USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 14
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48
The summaries of the birthplaces of our diocesan clergy serving in 1946 and of the theological seminaries where they were trained are revealing. Of the 1026 diocesan clergy, over sixty-three per cent were born in the diocese and twenty-two per cent elsewhere in America. Over eighty-three per cent were trained in the United States and less than three per cent in Ireland. There are today fifteen communities of religious priests in the diocese with a personnel of 203. Four Brooklyn priests died as chaplains in the service of their country during World War II.
Bishop Molloy had also to provide more churches for his growing flock. Despite the stoppage of immigration the Catholic population continued growing from natural increase and from the advent of faithful from other dioceses. The spread of industrial areas and civic improvements, such as slum clearance and new highways and the trend of population eastward to Queens and Nassau, also created problems. During the period eight new parishes were established in . Kings County, thirty-five in Queens, thirteen in Nassau and two in Suffolk, until the diocese in 1946 had 296 parishes and 34 missions.
Religious brotherhoods and sisterhoods have continued to grow both in number of communities and in personnel. There were in 1946, in the diocese, 306 brothers in six communities and 4758 sisters in forty-five communities. The teaching sisters and brothers have made possible our splendid school system which currently embraces a uni-
124
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
versity with a pre-war enrollment of 9000, three colleges, forty-eight high schools with nearly 20,000 pupils, and 213 elementary schools with over 125,000 pupils. Intensified teacher training and the develop- ment of St. John's University have been outstanding characteristics of the period. As a result our schools meet the Regents examina- tions of the State of New York with ease, and, during 1939, for example, saved the public treasury over $100,000 daily in maintenance costs. The saving today is considerably greater.
The after-results of two wars and the intervening long depression years placed great strain upon private relief agencies, but the Church continued to strive for the well-being of the individual, the integrity of the family and the supremacy of morality over merely utilitarian considerations. Her spiritual and temporal works of mercy provided not only food, shelter, medicine and guidance, but gave moral encour- agement and spiritual strength that government grants and mechan- ized agencies can never hope to provide.
Bishop Molloy thoroughly reorganized the Diocesan Bureau of Charities with its divisions of family welfare, protective care, chil- dren, social group work, health and social action. The St. Vincent de Paul Society enlarged its sphere of usefulness. A partial report for the year 1945 indicated that the diocese possessed seventeen protec- tive institutes for children and youth with a population of 2615, besides 1786 receiving supervised foster care; our twelve hospitals cared for 45,366 bed patients for several hundred thousand days, apart from clinic and dispensary patients; there were three homes for the aged with 589 inmates and four shelters for working people. The annual diocesan charities budget ran well over ten million dollars.
The world-wide economic dislocation of the 1930s and 1940s has prevented the foundation of many new parishes and the construction of more churches and schools. The Catholic life of the diocese has, however, become more vigorous. This is evident especially in the development of the retreat movement for men and women and by guilds to spiritualize professional and other groups. The support that Brooklyn Catholics give to world-wide charities is still famous. The diocesan cemeteries are among the most beautiful in the country. At the center of all this activity for the honor and glory of God and for the spiritual and temporal welfare of mankind is Bishop Molloy. One with him are his devoted and generous people and his faithful religious and priests.
As the ugly and anti-American manifestations of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan again appeared in 1946, it was gratifying to note that the legislatures of the more advanced States prepared to outlaw that organization. In this connection the recent words of Everett R. Clinchy (New York Times, July 10, 1946), are worth summarizing. This Protestant president of the National Conference of Christians and Jews stated that every Catholic believes the immortal truths of our Declaration of Independence, which is the life-blood of democracy ; that Catholics stand for civil liberty; that they shed their blood in defense of America in greater proportion to their numbers than others; that they have given complete national allegiance to the United
125
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON LONG ISLAND
States Government and spiritual loyalty to their Church and Pope, its visible earthly head.
In much of the same spirit after the anti-Catholic manifestations of the 1928 presidential campaign Ellery Sedgwick, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, wrote to the New York Sun, October 18, 1928, "This Church, quite alien to most of us, has taught us a lesson in manners and morals". At that time also an editorial writer in the New York Times, November 3, 1928, wrote, "Catholics . who under great stress when reviled, revile not, again illustrate the most excellent way-the Christian way."
