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 3
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for want of sustenance, but it was upheld, and to-day, in its pleasant grounds, its noble buildings of stone, its valuable library of about eighteen thousand volumes and ten thousand pamphlets, its corps of learned and devoted professors, and its earnest work, together with its distinguished alumni, it presents an institution of theological learning of which the Protestant Episcopal Church in America may be justly proud.
The alumni of the General Theological Seminary include twenty-one bishops and a host of the leading clergy of our land. One third of all the candidates for holy orders are receiving instruction there. The class-rooms are full, and the institution requires only adequate pecun- iary support to enable it to go forward with efficiency and success in the work in which it is engaged. It needs more endowments to make its funds adequate and permanent.# With these it would make a grand and steady advance. Its income at the present is not sufficient to pay the professors fair salaries. These average only about $1500 each.t
The UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY in the City of New York was founded in 1836. In the autumn of 1835 a benevolent bookseller ex- pressed to a friend a desire to appropriate a certain amount of money for some laudable purpose. Hle was recommended to devote it to the establishment of a theological seminary in the city for the preparation of young men for the ministry in the Presbyterian Church, of which he was a member.
There were then six theological seminaries within the bounds of the Presbyterian Church, but they were not harmonious in their theologi- cal views, nor on the anti-slavery and colonization questions, and conse- quently no one of them was satisfactory to the entire body of that de- nommation. The great influx of young men from New England into the city of New York, full of energy and enterprise, after the comple- tion of the Erie Canal, greatly stimulated the growth of the Presbyte-
* The seminary now has trust funds, in the shape of endowments and other funds, amounting to the sum of $284, 400, in the hands of a special committee, composed of Jay- men of acknowledged financial ability and probity, who report all their acts to the stand- ing committee every two months.
+ All the bishops of the Church in the United States are es oficio trustees of the semi- nary, with numerous other persons. The faculty consist of the Rev. Eugene A. Hoffman, D.D., dean ; Rev. W. E. Eigenbrodt, D.D., professor of pastoral theology ; Rev. Samuel Buel, D.D., professor of systematic divinity and dogmatic theology ; Rev. R. C. Hall, D.D., professor of the Hebrew and Greek languages ; Rev. Andrew Oliver, D. D., profes- sor of biblical learning and the interpretation of Scripture ; Rev. W. J. Seabury, D. D., professor of ecclesiastical history and law ; Rev. Thomas Ritchie, D. D., professor of tech diastical history.
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rian churches in that city, for the new-comers were largely from Pres- byterian families.
Already there was so much dissatisfaction with the seminaries that the denomination in New York had seriously contemplated the estab- lishment of a theological institution in that city or vicinity. When the hint given to the bookseller became known, much interest was excited. After consultation with him, ministers, benevolent merchants, and others held conferences on the subject, and finally, at a meeting of eight persons at the house of Knowles Taylor, in Bond Street, in October, 1835, it was resolved, " that it is expedient, depending on the blessing of God, to attempt to establish a theological seminary in this city."
It was estimated that $65,000 would be required to carry out the project. Five sixths of this amount was subscribed before the awful fire in December of that year, which produced great financial embar- rassment for a while.
At a meeting in January, 1836, it was found that the subscriptions to the seminary fund amounted to $61,000. How much of this amount might be collected from suffering subscribers could not be known ; but with hope in the future a constitution was presented, and at a subse- quent meeting (January 18th), at the rooms of the American Tract Society, it was adopted, and the New York Theological Seminary was organized by the choice of officers for the year.
A lot of ground belonging to the Sailors' Snug Harbor estate, two hundred feet square, was bought. It was on the east side of Wooster Street, then recently extended to Fourteenth Street, and which, having been widened above the university, had been named Jackson Avenue. It was soon afterward changed to University Place. On that plot of ground a home for the seminary was finally erected, and there it still stands.
In due time a corps of instructors was secured, and the Rev. Thomas McAuley, D. D., was appointed president. The professors were the Rev. Thomas II. Skinner, D. D., and the Revs. Ichabod A. Spencer, Erskine Mason, and Henry White. On December 5, 1836, the semi- nary was " opened " by the enrollment of thirteen students at the house of the president, in Leonard Street. For a while the institution was a wanderer, the students appearing alternately at the houses of the president and the professors.
