USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > Old Sands Street Methodist Episcopal Church, of Brooklyn, N.Y. : an illustrated centennial record, historical and biographical > Part 20
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Early in 1799, when nineteen years of age, he was licensed to preach, and served under the presiding elder as a supply until conference. Here follows his
CONFERENCE RECORD : 1799, Readfield cir., Me., with John Broadhead ; 1800, Needham cir., Mass., with John Finnegan; 1801, ordained deacon, Union, Me .; 1802, (N. E Conf.,) Norridgwock cir., Me., with N. Coye ; 1803, (New York Conf., ) Middletown cir., Conn., with Abner Wood ; 1804, (New Eng. Conf., by change of boundaries, ) ditto, with E. Washburn ; 1805, New London cir., with T. Branch ; 1806, (New York Conf.,) Litchfield eir., with S. Cochran ; 1807, Granville cir., Mass. and Conn., with P. Rice ; 1808, Long Island cir., N. Y., with N. U. Tompkins and H. Redstone; 1809, Courtland cir., with II. Eames ; 1810, Redding cir., Conn., with J. Russell ; 18II, Newburgh cir., N. Y., with J. Edmonds ; 1812, ditto, with J. Beeman and S. Fowler ; 1813, New Windsor cir., with Ez. Canfield ; 1814, New York city cir., with Wm. Phoebus, S. Cochran, M. Richardson, T. Drum- mond, and Wnt. Blagborne; 1815, Brooklyn ; 1816, New Rochelle cir., with S. Arnold and Coles Carpenter ; 1818, Burlington cir., Conn., with C. Silli- man ; 1819, ditto, with C. Culver ; 1820, Goshen cir., with S. Dayton ; 1821, sup'd ; 1822-1828, located ; 1828, traveled Columbus cir., Ohio, under the presiding elder ; 1829-1830, (Ohio Conf.,) Zanesville, Ohio; 1831, Cincinnati station, with J. B. Finley, E. W. Sehon, S. A. Latta ; 1832, ditto, with T. A. Morris, W. B. Christie, and E. W. Sehon ; 1833, Marietta cir., with W. Young ; 1834, Chillicothe ; 1835, Worthington ; 1836, chaplain of peniten- tiary, Columbus ; 1836, Delaware cir., with J. B. Austin ; 1838-1840, sup'd.
Ebenezer Washburn, his traveling colleague in 1804, de- scribes him as " a loving companion in labor, pious, laborious, a good preacher, and a lover of Wesleyan Methodism." On the 20th of May, 1806, about the time of his appointment to the Litchfield circuit, he was united in marriage to Miss Cla- rissa Frothingham, of Middletown, Conn.
At the close of his pastoral term in Long Island, (1808,) he 15
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reported an increase of fifty members. The church in Brook- lyn was in a flourishing condition when he was pastor there. and under his administration the first Sunday-school was or- ganized in March, 1816. He was a member of General Con- ference in 1804 and 1816. Under his ministry, on the New Rochelle circuit, in 1817, a young man named David Holmes was led to the Saviour and licensed to exhort, who afterward became a prominent member of the New York Conference.
Soon after taking a superannuated relation in 1821, Mr. Em- ery removed to Blendon, (now Westerville,) Ohio, where he pur- chased a small farm. His health improved, and, being unwill- ing to burden his brethren, he asked for and obtained a location in 1822, but, as indicated above, soon resumed his itinerant labors. When permanently superannuated, though his health steadily declined, he labored both in the field and in the pulpit till near the close of his life. He preached on Sun- day, May 20, 1849, and gave out an appointment for the suc- ceeding Sabbath. On Thursday he was taken sick, and died on the morning of the following Sabbath, about the hour for the service to begin. His conference memorial says :
Father Emery, as he was familiarly and affectionately called, was no ordi- nary man. His preaching talents were not showy, but, far better than showy, they were useful. His ministrations were practical, and always characterized by good sense, great zeal for God, and a deep concern for the salvation of souls. Of a sweet and amiable spirit, he was greatly beloved of men-of deep and uniform piety, he was greatly honored of God.
