USA > New York > Otsego County > History of Otsego County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 32
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$ Memoirs of Dr. Nott.
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HISTORY OF OTSEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
tiful valley which had been the scene of his early endeavors, and` in his old age he resolved plans for giving it lasting benefit by aiding in the establishment of its ancient academy on the basis of a substantial endowmert.
In 1798 his young wife was conveyed for her health to Ballston Springs, whose waters were already becoming famous. There is some obseurity in the accounts, but it appears to have been at this time that he tarried at Sche- nectady, being on his way to see his wife, and to attend a meeting of the presbytery of Albany at Salem, when Dr. Smith, after hearing him preach, urged him to return by way of Albany, and occupy the pulpit of the Presbyterian church there, which was then vacant. Whether he was then already a member of presbytery, as his Memoirs state (in which case we should expect that he would have been or- dained and installed, on being received by it, over his Cherry Valley charge), or whether he made his journey for the purpose of conneeting himself with the presbytery, with installation then in view, is not clear. At all events the journey lost him to Cherry Valley; he preached at Albany, was immediately called to that important charge, and a few years later had become famous among the clergy- men of the country. In 1804 he became president of Union college, where for an extended period he filled that sphere of eminence and usefulness, whose events are a part of the history of our progress during the past century.
By the loss of its minister the little church was again left to its own meagre resources in its difficult struggle, and several years elapsed before it seenred the services of a regular pastor. Trustces were regularly elected each year, but no minister is mentioned, except Mr. Spaulding, till 1802, when Rev. Thos. Kirby Kirkham was employed for at least one year, one-quarter of his time to be devoted to Middlefield. In Dr. Nott's time efforts had been made to furnish the church, and the proposal started to erect a better one. It seems to have been greatly needed, for so unat- tractive was its appearance that it is related that a traveler on passing it exelaimed, " that he had many times seen the house of God, but never before had he beheld the Lord's barn !" It stood on the site of the previous one in the grave-yard, a plain building, fifty fect square, without steeple or ornament. Within was a gallery on three sides, and on the fourth was a round, barrel pulpit mounted on a post, the pews being of the high-backed, square, uncomfort- able pattern usual at the period, neither padded nor cush- ioned. For many years there was neither chimney nor stove, any more than the old Covenanters had when they met in conventiele ou the Scotch hillsides. The feeble warfuth of the foot-stoves carried by the women barely sufficed to keep the congregation from freezing as they listened to Dr. Nott's young and fervid oratory in the keen air of winter. The writer has more than once preached in Cherry Valley when the thermometer outside was at eighteen or twenty degrees below zero ; and when it was at that stage inside, what innst not have been the devotion that could keep a congregation together ! We do not wonder at find- ing a record that there should be but one service at that season of the year. Mr. Kirkham's labors seem to have led to litttle fruit, and he appears not to have been re- engaged.
We have seen that the church was organized hitherto in that somewhat informal manner which circumstances per- mitted. A body of Christians desiring to worship God, they had builded a church and employed ministers to main- tain the ordinances so far as they could be obtained. They evidently endeavored to regain that presbyterial recognition which they had before the war; but this their remoteness prevented, or their insignificance failed to evoke. Dr. Nott being without ordination prevented the institution of new elders, though one or two who had been such in the old church are believed to have been on the ground. Old " Deacon" John Moore had been a chaplain in the first pro- vincial congress of New York, in 1775, of which he was a member. With such faets, it would seem an absurd piece of punctiliousness to assert, on account of some unavoida- ble defects, that they were not a church. An army does not cease to be an army because its officers have fallen. They had the fact that they were a Christian body united for worship ; they had sct up the house of God sixty years before. Old Dominic Dunlop had gone hundreds of miles to presbytery ; as soon as they returned from exile, before their own houses were rebuilt, they had solemnly met in the grave-yard to rehabilitate the sanctuary. The church members were there, and they called themselves a " Pres- byterian church and congregation." They had had oue pastor, and had employed at least two other preachers of the gospel. No temporary neglects or flaws in the striet routine of ecclesiastical order could destroy the fact that that they were a church of Christ and a Presbyterian