USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > Old Sands Street Methodist Episcopal Church, of Brooklyn, N.Y. : an illustrated centennial record, historical and biographical > Part 25
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Thus actively from the first did he engage in Christian work but he did not receive the spirit of adoption until two years afterward. At this time, encouraged by his pastor, To- bias Spicer, he improved his gift in exhortation. Stevens quotes the following concerning him:
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After working at the anvil through the day, he would throw off his apron and paper cap, wash, and change his dress, and walk with Spicer to Albia, where he exhorted at the close of the sermons, 2
1 Clark in Meth. Quar. Review, 1849, p. 519.
2 Hist. M. E. Church, vol. iv, p. 263.
Record of Ministers.
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In 1807 he received from his pastor, Samuel Luckey, an ex- horter's license, and soon afterward he was licensed to preach. He was then twenty-one years of age. Samuel Luckey records that on coming to Troy he became deeply interested in the young blacksmith, finding him serious, modest, well-disposed, and of " an uncommonly brilliant mind ; " and he gives the fol- lowing interesting account of a meeting conducted by Levings while visiting Troy, during the first year of his ministry, which sets forth in a strong light the zeal and faithfulness of the young itinerant :
At the close of the evening service I returned to my house and left him at the church with a large number of his companions, who remained behind for the purpose of practicing in sacred music. After I had been at home a short time there came a lad running in great haste to apprise me that I was wanted at the church. Without knowing for what purpose I was going, I made my way to the church as soon as possible, and there witnessed a scene which is more easily conceived than described. I found Mr. Levings at the altar en- gaged in prayer, and about forty, chiefly young persons, kneeling around it, and, upon inquiry, I ascertained that this was the explanation : Mr. Levings was sitting in the altar while the young people were singing, and he observed a young lady sitting near, weeping. He went and spoke to her, and found that she was deeply concerned on the subject of her salvation. He asked her if he should pray for her, and when she answered in the affirmative he requested that the singing might be suspended, and proposed that they should join in prayer ; they did so, and such was the effect of the announcement that forty came and knelt with her. I have rarely witnessed a more affecting scene than was passing when I entered the church.
We here transcribe a list of his
CONFERENCE APPOINTMENTS : 1818, (New York Conf.,) Ley- den cir., Vt. and Mass., with I. Cannon ; 1819, Pownal cir., Vt., with D. Lewis; 1820, ordained deacon,-Montgomery cir., N. Y., with F. Draper ; 1821, Saratoga cir., with Jacob Hall ; 1822, ordained elder,-Middlebury, Vt. ; 1823-1824, Burlington ; 1825, Charlotte cir., with J. Poor ; 1826, ditto, with C. Meeker ; 1827, New York, with T. Burch, N. White, R. Seney, J. J. Matthias, and J. Field : 1828, ditto, with T. Burch, Coles Carpenter, J. Hunt," J. J. Matthias, and George Coles ; 1829-1830, Brooklyn, with James Covel, Jr. ; 1831-1832, New Haven, Conn. ; 1833. (Troy Conf., ) Albany, Garrettson station ; 1834-1835, Troy, State-street ; 1836-1837, Schenecta ly ; 1838, presid- ing elder, Troy Dist. ; 1839, Troy, North Second-street ; 1840-1841, Albany, Division-street ; 1842, Troy, State-street ; 1843-1844, (New York Conf.,) New York, Vestry-street ; 1844-1848, financial secretary Am. Bible Society.
While on the Montgomery circuit he was married to Miss Sarah Clark. In Brooklyn, in 1829, he was called to mourn the death of one of his children, " little Charles Wesley." A few
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Old Sands Street Church.
· months subsequently he accompanied John Garrison to Salem, N. J., to erect a monument over the grave of Benjamin Abbott.3 The Christian Advocate contains an account of a great revival under his ministry in Schenectady, in 1837. A warm personal friendship grew up between him and Dr. Nott, the president of Union College, on whose recommendation that institution con- ferred upon him the degree of D.D. While he was pastor in Schenectady he buried his mother. Four years later (1841) his father, who had been a Revolutionary soldier, died in Lockport, N. Y.