The erection of the seminary building was begun in March, 1837. It was a period of great financial distress. Many of the subscriptions could not be paid, and in April work upon the building was suspended. A bitter controversy in the Presbyterian General Assembly at Phila-
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delphia, in May following, which resulted in sundering the church in twain, added to the embarrassments, and at one time it appeared as if the project must be abandoned. But partial relief came. The build- ing was finished, and in December, 1838, it was dedicated, when the names of nearly one hundred students appeared on its rolls. The insti- tution was incorporated in March, 1839, under the title of the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York.
For years the institution struggled for existence, but help came from time to time, and at the end of forty years it stood among the honored and flourishing seminaries of learning in the land, with liberal endow- ments to secure its permanent prosperity. In 1874 the late James Brown (Brown Brothers, bankers) gave the seminary $300,000 to en- dow all the professorships, and the late Governor E. D. Morgan was a munificent benefactor of the institution. Other generous men have contributed liberally to its financial interests, and the seminary to-day is enabled to carry on its noble work without pecuniary embar- rassment .*
The seminary has three endowed lectureships-namely, the Morse, the Ely, and the Parker. The first, on " The Relations of the Bible to Science," was founded by Professor S. F. B. Morse, in memory of his father ; the second, on "The Evidences of Christianity," was founded by Z. Stiles Ely, in memory of his brother, the Rev. Elias P. Ely ; and the third was founded by Willard Parker, M.D., LL.D., . designed to furnish theological students with such instruction on health as may be specially useful to them personally and as pastors. The semi- nary is open to students of all evangelical denominations.
The seminary has a library of about 42,000 volumes, 39,500 pam- phlets, and 163 manuscripts. The basis of this library was a collection of books, about 13,000 in number, made by Leander Van Ess, of Ger- many, formerly a monk, and afterward a convert to Protestantism. He became a translator of the Bible, and in that labor he gathered very
* The seminary is managed by a board of directors, of which Charles Butler, LL.D., is now (1883) president, chosen in 1870 ; William E. Dodge (since deceased ), vice-president, and Ezra MI. Kingsley, treasurer, recorder, and general secretary, chosen in 1871. The faculty is composed of the Rev. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., LL.D., president and Washburn professor of church history ; Rev. William G. Shedd, D.D., LL. D., Roosevelt professor of systematic theology ; Rev. Philip Schaff, D.D., LL. D., Baldwin professor of sacred literature ; Rev. George L. Prentiss, D.D., Skinner and McAlpine professor of pastoral theology, church polity, and mission work; Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D., Davenport professor of Hebrew and the cognate languages, secretary and librarian : Rev. Thomas Hastings, D.D., Brown professor of sacred rhetoric ; Rev. Francis M. Brown, associate professor in the department of biblical philology.
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rare books, among them issues of the early years of printing. This collection was purchased for the seminary for about $5000 in 1839. The late ex-Governor E. D. Morgan, appreciating the value of the library, gave the institution $100,000 for the purpose of erecting a fire- proof library building, and for increasing its collections.
The seminary also possesses a museum of biblical and Christian antiquities, and objects illustrating missionary life and work. The cor- poration have purchased a site for a new home on Park Avenue and Sixty-ninth Street.
Among the prominent institutions in New York founded during this decade, the UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK, an undenomina- tional school, holds a high rank. It was projected by a number of en- lightened and enterprising citizens in 1830, for the purpose of providing more varied and ample means of education for the youth of the city and of the country at large than the regular college course afforded.
Until that period college education in the United States was mostly of a single type, and very few facilities for higher studies were fur- nished outside of a regular and prescribed course. A system more flexible and comprehensive was felt to be a necessity. After consulta- tions between professional men of every kind, merchants, and others, a plan of a university, largely laid upon that of similar European institu- tions of learning, was drawn up and presented to the Legislature, with a petition for a charter. The prayer was heeded, and in the spring of 1831 a charter was granted establishing the University of the City of New York. It was opened for the reception of students in Clinton Hall in October, 1832, and the first class, of three students, graduated in 1833.
