USA > New York > Rockland County > History of Rockland County, New York : with biographical sketches of its prominent men > Part 54
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The style of the call made upon Dominie Lansing in 1784 by the united churches of Tappan and Clarkstown did not differ much from that of the call made by these churches on Dominie Verbryck thirty-four years earlier. But the salary was increased from 100 pounds ($250) to 170 pounds ($425), together with the parsonage and farm. It remained without appreciable change during the whole fifty-one years of his pastorate. About the time of this call the old church building of 1716 was remod- eled. Its four sided roof was removed, the house was lengthened, topped out with a beautiful gambrel roof, and a jaunty spire of open work, in which could be seen the great wheel to which was attached the bell that on a
It was noticed that he preached as if conscious that he was uttering his last public words, which proved to have been the case. He tried to stand, but tottered. The scene was one never to be forgotton by any who wit- nessed it. The elders feared that he would fall, and begged him to be seated and speak in a sitting position, which he did. He earnestly reminded the people of his past instruction, " I have never preached to you Do and Live " he said, " but Live and Do." Recalling how much he had always dwelt upon the nature and necessity of the new birth, saving faith, true repentance, and a godly life, he repeated what he said was now necessary for | Sabbath morning could be heard half a mile away. The them to know for salvation, and earnestly exhorted all who heard him to the one thing needful. All felt that he was literally speaking as a dying man to dying men. At once after this service he took to his dying bed, and on Saturday morning, September 26th, very early, he passed away. He had all through his Christian life been harassed with a fear of the dying experience, not of the beyond, but of the mere dying itself. On his death bed, he never alluded to this, but was constantly engaged in prayer and in giving spiritual instruction to those around him. His death created a profound sensation over a large section of country, and his funeral services at the beginning of the following week, held in the same rude sanctuary in which he had borne his last testimony for his Lord, were attended by an immense concourse of people, gathered from near and far. Such was the earthly record and the earthly end of this earnest, godly man, and powerful preacher of the gospel of Christ. His re- mains, like those of his predecessors, Muzelius and Ver- bryck, lie interred at Tappan. They are in the yard on the west of the road, and the spot is still marked with the original stone, bearing the following inscrip- tion: interior was painted in imitation of mahogany, except the tall columns that supported the roof, which were done in imitation of marble. On the sides were galleries ap- proached by stairs built within the body of the church. That on the right of the pulpit was appropriated to the young men, and that on the left was assigned to the ne- gro slaves. The maidens occupied the pews below on the left of the pulpit. Of the form of the pulpit itself I have already spoken. Of course the elders and deacons, according to the usage of the Reformed Churches, sat respectively in front pews on the right and left of the minister. The auditorium in earlier days was not warmed at the services, but within my own time was imperfectly warmed by two " box " stoves, one at the side of each. of the two entrance doors. Worshippers brought to church with them the old fashioned foot stoves, which they passed from one to the other during the services for the warming of cold feet and hands. Sometimes a hearer, overcome with cold, would leave his seat and sit or stand near one of the stoves. These conditions would seem very strange to us now, but they were the conditions of the church at Tappan fifty years ago. Every one went to church. Infants were taken in the arms. Mothers
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carried them out of the church when they were too rest- less, and brought them in again when they had become quieted. I have spoken of all this as history. It could not have been left out in what assumes to be a history of the county in which it all was, and all occurred.
Dominie Lansing had been a widower for very many years before his death (I think at least eighteen). The maiden name of Mrs. Lansing was Dorcas Sarah Dickin- son. There were no children by the marriage. After the wife's death his home was managed for him by a niece. His habits were frugal, like those of Dominie Verbryck. Although he was open hearted and liberal, yet he accumu- lated money. His will is now in my possession, having come to me through the papers of my father. It be- queaths $600 for a scholarship in the Theological Semi- nary in New Brunswick, N. J. The bulk of the estate is left to the natural heirs.
