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 8
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Effort to Save Zion
themselves relieved from the responsibility for further work north of Manhattanville. About and below 59th Street, however, thanks to the northward spread of the city, a considerable population was springing up, for which no religious provision was made. To provide for this population, following in this the method pursued earlier by Mr. Richmond, Mr. Peters engaged the Rev. J. C. Tracy of Cleveland as his assistant at St. Michael's Church, and assigned to him as his special work a mission in the neighborhood of 50th Street, with a view to establishing there a separate congregation. Out of this grew St. Timothy's Free Church, organized in 1853 and admitted to Convention in 1854.
While Mr. Richmond was absent in Oregon, Zion Church in Mott Street, of which he had been rector, was advertised for sale. In the previous year ten lots of land had been given to this church on Madison Avenue and 38th Street, on which a brick chapel was erected and the services transferred thither from Mott Street. The church felt itself no longer able to continue what was practically a missionary work, and, regarding its property as intended for the benefit of its members and pewholders, and not for the Church at large, in October of 1852 ad- vertised for sale the land and building on Mott Street, to secure money to enable it to build on the new property on Madison Avenue. On somebody's part it was a wicked abandonment of a great missionary opportunity, and so stirred up public feeling that a number of the clergy of New York joined in the follow- ing call for a meeting :
Zion Church, Mott Street, New York, being offered
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Annals of St. Michael's
for sale: We the undersigned Rectors and Ministers of Churches in the Cities of New York and Brooklyn, believing that there is no portion of the city of New York where a church and the labors of a faithful ministry are so much needed, invite so many of the clergy and laity of these two cities as may take an interest in the matter, to meet on Friday, October 29th inst., at 12 o'clock noon, in the Sunday school room in the rear of St. John's Chapel, New York, for the purpose of considering what measures can be taken to procure the present Zion Church edifice as a centre for missionary work in that part of the City.
The last name signed to the call is that of T. M. Peters. He was also one of the speakers at the meeting resulting, and on his motion it was
Resolved, That a committee be appointed in behalf of this meeting as follows: The Provisional Bishop-elect shall be Chairman, additional members shall be nominated by the chair. It shall be the duty of the Committee to take into consideration the subject before the meeting and report at an adjourned meeting of the Clergy and laity to be held in this place Friday, November 15th, at noon.
The committee appointed consisted of Dr. Wain- wright, Chairman; Drs. Hawks, Haight, and Vinton, Rev. Mr. Peters and J. H. Swift, Esq. An appeal was made to Trinity Church for assistance, but the cor- poration was at that time engaged in the erection of Trinity Chapel, at an expense of $230,000, and had no money to spare. Other churches were con- cerned in the development of their own missionary work, and, after waiting for three months, the vestry of Zion Church sold the land and building to Arch- bishop Hughes for $30,000, and for a time the Church abandoned its missionary enterprise in the slums
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Attack on Trinity
of New York. To some who were concerned in this effort to save Zion, it was a bitter experience, which aroused their indignation. Dr. Muhlenberg, Mr. Robert B. Minturn, and others made the failure of Trinity to render assistance on this occasion one of the counts in the indictment which they presented in the second attack on that corporation in the Legis- lature, in 1857-58. Trinity was using what was a trust for the whole Church, they said, to build so magnificent a chapel for a few rich pew-holders, that it could afford nothing for the many poor, to whom the money belonged as much as to the others. With some justice the friends of Trinity retorted that Trinity was not alone in such conduct, that St. George's, St. Thomas's and other churches, endowed from Trinity's original grant, had sold their land and church property, and, abandoning their parishes and the poor still living there, had used the proceeds of such sale to build fine churches for their rich pewholders in a region more convenient to them.
Mr. Richmond's health proved unequal to the ex- posure of the life in Oregon. He fell ill and finally was compelled to resign from this mission and return to the East. He resumed his charge, as parish priest, at St. Michael's early in 1853, resigning, however, the rectorship of St. Mary's, of which Mr. Peters be- came rector. Later in the same year Mr. Peters was appointed assistant at St. Michael's, and the three parishes of St. Michael, St. Mary, and All Angels, and the considerable missionary work now connected therewith continued to be administered practically as one concern.