He had always looked with some degree of dread to the conflict with his last enemy. And as he saw the hour of his dissolution at hand, he besought the Lord earnestly for dying grace. And dying grace was given. He took an affectionate leave of his friends, and especially his daughter, an only child, to whom he spoke many precious words of consolation. As he ap- proached the Jordan of death his soul became more and more enraptured with the visions of glory that were revealed to him upon the other shore. And while passing through its chilling waters, he said, "O how gently my Saviour leads me through." Just as the spirit was about to take its flight, he looked upward, and fixing his eyes as if upon some object of unutterable love- liness, in a low whisper he exclaimed, " Up ! up! up !" These were his last words on earth. 1
The house in which he died is yet standing, (1881,) just out- side the limits of Westerville. He is buried, with his wife, in the Methodist Episcopal cemetery of that place, about fifty
1 Conference Minutes, 1849, p. 386.
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Record of Ministers.
yards from the parsonage. Some years ago " his nephew, Mr. Selah Sammis, erected upon his grave a marble stone that might be called a small monument."" Upon this stone is in- scribed the following :
REV. N. EMERY, Born in Minot, Maine, August 10, 1780. Died May 27, 1849. OUR BELOVED FATHER ENDURED THE HARDSHIPS
AND SUFFERINGS OF AN ITINERANT LIFE WITH FIRMNESS AND PERSEVERANCE, AND FOR FIFTY-ONE YEARS HIS DAILY EXAMPLE WAS A CONSTANT COMMENT UPON THE GOSPEL HE PREACHED.
Mr. Emery rendered excellent service to the church, and wher- ever his name is remembered it is "as ointment poured forth." Much inquiry has been made in vain for a description of his personal appearance, and no portrait is extant. The bold and striking signature, written in 1816, in the Sands-street church record, might be taken to indicate grace of manner combined with decision of character.
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His wife, CLARISSA (FROTHINGHAM,) was connected with a prominent family in Middletown, Conn. For nearly forty years they journeyed heavenward together. " Amiable, talented, gentle as an angel of light, she followed her husband from field to field of his labor; " " and on the 18th of December, 1845. less than four years previous to his decease, her sanctified spirit passed peacefully to the land of the blessed. She was sixty- three years of age. A plain marble slab designates the place of her repose, beside the grave of her husband.
They left an only daughter, Mary. "She was married to a Mr. Leanheart, who died; and she afterward married a Mr. Pierce, who lived four miles east of Lancaster, O. There she died and is buried near Emery chapel, on Sugar Loaf Grove cir- cuit, of the Ohio Conference. Her children are all dead."
2 1.etter of the Rev. I. F. Postle to the author.
3 J. B. Finley, Western Methodism, p. 331.
4 L. F. Postle's letter.
XXXIX.
WILLIAM ROSS.
HE veterans of Brooklyn Methodism unite with the "fathers" in other parts of the land in blessing the name of the REV. WILLIAM Ross. Two different terms he was their pastor, and he died and was buried among them.
Mr. Ross was born in Tyringham, Mass., February 10, 1792. Ile was instructed in those branches of learning then com- monly taught in the schools, but his desire and capacity for obtaining knowledge were far greater than his opportunities. .
The story of his conversion at the age of sixteen years has been told as follows>
He was awakened under a sermon preached by the Rev. John Robertson. The conviction thus produced was lasting and pungent. When Mr. Robertson came to fill his next appointment in the neighborhood, a ball having been ap, pointed at the same time, young Ross asked his mother to which he should go. Not receiving a direct answer, his inclination got the better of his judgment, now partially enlightened by the dawn of gospel truth, and he accordingly went to the ball. He had not been there long, however, before he was siezed with such agony of mind that he was constrained to leave this place of worldly mirth, and, retiring to a secluded spot, he poured out his soul "with strong crying and tears unto Him that was able to save;" and this he continued, with the use of other means of grace, from time to time, until he obtained deliver- ance from his sins. 1
We united with the Methodists, instituted family prayer in his father's house, prayed and exhorted with great fervor and power, and, at the age of twenty years, was received in- to the ranks of the traveling ministry.
