USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 21
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pioneer into new country. Unquestionably the hazards, hardships, and poverty of the frontier brutalized many immigrants until they were as wild as the savages they replaced.
The Episcopal church in colonial days enjoyed official status as the Church of England and received some public monies in New York, Queens, Richmond, and Westchester counties. Despite these advantages, it certainly had less than one-tenth of the population in its membership. The Revolution brought on a crisis for the Anglican communion, since its clergy and many of its leading laymen favored the Crown. In 1777 the new state constitution confirmed the disestablishment already carried out and guaranteed the "free exercise and enjoyment of religious profes- sion and worship, without discrimination or preference ... to all man- kind." A series of statutes in 1784 permitted all religious bodies the right to incorporate, and thus to hold property.
The formation of the national Protestant Episcopal church in 1789 was preceded in New York by the elevation of the patriotic Reverend Samuel Provoost to the first bishopric for New York. His selection helped to remove the Tory taint, and during the 1790's the Episcopal church made steady gains in the metropolis and even upstate. Greater progress took place after John Henry Hobart came to Trinity Church in 1801. Hobart was an ardent High-churchman and a born organizer who used the resources of Trinity Church to push missionary activity throughout the state. Whereas there were only two Episcopal missionaries upstate in 1811, there were fifty in 1830. Many persons of social prominence and inherited wealth and many Federalist politicians belonged to the Episcopal church.
The Revolution speeded the drift of the Dutch Reformed church toward complete independence of Amsterdam. Dr. John H. Livingston arranged in 1794 for the convening of a General Synod which marked the church's reorganization along national lines. A major problem was the recruitment of a professionally trained clergy independent of Amster- dam. Although the Reformed church had founded a seminary at New Brunswick (New Jersey) in 1784, it drew many of its clergymen from the other Calvinist churches. The Dutch church showed little initiative either in seeking out souls on the frontier or in winning adherents from among the immigrants; in fact, many congregations lost their young people to other churches by stubbornly clinging to the Dutch language, some as late as 1800.
No sect enjoyed so favorable a position in New York after the Revolu- tion as the Presbyterian. Its unquestioned patriotism, its firm hold on the middle class and particularly the farmer, and its friendly relations with Connecticut Congregationalism permitted this denomination to expand rapidly back in Manhattan and upstate. By 1825 it had twenty-
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one churches in the metropolis, but, much more important, it had gathered in a large number of Yankee frontiersmen.
The Yankee migration to New York would normally have meant the transplanting of Congregationalism westward. But the delegates of the Connecticut General Association were co-operating closely in the 1790's with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church in carrying on mission work. In 1801 the two denominations drew up the famous Plan of Union which permitted churches of the Congregational order to settle Presbyterian ministers and yet retain the Congregational form of gov- ernment. Presbyterian churches were accorded the same privilege of electing Congregational preachers and a Congregational form of govern- ment.
The Presbyterian church derived more benefit from this arrangement because most Congregational associations had united with the Presby- terian synods by 1822. For example, the Association of Ontario dis- solved and joined the Presbytery of Geneva. Why did the Yankees adopt the Presbyterian form? First of all, there was very little difference theologically between the two groups. Moreover, Congregationalism in Connecticut was trending toward Presbyterian polity. There was a tra- dition of co-operation between the two groups. The Presbyterian church had a more centralized organization, which enabled its leaders to take more interest in the mission churches of New York. In passing, we should note that the Presbyterian churches in New York retained some of the New England tradition of independence and congregational autonomy. They also tended to dilute the orthodox Calvinism so rigidly adhered to by the Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania.
The Methodists made the most spectacular gains during this period. Whereas they had only one small congregation in New York City in 1776, they had fifteen in 1825 as well as scores of churches upstate. The Wesley message of free grace was spread by lay preachers, who were often the first to reach the unchurched common people. These itinerant preachers sought converts without regard to race or social status. They had little formal education or training, but they knew how to reach the hearts of the rank and file. Equally important was the class leader whose duty was to oversee the spiritual welfare of a small group of members. Presiding elders and visiting bishops carefully super- vised the local congregations.