Catholics today are content to continue to try to merit such praise from their non-Catholic fellow Americans.
CHAPTER XXVI
The Lutheran Church on Long Island ROBERT W. BROCKWAY
B ECAUSE most American Lutherans are of recent European derivation, we are inclined to think the Lutheran Church a little alien. Historically speaking, however, nothing could be further from the truth for its American roots go back to the earliest days of the oldest colonies.
There were Lutherans in the abortive little colony of St. Augustine in Florida which the Huguenots founded in 1565; Lutherans in the crew of the Half Moon held services on Hudson's Bay in 1619, and there were Lutherans among the first settlers of New Amsterdam in 1623, three years after the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. One of these early settlers was a Lutheran Dane by the name of Bronck whose farm was on that section of the mainland since named for him-the Bronx.
Some 2000 Swedes and Finns, Lutherans all, settled along the Delaware in 1638 when Sweden attempted to begin a colony in America. Two Lutheran churches (Old Swedes' Church at Wilming- ton and Gloria Dei in Philadelphia) were built by the Scandinavian colonists. They were served by two pastors, R. Torkillus and J. Campanius, who were the first Lutheran ministers in America. A few years later, when the Dutch suddenly swooped down on the little colony and annexed it to New Netherland, the Lutheran ministers were sent home. Swedish immigration stopped and the two Lutheran churches were later taken over by Episcopalians.
Mention of the Lutherans in New Netherland appears in the reports which the governor sent to the Directors of the Dutch West India Company and also in the journal of Isaac Jogues, a French Jesuit who visited New Amsterdam in 1643. No mention is made of Lutherans on Long Island but it is inconceivable to believe that there were not Lutherans in the little Dutch villages like Flatbush and New Utrecht.
Although Holland itself was tolerant of differing religious views, the Dutch West India Company, in whose charge was New Nether- land, insisted upon strict conformity to the Dutch Reformed Church. The reasons were political rather than religious since religious con- victions and political loyalties were in the 17th Century almost inseparable. The chronically insecure position of New Netherland with its hostile British neighbors and heterogeneous population made loyalty to all things Dutch a necessary aspect of colonial policy.
This policy was a serious disadvantage to the Lutheran colonists. Not only were they deprived of the benefit of Lutheran worship, but the baptism of the children and religious education were in the hands of the Reformned ministers. Governor Stuyvesant, however, was forced to adopt a mild attitude toward Lutheran dissenters in the
128
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
community because of the many prominent merchants among them. Repeated appeals on the part of the Lutherans for a minister of their own faith went unanswered for many years, but Stuyvesant winked at the furitive services held in private homes.
In 1657, the Consistory of Amsterdam sent Rev. John Goetwasser to New Netherland in response to the appeals from there. A cry of protest went up from the spiritual despots of the colony, Dominis Drisius and Megapolensis, joint heads of the Reformed Church in New Netherland. The new pastor was forbidden to conduct services and was later deported. Another attempt, in 1662, to bring a Luth- eran pastor to New Netherland also ended in deportation.
Then one morning in 1673, New York awoke to find the harbor full of Dutch warships. The colony surrendered without a shot and the Dutch flag was hoisted over the fort again. Governor Colve, concerned with the defense of the newly reconquered colony, had a wall built which crossed lower Manhattan diagonally and left the little Lutheran church outside the wall. Colve ordered it demolished and a second meeting house was subsequently erected within the wall. For a long time it was the largest church in New York, and its steeple with a rooster weather vane on top, appears conspicuously on prints of old New York.
After nine months of occupation the Dutch by treaty relinquished New York and British administration returned. The Lutherans who now had a pastor continued to worship in their new church. The Amsterdam consistory, refusing to take further responsibility for the New. York Lutherans, left them on their own and when the pastor, Bernard Arensius, died in 1695, the congregation was obliged to accept supplies until Justus Falckner, the first Lutheran minister to be ordained in America took the parish in 1703. It was a very large parish for it stretched from Long Island to Albany and included parts of New Jersey. Rev. Falckner had to serve it alone.
