USA > New York > Queens County > Flushing > History of St. George's Parish, Flushing, Long Island > Part 2
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Talbot asked the Society for leave to visit England in 1720. Obtaining this, he resolved upon a step always
I7
VISIT OF KEITH AND TALBOT.
perilous in such cases. It was an appeal to the law of supposed necessity. He determined to obtain the boon of the episcopate, by seeking consecration at the hands of the non-juring bishops. In this case to appeal to ne- cessity was to distrust Providence and to tempt Christ. He was privately consecrated soon after the Rev. Dr. Welton, and the fact was not widely known for years after. He returned after an absence of two years, and quietly resumed his duties in Burlington. It was soon whispered around that he and Dr. Welton were in episcopal orders. Both visited some southern colonies, and there appeared in episcopal robes and confirmed a few persons. So it was reported. Dr. Welton was invited to Christ Church, Philadelphia, and Mr. Talbot continued his labors in Burlington. Neither, it would seem, openly claimed episcopal orders or jurisdiction. But a matter of this nature could not escape suspicion. The clergy were alarmed in all the Colonies. It reached the ears of the civil authority. The Government saw the spectre of an Episcopate in the Colonies independent of Church and State, derived from a source opposed to the reigning house in England, and in hostile separation from the rul- ing ecclesiastical authority. It was disloyalty in robes . and mitre. The Governor of Pennsylvania received an order, enclosing his majesty's writ of privy-seal, com- manding Welton, under penalty, to return to Great Britain. Mr. Talbot at the same time was discharged from the em- ployment of the Venerable Society, and was inhibited by the Governor of the Province, by instruction from home, from preaching or performing any ministerial office. Mr. Talbot submissively obeyed, and spent the few remaining years of his life in retirement and poverty in Burlington. The rest is told by a brief notice in the " American Weekly Mercury," Philadelphia, for Novem-
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HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
ber 30, 1727: "Yesterday, died at Burlington, the Rev. John Talbot, formerly minister of that place, who was a pious, good man, and much lamented." On a band in the stained glass of a window in the new St. Mary's Church at Burlington, is this inscription in Latin : "In memory of John Talbot, A. M., the founder of this Church, in A. D. 1703."
So ended the attempt to introduce the Episcopate in the Colonies through the non-juring bishops, sixty years before the Rev. Samuel Seabury was consecrated. No one who reads the story of John Talbot's life and work, will doubt that, in receiving consecration in the way he did, he was actuated by the pure desire to advance the best interests of the Church, or will dissent from the judgment of the late Dr. Hawks, "that the Society never had a more honest, fearless and laborious missionary."
CHAPTER III.
ESTABLISHING THE CHURCH IN FLUSHING.
A. D. 1704-1705.
1 T is difficult to state when Divine service was first reg- ularly held in Flushing by a clergyman of the Church of England. The documentary history of this subject is very limited, and consists rather of incidental notices than of any special record. It is from these that we have to gather our information. During the eighteenth century the history of the Parishes of Flushing and Newtown is blended with that of the Parish of Jamaica. The last named is the oldest parish, and was the residence of the rector. The other two were within his parochial bounds and under his personal ministry. He was duly inducted as Rector of Jamaica by authority of the Governor of the Province. The Venerable Society appointed him as a · ' missionary under their rules and regulations, and New- town and Flushing were included within his cure.
The first clergyman sent by the Venerable Society was the Rev. Patrick Gordon, who came over as chaplain of an English man-of-war with Keith and Talbot. He landed in June, 1702. He visited the Rev. Dr. Vesey, the Rector of Trinity Church, New York, who was then recovering from an attack of yellow fever. He set out for his par- ish at Jamaica, designing to preach there and enter upon his work. But he was suddenly stricken with fever and died eight days after. The Rev. Mr. Talbot, in his letter
This bedenture made the how of ap et in the head of ass done (front
THE ORIGINAL DEED FOR THE CHURCHYARD.
2I
ESTABLISHING THE CHURCH.
to the Society, wrote : "Mr. Gordon, Rector of Queens County, to the grief of all good men, is removed by death." This was in June, 1702.
