USA > New York > New York City > History of New York City : embracing an outline sketch of events from 1609 to 1830, and a full account of its development from 1830 to 1884 Volume II > Part 13
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When New Amsterdam was incorporated a city in 1653, Governor Stuyvesant relinquished to the municipal authorities the revenue arising from excise licenses, on condition that they should pay out of it the salaries of " two ministers, one schoolmaster, and one dog-whipper :" but this privilege was withdrawn the next year because the burgomas- ters had paid the salary of only the dog-whipper.
The conquest of New Netherlands by the English did not materially affect the Dutch Church or its school. The petty tyrant Lord Cornbury gave them some trouble, but it was temporary. The school had no permanent habitation until 1748, when it was one hundred and fifteen years old. In that year a small house was built for it on Garden Street (now Exchange Place). On its site was erected a new and more spacious house in 1773, when the salary of the schoolmaster was $400 a year.
Up to this period, though the English language was generally spoken in New York, no one had presumed to teach any but the Dutch tongue in this school. From its foundation until 180S the school was under the exclusive control of the ministers and deacons of the Church, and they for some time strenuously resisted the inevitable change. The pressure of necessity became too great, and in 1773 the deacons con- sented to have reading and writing taught in both the Dutch and Eng- lish languages.
While the British held the city of New York (1776-83) the Dutch Church School was closed. It was reopened a few weeks before the British troops evacuated the city. In 1759 a custom was established of
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providing each scholar with a suit of clothes, collections being made for the purpose in the churches. The first collection was made in the North Dutch Church, and amounted to $216.
In 1792 the first feminine teacher-Elizabeth Ten Eyck-was em- ployed in the school. She continued about eighteen years, when the introduction of the Lancastrian system excluded her, but for thirty years afterward she was employed in making clothing for the girls of the school.
It was not until 1804 that English grammar was taught in this school. Four years later the deacons gave up their rule to a board of trustees, and that form of government still continues. The following year the Lancastrian system was introduced. Henry Webb Dunshee was appointed teacher in 1842, and yet (1883) holds that exalted posi- tion, after a faithful service of forty-one years .*
The home of the school is in a three-story brick building on the south side of Twenty-ninth Street, near Seventh Avenue, fifty feet wide in front. Over the front door is a white tablet in the form of a shield bearing the following words :
" SCHOOL OF THE COLLEGIATE REFORMED PROTESTANT DUTCH CHURCH OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. FOUNDED A.D. 1633. ERECTED A.D. 1860."
For the first thirty years of its existence the school was supported by the Dutch West India Company or the Dutch colonial government. After the English occupation (and since) its support came chiefly from collections taken up in the Dutch churches. A few gifts and legacies also give it a small income. It has been migratory : first on Garden Street, then on Duane, Canal, basement of the church on the corner of Broome and Greene streets, basement of the Ninth Street Church, Fourth Street near Sixth Avenue, and finally at its present location. The number of its pupils has always been limited : first (1786) 12 ; in 1808, 72 ; in 1832, 150. The school is exclusively for children of these persons who are either members or habitual attendants of the Reformed Dutch Church. The 250th anniversary of this school was celebrated on November 22, 1883.
LUTHERAN CHURCHI.
So early as 1663 the Lutherans settled in New Amsterdam had .organized a church, and had a meeting-house near the fort. Their
* In 1853 Mr. Dunshee prepared and published a most interesting history of the school, from which the writer has drawn largely the facts for this brief sketch.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
first minister, the Rev. Jacob Fabricius, seems to have been obnoxious to the Dutch municipal government, for he was twice fined for " mis- demeanor," and in 1765 he was forbidden to preach any more in the province.
In 1702 the Lutherans erected a small church edifice of stone, on the corner of Rector Street and Broadway, the original site of Grace Church. It was destroyed by the great fire in New York in 1776, and not rebuilt by the Lutherans. In 1805 Grace Church was erected on the spot. In 1751 a small Lutheran church was built at the northerly termination of Cliff Street, now occupied by portions of the East River Bridge, but a few years later they built a substantial stone edifice at the corner of Frankfort and William streets, known as the Swamp Church. As in the Dutch Reformed Church, so in the Lutheran : dis- putes arose about the change of language in the public services. Final- ly the English was substituted for the German. For a long time the services were conducted interchangeably in German and English.
