Church of England, never allowing his personal views to inter- fere with official duty, and using his influence at the same time to promote discipline among the various Protestant denominations. The task must have been both delicate and difficult to judge from Dongan's account of the state of religion in New York, which is as follows :


"New York has first a chaplain, belonging to the Fort of the Church of England ; secondly a Dutch Calvinist, thirdly a French Calvinist, fourthly a Dutch Lutheran. Here bee not many of the Church of England ; few Roman Catholicks ; abundance of Quakers 1 ; Sabbatarians ; Antisabbatarians ; Some Anabaptists, Some Indepen- dents ; some Jews ; in short of all sorts of opinions there are some, and the most part of none at all. The Great Church which serves both the English and the Dutch is within the Fort which is found to bee very inconvenient ; therefore I desire that there may bee an order for their building another, ground already being layd out for that purpose and they wanting not money in Store where with all to


Bishop of London was once more intrusted with the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in America. See Historical Collections of P. E. Hist. Socy., 1851, p. 137; Brodhead's New York, vol. ii., 456, 628.


1 There is abundant evidence to show that in New York and in the Jerseys the Quakers caused a great deal of trouble by their unruliness. See the letters of the Rev. George Keith and the Rev. John Talbot, and especially Keith's Report on the State of Quakerism in America, addressed to the Secretary of the S. P. G.


65


The State of Religion


1692]


build it. The most prevailing opinion is that of the Dutch Calvin- ists."1


The correctness of this sketch of the deplorable condi- tion of religion in America is confirmed by other authori- ties. In the year 1701, at a meeting of the Venerable Society held on the 19th September, a memorial was read from Colonel Morris, in which he speaks of the several townships of East Jersey as distracted by almost every variety of dissent, but with little appearance of real relig- ion among them. Piscataway he calls "the anabaptist town," so named because of some twenty persons of that sect, while the rest of the people were of all religions or none; Freehold was inhabited in part by Scotch Presby- terians, "a sober people," and partly by settlers from New England and New York who were "generally speaking of no religion." Of Middletown he says that "it is a large township ; there is no such thing as church or religion amongst them ; they are perhaps the most ignorant and wicked people in the world ; their meeting on Sundays is at the public-house, where they get their fill of rum, and go to fighting and running of races, which are practices much in use on that day all the province over." The youth of the whole province he describes as debauched and ignorant, and the Sabbath-day seemed to be set apart for rioting and drunkenness. Of West Jersey he speaks as "a hotch potch of all religions," and of Pennsylvania he gives a similar account. Another document was read at the same meeting from Colonel Dudley, Governor of New England, on the State of Religion in the English Planta-


' N. Y. Col. Docs., iii., 415.


The Chaplains during Dongan's administration were :


The Rev. Dr. Gordon, 1683 ;


The Rev. Josias Clarke, commissioned June 16, 1684, and served two years ; The Rev. Alexander Innes, commissioned April 20, 1686.


5


66


History of Trinity Church


[1685-


tion in North America, which shows how vast a field was presented for the ministrations of the Church.


There was now a population estimated as high as fif- teen thousand, though the number must have been greatly exaggerated, while the strength of the English was usually underrated. Dongan says: "I believe for these seven years last past, there has not come over into this province twenty English, Scotch, or Irish Familys, but of French there have since my coming here several familys come both from St. Christophers and England, and a great many more are expected."1 The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, October 22, 1585, it must be remembered, sent thousands of Protestants out of France. 2


Dongan's administration ended in April, 1688 ; his rule may be regarded as memorable. Smith says that he was characterized by " integrity, moderation, and genteel man- ners ; and, though a professed Papist, may be classed amongst the best of our governors," while Colden styles him an "honest gentleman " and an "active and prudent governor."


