USA > New York > Tompkins County > Ithaca > History of the First Presbyterian church of Ithaca, New York, during one hundred years : the anniversary exercises, January twenty-first to twenty-fourth, 1904 > Part 2
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Why was the organization effected in the dead of winter ? Probably for these two reasons ; that then the people had more leisure for the accompany- ing meetings, and that travel for the Missionaries over the Indian trails through the woods was easier when the snow was on the ground. For years, during the early settlement of the country there was a practical coop- eration between the Presbyterians and Congregationalists in the organizing of Churches, their faith being one, and preferences of polity being adjusted ; this practice was developed widely under the so-called " Plan of Union."
The enthusiastic descriptions of Ithaca written by its founder, Gen. Simeon DeWitt, stimulated the curiosity of some of his former neighbors in Ulster County ; among them his cousin by marriage, Rev. Gerrit Mande- ville, who one day mounted his horse and rode forth to see for himself this literally " Forest City." He arrived here soon after the organization of the infant Church, preached for the people, and as a result, was installed their first Pastor, Nov. 5, 1805. He held services here and in Trumansburg on alternate Lord's days until 1812, then intermittently until 1815. After this pastorate he resided in the neighboring village of Caroline for forty years, during which time he was known to not a few who are still living here. His history and his personality are best given in these extracts from a letter sent to us by the Rev. T. L. Cuyler, D.D., of Brooklyn :-
You request me to give you some reminiscences of the first Pastor of your Church, that good old Dutch Dominee, Rev. Gerrit Mandeville, who, as I say in my Autobiography, " smoked his pipe tranquilly while I recited to him my lessons in Caesar's Commentaries and Virgil." When I was between ten and eleven years old, my mother not wishing to send me away yet to a boarding school in New Jersey, wisely selected as my private tutor Mr. Mandeville who was then living on his farm in the township of Caroline. I went there in October, 1832, and remained under his care and tuition for two years. I was his only pupil for eight months and was then joined by four
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other boys, and a very happy group of lads we were. Mr. Mandeville was a native of Pompton Plains in Morris County, New Jersey, and was a youngster in small clothes when General Washington's army was quartered in that county. He pursued his classical studies at "Eras- mus Hall," a noted literary institution in the village of Flatbush now part of our city of Brooklyn. With what minister he studied theology I do not know. (It was Dr. John Living- ston.) His first pastorate was in the Reformed Dutch Church of Wawarsing and Mombacus in Ulster County. Mr. Mandeville married a Miss DeWitt, a near relative of General Simeon DeWitt the founder of Ithaca ; and I conjecture that that fact had something to do with his coming to your city which was then but a small village. After his resignation of his Ithaca charge, he purchased a farm in the hill country of Caroline, and resided there for nearly all the remainder of his long and serene life. For a time he preached in the Reformed Dutch Church on the turnpike about three miles from Slaterville. I frequently heard him there, and in the old " Chapel " at Caroline Centre. He was an excellent and devout preacher of the old school type ; and in his manners he was one of the most refined, courteous and lovable men I have ever known. In the spring of 1852 I went to Caroline Centre to deliver an address at the dedi- cation of a Hall built by a temperance organization in that neighborhood. On that day I was delighted to meet my beloved old tutor who was as genial and sprightly as ever. When I con- gratulated him on his vigor at fourscore he replied, "I never eat any butter or drink any coffee." What was the date of the dear old patriarch's departure to heaven, I cannot inform you ; but it must have been not long after I saw him. (He died December 13, 1853). One of the tender mercies of my boyhood was the privilege of spending two happy years under the sweet and sunny influences of that venerated servant of God, Dominee Gerrit Mandeville. I congratulate your noble Church on its well-rounded hundred years of history ; and I doubt not that one secret of its spiritual fruitfulness has been that its early "plantings and waterings" were by two such holy-hearted ministers as Gerrit Mandeville and Dr. William Wisner. How well I knew and how warmly I loved them both !
Yours faithfully in Christ Jesus,
THEODORE L. CUYLER.