At the time we are considering (1849) the Lutheran churches in the city were St. Matthew's, in Walker Street, established in 1751 ; St. James's, in Mulberry Street ; German Reformed Lutheran, in Forsyth Street ; Evangelical Lutheran, Sixth Avenue ; and Old Lutheran, Columbia Street. In the latter the services were conducted in the German language. The first Lutheran Church established in 1663 became extinct in 1784.
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
The English Church, as the Protestant Episcopal Church was called in colonial times, was the third ecclesiastical organization established in the city of New York. When, in 1664, the name of the city of New Amsterdam was changed to New York by the English conquerors. they also gave to the English Church the precedence in the colony which the Dutch Church had enjoyed for about forty years. They called the chapel in the fort King's Chapel, and introduced the liturgy of the English Church therein. This was the only English Church in the city until 1697, when Trinity Church was completed.
Trinity Church edifice was begun in 1696, and completed in 1697. It was a small square building, and was first opened for divine service in 1697. This church stood on the west side of Broadway, which then ran along the brow of a green slope that extended down to the Hudson River. The site was the one now occupied by the elegant structure on Broadway at the head of Wall Street. This building was enlarged in
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1737 and 1739, to the dimensions of 14S feet in length and 72 feet in width. It had a steeple 175 feet in height.
This edifice was destroyed in the great conflagration of 1776, and no effort was made to rebuild it until after the war then raging. A new building was completed in 1788, not so long, but of the same width as the former one. This was demolished, and the corner-stone of the present superb church edifice was laid on the old site in 1841. The building was consecrated in May, 1846. At that time there were forty other Protestant Episcopal churches in the city. Now there are nearly double that number. Of the abounding good work of Trinity Church. in religion and charity, an account will be given presently.
In all the ancient churches in New York City the plan of a collegiate charge seems to have obtained. This plan was acted upon by the Episcopal Church as well as the Dutch Reformed Church. Trinity was considered the parish church, and had as a collegiate charge three others. which were called chapels-namely, St. George's, St. Paul's, and St. John's. St. George's became a distinct charge in 1811, while the other two are still chapels of Trinity.
St. George's Church, or Chapel, was completed and consecrated in the summer of 1752. It was erected on the corner of Van Cliff's Street (now Cliff Street) and Beekman Street, and the high ground on which it stood was named Chapel Hill. It was built of stone, 104 feet long and 72 feet wide, with a tall pointed spire. It stood sixty years, when. in 1814. fire consumed all of it but its stone walls. It was rebuilt and reopened in November, 1815. The Rev. James Milnor, D. D., became its rector in 1816, and held that position until his death in 1845, when the Rev. Stephen II. Tyng, D.D.," became his successor. At that
* Stephen H. Tyng, D.D., for many years the distinguished rector of St. George's Church, is a native of Newburyport, Mass., where he was born March 1, 1800. He graduated at Harvard College at the age of seventeen years, and for two years afterward he was a merchant's clerk. Then he began the study of theology under Bishop Gris- wold, of Rhode Island, and was ordained a deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church in America in 1821. For two years he labored at Georgetown, D. C., and for six years in Queen Anne's parish, Prince George's County, Maryland. In May, 1829, he removed to Philadelphia and became rector of St. Paul's Church. In 1833 he was called to the Church of the Epiphany in the same city.
On the death of the venerable Dr. Milnor, of St. George's Church, New York, in 1-15, Dr. Tyng was called to be his successor in charge of that parish, and he occupied that position until the spring of 1880, when, at the age of eighty years, he relingnished the charge. After laboring in old St. George's Church in Beekman Street a few years, his
. field of parochial labor was transferred to another part of the city. The congregation
had erected a magnificent (for the time) new church in Rutherford Place, corner of Sixteenth Street, and facing Stuyvesant Square. It was first occupied in 1819. There
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time the number of communicants of St. George's Church was about four hundred and fifty.
