Annals of St. Michael's ; being the history of St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, for one hundred years 1807-1907 ;, Part 11

Author: Peters, John Punnett, 1852-1921, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New York, London, G. P. Putnam
Number of Pages: 578


USA > New York > New York City > Annals of St. Michael's ; being the history of St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, for one hundred years 1807-1907 ; > Part 11


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St. Michael's was now the centre of a great institu- tional and missionary life, several of the vestrymen were trustees in the institutions above described, or active in the City Mission Work, and not a few of the women of the parish were also concerned in those works, while a large part of the attendants at the Church were members of various institutions. That " portion of the auditorium immediately under the spire is reserved for the Sisters and the children under their charge, who are attached to the Sheltering Arms, while the whole of the west end for some six rows of pews deep is devoted in the same manner to the inmates of the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum."1 In a 1 Northender, 1867.


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A Children's Church


church whose capacity was 400, there were gathered every Sunday over 200 children from these two institutions.


St. Michael's was at this time pre-eminently a chil- dren's church. Apparently continuing and developing something which he found already in existence, Dr. Peters made Whitsunday afternoon the occasion of a great annual children's service in the church. Besides the children of the Sunday School, which was rapidly increasing in size, of the Leake and Watts and the Sheltering Arms, the children of the New York Orphan Asylum marched up to St. Michael's on that day, crowd- ing the little church with children down to the doors. At those services the children presented their missionary offerings, the New York Asylum for the support of a child in India (Presbyterian mission), the Sheltering Arms for a boy in Africa, etc., and the speaker on those occasions was ordinarily not a clergyman of the Church. To this day the Whitsunday children's festival is maintained, the children of the Sheltering Arms, the Protestant Half-Orphan Asylum, and the Darragh Home for cripples joining with the children of St. Michael's Sunday School in that service.


Dr. Peters dearly loved children, and understood them as only one can understand who also loves them. He knew every child in the institutions by name, and in the Sheltering Arms each year until the day of his death he named the dolls for all the little girls, never forgetting or repeating a name. Even children who did not know him would greet him, recognizing in him a comrade and a friend. In his later years, near Christ- mas time, one little child accosted him in the street as Santa Claus, and confided to him her holiday hopes and wishes.


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In 1867 the Executive Committee of the City Mis- sionary Society proposed to Dr. Peters that he should assume the practical direction and management of that society at a salary of $3000, still continuing to act, how- ever, as rector of St. Michael's Church. He laid the proposition before the Vestry, which at a meeting held December 7, 1867, by a vote of five to three, consented to his acceptance on condition that he should continue to conduct personally morning service at St. Michael's and should provide a competent assistant at a salary of $2500, to be paid by himself. The reason why this plan was not carried through is recorded elsewhere. It certainly was to the advantage of St. Michael's that it failed to become effective.


In the same year Dr. Peters commenced a new mis- sion work in a settlement of ragpickers and scavengers which had grown up to the west of Central Park, from 86th Street southward. The old residents of Central Park, the scavengers and ragpickers of a former period, were of mixed nationality, many of them negroes. At the opening of the Park this element disappeared and the new settlement consisted chiefly, if not altogether, of Germans. They were squatters, occupying little shanties on the rocks, their trade, so far as they had any, being to remove and dispose of ashes and garbage. A great quantity of the rubbish which they removed from shops and houses was piled up about their homes, so that the settlement was dotted with small mountains of ashes, fringed with tin cans and other rubbish. The houses were built largely of old boxes, thrown out as rubbish, and timbers salvaged from the river, on which were nailed tin cans beaten out flat. The settlement was intersected by a labyrinth of lanes into which it was dangerous for a stranger to venture alone, not so