church. But despite all this a precisian now appears who swept it all aside, and, seemingly on his own responsibility, took it in hand, forsooth, to give it existenec, and at the same time to impress upon it a new character, and intro- duce usages entirely foreign to its wont. In January, 1804, Rev. Isaae Lewis came from Cooperstown, then a small place not long settled, and finding the church without a pastor or active officers (though the members still held together, and meetings for prayer were kept up weekly), not only lent his assistance to ordain elders in the church, but treated it as if it were not in existence, as the record runs in the session-book, "organized into a church" a certain number, ouly fourteen in all, whose names are re- corded. Mr. Lewis, the author of this doubtless well- meant, but rather sweeping and gratuitous measure, was a Presbyterian, but seems to have been reared under Congre- gational usages, and it was under his influenee and at this time that the church was led to impose upon itself a long and dogmatical " confession of faith" and " covenant" after the Congregational fashion, apparently ignorant, or else forgetful, that the proper and only authorized standards of the Presbyterian church are those of the Westminster as- sembly, adopted by general assembly in 1788. Half a dozen years later, Mr. Cooley, better acquainted with Pres- byterian ways, brought this anomaly in the practice of the church to the notice of session, and appended a note to the record, stating that " the session thinks it not proper to require it of members, inasmuch as the printed confession of the Presbyterian church (i.e. the Westminster) elearly and fully express all articles of faith and practice derived from the word of God." ( 1811.) Notwithstanding this re-
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HISTORY OF OTSEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
pudiation some later pastors revived the use of them, and . in 1854 they were printed in pamphlet form. In August, 1873, they were formally set aside by session, and the action, with the reasons for it, entered upon the minutes.
The effort secured little fruit beyond amending the organ- ization and enrollment of the fourteen members. There are evident traces that the innovation was displeasing to the old members, who had always seen believers added to the church on the simple terms of repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and under the old Westminster symbols, literally construed, and with the largest respect for the right of private judgment, as was usual in the Scotch church. Not till three years later did any of the old stock allow their names to be entered, when four only were received, not on their subseribing to the covenant, but on the ground that they had been mem- bers in Mr. Dunlop's time, while many others remained out altogether, as we infer from the absence of so many of the old names, especially of the men, from the roll.
A long narrative, under date 1806, records the goodness and merey of God in answering the prayers of the church for an " ambassador to watch over the flock of Christ and warn sinners to repentance," by the arrival of Rev. Geo. Hall, who was called in February on a salary of $500.
. The old church was now so out of repair as to be dan- gerous to health in winter, and it was proposed that service be held in " the south room of the academy, excepting on every fifth Sabbath that the Episcopalians expeet their pastor to preach there," which is the first notice of a wor- shiping body of Episcopalians among us. The pastor re- ferred to was doubtless the widely useful Father Nash, the pioneer of Episcopacy in these parts. The old meeting- house told on Mr. Hall's health severely, and he resigned iu 1807.
Luther Rich, a name often seen on the records, was in 1801 cleeted to the constitutional convention, of which Aaron Burr was president, as was Joseph Clyde in that of 1821. Rev. Andrew Oliver was then pastor at Springfield, and appears to have lent his service to our church from time to time during the three years before a pastor was again settled. In Mr. Nott's day the Springfield ehureh is spoken of as applying for his ministration for half the time, an overture which was refused, but which shows there was a church there as early as 1797. In 1800, Rev. Jedediah Bushnell, a missionary, visited the place, and a revival broke out, which extended to several other towns, and seventeen persons were added to the church. Mr. Oliver became their pastor in 1806. The Baptists had forured a church in Springfield in 1797, under Elder Win. Furman, which flourished.
Rev. Jesse Townsend preached in the summer of 1810; but at the close of that season was to begin the first ex- tended pastorate of this period of the old church. It was that of Rev. Eli F. Cooley, L.L. D., a well-educated, pru- dent, and able man, who had graduated at Princeton in 1806, and having concluded the required three years of theological study, came as a licentiate of the presbytery of New Brunswick, and began to preach in October. having been called in August. An earnest . ffort was made to secure his services, and $600 having been raised on his 17
salary, he determined upon a permanent settlement, and way installed by the presbytery of Oneida in February following.