Dr. Levings was a member of General Conference in 1832, 1836, and 1840. A sermon of his on " The Foundation of the Church " was published,4 also an important historic article con- cerning John Garrison and Brooklyn Methodism.6 The orig- inal Methodist church edifice in Fair Haven, Conn., (now East Pearl-street, New Haven,) was built under his administration. He dedicated thirty-eight churches and preached nearly four thousand sermons. In the service of the American Bible So- ciety he traveled more than thirty-six thousand miles, and de- livered nearly three hundred addresses.
J. M. Van Cott, Esq., of Brooklyn, describes a sermon preached by Dr. Levings in the Sands-street church more than fifty years ago, exceeding, probably, all others he ever heard in its effect upon the congregation. It was on the eve of a revival effort. The text was, "Awake, thou that sleepest," etc. The preacher was all aflame with his subject. The excitement of the hearers reached a point beyond any precedent in the old Sands-street church. Though a Methodist people, they were an eminently cultured, decorous, dignified class of Method- ists, and yet they all rose to their feet; some stood on the seats, weeping, laughing, shouting-a marvelous example of the power of the preacher over the minds and hearts of his hearers. .
In an admirable memoir, written at his request by Dr. (after- ward Bishop) Clark, is the following clear and discriminating account of his characteristics as a preacher :
The cast of his mind was not that which grapples with profound truths and evolves mighty thoughts, but rather that which would take the popular and
3 Methodist Quarterly Review, 1849, P. 530.
4 See Methodist Magazine, May, 1828, p. 201.
5 Methodist Quarterly Review, 1831, pp. 258-273.
Record of Ministers. 261
practical view of things. His reasonings generally were of this tone and character. * * * ' He combined, in an unusual degree, close argumentation with apt and striking illustration and an animated and attractive delivery. ** * His manner was self-possessed, the intonations of his voice well-man- aged, and his gesture easy and appropriate.8
His remarkable fluency of utterance, and his great success as a platform speaker, are a matter of frequent remark. The author just quoted says of his social qualities :
His manner was affable and winning ; his heart was warm and generous ; his mind naturally fertile and lively, and stored with an inexhaustible fund of anecdote, coupled with a retentive and ready memory, a brilliant imagination- a striking aptness at comparison, and fine colloquial powers, made him a most delightful companion in social life. ** * Ile was an almost universal favorite.
In person he was " of medium size," with " a form remarkably symmetrical," and "a countenance strongly expressive of be- nevolent feeling." 1 .
In the early part of January, 1849, while on an extended tour in the service of the American Bible Society, he reached Cin- cinnati, Ohio, when sickness compelled him to halt. He was most lovingly cared for at the house of his very devoted friends, Mr. and Mrs. C. H. Burton, whose gratitude to him for the kind counsels and consolations he had imparted when he was their pastor in the East knew no bounds. From their hospit- able home, far away from his family, he was summoned to his reward on the 9th of January, 1849, in the fifty-third year of his age. His biographer says :
His sufferings were great, but in the midst of them all he enjoyed perfect peace, and signal was his triumph, through grace, in the last conflict. When he found that the great object of his earthly desire- to see his family once more in the flesh and to die among his kindred-could not be realized, he only exclaimed, " The will of the Lord be done." On one occasion, when he was sitting up, Brother Burton placed a large Bible to support his head that he might breathe more easily. Observing the letters upon the back, he ex- claimed, " Blessed book ! how cheerless would this world be without thy di- vine revelation." When Bishop Morris reached the city and hastened to the bedside of his dying friend, he said to him : " Thank God that I am permitted to see your face once more. I am not able to converse much, but I can still say, 'Glory to God !'" The Bishop inquired if he had any message to send to his brethren of the New York Conference. "Tell them," he said, " I die
6 Methodist Quarterly Review, 1849, p. 540.
7 Dr. Luckey, in Sprague's Annals.
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in Christ ; I die in the hope of the gospel. * * * All before me is light, and joyful, and glorious."
