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 14
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The Church of the Ascension was founded in 1526, and in the spring of 1827 Bishop Hobart laid the corner-stone of a church edifice for its accommodation on Canal Street, between Broadway and Elm Street. It was opened for worship in May, 1528. A large congregation soon gathered there under the ministry of the Rev. (afterward Bishop of
SECOND DECADE, 1840-1850.
Massachusetts) Manton Eastburn. The building was destroyed by lin in 1839. A new edifice was erected on Fifth Avenue, corner of Tenth Street, which was consecrated in November, 1841. Mr. Eastburn having been elected Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts the next vear, he was succeeded by the Rev. G. T. Bedell (now Bishop of the Diocese of Ohio) in the spring of 1843.
The Church of the Epiphany, built for missionary purposes, was a very efficient instrumentality at this period. One Sabbath in the fall of 1832 the Rev. Dr. McVickar, passing through the lower part of Stanton Street, saw throngs of destitute children playing or lounging on the sidewalks.
" Why are you not in Sunday-school ?" he asked a group of children.
" There is no Sunday-school," they answered.
" Why are you not at church ?"
" There is no church," was the reply.
The good man's heart was touched with pity at their heathenish condition. He mentioned the case to two benevolent women. They placed $75 in his hands, and said :
" We will have on that spot a mission church ; do you preach, and we will help you."
A small, dark room over an engine-house was obtained, and there the first congregation-six adult worshippers with two praver-books, and a few ragged children-were gathered. A Sabbath-school was organized, and on the third Sunday the meeting was held in a well- lighted hall on the corner of Allen and Ilouston streets. It was on Epiphany Sunday-the day in the Church calendar commemorative of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles -- and the church organized soon afterward was called the Epiphany. The corner-stone of a church edifice was laid by Bishop Moore, of Virginia, on Stanton Street, near the spot where Dr. MeVickar was inspired to begin the work, and it was completed in June, 1834, at a cost of about $19,000. At the period we are considering (1849) the Rev. Lot Jones was the pastor. and there were more than 500 communicants, with a Sabbath-school of 300 children, under the care of 40 teachers.
'St. Bartholomew's Church edifice, erected in Lafayette Place, was completed in 1836. The same year Calvary Church was organized. with nine members. A small frame building was erected on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street, and was opened for worship on New Year's day, 1837. It seemed too far up in the un- settled parts of the city, and about 1841 it occupied a small cruciform wooden building on the corner of Twenty-second Street. The same
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year the corner-stone of the present edifice, on the corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-first Street, was laid by the bishop of the Diocese of Michigan.
The Church of the Holy Communion, a costly building, was erected on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-first Street in 1825. Dr. W. A. Muhlenberg was its rector, and there he performed eminent services in the field of Christian effort until his death. The church was free to all. There were no pews, only " slips," neatly cushioned.
A band of colored Episcopalians began a meeting by themselves in 1809, assembling, by permission, in a school-room near the corner of Frankfort and William streets, where Mr. MeCoombs, a white man, officiated as a lay reader for several years. In 1819 the congregation obtained the lease of three lots for sixty years (after that to be held in fee simple as a gift) on the westerly side of Centre (then Collect) Street. There they erected a modest building, which was consecrated to divine worship in the summer of 1819 by Bishop Hobart, as St. Philip's Church. This edifice was burned in 1821, and the follow- ing year it was rebuilt of brick, at a cost of $8000. It was under the pastorate of the Rev. Mr. Williams, a colored minister. In 1849 more than three hundred names were on the roll of its communicants.
Early in this century the Episcopalians began the planting of churches in the northern part of Manhattan Island. There were a few families of Episcopalians at Bloomingdale, Manhattanville, and around Fort Washington. In 1807 a congregation was organized at Blooming- dale called St. Michael's Church, and a small frame house of worship was built. There were about fifty communicants scattered all over that sparsely inhabited region.
