USA > New York > Encyclopedia of biography of New York, a life record of men and women whose sterling character and energy and industry have made them preeminent in their own and many other states, Vol. 2 > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55
44
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
years. The care of the son fell to the mother, a woman of strong Christian character, who had marked influence upon the life of her son. She always cherished the hope that he might enter the ministry, and a little pocket Bible which she gave him he learned to read when four years of age. Others of the family hoped that he would become a lawyer, believing that he could attain dis- tinction in that profession, and, while he had the mental ability to become eminent therein, he determined to enter a calling that led him into close contact with his fellow men. At the age of sixteen he be- came a student in Princeton College, and three years later was graduated with high honors. The following year was spent in Europe, where he formed the acquaintance of Thomas Carlyle, Wil- liam Wordsworth and Charles Dickens, and his visits to those celebrated English writers were among the most pleasant memories of his life. Travel broadened his knowledge, and his mind was stored with many interesting reminscences of the sights and scenes which he viewed when abroad. Upon his return, his father's family again urged him to be- come a member of the bar, but his mother's influence and other agencies in his life were stronger. When a young man he was asked to address a meeting in a neighboring village. Several in- quirers professed a religious belief that evening, saying that the young man had made the way plain to them. This brought to him a recognition of his influ- ence and power, and he resolved to de- vote his activities to the cause of the Master. His preparatory studies for the ministry were pursued in the Princeton Theological Seminary, where, on the completion of a three-years' course, he was graduated in May, 1846.
His first ministerial services after being
licensed to preach was as supply to the church at Kingston, Pennsylvania, where he remained for six months. Not long afterward he accepted the charge of the Presbyterian church in Burlington, New Jersey, where his labors were so success- ful that it was felt he should be employed in a broader field. Accordingly, he left Burlington to take pastoral charge of the newly organized Third Presbyterian Church in Trenton, New Jersey, where he remained until the summer of 1853. In May of that year he received a call from the Shawmut Congregational Church in Boston, but declined it, and accepted a call from the Market Street Reformed Dutch Church in New York City, where he felt his field would be broader and more congenial by reason of the greater demands it would make upon him. His work there at once at- tracted public attention. His earnest- ness, his clear reasoning, his logical argu- ments and his brilliant gifts of oratory, attracted large audiences, and his work among young men was particularly suc- cessful. For seven years he continued as pastor of that congregation, and in 1860 entered upon his important work in connection with the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, New York. The exodus from New York to Brooklyn was beginning to be felt about this time, and the need for better church accommodations in the latter city had long been so pressing as to engross the attention of many earnest Christians. A conference on the subject was held May 16, 1857, by a number of gentlemen con- nected with Dr. Spear's "South" Church, and it was decided to form a "new- school" church. Soon after its organiza- tion, Professor Roswell D. Hitchcock, of the Union Theological Seminary of New York, supplied the pulpit, and during his ministry there the church society, first
45
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
numbering but forty-eight souls, in- creased so rapidly that the little brick chapel was found inadequate to contain the audiences. It was a season of spiritual awakening all over the land,- the revival of 1858,- and Park Church (as it was then known) shared in the general improvement and met the de- mand upon its accommodations by build- ing an addition. In January of the fol- lowing year (1859) Professor Hitchcock resigned, and was succeeded as pulpit supply by the Rev. Lyman Whiting, ot Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who six months later also resigned, and for an additional six months the congregation was without a regular minister.
About this time Dr. Cuyler was offered the pastorate, but the outlook of his own church was then so promising that he declined the call. Shortly afterward, however, the Dutch church began to fal- ter in its project of planting its new edi- fice in the new and growing part of the city. With keen foresight, Dr. Cuyler anticipated the rapid change that was soon to transform unpopulated districts of Brooklyn, and believed that it would prove a splendid field for Christian labor. It was then he took into consideration the offer of the pastorate of the Park Church. He visited the Fort Greene sec- tion of Brooklyn, and then informed the committee which waited on him that if their congregation would purchase the plot at the corner of Lafayette avenue and Oxford street and erect thereon a plain edifice large enough to accommo- date about two thousand people, he would accept the call. It seemed a great undertaking for the little congregation, with its membership of only one hundred and forty people, but the committee agreed to the proposition, and within ten days the purchase of the land was effect- ed, at a cost of $12,000. At an additional
cost of $42,000 there was erected a splen- did stone structure, modeled after Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's church, and hav- ing also the same seating capacity. Work began on the new edifice in the fall of 1860, and on March 12, 1862, the com- pleted church was dedicated. This was practically the work of Dr. Cuyler, who in April, 1860, was formally installed as pastor.
