USA > New York > Westchester County > Rye > Chronicle of a border town : history of Rye, Westchester county, New York, 1660-1870, including Harrison and the White Plains till 1788 > Part 30
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had long since been simplified, very generally, by the practice of raising money for religious uses by taxation. In Rye, we have seen, the government of Connecticut ordered this to be done as early as the year 1671. A minister was to be engaged at a salary of ' forty pownds per annum.' This sum was to be gathered by the constable, ' with the country rate.' 1 Subsequently, the Gen- eral Court allowed this expense to be met by a deduction from the country rate, of 'a penny of the pownd upon all the rateable estate ' of the town.2 Mr. Denham's salary was but thirty pounds, perhaps in view of the greatly impoverished state of the town at that time.3 The Court ordered that this sum should ' be gathered by the constable with the country rate, in the same specia and price as the country rate, and by him to be payd to the sayd min- ister.' 4 The order was unusually explicit, but it was not carried out ; for in 1682 the town directs the salary to be paid 'in provis- ions.' 5 Mr. Bowers's salary was fifty pounds. We find the follow- ing orders concerning it : -
. At a towne meting in Ry September 20 1697 the towne doth give by a voat unto M' Bowers the som of fifty pounds for his yere salere for his carrying on the work of a minster amongst us.' 'At the above said meting Thomas Merrit and John Frost are chosen collectors for the yere insning for the gathering of the above said mony.'
August 5, 1698. ' The towne doth give by a vote unto Mr. Bowers the som of fifty pounds for his yere salore for preaching the Gospel amongst us for the yere ensuing.'
February 14, 1699. 'The towne doth give by a vote unto M' Bowers the iust sum of fifty pounds for his yere sallary for his caring on the worke of the menestry amongst us in spaci as followeth wheat at five shillings per bushel indian corn two shillings six pence pr bushel, and all other provision pay equivalent.'
January 31, 1700. ' The towne hath made choice of Samuel Kniffin and Richard Ogden to be Collectors to gather the next Rate insuing that is payable to M' Nathnal Bowers.' 6
How far the movement for the building of a church proceeded at this period, we are unable to learn. It would appear that moneys were granted, and some portion of them gathered for
1 Public Records of Connecticut, vol. ii. p. 150. 2 Ibid. vol. ii. p. 252.
3 In 1676 Rye numbered only thirty-two families : the same number as in the second year of the town. Seven years before, it had risen to fifty. The deercase was doubt- less owing to the troubled state of the colony during the Indian War.
4 Public Records of Connecticut, vol. iii. p. 71.
5 Ryc Records, quoted by Bolton, Church History, p. 134.
€ Town Meeting Book, C. pp. 2, 5, 8, 10.
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MR. DENHAM'S ANTECEDENTS.
this purpose. A site for the honse seems also to have been chosen, 'on that lot where the town house now stands.' This was the parsonage house, and the spot must have been on the same narrow strip of land, in the village, between the post-road and Blind Brook. But there is no evidence that such a building was actually erected there.
About the same time that these measures were in contemplation, an effort was made to secure more ground for the minister's use. December 29, 1698, the town appoints John Lyon and Isaac Den- ham ' as a committy for the laying out of land for a parsonage not exceding forty akers where they may see it convenient and so to rem [ain] a parsonage.'1 The committee are directed to enter into
1 Town Meeting Book, C. p. 5.
REV. THOMAS DENHAM. - The name is sometimes spelt Dunham ; indeed, he so writes it three times in his will. Mr. Savage mentions no Denham except our Rye minister, but he finds several early settlers by the name of Dunham. Among these is ' Thomas ' of Plymouth, ' perhaps a son of John Dunham,' also of Plymouth, who was representative in 1639 and often after, and deacon among the first purchasers of Dartmouth, and died March 2, 1669, aged eighty. ( Genealogical Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 81.) Thomas was ' fit to bear arms in 1643 ; ' this agrees with the single statement Mr. Savage makes about our Thomas Denham ; that in 1681 he was sixty years of age. (Ibid. p. 36.) Dunham married ' Martha, daughter of George Knott, I think.' (Ibid.) Our minister mentions his wife Sarah in his will, not unlikely a second and younger wife, for she soon marries again. ( Westchester County Records, vol. B. p. 189 seq.) I conjecture that Isaac, to whom he left the bulk of his landed estate, may have been his son by the former marriage.