He labored under a disadvantage, being, like his Royal master, a decided Roman Catholic ; Protestants of the ex- treme type were intensely aggravated at seeing persons of that faith received in the city and allowed to become residents, while the Governor treated them with kindness and consideration, and worshipped with his adherents in one of the rooms of Fort James.4 Notwithstanding this,


1 N. Y. Col. Docs., iii., 399.


? See, on the French immigration, vol. i. of the Collections of the Huguenot Society of America, containing " Registers of the Births, Marriages, and Deaths, of the Église Françoise a la Nouvelle York," from 1688 to 1804, edited by the Rev. Alfred V. Wittmeyer, Rector of the French Church du Saint-Esprit ; and Historical Docu- ments relating to the French Protestants in New York during the same period. New York, 1886.


8 Mag. of Am. Hist., 1832, p. 106.


' Dr. Shea states that during its existence as a colony, New York was closed to the


67


Andros Appointed Governor


1692]


Hinckley, of Plymouth, testified that the Governor " showed himself of a noble praiseworthy mind of spirit ; taking care that all the people in each town do their duty in maintaining the minister of the place, though himself of a differing opinion from their way."


The year of grace 1688, memorable in English annals, beheld the completion of the long-cherished plans of James II. for the consolidation of his North American posses- sions ; it also witnessed his sudden and final disappearance from the stage of events. In the spring of that year, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and the Jerseys were annexed to New England, and the whole territory was made one Royal province. It lay between the two Governors Andros and Dongan which should be head over all under the King; for reasons about which histori- ans have disputed, and will continue to dispute, the choice fell on Andros. His commission as Governor of the entire province bears date March 23, 1688. Dongan, meanwhile, relieved of official duty, went into honorable retirement, with the commission of major-general of artil- lery. But ere the year was out, the man who had planned and carried on these comprehensive designs had ceased to reign ; a sudden change swept over the realm, and he was left without crown, kingdom, or home.


What madness possessed James II. it is, perhaps, for the psychologist to determine. England has never been patient of the rule of the Vatican1; she was Catholic


Roman clergy, "except during the period of the proprietorship of James as Duke of York and King of England. At that time a few Jesuit Fathers had a chapel in the Fort, facing the Bowling Green, and opened a Latin school." Proc. of the United States Catholic Historical Society," October 29, 1885, p. 10.


1 See the history of S. Augustine of Canterbury and his contests with the early Brit- ish Churches ; Council of Cloveshoo, A.D. 747 ; William the Conqueror's relations to the Papal See; Henry I. and his fight with Urban II. ; Bernard, Bishop of St. David's, A.D. 1115 : the Constitution of Clarendon, A.D. 1164 ; Robert Grostete, . Bishop of Lincoln, A.D. 1235 ; Statutes of Mortmain, A.D. 1279, and Provisors,


68


History of Trinity Church


[1685-


once, but never legally papal ; she may be Catholic again, but papal she never can be. That the power of the Ro- man Pontiff could be set up again in England by the aid of the British government, was the dream of a madman. Any form of Protestantism is, in the average English mind, preferable to what they speak of bitterly as " Po- pery"; and as soon as it became quite clear that the King aimed at restoring the old relations between the Vatican and the realm, and bringing back "the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities,"1 his doom was sealed. The Church led the way in the revolt ; her doctors and priests resisted the sovereign; her bishops went to the Tower rather than comply with the Royal will ; it was not the Puritan and Dissenting elements, but the stanch Church heart that bade defiance to the deluded monarch 2; and


A.D. 1350 ; the History of Wickliffe, A.D. 1324-1384; Statutes of Richard II. and Henry IV., A. D. 1377-1399-1413 ; Pope Martin V.'s complaints against the English government, A.D. 1417-1431. It was one long fight, from the Mission of Augustine down to the reign of Henry VIII., with varying successes and defeats.


1 So ran the old suffrage in the English litany : " From the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome and all his detestable enormities, Good Lord deliver us." It was in both Prayer-Books of Edward VI., but has ever since been omitted. (See Wheatley, Common Prayer, p. 191 ; Blunt, Annotated Common Prayer, p. 51.)


