USA > New York > Dutchess County > Founding of the Episcopal church in Dutchess County, New York; an address delivered November 29, 1894 > Part 2
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INTERIOR OF TRINITY CHURCH, 1894.
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Several rooms in the Terbus house were filled and also the shed extending the whole length of the house, at the first Sunday service, in which Mr. Seabury says "I could not be conveniently heard."
"We waited long in the afternoon," says the Episcopal missionary, "for the benefit of the Dutch Church, which we had the favor of very obligingly, when Divine service in the Dutch Church was ended: and so late was it when we entered the Church, that it was with difficulty I could conclude my sermon for the approach of night."
There was no attendance on the Episcopal service by the Dutch people "from necessity," as Mr. Seabury's opponent says, after their regular morning service of sound doctrine from the Synod of Dort, the intermission exercise of catechizing and the afternoon service of precept and exhortation which those Dutch brethren were expected at that time to receive with docility and faith. The traveling was difficult and the roads heavy in Rombout Precinct and and along the Hudson further north. And yet at least a hundred were present at the Rev. Mr. Seabury's two services held on week days, "when people do not so readily leave their business," in private houses, and probably not less than 300 were gathered on Sunday in the service in the Dutch Church, since that is the number stated to have been there and also in his service March, 1759, "in the judgment of some of the most discerning." Mr. Seabury himself says:
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"It is well known that when I preached in the same place on the Sabbath in June, 1757, the congregation was no less crowded than at the first time in 1755."
So we have an aggregate attendance of 600 persons at four services, two of which were on week days, in the six days of this first visit at Fishkills, and of 300 at each of his subsequent services in 1757, and also when the Presbyterian minister preached in his own meeting in 1759.
The different persons thus attending in these successive alternate years, showed a remarkable interest and sympathy with the Church of Eng- land services in the vicinity of the little village of Fishkills with its fourteen houses. But this was not strange, since in the Colony of New York alone at that time, and as early as 1759,* the Episcopal Church was established by law in four Counties and no other "Profession" had any legal establishment in the Colony; though a re- ligious establishment of Congregationalism was being strongly contended for at this time in Con- necticut.
* In 1683 New York had one minister, Richmond two, West- chester two, Queens two, who were appointed by the Governor, Council and Representatives and inducted by the Governor.
In 1697 there was but one Church of England Church in New York City, one in Boston, one in Philadelphia, one in Fort Ann near New York.
In 1706 there were given by Queen Ann to the Churches in New York, Jamaica, West Hempstead, Rye and Staten Island each, one large Bible, one Prayer book, one book of Homilies, cloths for the pulpit and communion table, one silver chalice, one sil- ver paten.
In 1745 there were twenty-two Episcopal Churches commonly filled with bearers.
Reports of the V. S. P. G.
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The house of Mr. Terbus was probably the one destroyed by Dr. Bartow White, who owned the premises now the possession of Lewis B. White, so that the roof which first sheltered the worship of Trinity Church communicants has undoubt- edly perished, but its site may yet be surely marked if Captain Terbus and Judge Jacobus Terbus were of the same family and resided in the same house.
The Reverend Samuel Seabury, by stating such facts as the above quite effectually applied his Latin quotation on the title page of his pamphlet to his accuser. "Est stulte accusare alterum peccati, cujus ipse est conscius." For this anonymous writer said of Mr. Seabury in the letter referred to "that the people went out of curiosity to hear him," "that the Dutch and Presbyterian ministers were both providen- tially absent that day," and "that by far the greater part that heard him that day deter- mined they would never go out of their way to hear him again."
* "I stayed six days and preached four times to large assemblies," says the able and modest missionary, and he stayed to good effect.
Bartholomew Nixon, who was well informed as to ministers and churches in this County, and whom Mr. Seabury quoted for the authority of his statements, discoursed with Mr. Seabury to
* In Fishkill and vicinity were living at this time beside those already mentioned, Col. John Brinckerhoff, Abram Brinckerhoff, Gen. Jacobus Swartwout, Peter Montfort, Goris Storm, and mem- bers of the Van Cortlandt, Phillips, Ver Planck, Beekman and Livingstone families.