But other and more interesting facts confirm the belief that Mr. Denham was none else than Thomas Dunham, formerly of Plymouth. Ilis will speaks of lands which he owned in 'Sheep's Gut,' undoubtedly Sheepseott, a localty on the coast of Maine, then part of Massachusetts. This settlement was on a peninsula or neck, upon the eastern side of the Sheepseott River proper, immediately below what is now called Sheepscott Bridge. The settlers first laid out a street which they called the King's highway, running the whole length of the peninsula. This street was 'lined with houses and other buildings, on both sides.' The settlement was probably begun as early as 1623, only three years after the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. In 1630, there were fifty families on the Sheepseott Farms. Mr. Denham, not improba- bly, was laboring here as pastor or missionary in 1675, at the time of the outbreak of King Philip's War.
' In that fearful confliet, the first attack was made upon Plymouth, Mass., June 24th. The flame quickly spread throughout New England. Maine was completely overrun by the enemy. Falmouth, with almost every habitation east of it, was burnt, and their occupants were either driven off, murdered, or sold into merciless captivity.' The savages fell first upon a trader's settlement at Stimson's Point, near Woolwich. From that place the alarm was carried by 'a young maid,' who, frightened by their looks and condnet, 'escaped and travelled over land fifteen miles to Sheepscot-Planta- tion, where she gave the alarm, and the terrified inhabitants immediately fled, leaving all their possessions behind them. They had only fairly got away from them when the savage warriors arrived, set up their fiendish war-whoop, then set fire to the buildings, killed the sheep and the cattle, and thus destroyed the labour and care of years.' The inhabitants fled on board a vessel that was building in the harbor, and
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EARLY MINISTRY.
negotiation with Humphrey Underhill for his land, and lay it out if he and they can agree. It does not appear that they succeeded.
thus saved themselves. The enemy left nothing remaining, and the land lay desolate many years. In process of time, some returned to their former homes, and were invested with rights to the lands. ( Ancient Settlement of Sheepscot, by Rev. David Cushman. In the collections of the Maine Historical Society, vol. iv. Portland : 1856.)
Such, not improbably, was the calamitous event, under the shadow of which the first pastor of Rye began his ministry here, and in view of which the General Court granted him a special benevolence of ten pounds, 'in regard to his late loss by the war.'
erly 's to Joi. Episcopa.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE CHURCHES : PARISH AND VESTRY OF RYE.
1693-1703.
W E come now to the period when Rye became a ' parish,' and its Puritan population found themselves under the pastoral care of a clergyman of the Church of England. And here it may be in place to give some account of ecclesiastical matters in the province of New York, to which our town had just been re-an- nexed.1 All the different denominations of Christians in that prov- ince had enjoyed perfect liberty, and had stood upon equal ground, under the English laws, for thirty years. The ' Protestant Relig- ion ' was recognized, but no one Protestant Church was invested with rights superior to others. At the same time, provision was made by law for the support of the Gospel ministry. Ministers were elected in every town by a majority of the inhabitants who were householders, and were maintained, as in New England, by a tax levied on them ; the town being held responsible for the pay- ment of the salary agreed upon at the time of the minister's call. As in New England, also, pains were taken to induce each town to call and support a minister. In 1675, it was ordered that besides the usual country rate, a double rate should be levied on all those towns in which there was not already a sufficient maintenance for a minister. Inquiry was made as to any towns that had failed to make this provision, and those that proved to be remiss were urged to the performance of the duty.
All the churches of the province were then supported in this way, with but a single exception. A chaplain of the Established Church of England officiated within the walls of the fort in New
1 ' Work and Materials for American History - Notes on the Maintenance of the Ministry and Poor in New York - The Colonial Ministry Acts - The Vestry of the City of New York,' etc. By George II. Moore. Two articles in the Historical Magazine [Henry B. Dawson, editor], new series, vols. i., ii. From these valuable papers, by the learned librarian of the New York Historical Society, I have drawn much of the information given in the present chapter. Where no other authority is adduced, the statements made are based upon that of Mr. Moore.