'" How thoroughly at this juncture the Church had compelled the respect and gratitude, not only of the more thoughtful of her sons, but of the masses of the Eng- lish people, by her determined stand against the wiles and threatenings of James, his- tory records, But it is hardly as well known as it should be that in this crisis the Church stood alone. Whatever was done by the nonconforming party was all in fa- vour of James and his romanizing measures. James spoke truth when, alluding to the conduct of the Dissenters, he declared that he had been encouraged by multitudes of addresses. Dr. Z. Grey gives eight addresses, and refers to eighty more couched in the same fulsome strain. The most active supporters of James were William Penn, the Quaker ; Stephen Lobb and Henry Carr, Dissenters. Calamy admits that James twice offered to make a sacrifice of all the Dissenters to the Church, if the Church would have complied with him. Finding Churchmen steady to the Constitution, he next faced about to the Dissenters and offered the like sacrifice of the Church. And the Dissenters yielded. The very excuses made by Calamy convict them. Neal con- fesses that the Dissenters have been a little ashamed of their compliance and silence in the Popish controversy in this reign. Hallam allows ' We have cause to blush for the servile hypocrisy of our ancestors ' (p. 658). The declaration for liberty is said to have been ' a contrivance of the English Presbyterians, or rather of their parsons.' Certain it


69


Accession of William III.


1692]


fired at the sight of the courageous attitude of these spiritual heads, the nation rose and drove the monarch not only from the throne but from the very soil itself. On the IIth of December, 1688, James II. abdicated, and the world looked on in amazement as it beheld a Dutch Calvinist coming across the channel from Holland to be the English King.


Tidings of these events reached America in advance of orders from the new sovereign. It was the signal for general confusion ; an outburst of Protestant excitement, a tormenting conflict between duty to conscience and allegiance to the new régime, suspicion, doubt, uncertainty were the immediate results. The Puritans of New Eng- land thought the occasion favorable to the recovery of their old position ; their ministers and congregations de. sired to regain their prestige and power ; and the way seemed open to their designs. There is little doubt, as became apparent afterward, that King William III. in- tended to carry out the wise policy of his predecessor, to maintain the consolidation of his American possessions, to allow the people a larger freedom and the choice of their own representatives in a popular assembly, and to secure to every one the enjoyment of his religious con- victions, while maintaining the rights of the Church of England, under the provisions of Magna Charta, as an es- sential part of the English State and Constitution. But this


is, that while Churchmen boldly attacked Rome, and defended the Anglican Church with much skill and learning, in a multitude of pamphlets, no similar efforts were made by the Nonconformists. Swift says, speaking of the bishops, 'If the Presbyterians ex- pressed the same zeal upon any occasion, the instances are not, as I can find, left upon record or transmitted by tradition ' (Works, vol. viii., p. 401). In the University pulpit at Oxford a preacher boldly declared : 'I shall not bring in here that all those noble defenses that were written against Popery in these times were done by the hands of Churchmen : all besides three cold pamphlets that stole out as it were in moonlight, as if the authors had been ashamed of them, and perhaps they had some reason ' (Til- ley's Sermons, quoted by Lathbury, Non Jurors, p. 14). Gibson gives the number of distinct treatises as 230." -- Church Quarterly Review for July, IS77, P. 323.


70


History of Trinity Church


[1685-


was not what the Puritans wanted; their ministers, regret- ting the loss of their oligarchical rule and disjointed con- federacy system, were always ready to secede and revolt. The leaders of what may be called the party of secession accordingly laid hold on the Royal Governor and having shut him up in prison, proceeded to patch up affairs on plans of their own. The effect of this course was felt no- where more disastrously than in New York. Sir Edmund Andros, after having been received there with military honors, on the turning over of the command by Dongan, had been called away to New England by the prospect of an Indian war ; and Francis Nicholson was left in charge of the town as Lieutenant-Governor. It was expected that he would take active steps against persons of the Roman Catholic religion, and particularly that he would see that "all images erected by Dongan in Fort James should be taken away"1; but in this particular the zealots of the day were grievously disappointed, for Nicholson ordered the workmen to assist John Smith, the Roman priest, in removing his altar to a " still better room" of the fort, and to arrange everything to his wishes. This was in sim- ple accordance with the Royal instructions, which, while not repeating those of Dongan, enjoined that liberty of conscience should be permitted to all persons, so they be contented with a quiet and peaceable enjoyment of it .?