The Baptists also made important gains, winning some forty thousand members by 1825. Its loose organization, its flexibly defined creed, and its reliance upon lay preachers made it easy for the Baptists to adapt to the needs of the locality. Like the Methodists, the Baptists made their greatest appeal to the humble folk in city and country.
The German population in New York City and in the Hudson,
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Schoharie, and Mohawk valleys had established Lutheran, German Reformed, and Moravian churches in colonial times. A new wave of German immigration after 1815 brought new strength to the older congregations, although the young people tended to drift away from the churches retaining the German language in the service.
The Society of Friends, although it numbered only a few thousand members, was outstanding because of its charitable and humanitarian activities. Quakers Thomas Eddy and John Murray were active in the fight for penal reform, the emancipation of slaves, and the erection of free schools for the common people. During the 1820's Elias Hicks, the Long Island carpenter, preached to thousands the message of the "inner light." The more conservative disliked Hicks' neglect of Christ, and in 1827 the society split. Quaker meetings in rural New York gradually declined throughout the nineteenth century.
The small group of Catholics who had worshiped in secret before the Revolution welcomed the guarantee of religious freedom incorporated in the state Constitution of 1777. The state oath of naturalization, how- ever, required all citizens to renounce allegiance to any foreign ruler in "all matters ecclesiastical as well as civil." This proviso fell into disuse in 1790 with the new federal naturalization law. Sixteen years later the legislature rephrased the oath so as to permit Catholics to hold office.
At first the Catholic church grew slowly. In 1800 it still had only two churches. Several problems troubled its leaders: the unusual assumption of power by lay trustees over local congregations; the lack of sufficient clergymen and churches; the influx of immigrants of various nationalities; the suspicions of many native Americans. Bishop John Connolly (1814- 1825) worked hard to take care of the immigrants and to smooth over quarrels within his flock. By 1825 Roman Catholicism had sent down deep roots in the state, but evangelical Protestantism dominated the culture.
"Liberal thought" likewise had its followers. The Universalists sent out itinerants into the rural areas and by 1823 had established nearly ninety congregations in western New York. The orthodox preachers denounced the Universalists as heretics because of their refusal to insist upon the deity of Jesus and upon human depravity. Unitarianism made few con- verts in New York prior to 1825.
The Jewish population of New York remained small throughout this period. In 1812 there were probably no more than five hundred Jews in New York City, most of them of Spanish-Portuguese background and engaged in foreign commerce. The Jewish congregation was the center of Hebrew life.
The "Second Awakening" which spread southward from Maine to Connecticut during the 1790's reached New York by 1799 and brought
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showers of "spiritual blessings." The "New Divinity" school of clergy in Connecticut provided leaders for this crusade against infidelity and irreligion. No longer did they regard man as a mere pawn in the hands of an implacable God. Rather they stressed the responsibility of each individual to carry on good works as a means to salvation or at least as a demonstration of his regeneration. The awakening had far-reaching results for the United States and for New York in particular: the be- ginning of Protestant missionary activity on a large scale; the develop- ment of the "activity church," with organizations such as missionary societies and Sunday schools; and the crusade for humanitarian reforms which began in this period but reached its height between 1830 and 1850.
The New York frontier was the favorite field for the Yankee benevo- lent societies because so many New Englanders were taking up land west of the Hudson. Many residents of New York became converted and joined the missionary crusade. By 1825 the Protestants in the Empire State were outstripping their Connecticut neighbors in revivalism, mis- sionary activity, and reform crusades.
The most notable revivals came in 1799-1800, 1807-1808, and 1815, forerunners of the famous campaigns conducted by Charles Finney between 1825 and 1843. These revivals stimulated almost all denom- inations. The Presbyterians alone established thirteen new churches in New York City between 1810 and 1830.