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York, where the governor resided. He received his allowance from the government. The adherents of that Church were as yet but few. Most of the people were Dutch and English Calvinists. ' There are Religions of all sorts,' writes Governor Andros in 1678, ' one Church of England, several Presbiterians and Inde- pendants, Quakers and Anabaptists, of several sects, some Jews, but Presbiterians and Independants most numerous and substan- tial. The Duke [of York] maintains a chapline weh is all the cer- tain allowance or Chirch of England, but peoples free gifts to ye ministry, And all places oblidged to build Churches and provide for a minister, in weh most very wanting, but presbiterians and In- dependents desirons to have and maintaine them if to be liad. There are about 20 churches or Meeting-places of which above halfe vacant theire allowance like to be from 40" to 70" a yeare and a house and garden.'
This method of providing for the support of public worship was set forth very distinctly in the charter which the Duke of York gave to the province in 1684. Liberty of conscience was secured by this instrument to all Christians. All the churches then existing in that province were recognized and confirmed in all their rights, for all time to come. The ministry of all Christian churches was to be duly maintained ; the moneys assessed and sub- scribed for this purpose, were to be collected by warrant from the justice of the county, wherever towns or individuals should fail to meet their engagements for its support. This law was carried out by Governor Dongan, with praiseworthy diligence. He takes care, says a New England governor in 1687, ' that all the people in each town do their duty in maintaining the minister of the place, though himself of a different persuasion from their way.'
But religious toleration was not to the mind of his successors. In 1692, Colonel Benjamin Fletcher arrived as the newly ap- pointed governor of New York. His aim from the first was 'to make the Church of England the established church of the land.' At his first meeting with the Assembly of the province, he recom- mended a provision ' for the support and encouragement of an able Ministry.' The Assembly reported a bill for this purpose on the nineteenth of September, 1693. It was entitled -
' An Act for Settling a Ministry, and Raising a Maintenance for them, in the City of New York, County of Richmond, Westchester, and Queen's-County.'
This act provided that in each of certain localities named, there
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A PROTESTANT MINISTRY TO BE MAINTAINED. £ 289
should be called, inducted, and established, within one year, 'a good, sufficient Protestant Minister, to officiate, and have the care of souls.' In the city of New York, there was to be one such minister ; in the county of Richmond, one ; in the county of West- chester, two, - one to have the care of Westchester, Eastchester, Yonkers, and Pelham, the other to have the care of Rye, Mam- aroneck, and Bedford ; and in Queen's County, two, - one for Jamaica and the adjacent towns and farms, and the other for Hempstead, and the next adjacent towns and farms.
For the maintenance of these ministers, the act provided that in each of these localities a certain suin should be levied annually, by a tax on the inhabitants. The amount to be raised in Westchester County was fifty pounds for each of the two precincts.
To carry out this provision, the freeholders of each city, county, and precinct were to be summoned by their justices, to meet on the second Tuesday of January, in each year, for the purpose of choosing ten vestrymen and two churchwardens; and the justices and vestrymen were empowered to lay a tax on the inhabitants of the place for the maintenance of the minister and the relief of the poor. Various penalties were annexed to this order, in case of failure to perform these requirements.
Finally, the act provided that the ministers who should be set- tled in these respective places should be called to officiate by the vestrymen and churchwardens aforesaid. All former agreements, however, made with ministers throughout the province, were to continue and remain in their full force, notwithstanding anything contained in this act.
The act said nothing of any particular religious denomination. ' A good sufficient Protestant Minister,' was the description of the ministry to be maintained. What the Assembly meant in passing this law, is easily ascertained. They were all, with one exception, ' Dissenters ' from the Church of England. Of the population for whose benefit the law was framed, but a very small minority be- longed to that church. In Westchester County particularly, which was to be favored with two ministers, there were 'scarcely six in the whole county,' a credible witness states, " who so much as inclined to the Church.'1 In the whole province, says another, ' there was no face of the Church of England till about the year 1693.' The laws previously passed had contemplated the support of a ministry acceptable to the various bodies of Christians who were most numerous in the land. It is obvious that the present 1 Bolton's History of the Protestant Episcopal Church, etc., p. 25.
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PARISH AND VESTRY OF RYE.
act was framed with the same design. Under the circumstances, it could bear no other meaning without a manifest perversion of language, and violation of justice.