The fourteen members had, in the six years till he came, risen to thirty-seven, but when he retired, in 1820, the list had swelled to two hundred and twenty-six, the best evidences both of the prosperity of the place, and the efficiency of his labors. But, notwithstanding this, he was compelled to resign in March, 1820, on account of the in- adequate support. He died, at an advanced age, in 1860.
Among the more prominent men whose names are asso- ciated with the church at this period and the years succeed- ing were, as trustees, Lester Holt, Levi Beardsley, James Brackett, Isane Seelye, and Jabez D. Hammond, most of · whom were lawyers of great ability. The last mentioned was an author of considerable merit. His " Political Ilis- tory of the State of New York," and " Life and Times of Silas Wright," are works of standard authority, and ex- tremely valuable contributions to historieal literature. He was a member of congress in 1815-18. Mr. Beardsley was a prominent eitizen and a lawyer of wide reputation.
Dr. Joseph White and Alvan Stewart were widely known and universally respected, the former (who, though an Episcopalian, co-operated with the church for some time) as a physician of remarkable eapaeity, whose practice em- braeed an area of very great extent, the latter as a radical reformer and man of original genius and great wit, who beeanie one of the earliest apostles of the temperanee eause and in the abolition of slavery. As elders, besides Joshua Tucker, Elijah Belcher, and Jason Wright, who begin the list, the most efficient were Ozias Waldo, Samuel Hunting- ton, James O. Morse, and David H. Little. Mr. Little. an elder from 1832 to 1870, when he removed to Rochester, was identified with the religious eoneerns of this region till his death, in 1873. James Otis Morse, an elder from 1821, was eminent in the law, and exerted a wide influence in public affairs. His portrait and that of his wife, two re- markable pictures, the work of the great inventor of the telegraph, in his early artist days, adorn the walls of the family mansion. Portraits of Dr. and Mrs. White, by the same hand, are in the possession of their descendant. Mrs. A. B. Cox. Perhaps the most zealous and certainly the most successful among the long list of ministers this church has had was Rev. John Truair, who was called in July, 1820, he having, with Mr. Cooley, Mr. Oliver, and others, formed the presbytery of Otsego in 1819, when the old Oneida presbytery was divided. He was of English birth, a man edueated, talented, and full of vim ; of excessive ac- tivity, of great and persuasive powers as a speaker, and so snecessful in bringing souls to Christ as to wierit comparison with preachers of the type of Mr. Moody. His pastorate, though of less than two years, was a time of extraordinary growth. Forty-six persons were at once added to the church in the fall of the year he cannes, and one hundred and twenty the next. Traces of his activity are seen in the freeph my with which he assembled his efficient session, thirty-eight sittings being held in the year and three-quarters while he was pastor, and sometimes as many as six in a single month. He was seized with great zeal to save the godless scannen of New York ; and his vehemence is exhibited in the for-
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HISTORY OF OTSEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
vid and urgent reasoning of a long letter he recorded, when beseeching permission to withdraw in order to undertake a work among that unpromising class, to which he had re- ceived an earnest summons, and for which his rugged elo- quence no doubt eminently fitted him. The value the church placed on this extraordinary man is seen in their granting him six months' leave of absence, owing to ill heath, with continned pay, and supplying his pulpit, Rev. Charles James Cook being secured for the purpose. His request was most reluctantly consented to. He had the restless, untiring spirit of an evangelist and successful harvester of souls, for which the seed had been planted by faithful pre- decessors. The pastoral relation was dissolved March 24, 1822, and on the following Sunday he celebrated his last communion with the people who prized him so well, eight more having been added to the church, making one hun- dred and seventy-four in all, and swelling the list to four hundred, certainly a strong church for that day.