He entered upon his work with an en- thusiasm born of strong determination, firm convictions and noble purpose. His brilliant oratory soon attracted the atten- tion of Brooklyn citizens, and his forceful utterances, showing forth the divine pur- pose, appealed to the understanding of thinking people. The church grew with marvelous rapidity, and as rapidly as pos- sible Dr. Cuyler extended the field of his labors. In 1866 there were more than three hundred additions, and he felt that its growing strength justified the estab- lishment of a mission. Accordingly, in Warren street, the Memorial Mission School was organized, the direct outcome of which was the Memorial Presbyterian Church, which became one of the strong- est and most prosperous in that section of the city. The Fort Greene Presby- terian Church also had its origin in one of Dr. Cuyler's mission schools which was established in 1861, with a member- ship of one hundred and twelve. The Classon Avenue Church was also another direct branch of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. In the twenty-five years following its incorporation, Dr. Cuyler's congregation contributed $70,- 000 to city missions, and its gifts as re- ported for the year 1888 exceeded $53,000. The Sunday school, the Young People's Association and the various charitable and benevolent organizations became im- portant adjuncts of the church work. The church membership in 1890 was
46
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
nearly 2,400, and the Sunday school num- bered 1,600 ranking the third largest in the General Assembly.
With all these extensive and important undertakings under his supervision, Dr. Cuyler also did the work of pastor as well as of teacher and leader, and perhaps no man in the Christian ministry ever more endeared himself through the ties of love and friendship to his parishioners. For thirty years he remained pastor of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, and then voluntarily severed his relations therewith. He addressed his people in the following words on Sunday, Febru- ary 2, 1890:
Nearly thirty years have elapsed since I assumed the pastoral charge of the Lafayette Avenue Church. In April, 1860, it was a small band of one hundred and forty members. By the continual blessing of Heaven upon us, that little flock has grown into one of the largest and most useful and powerful churches in the Pres- byterian denomination; it is the third in point of numbers in the United States. This church has now 2,330 members; it maintains two mis- sion chapels; has 1,600 in its Sunday school, and is paying the salaries of three ministers in this city, and of two missionaries in the South. For several years it has led all the churches of Brooklyn in its contributions to foreign, home and city missions, and it is surpassed by none other in wide and varied Christian work. Every sitting in this spacious house has its occupant. Our morning audiences have never been larger than they have this winter. This church has always been to me like a beloved child. I have given to it thirty years of hard and happy labor, and it is my foremost desire that its harmony may remain undisturbed and its prosperity may remain unbroken. For a long time I have in- tended that my thirtieth anniversary should be the terminal point of my present pastorate. I shall then have served this beloved flock for an ordinary human generation, and the time has come for me to transfer this sacred trust to some one who, in God's good providence, may have thirty years of vigorous work before him and not behind him. If God spares my life to the first Sabbath of April it is my purpose to surrender this pulpit back into your hands, and I shall endeavor to cooperate with you in the
search and selection of the right man to stand in it. I will not trust myself to-day to speak of the sharp pang it will cost me to sever a con- nection that has been to me one of unalloyed harmony and happiness. When the proper time comes we can speak of all such things, and in the meanwhile let us continue on in the blessed Master's work and leave our future entirely to His all-wise and ever loving care. On the walls of this dear church the eyes of the angels have always seen it written, "I, the Lord, do keep it, and I will keep it night and day." It only re- mains for me to say that after forty-four years of uninterrupted ministerial labor it is but rea- sonable for me to ask for relief from a strain that may soon become too heavy for me to bear.
A feeling of the greatest sorrow was manifest throughout the congregation, many of whom had grown up under his active pastorate. On April 16, in the church parlors, a farewell reception was held, on which occasion a purse of $30,- 000 was presented to Dr. Cuyler-one thousand dollars for each year of his service as pastor, the gift indicating in unmistakable manner the love which his congregation bore for him.
