USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 8
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 8
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Among these was Lion Gardiner who was Commander of Say- brook Fort, Connecticut, at the time his son, David, the first white child to be born in Connecticut, was born on April 29, 1636. Miss Sarah D. Gardiner, the direct descendant of Lion Gardiner through David, and present owner of Gardiner's Island, informs the writer that her ancestor, David, went to England to complete his education and that while he was there was married in St. Mary's Church. Lon- don, on June 4, 1657. Miss Gardiner states that not only is she an Episcopalian, but that there have been many in her family, at least one of whom became a clergyman in the Church.
The sturdy folk on Long Island, like the Plymouth Pilgrims before them, preferred to isolate themselves, suffering the hardships of a wilderness, in order to find an asylum where they might enjoy the freedom of civil and religious liberties. In these early days the name largely applied to their form of worship was "Independent", and their places of worship were the Town Meeting Houses. It is a known fact that the first two Independent Churches to be located on Long Island were organized in New England. The one at Southold, on the northeastern arm of Long Island, was formed at New Haven and the one at Southampton, at Lynn, Massachusetts.
While the vast majority of the early settlers on the eastern end of Long Island were unquestionably adherents of the puritanical type of religion which, later in the early days, became more or less fused with the Presbyterian form of worship and nomenclature, this in nowise means that there were no Church of England people among
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these colonial folk, but rather that they were so far in the minority numerically that they could not maintain regular churches and the expenses of the rector's salary. As will be shown later, the spirit of this minority people was not only keen to have the preferred form. of worship, but alert to take every opportunity to organize themselves into a church body. It was Lord Cornbury whose domineering char- acteristics caused him to be despised by many of the dissenters, but who nevertheless, was able at the turn of the Eighteenth Century as the Royal Governor of the Province of New York, to be of great help in organizing the Church of England on Long Island.
The early records show that there was a steady drifting of many of the so-called dissenters, and especially the Quakers, back into the established Church which was termed "Protestant" or "Reformed Protestant", when communities held the regular Prayer Book Serv- ices. When William, Prince of Orange, became the sovereign of the British Isles, there was an obvious trend on the part of the American Dutch Colonists to become affiliated with the mother Church, for they possessed a feeling that their own Dutch ruler, now a member of the established Church by virtue of his office, could not by his own ex- ample in religion lead them astray. It is amazing how many of the Dutch family names, as well as those of the English dissenting fami- lies, appear on the records of the Episcopal Church in its early beginnings.
Since the eastern part of Long Island had been largely settled by colonists from New England or by immigrants who stopped tempo- rarily in Connecticut or its adjacent borders, and then crossed to Long Island, one can readily understand that there was actually little desire for the liturgical services of the Church of England. Coupled with this, the government of New Netherland was rather zealous to see that the worship of the majority be kept as Protestant as possible. For example, Governor Stuyvesant and the Council on February 26, 1654, passed an ordinance which forbade "the keeping of Ash Wednesday and all other holy days, as heathenish and popish institu- tions, and as dangerous to the public peace".
The settlers on the eastern part of Long Island naturally felt a loyalty to New England and especially to New Haven and Hartford, and in consequence, placed themselves under the government of Con- necticut. There was an extended controversy between the Dutch government of New Netherland and Connecticut which was not settled until the treaty of Hartford in 1650. By this agreement all towns west of Oyster Bay were to be under the Dutch government, and all towns east of Oyster Bay were to be under the Connecticut governinent. This seemed to work out well until 1664 when the Dutch surrendered to the British. Then the Duke of York and his govern- ment claimed dominion over the whole island. This lasted until 1673 when the Dutch forces captured New York and the temporary gov- ernor, Anthony Colve, regardless of the Hartford Treaty of 1650, issued a proclamation requiring all towns to send deputies to New York "to make their submission to the States General and the Prince of Orange".
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Fortunately for the Church of England, the treaty of peace of 1674 restored New York to the English, and Governor Andros again brought the whole island under the Duke of York's government. Gov- ernor Dongan arrived on August 27, 1683, with express instructions to convene a General Assembly without delay. Among the many things which the settlers in the New World wanted was the right to have a voice in the government by their own representatives, freely chosen. Thus, when Governor Dongan's request was made to hold a General Assembly, the several towns proceeded at once to hold elec- tions and to select their representatives. They had won out in their democratic ideas and hence entered with zest into this which promised to be the road to an ideal form of government.