After Mr. Gordon's death, the Rev. Mr. Bartow preached on alternate Sundays in Jamaica, "at his own charge." In 1704, a man whose name well deserves to be com- memorated in the Colonial History of the Church, took up the work in Jamaica and its dependencies. He was the Rev. James Honeyman. Lord Cornbury. "granted him admission to the ministerial function in Jamaica." He really began the work in the three towns. Earnest, and of the Church-militant order, his effective ministry was soon felt. He raised a veritable tempest around him, in exciting the ire of " the enemies of our religion," whom he "strove to bring over to Christianity." He writes : "To this parish (Jamaica) belong two other towns; viz., Newtown and Flushing ; the latter famous for being stocked with Quakers, whither I intend to go, upon their meeting days, on purpose to preach lectures against their errors."
It will be noted that he was not sent by the Venerable Society, but received a license from the Governor at his pleasure and until a rector should be sent. Upon the arrival of Mr. Gordon's successor in 1704, Mr. Honey- man went to Newport, R, I., where he established the Church amid difficulties, which would have appalled any but the bravest heart. He continued there for forty-five years, and ranks with Bartow and Talbot as the founder of parishes.
The Rev. William Urquhart was inducted in July, 1704, as rector. He was the third minister in Jamaica. We find in a letter from the Rev. Mr. Talbot, the following com- mendation : "Mr. Urquhart is well chosen for the people of Jamaica ; and, indeed, I think none fitter than the Scotch
2 2
HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
Episcopal to deal with Whigs and fanatics of all sorts." This is significant and reveals the spirit of the age. The " dissenters " in Jamaica of that day do not seem to have been of a very gentle sort. The old prejudice against the Church burned and glowed, and Lord Cornbury's meth- ods did not tend to allay the heat. Colonel Heathcote wrote in 1705 : "Mr. Urquhart, minister in Jamaica, has the most difficult task of any missionary in this govern- ment-having a Presbyterian meeting-house on the one hand and the Quakers on the other, and very little assist- ance in his parish, his work can but go on heavily." We read that he "became the third husband of Mary, daughter of Daniel Whitehead, by the use of whose money he became the patentee of a tract of land in New Jersey."
Mr. Urquhart resided at Jamaica, but Newtown and Flush- ing were under his pastoral charge. He held service and preached twice on two successive Sundays in Jamaica, on the third Sunday he read service and preached twice at Newtown, and "at Flushing once a month on the week days." In his report he says : "By the blessing of God the congregations in the respective towns daily increase." There was no church building or "meeting-house," built by a tax on the people, in Flushing as in the other towns. The guard house or, as afterward called, the town house, was the only building in which a congregation could be called together. Here the Church services were held. The Guard House stood "west of the pond," near where the fountain now stands in the village park. It was erected in the early days of Flushing, for refuge and de- fence, and was afterward used for a town hall.
Mr. Urquhart evidently was not very enthusiastic about his work in Flushing, but it is evident he held stated servi- ces here. No record of such services exists, but the simple
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ESTABLISHING THE CHURCH.
fact is stated and that the congregation increased. But whatever his success or discouragement, the fact is estab- lished that as early as 1704 stated services were held in Flushing, and that for many years the old Guard House was the place where the faithful were accustomed to meet for public worship.
Mr. Urquhart died in 1709. We have not spoken of his controversy with the dissenters concerning his right to the church and glebe. This parish (Flushing) was only indirectly affected by the controversy. It belongs rather to the history of Grace Church, Jamaica. We may say in passing that in that early period of our history, the particular names by which the parishes are now known do not appear, such as Grace Church, Jamaica; St. James' Church, Newtown, or St. George's, Flushing. The name of our parish does not occur in our charter, 1761. It is simply "The Inhabitants of the Town of Flushing, in Communion of the Church of England." Strictly speaking, the name of St. George belongs to the parish church, as erected to the glory of God, and in memory of St. George.
CHAPTER IV.
THE REV. THOMAS POYER. A. D. 1710-1731.
T T HE Rev. Mr. Urquhart was succeeded by the Rev.
Thomas Poyer in 1710. This good man and faith- ful minister did the work of an evangelist with almost apostolical self-denial and labor.
Mr. Poyer was born in Wales. He was the grandson of Colonel Poyer, the heroic defender of Pembroke Castle during Cromwell's time. Mr. Poyer was brought up in a refined family, and was educated at Oxford. In 1706 he was ordained deacon by Bishop Lloyd, and three months after he was ordained priest by the cele- brated Dr. Bull, the Bishop of St. David's. His first field of labor was at Burton in Pembrokeshire.