In 1810 a small church edifice was built on Hamilton Square, a mile or more eastward of St. Michael's, called St. James's Church. In 1811 the two churches became one charge, under the rectorship of the Rev. Samuel Farmer Jarvis, who continued his ministry until 1818. In 1822 the Rev. William Richmond was instituted rector of the united churches, and the next year a third church, located at Manhattanville. and called St. Mary's, was added to his charge. A lay reader assisted him. A small church building was erected at Manhattanville in 1826. The previous year another church, called St. Ann's, was organized at Fort Washington, and in 1833, after struggling several years, this church became the fourth under the charge of Mr. Richmond. In 1825 St. Ann's Church was dissolved. In 1837 the other three churches were under the rectorship of the Rev. James Cook Richmond, an eminent, learned, and eloquent preacher. These churches were
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maintaining a feeble existence at the close of this decade. They at. now (1883) in a flourishing condition. At the close of this decade nine Episcopal churches in the city had become extinct-namely, Calvary. near Corlear's Ilook ; Christ's, in Ann Street ; St. Ann's, Fort Wash- ington ; St. Augustine's, Emmanuel, Free Church of the Redemption, Church of the Messiah, St. Timothy's (German), and St. Matthew's, colored.
In 1883 there were in the city of New York seventy-one Protestant Episcopal churches, presided over by Right Rev. Horatio Potter. D.D., LL.D., S.T.D., who has been bishop of the diocese since 1554."
* Horatio Potter, D.D., LL.D., S.T.D., was born in the town of Beekman, Duch- ess County, N. Y., on February 9, 1802. His parents were Joseph and Anua Potter, members of the Society of Friends or Quakers. He received an academic education at Poughkeepsie ; his collegiate education was received at Union College, Schenectady. where he was graduated in 1826, and was ordained a deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church the next year. In 1828, he was elevated to the full ministry, and was appointed professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in Washington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, where he remained five years. Bishop Moore, of Virginia, invited him to become assistant minister of the Monumental Church at Richmond, but he declined the position.
In 1833 Mr. Potter accepted the rectorship of St. Peter's Church, Albany, and in 1837 he was elected president of Trinity College, Hartford. That office he declined, and remained rector of St. Peter's until 1854, when, on the death of Bishop Wainwright, he was chosen provisional Bishop of the Diocese of New York. Bishop Onderdonk, a sus- pended prelate, was yet living. At his death, in April, 1861, Bishop Potter was conse- erated full bishop of the diocese. He received the degree of D.D. from Trinity College in 1838, and in 1856 the degree of LL.D. from Geneva.
In 1860 Dr. Potter visited England, and was received with marked honor by the English prelates. The University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of S. T.D. He has presided over his diocese with great ability, dignity, and sound judgment. Failing health compelled him to ask for an assistant in the autumn of 1883, when the diocesan convention appointed his nephew, Dr. Henry C. Potter, rector of Grace Church, New York, and a son of the late Bishop Alonzo Potter (brother of Horatio), of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, to fill that responsible position.
Bishop Horatio Potter is regarded as one of the ablest scholars in the denomination. In person be is tall and thin, erect in carriage, and of active step. His utterances are calm and dignified, full of earnestness, and ever displaying a gentle Christian spirit. Universally popular in his denomination among both clergy and laity, he has labored in the ministry with very great success.
Dr. Henry C. Potter, the newly elected assistant bishop, is forty-eight years of age. He was born in Schenectady in 1835, and received his education at the Episcopal Acade- my in Philadelphia, at Union College, and at the Theological Seminary of Virginia, graduating in 1857. The same year he was ordained a deacon, and took charge of Christ Church, Greenwich, in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. In 1859 he accepted a call from St. John's Church, Troy. He became assistant minister of Trinity Church, Beton, . in 1866, and in 1868 he succeeded the Rev. Dr. Taylor as rector of Grace Church. New York. In 1865 he received the degree of D.D. from Union College. He is one of the most active, earnest, and able ministers of the Episcopal Church in this country.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
The diocese is in a very flourishing condition. The increase in the number of its churches has been greater than that of any other denom- ination.
FRIENDS OR QUAKERS.
The Friends suffered persecution at the hands of the Dutch authori- ties on Manhattan Island, as well as the Puritan authorities in Church and State in Massachusetts. In 1636 Robert Hodgson landed at New Amsterdam, but found it dangerous to stay. Stuyvesant was a stanch churchman, and was intolerant of all "irregulars." So late as 1672. when George Fox visited Friends at Flushing, L. I., he crossed from Middletown, N. J., and landed at Gravesend, avoiding New York altogether.