The governor's intention, however, in promoting this measure, was very different. He knew that no persuasions would induce the Assembly to provide for the establishment of the English Church in the province. He therefore sought to have the act so worded as to admit of a construction especially favorable to it. When the bill was presented to him for signature he returned it to the Assembly, with one amendment. This related to the last section of the act, which, thus altered, would provide that the ministers to be settled in the several places named should be called to officiate in those places by the respective vestrymen and churchwardens, and presented to the governor to be approved and collated. But this amendment the Assembly utterly refused to accept. The bill was passed without it, to the great disgust of Colonel Fletcher, who nevertheless claimed that he possessed by virtue of his office the power which the legislature thus declined to recognize, of inducting or suspending any minister within his government.
Taking this view, the English governors of New York asserted their right, under the act of 1693, to control the choice of minis- ters ; and the English clergy claimed the same prerogatives, under an Established Church, as in England. The people of the prov- ince were liable to be taxed for their support; even though, in great majority, of different religious persuasions. And in obscure places, where it could be done without public scandal, they were put in possession of all the property which had been set apart for ecclesiastical purposes by the town. The attempt to carry out these pretensions was not always successful. But it succeeded here at Rye, as it did at Jamaica, Hempstead, and elsewhere. The parsonage house and lands, by order of Governor Cornbury, were surrendered to the newly arrived rector. The inhabitants, who had kept them hitherto for the use of a ministry of their own choice, were dispossessed of this property, without form of law or shadow of right.
In obedience to the Act of 1693, the people of Rye were sum- moned by their justice, Joseph Theall, to meet for the election of churchwardens and vestrymen. This meeting took place on the twenty-eighth of February, 1694-95. John Lane and John Brondig were elected churchwardens, and Jonathan Hart, Joseph Horton, Joseph Purdy, Timothy Knapp, Hachaliah Brown, Thomas
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CHURCHWARDENS AND VESTRYMEN.
Merritt, Deliverance Brown, and Isaac Denham, vestrymen. The duty of these functionaries, we have seen, was for the present simply to ' lay a tax' on the parish for the maintenance of a 'good sufficient Protestant Minister.' Their election seems to have been a matter of form, to meet the requirements of the law, which im- posed a heavy fine upon the justices in case of neglect to call such a meeting. We hear nothing more of Vestry or churchwardens for nearly nine years. Meantime the town, as formerly, appoints committees to prosecute the search for a minister. Finally, 'at a town meeting held in Rye, December 19, 1702, the towne hath by a vote chosen Capt. Theall and George Lane, sen., to goe to New Rochel, and there to meet those men which shall be chosen in the other parts of the county, and there to consult concerning the ministry as the warrant directs.' And on the twelfth of Jan- nary following, ' at a lawful towne meeting, the precinct of Rye' choose Colonel Caleb Heathcote and Justice Theall churchwar- dens, and Justice Purdy, Justice Mott, Capt. Horton, Deliverance Brown, Hachaliah Brown, George Lane, sen., Thomas Purdy, Thomas Disbrow, Isaac Denham, and Samuel Lane ' vestri men for the year ensuing.' 1
The names of ' vestrymen ' and ' churchwardens' seem strangely chosen to designate the officers appointed by the Act of 1693. These names were used in England to signify persons chosen by parishioners of the Established Church to take care of eccle- siastical property and manage parochial affairs. There can be no doubt that they were introduced designedly into this bill. ' It was prepared, we learn, by the only member of the Assembly which passed it who 'belonged to the Church of England, Mr. James . Grahame, the Speaker of the House. He took pains to word it ' so that it would not do well for the Dissenters,' but with the help of the governor would do, though ' but lamely,' for the church. 'It was the most,' says one, 'that could be got through at that time, for had more been attempted, the Assembly had seen through the artifice, -the most of them being Dissenters, - and all had been lost.' The use of these terms was a part of ' the artifice.' The Assembly probably thought it of little consequence by what name the officers appointed should be called. Of course, these persons at the first were almost without exception ' Dissent- ers.' The Vestry of the city of New York, at their first meeting, February 12th, 1694, decided by a majority of votes that 'it is the opinion of ye board that a Dissenting Minister be called to
1 Town Records.
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PARISH AND VESTRY OF RYE.
officiate and have the Cure of Souls for this City.' In January, 1695, they proceeded to call such a minister, by a unanimous vote.1 And in the same year the Assembly of the province itself declared ' that the Vestrymen and Church Wardens have power to call a Protestant Dissenting Minister, and that he is to be paid and maintained according as the Act directs.'
