USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 5
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 5
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That there was seldom any need for enforcement of severe penalties was due largely to the character of these Bible nourished settlers. At worst an Indian who carried "a burden through the town"-Easthampton-on the Sabbath Day might get off with a whipping. But a white man similarly offending might be put in the stocks, the penalty enforced in Huntington. Another factor in main- taining order was the custom of excluding undesirable persons seek- ing homes in any of the towns. With respect to the unknown and not vet commended, caution was the invariable rule. There was a six months' period of probation. Restrictions were based less upon religious distinctions than upon considerations of probity, stability and general fitness for assimilation. The Quaker, Thomas Powell, was among inhabitants of Huntington in 1666. Though he con- scientiously and repeatedly protested against taxation for the sup- port of a town minister he was highly esteemed for his character and-an exception to the rule-held at one time or another the office of overseer, assessor and recorder and was made a commissioner to represent the town in various public matters.
There was little delay in organizing churches, in the simple form of pastor and people. The twenty-nine Davises, Hortons, Beebes, Corwins, et al, who rowed themselves, their families, their simple household goods and farm implements, from the Connecticut shore to the North Fork of the east end of Long Island in a flat-bottom scow, in 1640, brought their minister with them; unless it be said that he, being their leader, brought them. He was the Rev. John Youngs, originally from Southwold, England, and the son of its vicar, Rev. Christopher Youngs. In October of that year, a council of New Haven churches endorsed the organizing of the church at Southold- a name indicative of a later prevalence of phonetic shortening- giving this church its stout claim to chronological priority. But also in 1640, a group of Puritans left Lynn, Massachusetts, for Long Island, setting up first in the western part, Abraham Pierson, their minister, being with them. Driven out by the Dutch Governor, Kieft, they moved bag and baggage to the east end and founded Southampton, apparently in the same year.
Easthampton's first house of worship was erected in 1652; but previously the townspeople had held service in a rented "ordinary", their first minister, the Rev. Thomas James, listed among early set- tlers, undoubtedly officiating. The Rev. Richard Denton "was in charge of a Presbyterian congregation at Hempstead" as early as 1644. In 1657, the inhabitants of Setauket voted that when there should be thirty families in residence 60 pounds would be made available for a minister's salary. In 1665, that seat of the town of
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Brookhaven settled Rev. Nathaniel Brewster. Newtown, in 1651, was still shaping into a small colony and in 1660 the first church build- ing was erected; but, according to some, not until 1670, when William Leverich, formerly minister in Huntington, was called, had Newtown's organized church a settled minister. There is, however, record of a ministry of Rev. Francis Doughty among "Englishmen" at Newtown as early as 1641, and at Flushing in 1645, when that town received its patent.
In his American Presbyterianism, Dr. Charles A. Briggs listed "John Youngs as the first Puritan Presbyterian minister in what is now New York State; Abraham Pierson as second; Francis Doughty as third; Joseph Fordham, of Hempstead and Southampton as fourth, and Richard Denton as fifth" (Eells)
Thomas James, the first pastor in Easthampton, was in residence there at a very early date, if not among the first eight families to remove from Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1648, to found Maidstone, the name they gave the town that became Easthampton some four or five years later. Huntington was settled in 1653 and its church was organized in 1658 with William Leverich as its pastor. He was an ordained missionary sent to work among Indians by the London Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, now familiarly known as the S. P. G. The minutes of a town meeting held in Jamaica in 1662 make record of a tax-levy for building a "minister's house". The minister was Zechariah Walker, a licentiate who labored with good success in Rustdorp, as Jamaica was then known. Richard Smith of Smithfield, later Smithtown, acquired his patent to lands along the Nissequogue from Governor Nicoll in 1665. on condition that within three years ten families should be resident there, and it is not unlikely that divine worship was held there from the beginning. The Rev. George Phillips, the second settled Presby- terian minister in Brookhaven, was established there in 1697, and it was stipulated in his contract that he have charge also in Smithtown. The Bridgehampton church was organized about 1695.