The Friends finally obtained a footing in New York and established a meeting for public worship at the close of the sixteenth century. Their meeting was connected with the monthly meeting at Flushing. and with the yearly meeting, which had been held on Long Island so early as 1670.
The first house of worship erected by Friends in New York City was built about the year 1700 in Little Green Street, a lane extending from Maiden Lane to Liberty Street. It was their sole meeting-house for seventy years. In 1775 they built a meeting-house of brick on Pearl Street, between Franklin Square and Oak Street. This was demol- ished in 1824. The congregation worshipping in Little Green Street built a new meeting-house of brick in Liberty Street, in 1802, in size 60 by 40 feet. It was abandoned as a place of worship in 1826, when it was occupied by Grant Thorburn as a seed-store.
In 1819 the Friends built another house of worship, in Hester Street. between Elizabeth Street and the Bowery. When, in 1824, the meeting-house on Pearl Street was taken down, they built a spacious one in Rose Street, near Pearl Street. There are now only two Friends' meeting-houses in the city of New York --- one belonging to the Trinitarian or Orthodox branch, and the other to the Unitarian or Hicksite branch.
JEWS.
The early appearance of Jews in New York City, and their erection of a synagogue in Mill Street, have already been noticed." The syna-
* The congregation then and there formed is still in existence. It is Sheareth Israel, and is the oldest and richest of the Jewish corporations in the city (chartered in 1674), its real estate being estimated at $500,000. It was originally composed of Spanish and
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SECOND DECADE, 1810-1850.
gogue was built of wood, but in 1729 it was replaced by one of stone, measuring 58 by 36 feet in size. Therein the Hebrews worshipped for about a century. It was rebuilt in 1818. Already business had driven many families from the neighborhood, and very soon the Jews, like Christians, sought another spot whereon to erect a temple. They chose Crosby, near Spring Street, for their new place of worship, and there they built an elegant synagogue in 1833.
A second synagogue was organized about 1824 by German and Polish Jews, who separated from the congregation in Crosby Street. They bought a church edifice built by colored Presbyterians in Ehn Street, near Canal Street, and altered it to suit their own form of worship. A secession took place in this congregation in 1839, which led to the establishment of another, which assembled in Franklin Street, with the Rev. S. M. Isaacs as minister, and there they were worshipping at the close of this decade.
A third congregation of Jews was formed. They purchased the Friends' Meeting-house in Henry Street, and first occupied it as a synagogue in 1840. The next year a fourth synagogue was built in Attorney Street, near Rivington Street, and in 1842 a fifth synagogue was built, in Attorney Street, near Houston. The two synagogues in Attorney Street and the one in Henry Street formed a sort of collegiate connection, and elected as chief rabbi the Rev. Dr. Lilienthal, who had been employed in the department of education of the Russian Govern- ment. He officiated in each of them alternately. Four other congre- gations had been formed in the city at the close of the second decade, but they had not erected any buildings for worship. In 1883 there are twenty-six buildings dedicated to divine worship by the Hebrews, the inost notable of which is Temple Emanu-el .*
Not one of the nine synagogues existing in 1849 now occupies the site it did then, for the congregations have moved up town. Each synagogue adopts some significant title, as Sheareth Israel, " the remnant of Israel."
Portuguese Jews, and is one of the strictest of the orthodox congregations. Its place of worship is on the corner of Nineteenth Street and Fifth Avenue.
* This temple is at the north-east corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-third Street. It is the finest specimen of Moorish architecture in America, and is one of the costliest religions structures in the city. The material of which it is built is brown and yellow sandstone, and the roof is composed of alternate red and black tiles. The centre of the facade on Fifth Avenue, containing the main entrance, is flanked by two beautiful min- arets. These and the entire front are richly covered with ornaments. The interior of the temple is reached by five doors. It is decorated with a profusion of Oriental ornamenta- tion and coloring. The minister is Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, a profound scholar and an earnest promoter of the interests of the reformed portion of the Jewish Church.
CHAPTER VI.
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHI.
A FEW New Englanders living in New York at the beginning of the last century were in the habit of meeting in private houses for social worship. In 1708 two Presbyterian ministers (the Revs. Francis Kemie and John Hampton, of London) came to New York, after preaching in Virginia and Maryland. Showing proper credentials. Kemie obtained leave to preach in the Garden Street Dutch Reformed Church, but when Lord Cornbury, the governor, heard of it, he issued an order forbidding him to preach there. The governor persecuted Kemie in various ways, even to imprisonment.