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convince him that Dutchess County was a place "proper to recommend to the charity of the Society." * "that if a clergyman of ability, modesty and virtue could be procured to officiate at stated times at the Fishkills, Rombout Precinct, Poughkeepsie and that part of Nine Partners, or Crum Elbow, bounding on the Fishkills and Poughkeepsie, a considera- ble Church would be gathered, and that from there he believed the clergyman would have occasional calls to other parts of the County.
The responsible persons thus interested said that "they would purchase a glebe and build a Church could they be assisted in the support of a minister."
It does not appear whether Mr. Seabury bap- tized on this journey any adults or children, as as he did on subsequent visits, but otherwise greatly encouraged, he returned to his parish at Hempstead, having fully reported to the Ven- erable Society their condition. He was directed by the Society " to take these poor people under his charge and do them what good services he can consistent with his more peculiar care." The Society at the same time promised "to send a minister among them when they should build a Church and purchase a glebe for his support."
Before this was accomplished, Mr. Seabury made similar visits to Dutchess County in 1757, 1759 and 1761. In 1757 the efforts at building a Church were fully reported to him by Judge Terbus and others, and he baptized one child of German Lutheran parentage. In 1759 he found
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the Church people "attentive to Divine worship and very deserving of having it continued to them." In 1761, in a journey to Dutchess County, he preached two sermons to very crowded con- gregations, and held services on three week days, and then he baptized one adult and thirty- three children. This was Mr. Seabury's last visit before his death. But he had in these sev- eral journeys visited Poughkeepsie, Fishkill Phillipsburgh, Nine Partners, Rombout, Beek- man's Precinct and Crum Elbow. Mention of these places is made in his papers, but probably other settlements were included in the list of this veritable circuit rider of the Anglican Church in the middle of the eighteenth century in the British Colonies of America.
Mr. Seabury went to England in June 1763 for surgical aid and returned the next year, "a sick and dying man." His life ended June 15, 1764 by a nervous disorder and an abscess in his side. Long Island by the reports of the Society's missionaries in 1759, was "the seat of infidelity" and "the acts of the Quaker enthusiasts had weakened the religious principles of the other inhabitants and made them look upon religion with indifference;" + yet in the twenty-one years of his rectorship at Hempstead, he baptized 1,071 persons, some of them by immersion. He was thus eminently successful in bringing per- sons to the confession of Christ. He was self- forgetful in his labors, and traveling from place to
* T. Colgan.
+ Rev. Samuel Seabury.
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place to win souls, he thus disarmed much op- position. He died at the age of fifty-eight. A newspaper of that day said: "He was a gen- tleman of amiable, exemplary character, greatly and generally beloved and lamented;" and it is engraved upon his tombstone, that he "with the greatest diligence and most indefatigable labor performed every duty."
He left four sons and three daughters. One of his sons was a noted physician at Hempstead, L. I., and another became the first Bishop in America, the Right Reverend Samuel Seabury D. D. of Connecticut.
THE BUILDING OF TRINITY CHURCH.
This ancient edifice stands to-day substantially as it originally was built, with only its towering four-decked spire and weather cock removed from its exterior.
It is regarded as the oldest Episcopal Church building in the County, and as an original struc- ture, one of the oldest in the State.
With the subscription for its erection, which was started as early as 1756, we date the organ- ization of the Church as a spiritual body; for the experimental visit of Mr. Seabury had devel- oped the purpose to build a church and establish worship, which was recognized by the Mi ary Society the same year, and certain persons were presumably appointed by some authority,
* There were said to be in 1755 22 meeting houses, mostly of Quakers or Separatists in the County and 11 ministers for them. " The Dutch Church at Poughkeepsie was not enclosed or under- pinned, but standing on blocks, nor floored or preached in though raised for several years."-Rev. Samuel Seabury.
TRINITY CHURCH BEFORE 1860.
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like the Church Wardens already mentioned, to obtain subscriptions for the church and glebe required. There were then no canonical laws of a diocese or General Convention to make any other organization possible. This subscription was reported to Mr. Seabury with the following interesting facts:
"Not less than 103 persons, ten of whom are single, have already subscribed for the building of a Church for the worship of God according to the Liturgy of the Church of England." This was exclusive of Poughkeepsie and Crum El- bow, where the subscription had not been offered. The subscribers were residents on the borders of Beekman and Phillips Precincts. Fifty more persons in those places to whom a church might be convenient would contribute, the writer said, and from the encouragement given by persons of the best credit and influence, he believed one hundred more would subscribe. This was the condition of the enterprise before Mr. Seabury's visit at Fishkill in 1759. He also says of these persons: "They are not all professors of the Church of England, yet it is certain that many of them are so and sundrys of them are removed from Hempstead, and all of them are friends of the Church and see the necessity of encouraging it.