Not a chair in the institution was originally endowed, nor were any superior facilities afforded for independent scientific investigation. The institution was long burdened with heavy debts, but one after another of these embarrassments was removed by the generosity of citizens. To organize a great and advanced institution of learning was not an easy task, yet the work was almost immediately begun. It was the misfortune of the managers to attempt such a work without the ample means which the exigencies of the case required, and the con- sequence was the university suffered the pecuniary embarrassments al- luded to.
The medical department of the university was organized in 1842, and true to the early promises of the university, it signalized its early in- struction by the adoption of improved methods. The introduction of clinical lectures was carried out by some of the most honored practition-
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ers of medical and surgical science, and secured a high place for the department in the minds of the profession generally.
The School of Civil Engineering was organized in 1853, and the next vear a law department was established, which has had the services of eminent legal and judicial persons. It also has a School of Analytical and Practical Chemistry, and another of Painting and the Arts.
The corner-stone of the university building was laid in 1833, on the east side of Washington Square (the Washington Parade-Ground), and the edifice was completed and occupied in 1835. It is a Gothic struct- ure, one hundred and eighty feet long by one hundred feet wide, and built of white freestone.
The first chancellor of the university was the Rev. James M. Mathews, D.D., the learned and genial pastor of the Garden Street (now Exchange Place) Reformed Dutch Church. He was a gentleman of high culture, of noble and commanding presence, elegant in manners, witty in conversation, an attractive story-teller, and a very popular preacher and instructor. His church edifice was consumed by the great fire in 1835, and was rebuilt next to the university, where he and the Rev. Mancius S. Ilutton became associate pastors.
Dr. Mathews, installed chancellor in 1831, was succeeded in 1839 by Theodore Frelinghuysen, LL.D., who held that position until 1850, when he was succeeded by the Rev. Isaac Ferris, D.D., in 1832. Dr. Ferris was chancellor until 1870, when he was succeeded by the Rev. lloward Crosby, D.D., LL. D., who was at the head of the institution until 1881, when he resigned .* The institution has had only four chancellors in more than fifty years. Dr. Frelinghuysen held the posi-
* Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., is a native of New York City, the child of an adopted son of Colonel Henry Rutgers. He is a great-grandson of William Floyd, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a great-great-grandson of Governor Belcher, of Massachusetts. He was born on the 27th of February, 1826, and was gradu- ated at the University of the City of New York in 1844. In 1851 he was appointed pro- fessor of Greek in that institution, and filled that chair until 1859, when he resigned it to accept a similar chair in Rutgers College, at New Brunswick, N. J. In that year he received the honorary degree of D.D. from Harvard University, and in 1872 that of LL.D. from Columbia College.
Energetic, earnest, strong in his convictions of right and duty, and with courage to act accordingly, Dr. Crosby has always been a power in any community of which he has formed a part. At the formation of the Young Men's Christian Association in New York, he was one of the earliest, most earnest, and efficient promoters of that institution ; and in the city of his birth he has always been the fearless advocate of virtue and justice against crime and oppression.
In 1801 Dr. Crosby was ordained a minister of the Presbyterian denomination. In addition to his duties as professor, he filled the office of pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New Brunswick. In 1863 he left New Brunswick to assume the pastorate of
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, tion eleven years ; Dr. Crosby was the last chancellor. ITis place has not yet (1883) been filled. The Rev. John HIall, D.D., exercises the functions of chancellor ad interim. "
The University of the City of New York was the scene of the de- velopment of two of the most remarkable discoveries of the age, by two of its professors-the electro-magnetic telegraph, by Professor S. F. B. Morse, and the daguerreotype, by Professor John W. Draper. It was in a room in the university that Professor Morse perfected his tele. graph, and it was on the roof of the university that the first daguerreo- type from the human face was taken.
Among the more notable benevolent and charitable institutions in the city of New York founded between the years 1830 and 1840 were the New York Magdalen Benevolent Society, the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum, the Eastern Dispensary, the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, the American Baptist Home Mission Society, the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless, the Association for the Benefit of Colored Orphans, the Colored Home and Hospital, and the City Mission of the Protestant Episcopal Church.