Thus it appears that in the territory inclusive of what are now Kings, Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties, nine churches had been formed before the close of the 17th century, some of them having definitely Presbyterian predilections, all of them later to be organized under the Presbyterian system and united in Presbyteries, all of them to this day carrying on in vigor, several of them in service so conspicuous as to have achieved nation-wide fame. In 1695, the Rev. John Miller reported nine in Suffolk County and five in Queens.
As to a proper nomenclature for these earliest churches there is some divergence of opinion. Alluding to changes inaugurated in the Easthampton church in 1799, when he was installed there as pastor, Lyman Beecher wrote: "I persuaded them, and we organ- ized a good, strong, noble Session. * Presbytery did not care much. They were all Connecticut men. The churches did not care. They were all Congregational, at first, every church on the Island. Afterwards they changed to Presbyterianism, without any particular influence. There was none of that foolishness about 'isms' which has been got up lately".
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Mershon, pastor at Easthampton in 1865, questioned advisedly the accuracy of some of Beecher's characterizations. In the opinion of later students, typified by E. E. Eells (Easthampton, 1936), the churches at Hempstead, Newtown, Southold and Southampton were "more Presbyterian than anything else, and deserve to be named as the oldest Presbyterian churches in America, after honoring the Dutch church on Manhattan".
The Southold church was organized with the sanction of a Coun- cil of Congregational churches gathered from the vicinity of New Haven. Though several of its ministers were ordained Presbyterian clergymen it maintained local congregational control of its affairs until 1832, when it united with the Presbytery of Long Island. In these respects certainly it had been Congregational. In others of these original churches, in one until 1748, there was little evidence of the use of distinctively Presbyterian forms of government. There were no Elders, to form a Session. So, of course, there were no Session records. It is to town records, instead, that historians must look for an account of "calls" to ministers, appropriations for their support, the setting aside or purchase of the "parsonage" land, the building of a minister's house, or provision for erecting a church. Not only were there no Sessions; there were no Presbyteries. The first record of a meeting of a Presbytery in the American Colonies was dated December 27, 1706, at Freehold, New Jersey. (Briggs)
By the same token there is little evidence upon which to base a belief that most of these churches adopted a distinctively Congre- gational polity. They did not always have Deacons. They formed no permanent Council of Churches, though sometimes joining churches of Connecticut in a special Council, as in the meeting that ordained Ebenezer Prime as Colleague Pastor in Huntington in 1723. Their association with the Hartford or New Haven church Councils was somewhat casual. There was on Long Island no association even remotely resembling a permanent Council until 1791, when as a result of a period of "revivalism" some of the "Congregationalists", sepa- rating from the old churches, formed a "Long Island Conference" which survived but a few years. The early Long Island churches were not so closely related to any mainland organization that they did not feel free wholly to separate themselves when an opportunity should be afforded. If it be insisted that they be called Congrega- tional the term should be understood as descriptive of a local town- church or, later, a solely autonomous church control. Several his- torians have more happily employed the word "Independent" to characterize their initial status. What, then, are the reasons for supposing that any were "more Presbyterian than anything else"? (Eells)
First: At its earliest opportunity for submitting a call to the pastorate to the jurisdiction of a Presbytery the church at Jamaica referred a call to the Rev. George McNish to the Presbytery of Philadelphia, five years after that body had been organized. Ten years after that "first Presbytery in America" came into being the Southampton church was in correspondence with its Clerk for an
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identical purpose. In consequence of this the Presbytery of Long Island was "set off from the Presbytery of Philadelphia" in the Southampton church in 1717 and given jurisdiction over the uniting Island churches, as also the churches of New York and Westchester. By the middle of the 18th century (1748) all the stronger churches (except Southold) and some of those organized after 1700-East- hampton, Southampton, Bridgehampton, Huntington, Aquebogue, Cutchogue and others-had entered into permanent connection with a Presbytery and a Synod. Had there been no predisposition or leaning toward the Presbyterian form of government such a general migration would hardly have occurred.