On the arrival of the news of the abdication of James II. and the accession of the Prince of Orange a violent outburst, religious and political, took place in New York. The representative of the Governor was unequal to the crisis. There lived in the town at that time one Jacob Leisler, a German (not a Hollander), a person of quarrel-


I Brodhead, ii., 521.


" His instructions as Governor of Massachusetts have not been published, but a synopsis is found in Chalmers's Annals, i., 420, 421 ; see Brodhead, ii., 450.


71


The Leisler Rebellion


1692]


some disposition, with the elements of character which make up the demagogue, and with the pluck and shrewd- ness to take advantage of a crisis. This individual now came to the front; posing as champion of liberty, he soon attained the place of a successful usurper, seized the fort, took possession of the city government, organized a military rule, and for some years maintained himself in power. By a certain class of writers Leisler has been ex- tolled as champion of Protestantism, representative of popular freedom, enemy of tyrants, etc., etc. These delu- sions are dispelled, if one has patience to wait. Jacob Leisler was great in nothing but boldness, impudence, and a shrewd wit and cleverness. He persecuted Protestants and Catholics alike; ruled with a high hand, by no authority save his own ; and suffered, at last, the punish- ment due to his actions. He represented nothing save those elements of disorder and danger which exist in every civil organization, and have so often, in our own day, needed and received stern repression. In New York, in 1688, no one knew exactly who was king or what was coming next; and those were the circumstances under which Leisler became a possibility.


The Leisler rebellion is full of grotesque and surpris- ing episodes ; as an illustration of the ease with which an excited community can be led to make themselves ridicu- lous, it is complete. Europe was agitated by political and religious questions of the gravest importance ; their anxieties were reflected here, where no real danger existed. Here were to be seen men shouting themselves hoarse for civil and religious freedom, though neither the ecclesi- astical nor the civil rights of anybody were threatened ; dashing about with fanatical cries against "Popery," when the Roman Church had no foothold in the place; screaming for liberty, when no one was invading them or


-


72


History of Trinity Church


[1685-


threatening to do so. The state was simply one of anarchy, and in due time order was restored. Colonel Henry Sloughter was commissioned Governor of New York at the beginning of the year 1689 ; he did not arrive, however, till March 19, 1691. The Leisler bubble at once collapsed; the unfortunate man was seized, his forces scattered to the winds, and he was executed May 16, 1691. His terrible fate has given a factitious dignity to his name. He could no longer have been dangerous, and the result of his execution was merely to make him a martyr in the eyes of the partisan and the fanatic. It would have been better to let him go. A Leislerian fac- tion survived him and gave trouble for many years after- ward.


The instructions given to the new Governor by King William III. were, in the main, a repetition of those to Dongan; in some important particulars, however, they varied. They contained a provision aimed at the relig- ious liberty of members of the Roman communion, who were not only debarred from the right to worship in pub- lic, but were denied liberty of "conscience," whatever that meant. The clause runs as follows : "You are to per- mit liberty of Conscience to all Persons (except Papists) so that they be contented with a quiet and peaceable en- joyment of it, not giving offense or scandall to the Govern- ment." 1 The appearance of this clause in the instructions is readily accounted for, as the result of the recent politi- cal excitement at home.


The Charter of Liberties received from the Duke of York Oct. 30, 1683, granted religious freedom to all ; but on May 13, 1691, the Council passed a bill, similar in its general features, but omitting the parts giving free- dom of worship, and expressly declaring that it was not


' N. Y. Col. Docs., iii., 689.


73


Miller's Plan for an Episcopate


1692]


the design "to give liberty for any persons of the Romish religion to exercise their manner of worship contrary to the laws and statutes of their Majesty's Kingdom of Eng- land." 1


In the summer of 1692 the Rev. John Miller arrived in New York, with a commission of chaplain to two com- panies of grenadiers. He remained in the province till 1695, when he sailed for home ; but the vessel was capt- ured by a French privateer, and all his papers were destroyed. On reaching London he wrote a book dedi- cated to the Bishop of London in which he reviewed the state and history of New York, and gave plans and ideas of his own, including a scheme for the establishment of an Episcopate in the province. His plan was to unite the governments of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, station a bishop at New York as suffragan to the Bishop of London, and allow him " as Governor" £1500 per annum, together with all licenses of marriage and probates of wills, and the things usually belonging to bishops in England, adding the King's Farm as a seat for himself and his successors.2


