USA > New York > Nassau County > Hempstead > History of St. George's Church, Hempstead, Long Island, N.Y. > Part 3
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St. George's Church.
"My necessary hospitality has all along in a very great measure amounted to the height of my salary both here and at home, much beyond those more cautious limits consistent with the welfare of my family. I have served my publie view by it, though to the detriment of my private self. Burthening the purses of the new converts to the Church would soon render our ministry of little effect. I find affability and hospitality, next to a conscientious discharge of duty, to be very sinewy, prevailing arguments to mollify their innate, inveterate principles. It pro- motes my public designs."
There is no record of Mr. Thomas' official acts, with a partial exception to be noticed presently. The reason for this deficiency is thus deplored and ex- plained by Mr. Thomas in one of his letters. It will be a ceaseless source of regret that he did not get the book for a register which he hoped to have.
1707, April 22 .- " I have often laid before my vestry the necessity of a register book in the parish, but to no purpose. Having no method of raising a fund to defray that and such like public exigencies,. since I came here, I have converted the communion offerings (the poor here being very few and provided plentifully for by a public tax from the government) to buy some requisite necessaries for the communion table, &c., and out of our late Easter offerings I hope to buy a register book, which I bespoke already ; and then I shall take particular care to register all christenings, marriages and burials, according to our instructions from the Venerable Society. I have baptized some scores of infants and adults since my arrival here, and married some dozens of couples, but would never receive a farthing perquisites for them hitherto. It was customary here for the jus-
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Rev. John Thomas.
tices to solemnize marriages, who are very tenacious. of that addition to their offices, and in order to bring marriages to the church I have solemnized all gratis ; first, in order to reconcile them to our way, and then to take off that grand aspersion so often in their mouths against the Church of England's ministers, that they greedily covet the fleece and neglect the flock. I have received four pieces of eight [$4] for one funeral sermon, the person dying being a bach- elor and ordered it to me in his will; and 12 shillings. from one married couple, who going out of my parish to be married into the city, Mr. Vesey reserved one- half of his perquisites for me; and that is all I ac- cepted of since my coming to this parish. The people I live among are poor, and from their cradles prejudiced and disaffected to our constitution, and should I have screwed them up to perquisites I should assuredly have nipped the church in the bud. I have been strictly brought up in it, and shall spare no pains to propagate it. I allow my clerk a small salary out of my own annually, and without that I could have none. I have raised a school in the town since my coming, and allow towards it (in con- junction with the inhabitants) £20 a year. We are now building a schoolhouse and settling a piece of land upon it, which I have contributed unto. A good precedent of that nature, I presume, is the most moving rhetoric I can use to persuade those whose intellectuals are so mean and earthly that they can- not discern the advantage worth and excellency of education for their children's present and future wel- fare. In vain I preach to them the superstructures of Christianity when they are destitute of the ground- works and fundamentals of religion by education. I have bought catechisms to give away among the children, and hope in some time to have a set of catechumens. While the Honorable Society are
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St. George's Church.
pleased to continue to us their allowance, we may live upon honorable terms, independent of our people, and not subject to either their scorns or contempts. When it is once withdrawn, we must expect to be assuredly miserable and subject to their insolencies."
In the book recording the proceedings of the justices and civil vestry acting as overseers of the poor, there is the beginning of a parish record. But Mr. Thomas was not long allowed the space he de- sired. The record of Mr. Thomas is prefaced and authenticated with the following words, written in a bold, masculine hand :
"I, John Thomas, E. Coll, Jesu Oxon, was In- ducted Rector of Hamstead on Nassau Island in the Province of New York, the 27th of December in the year 1704, and baptized the persons and children underwritten, since my induction in 1704, to this. present 13th of July, 1707. The distinct time of their initiation into the Church by Baptism, I can- not particularly and precisely notice, this Register Book being lately bought and delivered into my hands, but all Christenings hereafter, shall, (God will- ing), be duly and precisely Registered."