Second: There was a natural inclination toward Presbyterianism. To quote from Dr. Frank Kerr's Rev. Richard Denton and the Coming of the Presbyterians: "It is common for us in America to refer to the Pilgrim and Puritan as synonymous both in expression and mean- ing. There was much in common on the part of the settlers in New England; but there was a distinction between them upon the idea and genius of church government. The Pilgrim became identified with the 'separate' movement, which looked in the direction of the * enthusiastic about the Presbyterian polity of Geneva and made every effort to have it adopted by the Church of England.
* independency of each church. * The Puritan, however, was * * He desired to have the Bishops replaced by Presbyters and to simplify the ritual. * The Puritan aim * *
* was favorable to Parliament as against the claim of the King for his 'divine right' in government". In the resulting conflict a population of some 21,000 was "squeezed" out of England between 1620 and 1640, to find in New England room to develop free institutions, both civil and ecclesiastical; but among this number, according to the estimate of Cotton Mather (Hanzsche), more than 4000 held Presbyterian views of church government. Many of these were swept into the stronger- tide of Congregationalism. Some who stemmed the tide organized the Presbyterian churches of New England. Others formed a deter- minative part of the migration to Long Island before the close of the 17th century.
Cambridge University had been the "intellectual center" of the movement in England toward changes in church government after the Genevan model. It was in that university that several of the ministers who settled earliest on Long Island received their training and degrees. It was there that they were imbued with the new spirit of freedom and reform. William Leverich, first minister in Hunting- ton, took his B.A. in Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1625, his M.A. in 1629. Richard Denton, first minister at Hempstead, was graduated from Cambridge in 1623. Early in the 1700s, this Cambridge influence toward Presbyterianism was strongly complemented by the coming of George McNish as Pastor of the Jamaica church in 1712. He had been a student at the University of Glasgow and, upon arriving in America, had settled first in Maryland and was one of the first members of the Presbytery of Philadelphia. He was of Scottish or Scotch-Irish ancestry and had been intimately associated with Francis
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Makemie, who hailed from a Presbytery in Ireland and had come to Maryland by way of the Barbados in 1683. Makemie is commonly thought of as the Father of Presbyterianism in America. If Presby- terianism on Long Island had more than one father, George McNish might well share some of the honor with Richard Denton, or any other claimant.
As Prime has it: "The settlement of Mr. McNish as pastor of this church (Jamaica, about that time probably becoming associated with the Presbytery of Philadelphia) furnishes the sure date of the introduction of Presbyterianism, in its distinct forms, on Long Island". Though he lived in Jamaica until his death, 1722-23, McNish appears never to have preached in "The Old Stone Church" which. when he arrived, "was in the hands of the Church of England": but he ministered in pulpits elsewhere and his influence upon the Rev. Samuel Pomeroy (Pumry), pastor at Newtown, appears to have led to the latter's acceptance of membership in the Presbytery of Phila- delphia in 1715, taking his congregation with him.
Third: Toward the end of the first century an earlier peaceful tenor of religion in the "independent" churches of Long Island was interrupted by issues and disturbances in which isolated religious groups discovered a need to coordinate their common interests and vest their security in some form of corporate union more cohesive than any of which they had had experience in the somewhat desultory connection they had sustained with New England Congregationalism. They could get along with Quakers. They could even make shift to keep their craft from foundering in a sea whipped to fury in storms of "Establishment" autocracy and interference. But the waves of the "Great Awakening" threatened to break the ship in two in the middle. As a matter of fact, in the concomitant excesses of that movement, individual churches came apart at the seams.
If this be thought an unfair characterization of the epoch of evangelism begun in the many visits of Whitfield to the Colonies, and forwarded by Jonathan Edwards in New England, let it be recalled that it had its lunatic fringe. A complacent formalism and an "austerity of the elect" had invaded American Puritanism and a shaking of the dry bones was overdue when the great English evangelist appeared, not merely to galvanize them into juxtaposition but to clothe them with flesh and breathe into the body a spirit from the Lord. Large benefits followed, but also the evils of dissension and strife. Not all the disciples of Whitfield and Edwards possessed either their mentality or their balance. Self-constituted evangelists went here and there, troubling the waters, and settled ministers, such as the Rev. James Davenport, at Southold, were immoderately exhila- rated in the new and rare ozone.
