USA > New York > Putnam County > Garrison > History of St. Philip's church in the Highlands, Garrison, New York, including, up to 1840, St. Peter's church on the manor of Cortlandt > Part 19
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Loving the Highland hills as few loved them, and caring only here to live, he built his home and with his house, sought to upbuild the house of God. As Warden, Vestryman, Clerk and Treasurer, he gave willing and efficient service to the Church and the com- munity. In the days when the parish was weak and struggling for a mere existence, he gave the land on which the Rectory is built, and a portion of the land en- closing our beautiful churchyard. Resting from his labors, he sleeps near the church of his love, and in the consecrated ground he gave for the resting place of the children of the Church.
WILLIAM MOORE (1875-85) became a member of the Vestry in 1857, and served until his death in 1885, the last ten years as Warden. He came of one of the oldest families in America, being descended from Thomas de Moore, who went to England with William of Nor- mandy in 1066,1 and fought in the battle of Hastings. His American ancestor was the Rev. John Moore, the first Independent minister of Newtown, and who died in 1657. Mr. Moore was the son of Dr. William Moore and Jane Fish, his wife, and a nephew of Benjamin Moore, second Bishop of the diocese of New York. He was born in 1798, and was associated in business with his colleague on the Vestry, Henry Casimir de Rham. He was a man
1 Riker's Annals of Newtown, p. 327.
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of singular charm of disposition and a devoted Church- man. He died on the 9th of July, 1885, in the eighty- eighth year of his age, and to his memory his colleagues on the Vestry paid this beautiful tribute:
Sweet and lovely in his nature, and in his inter- course, but stern and inflexible in his principle, Mr. Moore's was a life which a Christian may wish to have lived, and to which a Christian may point for an example. For many years a member, a vestry- man, and a warden of this parish, his presence was constant, and his zealous devotion at the services of the Church inspired zeal and devotion in others.
HAMILTON FISH, LL.D. (1877-93), came to reside in the parish just as steps were being taken to build the new church. Entering the Vestry in 1862, for fourteen years as vestryman, and sixteen years as warden, he placed his large knowledge of affairs freely at the disposal of the Church.
The Fish family traces its origin to Saxon times, and first settled in this country at Lynn, Massachusetts, re- moving in 1637 to Sandwich, on Cape Cod. Jonathan Fish was one of the founders of Newtown, Long Island, in 1659. Hamilton was the third child of Colonel Nicholas Fish and Elizabeth Stuyvesant, his wife, and was born in New York on August 3rd, 1808. A graduate of Colum- bia in the class of 1827, he was admitted to the Bar in 1830. As befitted a descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, Mr. Fish was greatly interested in the problems of gov- ernment, and in 1842 elected a member of the House of Representatives of the United States. Six years later he was elected to the high office of Governor of the State of New York after having served for one year as Lieutenant
Millian Moor
VESTRYMAN, 1857-1875 CHURCH WARDEN, 1875-1885
Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Philip's 289
Governor, and in 1851 he was chosen United States Sen- ator. With the election of General Ulysses S. Grant to the Presidency in 1869, Mr. Fish was appointed Secre- tary of State, an office he held for eight years with signal advantage to the country. He carried to a successful issue the delicate negotiations on the Alabama Claims with Great Britain, and as a member of Joint High Com- mission negotiated the Treaty of Washington in 1871. While at the head of the Department of State, to his skillful handling of affairs a war with Spain was averted, and largely due to his influence was the veto of the In- flation Act by General Grant, which resulted in the pas- sage of the Resumption Act for specie payments through- out the United States.
"Few men," writes the then assistant secretary of state, "were better fitted for this place by training, by experi- ence, and by qualities of mind and character than Hamil- ton Fish. His father had served in the conti- nental army, and was the intimate friend and executor of Alexander Hamilton Graduating at Columbia College with the highest honors, he identified himself from early manhood with every effort for its prosperity and growth. He was respected and beloved in his native city. . In his dealings with others he was just, patient and even tempered; a good listener; modest and retiring; kindly and sympathetic; and carried his own measures by convincing others of their justice."1
Although immersed in affairs of State, Mr. Fish found time to promote the interests of the parish in manifold directions. To his generosity was due the construction of
