USA > New York > Erie County > Buffalo > Manual of the First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo, N.Y., with Historical sketch and account of the centennial celebration, February 2nd to 5th, 1912 > Part 7
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II. The Young People's Societies.
The Young People's Societies, properly correlated with the Sunday School, constitute the school of practice. The aim of these societies is to train for Christian service. Such instruction as is given has to do with the fields that offer opportunities for service, as the home, the school, the play circle, the church, and, later, society in general.
These societies are at present three in number: The Mission Band, the Junior Society, and the Young Woman's League.
The Mission Band reports through the Woman's Circle, under whose charge it is. As the Mission Band is really the Primary Society, and corresponds with the Primary De- partment of the Sunday School, a few items of information may be given here. Meetings are held monthly on the second
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Saturday from October to May. There are seven adult workers, and the average attendance of children is about 20. Practical activities, within the scope of the children's inter- est and powers are undertaken. This year Christmas barrels were sent to colored children in Mr. Jefferson's Industrial School in Darlington, South Carolina, and Christmas trees and presents were sent to the kindergarten in Lackawanna. Addresses are given about children in other lands and in destitute parts of our own land.
Money received during the year. $ 51.34
Disbursements :
Children's Work on the Foreign Field. .$ 10.00
Home Board. 3.00
Money Gifts to Christmas Barrels 10.00
Current Expenses 27.04
$ 50.04
To this should be added the cost of Christmas Barrels valued at. 46.00
And Christmas Tree and Presents 10.00
Grand Total $106.04
2. The Junior Society.
This society corresponds exactly in age with the Junior Department of the Sunday School. It was organized in Oc- tober, 1911, and its aim is the training for Christian service. The society meets once a month, on the same day as the Mission Band, but their meeting is separate. Nineteen are enrolled as members, and the average attendance has been fifteen. The grade formations of the Sunday School, but not the class formation, are maintained, and each grade has an adult leader. The boys and girls also elect their own officers. In practical activities the Junior Society has helped the Mission Band.
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3. The Junior League also reports through the Woman's Circle.
The two large senior classes meet occasionally for a socia- ble, and here is evidently material for a Senior Society and much latent capacity for effective Christian service. But we prefer to let the impulse for such organization originate with the young people themselves.
Thus far we have been speaking of the Young People's division of the Church School. We now come to the
Adult Department.
The Adult Department includes all the people of the church over 20 years of age who are members of any study class. These classes are as follows: Teacher-training classes, three Adult Bible Classes, the Parent's Class, the Pastor's Class, the History Class, and the Lecture Course.
The Teacher-training Classes.
The teachers and officers of the Sunday School, and the workers in the Y. P. Societies have met on the first Wed- nesday of each month for supper, and for conference con- cerning our work. These suppers and conferences have been very successful, both in attendance and interest. The course this year has been on Child Study. Addresses have been given on various phases of this subject, and discussion of practical work has been participated in by those present. In addition to this, the Grade Teachers' Meetings have been held occasionally during the year. The primary teachers have met regularly each month.
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Adult Bible Classes.
These were three in number : The Men's Class, with an enrollment of 33, meeting at 12.30 on Sunday. The course of study was on "The Kingdom of God," and the class was conducted by the lecture method. Mr. Boocock spoke on the "Historic and Theoretic Aspects of the Subject," and Dr. McLennan on "Its Present Day Aspects; the Newer Forces for Good."
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The Young People's Class.
This class met at 10.15 every Sunday morning since De- cember. Its aim was to interest young people of both sexes, between 20 and 30 years of age, in the study of a Biblical subject, and also in organizing them for definite service. It cannot be said that the class has been a success from point of numbers, although the interest of those who came seemed to be real.
The Afternoon Class.
Called "The Educational Vesper Service," had a fluctuat- ing attendance. While the course on "Some Laws and Crises in Early Life" was running, the attendance was relatively good, but, during the second half, when Biblical themes were discussed, the attendance fell off. The average attendance for the year was about 30.
Lecture Course.
On account of Men and Religion Forward Movement, which held the center of the road this winter, it was not found feasible to have the usual number of lecture courses. But one excellent course of five lectures on "Bible Lands," with stereopticon, by the Rev. Putnam Cady, D. D., was greatly appreciated by those who were able to attend.