APPOINTMENTS: 1812, (New York Conf.,) Dunham cir., Vt. and Canada, with J. T. Addoms; 1813, Charlotte cir., Vt., with J. Byington; 1814, ordained deacon,-Plattsburgh cir., N. Y., with N. White; 1815, Grand Iste, Vt .; IS16, ordained elder, -Chatham and Hudson cir., N. Y., with Henry Eames; 1817, Pittsfield cir., Mass., with T. Benedict; 1818, Brooklyn; IS19,
!Methodist Magazine, 1825, p. 127.
REV. WILLIAM ROSS.
Record of Ministers.
207
1820, Troy ; 1821, New York city, with J. Sonle, E. Hebard, M. Richard- son, II. Bangs, and J. Summerfield ; 1822, ditto, with E. Washburn, M. Rich- ardson, S. Martindale, II. Bangs, and J. Summerfield; 1823-1824, Brooklyn.
His first appointment was in the region most affected by the excitement occasioned by the war with Great Britain, and he abandoned that part of the circuit belonging to Canada. How this came about is very pleasantly told by one of his friends, the Rev. Fitch Reed, as follows :
Preaching one evening in the town of Stanbridge, Canada, where was a large society of strict Calvinistic Baptists, Le discoursed on the question of the possibility of falling from grace. In answer to the frequent assertion that although a Christian might fall away for a time, he could not die until he was restored, he replied : " In that case, sin is a sure preservative of life ; for if you would furnish me with an army of five thousand backslidden Christians, and they could be kept from praying, I could conquer the world, for no bullet could touch them as long as they could be kept from prayer."
This his Baptist hearers did not at all relish, and the next day some of them reported him to the commanding officer of the district, affirming that Mr. Ross had declared in a public congregation that with an army of five thousand men he could easily conquer all Canada. This, of course, was not to be allowed. Shortly afterward the officer waited on the preacher, and in- formed him that he must either take the oath of allegiance, or pass beyond the lines. He chose the latter. 2
Mr. Ross wrote in his diary the following brief record of this experience :
The time has come which I have for some days expected ; that is, I am forbid to ride any more in the province, unless I take the oath. Accordingly, as soon as convenient, I shall take my departure for the States.
In addition to these embarrassments, he was in delicate health ; but his prudence, faithfulness, and zeal were crowned with success in winning souls to Christ.
While in his fourth appointment, at Grand Isle, Vt., in 1815, he preached a sermon which was the means of the conversion of Seymour Landon, and soon afterward received him into the church.3 This young man became one of the most honored ministers in this region, and one of the successors of Wm. Ross in the Brooklyn charge.
While stationed in New York he was frequently invited to speak at the anniversaries of the Bible, missionary, and Sun-
2 Quoted by Carroll, in " Case and Ilis Contemporaries," vol. i, p. 278.
3 Landon's " Fifty Years in the Itinerant Ministry."
,
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Old Sands Street Church. .
day-school societies. An excellent address on education, which he delivered before the Wesleyan Seminary in New York, was published in full.4
Concerning his return to Brooklyn for a second pastoral term, his biographer says :
He had to encounter a mass of prejudice, as formidable as it was unjustifi- able, and which a less heroic mind would have shrunk from assailing ; but, being conscious of the purity of his motives and conduct, he entered upon the duties of his station with that Christian and ministerial firmness, meekness, and patience, " knowing no man after the flesh;" which completely disarmed his enemies who had misjudged him, and finally won all hearts and estab- lished an empire in their affections which death only rendered the more firm and lasting.5
.