In 1716 the Presbyterians in New York resolved to organize a church and obtain a minister, if possible. It was done, and the Rev. James Anderson, of Scotland, became their pastor. They held their meetings in the City Hall for about three years, when, in 1719, they built a house of worship in Wall Street, near Broadway. About 1722 a party seceded from this church and formed a separate society, but did not effect a church organization. Jonathan Edwards, the (afterward) eminent theologian, then about nineteen years of age and a candidate for orders, was invited to preach for them, which he did for about eight months. Most of the members returned to the old organization, and the new society was disbanded.
The first visit of the Rev. George Whitefield, in 1740, caused a great increase in the number of Presbyterians in New York City, and they were compelled to enlarge their house of worship in 1748. A few vears later serious dissensions arose in the church on the subject of psalmody, when some members withdrew and joined a society known as Scotch Presbyterians, who permit nothing but psalms to be sung at public worship.
The expansion of membership went steadily on, and in 1765 the Presbyterians obtained from the corporation a grant of land " in the Fields" (corner of Beekman and Nassau streets), on which an edifice was erected. It was opened in 1768 under the name of the Brick Church, the two churches remaining under one pastorate and govern-
SECOND DECADE, 1840-1850.
ment. During the war for independence the Wall Street Church w.a. used by the British for barracks, and the Brick Church for a hospital.
Population stretching north-eastward after the Revolution, there was a demand for another Presbyterian church in that direction. Colonel Rutgers gave them land on the corner of what was afterward Rutgers and Henry streets, and there the Rutgers Street Church was completed in 1798. The three Presbyterian churches remained a collegiate charge until 1809, when they were separated. In 1810 the Wall Street Church was rebuilt on an enlarged plan, with a handsome spire. It was built in 1834, and soon afterward rebuilt. In 1844 it was sold. taken down, and removed to Jersey City. The next year this Church erected an elegant edifice on Fifth Avenue, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets, and it was opened for worship on January 1, 1st. It is now (1883) one of the most flourishing Presbyterian churches in the city, under the pastorate of the Rev. William M. Paxton. The Brick Church was demolished in 1857, and the congregation have since occupied a superb edifice on Fifth Avenue. The Rutgers Street Church is now on Madison Avenue.
The first Presbyterian church organized in the city, independent of the then collegiate churches, was the Cedar Street Church, founded in 1808. Business crowded the street, and in 1834 the property was sold and a new and spacious edifice was built in Duane Street, near Church Street, which was first occupied by the congregation in 1836. The name was changed to Duane Street Church. At length, when many of the members had moved up town far from Duane Street, the neces- sity for a new church was obvious. Dr. Potts, its pastor, resigned and opened services in the chapel of the University. An elegant church edifice was built in University Place in 1845, with the Rev. Dr. Potts as pastor.
This migratory movement presents the most conspicuous features of the external history of all the churches in the city, of every denomina- tion, founded during the first quarter of the present century. They were nearly all organized and the edifices were built at points below Spring Street before 1:25. They have gradually followed the stream of population, constantly tending northward as the lower part of the city yielded to the demands of trade and commerce. The property of : these churches down town enormously increased in value, and when sold the proceeds furnished the congregations with capital which enabled them to build more spacious and elegant structures in the upper part of the city. Now that section of New York above Fourteenth Street is famous for the splendor of its church architecture.
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HISTORY OF NEW YORK CITY.
Before the close of the second decade twenty-one Presbyterian churches of the city had become extinct. In 1883 there were fifty in the city.
BAPTIST CHURCH.
The Baptists, like the Friends, were persecuted in New York on their first appearance. In 1709 a Baptist clergyman named Wickenden preached in the house of Mr. Ayres, in New York, and having no license he was imprisoned by the royal governor three months. In 1712 another minister (Mr. Whitman) came and preached in the house of Mr. Ayres, who became a convert and afterward a Baptist preacher. He continued these private services for about two years. For fear of consequences it was finally proposed that the ordinance of baptism by immersion should be performed at night. Mr. Ayres was opposed to this proposition, and he obtained from Governor Burnet permission to be so publicly baptized. The governor attended the ceremony. That was about 1720. Four years later a Baptist church was organized in New York, and a small meeting-house was erected on Golden Hill, near (present) Gold and Fulton streets. A few years afterward this edifice was claimed by one of the trustees as his private property. It was sold, and the church was dissolved.