The Pastor's Communicants' Class was held by the Pastor during the Sundays in the Lenten Season. All the young people of the Sunday School fifteen and sixteen years of age, with their teachers, attended this class, the subject of which was "The Christian Life." Sixteen of the Sunday School united with the church this year.
Lenten Readings have been given by the Pastor to the women of the church on Monday afternoons. The book chosen for reading and interpretive comment was "The Ideal of Jesus," by William Newton Clarke.
The Parents' Class was held this year on Friday mornings, from 10.30 to 11.30, for the three months, January, February
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and March. It was intended for the parents of children between 1 and 13 years of age. The text-book in use was "Child Nature and Child Nurture," by Professor Edward P. St. John. Judging by the attendance, the class met a real need. At one of the meetings, the attendance was 51, but the average was about 30. Many spoke of the help which the class had been to them. We hope next year to deal with the life problems of the adolescent age.
Extra Parish Work.
During the three fall months, the Educational Director conducted a class in "Child Study" each week for the Graded Union of the City, as well as serving them as Chairman of their Committee on Religious Education.
During the entire year, he has conducted a weekly class of women teachers in Bible Study, in connection with the Y. W. C. A., the subject being "From Solomon to Jesus."
Addresses before
Conventions, National, State and Local. 11
Ministers' Associations 1
Men and Religion Forward Movement (out of the city) .. 9 Theological Seminaries 1
Presbyteries 1
Addresses of a General Character 15
Sermons 11
Monthly visits to Philadelphia as a member of the Gen- eral Assembly's Committee on Religious Education; attendance upon Convention at St. Louis, with three addresses 7
Making a total of 72 addresses.
WILLIAM H. BOOCOCK.
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Woman's Circle.
The women of the First Church have been foremost in Christian activities since the day when those two devoted women, Esther Pratt and Comfort Landon, began their daily prayer-meeting at sunset, and gathered others until they were strong enough to warrant the missionary in form- ing a church when next he came to this western country in February, 1812. On June 20th of the same year we find the first record of a collection being taken in the infant church. One of the contributors was Mrs. Bull, who gave 121/2 cents, a goodly sum in the days when money was scarce.
The records show that in the early days of the church the women had often the predominating vote in deciding the policy of the church and exercised the right of suffrage on all occasions, as for instance, when it was decided that the church should subscribe to the articles of faith of the Pres- byterian Church and be placed under the charge of the Pres- bytery of Geneva, the voters consisted of three men and eight women. But while they voted they also worked, caring for the little church, for we find no evidence of a sexton until the brick church was completed in 1827, and we know it was good Mrs. Stocking who made all the candles for the church and lighted them at each evening service.
In 1816, Miss Mary Martin and Miss Abigail Kibbe opened a Sunday School, of which Jasper Corning later became its first Superintendent.
In September, 1816, the Buffalo Female Bible Society was formed, Mrs. Heacock as President. In its first year this society collected $114, a truly magnificent sum; spent $90; distributed 132 Bibles and 2,500 tracts and catechisms.
The earliest missionary work of which we find any record was the Ladies' Home Missionary Society, organized January 1, 1829, with Mrs. Thaddeus Joy as its President. This society continued its good work of aiding the missionaries on the
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home field until merged into the Woman's Circle. In charge of the box work for many years was Mrs. Henry R. Seymour, whose plans made this branch of our work famous.
When the financial crash of 1837 threatened to make beg- gars both of individuals and institutions, the Bethel Church for Sailors was threatened with ruin and disaster. At that time the Ladies' Bethel Friend Society was formed in the First Church, which rescued the Bethel cause. It supported the chaplain, and in 1841 opened a Sailors' Home, which be- came a private enterprise in 1845. Their interest here was continuous until Bethel was disbanded in 1848.
March 13, 1846, the Ladies' Benevolent Society was organ- ized, which several times changed its name as its work changed to that of the Ladies' Colporteur Society for the distribution of tracts, and later the Ladies' Educational Society, whose object was to educate young men for the ministry. At least one noted divine is still living who was supported and edu- cated by the efforts of the women, who, in various ways, raised the money for his education.
When Fiske Seminary in Urumiah, Persia, was opened by Miss Fidelia Fiske, about 1846, the First Church guaranteed three scholarships, one of which is still upon our list of con- tributions. During the Civil War, the women of the church sent many boxes and barrels to the front, filled with clothing and delicacies. Every one contributed to this cause and even the little children were taught to scrape lint and make "com- fort bags" for the soldiers.
