Annals of St. Michael's ; being the history of St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, New York, for one hundred years 1807-1907 ;, Part 22

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 22


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churches because of what one might call the Church corporation interests affected thereby. A small body of gentlemen, of which Dr. Peters was the head, sub- scribed a capital equal to the reputed capital of the largest Church paper of that day, to establish a new and free paper if necessary. Before actually estab- lishing such a paper, however, it was agreed that the situation should be thoroughly tested. Accordingly Dr. Peters prepared a series of twelve articles on free churches which he offered to the editor of the Church- man. The latter agreed to publish them in successive issues of the paper. After a few had been published there came a sudden cessation, and on inquiry it was learned from the editor that the rectors of certain of the large churches had made so earnest a protest to him against the publication of such radical matter that he had thought it best to stop their publication so as not to offend valuable and influential clients. He was told forthwith of the arrangements which had been made in case no place could be found in the Church press for the publication of this or other similar material dealing with live issues and root principles, and the publication of the remaining papers was at once resumed and completed. To-day, it is needless to say, there would be no need of using a club to secure the admission of such articles into the journal which regarded it with apprehension for the safety of its subscription and advertising lists at that date.


In 1857 Mr. Peters organized a Church pay school in Manhattanville. Among others whose interest he had enlisted in his mission work were two young men, then studying for orders, S. H. Hilliard, now the Secretary of the Church Temperance Society in Massachusetts, and Leighton Coleman, now Bishop of Delaware. They


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A Parish School


became inmates of his house for purposes of work and study, and Mr. Hilliard was made the teacher of this school. It was intended to be a classical school, under Church influences, for the education of the children of the more cultivated classes in the upper part of the island, where no high grade schools at that time existed. A building was erected on the land acquired for St. Mary's Church, and in this building the school was conducted until 1864, by which time the removal of residents of the class for whose children the school was originally designed on the one side and the increased facility of communication with the city on the other side, rendered it superfluous. Among others who had charge of this school during its existence was the late Bishop Seymour of Springfield.


Interested in all sorts of neighborhood and benevolent works, Mr. Peters was at this period, in conjunction with Dr. Williams, Mr. Tiemann, Mr. Punnett, Dr. Brown, and others, instrumental in starting a dis- pensary in Manhattanville, out of which ultimately grew the Manhattan Hospital (now the J. Hood Wright), of which he was first vice-president. He was also a leader in founding the Manhattan Library, which occupied for many years a brick building in Man- hattanville and was a valuable educative agent in that neighborhood. A change of population in the years following Mr. Peters's departure from St. Mary's rendered it impossible to continue its support and it was finally abandoned about 1866 or 1867. A minute of the City Mission Society in the latter year records the purchase of the books of that library for distribu- tion in the public institutions.


On the death of Mr. Richmond, in September, 1858, Mr. Peters was called to the rectorship of St. Michael's


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Church. In accepting this call he resigned from St. Mary's Church, which was now able to support a rector of its own, and from All Angels' Church, which had at last been placed on a footing which enabled it to stand by itself, with some assistance from Trinity Church, for it was always his desire, at the earliest. possible moment, to make the churches which he was instrumental in establishing free and independ- ent and to compel them to stand upon their own base.


For himself his resignation of the charge of those two churches meant greater freedom to devote himself to new and more extensive missionary labors. Mr. Rich- mond's widow had during her husband's lifetime devoted herself especially to a mission work among fallen women and had organized the House of Mercy in 1854. After Mr. Richmond's death, Mr. Peters became her assistant and adviser in her chosen field of labor. She was full of zeal and enthusiasm, but not always practical or wise in her methods, and needed precisely such a helper and guide to make her work practicable and durable.