However, his friends were not limited to his own congregation, for through his writings he had become known through- cut the civilized world, and he had many admirers among those who have been helped by his earnest and inspiring words. He was a constant contributor to the religious journals of the country, including the "Christian Intelligencer," "Christian Work," "The Watchman," "Christian Endeavor World," "Evangel- ist" and "Independent." He prepared about four thousand articles for the press, and wrote seventy-five tracts, many of which were republished in Eng- lish, German and Australian newspapers. In 1852 he published a volume entitled "Stray Arrows," containing selections of his newspaper writings. He was the author of eighteen published volumes, of which "Cedar Christian," "Heart Life,"
47
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
"Empty Crib," "Thought Hives," "Point- ed Papers for the Christian Life," "God's Light on Dark Clouds" and "Newly En- listed" were reprinted in England, where they had a large sale. The "Empty Crib" was published after the death of a be- loved boy, nearly five years of age, and the subsequent loss of a beautiful and accomplished daughter was the occasion of his writing a marvelously touching production entitled "God's Light on Dark Clouds." In addition to the works men- tioned, he was author of the following: "How to be a Pastor," "The Young Preacher," "Christianity in the Home," "Stirring the Eagle's Nest" and other sermons, and "Beulah Land." A selec- tion from his writings, entitled "Right to the Point," was published in Boston. Six of his books were translated into Swedish and two into Dutch.
To a man of Dr. Cuyler's nature the needs of the world were ever manifest and . elicited his most hearty, earnest and de- voted cooperation. The great benevolent movements and reform measures re- ceived his aid, and he labored earnestly in behalf of the Young Men's Christian Association mission schools, the Chil- dren's Aid Association, the Five Points Mission, and the Freedmen; while his work in the National Temperance Soci- ety was a most potent influence in pro- moting temperance sentiment among those with whom he came in contact as teacher and preacher. He served as presi- dent of the National Temperance Society of American. In 1872 he went abroad as a delegate to the Presbyterian Assembly in Edinburgh, Scotland, on which occa- sion he won the warm friendship of many eminent Presbyterian divines of Great Britain. His friends were drawn from the most cultured and intelligent, and these included Spurgeon, Gladstone, Dean Stanley, Dickens, Carlyle, Neal
Dow, Lincoln, Horace Greeley and John G. Whittier.
In 1853 Dr. Cuyler was united in mar- riage to Annie E. Mathiot, a daughter of the Hon. Joshua Mathiot, a member of Congress from Ohio. Her labors ably supplemented and rounded out those of her husband. She was in hearty sym- pathy with him in all of his church work and in his efforts for the upbuilding of man, and in a no less forceful, but in a more quiet way, her influence was ex- erted for the benefit of God's children. From the time of his retirement from the ministry until near the close of his life Dr. Cuyler devoted his time to preaching and lecturing in colleges and to literary work. A monument to his splendid accomplishments is found in the Cuyler Chapel of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, which was named in his honor by the Young People's As- sociation of that organization in 1892. A large mission church, seating one thou- sand people and erected in 1900 by the Lafayette Avenue Church, in Canton, China, was named the Theodore L. Cuy- ler Church. He died February 26, 1909.
DUTCHER, Silas B., Man of Affairs, Philanthropist.
Silas B. Dutcher was born July 12, 1829, on his father's farm on the shore of Otsego Lake, in the town of Spring- field, Otsego county, New York, son of Parcefor Carr and Johanna Low (Frink) Dutcher, grandson of John and Silvey (Beardsley) Dutcher, great-grandson of Gabriel and Elizabeth (Knickerbocker) Dutcher, and great-great-grandson of Ruloff and Janettie (Bressie) Dutcher, who were married at Kingston, New York, in 1700, and in 1720 removed to Litchfield county, Connecticut. Ruloff Dutcher is believed to have been a grand-
48
S.R. Dutches.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
son of Dierck Cornelison Duyster, under- commissary at Fort Orange in 1630, whose name appears in deeds of two large tracts of land to Killian Van Rens- selaer. His maternal grandparents were Stephen and Ann (Low) Frink, and his maternal great-grandparents were Cap- tain Peter and Johanna (Ten Eyck) Low, and his great-grandfather was an officer in the Continental army. Johanna Ten Eyck was a descendant of Conrad Ten Eyck, who came from Amsterdam, Hol- land, to New York in 1650, and owned what is now known as Coenties Slip, New York City. Another of his ancestors was William Beardsley, who was born at Stratford, England, in 1605, came to America in 1635, settling at Stratford, Connecticut, four years later, and an- other one was Harman Janse Van Wye Knickerbocker, of Dutchess county, New York.