1 J. C. Bancroft Davis: Mr. Fish and the Alabama Claims, p. 16-17.
290 The History of St. Philip's Church
the stonewall enclosing the churchyard, and he was one of the members of the building committee of the new church. After his death there was found in his own handwriting ex- tensive and valuable memoranda outlining the history of the parish. He died on Thursday, September 7th, 1893, at the age of eighty-five years, and was interred in the churchyard, the officiating clergymen being the late Bishop H. C. Potter, Dr. Morgan Dix and the Rev. Dr. Walter Thompson, Rector of the parish. Preaching on All Saints' Day the Rector said:
Men will tell you that Hamilton Fish was the re- sult, in his political and social relations, of favoring circumstances, and that what men call good birth and easy fortune were the elements out of which his successful career was wrought. The materialism of life would reduce everything to a question of fortune and of blood. But you and I who knew the man can contradict with most emphatic speech such a trav- esty upon the facts of the case. Hamilton Fish be- came the eminent and foremost man he was because all through life he was governed by principle alone.
As a statesman (I purposely avoid the word poli- tician) he ever sought to be governed by right, truth, justice, magnanimity. True, he lived and did his work for God and State, before the days when politics became a business, and men gained influence and pre- ferment, not by worth, but from their usefulness to what is now vulgarly denominated the machine. He never sought office; the highest political gifts in the power of the people of this, the Empire State of the Republic, to confer, were literally forced upon him. He never went about cap in hand asking for place in the councils of the nation, and the people of his State forced upon him the Senatorship in the day when the
VESTRYMAN, 1862-1876 CHURCH WARDEN, 1876-1893
Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Philip's 291
word conveyed a meaning lost to the wire-pulling and venal party men of our generation.
In the most troublous times of readjustment at the close of our Civil War (with problems of stupendous magnitude before the country; with domestic com- plications, and foreign controversies), he was called from a well-earned seclusion and rest amid these Highland Hills to act as the adviser of the greatest soldier of the age. And he went from the quiet wor- ship of his God in this little church to preside as Sec- retary of State over the destinies of the nation. There was no gift in the power of the nation to bestow, save one, which was not his, and in them all, as Con- gressman, Governor, Senator, Secretary of State, he was actuated by one only rule, God's Rule of Truth. And when he died, and we laid him at rest here in this quiet Highland churchyard, the newspaper press of the entire nation, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, without respect of party affiliation, paid fitting tribute to his worth.
And why? He was a Statesman, not a mere party man. With him questions were national questions and fraught with national concern. And so the other day (when national problems have been turned into mere questions of party aggrandizement) men turned aside from their selfish self-seeking and with un- covered head paid their tribute to this son of the "elder time," who served his God with true wor- ship, and his country with all the devotion of his life and heart.
The history of our times has yet to be written. You and I perhaps will not live to read the written page, but on it our children will be pointed to the life of Hamilton Fish as an incentive to high endeavor and true living; as the life of one who had all the world had to give, not because he sought it, for he never did,
292 The History of St. Philip's Church
but because men saw in him the living embodiment of that patriotism which alone in perilous times can save the State.
The same principles that moulded the Statesman controlled the Churchman. He was not a man of narrow sympathies, nor could he in any sense be called a party man. He was too loyal a son of the Church for party affiliations. He loved the Church with all the intensity of his nature and all the loyalty of his heart. The liturgical service, the reverent rites, the Sacramental system, the Episcopal gov- ernment, all claimed his reverence, and to all he gave his devoted homage. To him the Church, in her Sac- raments, represented the extension of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. His was too deep and serious a nature to be carried away by party enthusiasm and temporary excitement in the ecclesiastical world. And so, when in the diocese, or in the Church at large, a representative man was needed, men always turned to him. His was a wise conservatism tem- pered by knowledge and experience of men and move- ments.
The oldest living member of the Diocesan Conven- tion in continuous service; a member for many years from the Diocese of New York to the General Con- vention of the Church; a member of the Committee on the Revision of the Book of Common Prayer, he brought into every committee room and to each delib- erative body a wise judgment and wide knowledge upon matters of ecclesiastical import. Men trusted him and were guided by him, not simply because he was conservative in his views, but because they real- ized that his conservatism was not the result of in- tellectual stagnation but of profound knowledge and reading of the fundamentals of the faith. And al- though a decided and consistent Churchman, he in- cluded within his ecclesiastical range of sympathy all
Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Philip's 293
those who are redeemed by the Blood of Christ and are partakers of the Divine benefits. And in his con- ception of the Church, the body of Christ, he had the well-attested verification of the wisest and most in- fluential of the Anglican Divines.