Mr. Peters had, during Mr. Richmond's absence, bought, at his own risk, but with the knowledge and
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Annals of St. Michael's
approval of the individual members of the Vestry, seven acres of land in Astoria as a cemetery, and also advanced a considerable amount of money for the erection of All Angels' Church. After Mr. Richmond's return, the Vestry of St. Michael's agreed to take over the cemetery in Astoria, known as St. Michael's Church- yard, and also the title to All Angels' Church, with the four lots belonging to it, repaying Mr. Peters what he had advanced for the purchase of these properties. The acquisition of the cemetery was a move of the utmost importance to St. Michael's Church; the fuller details of the purchase and the later history of the cemetery are recorded in a later chapter.
Another important move was made at the same time. At the Vestry meeting, held Tuesday, May I, 1853, it was voted to abolish pew-rents and make all sittings in St. Michael's Church free; and it was also ordered that a collection should be taken every Sunday, contributing toward the expense of maintain- ing the services of the Church being thus made a formal act of worship. At the same meeting it was voted to spend $600 in repairing and painting the church. This work had scarcely been completed when, early on Sunday morning, October 16th, the church took fire, apparently from a defective flue, and burned to the ground. A hall for services was at once engaged, at the rate of $8 a month, in a factory which had recently been built in rooth Street (evidence, by the way, of the change then taking place in the character of the neighborhood), a melodeon and seats were bought for $200, and a committee, consisting of Dr. Williams, Messrs. Mali, von Post, and DePeyster, to which was later added Mr. David S. Jackson, was ap- pointed on the plan of a new church building. It is
IOI
The Church Burns
rather curious to note that at the Vestry meeting at which this action was taken, November 12, 1853, "the rector reported the engagement from August Ist of Mrs. McIntosh as organist and her daughter to sing, for $250;" and that $33 was appropriated for a clerical gown for Mr. Babbitt, the late organist, a student in the the Theological Seminary, who was about to be ordained.
The insurance received on the burned church amount- ed to $3450. It was decided to erect a new building at a cost of about $7250, or, with furnace, paint, furniture, etc., about $11,000. Moreover, as the original church site would be diminished by the opening of Tenth Avenue it was necessary to buy more land. A small gore of land north of the church, 15 ft. 5 in. front and 14 ft. 3 in. rear, running from Bloomingdale Road to Tenth Avenue, had already been purchased in 1851 for $245. In 1854 another small gore between 99th Street and the church property and between Broadway and Tenth Avenue was bought for $293.70; and finally in the same year, a couple of full lots to the north of the church property were secured through Gen. R. L. Schieffelin, at a cost of $3000. This com- pleted the church property as it continued to exist until the closing of Bloomingdale Road in 1868. These seemed necessary expenses with reference to the future, but involved the church in debt, which was con- siderably increased by the construction of the new building. This actually cost $12,611.70, of which $8100 was raised by a loan on the down-town property. The next year a new organ was added at a cost of $1200 and a new heating apparatus at $225. The architect of the new church was Mr. Priest, the builder Mr. Twine, who was a carpenter as well as sexton of the church. The Building Committee, which succeeded
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Annals of St. Michael's
the original committee appointed to consider plans, consisted of Dr. A. V. Williams, and Messrs. David S. Jackson and Mr. H. W. T. Mali. The construction of the church, which was built of oak throughout, with a font of Caen stone, was overseen in every detail by Mr. Peters, who, later, when the congregation was about to move out of that church into the present edifice, mentioned this fact as one reason for his attachment to the old building. The new church stood westward of the site of the old, close to Bloomingdale Road and occupying almost the entire space westward to Tenth Avenue in its length. It was larger than the old build- ing, containing 73 pews and seating 400 people, while the other had only seated about 200. It was a churchly building, Gothic, with a clerestory, and a deep recessed chancel at the east end. At the southeastern corner stood a steeple-tower, in the ground floor of which was placed the organ. There was no gallery. The entrance was at the western end of the south side. Southward of the church, between it and 99th Street stood the churchyard, with its entrance on Blooming- dale Road. The whole effect was very attractive. The church was completed and consecrated by the new provisional bishop of the diocese, Rt. Rev. Horatio Potter, November 25, 1854. The destruction of the church building, coming as it did at a time of transition, had, naturally, a serious effect on the life of the parish. In his Convention report of 1855 Mr. Richmond says of this :
During the time of rebuilding the church, the services were necessarily held in an inconvenient room and the con- gregation was much scattered. Many families formerly connected with the parish had also removed from the neighborhood, and their places have not been supplied with
--
RT. REV. HORATIO POTTER, D.D., D.C.L. Consecrator of Second Church, Nov. 25, 1854
IO3
Mission to Public Institutions
a class of persons that are as apt to attend our services, All the seats in this church are free.