In 1859 the House of Mercy acquired the old Howland mansion, at the foot of 86th Street, on the North River. It was an old-fashioned house, with a great entrance hall, large library, reception and dining rooms, and a broad staircase to the stories above, reminiscent of the prosperity and luxury of a former day, but entirely without what we call modern conveniences. Not a few of the rooms could be lighted only by candles. It was just the sort of a house which children would choose to play hide-and-seek in, and after sunset it was a place full of mysteries and dark shadows. Into this old house Mrs. Richmond had gathered from the streets


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A Sisterhood


of New York a number of girls with whom she now made her home. They were wild, impatient of re- straint, often dangerous, and however willingly they might have originally come to the House of Mercy, finding themselves confined there for a definite period, they were always planning some method of escape. Mrs. Richmond had showed incomparable zeal and courage in gathering these women off the street. She proved quite incompetent to act as house mother of such a household, especially as she was engaged at the same time in founding other institutions and missions dealing with other phases and departments of the work. The conditions within the House of Mercy finally became so intolerable that she was compelled to appeal to Mr. Peters for help.


About 1856 Dr. Muhlenberg had organized a Sister- hood of the Holy Communion for the care of St. Luke's Hospital, the principal spirit in which was Sister Anne, who bore the title of First Sister. Into this sisterhood was admitted in the following year Miss Harriet Starr Cannon, originally of South Carolina, a woman of strong and dominant character. In the course of a few years dissension arose within this paro- chial sisterhood, and finally Sister Anne, finding that her ideas in regard to the methods and government of the sisterhood were not approved by some, if not most of its members, resigned her position. Dr. Muhlenberg thereupon declared the sisterhood dissolved by the withdrawal of its head, and proposed a new organization, a company of Christian ladies who should work under Miss Ayres (Sister Anne) as matron of the hospital. Miss Cannon and three associates felt themselves to have been badly treated by Dr. Muhlenberg and with- drew from association with his work. Indeed, so


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strong was their feeling in the matter that they refused, in the following year, even to meet him.


It was precisely at this period, when these four women, zealous and capable, with considerable ex- perience in work, found themselves without a vocation or occupation, that the House of Mercy was thrown on Mr. Peters's hands. Through his intimate acquaintance with Dr. Muhlenberg Mr. Peters was well acquainted with those who worked under him. Others looked somewhat askance at the "Sisters," who were felt to have deserted St. Luke's. Mr. Peters realized their character and their merits and in this emergency he turned to them to take charge of the House of Mercy, and in the following year enlisted their services to take charge of the Sheltering Arms, of which later. While their feeling toward Dr. Muhlenberg was one of resent- ment for treatment received, Dr. Muhlenberg on his part seems to have been thoroughly convinced of their capacity and their value as workers and was willing and glad that Mr. Peters should engage their assistance in these works. Both Mr. Peters and the " Sisters " seem shortly to have come to the conclusion that, in order to make their work effective, there should be a more definite and permanent organization of the nature of a sisterhood. Mr. Peters laid the matter before the Bishop of New York and suggested the appointment by him of a committee to take under advisement the question of the organization of such a sisterhood. The Bishop appointed on this committee the persons whom Mr. Peters proposed, adding him to the number. To this committee were submitted the general plans and principles proposed by Mr. Peters and the "Sisters," as they were already called. The plan proposed by the committee of presbyters met with the Bishop's ap-


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proval, and on the Feast of the Purification, 1865, five sisters, Harriet Starr Cannon, Jane C. Haight, Sarah C. Bridge, Mary B. Heartt, and Amelia W. Asten were formally received by Bishop Potter in St. Michael's Church as the first members of the Sisterhood of St. Mary, a society for the "performance of all spiritual and corporal works of mercy which a woman may perform, especially the care of the sick and the edu- cation of the young." This was the first instance of the profession of sisters by a Bishop in our communion since the Reformation, and was a step beyond any which had been taken up to that time in England.