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A Ragpicker Town


much on account of the people as on account of the dogs. These latter, many of which served to draw the ash and garbage carts, were often large and fierce, and when not harnessed up or engaged in fighting with one another acted as watch-dogs to their precincts, combining to attack every strange thing, man, beast or inanimate which entered therein. There was no sanitary provision in this large settlement for soul or body. For some time Dr. Peters sought in vain a way of entrance into this strange and neglected community. Then, in 1867, an outbreak of typhus fever, of which many died, gave him the entrance which he sought. He was sent for to say a prayer over the dead body first of one and then another, and soon became acquainted with the people. High up on the rocks, on one of the narrow, crooked lanes that wound among the wretched but picturesque shanties, one old fellow had built a rough board house, in which he kept a school, receiving a few pennies from each child per week. Dr. Peters, looking for some place in which religious services might be held, had fixed on this as the only possibility for such a pur- pose For some time he could not secure it and then suddenly and unexpectedly it came into his possession. He was called to officiate at a German funeral. It proved to be the funeral of the old schoolmaster him- self and was held in the unsealed, unplastered school- house, with its refuse boards for seats. After the service had been said and before the procession had de- parted for St. Michael's Cemetery, Dr. Peters comforted the widow, who was loudly bewailing her fate, thus left without support, by buying the house and contents for the sum which she asked. Here he at once com- menced a mission for the degraded and forsaken inhabi- tants of that settlement. The first public reference to


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Annals of St. Michael's


this work appears in the City Mission Report of the same year, and by 1870 a small church and school building, Bethlehem Chapel, had been constructed.


From this time on until 1886, Bethlehem Chapel was dependent partly upon the City Mission Society, partly upon St. Michael's Church, and throughout all this period its records, of baptisms, marriages, etc., were entered in the register of St. Michael's. From the outset of his work in the public institutions Dr. Peters had known how to utilize lay service, to the advantage of the laymen and laywomen rendering such service and the good of the work in which they served. So now, small and feeble as St. Michael's was, he still found in it men and women not only to man its own Sunday School, but also to conduct a Sunday School and industrial classes at Bethlehem Chapel, to visit there, and to contribute toward its support.


Shortly after the commencement of the work at Bethlehem Chapel, another great change began in Bloomingdale. The Boulevard, as it was at first called, now Broadway, was laid out and the land condemned for its construction. From this time on for the next twelve or fifteen years Bloomingdale was in an almost indescribable condition of upheaval and destruction. Every few months a new street was opened. These ran as deep cuts through the hills and as huge cause- ways of loose rocks over the valleys. In between were either low bottom lands, utilized by some thrifty Ger- man as a market garden, or rocky hills on the top of which, accessible only by strange stairways, hanging perilously to the sides of precipices, little modern shanties stood side by side with old tumble-down mansions. The streets were unpaved, except for a line of slate slabs forming foot-paths on either side,


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PERIOD OF TRANSITION: CUTTING THROUGH OF 94TH STREET Showing Old Barn and House on Mott Lane


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Street Building


which, after a little, settled, forming deep slanting holes, varied by sharp ridges where the edges of two slabs came together. Never by any chance were sewers, water-pipes, and the like provided for in the first con- struction of the street. Again and again were these new-made roads torn apart for the addition of these various adjuncts of a modern city highway. To the onlooker it seemed as though the special purpose of this method of construction was to increase the expense to the city and the profit to the politicians and con- tractors who engineered and built the streets. During that time the aqueduct was removed1 and the pipes laid under Tenth Avenue, which was consequently opened in fact as it long had been in law. This dis- turbed portions of the two old burying grounds of the church, and in 1872 it is reported to the Vestry that "six boxes of bones from the old church-yard at 99th Street and burying ground at 104th Street," have been reinterred in Astoria. The whole region was afflicted during this period with sickness of a malarial character, supposed to be due to continual tearing up of the land. The Rector's own family were obliged to leave Bloomingdale and seek health elsewhere, he only remaining at his post. Gradually order began to come out of this chaos. By 1880 the elevated railroad was running, and there were surface cars on Amster- dam Avenue. A number of streets had assumed their final shape, and blocks of houses were beginning to spring up here and there. Bloomingdale had dis- appeared forever and a new city was beginning to arise, with its interminable rows of apartment houses.


1Fragments of it remained for years lying between blocks, some sections serving as mushroom farms, some as residences, and some as general nuisances.