The Presbytery of Geneva was erected in 1805 by dividing it off from the Presbytery of Oneida. At its first meeting, held at Geneva on Sept. 17, 1805, Rev. Gerrit Mandeville was received as a member on his producing testimonials of his regular standing in the Reformed Dutch Classis of Ulster, and of his regular dismission and recommendation, he at the same time de- claring his belief in the Articles of Faith, and his approbation of the govern- ment and discipline of the Presbyterian Church. The special care which was taken in the early settlement of Western New York by all the existing ecclesiastical judicatories of the Presbyterian and Congregational denomina- tions, that none but pious and orthodox men should preside over the Churches, may be seen in a resolution adopted by the Presbytery of Geneva at a meet- ing held at Ulysses, for the purpose of installing Rev. Gerrit Mandeville as Pastor of the united congregations of Ulysses, on the 5th of Nov., 1805 :-
" Resolved, that this Presbytery will not proceed to instal any minister over a particular Church, without first examining him, and being satisfied as to his experimental religion and knowledge of divinity. Resolved, that no minister belonging to any other denomination or judicatory be received as a constituent member of this Presbytery, without first being examined
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as to his experimental knowledge of religion, and his soundness in the faith, and delivering a public sermon before the Presbytery."
The first chapter of our Church's life is indeed a record of small begin- nings. After ten years of discouraging circumstances and very limited growth of the Church in numbers and influence, Mr. Mandeville discon- tinued his service. When he left there were but twenty members, and the congregation seldom numbered thirty. There were not many inhabitants as yet, and the larger number were not inclined towards religion ; perhaps also Mr. Mandeville was not, temperamentally, the type of man best calculated to grapple with the situation.
Gradually, the little settlement grew in numbers and in its dealings with the outside world. The Ithaca and Owego turnpike was constructed in 1808, the Ithaca and Geneva in 1811. The war of 1812 had its influence. While it would naturally have tended to stem immigration hitherward for a time, it actually made business brisker in some ways. For example, the war cut off the supply of plaster or gypsum so largely used in farming, and which had been obtained principally from Nova Scotia. This brought into requisi- tion the Cayuga plaster, obtained then as now near the head of the lake, and it is stated that "as many as 800 teams have passed over the Ithaca and Owego road with it in a single day." After peace was declared there was a new stir to all activities ; this affected the Church too. Until 1816 the Pres- byterian Church, the only religious organization here, worshipped in a school house which stood where our High School now stands. This was torn down by a mob soon after Mr. Wisner began preaching here. He then held ser- vices in a barn, and in the fall when it becaine too cold to worship in the . dilapidated structure, the loft of a large stable, (in the rear of the present Tompkins House premises), was rented and seated, a stove put in it, and the congregation worshipped there until the new church was finished some fifteen months later.
It is an interesting circumstance that Mr. Wisner's first introduction to Ithaca was due to an exchange of pulpits arranged between him and the Rev. Mr. Parker, of Danby, to better facilitate a journey of the former to Ontario County where he had been invited to preach. Mr. Wisner found Mr. Parker had left an appointment for him to preach a third sermon at Ithaca, which was then destitute of any preaching. He writes :-
"On Monday morning the people of Ithaca besought him to give up going to Ontario and settle with them. Though everything there was at that time forbidding, he consented to preach for them the next Lord's day, which he accordingly did, and on the Monday following they presented him with an invitation to preach for them one year on a salary of $600. Though there seemed no probability of his remaining there more than a year, yet the moral
Hoftismer.