When I come to speak of our late Warden in his parochial relationship, I feel intensely the delicacy of my position and the utter inadequacy of my words. In no strained sense I followed his bier as one that mourned for a brother. As I read those words by which Holy Church brings comfort to the mourning and the sorrowful, I was reminded of the last appear- ance of Samuel before the hosts of Israel when he as- sembled them at Gilgal: "Here am I this day, testify against me." And as on the plain of Gilgal no sen- tence could be found against the Judge and Prophet, so in the representative assemblage in this holy place, when the Office for the Burial of the Dead was read, men had one only word to say, and that of fullest com- mendation. Here rests a man of God.1
The following minute of the Vestry voices the high esteem in which Governor Fish was held in the parish:
The Vestry of St. Philip's Church in the Highlands painfully appreciate the loss of their venerable and beloved associate, Mr. Hamilton Fish, who passed through death unto life on the seventh day of Sep- tember, inst. For more than thirty years a member, a Vestryman, and a Warden of this Church, he leaves behind him a record of great beneficence and zealous interest in all parochial concerns. Called, in the prov- idence of God, to high and responsible duties in the ecclesiastical council of the Church, he ever retained his chief love and devoted interest for his Highland
1 A Tribute of Love to the Memory of Hamilton Fish, LL. D., by Walter Thompson, D. D., privately printed, 1894.
294 The History of St. Philip's Church
parish home. A member of the Committee on the Revision of the Book of Common Prayer, for many years a Deputy from the Diocese of New York to the General Convention, and the oldest delegate of continuous service to the Diocesan Convention of New York, he brought wide and far-reaching knowl- edge to every question of parochial import, and a matured judgment on all ecclesiastical concerns. Firm in his religious convictions, free in the dis- pensation of his charities, and of his philanthropy, he walked among us a model of purity, of integrity, and of generosity, beloved and venerated.
Long retired from the active duties of the world, he devoted his later years to his duties to his family, to his neighbors and to his God. A life of eighty-five years, well spent, is closed without a spot or blemish on its long career. Love and affection follow him in death as they attended him in life.
The Vestry place upon his grave this testimony of their sincere and affectionate admiration of his character, and of their deep lament of their loss at his departure.
For many years, Colonel THOMAS BOYLE ARDEN was a prominent figure in the community and a devoted communicant of the Church. The second son of Richard D. Arden and Jane De Peyster, he was born in New York City, May 27th, 1813. He entered West Point July 1st, 1830, and graduated June 30th, 1835. After serving at various frontier posts he spent the years 1837- 41 as assistant instructor at West Point, and later served in the Florida War. Resigning from the Army in 1842, he returned to active service when the Civil War broke out, and took part in the defense of Washington, and also acted as military agent to the New York troops from
COLONEL THOMAS BOYLE ARDEN VESTRYMAN, 1848-1867; 1878-1885 CHURCH WARDEN, 1885-1896
Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Philip's 295
1861 to 1863. His official connection with the parish extended over a period of thirty-seven years. Elected first as a Vestryman in 1848, he served until 1867; re- entered the Vestry eleven years later, and in 1885 he became a Warden, occupying that position until his death. For many years he had charge of the church- yard as Registrar of the Vestry. Colonel Arden was a gentleman of the old school, a devout and regular attend- ant on the services of the Church, where, with his blue coat and gilt buttons, he made a picturesque figure. He departed this life in 1896 at the age of eighty-four.
SAMUEL SLOAN'S association with the Vestry of St. Philip's in the Highlands extended over a period of nearly thirty-three years. Born at Lisburn, Ireland, on Christmas Day, 1817, he was baptized in the Cathe- dral of which Jeremy Taylor was second Bishop. Brought to America in early infancy he spent his long and honored life in New York and its vicinity. In 1844 he married Margaret, daughter of Peter Elmendorf. For very many years he was a prominent factor in the development of railroads. From 1857 to 1867 he was President of the Hudson River Railroad, and shortly after his retirement from that position he became President of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western road, at the head of which he remained for forty years. From the time that he pur- chased a large estate in Garrison, though an Elder in the Dutch Reformed Church in New York, he threw himself most heartily into the welfare of this parish, giving un- stintedly both time and money. He died, honored and respected by the whole community, on September 22nd, 1907, aged ninety years, and was laid to rest in the churchyard.