Judge Terbus says of them further, as quoted by Mr. Seabury, "Sundry of the Germans (Luth- erans) are subscribers to the building of the church, and subscribe handsomely. None of them have refused an'd that he expects many of
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them will yet subscribe: and that some of them, of the leading men, have told him they can go to the Table i. e. the Holy Communion, with the Church of England."
It appears from several expressions of Mr. Seabury, that the German Lutherans of that day were often associated with the Church of England congregations, were often communi- cants with them and had their children baptized by their ministers. In his visit in 1759 Mr. Sea- bury says he found here that "the conditions of the Government" then engaged in the war with France, which ended with the capture of Quebec and the British subjugation of Canada, "had prevented them from fulfilling their pledges to build a Church," but they said "they were la- boring to qualify themselves for a missionary with all convenient speed, which nothing but the war prevented them from having done al- ready."
In 1762 Mr. Seabury mentions other details of his visit, butnowhere writes of any church build- ing as yet erected. A subscription paper for the purchase of a glebe in some convenient place, in Poughkeepsie, Rombout, the Great Nine Partners, or Beekman bears date April 2, 1766. This distinctly says: "there is not any settled Church of England in said County, by which means public worship according to the liturgie of the said Church is altogether neglected."
A copy of the deed given by Matthew Brett to. James Duncan and Richard Southard trus- tees, for the lot on which Trinity church stands
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containing one-half acre and thirty-one perches of land, is dated September 30, 1767. The consid- eration named is "two pounds in the current money of New York, to hold the said land to and for the use of the inhabitants of Rombout Pre- cinct in said Dutchess County who are members in communion of the Church of England, as by law established, for a cemetery and church-yard and for building a Church of England thereon and for no other use or purpose whatever."
This deed was not recorded until Aug. 10th, I775. It brings, however, the last probable clue known as to the approximate time when this building was erected. Without doubt some time elapsed after the securing of the land for settling the competition of the Poughkeepsie churchmen as to the right of collecting the subscriptions made and locating the first church building. It was therefore probably not built before 1769, nine years after the date 1760, hitherto claimed for it, against which there is strong presump- tive evidence for six or seven years, Only some concurrent papers or letters yet to be dis- covered can establish the exact date.
But this church was already in 1776, in a de- lapidated and neglected condition, unfit for use. It was barely habitable when first occupied for the Provincial Convention in September 1776, without seats or benches or other conveniences and so fouled by doves that it could not be com- fortably used at that time for an assembly on account of its neglected and exposed condition. The considerable sum of money, £349, 4s, IId,
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allowed in 1788 by the government appraisers, James Weeks, Isaac Van Wyck, Esqs., and Cap- tain Cornelius Adriance, for its use as a hospital for seven years during the war, was voted by the Vestry to be when received, all expended on its repairs and completion, and in May 17, 1797 £200 were thus appropriated and Abram Wetmore was voted "£10 to recompense for losses in pew- ing the church."
The events most affecting the condition of the building were the lively disputes which evidently occurred over the repair or the removal of the tall steeple, during the rectorship of the Rev. Philander Chase. This steeple ran up in four sections and was only three feet lower than the steeple on the Dutch church. Abram Wetmore was paid £51, IOS, 3d, for taking it down in 1803.
The tower remained in part, but was reshaped in 1860. The removal of the old fashioned, high- backed, square built pews which, with the rest of the interior were painted white, and also the hour-glass pulpit and sounding board, of which the crowning piece is before you, the cut- ting down of the bases of the pillars, the reseat- ing of the church in its present form out of the material of the original pews, the rebuilding of the chancel and vestry room, the replacing of this, the second altar, by the present one, were done between 1860 and 1870, within your mem- ory who accomplished these great changes,* to which should be added the erection of the me-
* Under the direction of Isaac E. Cotheal, Oliver W. Barnes and J. D. Fouquet, Esquires.
RELICS OF TRINITY CHURCH, 1769-1825.
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morial window in the chancel by many sub- scribers,* and the memorial gifts in the chancel and upon the altar which are before you from a number of individuals.