10


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Annals of St. Michael's


One of the results of the opening of the Boulevard was the removal of the Sheltering Arms. To accommo- date the increased number of children which the insti- tution was called on to provide for, an annex, a large wooden structure intended to be of a temporary char- acter, had been added to the original building in 1866. Through this the new road passed. When the Shelter- ing Arms sought new quarters, on the land adjoining St. Mary's Church, Manhattanville, originally acquired by Dr. Peters and Mr. Punnett for St. Michael's Free Church Society, Dr. Peters bought this annexand moved it to the northwest corner of 99th Street and old Bloom- , ingdale Road, where he had purchased three lots for the protection of the church property opposite. This build- ing he turned into Lyceum Hall, with lodge and club- rooms, as well as his own study and office, on the upper floor, Sunday School rooms on the second floor, and liv- ing apartments for the sexton, janitor, etc., on the first floor. To this building the Sunday School and the vari- ous clubs and organizations of St. Michael's Church were now transferred. It was a healthy and wholesome church life which found its centre in that building. In spite of the upheaval of the neighborhood the Church was steadily growing, from 79 communicants in 1864 to 150 in 1869, 179 in 1874, and 298 in 1879; but it was still small enough to render it possible for all the members to know one another, for Dr. Peters seemed to know how to give every one in the congregation a part to per- form. The altar was decorated in those days by flowers which were raised by the parishioners in their own gardens and many had a little patch, consisting, it might be, of only two or three little plants, set aside especially as "God's Garden," the flowers produced there being their tribute of beauty to God's house. All


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Poor Relief


the workers were organized into a guild, the different sections of which made reports at stated meetings of the whole, so that all shared in and were informed about the various works of the Church, both parochial and missionary. Every year there was a Sunday School excursion or picnic in which all took part, in the latter years always on the grounds of the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, and frequent gatherings of a more or less social character were held under the auspices of the Guild. Rev. C. T. Ward, who was assistant during a great part of this time, also conducted a singing school in Lyceum Hall, which was intended both to improve the congregational singing and also to serve as a social club for the young people of the neighborhood. Bloom- ingdale was still sufficiently cut off from the city at large to constitute an entity in itself; and the church still remained a country church inwardly as well as outwardly.


Besides its normal parochial work and the institu- tional work described above, St. Michael's was also, through its rector, during a considerable part of this period the almoner of the City for the entire upper west side. As in 1832 the City had made the then rector of St. Michael's, Rev. Wm. Richmond, a health officer, with power to order and spend as he saw fit; so now it made the Rector of St. Michael's the actual poor officer for the region from 59th Street to Kings- bridge, turning over to him the money to be distributed in out-of-door poor relief. He was the only person the city knew in the matter; but in carrying out the work entrusted to him he used to associate with himself as a committee, ex-Mayor Tiemann of Manhattanville and a Roman Catholic priest at Kingsbridge. Later when the Society for the Relief of the Poor districted the


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Annals of St. Michael's


city this region was left undistricted and turned over to St. Michael's. Even while rector of St. Mary's, in the hard times following the panic of 1857, Dr. Peters had given relief through work, by employing men to quarry and haul stones for a future St. Mary's, and to macad- amize Lawrence Street, and men seeking employment used to report at the Rectory; so now it was not an unusual sight, especially in periods of distress, like 1873, to see one hundred laborers gather of a morning at Lyceum Hall to ask for employment on some of the work of street construction and the like in progress in Bloomingdale.


In 1876 Dr. Peters became president of the House of Rest for Consumptives. This institution was at Tremont, but Dr. Peters contrived to bring it quite close to the church by appointing members of the parish to visit there, and engaging others to labor in providing clothing, papers, books, and the like for the inmates, Still closer to the life of the church came the Children's Fold and the Shepherd's Fold, of which he became presi- dent in 1877. A large number of children were in- stalled in the two houses behind Lyceum Hall, which still stand within the church close. The Mott house at 94th Street, and later the Heiser house, at 92d Street and 8th Avenue, were utilized for another consider- able section of children. Smaller groups of children were placed in the houses of various trusty parish- ioners. The city paid so much for the care of each child, the institution undertaking for that sum their care and training, providing by outside subscriptions whatever additional sum was needed for this purpose. In the neighborhood of three hundred children were cared for in the immediate vicinity of St. Michael's Church by these two institutions, and the whole parish,


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THE SECOND CHURCH, AFTER THE CLOSING OF BLOOMINGDALE ROAD AND THE OPENING OF TENTH AVENUE ABOUT 1880


To Left of Picture, Buildings Used for Children's Fold, and afterwards for Temporary Parish House


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Ringwood Mission


from the richest to the poorest, took perforce an in- terest in the children in their care, sewing for them, teaching them in the Sunday School and in indus- trial classes, visiting them, providing Christmas festivals in winter and excursions and outings in the summer, many also finding their profit in boarding the little ones themselves, receiving at the same time an education in home making under the supervision and direction of the authorities of the institution.