296 The History of St. Philip's Church The following resolution was adopted by the Vestry :
Whereas the Vestry of S. Philip's Church in the Highlands has learned with sorrow of the death of Samuel Sloan, a member of the Vestry for thirty-two years, and Warden for eleven years,
Resolved: That we inscribe on our Minutes a record of his long and valued service and a tribute to the manly piety which ever led him to devote his rare gifts of energy and judgment to the service of this Church. He entered with zeal upon every interest of the parish, and his counsels were all of peace. "Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord; that walketh in His ways."
The Sunday after his death a beautiful tribute of friendship was paid to Mr. Sloan's memory by his friend and former rector, the Rev. Dr. Walter Thompson, who said:
From every point of view Samuel Sloan was a man of simple tastes, kindly, genial, home-loving, just and courteous. He would pass from a committee room in which great financial matters were discussed, to take his place in this quiet Highland Church as a humble member of Christ's flock. He was greatly pleased at his election as Warden. He wrote the then Rector, "I accept with pleasure the election to an office held by some of distinction, and for whom I had the great- est esteem" His life had been enriched beyond that of any man I had ever known. Not only to pass the threescore years and ten of the Psalmist, but ten years more than the fourscore years of "labor and sorrow," with eye undimned-and like the great Lawgiver-with natural force unabated; to have gathered around him sons and daughters doing their life work with honor and esteem; to see around him his children's children to realize in his own old age the
VESTRYMAN, 1875-1896 CHURCH WARDEN, 1896-1907
Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Philip's 297
truth of the Divine promise, "and show mercy unto the third and fourth generation in them that love Me and keep my commandments." And truly the bless- ing of the Lord, in whom he so profoundly believed, was upon him. To round out a career of ninety years, to be in full possession of his faculties, to be freed from the depression of extreme old age, to be deeply inter- ested in the social and political problems of a genera- tion two score and more younger than his own, with- out a stain on his escutcheon, without pain and suffer- ing gently to fold the hands and close the eyes and fall asleep like a little child. Truly this is to inherit the blessing of the Lord.1
CHARLES de RHAM was the son of Henry Casimir de Rham, whose name first appears as a member of the Vestry in 1836. He was born in 1822. His death, on February 23rd, 1909, closed an association with the parish of St. Philip's in the Highlands which covered a period of seventy-five years. In 1874 he was elected a member of the Vestry, and in 1894 was made Warden, his service on the Vestry extending over thirty-five years.
Preaching in the parish church on All Saints' Day, the Rev. Dr. Walter Thompson said of him:
Charles de Rham was, for more than a genera- tion, a Vestryman and Warden of the Parish. He walked beside the still waters, and was but little known among the busy haunts of men. But where known, and understood, he commanded a respect and in- fluence given few men to wield. His standards were of the highest, and he never lowered them to meet the changing customs of the world. This was not due to any personal idiosyncracy, but to a deep under-
1 A Tribute of Friendship to the Memory of Samuel Sloan, by Rev. Walter Thompson, S.T. D., privately printed, 1907.
298 The History of St. Philip's Church
lying consciousness of the seriousness of life, and an understanding acceptance of its responsibilities. He was in the fullest sense and meaning of the word a completely efficient man. True, he never held public office and seemed to eschew public recognition. I apprehend, however, this was because his conception of life and its obligations was too high for the under- standing of those who controlled public gifts of office and preferment. Charles de Rham always stood for the highest and best things in Church and State. He held the highest views of duty to God, to family, and to civic life. He could not, (it would have been both repugnant and abhorrent to his na- ture,) lower his conception of duty to meet the exi- gencies of the political world. And so he stood apart, as of necessity, the best men in our American world are forced to stand apart. And I believe that by so standing apart they exert a wider and a greater influence in the community in which they dwell. For men always, and everywhere, of neces- sity, such is their nature that they cannot do other- wise, look up to the man who stands above the crowd. Such a one was Charles de Rham. He stood for the best American traditions of refinement and culture. The dominant factor in his life was simplicity. Any- thing artificial, and any form of affectation, met with his unexpressed, but well merited contempt. So, in a changing civilization, and with lowered standards of social life he always remained fixed and unchanging and unchangeable, in his loyalty to the customs of the elder generation. His was the mental habit of the wise men of the period before the civil war. They were intensely devoted to their families, and felt to the very depths of their being parental obligation. Parent- hood brought with it the most fundamental of human obligations, the care and upbringing of the generation to follow their own. In the home, and all that is im-
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CHARLES de RHAM VESTRYMAN, 1874-1894 CHURCH WARDEN, 1894-1909
Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Philip's 299
plied in the name, was found the object of his care and abiding solicitude. To the young man of today the idea seems obsolete but to the man of that day, and to the views which controlled the purposes and ob- jects of their lives, the young of this day and genera- tion owe absolutely everything that gives them out- standing advantage in their world.