Then follow the names of 5 adults and 17 infants or children. The first entry is-" Asa Gildersleeve, born March 19, 1685, was baptized in the year 1705, the son of Thomas and Mary Gildersleeve of Ham- stead." Besides these entries in the hand-writing of Mr. Thomas, subsequent entries were made of chil- dren, all of them born after Mr. Thomas' death, and entered probably by a Mr. Peters, as they are of that name, and he was the Clerk or Secretary to the Justices and Civil Vestry. There are no marriages
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Rev. John Thomas.
recorded, and the book was soon appropriated by the Board of Justices and Vestry for their proceedings, exclusively. No register is to be found of the other baptisms and the marriages referred to by Mr. Thomas in his correspondence with the Venerable Society. The only other paper of the nature of a record of Mr. Thomas' proceedings, of which I am informed, is one which reads thus :
"This is to certify whom it may concern, that Richard Cornwell and Miriam Mott, both of Hemp- stead, were thrice published for Matrimony in the Parish of Hempstead, pursuant to the Law in that Case provided.
" By me, JOHN THOMAS." " Hempstead, February ye Sth, 1712.
It will be noticed, that though Mr. Thomas com- monly wrote the name of the Parish, 'Hamstead,' in this paper he wrote it as we do now, 'Hempstead.'
The regular register of the parish commences June 13, 1725, in a book which-as an inscription in it declares-" was given to the parish of Hempstead by Theodorus Van Wyck, Esq., Justice of the Peace, and inhabitant in the said Parish." The book con- tains only baptisms and marriages. Funerals were not recorded until 75 years after this register was begun, by the Rev. Robert Jenney, and were first made by Rev. J. H. Hobart.
The Rev. Mr. Thomas, in his report to the Ven- erable Society in 1722, speaks of his having had pro -. longed sickness, and intimates that he accepts it as an admonition that he was approaching the close of his ministry and life. But he was spared to report the
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St. George's Church.
next year-' Since my last, I have baptized above 90 children and adult persons, 37 whereof were baptized at one time, 18 of whom were adults.'* Nothing could more effectively testify to 'labours above measure ' and 'Zeal for God,' than such a record as that !
Mr. Thomas wrote to the Secretary of the Society some months later, as follows :
1724, October 1 .-- "Pray, Good Sir, give my humble duty to the Honorable Society, and assure them of my utmost fidelity in my mission as far as lame limbs and a decrepid state of health will permit. My heart is warm and sound, though lodged, God knows, in a crazy, broken carcase. Pray, tell them that like Epaminondas I shall fight upon the stumps for that purest and best of Churches as long as God indulges me with the least ability to do it."
After this the name of the Rev. John Thomas dis- appears from the list of the Society's missionaries. It is thought that he died in the same month in which the above dispatch was written. It is evident, judging from his works, that Mr. Thomas was an earnest yet pru- dent man, and a zealous and faithful minister for Christ. He encountered prejudice, misrepresentation, and malignity from the beginning to the end of his ·officiating here; but he met all obstacles with appar- ently a cheerful and hopeful spirit, and was not dis- mayed because there were many adversaries, and God rewarded his persistent endeavors with a good measure of success. It is no little encomium which
MSS. Church Docu. N. Y., p. 94.
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Rev. John Thomas.
Wood gives him when he says,* " Mr. Thomas had to encounter the difficult task of uniting a mixed and discordant population into one society, and of reduc- ing them to order and regularity. He seems to have been laborious and successful in his efforts to melio- rate the condition of the town."
Mr. Thomas actively participated with the other leading clergy of the Province of New York in the measures which were adopted from time to time to advance the interests of the Church. His name is found associated with theirs in several documents issued by them.
Mr. Thomas' will was made March, 1724, and proved October 28, 1726. He gives his wife Marga- ret the management of his farm in Harrison's Pur- chase, Westchester County. He leaves a son John [born October 23, 1708,] and two daughters, Mar- garet and Gloriana. His wife, his brother-in-law Edmund Smith, Captain John Tredwell and John Cornell of Rockaway, are the executors. The wit- nesses are Jeremiah Bedell, Elias Dorlin and William Willis. The last is probably the writer of the will.
There is no stone in St. George's churchyard to mark the spot where the sacred dust of Mr. Thomas reposes. One cannot but regret the apparent neglect. of the generation whom he had served so faithfully for twenty years, in allowing the remains of their rector and friend to repose in an unmarked grave.
Mrs. Thomas survived her revered husband, but there is no record concerning her death. There is
* Silas Wood, First Settlement of L. I., p. 60.
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St. George's Church.
this pleasing testimonial in the proceedings of the Venerable Society :
1727, February 16 .- " A gratuity of £50 is voted by the Venerable Society to the widow of the late Rev. Mr. Thomas, missionary at Hempstead, in con- sideration of his long and faithful services, upwards of twenty years."