Bishop Morris preached his funeral sermon. His remains were buried in the city cemetery of Cincinnati; subsequently they were deposited in the Wesleyan cemetery, where it is said, " a suitable monument was erected to perpetuate his memory ; "8 and finally they were removed by the family to "Greenwood " in Brooklyn, N. Y. A head-stone marks his grave.
SARAH (CLARK,) his wife, was born in Amsterdam, N. Y., September 5, 1797. She died in New York, December 4, 1865, aged sixty-eight years, and was buried in Greenwood cemetery, by the side of her husband.
Their children are all dead. They were eight in number, as follows : Noah Clark, born in Middlebury, Vt., December 19, 1822; died February 12, 1823; Noah Clark 2d, born in Burling- ton, Vt., March 4, 1824, baptized by Buel Goodsell, died in New York, June 10, 1883, aged fifty-nine years-first a Method- ist, finally an Episcopalian, a physician by profession ; Francis Asbury, born in Monkton, Vt., June 17, 1826 ; died August 1, 1826 ; George Suckley, born in New York city, February 27, 1828 ; died January 14, 1865 ; Charles Wesley, born in Brooklyn, N. Y., July 18, 1829 ; died, July 30, 1829; Wilbur Fisk, born in New Haven, Conn., April 23, 1832; died October 9, 1833 ; Martha Inn and Sarah, twins, born in Troy, N. Y., April 7, 1835-Sarah died May 13, 1836, Martha Ann died July 24, 1840.
Allen Levings, M.D., of New York, son of the physician above named, is the only survivor among the descendants of the Rev. Dr. Noah Levings.
8 Rev. Myron HI. Breckenridge in The Christian Advocate, June 7, 1883.
REV. JAMES COVEL, Jr., M. A.
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LI.
JAMES COVEL, JR.
HE REV. JAMES COVEL, JR., A. M. ranks high among the honored pastors of the old Sands-street Church. Ilis father, James Covel, Sen., as stated by Parks in the "Troy Conference Miscellany," was the son of a Bap- tist minister, whose wife was a Methodist. He joined the Methodist itinerancy in 1791, located in 1797, and was a practicing physician for many years. He was one of the three preachers who ordained the first elders in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1822.' His wife, Sa- rah, mother of James Covel, Jr., became a Methodist in 1793, and stood firm and faithful in the midst of great persecution. She died at the residence of her son, Samuel Covel, in the city of New York, Mav 19, 1856, and her funeral was attend - ed by the Rev. Dr. J. B. Wakeley."
The elder Covel was stationed in Marblehead, Mass. in 1795, and there, on the fourth of September, 1796, the subject of this sketch was born. An interesting coincidence is no- ticed in the lives of James Covel, Jr. and Peter Jayne. Both were natives of Marblehead; both were converted at sixteen years of age; both began to preach within three years after their conversion, and both became pastors of the Sands- street Church.
The author of the memorial of James Covel, Jr., speaks of his early disrelish for study and the great improvement he afterward manifested in that respect.3 At seventeen he joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, and when about nineteen years of age he received his first license to preach, signed by Nathan Bangs, as presiding elder. The church claiming his service, he relinquished his trade, and gave himself up to a
' Rush's Rise and Progress of the African M. E. Church, p. 78.
2 Christian Advocate. In the Troy Conference Miscellany the maternal grandfather of the Rev. J. Covel, Jr is said to have been a Methodist preach- er. The same authority speaks of his brother as the Rev. Samuel Covel.