In 1870, the women of the First Church held a large fair in St. James's Hall, lasting three days, to raise funds for the support of the Tupper Street and Sixth Street Missions. This was one of the few times in the history of the church when it appealed to the public for aid in any of its enterprises.
In 1885, Miss Elizabeth Marshall established the work of the Visitng Nurse, the outgrowth of which is the District Nursing Association of the city, and our own nurse at Wel- come Hall.
It was reserved for that splendid organizer, Mrs. S. S. Mitchell, in 1882, to gather together the scattered organiza-
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tions into one compact whole, doing more effective work. Through fourteen years Mrs. Mary Norton Thompson carried the work as its President, many times going out herself to assist in collecting the necessary funds.
Tho Woman's Circle of today is composed of fifteen differ- ent committees, each pursuing its independent work, yet all under the supervision and guidance of the officers and Board of Directors-the Directors being chairmen of its various committees.
So the work has grown from the first unorganized efforts of that little band of 21 women, whose aim was a church, to our splendid organization, supporting one mission- ary on the foreign field, one on the home field and two teach- ers among the Freedmen, and from the first contribution of 121/2 cents to the thousands of dollars raised each year.
HOME MISSIONS.
For twenty years we have had one Missionary, Miss Anna May Sheets, in the Sheldon Jackson Training School, Sitka, Alaska, making good Americans out of the Indian boys and girls. During the past year Miss Florence Stevens has taken Miss Sheets's place.
The box work of this church has always been up to a high standard and this year has been no exception. A box went to Tacoma, Washington, containing dainty clothing for an in- valid daughter, aside from the usual necessary articles for the rest of the family. To Lake Arthur, New Mexico, a box brought joy to everyone, especially to the mother, with its supplementary barrel of dishes, so much needed and so hard to get. The third box to a retired minister and his wife car- ried comfort and warmth. His appeal for coal touched our hearts as he told us that his only son on whom he depended for this and many other things had been drowned the previous summer.
Asheville Farm School, where the mountain boys learn to till the soil to make it most productive, and to build their homes as well as to read and write, is the especial care of New York Synod and we are each year called upon to do our share.
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The Kindergarten School for Hungarian children at West Seneca, established by the Buffalo Presbyterial Society, has needed our support. Besides our contribution for its main- tenance the Mission Board has trimmed a Christmas tree for it and the church has given chairs and other furniture.
FOREIGN MISSIONS.
Twelve years ago, by earnest effort, it was found possible to have a Missionary of our own, on the foreign field. Miss Helena Wyckoff, of Joshi Gekuin, Tokio, was chosen for us. Six years later we transferred our allegiance to Miss Janet M. Johnston, the principal of the Girls' School at Kanazawa, Japan, who has been a joy to us all. Another year and she will be with us on her furlough.
One scholarship in Fiske Seminary and one share in West- minster Hospital, Urumiah, Persia, complete our stated con- tributions. Our women are, however, interested to a large extent in the McCall Mission in France and the Waldensian Mission in Italy.
The Jubilee movement of a year ago brought our women to the front, as Miss Harriet M. Buck, our President, was its executive head. Many contributions were made during the year.
FREEDMEN.
In the black belt of the South, the colored children have but five months' schooling during the year, and no industrial training. To offset this, the Board of Freedmen has estab- lished Parochial Schools in centers where there seems to be the greatest need. The Woman's Circle supports two teachers in the School at Darlington, S. C., where the boys are taught how to handle tools for simple carpenter and garden work, and the girls learn to sew and cook, besides the rudiments of a common school education. The Mission Band send to this school, each year, a box filled with simple Christmas gifts for each child.
The Junior League send their Contribution to help pay the salary of a teacher at Mebane, N. C., one of the Industrial Schools which is doing so much to solve the Negro problem.
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WOMAN'S CIRCLE.
HOME MISSIONS :-
Salary, Miss Sheets
$ 425.00
Ashville Farm School. 100.00
Sunday School Offering
25.00
Summer Offering
44.09
From Mission Band
3.00
General Fund.
50.00
Missionary Boxes
828.00
From Junior League
20.00
$1,495.09
FOREIGN MISSIONS :-
Salary, Miss Johnston $ 700.00
Persian Missions 51.00
Summer Offering
20.84
McAll and Waldensian Missions
379.00
Jubilee
321.00
General Fund.