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desolation of the place, and the fact that from its position it must give tone to the society for a distance around it, induced him to accede to their urgent solicitation. On Friday he returned home and authorized them to send for his family the next Tuesday. When he reached home on Friday night he informed his people and his wife of his arrangements, and spent Saturday in getting ready for the contemplated removal. On the Lord's day he preached his farewell sermon and took an affectionate leave of his loving and beloved Church. This was a season of sorc trial, both to himself and his dear people. But the path of duty was so plain that both parties submitted to it, as to the will of their heavenly Father. He had been in that place for more than three years, had endured much hardship, and had suffered more persecution from the wicked than usually falls to the lot of a minister in a Christian and Protestant country. The Church, when he left it, consisted of thirty-one members, who were as brands plucked out of the burning. They all loved one another and all loved him as their spiritual father, and did all that they could, and more than any other Church with whom he was ever acquainted, in proportion to their means, to make him comfortable ; but they were unable to support a minis- ter without aid from abroad, and when his health would no longer permit him to spend the half of his time as a Missionary, he had no alternative left but to seek another home. On the last day of January, 1816, he started with his wife and four children which the Lord had given him for his new home. The first day of February he arrived at the place of his destination and commenced keeping house in a small room and a chamber belonging to Samuel Benham. Ithaca was at that time a small but beautiful village, numbering four hundred inhabitants. The inlet, as it was called, ran about a mile west of where the village at this time stood, and was the landing for boats which came through the Cayuga Lake, and furnished the inhabitants with a plentiful supply of fine salmon every fall. In 1812 the war with Great Britain gave a powerful impulse to the growth of the village, and to the wickedness of its inhabitants. Ithaca was the depot for the salt and plaster which were brought by boats to the inlet and then carried by teams to Owego. This influx of boatmen and team- sters, who were engaged in their work seven days in the week, with no intervening day of rest, and very little if any religious influence exerted upon them, soon made the place as proverbial for its wickedness as it was for its rapid growth and the increase of its business facilities. In 1815 the Pastor of the little Church became discouraged, and at the close of one of his Sabbath discourses pronounced the pulpit vacant and gave up his labors among them. This was the state of things when the new minister, in a cold afternoon in February, landed his family and effects in the place. There were but one praying man and two or three pious females in the village, which was principally upon the hill's, and the Church had little more than a name to live. It had twenty nominal members, of whom one was a Swedenborgian preacher and five were intemperate, and some others so grossly immoral that six of the male members and two females had to be cut off from the communion of God's people. While this was the case within the pales of the Church, there was a corresponding state of things in the community without. Sabbath-breaking, gambling, horse-racing, profane swearing, drunkenness, and licentiousness were fearfully common. The first citizens of the place, both as regarded wealth and influence, the pillars of society, and the supporters of the gospel so far as pecuniary means were con- cerned, were gamblers, horse-racers, Sabbath-breakers, and, some of them, profane swearers. Two prominent physicians in the place would course their horses on the Sabbath, in time of divine service, and in sight of the place of public worship. There was no public authority exercised in the place except by the so-called Moral Society. This society existed in its full power at the time when the Church received its second minister, and its credit in the village was such that it supplied the inhabitants with their small change by issuing its notes, or shin- plasters, as they were generally called. There was at the time of Mr. Wisner's arrival in Ithaca no public building, but a small frame school house. On the second Saturday night he held the first public prayer meeting ever known in the place, and kept it up through the whole period of his ministry among that people. . ยท Early in the spring the school house in which the congregation worshipped was torn down by a mob, and the minister, having
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rented an old framed house and barn (in the rear of the present Tompkins House), the barn was seated and the services were removed to that place. The morning after the first Sabbath spent in the minister's hired barn it was discovered that the cupola of the demolished school house had been taken down in the night and placed upon the top of the barn."