The body now known in New York as the First Baptist Church was organized in 1762. For seventeen years previously Baptists had held prayer-meetings, and heard preaching occasionally in private houses, but there was no church organization. Sometimes they occupied, in these meetings, a rigging-loft in William Street. The nearest Baptist church at that time was at Scotch Plains, N. J., and to that church these faithful people were attached, and considered as a branch of it. Elder B. Miller, the pastor of the Scotch Plains Church, preached occasionally to the congregation in New York, and administered the Lord's Supper once in three months.
In 1759 the few Baptists in New York bought a lot on Gold Street, between (present) Fulton and John streets, and there built a small meeting-house in 1760. Two years later a church was organized-the First Baptist Church -- with nearly thirty members, with the Rev. John Gano as pastor. This gifted preacher soon drew a large congregation to the meeting-house, but the society was scattered during the war of the Revolution. When, in 1784, Mr. Gano, who became a chaplain in the Continental Army, returned to New York, he could find only thirty-seven of the two hundred church-members he had gathered.
The old meeting-house was rebuilt in 1501 at a cost of $25.000.
Janus Brewster
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SECOND DECADE, 1840-1850.
The dedication service was preached in May, 1802, by Stephen Geve son of the first pastor of the church.
Obedient to the demands of necessity, the congregation Sold Their property in Gold Street in 1840 and built a spacious and elegant Church edifice of stone, on the corner of Broome and Elizabeth streets and called the Rev. Spencer H. Cone, D.D., to the pastorate of it in 1891. The Second Baptist Church was the outgrowth of a serious diseiten in the First Church, on the subject of parcelling the lines in the site. ing ! This occurred in 1770, when some of the dissatisfied members withdrew and formed a new church organization. It was scattered during the Revolution, but was again united a year or two after the war had ceased.
Again, about 1790, dissensions rent the First Church. There was another secession of members, the seceders uniting with the Second Church. In that congregation a violent quarrel was soon developed. and early in 1791 the church was divided, each section claiming to In; the true Second Church. Friends effected a compromise. The con- tending claims were dropped. One party assumed the name of Bethel Church, the other that of the Baptist Church in Fayette (afterward Oliver) Street.
The Bethel Church occupied a small meeting-house in Rose Street, opposite the Friends' Meeting-House, and the name Second Church was applied to it for several years afterward. It erected a small wooden building in Broome Street, near the Bowery, in 1806. In time it became prosperous. In 1819 the congregation erected a brick church on the corner of Delancey and Chrystie streets, which they occupied in unity until 1830, when the church was split by contentions. Out of this church the Sixth Street Baptist Church was formed, and the name of Bethel was dropped.
The Church in Fayette Street erected a house of worship, in 1795, on the corner of Henry Street. It being too small, it was rebuilt tive years afterward, and again in 1819. It was destroyed by fire in ISE, and rebuilt. In 1:21 the name of the street was changed to Oliver, and the name of the society was changed to Oliver Street Church. It he- came very flourishing, for it preserved peace, harmony, and Christian charity within its borders.
Of the remainder of the Baptist churches founded in the city of New York during the first quarter of this century, the most conspicuous was the Mulberry Street, afterward the Tabernacle Church. The former was organized in 1809. under the name of James Street Church, with thirty-seven members, and it continued under the ministry of the Rev.
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Archibald Maclay, D.D., from that time until 1838, a period of twenty-nine years. It was very flourishing for many years. It finally became involved in pecuniary difficulties, and the church was dissolved in 1839. A new church was organized by the old members and a large colony from the Oliver Street Church, when the society took the name of the Tabernacle Church. Very soon the church received large acces- sions to its membership, which in 1842 numbered nearly one thousand. It was then thought proper to divide the church, and in December of that year a colony of over one hundred left and formed the Laight Street Baptist Church. The Rev. Edward Lathrop was called to the pastorate of the Tabernacle Church. At the close of the second decade it had in communion eight hundred members. The colony from the Tabernacle bought the Laight Street Presbyterian Church edifice, and in 1849 it numbered about three hundred and fifty members.
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