Rev. Isaac D. Cole .- The fourth settled pastor of the Tappan Church differed from any other of its pastors, in being a native of Rockland county and of a lineage iden- tified with the beginning and the whole progress of the church itself. His memory is still so fresh, his influence was so widely felt, and his name is so cherished in the county, that considerable place must be given in this his- tory for a sketch of his life.
town, since called New City, and within a few yards of the site since given to the Court House. There they re- sided till 1793, until all their children-fifteen in num- ber-were born, During this time they were members. first of the Clarkstown or New Hempstead, and after- ward of the West Hempstead or " Brick " Church, in each of which in turn Mr. Cole was an elder. In 1793 they removed to Fondabush, Fulton county, New York, where, after founding, and for a time helping to sustain, a Reformed (since 1825 changed to a Presbyterian) Church, Mr. Cole died on the 23d of October 1800. His widow, a woman of great vigor of mind and great excel- lence of character returned after his death to Rockland county, lived to the ripe age of almost eighty-five years, and at last died at Nanuet, on the 10th of July 1832.
Birth and Early Life .- David Cole, the eighth of the fifteen children of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Cole (born at New City, September 26th, and baptized October 5th 1777, married, January 11th 1798, Elizabeth Meyer, of Kakiat (now Spring Valley), daughter of Johannes Meyer and Catharine (Tryntjemet) Van Houten, born August 16th, and baptized September Ist 1776. He took up his res- idence at Spring Valley, and there Isaac, his oldest child, and the only son he ever had, was born on the 25th of January, and baptized on the 25th of March 1799.
Mr. and Mrs. David Cole removed to New York city in 1802, and in that city their boy received, in the best schools of his day, his youthful training. Among his teachers were Abraham De Baun, Cyrus Beadle, Daniel Demarest, and Abraham O. Stansbury, afterward teacher of the deaf and dumb, the last an instructor for whose character and tact he always cherished the high- est regard. He had also an experience of the school of Albert Picket, famous as a teacher and as an author of useful school books, but no less famous as a disciplin- arian of fearful severity. Later than this, he studied at Nanuet under Samuel Bogert, a licentiate of the Re- formed Church, and later still, and with a remarkable providential bearing upon his life, at Greenoush, now Blauveltville, in the school of the celebrated and success- ful Bailey. Such were the experiences of his school boy days.
Family Line .- Upon the member roll of the church are the names of Jacob Kool (later written " Cole ") and Barbara Hanse, residents of Tappan, received into its communion on the 23d of October 1695, one day less than a year from the date of its organization. The lius- band was baptized at Kingston, New York, January Ist 1673, and had, in 1695, just settled at Tappan, as a young and recently married man. He was the eighth and last child of Jacob Barentsen Kool and Marretje Simons (who had gone from New York to Kingston about 1659), and a grandson of Barent (or Barnard) Jacobsen Kool, an officer of the West India Company in New Amsterdam under the administration of Director Minuit. The rec- ords of the Tappan Church show that Jacob Kool was an elder of the church in almost continuous active ser- vice to the end of his life, and they also contain repeated entries of his contributions to its support. He must have died before November 23d 1719, for Barbara Hanse is Conversion and First Drawing to the Ministry .- During his school life, he seems to have known little of spirit- ual concern till he became a member of Mr. Bailey's school. In after days, he was accustomed to speak of his mind as having been " a blank " till he was about eighteen years of age. With his school experience be- fore this, he had also connected a brief experience of business, having spent about two years and a half in stores as a clerk. But now, at Mr. Bailey's school, he found himself surrounded with powerful influences for good. The neighborhood was at the time marked for its intellectual culture, and for its religious atmosphere. His parents, upon their removal to New York in 1802, entered on a Hackensack record of that date as "widow of Jacob Kool." He had six children, of whom the youngest, Abraham (baptized at Hackensack, November 2d 1707), was in line to the subject of this sketch. Abra- ham Kool and his wife, Annetje Meyer, were received into the communion of the Tappan Church on profession of their faith, December 26th 1737. Of their children- eight in number-the fourth, Isaac, born at Tappan Jan- uary 21st, and baptized there February 15th 1741, was the grandfather of Rev. Isaac D. Cole. He married, on the 15th of October 1764, Catharine Serven, born Au- gust 28th 1747, at Clarkstown, but baptized on the 13th of the next month at Tappan, where her parents had had at once united on profession with the Collegiate their church connection, the church at Clarkstown not Church, then under the pastorate of Dr. John H. Liv- ingston, and shortly after, in 1807, had joined with others yet having been organized. The home of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Cole was at once fixed in the upper part of Clarks- in organizing the North West (Franklin street) Reformed