On Mr. Richmond's return from Oregon, in 1853, he resumed his work in the Mission to Public Institu- tions with apparently renewed vigor. Early in the following year we find the first mention of this work in a communication to St. Michael's Vestry, dated March 18th:
The Rector informed the Vestry that during the past year he had appointed The Rev. Thomas McC. Peters his Assistant in the Parish, and to conduct a Mission to Public Institutions of the City, commenced in 1849.1 In- cluding the Rector & Assistant, five Clergymen had offi- ciated regularly, on Week Days or on Sundays, under this mission in eight of these Institutions; the salary of the Assistant is paid by the Rector, and the remaining ex- penses of the mission are provided by the Assistant from members of the Congregation & other sources.
In Mr. Peters's report to Convention, as rector of All Angels' Church, in 1853, he gives the following details of this work as it existed at that time:
Services in the public Institutions, as follows, are counted part of the same Missionary labor and their results recorded upon the parish register.
Colored Home; twice a week public service & visiting in sick wards with occasional interruptions.
Bellevue Hospital; once a week.
Alms House, Blackwell's Island; service, Sunday, with Communion monthly; also one visiting day in each week.
N. Y. Orphan Asylum, with service once a week.
Randall's Island; service for between four and five hun- dred boys every Sunday morning.
1Mr. Peters always gives the date of commencement of this mis- sion as 1847.
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Annals of St. Michael's
Penitentiary; service, one Sunday in each month, and once during each week.
Lunatic Asylum, Blackwell's Island; service once a week.
The Rev. Wm. Richmond, Rev. G. L. Neide, & myself, give our labour to these services, the expense being in part paid out of the fund collected for the purpose. The Revs. A. Fitch, J. C. Tracy & C. S. Little, are also engaged; the first occasionally, the other two regularly, to carry on the work.
For the necessary means I am indebted to the Rev. W. Richmond, the Pastoral Aid Society, & to individual members of St. Michael's Church, & friends in the city, with the prospect this year of making up myself a pretty large deficiency.
In the latter part of 1853 Mrs. Richmond1 joined her husband in his mission to the penitentiary. He had found there many fallen women, who, he believed, might be touched and helped by female influence, but whom a man could not approach. Mrs. Richmond undertook the work among these women. Experience soon showed her that it was almost useless to work among them at the penitentiary unless she had also a place in the city to care after they were discharged for those who had seemed responsive to her efforts. Under ordinary circumstances, when their term expired they returned to the city They could find no employment, their old haunts invited them and they soon resumed the former life of sin. She set out to raise the money to provide a home for those who were willing to attempt a reformation. The details of this work are recorded in a later chapter. The House of Mercy, which she established, was located in St. Michael's parish, and counted by Mr. Richmond as part of his
Mr. Richmond had married again while in Oregon.
IO5
Central Park
parish work, which he reported regularly to the Conven- tion in his annual report from St. Michael's Church.
Reference has already been made to Central Park. This was the last great change which befell Blooming- dale during Mr. Richmond's second rectorship. Who was the author of the wise scheme to turn the waste lands in the centre of the island into a city park is not certain. There are many different claims to this honor. The St. Michael's tradition is that the scheme was first suggested by Dr. A. V. Williams, then warden of that church, when he was acting president of the Board of Aldermen. The condemnation of the land as far north as 104th Street was actually made in 1856,1 and from the Vestry records of that year we find that St. Michael's Church was assessed $600. All Angels' Church, which, as already stated, was then the property of St. Michael's, stood within the territory condemned for the purpose of a park. The award for the condemnation of this property was $4010, which enabled St. Michael's Church to recoup itself for the money advanced some years before, to purchase the building from the city for $250 and to remove it to land given for the purpose near 79th Street, still leaving a considerable margin over for the benefit of All Angels' Church. The All Angels' account was finally settled in 1858, the property held for that church by St. Michael's being turned over to St. Michael's Free Church Society, an organization incorporated for the purpose of acquiring and holding property for the support of free churches in the city of New York, with right of reversion to St. Michael's Church, if it should ever be used for anything else but a free church.