The Sisters were anxious to have Mr. Peters as their spiritual director; but inasmuch as the Sisterhood was a distinct innovation, and was looked at with appre- hension from many quarters, he felt that for its own sake it must have as its chaplain some one well known in the Church at large, and who would command the confidence of the Church. With characteristic modesty he felt that he was not such a person, and at his sugges- tion and request the rector of Trinity Church became the spiritual director of the Sisterhood. Possibly, had Mr. Peters accepted the position which the Sisters de- sired him to accept, the development of the Sisterhood might have been different, and some of that excess of ritual, which caused difficulties a little later, might have been avoided. But although he declined to accept the position of spiritual adviser, for the first few years of their existence he remained in closest touch with the Sisters. The institutions of which they had charge, the House of Mercy, the Sheltering Arms, and St. Barnabas's House, which latter had been committed to their care in 1865, were under Mr. Peters's immediate direction, both temporal and spiritual, and his relations


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with the Sisters were of the closest and most friendly description.


Set free from the personal care for the inmates of the House of Mercy, Mrs. Richmond was able to develop further her remarkable work for fallen women. She opened the Home for Homeless Women and Children at 304 Mulberry Street, which in 1865 was taken over by the New York Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society and became St. Barnabas's House, and out of which, in 1867, after her death, grew also the Midnight Mission. The last institution in this series which Mrs. Richmond was instrumental in founding, and in which Mr. Peters was her assistant and adviser, was the New York Infant Asylum, originally established in old Woodlawn, at 107th Street and Bloomingdale Road.


Reference has been made to the Sheltering Arms, founded in 1864, of which Mr. Peters, in writing a sketch of his own life for his Yale Class history speaks as his "proudest work."


There had been found on the steps of the City Hall a young blind girl, Minnie Bollard, now a member of this congregation and an inmate of the Blind Home, for whom no place could be found in any institution then existing in the city. No blind asylum would take her, because she was too young, no orphan or half-orphan asylum, because she was blind. The search for a home for this child revealed to Mr. Peters the fact that there were many others for whom no provision was made. It seemed to him necessary to establish an institution to care for such children, and he proposed also so to extend its scope that it might become a means of taking charge temporarily of children during periods of family distress. Sometimes through sickness or desertion by a husband a woman


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was left with little children to provide for. She could go out and work for their support if she could only find a home in which to place them temporarily, until her husband's recovery or return, or until they had grown old enough to earn something themselves and unite with her in making a home. Similarly husbands were temporarily left with children whom they did not wish to surrender, and for whom they yet had at the moment no way of providing. Institutions then existing de- manded the complete surrender of children.


Mr. Peters's plan was to keep parents in touch with their children, to let them contribute as much as they could for their support, and to hand their children back to them again at the earliest possible moment, so that the family life might continue. He invited a few friends to assist him in this under- taking, for which he proposed the name of St. John's Inn. St. John, as the apostle of love, always appealed to him with singular power, and it seemed to him that the name of the apostle of love might well be applied to an institution which was to take loving care of little children. Dr. Muhlenberg asked him to select some other name, since a name similar to that was in his mind in connection with an institution which he was proposing to start, the later St. Johnland. Mr. Peters consented, provided that Dr. Muhlenberg would furnish him with a name equally as good. The meet- ing at which this occurred was held at Mr. Peters's house on IoIst Street and Bloomingdale Road. Mr. Peters walked down with his friends to 84th Street and 8th Avenue, the nearest point at that time where the cars could be taken for the city. They were over- taken by a storm and took refuge in the shelter car at that place. That night Dr. Muhlenberg wrote to


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Mr. Peters a letter, saying that the old car which the Railroad Company had utilized for a shelter had sug gested the very name he wanted, "The Shelter." Out of this suggestion Mr. Peters evolved the name now so famous, "The Sheltering Arms (of Jesus)," the last words not being actually used in the title, because too sacred for common use and readily understood from the context. To make the institution a success re- quired, however, a sacrifice. It must have a home in which to start. When he became rector of St. Mi- chael's, Mr. Peters had bought the large house built by Mr. D. S. Jackson, for many years warden of St. Michael's Church, and at one time occupied by him, which stood, until very recently, at roIst Street and Broadway, surrounded by beautiful grounds, an acre and a half in extent. To establish the institution Mr. Peters offered the use of this house, free of charge, for ten years; and he and his family moved out of their beloved home to make room for the little waifs from the street.