The Lutheran Church in the 18th Century was beset with many problems. For one thing there was the language difficulty. The earliest Lutherans were Dutch but subsequent immigrants were German. Thus while the Dutch flag was still flying over Fort Amster- dam, German was the official language of the Lutheran community. After British occupation, however, the Dutch feeling pressed by an alien culture and government intensified their Hollandishness and also their numbers. By 1700, Dutch was again the language of the Lutheran community. This continued until more Germans arrived. Friction arose between the Dutch who controlled the congregation and the large German minority. Each wanted the services to be in their own language. Conciliation failed and so in 1750 the Germans pulled out of the Trinity Church and built the German Christ Church on Cliff Street. Both churches, however, remained united in polity. Toward the close of the century when new generations who did not know either Dutch or German had grown up, demands were made for English services. English services, hymn books and catechisms were provided. An English-language church (Zion) was founded in 1797 but became Episcopalian ten years later. The spacious St. Matthew's church, built in 1821, began as an English-language church. A decade
129
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH ON LONG ISLAND
or so later, however, an influx of German immigrants turned the trend back to German.
Another vexing problem of the early 18th Century was organiza- tion. The Lutheran churches in America, if they had synodical con- nections at all, were tied to the churches of the countries from which the immigrants came. In 1735, Rev. William Berkenmeyer, of New York, and a few other pastors attempted to found a Lutheran Fed- eration of Churches along the Hudson. Only one meeting of this organization was ever held although the federation continued theoretically to exist until 1775.
The first successful movement toward larger unity was brought about by Rev. Henry M. Muhlenberg who organized the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1748. This was an association of pastors who met periodically for purposes of better interchurch coordination and to provide for the appointment of ministers. The New York pastors joined this organization.
In 1786, the same New York pastors banded together to form the New York Ministerium under the auspices of Rev. John C. Kunze, the son-in-law of Muhlenberg. The new synod which began at Albany with two laymen and three ministers grew slowly. Doctrinal dif- ferences between it and the descendants of the Berkenmeyer group prevented rapid development as well as the diversion of most of the German immigrants to Pennsylvania.
Three principal currents of theological opinion are discernible toward the close of the 18th Century in the New York area. The majority of ministers, including Kunze and Muhlenberg, were of the Pietist School. This movement began in Germany around 1675, and spread to other parts of the continent and to England where it influenced the growth of Methodismn. Pietists insisted upon spon- taneous subjective religious experience and minimized the importance of doctrinal adherents.
This school brought a cry of protest from orthodox Lutherans who insisted upon intellectual assent to the fundamental dogmas of the Christian religion as interpreted by Luther. Rev. Berkenmeyer led this group in the New York colony.
A small but influential school of Rationalists grew out of the Pietist movement. These were led by Rev. F. H. Quitman, who suc- ceeded Kunze as head of the Ministerium in 1804. His catechismn, published in 1812, constituted an appeal to reason rather than scriptural authority in religious matters.
The conflict between these three philosophies of religion not only in the colony of New York but in all the seaboard colonies resulted in the triumph of orthodoxy in the early 19th Century. As an aspect of this triumph came the formation of the General Synod in 1820. This was a body comprising the synods which had developed up and down the Atlantic seaboard. The expressed purpose of the synod was to combat unorthodox theology and also to prevent too close cooperation between Lutherans and other denominations. Move- ments in the direction of interdenominational merging began in the latter part of the 18th Century. In New York negotiations were in progress for union with the Episcopal Church. In Pennsylvania
L. I .- II-9
130
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
the Presbyterian Church was being approached while in the South it was also with the Episcopalians. The formation of the General Synod at Hagerstown, Maryland, proved an effective counterbalance to these tendencies. The New York Ministerium joined the synod in 1837.