The following year Peter G. Stuyvesant generously gave to St. George's Church lots of ground in Rutherford Place on which to erect a new temple. Many of the members of the church had moved up town, and a new building was speedily begun. Before the close of the decade a very spacious structure was erected and occupied by the congregation. It fronts on Stuyvesant Square. The church in Beek- man Street was finally demolished and its place appropriated to com- mercial business.
Fourteen years after this second Episcopal church or chapel was built, a third was erected on Broadway, between Fulton and Vesey streets, and called St. Paul's Chapel. It was built of reddish-gray stone, 113 feet long and 73 feet wide, and was consecrated in the autumn of 1766. It has an elegant and tall tower and spire. St. Paul's remains a chapel of Trinity Church.
The third chapel of Trinity built in the city is St. John's, which is an elegant structure of stone with a tall tower and spire. It is in Varick Street, fronting what was formerly known as Hudson's Square. It is 111 feet in length and 73 feet in breadth, and was completed in 1807 at a cost of more than $200,000. It, too, like St. Paul's, remains a chapel of Trinity Church. In front of it, between Varick and
for more than thirty years Dr. Tyng labored most successfully. His Sabbath-school work was marvellous. At one time there were in the home school, and in a mission school attached to the church, about nineteen hundred pupils and teachers. During his pastorate that organization raised and disbursed $63,985. The disbursements, included the building of two churches and two schoolhouses in Africa, building and furnishing the Chapel of Free Grace in Nineteenth Street, building and furnishing the German chapel in Fourteenth Street, including the ground on which it is built, the annual sup- port of the parish missions of St. George's Church, and for all the chancel furniture of the church and a portion of the clock, when it was rebuilt after the fire that consumed its interior, about the year 1850. Out of that fund also were made gifts to instrumentali- ties for the promotion of religion and morals.
Dr. Tyng was one of the most learned and eloquent clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church, a man of great force of character, decided in his views of men and things, varied in his knowledge, extremely energetic in his labors of every kind, earnest and faithful in his legitimate work, and beloved by all his parishioners. Since he left his charge the infirmities of age and the effects of hard work with the brain have borne heavily upon him. He is the author of several valuable books, mostly on biblical subjects.
In his intercourse with other denominations Dr. Tyng has always been extremely friendly, working earnestly with them in advancing his Master's kingdom. He has not been walled about by church discipline or Episcopalian propriety ; not tongue- or hand-tied by forms and customs. As a platform speaker he had few equals. His with- drawal from the ministry left a void not easily to be filled.
SECOND DECADE, 1840-1850.
Hudson streets, was a beautiful private park, planted with shade tre,, under the direction of the Elder Michaud, who chose them because of their mutual affinities. They had become magnificent trees when they fell victims to the insatiable appetite of commerce. About 1sos the land was bought by Cornelius Vanderbilt, the trees were cut down. and the space was covered by the freight-houses of the Hudson River Railroad Company. It is now almost the only church within a radius of half a mile .*
* Trinity Church, which is possessed of a large income, is doing a vast amount of good in the promotion of religion and morality in the city of New York. Our space will allow only a brief outline of its operations. At the beginning it received a magnificent endowment from the English Government-the gift of the " Queen's Farm," inclosing the entire lot of land lying along the Hudson River west of Broadway, between Vesey and Christopher streets. A large part of this domain the church still holds, and from it derives an annual income of about $500,000, which goes to the maintenance of the parish church on the ancient site, six chapels, a multitude of charities connected with them, and in keeping alive about a dozen churches in the poorer portions of the city. Two of these chapels -- St. Paul's and St. John's -have already been mentioned in the text.
Between 1851 and 1856 Trinity Chapel was built, on Twenty-fifth Street, just west of Broadway, for the accommodation of up-town communicants of the parish church. It is the only one of the six chapels where the pews are rented. It is an elegant brown-stone building, and its interior is noted for its richness of color.
St. Chrysostom's Chapel is on Seventh Avenue, corner of Thirty-ninth Street, and was the first built of a series of mission chapels which the Trinity corporation proposes to erect in the poorer districts of the city. It too is a pretty Gothie brown-stone building, and was completed in 1869. Connected with it are a school and mission-rooms.