3 Parks' Troy Conf. Miscellany.
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Old Sands Street Church.
life-long service as a minister of Christ. The following is his
PASTORAL RECORD : 1815, supply on Litchfield cir., Conn., with Samuel Cochran, Billy Hibbard, and Smith Dayton; 1816, (New York Conf.,) Pittsfield cir., Mass., with Lewis Pease and Timothy Benedict, supply;4 1817, Brandon cir., Vt., with D. Lewis and C. H. Gridley; 1818, ordained deacon, - Dunham cir., Canada; 1819, St. Albans cir., Vt., with B. Goodsell; 1820, or- dained elder,-Ticonderoga cir., N. Y .; 1821, St. Albans cir., Vt., with A. Dunbar; 1822, Grand Isle; 1823, Charlotte cir., with C. Prindle; 1824, ditto, with I .. C. Filley; 1825, Peru cir., N. Y., with O. Pier; 1826, ditto, with P. Doane; 1827-1828, Watervliet; 1829-1830, Brooklyn, with Noah Levings; 1831, Williamsburgh, L. I .; 1832-1833, Newburgh; 1834, New Windsor cir., with N. Rice; 1835, ditto, with John R. Rice and T. Edwards; 1836, New York, west cir., with C. W. Carpenter, J. Z. Nichols, L. Mead, and E. E. Griswold; 1837, ditto, with C. W. Carpenter, J. Z. Nichols, A. S. Francis, and C. K. True; 1838-1840, (Troy Conf., )5 Principal Troy Conf. Academy West Poultney, Vt .; 1841, Fort Ann cir., N. Y., with W. Amer and W. Miller; 1842, ditto, with C. Devol and C. E. Giddings; 1843-1844, Troy, State-street, with John W. Lindsay, six months in 1844.
A venerable friend of Mr. Covel's wrote thus concerning the young preacher's labors as supply on Litchfield circuit :
His first and probably his only sermon preached in North Watertown, Conn., is in the recollection of the writer, then a lad of thirteen years. His youthful appearance is well remembered, as he applied himself to his work, with his coat off, on a winter's evening, in a crowded little school-house. It was near New-Year's-day, 1816.6
The people on his next circuit (Pittsfield, Mass.) were proud of their young preachers, Covel and Benedict, whom they called their "boy team." The boys while riding together one day were debating a biblical question, and agreed to leave it to Dr. Bangs, the presiding elder. "The doctor's decision favored Benedict's opinion. 'Well,' said Covel, with thoughtful earnest- ness, ' I will give it up, because I said I would, but I am no more convinced than I was before.' " ?
While in Ticonderoga, July 16, 1821, he was married to Miss Anna G. Rice. His ministry in Brooklyn was attended with unusual success. While there he reported in "The Christian Advocate " a three-days' meeting, resulting in over one hun-
4 Memoir of Covel in Troy Conference Miscellany.
5 His memoir in Conference Minutes, 1845, p. 600, says erroneously that he was transferred in 1835.
" Manuscript sketch by Dr. A. J. Skilton, of Troy, N. Y.
7 Parks's Miscellany.
Record of Ministers. 265
dred conversions. The statistics on page 43 of this work show a large increase of members.
Mr. Covel was a good preacher. He indulged in no flights of fancy in the pulpit, but was " concise, clear, strong, and im- pressive," and intelligent people were exceedingly pleased with his sermons. The Rev. Tobias Spicer writes :
He generally preached without manuscript, but sometimes had a brief out- line of his discourse. His preaching was generally expository. He had a happy art of keeping the attention of his audience.8
However, he was not a " splendid " preacher. One of his old friends and parishioners says of him :
Brother Covel, in the State-street charge, succeeded the Rev. Noah Levings, who was a Trojan, and at that time one of the most popular and able preach- ers of the day. Brother Covel was a man of the old stamp, able, sound, of good administrative ability, but he did not hold the congregation. In the fall of 1844 his health was poor, and the church asked for an assistant, and Bishop Hedding sent John W. Lindsay, then quite young, but he filled the place with perfect satisfaction, John Newland Maffit labored with us thirteen weeks, and there was a large number added to the State-street church, and all the churches in the city gained largely in numbers. * * * Of James Covel it may be said that his earnest and consistent life was a good example of the living gospel.9
Mr. Slicer gives a still further account of his friend :
In the social circle Mr. Covel rendered himself at once instructive and agreeable. * * When in company with his brethren in the ministry, he was fond of discussing some difficult passage of Scripture, or some knotty point of Christian theology.