Mr. Peters dearly loved children, and this insti- tution which brought children together and cared for them appealed to him more than any other work in which he was engaged. It was his special pride and his special delight throughout his life. Each child in the institution was his personal friend. He studied the work which was being done for children all over the world, and his plans for the Sheltering Arms, of caring for children in little groups and preventing them from being institutionalized, of providing them with normal garments instead of institutional uniforms, of keeping them in touch with the outside world, of giving them in the Public Schools the same education and training which other children had, have been imitated since that time far and wide.


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The condemnation of a considerable portion of the property occupied by the Sheltering Arms for the opening of the "Public Drive" or Boulevard, now Broadway, in 1868, compelled a removal of the institu- tion to other quarters. Advantage was taken of this removal to erect suitable buildings better adapted for the segregation and training of the children, according to the methods approved by Dr. Peters and the trus- tees. For this, however, money was needed and some of the friends of the Sheltering Arms undertook a great bazaar in which they invited all the churches of the city to co-operate. Associations were formed in Trinity, Grace, St. Thomas's, the Incarnation, Trinity Chapel, and many other churches to work for the Shel- tering Arms Bazaar. At this period party spirit in the Church ran high. The Sisters had developed ritualistic practices which were novel and offensive to many, and an agitation commenced against the Shel- tering Arms on that account, which seemed to threaten its further existence. The Sisters had already, in 1867, withdrawn from the charge of St. Barnabas's House, to avoid unpleasantness, and Dr. Peters, with Sister Ellen, had organized a new sisterhood with simple and more natural dress, and less rigid rules and forms, the Sisterhood of the Good Shepherd, to take charge of that institution. Now a demand was made on the trustees of the Sheltering Arms by not a few of its friends to discharge the Sisters. Dr. Peters, supported by the Executive Committee, refused to accede to this demand, even at the risk of alienating many friends and losing financial support. But although he and the Executive Committee were thus ready to stand by the Sisters, the latter suddenly notified Dr. Peters that they would leave the Sheltering Arms in ten days.


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Dr. Peters's report of this whole incident is printed as a note to this chapter, both because it illustrates so thoroughly his character and courage, and also because the hitherto published accounts of this incident, and indeed of the origin of the Sisterhood, 1 give a some- what erroneous impression, unfair both to the trustees of the Sheltering Arms and to Dr. Peters.


By 1864 Dr. Peters's mission work had assumed very large proportions. He had secured the interest and assistance of a number of prominent laymen, some of whom personally visited the various city institutions and held services, with a form prepared by him, at Blackwell's Island, Randall's Island, the House of Refuge, and elsewhere. Among these were Mr. Winston, Mr. Kitchen, president of the National Park Bank, Mr. James Punnett, president of the Bank of America, and Mr. William Alexander Smith. In 1864 Dr. Peters called a meeting of those interested in this Mission to Public Institutions and others at Calvary Church, the result of which was that the Mission to Public Institutions took over the formerly existing but now defunct Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society, with its admirable charter. From that time to the date of his death Dr. Peters was the head of the Executive Committee of the City Mission Society and its real director and administrator. It is not too much to say that the work done by that Society prac- tically changed the character of the Church in this city, making it, instead of the exclusive church of the cul- tured few, next to the Roman Catholic, the church of the masses.


In 1867 the work of the City Missions had grown so large that it seemed impossible to manage it through a 1 See Harriet Starr Cannon: A Memoir, by Morgan Dix.


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City Mission Society


voluntary committee, as heretofore, and the trustees decided that it was desirable to engage on a salary "a suitable person for the practical direction and manage- ment of the City Missions." The committee appointed to select such a man unanimously agreed to present the name of Dr. Peters. Their report shows clearly the part which he had played in organizing that mission :


The Committee have been persuaded that in designating Dr. Peters to the charge of this most responsible and important work, they only recognize the great value of his past services to the City Mission.