Interdenomination co-operation both on the local and state levels made some progress. For example, in 1796 the Presbyterians, the Dutch Re- formed, and the Baptists formed the New York Missionary Society to send missionaries to the Indians and the frontier settlements. Most sig- nificant of all was the close co-operation between the Congregational Association of Connecticut and the Presbyterian church, which was formalized by the famous Plan of Union in 1801. By 1830 this Calvinist coalition had organized the American Home Mission Society, the Amer- ican Bible Society, and several other benevolent organizations.
Religious eccentricity emerged before 1825, although its luxuriant growth took place after that date. The Shakers established communities at New Lebanon and at Sodus Bay and won a few converts to the Shaker tenets: celibacy, nonresistance, full equality for women, and perfec- tionism. Equally fascinating but likewise numerically unimportant was the Community of the Publick Universal Friend which Jemima Wilkinson founded on Seneca Lake in 1787 and moved to Jerusalem, Yates County, a little later. This eccentric woman preached doctrines of celibacy, equality of the sexes, and communal living. These religious phenomena were certainly not typical and cannot be compared with the much more
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important activities carried on by the clergymen of the major denom- inations.
Comparatively little is known about the fraternal lodges except that by 1826 the Masonic Order had established chapters in many sections of the state. The lodges tended to attract men from the upper classes in the villages and cities-lawyers, land agents, politicians.
Prior to 1825 education was largely supported by private charity and local government. The concept of free, public, secular education had won some converts, especially among the followers of Jefferson. In 1782 Governor George Clinton urged the legislature to establish schools and seminaries, and two years later the lawmakers heeded sufficiently to his request to create the University of the State of New York, an organization supervised by a Board of Regents and authorized to establish secondary schools and colleges. The Regents in 1787 boldly advocated a public school system since the "erecting of public schools for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic is an object of very great importance which ought not to be left to the discretion of private men, but be promoted by public authority."
The legislature acted cautiously, passing an experimental act in 1795 which granted $50,000 annually for the next five years to encourage elementary schools. To receive a state subvention, a county had to raise an amount equal to one-half the state grant. The results were heartening; some 1,352 grammar schools in 1799 were instructing almost 60,000 students. In addition the Regents authorized several academies for secondary education. In 1800, however, the state legislature abandoned the experiment so that the Regents had to resort to lotteries to obtain funds.
Meanwhile, various churches continued charity schools for the poor children, and the middle and upper classes sent their children to private schools or employed tutors. In 1805 Thomas Eddy, a Quaker reformer, organized the Free School Society of New York City to educate those children not provided for by the various religious schools. This organi- zation, under the able leadership of De Witt Clinton, went ahead rapidly, obtaining some support from both state and city treasuries. In 1824 the society had an enrollment of over five thousand students in six schools. Similar nonsectarian charity schools were established in Brooklyn and Albany.
A permanent system of common schools, with school districts for each township, was set up by the legislature in 1812. Jedediah Peck of Otsego County was the moving spirit behind the report favoring the system of common schools. Two years later the revised law added a compulsory
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proviso that each town must match state aid. Progress was made under the brilliant leadership of Gideon Hawley, the first state superintendent of common schools in the United States. By 1825 New York schools were probably the best of any state in the Union. The figures for 1828 were encouraging: some 441,856 children were attending school in 8,298 school districts.
The public school movement met opposition from taxpayers and conservatives. Some poor families in New York and Brooklyn preferred that their children remain uneducated rather than have them bear the stigma of "charity scholars." Approximately one-third of the children of Brooklyn in 1828 did not attend any school. Upstate, the common school was accepted more widely as part of the democratic organization of society. In rural communities of freeholding farmers there were few distinctions between children.