Setauket (now Brookhaven Town) was settled in 1655 largely by colonists from Massachusetts, but as in other Suffolk County towns, while the predominating type was the Puritan yeoman, still there was a sprinkling of Church of England people. Not only was there Lion Gardiner, of whom there is some doubt as to his church preference, on his Isle of Wight, but the Floyds and the Tangier Smiths and others on their princely estates. The social customs of Brookhaven and of most of the other towns in the county lacked the austerities of New England, being more in conformity with those in the Southern Colonies.
According to Mr. Edward P. Buffet, the late antiquarian who lived in the home of William Sidney Mount, the genre painter, in Stony Brook and wrote a brief historical sketch of the Brookhaven Church, there appears to be good reason to believe that shortly after the settlement of the town, the independent religious organization established under the Town Meeting government was Anglican. The town records show that in 1671 William Satterly was ordered "to be in the place of a Church Warden" to see that the minister's rates were paid. Again, Mr. Samuel Eburne, who was elected to be the minister of the town and parish in 1685, covenanted, "in regard of some tender consciences that he would omit the ceremonies in the booke of Common Prayer, in publick worshipe * *
* or administra- tion of the Sacraments, excepting to such persones as shall desire the same". Mr. Eburne was an early freeholder of the town and although his personal status in a legal document was "clerk", still the provi- sion that he might administer the Sacraments according to the Book of Common Prayer, implies that he was an ordained priest. Later, Mr. Eburne was sent by "the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts", which was organized in June of 1701 in the library of the Archbishop of York, into New England. We find him in 1703 serving as a clergyman on the Isle of Shoals.
In 1693, under Governor Fletcher, an act was passed for the establishment of churches in certain counties and for the levying of taxes for their support. Shortly after this, in 1697, Trinity of New York received its royal charter. Queens County was named in the law, but Suffolk was ignored as not ripe for the Episcopacy. Dispute as to the statute arose. Some contended that the taxes thus raised were available for the dissenting ministry while the Governor and
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others held and prevailed that the proceeds were for Anglicans only. We need not deny the charge that the Established Church did at times impose itself upon an unwilling people, but we can remember that the Puritans, where they had control, taxed and even persecuted "dis- senters" from their doctrines and usages. Neither party had as yet grasped the necessary principle of religious liberty and that its safe- guard lies in the neutrality of the state.
Obviously, this first Church of England in easterly Long Island at Setauket went out of existence, for the Rev. Samuel Eburne's ministry there proved to be short and stormy. Soon he had to sue the townsfolk for his salary of £60, alleging that not a penny had been paid. Shortly after this episode the Town Church is found calling itself Presbyterian, although loosely, as distinguished from Congrega- tional. Certain it is that in 1704 the Rev. Dr. Vesey, the rector of Trinity, New York, stated to the clergy on Manhattan Island that in Suffolk County there was "neither Church of England minister nor any provision made for one by law, the people generally being Inde- pendents, and upheld in their separation by New England emis- saries". He suggested that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel send missionaries to them, but nothing is heard as to any action being taken. The writer doubts the statement that "for nearly twenty years the east end of Long Island was visited by but one clergyman of the Church of England, namely, the Rev. John Sharpe, Chaplain of the forces in New York, who accompanied the colonial governor, Lord Cornbury, on a tour of inspection and officiated as occasion offered". This could not have been later than 1708 for in that year Lord Cornbury's office terminated.
Suffolk County was more of an appendage to Connecticut than to New York. This was true in early colonial times when towns at the eastern end of Long Island placed themselves under the jurisdiction of New Haven. A sailing ship with a fair wind could go from shore to shore in two hours, while a coach on a sandy road to New York would require many days. Yale College with its excellent library, which included a number of books on Anglican Theology, was a tower of strength in the early days, for many of the more fortunate families on Long Island sent their sons to New Haven to be educated.