Before Mr. Cooley left, a serious effort had been made to erect a new church by the appointment of a committee, among whom were Mr. Morse and Oliver Judd, the latter the head of an ingenious family who came from Conneeti- cut, and established themselves in the manufacture of iron, and all of whom being musical, long sustained the efficiency of the service of song. Edwin Judd, who might have been called, like Aristides. the just, bore the character of a Nestor to the village, and sang in the choir for forty years, searcely missing a Sunday. Mr. Truair imparted fresh energy to the building movement, but his departure delayed the plan for a few years longer. The church, however, was not to sink again into inactivity, for searee a month had passed when Rev. Charles Fitch, a Princetonian licentiate, was called, and Aug. 22, 1822, he was ordained. The old church was now too ruinous for use ; a proposal to repair it was negatived, and a fresh committee instructed to devise ways and draft a plan for another, the services being held meanwhile in the Lancasterian school-house. An inkling of the usages of life at that period is seen in the record that a certain apprentice was suspended from the church for run- ning away from his master to parts unknown ; and entries of the period fill long pages with the painful and sometimes hidicrous accounts of regular trials in case of discipline. The conditions of religious life seem to have improved sinee then, and perhaps there has been some accession of discreet- ness to the church. Mr. Fitch was not well sustained, and applied for a dismissal November, 1824, leaving the spring following. Rev. James B. Ambler succeeded, as stated supply, from May, 1825, till July, 1827. The efforts in regard to a new building were erowned with success in that year, and the WHITE FRAME CHURCH reared its handsome steeple to a height of about a hundred feet in the air. It. was in the classic style then so universally in vogue ; appar- ently modeled after one of the numerous churches of Sir Christopher Wren, and became in its turn the model of many churches in this part of the country. In front was a portico with four elegant Tuscan pillars, above which rose the steeple, story on story, to the summit. which was adorned with a tinned dome, and gilt ball and vane, the latter being the same that surmounts the present spire. The gallery oc- cupied three sides, the pulpit being between the entrances,
with choir and small organ above it. The old meeting- house was sold and the proceeds devoted to fencing the venerated and historic burial-ground, the new church hav- ing been built upon the site now occupied, a short distance further up the street. The church was painted in that dazzling white so invariably chosen for the structures of the American village of the period ; whether to delude the beholder into the idea that he was gazing on classic forms in marble, or because white being, as philosophers tell us, the sum of all the hues of the rainbow united, it was thought impossible to go wrong with it. It at all events seems to have been considered as the bean ideal for an ele- ment of harmony with the intense green of the window- blinds and the surrounding verdure. But it was a very pretty church, as was, and still is, the village itself; en- bosomed in lovely maples (thanks to an old fellow named Gregg, who set them out at a shilling apiece) and set round about with hills, whose tops were erowned with nod- ding forests, with its little irregular square, on which were the taverns, the bank, and the stores, and to which con- verged the four or five highways that came in from among the fragrant fields in as many different directions, and with its three or four churches, its pleasant houses, and green, shady lawns. The demands of business had led to the es- tablishment of the Central bank as early as 1816, being then the only bank in this region, and in 1829 Mr. Ho- ratio J. Oleott came here as its cashier, since which period his name has been a part of the history of the church, and a power in the financial concerns of the region, being a most serviceable supporter of the former in various eapac- ities, especially as the efficient treasurer, and becoming an elder in 1875. Many of those who had been prepared for life in the academy reaped success in various fields, and as its importance as a place of enterprise declined some of them gradually returned to enjoy a more leisurely life, and the old village assumed the air of a place of prosperous and qniet retirement. The sulphur waters of Sharon and Rich- field, on either hand. began to attraet numbers of people every summer in search of health or of purer air, who loved to drive out to Cherry Valley to enjoy its charming and extensive prospects, and those of them that were priv- ileged share the social cheer of its delightful homes.
Among those who came back to enjoy the felicities of rural life at different times were Judge George C. Clyde and Samuel Campbell, Esq., who retired after successful careers at the bar or on the bench, and Messrs. George B. Ripley and Henry Roseboom, who retired from mercantile life. All were descended front old settled families, and by their interest in church affairs greatly compensated for the love of those who were departing. Mr. Clyde, who returned in 1852, was judge of the county of Columbia, and died in 1868. Ilis was a family of influence, his grandfather, Colonel Clyde, having been the magistrate under whose call the church had reassembled after the war.
Rev. C. W. D. Tappan was called March, 1828, but was dismissed at the end of the year. The accessions were slender at that period, and canses had begun to work which greatly diminished the importance of the village. comter- cially, as well as the prominence of the church. As I have hinted, the character of the place was changing through
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HISTORY OF OTSEGO COUNTY, NEW YORK.