1 The remaining portion, to Iroth Street, was taken by the city in 1858.
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Annals of St. Michael's
At the same time All Angels' Church was incorporated and from this date it ceased to be a dependency of St. Michael's.
It is interesting to note, in the Vestry records of 1856, as indicating the changed conditions of the neighborhood, a vote to pay "$5 for bringing vestry- men to meetings in carriages." It is also worthy of record that in 1858 we find the first bill for Christmas greens at St. Michael's Church.
Although after his return from Oregon Mr. Richmond had seemed to resume his work with his old time vigor, in reality he was already a sick man. His health was failing fast in those latter years and he was compelled to lay down one work after another. Even the daily prayers in the House of Mercy, which, as his last child, seemed to be especially the child of his love, became an occasional service, then ceased altogether. He administered the Communion in St. Michael's Church for the last time on the first Sunday in June, 1858. He died a little more than three months later, Sunday, September 19th. At a special meeting of the Vestry called September 25, 1858, the following resolu- tions were adopted and ordered spread on the minutes:
Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to call from his Earthly labors the Reverend William Richmond for nearly 38 years Rector of this Parish
Resolved, That the Vestry of this Church while they bow with submission to the will of God in his afflictive dispen- sation, deplore the loss sustained by this Community by the family of the deceased and by this Congregation and lament for themselves the severance of ties of friendship and affection which have grown and strengthened through long years of faithful Pastoral care and social intercourse
Resolved, That the Vestry of this Church reviewing
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Death of Mr. Richmond
the Ministry of their lamented Pastor record with gratitude and affection their acknowledgment of the untiring zeal and fidelity, the abounding labor and Charity which have marked the long incumbency of the deceased.
The Vestry also ordered that the expenses of the funeral should be paid by the church and that the salary of the rector should be continued and paid to his widow for the period of six months. In the follow- ing year they voted to erect over his grave a monument at a cost not to exceed $200. This monument, which stood for a long time near the door of the church which he had so long served as rector, was removed when the present building was erected, and placed in the crypt beneath the Chapel of the Angels. The grave itself, however, was not disturbed and Mr. Richmond's remains rest beneath the present church.
CHAPTER V
Old Bloomingdale and its Passing; Being a Chapter of Interest to Antiquarians only.
N the last chapter we gave some account of the changing conditions in Bloomingdale, about and shortly after the middle of the last century, while the first chapter told of conditions at Bloomingdale in the first years of the nineteenth century, at the time of the founding of St. Michael's Church. It is the pur- pose of this chapter to give, chiefly from the records of the church, some little sketch of the intervening period, the men and women who lived in old Bloomingdale, and the people and conditions that succeeded them.
Those conditions which originally led to the develop- ment of Bloomingdale and other similar sections of Manhattan, namely the pestilential conditions of the city proper, continued to prevail for many years after the founding of St. Michael's Church. In 1819 and again in 1822 the scourge of yellow fever was so serious that the lower part of the city was fenced or roped off. As a consequence more and more people sought country homes: those who were well-to-do, summer residences in such suburbs as Bloomingdale; and those who were less well-to-do, permanent residences in villages like Chelsea, Greenwich, or even Harlem. A comparison of the original list of pewholders with the lists of vestry-
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Front View of House
View of River from House
THE WEYMAN PLACE From Old Paintings
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More Yellow Fever
men of later date makes this manifest, so far as Bloom- ingdale is concerned. New names, representing new families, who had built or bought in Bloomingdale, continue to appear.