The faculty of Yale and a number of Congregational ministers began to read the Anglican Theological books and the more they read, the less confidence they felt in their own ecclesiastical position. On the 12th of September, 1722, the day following Commencement, seven of these gentlemen appeared in the college library to confer with the trustees and other ministers. They voiced their qualms concerning the validity of their ordination and expressed their varying degrees of purpose to enter the Anglican Communion, praying, however, for counsel. Among these were Timothy Cutler, the Rector or President of Yale College and three graduates of the class of 1714, viz., Samuel Johnson, David Browne and James Wetmore. Johnson, called the Father of Episcopacy in Connecticut, later became, in 1754, the first President of Kings College, now Columbia University. On Novem- ber 12, 1722, Cutler, Browne and Johnson sailed for England as
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postulants for Episcopal ordination, and Wetmore the following year. The first three were all stricken while aboard with smallpox and Browne fatally so, dying within a week after his ordination to the priesthood. Men desiring to receive Holy Orders had to go to Eng- land, for as yet there was no bishop in the colonies, and we are told that thirty per cent died of smallpox or were shipwrecked.
James Wetmore, referred to above as one of the converts to the Church of England, at New Haven, was ordained by Bishop Gibson in July, 1723, in London, and shortly thereafter became the priest-in- charge of the Brookhaven Church where he continued until he was called to be catechist to the Rev. Dr. Vesey in Trinity, New York. Thus, while we must acknowledge that because of the vicissitudes apparent in colonial days between conformists and nonconformists, the Brookhaven Church did not have a continued establishment be- tween 1685 and 1723, but logically we may assume that the nucleus of the Anglicans continued in a greater or less degree to hold their services according to the Book of Common Prayer, although they did not have a regularly ordained clergyman. On May 11, 1724, the Rev. Mr. Wetmore wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (hereafter referred to as the S. P. G.): "the members (at Setauket) had increased beyond expectation by the accession of such as are men of the best character in Brookhaven." In another letter he sanguinely states that there was a prospect of gaining the whole town "if a sober minister were settled in it". After about two years at Trinity, New York, Mr. Wetmore became the settled pastor at Christ Church, Rye, where he remained until his death, which was caused by smallpox in 1760.
Another of the New Haven converts, the Rev. Dr. Johnson, remained at Stamford until his election to the presidency of Kings College and so frequently ministered to the Brookhaven congregation that the Caroline Church can almost justly claim him as one of its clergy. He wrote in 1727, "We lie upon the sea and directly over against us southward on Long Island lies Brookhaven, about twenty miles over the water where I have often preached." Another tie which bound Dr. Johnson with the Setauket Church was his marriage in 1725 to Mrs. Charity Nicoll, widow of Benjamin Nicoll and daughter of Col. Richard Floyd.
The Rev. Thomas Standard, of Taunton, England, who appears to have been a physician before taking Orders, followed the Rev. Mr. Wetmore as the minister at Brookhaven, and it was he who in 1725 began gathering subscriptions to build a new church. We are told that he brought with him from the society (S.P.G.) a library worth ten pounds, a Church Bible, small tracts, Prayer Books and Osterwald Catechisms. Mr. Dwight followed and then the Rev. Alexander Camp- bell who shortly sought to be transferred to St. James, Long Island, where obviously there was an established church, but which must have gone out of existence since the present church at St. James claims founding in 1853. He stated that there was a "handsome establish- ment" perhaps of £60 or more as compared to the subscription of £20 at Brookhaven.
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Some time after 1725, perhaps in 1729, the Caroline Church build- ing was erected. A bill to Col. Floyd dated September 17, 1729, for a bell which had been sent, substantiates this date. The bell weighed 1321/2 pounds and cost nine pounds sterling. At any rate, a bell calling people together for worship must have sounded strange in a town which previously had paid a man "for Beating the drum on ye Lorde's Daye". Eighty years later a new bell was hung in its place.
St. George's Episcopal Church, Hempstead, Where America's First Native Born Anglican Bishop Received Early Training
Contemporary with the erection of the Brookhaven Church, orig- inally called Christ Church, was its sacred endowment and change of name, for it was rechristened "Caroline Church" in respect to Wilhel- mina-Karoline of Brandenburg-Anspach, Queen of George II, who sent it a silver Communion Service and embroidered altar cloths.