The NEW YORK MAGDALEN BENEVOLENT SOCIETY was founded in the year 1832. So early as 1828, benevolent ladies belonging to vari- ous religious denominations, perceiving the necessity for earnest re-
the Fourth Avenne Presbyterian Church in New York, in which field he has labored acceptably for twenty years.
In 1870 Dr. Crosby was appointed chancellor of the University of the City of New York. He held that position eleven years, when he resigned, and directed his labors almost exclusively to his pastorate. In 1857 he founded the Greek Club in New York, now twenty-six years of age. He was moderator of the General Assembly of the Presby- terian Church in 1873, and of the first great synod of New York in 1882. He was the founder in 1877 (and is the president) of the Society for the Prevention of Crime, and was a member of the First Presbyterian Council at Edinburgh the same year. He is one of the members of the American Committee of Revision of the Bible, and is vice-presi- dent of the board of trustees of Wellesley College. Chancellor Crosby delivered the Lyman Beecher course of lectures in the Yale Divinity School in 1879.
In addition to many sermons and pamphlets, Dr. Crosby has written and published the following works : " Lands of the Moslem," " Œdipus Tyrannus," with notes ; " Scholia on the New Testament," " Social Hints," " Thoughts on the Decalogue," Commentaries on Nehemiah, Joshua, and the New Testament ; " The Healthy Christian," " The Chris- tian Preacher,". "The Life of Jesus," " Bible Manual," and "The Humanity of Christ."
* The first officers of the university were : Albert Gallatin, president of the council ; General Morgan Lewis, vice-president ; John Delafield, secretary, and Samuel Ward, Jr., treasurer. John Taylor Johnston is now president, Charles Butler vice-president, Will- iam R. Martin secretary, and William A. Wheelock treasurer. The members of the coun- cil are : Howard Crosby, John W. C. Leveridge, Smith E. Lane, and twenty nine others.
I. honcus Prime
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formatory efforts on behalf of women of the criminal class, established a Sabbath-school in the female department of the Penitentiary at Alevue. So brief, however, were most of the terms of commitment that there was not sufficient time to make any sensible impression on the prisoners, who usually returned to their old associations.
The ladies who undertook this work, not disheartened, resolved to form a permanent society for the object of rescuing fallen women, and provide a suitable retreat for them. For this purpose the New York Magdalen Society was organized in January, 1830. This society was thisbanded in 1832, and the next year the same ladies, with a number of others, reorganized under the name of the New York Female Benevolent Society. Several years afterward its name was again changed, when it assumed the present title. It was incorporated in 151.
The association bought lots at Eighty-eighth Street (then known as Yorkville), on which was a frame building which had been used for manufacturing purposes. The society began operations bearing the burden of a heavy debt, but these brave women never lost courage and faith, but persevered against appalling discouragements for a while. At length they were relieved by an unexpected gift from a stranger, Dr. Borthop, of Kinderhook, N. Y., who by will left the society the exact amount of money to liquidate its indebtedness. For nearly twenty years the old frame building was used, when it was replaced by a larger one of brick, and through the generosity of benevolent people it was soon clear of debt.
This peculiar and most trying labor of love in efforts to reclaim the degraded has been successful. The number of those who have availed themselves of this home has steadily increased, and there is abundant evidence of the salvation of many souls and bodies. Late in 1867 an- other enlargement of the building was found to be necessary, and the home is now fitted with good dormitories, working-rooms, bath-rooms, and a chapel.
The society has done its good work unostentatiously and modestly. It cannot be called a popular charity, for its work is, in a measure, " done in a corner." Its self-sacrificing members-brave women-visit police courts, prisons, and hospitals in quest of erring sisters, and they skom return empty-handed. Many a poor creature, tired of a de- graded life, has found in this home a means for restitution to a respect- shie, virtuous, and useful life. The task of the society is twofold- namely, to reclaim girls from a life of infamy, and to guard them against a return to it. They are instructed in various employments
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whereby they may gain an honest living, and the influences of regular religious services and moral example are brought to bear upon them.
During the year ending May, 1882, there were admitted to the home 178 girls and women, of whom 43 went to employment, 20 to hospital, 63 left by request, 5 were expelled, and 2 escaped."