He was a member of the General Conference of 1824, and the author of " the luminous and able report of the Committee on Missions."" He returned from this conference to engage in protracted revival services in Brooklyn during the exhausting heat of summer, and his bodily health proved insufficient for the strain he put upon it. In the early part of the following winter he had engaged a substitute for a third service on the Sabbath : but the preacher failing to come, he stood in the pul- pit with trembling and great weakness, and delivered his last public message. The sermon was attended with converting and awakening power, but the preacher went home to die. He had often spoken of premonitions of his departure. His last love-feast testimony in old Sands street church closed with these words :
I feel, brethren, that my stay with you will be but short ; but, blessed be God ! when he calls, I am ready. If I should die to-night you will take care of the body and God will take care of the soul, and all will be well.7
While wasting rapidly with consumption his faith triumphed over disease and the prospect of dissolution. Heaven seemed near, and he exclaimed, "Drop the curtain, and I am in glory ! "
To quote further from his biography :
Mrs. Ross, sensible that he would not survive, said : " I hope you have given your friends and family up to God." " Ah, my dear," he replied, "you
4 See Methodist Magazine, 1822, p. 139. 5 Methodist Magazine.
6 Sprague's Annals.
7 Sketch in Methodist Magazine.
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Record of Ministers.
are the last that I shall give up." It was said to him : " I hope, whether you survive or not, that the Lord will be with you," He replied, with great firmness, " I have not a doubt of that."
As he lay dying he responded heartily to the prayers that were offered ; and, while friends were raising him gently in his bed, he uttered those last words, " My work is done," and im- mediately fell asleep in Jesus, February 10, 1825, in the thirty- third year of his age: Dr. Bangs preached his funeral sermon. Soon after his death the widow and her children received a substantial token of affection from the people of Brooklyn.8
After slumbering about fifty years in the old Sands-street church-yard, his remains were removed to " Greenwood." The original head-stone was left to mark the spot where his weep- ing friends first laid him down to rest.
Many witnesses offer their eulogistic testimony concerning the talent and faithfulness of William Ross. They speak of him as " a gifted young preacher ; "' " a natural orator, his sermons abounding in striking pictures and images ; "1 "a man of power in the pulpit, some of whose sermons would compare well with those of the most eloquent of his brethren." " One who knew him well from the time of his first appointment to Brook- lyn says : " He was one of the most laborious and zealous min- isters I ever knew ; he preached five sermons in one Sabbath not long before his death." 12 At the same time they tell us that he was "a man of great modesty and diffidence," 13 and " very amiable, and greatly beloved."" As to his appearance, he is thus described :
Mr. Ross was a man of engaging personal appearance. He was of moder- ate stature and well-formed, and of a benignant and agreeable countenance. Hlis manners were at once genteel and dignified.
MISS HULDAH E. JONES was married to William Ross in 1816. It was the author's most delightful privilege to become acquainted with her as the widow of William Rushmore, of
8 A gift of $1,200. See Bangs' ITist. M. E. Church.
" Rev. Myron Breckenridge in The Christian Advocate.
10 Rev. Nathaniel Kellogg.
1) Dr. Laban Clark, in Sprague's Annals.
12 Judge Dikeman-conversation with the author.
13 Conference Minutes, 1825, p. 476.
14 Bangs' Hist. M. E. Church.
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Old Sands Street Church.
Brooklyn, N. Y. Bright, cheerful, intelligent-one of God's precious saints, she lived to a ripe old age, and was called home in the early part of 1884 to mingle with the pure spirits she had loved on earth.
To these parents four children were born, namely : William Henry, drowned in 1824, aged three years ; Lucy Almira, mar- ried Stephen Crowell, Esq., of Brooklyn, died a few years since, a member of Summerfield Methodist Episcopal Church ; Mary E., married the Rev. Thomas H. Burch, died suddenly July 10, 1884, much lamented ; William G., died about 1860, in Brook- lyn, N. Y.
Dr. hans
REV. NATHAN BANGS, D. D.