In 1937, through the magnanimous gift of Mrs. Frank Melville and Mr. Ward Melville, the Caroline Church was restored to its colonial beauty, together with additional service facilities, making it one of the most historical and interesting churches in the United States. A list of rectors of this church follows:
1723-24, James Wetmore; 1725-27, Thomas Standard; 1727-29, temporary supplies including Samuel Johnson and Flint Dwight; 1729- 33, Alexander Campbell; 1733-46, Isaac Browne; 1746-67, James Lyons ; 1769-82, temporary supplies; 1782-86, Thomas Moore; 1786-92, Andrew Fowler (lay reader) and others; 1792-1811, John Sands and others; 1811-14, Nathan Burgess and others; 1814-43, Charles Seabury ; 1843-44, William Adams; 1844-78, Frederick M. Noll; 1878-86, Robert
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Pearson ; 1886-87, James H. Sharp; 1887-1912, Dan Marvin; 1913-17, Stephen H. Green; 1917-34, Charles A. Livingston ; 1934-37, R. Thomas Blomquist; 1937-40, Sturgis Lee Riddle; 1940-, John Priestley Mitton.
ST. GEORGE'S, HEMPSTEAD
In 1640 the English came to the shores of Long Island and attempted to settle at a place called Nieuw Amerfoord, situated on Jamaica Bay, but the Dutch, who had preceded them by some years, drove them out. Three years later they returned. There is reason to believe that some of these immigrants had not disassociated them- selves from the Established Church and, hence, became the nucleus of contention to hold Church of England services instead of the Inde- pendent form of worship when taxation for the support of religious services began to take place. This was particularly true in Jamaica and its neighboring towns. They, however, were so in the minority as compared with the dissenters that except for their private or group devotions, they had to yield to the community idea.
While St. George's Church, Hempstead, does not lay claim to being founded before 1702, still the writer finds that in 1644 a former Church of England clergyman, named Richard Denton, who had gone over to the Puritan cause, after ministering for a time in Stamford, Connecticut, arrived with several of his parishioners in Hempstead and here preached and shepherded his flock for twelve years, at the end of which time he returned to England. Cotton Mather, who knew him intimately, wrote: "Richard Denton was a man whose doctrine dropped as the rain . . . though he were a small man yet he had a great soul". For the next twenty-five years Hempstead was without a regularly settled clergyman, but from approximately 1680 until 1696 the Rev. Jeremiah Hobart ministered for a goodly time and was followed for a brief period by a Rev. Mr. Fordham.
We know that about 1696 a certain twenty-three-year-old layman, William Vesey, arrived at Hempstead with all the fire of a crusader and that it was largely due to his efforts that St. George's Church as such came into existence. His earnestness and charm won many of the villagers to the church. A year later he was called to be the rector of Trinity, New York, and left for King's Chapel, Boston, and from thence later to be ordained in England. In 1698 he was inducted into the rectorship of Trinity and there remained as an eminent religious leader for fifty years. Who, if anyone, followed as a pastor at St. George's is not known, but according to the Rev. John S. Haight in his excellent book, Adventures for God: "In the year 1701, the town being entirely destitute of a minister, made application to the (newly organized) S. P. G. In pursuance of which the Rev. John Thomas, an Episcopal minister, arrived in 1702." The four succeeding rectors were also sponsored by the S. P. G. and like Mr. Thomas were men of sincerity and consecration.
"It might seem strange that a community composed of Inde- pendents, Presbyterians and Quakers, all of whom were hostile to the Church of England, should practically issue an invitation to a minister in the Anglican Communion to come and serve them." This
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can be answered in several ways. The Dutch, especially with the back- ing of Governor Peter Stuyvesant, were very bigoted, wanting their own particular brand of religious worship to become established in the new country. It has been authoritatively stated that the stout old governor's love of ruling power was also manifest in his having the form of religion according to that of his mother country and that "he hated Lutherans, Independents and Baptists". Because his ordinance against preaching was evaded, there was much punishment adminis- tered, the worst being that of Robert Hodshone, a Quaker, who, for preaching at Hempstead, was sentenced to two years of hard labor.
From an Old Photo of St. George's Rectory, Looking South Across Creek from Front Street, Hempstead
"When he refused to work he was beaten for three successive days until he fell. Then he was hung up by his hands and beaten until his back was raw." Perhaps the various groups thought that the shelter of the English Church would save them from a tyranny similar to that of Stuyvesant.