In 1840, there were four Lutheran Churches in New York City. St. Matthew's on Walker Street was the largest and was heir to the Trinity Church sold to the Episcopalians in 1805. Preaching after long disputes was by then done exclusively in German. In theology the pastor and congregation were mildly conservative. St. James on Orange Street was English-language. It was founded in 1826. The traditional all-German church was the Christ Church which moved in 1831 from Cliff Street to Walker Street. The fourth church did not belong to the New York Ministerium. It was founded by a group of ten immigrant families, part of a larger group of Prussians who had left Germany because of the church reforms of King Frederick William III. A church organization known as the Buffalo Synod developed from this group. They were ultra-conservative in theology and favored hierarchical church government. They disapproved intensely of the other Lutheran churches in America whom they felt had departed from true Lutheranism.
In 1843, this church joined the Missouri Synod. Founded in 1838, by Rev. Carl F. Walther, who led a group of some six hundred immigrants from Saxony to St. Louis, the Missouri Synod repre- sents the most conservative wing of the Lutheran Church. Conscious of Lutheran peculiarity, the Missouri Synod opposed the inter- denominational fraternalism of other synods. It held to a strictly orthodox interpretation of theology and zealously opposed those who differed from it.
It was during these years that Lutheranism first made its appear- ance on Long Island in the way of organized churches. Hitherto it was necessary for Brooklyn and Queens Lutherans to go by ferry to New York in order to attend divine services. In 1841, however, St. John's on Schermerhorn Street, in Brooklyn, was organized. For several years the congregation met in private homes. But in 1844, a meeting house was built. The church was fortunate in acquir- ing as its pastor Rev. Hiram Garliche, a man of great ability both as pastor and writer. Under his ministry the church school grew to such an extent that there were two hundred pupils in attendance. Articles published by him in theological journals added greatly to the prestige of the church. In due time the church joined the Missouri Synod.
St. John's Church, on Graham Avenue, in Brooklyn, was founded in 1843. Others followed, St. John's, on New Jersey Avenue, in 1847, St. Paul's, on South 5th Street, in 1853, and Zion Church, on Henry Street, in 1855. The pastor of this latter, Rev. W. F. Steimle, headed in 1866 a group of pastors who protested against confessional heterodoxy on the part of the Ministerium of New York. He was particularly opposed to secret societies. He succeeded in bringing about the withdrawal of several of the churches both in Brooklyn and New York from the New York Ministerium. An organization
131
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH ON LONG ISLAND
called the Steimle Synod was headed by him until it disbanded in 1872.
Another split in the New York Ministerium came in 1867. Most of the English-speaking members preferred a milder confession to that adhered to by the German members. They left the Ministerium and formed the Synod of New York. Later they united with the General Synod.
All of the churches so far mentioned were of German congrega- tions. In most of them the German language was used exclusively. They were for the most part founded by interested groups of people who disliked having to commute to New York to go to church. An example of this is St. Luke's on Washington Avenue. A number of Brooklyn Heights members of St. Matthew's Church in New York were urged by their pastor to form a church of their own. Because of their sentimental attachment to the pastor, Rev. C. F. Stohlman, they declined. After his death in 1868, however, they began laying plans and collecting funds for a church. A small con- gregation was collected for Pentecost in 1869 in a lecture room on Cumberland Street by Rev. J. H. Braden. Regular services were held thereafter. The next year, the congregation purchased Simpson Methodist Church. The church was united with the New York Ministerium and ultimately with the United Lutheran Church of America when that body was founded in 1918.
This example is typical of the early Lutheran churches on Long Island. Churches developed rapidly in Brooklyn. Immigrants were coming from Germany in ever increasing numbers and between 1860 and 1868 no fewer than six Lutheran churches were consecrated.
The spread of Lutheranism in Queens was somewhat slower. The first church to be organized there was St. John's at College Point in 1857. Originally a church of the Missouri Synod it later became a member of the Ministerium and ultimately of the United Lutheran Church. St. James' on Winfield Street was founded ten years later and is of the Missouri Synod. These were the only two churches in Queens, the present borough, up to 1870. Between 1870 and 1900, four more were organized.
The great influx of Germans of the 70s and 80s and from then on until the outbreak of the First World War caused a proportionate increase in the number of Lutheran churches.