In his salad days Davenport had been strongly influenced by an intimate companion named Ferris, of the Class of 1732 at Yale, who "professed to know the will of God in all things-that he had not committed a sin in six years, that he should have a higher seat in heaven than Moses, and that not one in ten of the communicants in the church (New Haven) could be saved". Ordained and settled in
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Southold, in 1738, Davenport shortly became convinced "that God had revealed to him that His kingdom was coming with great power and that he had an extraordinary call to labor for its advancement". In consequence of his subsequent behavior in his own parish and later in Connecticut, as it was vividly described in Miller's Life of Edwards, a conflagration swept through the churches.
The astonishingly uninhibited Davenport must have been in his day even more of a sensation than the redoubtable William Sunday at a later. "He raised his voice to the highest pitch in public serv- ices, and accompanied his unnatural veliemence and cantatory bawling with the most violent agitations of body. * In his harangues * he would inform the people that their ministers were unconverted, and tell them that they had as good eat ratsbane as hear an uncon- verted minister. * * Congregations were exhorted to eject their ministers; and dissatisfied minorities were encouraged to break off and form new churches; and in this a number of congregations were greatly weakened and others partly destroyed" (Prime, quoting Miller).
"In so grave an emergency the Long Island ministers met to consult what they should do, *
* being convened at Southampton, April the 8th, 1747, having taken into consideration the broken state of the church within said county (Suffolk), the prevalency of separations and divisions, together with the growing mischiefs these disorders are big with". They "came to the following conclu- sion, viz: that the disorders spoken of were owing to the want of stated rules of ecclesiastical government, and that the Presbyterian system, in its essential articles, was scriptural and best adapted to answer the ends desired. The ministers present did therefore pro- ceed to organize themselves into a Presbytery, to be called the Presby- tery of Suffolk, and adopted the Westminster Confession, Cate- chisms, Form of Government, Directory and Discipline" (Davidson).
Actually, this Presbytery was organized June 14, 1748. The First Church of Huntington, under the steadying influence of a great man, Ebenezer Prime, 62 years its minister, had managed to weather the gale in fair shape, but in the bitter experience had discovered the disadvantages of its comparative isolation. Not theretofore a member of any Presbytery, either that of Philadelphia or Long Island, the Huntington church was represented at the 1747 meeting and joined Suffolk Presbytery in 1748. "The congregation of Bridge- hampton had been rent by a two-fold discord. Their contentions and bickerings were a scandal to the cause of Christ. In this emergency a committee of the church requested the interference [Sic!] of the Presbytery" (Davidson). The Presbytery readily composed the dif- ferences and the hearts of the people overflowed in gratitude to .God for "bringing them out of their late terrible confusions, into such surprising harmony and peace". "In 1749, similar difficulties were adjusted in the congregations of Aquebogue, Southold, and Easthampton".
Happy had it been if all divisive sequelae of the "Great Awaken- ing" or "New Light" movement had been as promptly resolved. Despite the lauded cohesiveness of Presbyterianism, Presbyteries and
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Synods were split wide open and so remained, in an "Old Side-New Side" division, until the Reunion of 1758, and just at the time when the church should have been able to muster all its strength for mis- sionary expansion. But the system that developed the Presbytery as final arbiter in all matters of doctrine, discipline and polity sur- vived the test and closed up the gaps in the ranks.