St. Augustine's Chapel, in Houston Street, just east of the Bowery, was completed in 1877. It is built of brown-stone, in Gothic style, with a steeple, on the apex of which is a crystal cross which may be illuminated at night with gas, making a beautiful appear- ance. It is one of the most complete little churches in the city. Its interior is finished in what is termed the Queen Anne style. The entrance to the chapel is grand and beautiful. The finishing of the chapel and school and mission-rooms is very handsome. It has a hall, in which pleasant entertainments are given to the poor children of the neighborhood. The chapel is in a densely crowded and poor district.
St. Cornelius Chapel is on Governor's Island, and was erected nearly twenty years ago by the free-will offerings of churchmen in the city of New York, the office of post-chan- lain there having been discontinued.
The charities of Trinity parish and its dependencies are numerous and liberal. The Dorcas societies of the chapels of St. Paul and St. John were founded about thirty years ago. The Employment Society of Trinity Chapel was formed some years ago by the ladies of the chapel for the purpose of furnishing employment for those who need. They give sewing or light employment to indigent communicants, for which they pay the full market price. Trinity Chapel Home, on West Twenty-seventh Street, is an excellent local charity, supported by the voluntary contributions of the congregation. It shelters and cares for the aged communicants of the chapel. There is connected with Trinity Church the Sisterhood of the Holy Cross, an association of ladies under the direction of the clergy, assisting and providing for the sick poor.
Industrial schools are important methods of dispensing charity. In these girls are
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The second Episcopal church organized in the city of New York was Christ Church, founded in 1794, when a small edifice was built of stone for its use in Ann Street, a few doors east of Nassau Street. The Rev. Joseph Pillmore was its first rector, and was succeeded in 1805 by the Rev. Thomas Lyell. The church remained in Ann Street until 1823, when a large portion of the congregation took possession of an edifice which had been erected in Anthony Street. A part of the people remained, and forming a separate congregation worshipped in the old church until it was sold to the Roman Catholics. A few years after that sale it was consumed by fire. The church in Anthony Street was prosperous at the close of the second decade.
Soon after the organization of Christ Church, St. Mark's was organ- ized. After the surrender of the city to the English, in 1664, Governor Stuyvesant retired to his farm lying on the East River, whereon he taught to sew, and rendered able to earn their own living. Connected with the one of the parish of Trinity is a Ladies' Employment Society, by which deserving women are employed in preparing clothing for those who need it. In the industrial school of St. John there were, in the spring of 1882, about 500 scholars and 41 teachers. The school attached to Trinity Chapel gives, in addition to common sewing, instruction in needle- work, and has an average of 300 girls. St. Chrysostom's contains about 120 girls, and St. Augustine's 600 girls and 41 teachers.
There are several parochial schools which furnish instruction to the children of the parish gratuitously. The instruction embraces the ordinary English branches, music, and sewing. Night schools connected with the parish church and St. Augustine's chapel are open for women on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and for men on the other evenings of the week.
St. Paul's has a Working Club, formed for the purpose of " social intercourse and material help in poverty, sickness, and burial of the dead." It is composed of men residing in the lower part of the city. It occupies a building at the corner of Centre and Leonard streets, where there is a reading-room, bath-rooms, and other apartments, open to members at all hours. Under the auspices of St. Paul's Guild, lodging for sixty or seventy persons a night may be had for a mere nominal price, and wholesome meals for five cents each.
The Mission Home of the Sisterhood of St. Mary, in State Street, is under the direc- tion of the rector of Trinity Church. In the Mission Home is a dispensary, a kinder- garten, a kitchen garden, a girls' training school for householdl service, and ladies' em- ployment society. Hundreds of poor women and girls appear at this Home weekly.
Trinity Infirmary is a charity maintained by the corporation of Trinity for the benefit of the sick poor belonging to the parish. Whenever there is room, patients are received from the free or mission churches of the city. They are also visited at their homes. The vestry of the church also pay for free beds in St. Luke's Hospital.
The Trinity Association is an organization of gentlemen who volunteer to carry on charitable work down town in connection with Trinity Church. The association sup- ports the Mission Home in State Street, the headquarters of a great work among the poor, with all its adjanets-a young men's guild, a boys' guild, a summer sanitarium by the seaside, entertainments and lectures for the poor, a relief bureau, and a home school for instructing little girls in house work.