50.00
From Mission Band
11.00
From Junior League.
10.00
Mrs. Waddell, Bahia
5.00
$1,547.84
FREEDMEN :-
Salaries
$ 150.00
General Fund.
25.00
Mission Box from Mission Band.
46.00
From Junior League.
10.00
$ 231.00
LOCAL :-
Assessments
$ 69.00
Homeopathic Hospital Room
120.50
Christmas gifts.
25.75
Flowers for Church
346.50
Church Housekeeping
223.03
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District Nurse
1,358.81
Sewing material for garments
167.34
Tree for Lackawanna from Mission Band
7.50
$2,318.44
EXPENSES :-
Treasurer's Expenses
$ 27.50
Speakers
20.00
Sewing Committee
9.35
Junior League.
12.36
Mission Band.
23.56
$ 92.77
$5,685.14
ISABEL KITTINGER YOUNG, Secretary of Woman's Circle.
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Welcome hall Social Settlement.
404 SENECA STREET.
The Welcome Hall Social Settlement, which has been dur- ing its entire history the expression of the interest of the First Church in the so-called city problem, is the outgrowth of certain general relief work initiated and carried on by the Church during the trying winter of 1893-1894-work which, according to the report published at the time, was "most un- satisfactory." At a meeting of the Woman's Circle held in May, 1894, "it was decided to concentrate effort on a limited section of the city." The district selected, with the advice of the Buffalo Charity Organization Society, was that portion of the East Side bounded by Chicago, Louisiana, Swan and Exchange Streets, to which was soon afterwards added the square on Seneca Street, from Chicago Street to Michigan Street.
The first director was Miss Mary E. Remington,* whose relief work in connection with Welcome Hall, New Haven, Conn., had attracted favorable attention. On her arrival a two story house at 307 Seneca Street was leased and, following some repairs, was occupied on November 21, the basement being used by the District Nursing Association as a Diet Kitchen, the Church supplying the diets two days in the week and heating and caring for the room. By January 1, 1895, these quarters were outgrown and a warehouse in the rear was fitted up and practically entirely utilized by the late Spring. When the first year closed, besides the religious work characteristic of the gospel mission, there were in successful operation a boys' club, a mothers' meeting, a sewing school,
Besides Miss Remington, who resigned in 1897, the following have served as directors or headworkers: Mary F. Campbell, 1897- 1900; Louise Montgomery, 1900-1905; Ray Smith Wallace, Sep- tember to November, 1905; John R. Howard, Jr., 1906-1909; Wil- liam E. McLennan, 1909 to the present time.
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THE REV. WM. E. MCLENNAN, D. D. HEAD WORKER WELCOME HALL.
a young men's club and a penny savings bank. During this year an average of 140 families were given help each month and there were 258 depositors in the penny bank.
The second annual report notes "a transition from a single house and a single worker to a miniature settlement and a hundred or more non-resident assistants." A striking evi- dence of this fact was the increase in the number of activities, among these being the free kindergarten and summer outing. The relief work appears to have been, for so small a district, something quite extraordinary. During this second year the First Church members furnished 2,499 days' work for men and women. From these and others living within the district, $3,512.89 were received by the Hall for the use of their respec- tive families.
The evolution of Welcome Hall into a well-defined Social Settlement has followed the normal and familiar lines of settlement development, new work being taken up and old dis- carded as the needs of the neighborhood appeared to point the way, it being a vital principle of settlement policy to use only such means and apply such methods as are adapted to the neighborhood, and never to duplicate work which other organizations and agencies are doing or promise to do.
Following a conviction that the location first chosen was not the one best adapted to the work of a settlement, the pres- ent site on Seneca Street was selected. The main building, a fine brick structure, and the site on which it is erected, were the munificent gifts of Mr. John J. Albright, and the Cottage, also of brick, a much needed adjunct, was donated by Mrs. Sidney Shepard. Work on the Hall proper was begun in the Spring of 1897, and was finished in January of the following year.
Three months after the hall was completed, the Executive Council, to which was given "plenary power in all branches of the work save the Sunday services," was named, and during the same year a House Committee was appointed.