Three years later, December 16th, 1709, he offered his · services to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and was appointed Missionary to Jamaica, Flushing and Newtown. The Bishop of London granted him license, and on the 30th day of the same month, December, 1709, he embarked for America. After a voyage of more than three months, his ship was wrecked on the coast of Long Island, a hundred miles from his parish. When he reached Jamaica he found that the parsonage was in the posses- sion of the dissenters. His predecessor's widow had de- livered it to them the day before his expected arrival. Suspiciously enough Mrs. Urquhart was readmitted to the parsonage shortly afterward.
But, nothing daunted, Mr. Poyer began his work. He
25
THE REV. THOMAS POYER.
had inherited his grandfather's courage and, perhaps, a trifle of his pugnacity. With a frequent exchange of suits of ejectment between him and the dissenters, he bravely began his work as missionary to the three parishes. His predecessor found the Quaker element in Flushing too
SAMPLER, WITH A SKETCH OF THE FIRST CHURCH.
hard for him-it turned the edge of his sword. Mr. Urquhart had described Newtown as "a place well affected, desirous to have a minister ; " but Flushing, he said, was a town of Quakers, "who rove through the country and talk blasphemy, corrupt the youth, and do much mischief."
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HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
In his report to the Society, dated, May 3, 1711, Mr. Poyer says : "I thank God the Church of England in- creaseth, for among the Quakers at Flushing, where Mr. Urquhart, in all the time of his mission, could never gather a congregation, I have seldom so few as fifty hear- ers. I have great hopes that more will come over to our Church, notwithstanding the many enemies and discour- agements I meet withal." Again, in 1713, he writes : " The churches increase beyond expectation ; and among the Quakers in Flushing (where Mr. Urquhart did not think it worth while to go) I seldom have so few as fifty and often more than an hundred hearers."
Mr. Poyer was a man of boots as well as of books and " preachments." The Society had furnished him with good books adapted to the needs and errors of the times. As he went about in his parishes he loaned or gave these books to persons who would read them, and thus he ed- ucated the people in the doctrines of the Church. He also sought out the children and gathered them together for Catechetical instruction.
We cannot give many details of Mr. Poyer's pastoral work in Flushing. His custom was to give frequent lec- tures on week days ; and to instruct in the Catechism all such as were sent to him, twice a week in the church, and once a fortnight the year round at his house. It does not appear how much Flushing and Newtown were ben- efited by these abundant labors. There is no doubt they had their full share. This, some incidental remarks in his reports make evident. He speaks of his parish as fif- teen miles long and more than six broad, and says that this compelled him to keep two horses, which he " found expensive and troublesome.' He complains that so much riding wore out more clothes in a year than would be needed in three or four years if he had not to ride Evi-
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THE REV. THOMAS POYER.
dently Flushing had its full share of his labors. He went from house to house over the then rough and sparsely settled country. The people were pioneers, often rude and indifferent to religion, or bitter in their prejudices. He had few to encourage or welcome him. He writes : "In Flushing and Newtown there is no convenience of private houses, so I have to use public houses at very great charge, for I usually bring some of my family with me."
Much has been said and written to the detriment of the Colonial clergy. It must be admitted that in two of the southern colonies, where the Church was established by law, many did not live answerably to their holy calling. But it was far otherwise in the northern colonies, where there was little in the Church to attract unworthy men. The clergy had no establishment to lure or shield them. In endurance, as good soldiers of Christ, in self-sacrifice, in earnest work in the face of poverty, persecution and relentless opposition, the clergymen in these northern colonies compare favorably with those in ancient or mod- ern days.
Mr. Poyer proved his noble disinterestedness. He re- ceived {50 a year from the Society and very little from any other source. He declined a call to the West Indies with a salary of £400, because he feared Jamaica, New- town and Flushing would be left without a clergyman. His parish was no worldly paradise. As a Church cler- gyman he had to feel the enmity which then burned against the Church. He put up with affronts and abuse. He wrote to the Society in 1718 : "They tried to tire me out with ill-usage." The shop-keepers would not sell him provisions. The dissenting miller sent back his grain unground, with the message to eat it whole as his hogs did. Oppressed by debts he could not avoid-the
.