1 " No Persons or Person which profess Faith in God by Jesus Christ, his only Son, shall at any time be any way molested, punished, disturbed, disquieted, or called questions for any Difference of Opinion, or matter of Religious Concernment, who do not under that pretence disturb the Civil Peace of the Province, etc. And that all and every such Person and Persons may from time to time, and at all times hereafter, freely have and fully enjoy his or their Opinion, Perswasions and Judg- ments in matters of Conscience and Religion thro'out all this Province; and freely meet at convenient places within this province, and there Worship according to their respective Perswasions, without being hindered or molested, they behaving themselves peaceably, quietly, modestly, and Religiously, and not using this liberty to Licentious- ness, nor to the civil Injury or outward Disturbance of others. Always Provided, That nothing herein mentioned or contained shall extend to give liberty to any per- sons of the Romish Religion to exercise their manner of worship, contrary to the Laws and Statutes of their Majesty's Kingdom of England." (Bradford's Laws, p. 4, Ed. 1710.)


º N. Y. Col. Docs., iv., 182. A full account of the Miller episode may be found in Bishop Perry's Hist. Am. Church, vol. i., 160, 161. His book, left in MS., was published in 1843, the title reading thus : A Description of the Province and .


74


History of Trinity Church


[1685-


Steps were now taken toward the full recognition of the Church of England in the province as an integral part of the English State and Constitution, which undoubtedly it was. Under the old and loose adminis- tration of ecclesiastical affairs guided by a temporizing policy, all Protestant denominations had been kept on an equality and protected by the laws, the claims of their respective clergy being enforced by the governors to a certain extent.1 But the time had now arrived when the position of the Church of England was to receive due recognition. Governor Sloughter was empowered by his commission "to colate any Person or Persons in any Churches, Chappels, or other Ecclesiastical benefices with- in our said Province and Territories aforesaid as often as any of them shall happen to be void."? Not, perhaps, without a suggestion from London, the Governor, with the approval of his Council, called the attention of the Assembly to the importance of providing for the settle- ment of a ministry in every town. The Assembly no doubt saw the design from the beginning, and were re- solved, if possible, to defeat it, but, pursuing a temporiz- ing policy, they reported, April 18, 1691, " A Bill for City of New York, with plans of the City and several Forts as they existed in the year 1695. 8°. London. Thomas Rodd, 1843. See Gowan's Bibliotheca Americana ; also a new edition with an introduction and copious historical notes, by John Gilmary Shea, LL.D., published by Gowan in New York in 1862.


"That his Majesty will please to give him the farm in New York commonly called the King's Farm, for a seat for himself and successors, which, though at pres- ent a very ordinary thing, yet will it admit of considerable improvement ; and since this farm, renting at present for sixty bushels of wheat per annum, in the whole at four shillings per bushel, amounting to {12 New York money, is at present an ad- vantage to the governor, that I may not seem to care how much I impoverish the governor, so I enrich the bishop, I further propose that the bishop be obliged when himself is not governor to render an equivalent to the present rent, either by giving yearly so many loads of hay, or by settling so much land where he please, within two miles of New York, as shall be sufficient for that purpose, or to pay the sum of money itself, which shall be best approved of " (p. 62).


1 N. Y. Col. Docs., iii., 415.


2 Ibid., 625.


75


Death of Governor Sloughter


1692]


Settling the Ministry, and allotting a maintenance for them in every respective city and town that consists of forty families and upwards." The introduction of this bill was a part of a general plan of obstruction ; its propo- sitions were unpractical, and on May I following it was rejected.


Governor Sloughter died, July 23, 1691, two months after the execution of the unfortunate Leisler. He was succeeded by Benjamin Fletcher, who arrived in New York, August 29, 1692. Under this Governor, Trinity Church came into existence, and here the record of the annals of the venerable parish begins.




Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.