Another and a more fiery trial awaited the variously harassed congregations of Long Island-whether of the Dutch Reformed. Quaker, Church of England or Presbyterian persuasion. Samples of the milder sorts of annoyance the "Establishments" authorities were capable of inventing for Presbyterians had been endured, not always passively. In Jamaica-it is a story in itself-the Church of Eng- land had been outrageously obnoxious, not without incurring ingenious reprisals. But nothing it encountered in such brushes compared with the ferocity to which its Tory members were exposed when compelled to flee for their lives to any safety-promising corner of the map or hide by hundreds in the Massapequa swamps (Roberts). Probably the ecclesiastical history of the eight years of the Revolution on ' Long Island is not yet definitively written. Nor can it be, without a thorough examination of a ton or more of correspondence between the Church of England ministers and leading laymen in this area and the London Society-S.P.G .- to which. they were responsible, part of an enormous cache of such documents still reposing in vaults some- where along the Thames Embankment. Doubtless it has already been drawn upon, but details of interest remain to be filled in. Locally, and naturally, we have heard more of the Presbyterian than of the Episcopalian side. There are two sides to every story of this kind.
However this may be, the British on Long Island favored the "Established" churches and their property as much as possible, and marked the churches of "Dissenters" for such "desecration" as hostilities and convenience suggested. They encamped in "Church- vards", using gravestones to line bake-ovens, billeted their troops or stabled their horses in meeting-houses while they ravaged the country- side and, when occasion appeared to necessitate, demolished beautiful old church buildings. At Huntington they razed "Old First" to make of its timbers fortifications on the church, burying ground, which they named Fort Golgotha. They tore down the church at Babylon and carted the timbers to Hempstead to serve military purposes in that region. They vented accumulated resentment upon prominent ministers, mutilating the library of Ebenezer Prime, one of the better collections of the period.
Through all this and more the congregations carried on, holding worship in homes. The faithful in Huntington did not miss a Sunday. With the exception of Bridgehampton, which suffered seriously, churches at the east end of the Island were less gravely discommoded. In the western sections there was intermittent turmoil. Some minis- ters, Burnet, of Jamaica, for example, maintained a strict neutrality. "History has left no record, nor is there any tradition, of his having written or spoken anything in favor of or against either side in the
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struggle that resulted in the independence of the American colonies" (Winans).
Other ministers, Bradner and Spencer, for example, sometime pastors at Jamaica, and Ebenezer Prime, actively espoused the Whig cause. Benoni Bradner-appropriate alliteration-"served as a private in the Continental army". Elihu Spencer became a chaplain. At the end of the war all who survived its hardships and remained here were ushered by that turn of events into a surcease of suffering long endured. Many had gone to Nova Scotia or back to England never to return. Among those who stayed there was bitterness and a hurt that only time could heal. But there was no longer an Estab- lishment in the colonies and the chief cause of friction was removed. The right to self-determination had won. The Presbyterians, and all the rest, were free to follow their genius wherever it might lead. Separation of church and state would soon have constitutional adoption.
How early this principle of separation was acted upon is not by all appreciated. There are examples of its operation during the half- century pastorate of Eliphalet Jones (1675-1725). Mr. Jones had been invited by the town authorities to be the minister of the First Church of Huntington and "it was voted to give him twenty acres of land where he chose to select it". He preached for a year, but not to his own satisfaction that he had been properly "called". Not until his congregation-the militia, assembled on the Common !- voted for him would Jones consider that he had had a real "call". They so voted, with but one dissenting voice. He accepted. But he had again to apply the principle of separation of church and town. - Four years of controversy followed a town meeting held May 1. 1711, when there was a "clear vote" to build a new church. It "should stand in the hollow in the same place where the old meeting- house now standeth". Forty signers had pledged 140 pounds toward the cost of building and the frame had been raised when a division of opinion between east and west parts of the town, on the location, halted construction. Mr. Jones's "reputation for peace and patience was gained by the way he handled the problem". Due to his endeavors it came about that by the voted "consent" of those who would use the new building, not by the action of the original town meeting, the location was decided. This distinction is subtle, but it marks the trend.
"A meeting was called, at the house of Justice John Wood, to have a discussion as to whether the new church should be erected on the old site, on Meeting-House Brook, or on East Hill, a short distance eastward. Being unable to come to an agreement, it was decided to select three minis- ters; those desiring the church to be put on the old site to choose one, those desiring it to be put on East Hill to choose another, and these two to select a third, 'so that we may be united among us and that we may live together like Christians as we ought to do'. *
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