Cold, poorly lighted, and containing only rough benches, the log schoolhouses of this period had none of the fads and frills which ornament our modern school buildings. The teacher was usually an impoverished youth with only a rudimentary education himself. He in- structed children of all ages and in all stages of advancement during the winter term of two or three months. He often got his pay by "boarding round" with the parents of his charges. Despite his lack of training and the primitive conditions under which he worked, he suc- ceeded in teaching his students to read the Scriptures and to figure profits in a business transaction. In addition, he imparted a rough kind of moral discipline by expounding the lessons contained in Biblical passages and by applying the birch rod.
Secondary education expanded under private auspices but with some financial encouragement by the Regents. Every city and many villages had seminaries or academies where the children of the wealthier classes could receive instruction in the genteel as well as the "tool" subjects. Sometimes denominations sponsored academies for boys and seminaries for girls. There were also mixed schools, but teachers carefully shep- herded boys and girls into separate classes. Young ladies received in- struction in good manners, sewing, music, dancing, and French. Boys preparing for college studied the classical languages and mathematics. The academies had a precarious existence because of competition and lack of financial resources.
Higher education received its first attention in 1784 and 1787 when the acts providing for the University of the State of New York provided for the reincorporation of King's College as Columbia College. Dr. William Samuel Johnson was appointed the first president of the in- stitution, which in 1787 had only thirty students and three professors. During the next decade Columbia grew rapidly and offered new sub-
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jects, such as modern languages, chemistry, and moral philosophy, in addition to the old classical curriculum.
Union College, chartered in 1795, was the first new college begun by the Regents. Its trustees selected the Reverend Eliphalet Nott in 1804 as president, and he held this position until 1866. Hamilton College received its charter in 1812 and became a stronghold of Calvinism and the classical curriculum. In 1824 the Board of Regents awarded a charter to Geneva (Hobart) College after it had met the necessary conditions as to endowment, buildings, and staff.
These colleges suffered the usual troubles of infant institutions: internal quarrels, inadequate income, and boisterous students. Their importance was recognized by the state, which granted generous subsidies. Columbia College received a total of $140,130; Union, $358,111; and Hamilton, $120,000. New York State could also draw upon young men educated in the colleges of New England. Throughout the first half of the nine- teenth century a good share of the lawyers, clergymen, teachers, and doctors of New York were graduates of Yankee colleges.
Newspapers provided most of the reading material available to the early New Yorker, although only a small minority of the people could afford the high cost. Papers sprang up first in New York City, which by 1785 had its first daily, the Daily Advertiser. Within the next thirty years wandering printers carried presses to practically every village in the state. At first, the printer was also the editor. His job was described in 1830 as follows:
A country editor is one who reads newspapers, selects miscellany, writes ar- ticles on all subjects, sets type, reads proof, works at press, folds papers and some times carries them, prints jobs, runs on errands, cuts and saws wood, works in the garden, talks to his patrons who call.
The small number of subscribers were chiefly interested in getting news of political happenings in the state and national capitals and of com- mercial and military events in Europe. Gossip took care of local matters. The community news was the recording of deaths and marriages. Ad- vertisements contained some information on local events and have become a mine of information to historians, although an advertisement generally indicated only the nature and location of the business. "Personals" calling for the return of indentured apprentices or warnings by irate husbands that they would no longer be responsible for the debts of wives provided a certain amount of local news. The testimonials for patent medicines had already made their appearance prior to 1825.
The printer-editor-publisher usually found it difficult to secure enough paying subscribers and advertisers to finance his newspaper. Most
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papers, therefore, ardently supported a political party or faction. In this way they secured subscribers, while party leaders awarded them job printing contracts and paid them for publishing legal notices. This arrangement satisfied the politicians, who counted on their papers to belabor their enemies and to spread party viewpoints to the public. The emphasis on partisanship led to vituperation beclouding the real issues and resulted in many suits at law.