In 1692 Benjamin Fletcher, a member of the Church of England, became the governor. He has been called a bigot and a narrow- minded sectarian, but it was he who persuaded the Assembly to pass a bill providing for "settling ministers and raising a mainte- nance for them not only in New York but in several counties including Queens-one to be in charge of Jamaica and the other to have charge of Hempstead and the next adjacent towns and farms". It would seem that very little happened in regard to this act until Fletcher took a drastic step and organized a group of laymen, who held serv- ices in the various communities. George Keith, about whom we shall hear later, was appointed to make a tour of observation throughout the colonies and in 1702 we find him in Oyster Bay and Hempstead.
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Due to the efforts of Governor Fletcher, the Rev. Dr. Vesey, the Rev. Mr. Keith and the laymen's group, the people of Hempstead assem- bled on an evening in June, 1702, to make application to the S. P. G. for a minister, and thus it was that the Rev. John Thomas and the four later clergymen were sent by the S. P. G. to be the pastors or rectors of St. George's, Hempstead.
The present church edifice, retaining much of the colonial appear- ance of the original building, was erected in 1822 near the site of the former church which had served since 1735, and on the 19th of Sep- tember, 1823, it was consecrated by the Rt. Rev. John Henry Hobart, the Bishop of New York and Long Island, who had been the rector of this parish in 1800. Again, like the Setauket Caroline Church, it is one of the most interesting and historical in the United States and is still the proud possessor of the Prayer Book, Chalice and Paten given by Queen Anne in 1710.
A list of the rectors here follows :
Rev. John Thomas. 1704-1724
Rev. Robert Jenney 1726-1742
Rev. Samuel Seabury 1742-1764
Rev. Leonard Cutting 1766-1783
Rev. Thomas Lambert Moore
1785-1799
Rev. John Henry Hobart.
1799-1800
Rev. Seth Hart.
1800-1829
Rev. Richard Drason Hall.
1829-1834
Rev. William M. Carmichael, D.D.
1834-1843
Rev. Orlando Harriman, Jr ..
1844-1849
Rev. William H. Moore, D.D. 1849-1892
Rev. Creighton Spencer 1892-1901
Rev. Jere K. Cooke. 1901-1907
Rev. Charles H. Snedeker
1908-1924
Rev. John S. Haight, B.D.
1924-
The story of the Quakers founded by George Fox in 1640 in England and his initial efforts in 1673 when he made an extended tour of observation from Maine to South Carolina, during which, after he left Massachusetts, he found people who looked upon him as "one sent of God", and again in 1675 when he came with a ship load of Quakers to our "East Jersey", not to mention William Penn and his colony of 1681, forms an interesting item in the history of the Episcopal Church in the colonies and on Long Island. A certain George Keith, a graduate of the University of Aberdeen, who for thirty years had been a Quaker, and later having been employed as a land surveyor by the Quakers in Salem, "East New Jersey", proved himself a minister and champion of the Friends Society and a veri- table David against the Philistines. Shortly, however, he began to intimate that while the "Inner Light" was necessary, it needed some- thing besides itself. The "Candle should have a candlestick", the "spirit must needs have a body". After a period of controversy within the body of the Friends, he was expelled. Keith went to Eng-
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land, supposedly on business, and while there reviewing his theologi- cal tenets, became attached to the Church of England and took Holy Orders.
The S. P. G. sent as their first missionaries George Keith and Patrick Gordon, the latter of whom will be referred to a bit later.
JONCG
(Courtesy of F. Kull)
Caroline Episcopal Church, Setauket
John Talbot, the chaplain of the ship Centurion on which they were making the voyage, became so interested in their mission that he obtained the S. P. G.'s permission to join with them. Keith and Talbot made an extended trip from Boston to Charleston under the expressed instructions of the S. P. G. "to preach in meeting-houses whenever opportunity might offer, and where possible, to win them back to the Church". There is evidence that there was an inclination on the part of many of the dissenters in America during the first half of the eighteenth century to return to the Church of England if the way could be made easy for them. We are told that in "Philadelphia and its vicinity hundreds of Quakers were baptized by Keith and
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