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HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
devil's gridiron on which poor parsons are roasted-he found himself, at times, under the bailiff's tender surveil- lance. At length the brave heart failed. In 1731, he complained to the Society that the infirmities of old age were bearing hard upon him. With pathetic appeal he asked permission to leave his work and return to his na- tive land. It was man's last and universal instinct : " Let me return to my kindred and be buried with my fathers." His request was granted, but he never returned. In De- cember of that year he was stricken with small-pox, then epidemic in Jamaica. It was half a century before Jen- ner's discovery of vaccination. He died on the last day of the year, 1731, and was buried in the village cemetery. No stone marks his grave. He rests in peace.
Thus died a worthy man. He had labored in the parish for more than twenty-three years, and deserves of St. George's parish the tribute of a lasting and grateful memory.
A frequent cause of Mr. Poyer's litigations in Jamaica was the non-payment of the salary voted by the town. This amounted to about $150, and was raised by a tax upon the ratable inhabitants. By an act of the Colonial Assembly as early as 1693, a law was passed, called " the Minister's Act," for the settlement of a minister, and rais- ing a maintenance, in the counties of New York, West- chester, Richmond and Queens. . "A good and sufficient Protestant minister" was to be called and inducted to officiate and have the cure of souls ; and a tax for his support was to be assessed upon the free-holders, without reference to religious creed or profession. In 1695, the House of Assembly enlarged this act by providing that two church wardens and ten vestrymen should be elected annually by all the freeholders. It was to be the duty of the wardens and vestrymen, together with the justices,
29
THE REV. THOMAS POYER.
to fix the rate of the tax, and the amount to be paid to the minister. They were to see that the tax was levied and that the minister received his salary.
In those days the tax could be paid in kind, that is, in grain or other commodity. The law required the vestry to receive and sell this and pay the minister. As the wardens and vestrymen were elected by all the freehold- ers who were largely " dissenters," dissenting vestries were often chosen. On this account Mr. Poyer was often obliged to compel them by suits at law to levy the tax, then by mandamuses to sell the grain, and then again to appeal to the courts to enforce the payment of his salary. This was a mode of support worse even than the now happily obsolete "donation parties," and gave the poor parson's adversaries another way "to tire him out."
But in this they failed. Mr. Poyer held on and, what was a greater grievance, still "held the fort" in occupy- ing the "old square meeting-house in the middle of the highway." At length the "patience of the saints " was fairly worn out. The dissenting brethren took possession of the meeting-house vi et armis. An ejectment suit fol- lowed, and Mr. Poyer was defeated, and left without a place of worship. This decision was a great blessing in disguise to the parish of Jamaica. Mr. Poyer removed his congregation to the "town house," where they wor- shipped for several years (1727-1734), like the congre- gation in Flushing, "in their own hired house." This was the termination of a controversy which for twenty- five years had disturbed the peace of the Church in Ja- maica, and had affected the work even in Flushing.
CHAPTER V.
THE REV. THOMAS COLGAN. A. D. 1733-1755.
T HE Rev. Thomas Colgan was chosen to succeed Mr. Poyer. He was inducted as rector in January,
1733. He had been an assistant in Trinity Church, New York, and was highly commended by the Rector, Dr. Vesey, and by the wardens of that parish. He had been very successful there as Catechist among the negro popula- tion, and had quite a reputation as a reader and preacher. He had officiated in Jamaica since June, 1732, and conse- quently knew his wide field of labor. His amiable wife was a niece of Mrs. Vesey, and a daughter of Mr. John Reade. Her patrimony, with his own force of character, soon procured for him a better social position than had been enjoyed by his persecuted predecessor.
The congregations under the charge of Mr. Colgan soon began to increase. His prudent and conciliatory course mollified the opposition to the Church. A congre- gation of more than 200 came to the services at Jamaica, and "joined in the worship with decency and devotion." In Newtown and Flushing there was a similar encourag- ing change.
Grace Church, Jamaica, was built during Mr. Colgan's rectorship of the united parishes. The first service was held in the new church on Friday, April 5, 1734. Gov- ernor Crosby was present, and the whole town turned out, militia and people. to do honor to the joyful occasion.