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Church, and in bringing in the ministry of the memor- able Rev. Christian Bork. In these churches, and under these pastors, their son had received the best pulpit and catechetical instruction, but his heart had apparently re- mained unmoved. In the summer of 1817, at Greenbush, he attended the Bible Class of Rev. Andrew Thompson, an able and faithful minister of Christ, of precious mem- ory. Surrounded by serious, and many of them deeply pious, people, his mind became quickly aroused to in- quiry, and soon to very deep concern. It is probably not often that exercises so deep pass upon one newly awakened. On the 19th of April 1818, he united, with nearly a score of others, in making a profession of faith in connection with the Franklin street church. Yet
months elapsed before lie attained to joy and peace in be- lieving. His distress continued to deepen for a long time. One morning, however, about two years after his profession, and during the progress of a memorable re- vival of religion in Rockland county, while walking in the fields in great perturbation of soul, his load was suddenly lifted off. All nature around him seenied instantly lighted with a gorgeous illumi- nation. Every object appeared to reflect the glory of God. The Saviour stood before him a revealed object. The filial feeling came into his heart. The struggle was over. Deliverance had come. Almost at once, his happy, grateful heart was filled with longing to honor God with every power and gift. It was pressed upon him that he could best do this through the ministry as a life work. At once therefore, although grown to early manhood, he threw up every other thought, and entering the school of Mr. John Borland, one of the first standing in. New York as a medium for preparation, put himself en route for college. Natural eagerness to get on as fast as possible to the realization of his now all absorbing aim, however, led him into prolonged and intense night application to books, and to his great dismay his sight gave way. With impatience he was compelled to suspend his studies for a time. At the very earliest possible moment, however, with returning sight, he resumed them, but only to suffer a second defeat from the same cause. His subsequent experience revealed that in his case this had been quite remarkable, as his sight ever afterwards was so excellent, that he never used glasses, but read the finest print without them, to his latest day. But now the Lord had another use for him for a time, and used this temporary blindness, twice repeated, to divert him from his own views, and turn him off for some years to quite another line of life.
months, he taught the public school at Tappan Slote (now Piermont). The field was not prominent, but with Ja fidelity that thought more of trust and responsibility than of reputation or earthly reward, he threw his very life into his calling. From Piermont, he removed to New York, taking place for a time in noted schools as a teacher of special branches for which he displayed remarkable adaptation. But he was not to remain subordinate. In 1821, he became principal of a public school at Bloom- ingdale on the upper part of the island, and in Septem- ber, 1822, started a school for himself in the city, where he continued to teach till he was at last really permitted to take up study for the ministry in September, 1826.
Mr. Cole had a very unusual aptitude and tact as a teacher. It was not simply his deep conscientiousness in his work that gave him the success which was rapidly making himn famous, and would have lifted him very high indeed in this calling if he had continued in it. It was a really wonderful teaching gift. He had a rare com- posure of spirit, a rare patience with the dullest mind, and a profound sympathy with every one of his pupils in every effort. It was a perfect delight to him to succeed in conveying ideas to others, and he was ever on the alert to find out the most effective ways of doing it. This patience and sympathy and wonderful tact are remem- bered by every one now living who had the good fortune to be numbered among his pupils. It displayed itself with great conspicuousness in his late profession, the ministry. His pulpit was his teaching desk. He was a rare teacher both in preaching and conversation. He was a wonderfully clear teacher of every subject he taught when he presided over a school, and no less a wonder- fully clear teacher of "the truth as it is in Jesus," when The becaine and as long as he continued to be a preacher in the pulpit. It is upon this exceptional power, that his reputation most solidly rests. And it appears very much as if he was providentially turned aside for a few years after he was first drawn to thought of the ministry, that in the practical work of the school room, he might most effectively develop this peculiarity to the great prom- inence to which it so early attained.