But, notwithstanding these adverse circumstances, soon after Mr. Wisner's administrations commenced, some special seriousness was apparent in the congregation, and a number of hopeful conversions occurred. At the first observance of the Lord's Supper, after the arrival of Mr. Wisner, and held in that barn, seventeen members were on their confession of faith in Christ added to the Church; and, in August ensuing, eleven more were received ; in the autumn of 1817, two leading gamblers and horseracers were hopefully converted, and, with about forty more individuals, united with the Church on a confession of faith. "These were indeed times of rejoicing to the little flock in Ithaca, although yet much open wickedness prevailed around them." In 1816, another Elder was chosen, James Mckinney, who continued in the office until his death in 1849. In 1818, three more were chosen,-Abner M. Bachus, John C. Hayt, and James McChain ; of these the first nained died tlie same year, but the other two were helpful and ex- emplary office-bearers for many years. The years 1816 and 1817 throughout Western New York were " years of the right hand of the Most High." The revivals in these years were more numerous and of greater extent than in former years. In 1819, the Presbytery of Geneva reports a gradual reform- ation of the people within its bounds, and a uniform attendance on the means of grace. "The town of Ulysses has experienced a copious refresh- ing, and already reckons about fifty among the professed converts." In 1826 there was a widespread and most noteworthy revival ; " upon the con- gregation at Ithaca the Holy Spirit has come down with relentless and over- whelming power ; . that congregation has the name of being always attentive to the means of grace, and on several previous occasions, the humbling truths of the gospel have found their way to the consciences of numbers of the impenitent." A female prayer meeting which had been suffered to go down was revived. In 1830 the report said :- " Sabbath Schools, bible classes, pastoral visitations ; plain, direct preaching of the Word have been the instrumentality employed in promoting these revivals of religion." Thus far the Pastor had been his own Evangelist ; in 1833 and 1834, Rev. Jedediah Burchard, who had been employed as a director in protracted meetings in Auburn and Buffalo, assisted the Pastor in Ithaca ; Hotchkin says :- " Wherever his meetings were held, as far as the writer has been informed, there was a large attendance, high excitement, many
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professed conversions, and a speedy introduction of such as professed conver- sion into the Church."
In 1816 Articles of Faith and Covenant were adopted. It was a Calvin- istic Confession ; it declared belief in God, Scripture, Original Sin, Christ the Divine Saviour, Justification by Faith, Total Depravity, Necessity for a Change of Heart, Universal Obligation to Observe God's Law, Resurrection and Judgment, and adopted the Confession of Faith and the Directory for Worship of the Presbyterian Church. The Covenant read :-
"You do now in the awful presence of the all-seeing and heart-searching God, before the elect Angels and these witnesses, covenant to be the Lord's, and avouch Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be your God, your Redeemer, and Sanctifier, renouncing all ways of sin, as what you truly abhor ; and choosing the service of the living God, you promise by the assistance of divine grace that denying yourself all ungodliness, and every worldly lust, you will live sober- ly, and righteously, and godly, in this present evil world; that you will constantly and faith- fully attend to all the ordinances and institutions of Christ, as enjoyed, and administered, in this Church, submitting yourselves to its direction and discipline in the Lord, until God in His holy providence shall dissolve the connection."
After such an initiation, we might suppose the members would never swerve from the right path. But there were many "fallings from grace." The records of the Session during all the early years are full of cases of dis- cipline, and often for serious and even flagrant faults. Only three of these cases were for heretical opinions; eighteen were for profanity; three for slander ; three for fraudulent dealing ; thirteen for Sabbath breaking ; twelve for intemperance, and five for "vending ardent spirits," or furnishing the same to employees ; four for " unchristian conduct ;" seven for uncleanness ; two for attending balls ; one each for neglecting the bible, for gambling, for " the sin of betting on election ;" and thirty-seven for covenant-breaking and absenting themselves from the ordinances. In almost every case the charge is acknowledged as true, showing that discipline was exercised with discrimi- nation and care ; the prescribed steps are duly taken ; the accused have a first and a second summons served on them, they are given an opportunity to de- fend themselves, or when they do not appear, counsel is furnished for them ; in fifteen cases no attention was paid to the summons and "suspension for contumacy " resulted ; in the other cases eight were admonished or labored with, forty-two suspended, fourteen indefinitely suspended, thirteen ex- communicated, three acquitted, fifteen forgiven and restored upon their due repentance. While many of these cases were for serious offences others are amusing enough as we read them now. Here is one :-
"Be it remembered that Theodore Vallian, a member of the Church of Christ in Ithaca, in good standing, comes into the Session of the said Church at Ithaca aforesaid, on this 31st day of
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Dec. A.D., 1821, before the Rev. Wm. Wisner, Pastor of the said Church, and Moderator of the said Session, and Jacob Shepherd and James McChain, ruling Elders in the said Church, and associate members of the said Session. And the said Theodore, for and in behalf of the said Church of Christ in Ithaca, gives us to understand and be informed that Isaac Butteras of the town of Catherine Town in the county of Tioga, farmer, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but giving way to the corruptions of his own heart, and to the suggestions of the Devil at Catherine Town in the County of Tioga, did publish and declare to divers of his neighbors and acquaintances that one Ezra Hammond did on the first day of July in the year of our Lord 1820, at Catherine Town aforesaid, wilfully, wickedly and maliciously with a two horse wagon run upon and upset a certain one horse wagon belonging to the said Isaac which one Luther Coe was then driving along the highway. When in truth and in fact said Ezra could not have pre- vented the said injury to said Luther Coe and the said Isaac, which the said Isaac well knew at the time of declaring and publishing the aforesaid false report. All which is to the damage of the said Ezra Hammond, to the cruel example of all others in like case offending, and to the displeasure of Almighty God, and of the scandal of the Church of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Whereupon the said Theodore on behalf of the said Church prays that the said Judicatory may look into the matter and that process may be issued against the said Isaac to make him answer to the said Church touching the premises aforesaid."