The last material improvement has been the building of the rectory. The building commit- tee who superintended its erection in 1892 con- sisted of Samuel Verplanck, Sylvanus M. Da- vidson and John D. Fouquet. Subscriptions for it were largely obtained by the women of Trin- ity parish, aided by the special efforts of S. M. Davidson, who has been the efficient treasurer and clerk of the Vestry for thirteen years, and John D. Fouquet, who made and donated the plans and specifications of the house. This under- taking was made possible by the use of an in- vested church fund of $1,500, the gift of the rec- tory lot by Miss Catharine E. Cotheal, and the larger contributions of Mr. Samuel Verplanck and his late lamented wife Anna S. Rodgers Ver- planck, to which others within and beyond the parish added liberal gifts.
HISTORY OF TRINITY CHURCH DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
From 1764 until 1777 was an eventful period in the development of the Episcopal Church in this region through the efficient labors of the second missionary, the Rev. John Beardsley A. M., who became the first rector of Trinity Church, Fish- kill, and of Christ Church, Poughkeepsie. It is singular that so little has been known hitherto of his rectorship. The reports of the Venerable
* Through the efforts of Miss Glorvina Bartow.
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Society, and the accounts in the family records kindly sent to me* only imperfectly present the character and work of this remarkable man. He probably carried away with him to New York and Nova Scotia, when a persecuted political prisoner and refugee, the papers which would reveal him to us and also a deeply interesting portion of the history of this church. Mr. Beardsley's ancestor on his father's side, William and his wife Mary Beardsley, came from London in 1635. Mr. Beardsley was a prominent deputy during many sessions of the General Court of Connecticut from 1645 and subsequently became a large land holder and a freeman of Massachu- setts. He died in 1661. Since he was thus connected with the colony of Massachusetts he must have been a very moderate Churchman, but his descendants at Stratford in Connecti- cut, were earnest supporters of the Church of England.
The Rev. John Beardsley was born April 23, 1732, in the fourth generation from the founder of the Beardsley family in America. He was connected with Yale College in 1758 and enrolled as graduated in 1762, though he had the degrees of A. B. and A. M. from King's College New York in 1761 and 1768. He went to England for Holy Orders in 1761 at a period when one third of those who sought this ordination perished by the perils of the voyage or by smallpox contracted in England. He returned with an appointment from the Venerable Society to Norwich, Connect-
By the Rev. W. A. Beardsley, of New Haven, Conn.
TRINITY RECTORY, ERECTED 1892.
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icut, where he remained for five years until he came to Poughkeepsie and Fishkill, having ac- cepted the charge here Oct, 26th, 1766. Proba- bly while at Norwich he married Sylvia, daugh- ter of the Rev. Ebenezer Punderson, who was the first missionary of the Society at New Haven. She was the mother of his five children. Mr. Beardsley's position here from the very first was extremely trying and difficult, and yet under his ministry Trinity church was built at Fishkill and Christ church at Poughkeepsie, a proof of effi- ciency, of strong character, and of wise and faith- ful administration which was hardly surpassed by any rector of those times. His salary from the Society in 1769 was only £35 when there was given the same year in salaries to eighty-three missionaries of the Venerable Society in North America the sum of £4680, 13s 8d. The act of Parliament passed in the year 1764, imposing tax- ation on the colonies had been repealed March 18, 1766, shortly before he took this charge.
We well know that the effect of that taxation had been violent discussion, protest, and disloyal evasion. Patriotic associations had been formed all over the country especially in the New Eng- land colonies and in New York. The advocacy in Parliament by Camden and Pitt of the rights of the colonists had aided in making sentiment intense on this side of the Atlantic. Violence was threatened. Some feared Great Britain. Many still loved the mother country and their con- sciences were with "the powers that be." These combined with the colonial and custom house
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authorities to sustain the King.
But the repeal of the stamp act at the petition of the colonists only more securely fastened by its language the absolute authority of Great Britain over them. Sentiment was divided in the churches of the land. There were many to counsel obedience. The dissenting clergy gen- erally exerted a powerful influence against Par- liament. But most of those who were in the Church of England felt they were bound by their oaths of office to allegiance to the King. It was harder for them than for others to turn their sympathies against England and they naturally exerted their personal influence for her.