The HOUSE OF MERCY, in Eighty-sixth Street, west of Broadway, founded by Mrs. S. A. Richmond (wife of the late William B. Rich- mond) in 1854 for the temporal and spiritual salvation of fallen women, is still engaged in the same holy cause for which the New York Mag. dalen Society is laboring.
The LEAKE AND WATTS ORPHAN ASYLUM was founded in 1831. It is designed as a home for children bereaved of father and mother, and left in infancy without means for maintenance.
The building of this asylum is in the district of the city known as Bloomingdale, about seven miles from the City Hall. The house is on a plot of ground bounded by One Hundred and Tenth and One Hun- dred and Thirteenth streets and Ninth and Tenth avenues. It is two hundred feet in length, sixty feet in depth, and three stories in height, and contains a chapel and hospital. It stands on a ridge over- looking the Hudson and New Jersey beyond, and is in a very healthful situation. When it was built it was in a picturesque rural region of the island, which few persons living can now remember. Its grounds are spacious for every purpose of the institution.
John G. Leake inherited a large estate from his father, who died in the city of New York. Having no lineal descendants of his own, he bequeathed his entire property to Robert Watts, the second son of his most intimate and cherished friend, John Watts, and his heirs, on the express condition that Robert Watts and his heirs should take the name of Leake, and by that name be forever known. It was provided that if Mr. Watts should die under age or without issue, or refuse to accept the property on the conditions, the estate should be used for the estab-
* The names of the managers of the society the first year were : Mary Hastings, Eliza F. Clebborn, Sarah Edwards, Elizabeth C. Hoadley. Mary A. C. Tracy, Elizabeth Leeds, Pluma Pond, Ellen V. Combs, Sarah Van Antwerp, Sarah W. Anthony, Amelia Nicholson, Catharine Nash, Mary B. Whittemore, Grace Burrill, Ann Petrie, Hannah Maria Wilson, Ann Gillett, Sarah Dominick, Elizabeth W. Hamilton, Julia S. Huntington, Elizabeth R. Webb, and Sarah M. G. Merrill. The officers of the society for 1882-83 are : Miss A. M. Fellows, first directress ; Mrs. A. G. Allen, second directress ; Mrs. Charles Fanning, assistant treasurer ; Mrs. A. A. Redfield, secretary. There are nineteen managers, all married ladies. Mrs. R. P. Hudson and Miss M. E. Watkins are matrons of the asylum. and Dr. Robert Ferriss, house physician.
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lishment of an orphans' home, for which he left designs, and appointed seven ex-officio trustees to receive and hold the same upon trust.
The property was never accepted by Mr. Watts on the conditions named, and the estate, amounting to about half a million dollars, was used for establishing an institution which was incorporated in March, 1531, under the title of The Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum of the City of New York. The ex-officio trustees who accepted the trust were Walter Bowne, mayor of the city of New York ; Richard Riker, recorder ; the Rev. W. Berrian, D. D., rector of Trinity Church, and Nehemiah Rogers and Charles McEvers, wardens of the same church ; the Rev. G. A. Kuypers, oldest minister of the Dutch congregations in the city, and the Rev. William Phillips, oldest minister of the Presby- terian congregations in the same city. On the first meeting of these trustees, in March, 1831, they adopted a seal having the device of a kneeling child supported by a pedestal, on which are the words, " J. G. Leake and John Watts, Founders."
The corner-stone of the Orphan Home was laid on April 28. 1838. It was finished and opened for the reception of orphans on November 15. 1843. The discipline of the institution is parental in its nature : its religious instruction is non-sectarian, and its secular instruction em- braces the essential elements of an English education .*
The EASTERN DISPENSARY was incorporated April 25, 1832, and was organized in June, 1834. The first officers were : Nicholas Dean, president ; Dr. Samuel Akerly, t vice-president ; Dr. P. C. Milledoler, secretary, and Zebedee Ring, treasurer. The dispensary was established on the northern verge of the city to meet a pressing want of the inhal)- itants in that region. The district for which it provided medical and surgical relief is bounded by the East River, East Fourteenth Street, First Avenue, Allen Street, and Pike Street.
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