For more than seventy years Charles de Rham oc- cupied the same home in the Highland Hills. His life touched with gracious and courtly influence five generations, and if, as Matthew Arnold said, "con- duct is three-fourths of life," what an example of life and conduct he has left all those who remain!1
The following tribute stands on the Vestry records:
Trained from childhood in the Church, Charles de Rham was a sincere and devout Christian, and adorned in his daily life the doctrine of God in Christ. Regular in his attendance on the services and sacra- ments of the Church, he was a generous contributor, a faithful member of the Vestry, and a wise counsellor in the temporal concerns of the parish. His useful and honored life was prolonged beyond the allotted span, but his eye was not dim, nor his natural strength abated. The hoary head was a crown of glory. To the last he retained his sunny disposition, and his characteristic keen and kindly interest alike in the affairs of the Church and the world.
Followed by the affection of all who knew him he was, at the age of eighty-seven, gathered unto his fathers, having the testimony of a good conscience; in the communion of the catholic church; in the con- fidence of a certain faith, and in perfect charity with the world.
1 A Commemoration of the Faithful, by Walter Thompson, D. D., 1910.
300 The History of St. Philip's Church
VESTRYMEN.
The senior Vestryman of the new parish was
DANIEL HAIGHT (Warden 1800-7; 1808-16; Ves- tryman 1795-80; 1820-42), who was first elected to the Vestry of the United Churches in 1795, and served in one capacity or the other for forty-two years. He came of one of the oldest families in this part of the State, being descended from the Haights of Dorchester, England.
Danil Haight
The name is variously spelled, and in the tax records of Dutchess county for 1772 he appears as Daniel "Hyatt." Daniel was a general merchant and also the keeper of a famous tavern on the road between Peekskill and Fish- kill; it was a frequent house of call for General George Washington on his military journeys through the High- lands. Born on October 17th, 1753, he died September 1st, 1842, and was interred in St. Philip's churchyard.
HENRY CASIMIR de RHAM (1836-1847; 1864-74) was elected a Vestryman four years before the division of the parish and served for eleven years. Elected again in 1864, he rounded out twenty-one years' service. Born at Giez, near Yverdon, Switzerland, on July 17th, 1785, he was the son of Johann Wilhden de Rham, who married Anne, daughter of Sir James Kinloch, Bart., of Gilmerton, Scotland. Mr. de Rham came to America about 1806, and took to wife Maria Teresa, daughter of Dr. William Moore, brother of the second Bishop of the diocese of New York. He became one of the most respected and influen-
HENRY CASIMIR de RHAM VESTRYMAN, 1836-1847; 1864-1874
Wardens and Vestrymen of St. Philip's 301
tial merchants and bankers in the city of New York, his first place of business being 79 Washington Street. His private residence was at 60 Greenwich Street, from which he moved to Park Place, and his country home was at the foot of Forty-second Street. Mr. de Rham was a true patriot. In 1813 Congress authorized a loan of sixteen million dollars to meet the expense of the war with Eng- land. The attempt to float the loan was a failure until a few merchants of New York, headed by Jacob Barker, opened a subscription list, to which Mr. de Rham sub- scribed $32,500.1 In the year 1834 he purchased the property in the Highlands on which the Davenport farm formerly stood, and identified himself with St. Philip's. The de Rhams are the oldest family in continuous resi- dence in the parish, and the heads of the family for three successive generations have served on the Vestry. Mr. de Rham died in 1874 and was buried in the churchyard of St. Mark's in the Bowery, New York.
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