Besides this institutional work, Dr. Peters also under- took in these years a mission work in the mountain and lake country of northern New Jersey. Here the Cooper Hewitt interests owned large tracts of land with iron mines, Mr. Hewitt having his home at Ringwood, where Dr. Peters was a frequent guest. The people of that region were, when Mr. Hewitt first interested him- self in the mines, a half-savage population, living by fishing and hunting with a little cultivation of the soil; a mixed race, partly white, partly black, partly red, descended from the negro slaves who had worked the mines in the olden times and the Indian and white refugees who had drifted into the region. Mr. Hewitt undertook to civilize them by industry, education, and religion. For the latter he called on Dr. Peters for assistance. On his occasional visits to Ringwood Dr. Peters used to hold services in the school-houses which Mr. Hewitt built, and tramp through the mountains, visiting the people in their cabins, talking with them, instructing them in religion, and baptizing the children. Most of the inhabitants of middle age through that region to-day will tell you that they were baptized by him. In addition to this, regular services were held every Sunday in the school-house at Ringwood by one of Dr. Peters's assistants, or by a lay-reader, who gener-


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Annals of St. Michael's


ally was a member of St. Michael's parish. At one of Mr. Hewitt's villages, Charlottesburg, near Newfound- land, in a beautifully picturesque valley in the Ramapo Hills, Dr. Peters, in conjunction with the superintend- ent of the works, commenced to build a small church, the money for which was collected from St. Michael's congregation and personal friends. All this work was reported regularly at St. Michael's Guild meetings, so that the whole parish was kept personally in touch with the mission. Ultimately the iron works at Char- lottesburg were abandoned and the village deserted. The houses stood untenanted in the lonely valley, and the place came to be known as the "Deserted Village." Here until within a very few years could be seen the foundations of the church laid by parishioners of St. Michael's parish. As to the further history of the Ringwood mission-the Methodists began to build churches at intervals through the mountains, planting resident ministers in convenient centres. These men, who were on hand week-days and Sundays alike, were of the people, congenial to them. Finally, in 1892, Mr. Hewitt thought it best to withdraw his assistance from the Church mission and leave the work among the miners to the Methodists. Dr. Peters's mission, how- ever, had not been fruitless in good results either for the mountaineers or for St. Michael's parish which had assisted him.


During these years the church itself had gradually been made more comfortable and much more beautiful. In 1867 a vestry room was added at an expense of $650; and in 1873 this was enlarged to meet the needs of a growing choir. In 1867 also the organ was repaired and at the same time moved from the tower on the south of the chancel, where it had been heretofore, to


15I


A New Communion Service


the north side of the chancel. The tower thus freed was used to furnish much needed additional seats for children of the institutions. At the same time the church was carpeted at an expense of $350. In 1868 the church began to acquire its own Communion silver, the flagon dating from that year. In 1872 the Rector, in his annual sermon, told the people that the chalice and two patens, which had been used for the Commun- ion during the sixty-five years since the foundation of the church, belonged to Trinity. It was Queen Anne silver and Trinity asked for its return. In answer to his appeal a paten, chalice, and ciborium were purchased in that year. Two years later he suggested to the con- gregation that some of them had objects of silver or gold which had belonged to children or others now dead, which objects they did not like to use, and would not wish to have pass into the hands of others. These could be melted down to make an alms-basin, which would itself be a memento of the dear ones whose memory they cherished. The idea appealed to the congregation. Some of the gifts offered were very touching. For instance, the wife of a former warden put in the alms-basin some gold pieces which her hus- band had handed her for household purposes on the day he died, and which she had never been willing to spend. All these gifts which became thus the memorial of many departed ones, especially little children, were turned into the present alms-basin. The remainder of the Communion service was not procured until after 1880, the last piece dating from 1887.