These facts are stated in order to explain the character and com- plexion of the Vestry of Rye. From its name, it would be nat- ural to suppose that it consisted of persons belonging to the Church of England ; and that the body so constituted was a purely eccle- siastical body. This would be far from correct. Probably not one of those who were first chosen to the office 'so much as inclined ' to that church. And although many of their successors were members of its communion, the Vestry would appear to have been composed largely of ' Dissenters,' down to the period of the Revolution.2 It was indeed rather a secular than an eccle- siastical body. It was chosen by the freeholders at large. Its chief business - besides providing for the collection of the minis- ter's salary - was, as we have seen, to look after the poor.
The Act of 1693 was well meant. It harmonized with the previous legislation of the province relative to the support of relig- ion. That legislation was eminently liberal and judicious. It approached more nearly to a perfect system of religious toleration than was known in most other colonies, or in any country of Europe. It allowed each denomination of Christians to choose and support a ministry of their own preference - providing only that it should be a 'Protestant' ministry. But as wrested from its proper design, and ' made to answer the purpose of the English Church party, which was a very small minority of the people,' 3 the act could not fail to work mischief. It tended to aggravate thie rankling sense of injustice and oppression which had been produced under other wrongs. And it operated to the serious disadvantage of the church in whose favor it was sought to be construed. This could not but be obvious even at the time to intelligent and
1 The Rev. Mr. Vesey was at this moment a minister of the Congregational order. 2 ' "Tis our great misfortune here,' says Mr. Bridge, in 1717, ' that our vestries are made up of such persons' (' Quakers and such others as have never showed any regard to religion '). Bolton, History of the Prot. Episc. Church in Westchester County, p. 206.
' The Vestry are chosen by all seets in the Parish,' says Mr. Wetmore, in 1761. ' Several of the Vestry are not of the Church, and not one of them a communicant in the Church.' (Ibid. pp 292, 293.)
8 Work and Materials, etc., by George II. Moore.
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UNWISE LEGISLATION.
candid men. 'I believe at this day,' wrote Colonel Morris in 1711, ' the Church had been in a much better condition had there been no Act in her favour.'] And like every other attempt to interfere with the liberty of conscience and of worship, this course proved only detrimental to the interests of true religion.
1 History of the Presbyterian Church, Jamaica, L. I., by Rev. James M. Macdonald, D. D., p. 139.
CHAPTER XXXV.
ECCLESIASTICAL LANDS.
SOON after the settlement of the town, three tracts of land were appropriated, according to New England custom, as " parsonage lots.' One of these was situated at the lower end of Peningo Neck, on what is still known as Parsonage Point ; another was in the Town Field ; and the third lay in the village proper, on the bank of Blind Brook.
1. THE PARSON'S POINT, or PARSONAGE POINT. This must have been the very earliest reservation of land for the minister's use. It comprised three acres ; 1 and the location indicates that it was set apart by the inhabitants of ' Hastings,' or while the set- tlers still lingered near Manussing Island, - about the year 1662. Parsonage Point forms the southeastern extremity of Peningo Neck, and lies about a mile below Rve Beach. It was too remote, therefore, from the houses in that vicinity to be intended for the . minister's home-lot, and could serve only as a glebe or meadow-lot. As such doubtless Mr. Denham, Mr. Woodbridge, and Mr. Bowers -- the early ministers of Rye - enjoyed it ; and it was a part of the ecclesiastical property which the rectors of the Church of England assumed on their 'induction ' by order of the colonial governor. This tract, however, was soon diverted from any ecclesiastical possession, by one of its occupants - why, we are not informed. Our only account of the matter is found in a letter from Rev. Mr. Jenney of Rye, December 15, 1722, to the Secretary of the Gos- pel Propagation Society. ' When I first examined,' he writes, ' into the glebe, I found one lot called the Parsonage Point, con- taining about five acres, as I am informed, alienated from the Church by patent to my predecessor Mr. Bridge and his family forever, and is now possessed by his executrix, for the use of his children.' 2
1 So stated in Mr. Bridge's patent. Mr. Jenney, in 1722, called it five acres.
2 Bolton, History of the Prot. Episc. Church in Westchester County, p. 221 : History of Westchester County, vol. ii. p. 32.
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