It is a duty to keep in grateful remembrance the name of the Church's pioneer in Hempstead ;- the man to whom belongs the honored title, "The father of St. George's Parish."
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas' son, the Hon. John Thomas, was the first Judge of Westchester County, and a representative to the General Assembly of the Prov- ince of New York. He married Abigail, daughter of John Sands, a Quaker, of Cow Neck, L. I., died May 2, 1777, and was buried in Trinity churchyard, New York city.
The Hon. John and Mrs. Abigail Thomas left two. sons and a daughter. The second son was Major- General Thomas Thomas, an officer in the Continen- tal army. He married Catherine Floyd, of Mastic, Long Island .*
For two years after the death of the Rev. Mr. Thomas the parish was unsupplied with a clergyman.
* Bolton, His. West Co., Vol. i. p. 254.
CHAPTER II.
1726-1742
T HE vacancy in the Rectorship which was caused by the death of the Rev. Mr. Thomas, in 1724, was filled in 1726 by the Rev. Robert Jenney, A. M., who was directed by the Propagation Society to re- move to Hempstead from Rye, Westchester Co., where for four years he had officiated as a missionary of the Society-having succeeded the Rev. Christo- pher Bridge, who died at Rye, May 22, 1719.
Mr. Jenney was the son of the venerable Henry Jenney, of Wanney-Town, in the North of Ireland ; who was descended from the Jenneys of Knoddis or Knodding Hall, Suffolk County, England. He was. born in the County of Armagh, A. D. 1688, and educated in Dublin, under Dr. Jones. October 13, 1704, he was matriculated as a pensioner at Trinity College, Dublin ; his tutor being Mr. John Wetherby, a fellow of that College. In 1710 he was admitted to deacons' orders-and to priests' orders the same year. He was soon afterwards appointed to a Chap- laincy in the Royal Navy, in which service he con- tinued until 1714. Resigning his chaplaincy, he be-
* Bolton, His. Church West. Co., p. 218.
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St. George's Church.
came a missionary of the Venerable Society, and was, by it, appointed assistant to the Rev. Evan Evans, in Christ Church, Philadelphia, and acted also as the schoolmaster in that Parish. Mr. Jenney was thus successor, in two instances, to the Rev. John Thomas; first at Philadelphia, and then at Hempstead. From about the year 1717, he was, for a time, chaplain to the forts and royal forces in New York City, and assisted the Rev. Mr. Vesey in Trinity Church. In 1722, he was appointed Mission- ary to the Parish at Rye, where he very effectively labored until transferred to Hempstead.
It may be well before we proceed to relate the events of Mr. Jenney's ministry in Hempstead, that a statement should be made respecting the Church- property which he found here, and the sources from which it had been derived.
CHURCH PROPERTY-ITS SOURCES.
We have seen that the Rev. Mr. Keith mentions a church and parsonage as being here awaiting the coming of a missionary. The church he thus referred to was the second building erected in Hempstead at public cost, for religious and also secular purposes.
The first one was built in 1648; was twenty-four feet square, and Thompson says (p. 35), was placed near the present Burley Pond. After nearly twenty- six years use, this gave way, in 1673, to another, built likewise at public cost. At a town meeting, held April, 1673,* a committee was appointed to see to the construction of the building, to be thirty feet
* Town Records.
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Rev. Robert Fenney.
long, twenty-two feet wide and twelve feet studs, with a lean-to on each side. And the site was changed to a place in the present churchyard, and a very little west of the present St. George's Church. Mr. Jenney, in 1728, stated the dimensions of the building to be forty feet long and twenty-six feet wide. Probably the committee saw fit to depart from the specifications named in the vote.
Both of the buildings thus erected by the civil authorities, out of the public funds, were intended to serve the double purpose of affording a place for the business meetings of the town on week days and for religious services on Sundays, and they were so used. Warrants for town meetings directed the free- holders to assemble at the Church. By tax, provis- ion was made from year to year, for a person to take care of the building. It was in this second building that both the Rev. Mr. Thomas officiated, and Rev. Dr. Jenney also, for the first years of his rectorship.
The house for the minister was built in 1682, and occupied the same site with the present Rectory. This too, like the church, was built by order of the freeholders from public funds. It was intended to be the domicile of the person who was the minister for the time being, and its use accounted as a part of the means for his support, which the law directed them to provide. The following is the entry on the Town Records concerning this building :
" At a town meeting held May 6, 1682, it was re- solved by a major vote of the town to build a house for the Rev. Jeremy Hubard, and when he sese cause to leve it, then it is to return to the town again."