On November 23, 1876, the Church Guild proposed to the Vestry to procure the painting and decoration of the church without expense to the latter, Messrs. Leo- pold Eidlitz & Son, the architects, offering their services


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Annals of St. Michael's


to design and oversee the work, and Messrs. D. F. Tiemann & Co. offering to furnish the paint, both being members of the congregation. The work was completed that winter and on April 14, 1877, thanks are returned to Messrs. Leopold Eidlitz & Son for planning and supervising the interior decoration of the church, which made it one of the most beautiful and attractive little churches in the city. A description of the proportions and architecture of the church contained in the North- ender of 1868 is recorded in the Vestry minutes at about that time:


It is fifty feet front by seventy deep, and the height from the floor of the nave to the peak is forty two feet. At the East end is the Chancel, which is fifteen feet deep by twenty wide. It has ample accommodations for the Bishop and six clergymen, besides room for conducting the services. The spire starts from the south side of the Chancel, and rises to eighty feet in height, its apex being crowned with an iron cross weighing 700 pounds. Adjoining the north side of the Chancel is the Choir, which contains an excellent organ of approved modern construction. Still beyond this, in a small building erected for the purpose, is the sacristy. The Chancel is lighted by a superbly designed and finished transparent window, with grained transoms, and mullions, the latter forming interlaced arches at the top, the whole being glazed with exquisitely elegant tinted and richly ornamental stained glass, in which various devotional emblems are faithfully depicted. Indeed, the whole of the glass throughout the house is finished in like appropriate and tasteful manner. On the sides of the main building the windows are petite and lancet shaped, while in the clerestory they are rectangular. The roof is supported by columns and trusses, the latter artistically braced and ornamented. The whole interior is of oak, as are the furniture and fittings throughout, with the single exception


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INTERIOR OF SECOND CHURCH About 1880


I53


Financial Position


of the Baptismal Font, which is of Caen Stone. The strict Gothic order of architecture is preserved, even in the most minute details of the interior and furniture. All of the floor- ing is neatly carpeted, most of the seats are comfortably cushioned; the ventilating and warming arrangements are excellent; the reflected light from the stained glass is most grateful to the eyes, and altogether this is among the most inviting Churches we have lately visited.


During those years also the work of the church was more effectively manned and its financial position greatly improved. During the rectorship of Mr. Rich- mond from time to time assistants had been appointed to enable him to found a new church or to carry on the large outside work in which he was interested. In 1867 begins the regular provision for an assistant for the Rector. In that year $200 was appropriated for that purpose, and from the report to the Convention we learn that Rev. A. H. Warner, later rector of the Church of the Beloved Disciple, was then appointed assistant- naturally at a much larger salary, the addition being provided by the Rector himself or from outside sources. The following year a larger sum, $500 was appropriated, and the Rev. C. T. Ward became assistant. And from that time on the Rector of St. Michael's had at least the assistance of one clergyman in his work. In the same year, 1867, we find the Vestry considering the question of the sale of the down-town property, and the reinvestment of the proceeds in land uptown. It was decided, however, to follow the more conservative and less speculative method of retaining the down-town property and gradually buying in the houses built on those lots. The first house so purchased was that on the lot at 56 Vesey Street, in 1869; and after that, from time to time, as opportunity offered and the old leases


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Annals of St. Michael's


fell in, the buildings were bought, and the property leased on shorter terms of three or five years.


In 1869, in his annual sermon, the Rector informed the congregation that the church owed a debt of $16,000, -$8000 of which had been incurred in the purchase of the cemetery at Astoria and the remainder in connec- tion with the erection of the church. Since the building of the church in 1854 the interest paid had been more than the original amount of the loan; and he urges the congregation to make an effort to remove the debt, which was not accomplished, however, until after 1879. In 1871 a printing press was purchased, and some of the young people about the church gave their services for the printing of notices, programmes, etc. This voluntary work continued to be given for some time and proved very valuable in the administration of the parish. Little by little the church began to use printing in a more extensive manner, and finally in 1880 the first year book, a report to the congregation and neighborhood of the work of the church, was issued. In the first issue of that annual periodical, which was very small and modest, much prominence is given to the collection then being made to complete the Com- munion service.




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