The neighborhood in which the Settlement was thus permanently located is usually designated as bounded by Eagle Street on the north, Perry Street on the south, Chicago and
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Pine Streets on the west and Jefferson and Red Jacket Streets on the east. The area is about three-fourths of a mile square and the population is estimated at 5,000. This neighborhood is predominently industrial. There is, however, little of so- called skilled labor here, which means that wages are low-too low for the maintenance of the American standard of living which includes, besides a mere existence, a comfortable home with an adequate amount of air and sunlight, a reasonable privacy, schooling for the children, medical attention when sick, and time and money for wholesome recreation. Denied this living wage, it is not strange that mothers are forced to leave their families, and children their books, and that there is overcrowding with its vast menace to health and morals. The chief sources of employment in the district are the rail- roads, whose yards cover a large portion of the territory, and the factories.
The characteristically helpful agencies are the churches and one public school. The churches number six : two Roman Catholic, one Presbyterian, one Baptist, one Protestant Epis- copal and one English Lutheran. The non-helpful forces are fairly well represented by the saloons which number twenty- six. Many if not most of these violate the Sunday Law and the law regarding the selling of liquor to minors. Some openly, others secretly, encourage vice and harbor vicious and degraded characters.
At the present time the principal nationalities represented in the district are Italians, Irish and Syrians. Formerly the Irish largely predominated, but these are leaving the district, being superseded, in almost every case, by Italians. The Syrians are a recent arrival and number about three hundred.
The present large list of activities at Welcome Hall repre- sents an attempt to meet, as well as may be, the community's needs-physical, intellectual and spiritual. Some of these ac- tivities have been tested through many years. For example, the kindergarten, which is now a branch of School 35, dates back, as already noted, to 1895. Four years later a play- ground, fifty by a hundred feet, was opened(again through the generosity of Mr. J. J. Albright), which expanded during the
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WELCOME HALL.
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past year into a city playground aggregating nearly. 20,000 square feet. The city also maintains a branch of the Public Library which was opened in the year 1900. The list of these activities for the year 1911-1912 includes classes and clubs in arts and crafts, boy scouts, brass and copper work, cooking, drawing, dressmaking, English, gymnastics, hand-work and manual training, housekeeping, lace-making, leather tooling, machine shop work, millinery, music, sewing, shoe repairing, etc. The Settlement also maintains a Sunday School, a penny provident bank, public baths for men and women, and summer outing. Under a special committee a visiting nurse gives all her time to the Settlement district. All told there are more than 1,500 enrolled in the various activities. These represent above 600 families, nearly all of them resident in the immediate neighborhood.
The following excerpts from the report of the Headworker, read at the annual meeting of the Settlement on May 3, of the current year, throw some light on the present-day working of the Institution :
"I would name as the outstanding event of the period under review the purchase, by the City of Buffalo-or, rather, the purchase of all that was not donated-of the property ad- joining our premises on the west for a new Welcome Hall play- ground. This property extends from Seneca Street north to Myrtle Avenue and is bounded on the west by Cedar Street. The ground is 112 x 178 feet in size and cost the city $29,500. The cost would have been much more than the figure named, and would have certainly prevented the consummation of the negotiations, had it not been for the gift of the former Wel- come Hall ground, fifty by one hundred feet, by Mr. Albright, who permitted the Hall to make the offer in its own name.
The second chief event of the season was the Housing Sur- vey made under the auspices of the Social Service Committee of the Church. This survey will prove to be of the greatest value in our work, apart from its distinct value as the first scientific housing survey of Buffalo. For one thing we are now sure of what was only suspected; namely, that there is going on a definite change in the racial character of the population.
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The third outstanding fact or feature of the season is the leasing of the cottage-which we have for convenience called the Annex-at 251 Myrtle Avenue, a few doors east of the Hall, for the use of our housekeeping classes.
I want particularly to mention what seems to be a growing sympathy between the Hall and the neighborhood, and, as a result, possibly also as a reciprocal cause, more and more co- operation. *
* * Next to that is the response to the call for volunteers which has been more generous this year than at any time with which I am acquainted. And this response represents not alone an increase in numbers but, what is of chief significance, it gives evidence that the work is better understood and is entered upon in a more serious spirit. * * This year, in particular, there has been a fine record for keeping appointments and a spirit of willingness to learn and an ability to grasp situations constantly arising which have been most encouraging. The time may come indeed when we shall not be obliged to go outside the ranks of the regular workers and the volunteers for assistance.
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