As the city grew eastward more settlers came in need of local church homes. Some churches were organized by home missionaries and others by laymen who organized congregations on their own initiative. Some of the Germans bought farms further out on Long Island. As early as 1850, there was a considerable settlement of them around Hicksville.
In that year a number of Lutherans formed a Lutheran church for themselves which met for several years in the home of one of its founders. This is the oldest Lutheran Church in Nassau County. The first pastor was Rev. August Weisel who was either pastor or son of the pastor of St. John's on Maujer Street in Brooklyn. From the beginning, the Hicksville church, Trinity, was of the Missouri Synod. In 1863, at the beginning of Rev. Weisel's pastorate, the
132
LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
congregation met in Union Chapel which is now a part of the Methodist Church. During the same year a frame church was built which served the congregation until 1931 when it was replaced by a large stone English Gothic church with stained glass windows. The services were bilingual until 1941.
The oldest church in Suffolk County is St. John's of Linden- hurst which was founded in 1876. Lindenhurst, the original name of which was Breslau, began in 1870 as a German settlement. Early the following year steps were taken to organize a Protestant Church which went under the name of Free German Christian Congregation. Later the following year the church was named St. John's. Being unaffiliated with any larger body, the church united with the Reformed Church in 1872 and received a Reformed pastor, Rev. A. Stoll. The little church fared badly for the next four years. In fact so uncer- tain were the services that the church bell had to be rung on Satur- day nights to notify the people that there would be a service the next morning.
At last in 1876, Pastor George Drees took the congregation and on the first day of his acceptance held a meeting of the congregation at which the decision was made to withdraw from the Reformed Church and unite with the New York Ministerium. St. John's his- tory as a Lutheran Church really begins from this year. Four years later it again changed its synodical attachments and joined the Missouri Synod to which it has remained connected ever since.
In 1879, St. Peter's church was founded at Greenport in South- old Town. It became associated with the Ministerium. Between this date and the end of the century Nassau County added only two Lutheran Churches (including Hempstead Epiphany in 1897), while Suffolk County gained none.
Up to this point we have discussed only the German Lutheran churches. There are also churches, however, of Scandinavian con- gregations. Few Scandinavians lived around New York before 1870. In that year there were some three thousand Swedes in the metro- politan area. Most of the immigrants from Norway and Sweden went West to the rich farm land. It was only when urban factory workers began migrating around 1883 that the East gained any appreciable Scandinavian population.
As early as 1865, however, the Augustana Synod (an organiza- tion begun a few years before in Illinois by Swedes), sent a missionary to found a Swedish church in New York. Among the original con- gregation was John Ericsson, inventor of the Monitor. As the years passed other Swedish churches appeared in Brooklyn and Queens. A home for the aged and an orphan home in Brooklyn mark Swedish concern for social welfare. An educational institution, Upsala Academy, was begun in 1893 in Brooklyn. There are three Augustana churches in Nassau and Suffolk Counties: Gloria Dei at Huntington Station which was founded in 1932, Christ Church at New Hyde Park, and St. Andrew's at Garden City South.
The first Norwegian church in New York was founded only a year after the Swedish in the same city. Some time later, churches like the Church of Our Saviour on Henry Street in Brooklyn and
133
THE LUTHERAN CHURCH ON LONG ISLAND
Immanuel Church on McDonough Street were founded and served by the Atlantic Circuit of the Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran Church. In Flushing there is Trinity Church and in Hempstead Gardens another Trinity Church of the Norwegian synod.
One of the most interesting features about the Norwegians is their activity in the Inner Mission movement. This is a peculiarly Lutheran institution not to be confused with the Home Missionary Society. It began in Germany in the 19th Century as a social service movement. Sunday Schools, Prison Reform, aid to discharged prisoners and prostitutes as well as aid for all needy people came out of this development. The Norwegians maintain a Deaconess's home and hospital in Brooklyn, a day nursery the Bethesda Rescue Mission and a children's home. In addition, and peculiarly Nor- wegian, is the Norwegian Seamen's Home in Brooklyn, a haven for sailors far from their native land. Seamen's homes like the one in Brooklyn were begun and maintained by missionaries from Norway.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.