In devout love of learning he had few superiors, and his at- tainments entitled him to a good position among educated men. The degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him by the Wesleyan University in 1835. His son makes the following statement :
My father was a great student. No time was lost with him, and his re- searches took a wide range ; yet he kept close to the one purpose of his life, the Christian ministry. It seemed to be his first great ambition to read the Scriptures in the original Greek and Hebrew, and so thoroughly did he ac- complish his purpose, that he was known frequently to recall from memory a quotation in the original, before he could remember the language of the translation.10
8 See Sprague's Annals.
9 Reuben Peckham, Esq .- letter to the author.
10 Wm. B. Covel-letter to the author.
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Old Sands Street Church.
Like many others distinguished for their diligence in study, his abstractions sometimes led him into ludicrous mistakes. On one occasion, when a friend entered his study, he gravely bade him good-bye. In the midst of his studies he " forgot his appointment to preach." 11 It is said that some of the preachers, who could not appreciate his studious habits, were kind enough to admonish him that " knowledge puffeth up."
He was a member of General Conference in 1832 and 1844. His chief literary works were a series of Question Books for Sabbath-schools, and a Bible Dictionary, 18mo, which passed through several editions. At the time of his death he was en- gaged in the preparation of a work, entitled " The Preacher's Manual." The unfinished manuscript remains as he left it. The accompanying portrait was copied from a painting made when Mr. Covel was about forty years of age. The counte- nance, though that of a scholar, is not " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," but indicates a robust physical condition. Tobias Spicer, in Sprague's Annals, says of him :
Mr. Covel was a man of noble appearance and bearing, rather above the ordinary height, and a little inclined to corpulency, but well proportioned. HIe had a full face, well-developed features, an intelligent expression, and a rather dark, sandy complexion. He was simple in his dress and manners, and as far removed as possible from even the semblance of ostentation.
He adhered with unswerving principle to " the conscientious performance of every conceived duty." In one of his last public acts he gave an instance of this fidelity. Our authority says :
At the great revival in the State-street church in Troy, when he was sta- tioned there in 1844-45, a large number were added to the church, and of these there were eighteen or twenty who desired to be baptized by immersion, and it fell to his lot to perform that service. He baptized them against the advice of his family physician, in the month of March, in the ice-cold waters of the Mohawk, because he deemed it his duty to do so. The result was a fatal termination of his malady in about six weeks thereafter. 12
After great suffering and a most beautiful and affecting fare- well to his family, he passed into everlasting rest during the session of his conference, on the 15th of May, IS45, in the forty-ninth year of his age. The last words he uttered were, " Tell Brother Mattison that I died happy." His funeral was
11 Park's Miscellany.
12 Wm. B. Covel's letter.
Record of Ministers. 267
attended by more than a score of his ministerial brethren, and Bishop Hedding preached from the words, " I am now ready to be offered," etc. He was buried in Mt. Ida cemetery, in Troy, and a plain head-stone marks the place of his rest. In the same lot are the remains of three other deceased members of the Troy Conference.