Mr. Colgan soon began to report progress in all his
3I
THE REV. THOMAS COLGAN.
congregations. In 1736, he informed the Venerable So- ciety that the Independents, who formerly thought it almost a crime to join with Churchmen in worship, now freely came to church and "joined with seeming sanctity and satisfaction in our service." Later, he reported that in Flushing, as well as elsewhere, the Church was "in a growing condition, and never in as flourishing a state as at present." The spirit that aroused the good people of Jamaica to build a church, extended to Flushing. In 1746, Mr. Colgan wrote to the Society : "We are likely
WOODEN MODEL OF FIRST CHURCH MADE IN THE EARLY PART OF THIS CENTURY.
to have a church erected in Flushing, a place generally inhabited by Quakers, and some of no religion at all." He expresses the hope that it would be ready for service in three months, and asks that the Society "bestow a Bible and Common Prayer Book according to its usual bounty, for certainly there can be no set of people within this Province who are greater objects of the Society's pity and charity than those belonging to the town of Flush-
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HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
ing, of which I have been so truly sensible that it has brought me (if I may be permitted thus to express it) to double my diligence in that place where error and impiety greatly abound." This request was granted and the Bible and Prayer Book came in due time, but the precise date cannot be deciphered. The Prayer Book and Bible are bound up together with "The Whole Book of Psalms Col- lected into English Metre : By Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins." This book is still in the parish archives. On the page of the "Table of Contents " of the Prayer Book is an engraved imprint of the seal of the Society, with a scroll on which is engraved : "The gift of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." Under the engraving is written in a bold hand, ' To the Church in Flushing," with a date partly muti- lated, but which seems to be, 1754. The book (page 14) has been rebound and the figures were cutoff by the binder.
After occupying "the Block House near the pond," as a place of worship for forty years, the struggling congre- gation in Flushing had a habitation as well as a name. In the absence of official records, we glean what we can from fragmentary notices. From these we learn that the church building owed its origin mainly to the efforts of one man. As already stated, Mr. Colgan wrote to the Society in 1745: "We are likely to have a church in Flushing." He stated further that "the church was almost finished by the means and bounty in a good meas- ure, of the worthy Captain Hugh Wentworth, who had given the grounds for the church and churchyard, and by a great pecuniary subscription contributed largely to the building itself." Captain Wentworth was a merchant in the West Indian trade, and owned a tract of land in Flush- ing. It was a farm lying on the highway to Jamaica, and extending southerly from the present corner of Lincoln
33
THE REV. THOMAS COLGAN.
and Main streets. The plot he gave is the site now occu- pied by the church and churchyard.
The original deed is in the possession of the Vestry. It was found among Mr. Colgan's papers, mutilated by rats. The land was given by Hugh Wentworth and Mary, his wife, "for the encouragement of building a church in Flushing and other good causes." The property is de- scribed as " all that certain small spot of land in the Town of Flushing bounded easterly by the highway leading from Flushing to Jamaica, and northerly by the widow Hinchman, and southerly and westerly by the other land of the said Hugh Wentworth, containing the full and ex- act quantity of half an acre of land, for the sole use and behoof of the church erected and on the spot of land now standing conveniency of a church yard, and to and for no other use or uses whatsoever from henceforth forevermore." The deed is signed by Hugh Wentworth and Mary Wentworth, and was " sealed and delivered in presence of John Groesbeck, James Lyon, John Burgess. "
The deed is dated, April 7, 1749. It was given conse- quently, some years after the completion of the church. The church was finished and first used for worship in 1746, We may assume that, in accordance with universal usage, the name of St. George was, at that time, given it.
Three years later, in 1749, Mr. Colgan writes that, "a Quaker gave some money at the opening of the new church and afterward thought he had not put enough in the plate and gave more to the collector." Though name- less, his good deed is recorded as an example worthy of imitation. This is the only incident recorded in connec- tion with the opening of the new church.
We know little about the appearance of the first Church. The only picture of it now existing is the
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HISTORY OF ST. GEORGE'S PARISH.
contemporary sketch on a "sampler." Two such sam- plers are in existence in Flushing, each having a similar picture of a church, which trustworthy tradition says was sketched from the first St. George's Church. There is also preserved in the church to-day a small wooden model of the first church, made by a boy, in the early part of the century. The spire has been lost and the position of the tower is not the same as in the sketch. The writing of a wag on the door of the Flushing church, described it as " a little church and a high steeple." The witticism was founded on fact.
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