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St. George's Church.
It was further " ordered that this building be placed on the town lot with three acres of ground, where it is most convenient."
Thus the parsonage, like the church and the glebe, was the property of the town and not of any religious body, and the minister resident was a tenant of the town, which did not surrender its title to the property till near half of a century after the Episcopalians entered Hempstead. The parsonage was 36 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 10 feet between joints. Not a very imposing structure. It will be observed that the :site has been used for a minister's residence for near 200 years.
Mr. Hubard-or more correctly Hobart-who was a Presbyterian, or more likely an Independent, for lack of support left Hempstead in 1696 and removed to Haddam, Connecticut, and for more than 100 years afterwards-says Thompson, p. 353-" the Presbyte- rian church has had no settled clergyman." When the Rev. Mr. Thomas came here there was no minister ·of any denomination settled here-both the church and parsonage were without occupant, and the house and glebe had reverted-as per stipulation-to the disposal of the town. It was given to the occupancy of Mr. Thomas in 1704, as it had been to Mr. Hobart, and he too was thus but a tenant at will of the town, and both church and parsonage, and probably a glebe of more than 100 acres near the South Bay, which in 1682 had been voted by the town to the use of Mr. Hobart,* were held by this tenure until 1735-when
* See Wood, p. 15.
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Rev. Robert Fenney.
the title to the church (and parsonage and glebe) was- transferred, by a vote.of the town, to St. George's Church, Dr. Jenney being rector, and the transfer confirmed to it by a charter from George II. It may De well to state in some detail the action which was, had in this matter.
First, in respect to the action of the freeholders.
The town records state that a warrant was duly issued for a town meeting to be held April 4, 1734; that the meeting was held, and the following action taken on the matter before us :
" On the application of John Tredwell, William Cor- nell, John Cornell, Jacob Smith, Esq., John Searing and Rd. Thorn, Gents., freeholders of the said town, &c., &c. -then and there voted and concluded nemine contra dicente by all the freeholders then and there present, -that the said John Tread vell, Wm. Cornell, &c., &c.,-shall and they hereby respectively have liberty granted to them and their respective heirs, assigns &c. &c.,-to take up the quantity of half an acre of land at or near the place where the old church now stands-whereon to build a church wherein to perform divine service according to the usage of the Church of England, and also for a churchyard or burying: place."
" Ordered,-That Thomas Gildersleeve and John. Mott, Gents., do survey and lay out to the above said persons the said 1/2 acre of land."*
The building of a new church to supersede the one. now dilapidated, it appears, had been determined on, and on October 11th, 1733, at a meeting of the sub- scribers for building a church the following persons
* Church Record, p. 19.
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St. George's Church.
were chosen to act with the Rev. Mr. Jenny as man- agers to carry on the said building, viz.
Thomas Williams,
Col. John Tredwell,
Joseph Smith,
Major John Cornell,
John Serring,
William Cornell 1 Esqs.
Robert Marvin,
Jacob Smith,
Robert Sutton,
James Pine,
James Stringham,
Richard Thorne,
Benjamin Tredwell.
Micah Smith was appointed treasurer, to receive the subscriptions and make payments as they should be ordered. The survey of the half acre was duly reported, and it was then ordered that the church be set at the west end of the old one .*
The grant was made, it will be noticed, by the town to individuals, and only of a site for a church. It was doubtless felt that this was an imperfect and insecure form for holding a trust in perpetuity- there being a liability of a lapse through the extinc- tion of successors. The only secure tenure for suc- cession and preservation for all time, would be through a corporation, and this determined the parties inter- ested to take steps for securing an act of incorpora- tion.
The second step in these proceedings was as follows : An application was made to the Governor and Coun- cil of the Province of New York for incorpora- tion. In the office of the Sec. of State, Albany,t
* It is presumed that the old building was removed, for in 1742, John Dorland, & Co. " are appointed to take care and charge of our old church or town house, to secure it from any further damages, and to prosecute those who have pulled and carried away a greater part of it." + Col. MSS., Vol. 70, p. 131.
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Rev. Robert Fenney.
under date of June 27, 1735, is this entry- " Petition of Robert Jenney, &c .- inhabitants of the parish, &c., for incorporation, &c .- proceedings of the Council thereon."