The reports of the Venerable Society say that the clergy amid this scene of tumult and disor- der went on steadily with their duty, in their sermons conforming to the doctrine of the gospel without touching on politics, and using their influence to allay heats and cherish a spirit of loyalty among the people. This conduct gave great offense to the flaming patriots who laid it down as a maxim that those who were not for them were against them. The clergy were "everywhere threatened, often reviled, some times treated with brutal violence." "Some were carried prisoners by armed mobs into distant provinces and much insulted without any crime being alleged against them, some flung into jail for frivolous suspicions of plots of which even their accusers afterward acquitted them." These clergymen were persons who had made great sacrifices for conforming to the Church, and being
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actuated by the highest motives were such as exerted a much larger influence than their numbers would indicate. They checked for a long time the spread of disloyalty. It is dis- tinctly stated that the dissenting clergy made the abolition of the Church of England one of their principal objects, but all the Society's mission- aries up to Oct. 31, 1776 in New York, New Eng- land and New Jersey remained faithful, loyal subjects, so far as could be learned by Rev. C. Inglis, the last who remained in New York City. Yet one fourth of the eighty-three mis- sionaries of the Society were brought up dissent- ers.
The abandonment of New York Province by the King's troops made the situation of the clergy particularly dangerous, for they were peculiarly the objects of dissenters' envy and hatred. Some were pulled out of the reading desk because they prayed for the king, and that before independ- ence was declared. Others were fined for not ap- pearing at militia musters with their arms. Some had their houses plundered, others were shot at on their rides to make visitations and offi- ciate at services. "Were every instance of the kind collected, the sufferings of the American clergy would not appear inferior in many respects to the sufferings of the English clergy in the great rebellion of the seventeenth century."
The declaration of independence by Congress in 1776 increased the embarassment of the clergy. To officiate publicly and not pray for the King and royal family, according to the liturgy, was
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against their duty and their oath as well as their consciences. Yet to use the prayers would have drawn inevitable destruction upon them. The only course to avoid both evils was to shut up their churches. This was done in most instances in the provinces already mentioned. New York was the most loyal and peaceable of them and yet the scene of the war and suffered the most. But it is to be remembered that the most patriotic upholders of the American revolution and the most eminent of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the most illustrious of the officers of the American army of the Revolution, were communicants or supporters of the Church of England in this country. Virginia gave to the cause of the Revolution Patrick Henry, Washington and Jefferson, who were churchmen as well as patriots. So were Richard Henry Lee, and fifty-five of the signers of the declara- tion of independence, and two-thirds of the framers of the constitution of the United States. It was the clergy of this Church who were most affected by their peculiar obligations and duties and placed in the most painful situations.
What a period were therefore the ten years from 1766 to 1776 to such ministers as John Beards- ley, rejoicing as he did at the repeal of the stamp act at the beginning of his solitary rectorship in Dutchess County ! He felt deeply that the re- action against the reassertion of unlimited au- thority was ungrateful.
Public events during this ministry made the position of rector still more difficult for a man
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CHRIST CHURCH, POUGHKEEPSIE, 1833.
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like Mr. Beardsley, a loyalist, or "tory"as he was probably now called. Such events were the massacre in King Street, Boston, on the fifth of March 1770, and the acquittal of the British sol- diers who perpetrated it; while the speeches of Hancock, Warrenand others at succeeding anni- versaries of this cruel act continued the agita- tion; the Boston harbor "tea fight" Dec. 16, 1773, the enactment of the Boston Port Bill, the arri- val of General Gates, the battles of Lexingfon and of Bunker Hill in 1775. These flagrant acts and stirring events set men into deeper hatred especially against those who taught by their worship, obedience and loyalty. They were in- deed thorns in the hands of patriots with which to pierce the ministers and adherents to Great Brit- ain's authority who, before independence was declared, had remained faithful in their churches, to their vows and prayers. How could there be progress in the affairs of Trinity Church and Christ Church during these unhappy times ! And yet in 1769 this church building, large and stately for that period was erected, and Christ Church, a spacious stone building at Poughkeepsie, was built in 1774, under Mr. Beardsley's ministry, in a time when it was accounted highly criminal to prevent a friend to Great Britain from starving. Mr. Beardsley remained loyal to the King and refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Col- onies when the war of the Revolution at last be- gan. Certainly he had the courage of his con- victions so much praised when we sympathize with the convictions.
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