' causes that were irresistible; new lines of travel were opening up which diverted that stream of life which had hitherto poured through and drained off inch of its young and enterprising talent. The Erie eanal was completed in 1825, and a few years later the locomotive followed along the level stretch bordering the Mohawk, and across the low divide to the lakes, which constitute the natural channel of comnieree from the east to the west. The old highway along the hills became a deserted country road. The mere rivulet only of traffic was left from the south to the canal and railway. At a later time this also was dried by the building of the Albany and Susquehanna railroad south of us; when it became necessary for us to regain comumuni- cation with the outer world by a railroad of our own, or sink into entire insignificanee, an ineffectual attempt towards this same end by carrying a plank-road to Fort Plain, in 1850, only serving to demonstrate the necessity. This however, is anticipating.
When Rev. Alex. M. Cowan was called, Oct. 8, 1829, there were still 212 members, but at the end of his time, notwithstanding some 50 additions, the losses being greater than the gain, the total had falleu to 208. Installed Feb- ruary, 1830, he remained till September, 1833. Frequent mention is now made of dismissals to the two Methodist churches of the village, which about this time began to spring up, besides numerous others of that and other de- nominations in every surrounding hamlet.
From this period to the year 1868 the church was under the pastoral care of the following, sucessively : Rev. William Loehead, Albert V. H. Powell, William Lusk, Geo. S. Boardman, John G. Hall, James H. Dwight, Alex. L. Twombly, Edward P. Gardner.
The history of the church is thus brought down to the time when the present pastor began his labors, May, 1863, his call being dated February 26, and his iustallation taking place June 18 of the same year.
From the narrative as a whole the following may be de- rived as a general summary. The church, founded in 1741, has existed over a period of one hundred and thirty- five years. It has had five successive church edifices in three different locations. It has received the labors of twenty- two different ministers, including the present, besides oeea- sional temporary supplies. Of these twenty-two, fifteen have been regularly installed pastors.
Mr. Dunlop's pastorate was violently ended after he had been on the field for thirty-seven years. Mr. Cooley served ten years, and Mr. Hall seven. The other pastorates ranged from five years to one or two.
The following is the list, with the years of their labors [pastors printed in SMALL CAPS ; stated supplies iu rowan ; other supplies in italics] :
SAMUEL DUNLOP ... 1741-78 ' C. W. D. TAPPAN .. 1828-29
Eliphalet Nott ... 1796-98
W'M. LocHEAD. 1834-38 Thos. K. Kirkham 1803-04 |
Annenr V. Il. PowELL. 1838-39 GEO. ITALL ... 1806-07
Jesse Townsand.
1×10
WILLIAM LOSK.
1541-16
ELI F. COOLEY 1×10-20
GRO. S. BOARDMAN 1847-49 Jons Tar Ant. 1820-22 JOHN G. HAI.L. 1850-57
Charles Jax. Cook
1822
Jas. Il. Dwight ..
1857-58
CHARLES FITCH ..... 1:22-24 ALEX. S. TWOMBLY ...... 1858-62 Frans Beardsley. IS25 Enwinn P. GARDNER ... 1-62-67 Jas. B. Ambler. 1825-27 HENRY U. SWINNERTON INGS
The following is a list of the elders since 1804, twenty- two in all :
Joshua Tucker#
1804 | Ephraim Hansont 1:19
Elijah B-lebert 1804
Jason Wrightt 1.804
John Horton? 1807 All'red Crafts"
John Horton, Jr.t.
Benjamin Tuckert.
Ozias Waldo* 1807
David H. Little?
John Gault?
1808
Hubbard Metcalf ..
Charles G. Hazeltinet 1453
James Thompsont. 1814
A. Bench Gilest 1-53
James Church* 1816
Elijah R. Thompson
Hugh Robinson 1819 Horatio J. Olcott. 1985
The names of eight hundred and sixty-four persons are on the extant roll who at different times have been mem- bers of the church from 1804. There is no list of the members previous to the massacre; but presuming that as many as one hundred and thirty-six must have been gath- ered during the long ministry of Mr. Dunlop, we may make the total one thousand. The old church has, there- fore, in heaven and on earth a numerous flock, even as it has had many shepherds. It has had a long history, and has not existed in vain. Its honorable record is worthy of preservation, and there is a feeling of satisfaction in sub- mitting the story of its career as of a duty performed, such as one generation owes to those which have preceded it.
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