The petitioners were as follows:
Rev. Robert Jenney, Rector.
James Albertus, Robert Marvin,
George Balden,
Jacamiah Mitchell,
Gerhardus Clowes, Clerk Joseph Mott, of Vestry, Charles Peters,
William Cornell, Sr. & Jr., James Pine, Sr.,
John Cornell, Jr.,
John Cornell,
John Roe, Micah Smith,
Richard Cornell, Jr.,
Peter Smith, Jr.
William Cornell,
Timothy Smith,
Thomas Cornell, Jr.
Peter Smith,
Isaac Germon,
Jacob Smith,
Thomas Gildersleeve,
Joseph Smith,
George Gildersleeve, Daniel Hewlett,
Silas Smith,
Robert Sutton,
James Hugins,
Richard Thorne, Esq.,
Joseph Langdon,
Joseph Thorne, Esq.,
William Langdon,
Thomas Williams.
Thomas Lee,
The application was successful. A charter of in- corporation was granted, confirming the action of the freeholders, and extending the grant to the par- sonage and glebe and other lands, including those which until recent date were known as " the Parson- age on the South-bay." The terms of this charter will be particularly noticed presently.
From the facts thus recited it appears that up to April, 1734, the title to the meeting-house and minis- ster's house and the glebe and other lands resided in 3
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St. George's Church.
the inhabitants of the town who were freeholders, and that the town ceded their right to the meeting-house andits site to representatives of the Church of England, and that the sovereign authority of the State confirm- ed their action by making these and other representa- tives of the church-including its Rector-a corpora- tion, and transferring this property and all other which had been devoted by the town to religious. purposes, to said corporation, absolutely and forever. And it further appears that at the time said grant was made to the corporation of St. George's Church, there was no other religious body in the town having an organization with a succession of officers, and that, therefore, no inchoate reserved or other rights of any party or body were invaded by said grant. To all the action we have described there were no opposing voices. The Town Records of April 4, 1734, states. expressly that what was 'then and there voted and concluded ' was, 'nemine contradicente' -' no one objecting.'
Few titles to property in this country rest upon such a stable double foundation as the property of this parish. And if there had been any defect in the grants to us so made and confirmed, that defect would have been cured by this provision in the 36th article of the Constitution of the State of New York, adopted in 1777 :
"Nothing in this Constitution contained shall be construed to affect any grants of land within this State made by the authority of the King of Great Britain.or his predecessors, or to annul any charters
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Rev. Robert Jenney.
to bodies politic, by him or them, or any of them, made prior to the 14th of October, 1775." **
Concerning this clause, Judge Redfield of Vermont says : "It is manifest that all royal Charters incorpo- rating Churches, and all the franchises and powers they confer, are recognized and in full validity at this hour, excepting such provisions in them as may de- clare or involve the exercise within the State of an authority by a foreign prince or potentate."+
As we have mentioned that a Charter was granted by royal authority to St. George's, Hempstead, it may be well to state that Dr. Jenney was made sensible of the great value of that instrument, both for rector and parish, when he became rector of Christ Church, Phil- adelphia, which had not been endowed with one. In his correspondence with the Venerable Society, under date of 1749, he gives this expression to his con- sciousness of the disadvantages that his parish labored under from being deprived of one; and to which he was, doubtless, made more alive by his experience of the benefits he had found at Hempstead from the one it possesses :
" Our Church labors under very great discourage- ment, as we have no legal establishment (as they have at New York), not so much as a Charter of Incorpo- ration to enable us to manage our Business to the best advantage."#
" So the 14th Section of the Act of April, 1784, Chap. 18, re- newed in 12th Sec. of the General Act of April 5, 1813, recognizes the legality of religious corporations created under the great Seal of the Colony."-Hoffman Eccles. Laws N. Y. p. 15.
+ See Hoffman's Eccles. Laws N. Y., p. 40, 43.
# Docu. Church. Hist. Penn., p. 260.
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St. George's Church.
From the statement we have thus made respecting the title of St. George's Parish to its land and build- ings, we now turn to a narrative of the events in the parish under its second rector, Dr. Robert Jenney-a most worthy successor to the excellent Thomas, who laid the foundations on which his successors have builded.
The following extracts from Dr. Jenney's corres- pondence will be found to afford an interesting and instructive view of the condition of the parish under his ministrations, and prove that he here exhibited that wise and persevering spirit which won for him a distinguished position among the clergy of the Church in his day :
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