William Weyman becomes a vestryman in 1810. He had acquired a place on the river, at the foot of Van Horne, later Mott Lane, at 93d Street. Just south of the Weyman place, occupying five acres of land along the river, stood the country home of George Mckay, who became vestryman in 1822. South of this, on the other side of Livingston or Waldo Lane, between goth and gIst Streets, stood what was originally the Brock- holst Livingston place. The Livingstons do not appear among the original founders or pewholders of St. Michael's. Later the Livingston property passed into the hands of the Waldo family, and in 1834 Horace Waldo, then owner of that property, became a vestry- man of St. Michael's. Just south of the Livingston place stood from the outset, as already narrated, the McVickar place. Below this, at the foot of 86th Street, the Howlands acquired a beautiful property, with a fine mansion, picturesquely situated on a high bluff overlooking the river, which afterwards became the House of Mercy and then the Ely School, and which has only recently been torn down. The owner of this property, William H. Howland, became a vestryman in 1837. In 1839 H. W. T. Mali, Belgian Consul, entered the Vestry. His place stood at 113th Street and the river. Directly opposite him lived Mr. Albert McNulty, in a house still standing and now used as a hotel. He was baptized as an adult in 1850 and en- tered the Vestry in the same year. In 1841 William Whitlock became a vestryman, and was succeeded by his son, William Whitlock, Jr., in 1854. The Whitlock
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Annals of St. Michael's
house, with seven acres of land, stood at 109th Street and the river. In 1843 James G. Stacey, whose home was on the old Kemble property, at about 104th Street and the river, became a vestryman. In the same year Richard L. Schieffelin, son of Jacob Schieffelin, one of the original founders, entered the Vestry. He had mar- ried in 1833 a granddaughter of Mr. McKay, through whom he became owner of the Mckay country home on 92d Street and the river.
In 1847 James Punnett was elected a vestryman of the church and became warden in 1867. He was a son- in-law of Caspar Meier, who immigrated to this coun- try from Bremen, Germany, toward the close of the eighteenth century, and founded the present firm of Oelrichs & Co. Caspar Meier's country home stood at 118th Street and the river. He himself was one of the founders of the Bloomingdale Reformed Church, but his children and grandchildren all became active mem- bers of St. Michael's, and were among the most valua- ble assistants and fellow workers of the rectors of that church in their benevolent and missionary enterprises. For many years James Punnett occupied the old place at 118th Street and the North River. He was presi- dent of the Bank of America, and the Vestry meetings of St. Michael's Church were held in those days in the board room of that bank, in Wall Street. Mr. Her- mann C. von Post, the present head of Oelrichs & Co., a grandson of Caspar Meier and son-in-law of William Whitlock, Jr., became a vestryman in 1852; and in 1858 Gustav Schwab, a third member of the Meier family group, who had married Mr. von Post's sister, Caspar Meier's granddaughter, and who was also a member of the old firm, was elected to the Vestry.
The men of this little group, consisting of Caspar
III
Movement Toward Church
Meier's descendants and kinsfolk, may be said to rep- resent a movement which was taking place in the com- munity toward the Church. While Caspar Meier, a German by origin, had connected himself with the Dutch Reformed Church, they were all active in the Episcopal Church. The same movement is represented by Ed- ward J. Swords, who became a vestryman in 1837. His wife, Jemima Striker (spelled Stryker in St. Mi- chael's records), belonged to an old Dutch Reformed family, which gave its name to Striker's Bay at 96th Street, on the shore of which stood the old homestead. Her father was active in the founding of the Blooming- dale Reformed Church. The son-in-law, a prominent Church publisher, was a vestryman of St. Michael's Church, and four of their children were baptized there between 1837 and 1844. The Mott family, originally Quakers, belong in the same category. They first ap- pear on the records in the fifth decade of the century, 1848, when Calvin H. Mott married Elizabeth Hewlet. In the next decade, 1859, Dr. Valentine Mott, per- haps the most prominent surgeon of New York in his day, became vestryman of the church. The Motts had purchased the old Garrit Van Horne house on 94th Street and Bloomingdale Road, with a considerable tract of land in that neighborhood, extending northward to Striker's Bay. On the east side of Bloomingdale Road, at 94th Street, Dr. Mott erected a large house, which was occupied until quite a late date by his widow. and afterwards became the home of the Children's Fold. The Livingstons are another case in point. Of Scotch descent and originally Presbyterians, they later became staunch Churchmen; and while they do not appear among the original founders, at a later date numerous burials, baptisms, and marriages of members
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