ANNA G., his wife, was born August 5, 1802, and was married to Mr. Covel before she was nineteen years of age, January 16, 1821. She died of paralysis, at the home of her daughter, in East Portland, Oregon, January 4, 1881, aged seventy-eight years. She spent the last ten years of her life with her children in the Far West. "She was dignified, cultured, thoroughly attached to the itinerant system-a noble woman in every re- spect." Her daughter writes :
At the time of her death no one would have supposed her to be in her seventy-ninth year. Her hair retained its glossy blackness, and her mind was bright and active. Until she lost consciousness she was in a very happy state of mind, beholding bright visions of angels and loved ones gone before 13
Her son pays the following tribute to her memory :
Of our dear mother we have only sweet and pleasant recollections. Though many years of her life were spent in suffering, she was always cheerful, pa- tient, full of hope ; her light shone brighter and brighter to the close of her long and peaceful life. So delicate were her sensibilities, that she was fre- quently in some anxiety of mind, lest inadvertently, by word or deed, she had offended in some particular. She now sleeps in the Lone Fir cemetery, in East Portland, Oregon, but the body will soon be removed to Oak Hill cem- etery, near San Jose, California. 14
Of the five children of James and Anna G. Covel who arrived at maturity, the eldest died in Dubuque, Iowa ; William B., resides in San Jose, Cal., (business, real estate ;) James E., of Lawrence, Kansas, is proprietor of the Lawrence Tribune ; Mary J., (Mrs. Briggs,) resides in East Portland, Oregon ; Cornelia, (Mrs. E. C. Lawrence,) resides in the State of New York.
13 Letter of Mrs. Mary J. Briggs.
14 Wm. B. Covel-letter to the author.
10
I.IT
HE REV. JOHN CHRISTIAN GREEN was born in the city of New York, May 2, 1798. His father, who was a physician, died when John was about twelve years of age. The marriage of John C. Green to Miss Esther Henry took place on the twenty-sixth of August, 1820. In less than two years thereafter he entered the itinerant minis- try of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
PASTORAL RECORD: 1822, (New York Conf.) Newburgh cir., N. Y., with Jesse Ilunt; 1823, Coeyman's cir., with B. Sillick; 1824, ordained deacon -Pittstown cir., with Benj. Griffen; 1825, ditto, with N. Rice and W. II. Norris; 1826, ordained eller-Whitehall cir., with W. P. Lake and Lorin Clark; 1827, Poultney, Vt .; 1823, Middlebury; 1829-1830, Albany, N. Y., south; 1831, Brooklyn, with C. W. Carpenter; 1832, ditto, with C. W. Carpenter and J. C. Tackaberry; 1833. New York, west cir. , with P. P. Sandford, F. Reed, J. Bowen, and C. W. Carpenter; 1834, ditto, with J. B. Stratton, F. Reed, D. DeVinne, and J. C. Tackaberry; 1835, Middletown, Conn .; 1836-1837, agent for Wesleyan University; 1838, New Paltz cir., N. Y., with E. Crawford; 1839, ditto, with Eben Smith; 1840, Montgomery cir., with S. Bonney: 1841, Mont- gomery and Middletown cir., with J. Davy; 1342-1843, New York, Green-st .; 1844-1845, Yonkers, with T. Burch, sup'y; 1846, Brooklyn, Centenary ch. and Flatbush; 1847, withdrew; 1848-1853, (August, ) pastor First Congregational Methodist church, Brooklyn.
Mr. Green was charged before the New York Conference in 1826 with the intemperate use of ardent spirits, but on ex- amination was acquitted.
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Record of Ministers. 269
In the year 1846, when Mr. Green was pastor of the Johnson- street church, Brooklyn, he allowed John Newland Maffit, whose character and authority as a minister were not at that time clear before the church, to preach in his pulpit, and refused to obey the bishop's instructions to erase his name from the church records.1 For this offense Mr. Green was suspended from the use of his ministerial functions for one year. Potter J. Thomas, of Brooklyn, and others, who were cognizant of all the facts, affirm that the official board, rather than the pastor, insisted on employing. Mr. Maffit; that Mr. Green presented the bishop's letter to the board, saying that he must act accordingly ; but the trustees replied that they felt bound to keep their engagement with Maffit, and that they would assume the entire responsibility, should the pastor be arraigned before the conference. Viewing the matter from their stand-point, the friends of Mr. Green considered his sus- pension by the conference a great injustice, and some of the reasons for this belief have been published .?
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