Silas B. Dutcher attended the public schools near his father's farm each sum- mer and winter from the age of four until the age of seven years, and after that he had a little more schooling in the winter season, and one term at Cazenovia Seminary. He began teaching winter schools at the age of sixteen, and taught every winter until he was twenty-two, working on his father's farm during the remainder of each year. In the fall of 1851, owing to a temporary loss of his voice which prevented him from teach- ing, he found employment at railroad construction, but soon became a station agent and subsequently a conductor, and for more than three years was employed on the old Erie Railway from Elmira to Niagara Falls, New York. He then went to New York and entered mercantile business, to which he devoted his ener- gies through the terrible panics of 1857 and 1860 without severe misfortune. In 1868 he was appointed Supervisor of In-
N Y-Vol II1-4
ternal Revenue, a position which he at first declined, but was urged by his friends to accept. Against his own judg- ment, and, as events proved, greatly to the detriment of his financial interests, he took the office. He was unable to give attention to his own business, his partner was not equal to its management, and he soon discovered that all he had accumu- lated by twelve years of hard work was scattered and gone, and he was obliged to sell the real estate he owned to meet his liabilities.
Even as a boy he had been more or less interested in politics. His grand- father was a Democrat, and Silas B. Dutcher was often called upon to read his Democratic newspaper to him; his father was a Whig, and the result was that he had an opportunity at an early age to learn something of the claims of both parties. Before he was twenty-one he became interested in the question of freedom, or the extension of slavery in the territories-the most vital question of that day-and while yet little more than a boy, in 1848, did some effective campaign speaking for General Taylor.
When he went to New York Mr. Dutcher resolved to have nothing to do with active politics, but the breaking up of a Republican meeting in the Bleecker building in the Ninth Ward brought him out most decisively, and he was quite active politically from 1856 to 1861. In 1857 he was president of the Ninth Ward Republican Association; in 1858-59 he was chairman of the Young Men's Repub- lican Committee; and in 1860 he was president of the Wide-Awake Associa- tion. During the last year mentioned he became a member of the Board of Super- visors of the county of New York. His business demanded his attention, and there were other reasons why, in the fall of 1861, he moved to Brooklyn in order
49
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
to sever his relations with that body. William M. Tweed was a member of the board at that time, and began to develop some of the schemes which eventually caused his downfall. Mr. Dutcher was not willing to vote ignorantly on any question or to act upon the representa- tions of other members, who he believed held their personal interests above the interests of the county. As a resident of Brooklyn he again resolved to keep out of politics, but the riots of 1863 brought him in close relations with active Repub- licans, and he found himself again in the political harness. He held the office of Supervisor of Internal Revenue from 1868 until 1872, a period of four years, at first under appointment of Hugh Mc- Cullough, the Secretary of the Treasury, and later under appointment of President Grant. In November, 1872, he was ap- pointed United States Pension Agent, re- signing that office in 1875 to accept a position in the employ of the Metropoli- tan Life Insurance Company, which he held until appointed United States Ap- praiser of the Port of New York by President Grant, which latter position he held until 1880. He was Superintendent of Public Works of the State of New York from 1880 until 1883, appointed by Governor Cornell. At the close of his term in the last named office, President Arthur requested him to accept the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue, to which he replied that he had held office fourteen years, and that all he had to show for that service was a few old clothes; that if he accepted the position tendered him and held it one or more years, he would retire with about the same quantity of old clothes as he had at the beginning, and so much older and less available for other business, and that the remainder of his life must be devoted to making some provision for his wife and
children, and consequently he must de- cline further office-holding.