Return of the Drawing to the Ministry .- The spirit that moved this conscientious teacher did not admit of confinement of his responsibility to the school-room. From the time of his remarkable experience already re- lated, of entrance on a life of spiritual peace, the church of Christ had been an object of warmest interest to him, and though he did not hope ever to reach a pulpit, yet he gave hinself in every possible way to the church Experience as an Instructor of Youth .- Regarding the trying failure of his sight as a Providential indication that he was not called to the ministry, he began again to inquire what the Lord would have him do, and was led after a time to decide upon taking up the work of a teacher, viewing it not only as a means of reaching intellects with secular culture, but supremely as a means of reach- work. Such spirits are needed, and where they exist they do not fail to be called into prominent use. Mr. Cole was a church officer, and as such he always carried a deep sense of his responsibility, and exerted himself to magnify his office. It cannot be surprising that a spirit thus exercised would be ever looking to higher things. He was now in the twenty-eighth year of his age. The ing souls with the great salvation. At about twenty-one trouble with the sight had entirely passed away. The years of age, therefore, he entered upon the work, ex- pecting it to be his work for life. At first for about six
drawing to the ministry came back with redoubled force. Even during the work of the day, the strong feeling came
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ORANGETOWN-REFORMED CHURCH OF TAPPAN.
over the busy teacher, " I must preach the Gospel. Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel." At last the Master's time had come. In September 1826, after consulting with his family (he had now a wife and two children) and his friends, and conferring with professors in the Theological Seminary of our church, the teacher took the decisive step, and threw all he had so far saved, a willing offering at his Saviour's feet. Selling his school, and converting his little property into cash, he removed with his family to New Brunswick, and with glad heart began the work of preparing for the ministry. Never was sacrifice more freely made, or followed with more satisfactory results. Three years (1826-1829), under the able instruction of the professors in the seminary, flew swiftly away. In July 1829, they had taken their flight. The little family, while they were passing, had, with some side work of the student in teaching, carried through without the help of any Board or any person but themselves. Now, wholly exhausted as to material re- sources, but full of joy and courage in the Lord, they were ready for labor and experience in any field to which they might be called. The step of seeking license to preach the Gospel was now taken, and license was at once obtained from the Classis of New York on the 4th of August 1829.
Settlement at Tappan .- The venerable church, whose history we are writing, was now under the pastorate, as we have shown, of Rev. Nicholas Lansing. The aged pastor was in his 8ist year. His period of strength for pastoral work seemed nearly at an end. And, moreover, the church enjoyed his services in the pulpit every other Sabbath only, the alternate Sabbath being still given to Clarkstown. The people were looking for an assistant. The new licentiate, already well known through all the surrounding country, was sought for a hearing, and as soon as he had been heard, was unanimously invited to this peculiar position and charge. He accepted the invi- tation promptly, and removed to Tappan in November. The stipend allowed for the service (which consisted in preaching on alternate Sabbaths, and included the entire pastoral care of the congregation) was very small. But the young minister and his wife had a calm trust in God, and with good health and strength to encourage him, the former gave himself fearlessly and faithfully to his work. In the spring of 1830, he found employment for his unoccupied Sabbaths. The neighboring congrega- tion of Schraalenburgh had long been united with that of Hackensack, under a joint pastorate. The venerable Rev. James I. C. Romeyn occupied its pulpit every other Sabbath only. The people now sought and secured the services of the assistant at Tappan for the alternate Sab- baths. Mr. Cole, in this way, obtained employment tor all his Lord's Days. This brought upon him, however, the entire pastoral care of these two congregations, whose churches were six miles apart, and whose territory was Ministry and Preaching at Tappan; its Formative In- fluences and its Character .- - The early association of Rev. Mr. Cole, first as an assistant of, and then as a colleague with the aged Lansing, in all for about five years, had very wide spread. In both congregations he was, so far, an assistant only, not having been ordained. After he had served according to their conditions for a time, the people at Tappan took more definite steps, at the sugges- large effect upon his subsequent life and ministry. We
tion of the veteran Lansing, upon whom the infirmities of age were rapidly increasing, and extended to their assist- ant a formal pastoral call, which he accepted. His or- dination and installation quietly followed on the 24th of May 1831. Still, however, the nature of his work, and the compensation he derived from the two churches re- mained the same. It was entirely insufficient for his family's support, and this led to a side movement for necessary relief.