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SECOND DECADE, 1840-1850.
erected a chapel in which divine worship was celebrated according to, the rites of the Dutch Reformed Church, of which he was a ruling elder. At his death, in 1682, Governor Stuyvesant's remains weil. deposited in a vault under this chapel, and near it was placed the remains of Governor Henry Sloughter.
After Stuyvesant's decease public worship ceased at the chapel. More than one hundred years afterward (1793) a great-grandson of the Dutch governor generously offered the site of the old chapel to the, yestry of Trinity Church, with $4000 in money, to induce them to erect an Episcopal church there. The offer was accepted, the corner stone of a church edifice was laid in the spring of 1795, and in May, 1799. the church was consecrated under the name of St. Mark's Church. The steeple was not built until 1826. The parish was organized early in the year 1810. The Rev. Henry Anthon, D.D., was rector of the church at the period we are considering (1849). The church is on the corner of Eleventh Street and Second Avenue.
The first church in the city in which the services were conducted in the French language was Du St. Esprit. It was founded by some of the Huguenots who fled from France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Large numbers of them came to New York. . 1 congregation was formed, and in 1704 they built a church edifice in Pine Street, in size 30 by 77 feet and running through to Cedar Street. There they continued to worship one hundred and thirty years. In 1834 they sold this property and erected an elegant build- ing of white marble on the corner of Franklin and Church streets, at a cost of $60,000. This church was organized according to the doctrines and discipline of the Reformed churches of Geneva and France. Just one hundred years after they built their first church in the city (1804), it was agreed by the pastor and people to adopt the rituals of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Since that time the Church du St. Esprit has been in ecclesiastical communion with the Episcopal Church.
A second Episcopal church in which the services were conducted in the French language was organized in 1843, and called the Church du St. Sauveur. The Rev. C. II. Williams was appointed its pastor, and at the time we are considering there were about twenty communicants. Having no house of worship, they assembled in the Brick Church Chapel, near the Park, on the site of the office of the New York Daily Times.
There was another Church of Our Saviour, a floating chapel for seamen, built by the Young Men's Missionary Society of the Episcopal
.
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Church, and first opened for religious worship carly in 1844. It was 70 feet long and 30 feet wide, and was permanently moored in the East River at the foot of Pike Street. The Rev. B. C. C. Parker was its first rector.
Of the remainder of the forty-one Episcopal churches in New York at the close of the second decade, the most prominent were : St. Ste- phen's, Grace, St. Luke's, St. Thomas's, the Ascension, Epiphany. St. Bartholomew's, Calvary, Holy Communion.
St. Stephen's Church edifice was erected on the corner of Broome and Chrystie streets in 1805, when there were sixty communicants. In 1849 there were three hundred and fifty.
We have observed that the first Grace Church edifice was built on the site of a Lutheran Church, on the corner of Rector Street and Broadway, which was consumed by the great fire in 1776. In 1808 Episcopalians erected a plain but spacious edifice, and the Rev. N. Bowen was appointed rector. There the congregation continued to worship until their elegant new home on Broadway and Tenth Street was completed and opened for public service, in March, 1846.
St. Luke's Church was organized in 1820. A substantial house of worship, built of brick, on Hudson Street, was first opened in 1822. Two of its rectors-the Revs. L. S. Ives and W. R. Whittingham -- after- ward became bishops, the former of the Diocese of North Carolina and the latter of the Diocese of Maryland. The Rev. J. M. Forbes was its rector in 1849. Both he and Bishop Ives afterward joined the Roman Catholic Church. Since 1850 it has become a prosperous and infin- ential church under the rectorship of the Rev. Dr. Tuttle.
St. Thomas's Church was organized in 1823. A very capacious house of worship was built of stone, on the corner of Broadway and Houston Street, and was opened for divine service in February, 1826. The late Dr. Francis L. Hawks became its rector late in 1831, and remained until the close of 1843. The Rev. Il. J. Whitehouse, D. D. (afterward Bishop of the Diocese of Illinois), succeeded Dr. Hawks. and was its pastor at the close of this decade. It is now one of the most flourishing and useful of the Episcopal churches in the city, with , a magnificent house of worship on Fifth Avenue, the Rev. Dr. Morgan, rector.
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