XL. NATIIAN BANGS.
wo years as pastor and one year as presiding elder, the REV. NATHAN BANGS, D. D. was associated with Sands-street church. After Asbury died, no man in Methodism wielded a more potent and permanant influence than Dr. Bangs. He was born in Stratford, Conn., May 2, 1778. Removing to Stamford, Delaware Co., N. Y. when thirteen years of age, he grew up on a farm in that (then) frontier country, attended school when he could, and taught school at eighteen years of age. In 1799 he went to Canada, and, as teacher and surveyor, he resided in the Ni- agara region three years. There, through the faithful min- istry of James Coleman, and later of Joseph Sawyer, he "was powerfully affected," and led to consecrate himself to Christ. This was in 1800, when he was twenty-one years of age. For opening his school with prayer he was persecuted and driven away; but this severe treatment only drove him to closer fellowship with Christian people, and a more decided renunciation of the world. Stevens says:
He conformed himself to the severest customs of the Methodists. He had prided himself on his fine personal appearance, and had dressed in the full fash- ion'of the times, with ruffled shirt and long hair in a cue. He now ordered his laundress to take off his ruffles; his long hair shared the same fate, not, however, without the remonstrance of his pious sister, who deemed his rigor unnecessary, and admired his young but manly form with a sister's pride.1
He had been a Methodist about one year when he was li- censed, first as an exhorter, then as a local preacher. He very soon disposed of his surveyor's instruments, bought a horse and saddle-bags, and "rode forth to sound the alarm in the wilderness." Thus we come to his
MINISTERIAL RECORD: ISor, supply on Niagara cir., Canada, with Joseph Sawyer and Seth Crowell; 1802, (New York Conf.,) Bay of Quinte and
1 Hist. M. E. Church, vol. iii, p. 482.
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Old Sands Street Church.
Home Dist., with Jos. Sawyer and Peter Vannest ; 1803, ditto, with Jos. Saw- yer and Thomas Madden ; 1804, ordained deacon and elder-River Le Trench ; 1805, Oswegatchie cir., with S. Keeler ; 1806, Quebec ; 1807, Niag- ara cir., with T. Whitehead and N. Holmes ; 1808, Delaware cir., N. Y., with Robert Dillon ; 1809, Albany cir., with I. B. Smith ; 1810, New York, with Eben Smith, J. Robertson, Jas. M. Smith, and P. P. Sandford ; 1811, ditto, with Wm. Phobus, Laban Clark, Win. Blagborne, Jas. M. Smith, and P. P. Sandford ; 1812, appointed to Montreal, Canada, but deterred from go- ing on account of the war with Great Britain ; 1813-1816, presiding elder, Rhinebeck Dist. ; 1817, New York city, with D. Ostrander, S. Crowell, and S. Howe ; 1818, ditto, with Laban Clark, S. Crowell, S. Howe, and T. Thorp ; 1819, presiding elder New York Dist. ; 1820-1823, senior book . agent with Thos. Mason ; 1824-1827, ditto, with John Emory ; 1828-1831, editor of the Christian Advocate and Journal ; 1832-1835, editor of the Meth- odist Quarterly Review and books of the General Catalogue ; 1836-1840, resi- dent corresponding secretary of the Missionary Society ; 1841-1842, president of the Wesleyan University ; 1843, New York city, Second-street ; 1844-1845, New York, Greene-street ; 1846, Brooklyn, Sands-street, with J. C. Tacka- berry, sup'y ; 1847, ditto, with J. B. Merwin ; 1848-1851, (New York East Conf., ) presiding elder New York Dist. ; 1852-1862, superannuated.