He was a member of the charter com- mission which framed the charter of Greater New York, appointed by Gov- ernor Morton, and was appointed a man- ager of the Long Island State Hospital by Governor Black, and reappointed by Governor Roosevelt. He was a Whig from 1850 to 1855, and became a Repub- lican at the organization of that party. After locating in Brooklyn he was the chairman of the Kings County Repub- lican Committee for four years, a mem- ber of the Republican State Committee for many years, and was the chairman of the Republican Executive Committee of the State in 1876. He served as a dele- gate to several Republican national con- ventions, and was on the stump in every presidential campaign from 1848 to 1888.
From the time he became a resident of Brooklyn until the consolidation was consummated, Mr. Dutcher was an ad- vocate of the consolidation of Brooklyn and New York. As a member for four years of the Brooklyn Board of Educa- tion, he exerted all his influence for the advancement of the public schools. As a member of the Charter Commission for Greater New York, he labored earnestly to secure equal taxation and home rule for the public schools, believing that the system and management were better than in Manhattan, and better than any other submitted to the community. No work of his life gave him more satisfaction than the results in the charter on these two points. He also took an active in- terest in Sunday school affairs, and was superintendent for ten years of the Twelfth Street Reformed Church Sun- day school, at a time when it was one of the largest schools in the State.
Mr. Dutcher resumed business to some extent in 1885, when he formed a copart-
50
-- ----
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
nership with W. E. Edminster in a fire and marine insurance agency, which ex- isted for a number of years. He was one of the charter trustees of the Union Dime Savings Institution of New York City, organized in 1859, and became its presi- dent in 1885. In the spring of 1901 he was invited to and accepted the presi- dency of the Hamilton Trust Company. He was for twenty years a director in the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and was a director in the Garfield Safe Deposit Company and the Goodwin Car Company. He was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, treasurer of the Brooklyn Bible Society, one of the man- agers of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor, a member of the Brooklyn and Hamilton clubs and of the Masonic fraternity, and president of the Association of the Brooklyn Masonic Veterans in 1896.
When Mr. Dutcher took up his resi- dence in Brooklyn the population of the city was about 275,000. What is now the Park Slope was then open fields. The small settlement known as Gowanus was all there was south of Flatbush avenue. He witnessed the city grow from a little more than a quarter of a million souls to more than a million and a quarter, the Park Slope transformed into one of the finest residential sections of the city, and the three or four churches in that part of Brooklyn increase in large measure. He knew every one of Brooklyn's mayors from George Hall, the first executive, down to the time of his death, and also knew personally every Governor of the State of New York, from William H. Seward to Benjamin B. Odell, except Governor William C. Bouch and Gov- ernor Silas Wright. His political career was one to note with respect. He was never an applicant for any office that he filled, and he never became a dependent
on a political office. Every public em- ployment to which he was called was a business employment and he fulfilled its duties in a way to prove his fitness for private employment and his life exhibited a union of public and private service which was creditable citizenship.
Mr. Dutcher married, February 10, 1859, Rebecca J. Alwaise, a descendant of John Alwaise, a French Huguenot, who came to Philadelphia in 1740. Her grandmother was a descendant of John Bishop, who came from England in 1645, and settled at Woodbridge, New Jersey. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Dutcher were: DeWitt P., Edith May, Elsie Re- becca, Malcomb B., Jessie Ruth and Eva Olive. Mr. Dutcher died February 10, I909.
DE VINNE, Theodore L.,
Art Printer, Author.
Theodore Low De Vinne, one of the most accomplished printers of his day, and a founder of the New York Typothe- tæ, was born in Stamford, Connecticut, December 25, 1828, son of the Rev. Dan- iel and Joanna Augusta (Low) De Vinne.
He acquired a common school educa- tion, and at an early age entered the office of "The Gazette," at Newburgh, New York, and learned the printer's trade, remaining there four years. In 1849 he came to New York City and took employment in the printing house of Francis Hart, and ten years later he be- came junior partner in the firm of Fran- cis Hart & Company. At the time of the death of Mr. Hart in 1877, Mr. De Vinne became manager of the business, and in 1883 it was incorporated by Theodore L. De Vinne & Company. Mr. De Vinne became world-wide known as a most ac- complished printer, and recognized as a foremost leader in improvement in the
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.