The result was excommunication !
One John Tichenor is accused of " unchristian conduct and disorderly, as exhibited by attending the circus in this village and the Park Theatre in New York." His defense is he " did not know that that was forbidden," and he will not do it again.
It is suggestive that one of the leading lawyers in town brings a complaint against a fellow member, who failed to pay rent and money loaned him, be- fore the Session rather than before the Civil Court with which he daily had to do. Church members first tried to settle their quarrels among themselves ; wise and just settlements were thus had and expensive litigation often avoided. It is to be remembered, too, that Mr. Wisner at first studied for and entered the legal profession ; this may partially account for the wisdom shown in treating these cases, though there is a large and happy admixture of the Gospel with the Law.
For temperance the struggle was long and difficult. From the beginning drunkenness was rife here. As early as 1818 strong resolutions on the sub- ject are recorded, and thereafter at intervals through the years. Rev. Joel Jewel, one of those most active in the early temperance movements, is authority for the statement that Central New York was first in the move- ment for total abstinence, and that in the Presbytery of Geneva Mr. Wisner was one of a committee which favored it in 1817; that the following year he introduced this resolution, which, after much opposition, was adopted : " Resolved, That the more effectually to check the alarming sin of intem- perance, the Synod earnestly recommends to all its members wholly to abstain
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from the use of ardent spirits except for medicinal purposes." Mr. Wisner returned to Ithaca and delivered a thrilling discourse from Habakuk ii, 15: " Woe to him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putest thy bottle to him and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness." The next morning he found a tavern sign nailed up before his own door ! Nothing daunted, Mr. Wisner and his Session on the 5th of March adopted the following :
" Resolved, that in our unanimous and deliberate opinion the best interests of mankind, for time and eternity, require that a speedy check should be put to the alarming and worse than brutal sin of intemperance. That no very salutary reform is to be expected, so long as the great body of the professing friends of Jesus continue in any way to give encouragement or countenance to the manufacturing, vending, buying or using ardent spirits, except for medici- nal purposes. That we will neither use it ourselves, suffer it to be used in our families, nor fur- nish it to those in our employ, except for the purpose last above mentioned. That we do earn- estly recommend it to our brethren, the members of this Church, to follow our example, as we do herein follow Christ."
These principles of the Session were adopted by the Church, and any vio- lation thereof was made a disciplinary offence. Generally indulged in as intoxicants then were, it is not strange that Church members even were lax in this regard. Here is one who " comes and says that he cannot deny but acknowledges that the charges specified against him are true, that his plea is that he thinks ardent spirits necessary for his health and comfort, and there- fore he drinks, more perhaps for his comfort than his health." Another, charged with furnishing liquor to his farm hands, claims that he cannot get his crops harvested unless he does so, since all his neighbors do it and the men demand it. The resolution that "the Session disapprove of any mem- ber of this Church drinking ardent spirits or furnishing them to persons in their employment except as medicine," (July 22, 1832), was undoubtedly not always easy to live up to. It is a great cause for gratitude that, under Mr. Mandeville's and Mr. Wisner's earnest efforts, intemperance was so largely diminished here ; and that this Church, throughout its history, has so faith- fully preached temperance and total abstinence, and has so largely practiced it too.
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