He received fifty consecutive annual appointments, and yet, as pastor, presiding elder, book agent, editor, and superannuated preacher, he was a resident of New York for nearly half a cent- ury. His early efforts at preaching were attended with variable success, and he sometimes became quite discouraged ; but his zeal commended him to the conference, and, though absent, he was received on probation. Concerning the seven years of his heroic service in Canada his conference memorial says :
He braved the hardships of the itinerancy, traveling long circuits, sleeping on the floors of log-cabins or in the woods, fording streams, sometimes at the peril of his life, carrying with him food for himself and his horse, and eating his humble meals beneath the trees which sheltered him by night, preaching almost daily, facing wintry storms through unsettled tracts of land forty or fifty miles in extent, and suffering attacks of the epidemic diseases of the country, which sometimes brought him to the verge of the grave. IIe seldom received fifty dollars a year during these extreme labors and sufferings. He was sometimes assailed by mobs ; his life was imperiled by the conspiracy of persecutors to waylay him in the woods by night ; but he never faltered. He founded several new circuits and many societies. Ile preached from the west- ernmost settlement on the Thames River, opposite Detroit, to Quebec ; and, on leaving the country, records that he had proclaimed his message in every city, town, village, and nearly every settlement of Upper Canada .?
In one of his journeys he undertook to call on every family and pray with them ; and at only one house was he repulsed.
2 Minutes of Conferences, 1863, p. 64.
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Record of Ministers.
Dr. De Puy has thus described his return from the conference of 1804:
He went from New York by way of Kingston, along the northern shore of Lake Ontario, and thence westward to the River Thames. He lodged for the night in a log-hut, the last in the settlement. The next day he traveled forty-five miles through an unbroken wilderness, without a dwelling of any kind, and being guided only by the marks on the trees. He arrived at sunset at a solitary log-hut, weary, hungry, and thirsty. The best possible fare was hospitably afforded him, namely, some Indian pudding and milk for supper, and a bundle of straw for his bed. It was a real luxury.3
How the young itinerant learned an important lesson by his experience is thus told by one of his friends and successors in Canada :
While passing one day through a sparsely settled section of country, the weather being very cold and the newly-fallen snow quite deep, his mind be- came more than usually impressed with the value of souls, and his heart burned with desire to do all he could to save them. In the midst of his re- flections he came opposite a dwelling that stood quite a distance from the road in the field. Instantly he was impressed to go to the house and talk and pray with the family. He could see no path through the deep snow, and he felt reluctant to wade that distance and expose himself to the cold, and perhaps, after all, accomplish no good. Hle resolved not to go. No sooner had he passed the house than the impression became doubly strong, and he was con- strained to turn back. IIe fastened his horse to the fence, waded through the snow to the house, and not a sou! was there ! From that time he resolved never to confide in mere impressions.4
John Carroll says that Bangs had two sisters in Niagara cir- cuit. One of them, who afterward married the Rev. Joseph Gatchel, could exhort, as a certain brother declared, "like a streak of red-hot lightning." Nathan Bangs was married while in Canada, in 1806, to Miss Mary Bolton, of Edwardsburgh, Ontario. On the Delaware circuit, in 1808, he received his brother, Heman Bangs, into the church."
We have a striking illustration of his great zeal and endur- ance in his long ride on horseback from New York city to De- troit.7 His standing and influence in the church may be in- ferred from his having been eleven times a member of General
3 " One Hundred Facts," etc.
4 Dr. Fitch Reed, in Northern Christian Advocate, Jan. 14, 1863.
5 " Case and his Contemporaries," vol. i, p. 224.
6 Stevens' Hist. M. E. Church, vol. iv, p. 256
7. Ibid., P. 352.
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Conference, that is, of every one from 1808 to 1856, save that of 1848.
In eight years, by skillful management, he brought the Book Concern out of financial embarrassment, and became "the founder of that great institution in its present effective organi- zation." His memorial says :
At the time of his appointment to its agency it was sinking under debt ; it was comprised in a small book-store. on John-street ; it had no premises of its own, no printing-press, no bindery, no newspaper ; under his administration it was provided with them all.
During the same time he performed a very great amount of editorial work for The Christian Advocate and The Methodist Magazine. Of all his "vast and varied labors " the most hon- ored and important were in connection with the missionary cause.
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