Its revival after long deadness, and its present efficiency are largely due to his zealous and patient labors, as also to his personal services, gifts and pecuniary advances on its behalf. He is thoroughly conversant with its history, its routine and scope, with its present necessities, and required agencies, in the coming time, and he pos- sesses, withal, as we believe, such special qualifications for the work, and such general respect and confidence, as will enable him to advance the interests of this Society, and make it an instrument of unspeakable good.


According to the plan proposed by them Dr. Peters was to "retain the pastoral charge of St. Michael's Church and receive its income, although devolving the burden of parochial duties upon an assistant." His salary was fixed at $3000 to date from December I, 1867. This proposition and nomination were quite unexpected by Dr. Peters, but after consideration he concluded that it would be in the interest of the Church to accept. It was with some difficulty, however, that the Vestry of St. Michael's Church was induced to accept the proposition and then it was approved only by a divided Vestry.


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At a meeting of the Board of the City Missions on the 19th of November, 1867, a letter was received from the Rev. Dr. Peters accepting the position and a resolution passed notifying the missionaries and others holding positions in the City Mission Society of his appoint- ment as executive head. Then Rev. Dr. Morgan, rector of St. Thomas's Church and chairman of the committee on Dr. Peters's appointment, reported that he had had a personal interview with the Bishop on the subject and that the Bishop refused to sanction the appointment. A committee of five laymen-F. S. Winston, Thomas W. Ogden, William Alexander Smith, William K. Kitchen, and Albert McNulty, Jr .- was then appointed to confer with the Bishop to ascertain and, if possible, remove his objections. The com- mittee met the Bishop, who had invited his counsel, Stephen B. Nash, to be present, and after some con- versation handed him a written statement. It being understood that the Bishop's objections to the appoint- ment were in part personal, the committee took pains to incorporate in its statement certain historical facts which are of interest for this sketch, as showing to what extent the City Mission was indebted for its origin and support to Dr. Peters's initiative and his direction :


The City Mission was revived after it was practically dead for many years mainly for the purpose of making the Mission to Public Institutions, which was a voluntary Association, a Church Institution.


This Mission to Public Institutions was commenced nearly twenty years ago by the Rev. Dr. Peters while assistant minister of St. Michael's Church with the co- operation of the then Rector of that Parish, the Rev. William Richmond, D.D. In this work Dr. Peters has


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Report to the Bishop


ever since faithfully labored while attending to his parish duties with an earnestness, self-sacrifice and increasing success, which has won the confidence and secured the co-operation of members of our Church until the Mission embraced in its benevolent design and labors nearly all the Public Institutions of the City both criminal and humane. The Mission was both prosperous and popular and no necessity existed of abandoning the voluntary organization under which the Society had attained its growth and importance. But it was more in accordance with the views of all those who were managing its affairs to place it on the platform of a recognized Society of the Church, not doubting that while it was loyal to Church authority all measures which experience should demon- strate to be necessary to its welfare and prosperity would be both permitted and encouraged.


After the transfer of the work of the voluntary Society to the City Mission it became necessary to obtain from the Legislature of this state an amendment of its Charter that it might embrace such additional objects of general Christian benevolence as St. Barnabas House and other kindred objects.


This was done and the field in which this Society now labors embraces the following institutions under the charge of the public authorities of the City. [Here are enumerated practically all the city institutions, together with a large number of private or semi-private institutions.]


The report proceeds :


These objects and others not enumerated bring under the direct operations of this Society it is believed fully one hundred thousand persons annually and many of these are ministered to constantly throughout the year.


The Society, in addition to the Clerical members who manage its affairs and the City Clergy who officiate as they have opportunity, employs eight Ministers of the Church as Missionaries whose time is wholly given to Missionary




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