The Federalists dominated the first newspapers in New York and established the first journals outside the metropolis. Probably the out- standing Federalist paper of the period was the Evening Post, which Alexander Hamilton had supported. The Anti-Federalists and later the Jeffersonian Republicans founded journals in self-defense. Publishers were frequently hot-tempered and strong-willed individuals who jumped party traces. An interesting case is that of Elihu Phinney, who established the Otsego Herald at Cooperstown in 1795 with the support of William Cooper and other Federalist leaders. But Phinney broke with Cooper within a few years and, casting his lot with the Jeffersonian Republicans, made his fortune in the publishing business.
The printer was an agent of literacy and occasionally of culture. He included some verse and fiction in his paper, reprinted sermons, and carried articles on agriculture. Some of the more successful printers operated bookstores and reading rooms where their customers examined new books and glanced at newspapers.
James D. Bemis, who settled in Canandaigua in 1804, became known as "Father of the Western New York Press." Bemis made the Ontario Repository an outstanding Federalist journal and trained scores of ap- prentices in his office and bookstore. Perhaps his most famous imprint was James E. Seaver's Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison (1824). This account described the life of a white girl captured by the Indians and reared among the natives. Phinney's firm in Cooperstown became famous for its annual Phinney Calendar (100,000 copies a year), its quarto. Family Bible, and its school texts and children's books. William Williams of Utica published histories, biographies, and novels and specialized in the publication of religious periodicals.
The books stocked in the various bookstores reflect in a rough way the literary tastes of the period. There were books for all tastes: Bibles, Psalms, prayer books, and tracts for the religious; Burns's Obstetrical Works for the village doctor; Ostrander's Arithmetic and Kirkham's Grammar for the teacher; Scottish Chiefs, or novels such as Charlotte Temple and Fragments of Miss Smith, for the ladies; the American Magazine and Review, Niles' Weekly Register, and other periodicals for the businessman; legal digests and reports for the lawyers. School-
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books were also an important line, both for the printer and the students.
The landlords and merchants were the only persons with sufficient income to make regular book purchases and to build libraries. In 1796 the legislature encouraged the formation of library associations by per- mitting incorporation on easy terms. As a result, citizens banded to- gether to form hundreds of societies with circulating libraries. For example, the Auburn circulating library had eight hundred volumes in 1816, for which members paid yearly dues of three dollars or a fee for each volume borrowed (six cents for a duodecimo or smaller and twelve and a half cents for an octavo). Students at Hamilton, Union, and Columbia organized literary societies which not only managed de- bates but also bought and circulated books among their members. Similar steps were taken in New York City by skilled craftsmen. In 1820 the Mercantile Library Association and the Apprentices' Library Association were organized.
New York State wrested literary leadership from Philadelphia during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving dug deep into the lore of colonial New York, and James Fenimore Cooper won a large audience with his novels of sea and wilderness. These authors, disturbed by the rise of manufacturing and democracy, sought refuge in romantic flight into the past and the realm of nature.
An indulgent family gave Irving plenty of opportunity to experiment with literary forms. In 1807 he and his brother William in collaboration with James Paulding brought out Salmagundi, which spoofed New York customs in a genteel fashion. Two years later there appeared Irving's vigorous and genial burlesque, Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York, a caricature of the early Dutch founders as lethargic and simple- minded folk ruled by the redoubtable Wouter Van Twiller. This, the first important satirical work in this country, was in many respects Irving's best effort. His Sketch Book (1819), largely a tribute to English life and manners, included the famous New York stories, “Rip Van Winkle" and the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Irving's later works on Spanish history and on the American West lacked the freshness and spontaneity he brought to his New York themes.
James Kirke Paulding, after making his mark in Salmagundi, continued to write short stories, novels, poetry, and drama until mid-century. Although never so polished a craftsman as Irving, Paulding wrote more realistically about his native New York. He attacked the literary use of such romantic devices as ghosts, superstitions, and exotic foreign settings when popular acclaim for the Waverley novels of Sir Walter Scott was at its height. His writings also reflect his Anglophobia and his belief in
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