Return to Teaching as a Partial Means of Support .- Recalling now his old profession as an educator of youth, and his success in it, and with a manly consciousness of his ability to command through it an adequate support, he began, in 1831, to teach again in a limited way in addi- tion to his double pulpit and pastoral work. The compar- ative recency with which he had left his teaching in New York, made his character and name as a teacher still fresh in the memory of many, and he was at once besieged with applications from old sources and new. The result was, purchase of a property suitable for the purpose, and the opening, in May 1832, of a formal boarding school at Tappan, and the gathering at once of a large number of pupils. The teaching tact of the pastor, and his earnest interest in both the intellects and the hearts of his scholars, became again, as before, matters of wide notice and profound admiration. But the physical strength of the pastor and teacher was kept under the severest of strains. It was in a fair way to be broken down, when relief came in a way that had not been foreseen.
Call and Removal to Paterson, and Return to Tappan .- In the month of November 1832, a pressing call was ex- tended to Rev. Mr. Cole by the Reformed Church of Totown, at Paterson, N. J. The terms were such as to offer immediate relief from cares, which were too heavy to be long borne. So the call was accepted, the school property was sold, and the removal to Paterson was effected on the 16th of December 1832. But the break- ing of the tie brought out evidence from the Tappan people of affection for the pastor of which he had had no conception. It was with the severest pain on both sides that the final parting was reached. The people saw their pastor go with the exclamation: "We will have him back in a year." And they kept their word. They could not unite on any other man. Before a year had expired they recalled him on ternis that offered him en- tire comfort, and opportunity for devotion to ministerial work only, and at Tappan alone. On the 16th of De- cember 1833 (one year to a day from his removal to Paterson), he was on his return to his first people. His subsequent life in the pastorate, beginning with his re- lation as assistant pastor in 1829, belongs, with the bricf exception we have indicated, to the ancient church of his fathers to its close, his pastoral relation to the church not being dissolved till the 9th of February 1864.
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have shown that the veteran pastor was a man full of faith and the Holy Ghost, mighty in the Scriptures, and at home in all the learning essential to the ministerial life and work. He literally lived at the spiritual foun- tains Notwithstanding his eccentric manners, and his unique style of preaching, his sermons and conversation were always intensely pious and profoundly experimental. The two colleagues conceived and maintained for each other the deepest affection, and the younger, with- out in the least losing his own widely different individu- alism, ardently and successfully studied, and came in- sensibly to reflect the elder's intensely evangelical spirit. And then, the times at Tappan had much to do with the formation of the younger, and possibly, even at that late period of his life, affected even the elder pastor more than he himself knew. The great church secession of Bergen county, New Jersey, had occurred in 1822, and the universal and intense interest in the movement, and in the principles it involved, and the subjects it brought to the front, had led the whole country into a deep study, not only of the politico ecclesiastical aspects of the se- cession itself, but also of the doctrines of the gospel as masterly teacher, feeling after and reaching down to un- derstandings and hearts. His words were always select and chaste, but of the simplest kind. His sensitiveness to the proprieties and solemnities of the pulpit was abso- lute. It so controlled him that he was never betrayed into a vulgarism. As a habit there was nothing ornate about his diction. Certainly there was never a seeking after what is usually known as eloquence. And yet at times, especially in the perorations of sermons, when dwelling upon the joys of Christian experience, or the prospects of the children of God, or when dilating upon the perils of the neglecters of salvation, this simple min- ister of Christ rose to an actual eloquence that was truly sublime. It carried his hearers to a Pisgah top from which they could see over into the promised land, or so moved them at the thought of approaching doom, that the effect was electric. These occasional flights of sponta- neous and unaffected eloquence increased in frequency as increasing age and knowledge deepened his apprehen- sion of the relations of his hearers to the great truths he was called to preach. He lived under the habitual pres- sure of spiritual duty and work. It shaped his life both they stood related to the parties, one of which (the se- in and out of the pulpit, and made him what he was both in himself and to his church.
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