USA > New York > Kings County > Brooklyn > Old Sands Street Methodist Episcopal Church, of Brooklyn, N.Y. : an illustrated centennial record, historical and biographical > Part 32
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Old Sands Street Church.
As I look upon the not-distant future I see devout disciples from our hum- ble mission in Foochow threading every province of the " Flowery Kingdom," and preaching Christ to the millions of the capital of China itself. I hear the words of truth sounding out from Bulgaria, and waking to a new life all of Russia from the wilds of Siberia to the palace of the czars. From altars and temples which Christian efforts have planted in the very heart of the domain of the " man of sin " himself I hear the sweet music of the untrammeled gospel as it swells from the classic banks of the " Yellow Tiber " through all the Alps made sacred by martyr blood. From the chapels of an unpretending worship which the gifts and prayers of the good are even now planting on the very soil, and in the metropolitan city where the Huguenots were slain, the notes of gospel grace go out over all France, and touch,' with strange and solemn power, the land of sorrow and of song. From Bremen and Copenhagen, and other centers of Christian life which mission efforts are now creating, I hear strains sublime borne on every breeze over Germanic States, while Scandinavia's old heroic heights send back their responses to the now-united song that sweeps from gulf to sea over all our new and grander realm. * * *
I would have every one feel that this is a privileged time in which we live, and while continents are trembling to the tread of coming and great events, and clouds of distress and the storm of battle are sweeping the nations as the thunder-gusts do, only to usher in the sweet serene of a blessed millennial day, I long to have every Christian and every Christian minister rise in thought and noble living to the real grandeur of his blessed privilege of be- ing a co-worker with God in bringing the whole race into loving allegiance to our Lord Jesus Christ.
He was one of the chief speakers at the great centenary celebration-a union meeting of the two New York Confer- ences in 1866-and his address on that occasion has been rarely equaled in breadth and beauty and power.
In 1872 the Indiana Asbury University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor in Divinity. He represented his annual conference in the General Conference of 1880. At the time of his death he was chairman of the New York Preachers' Meeting and a member of the Board of Managers of the Mis- sionary Society.
On Monday, June 12, 1883, he inquired at the office of The Christian Advocate concerning Bishop Foss, who was then in a critical condition. He proceeded to the preachers' meeting, where he presided as usual. In the afternoon he assisted in laying the corner-stone of the Methodist Episcopal church in Harlem, where he had been pastor a few years before. On the morning of Wednesday, the 14th, he left his home, in Brooklyn, apparently in good health, and, hurrying to overtake his friend F. G. Smith, he was seen to halt and turn into a grocery store
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on Fleet-street. Leaning against an ice-box, he said, I am faint." He settled down upon the floor, and instantly " as no- ble a heart ceased to beat as ever dwelt in house of clay."
At his funeral, in the New York Avenue church, Brooklyn, the house was densely packed, and many persons could not ob- tain standing room. The ministers who took part in the serv- ices were Drs. Kettell, Curry, Goodsell, Sanford, Merwin, and Pullman, and the Revs. G. Hollis, T. H. Burch, and W. T. Hill.
Dr. Weed was a man of striking appearance, a little above the average height, with broad, square shoulders and erect car- riage. His head was of good size, but his features were unusu- ally small and delicate, and it was sometimes a matter of re- mark that a man with so small a mouth could be so fine an orator. His eyes were gray and of a clear expression, his hair black and glossy, and his smoothly shaven face gave him the appearance of a Roman Catholic priest, for which, it is said, he was sometimes taken. Dr. Buckley, in The Christian Advocate, wrote thus concerning him :
HIe was always a gentleman and absorbed in the work of the ministry, at- taining more uniform success than is common to ministers who make frequent changes. As a pastor he had no superior. The writer twice followed him, first at the Summerfield church, in the city of Brooklyn, and then in Stamford, Conn. No neglect of duty, in a single instance, was alleged against him, and the personal hold that he had upon many individuals and families, and the use which he made of it, evinced the qualities which make the efficient pas- tor. * * *
Conscientious fidelity marked his whole career, conscious painstaking devotion to all things, small and great. This, when applied to the improve- ment of his powers as a public speaker, showed itself sometimes in a painful attention to details of pronunciation. His publie efforts. however, were al- ways interesting to the great mass of his hearers. It was possible for him to surprise even his best friends by an occasional effort of rare excellence. *
lle was a special friend of John B. Gough, the temperance orator, who had a high opinion of his powers as a speaker, and of the late Dr. Woodruff, who requested him on his death-bed to prepare the memorial of his life for this paper.
His sermons were thoughtfully prepared and usually written, . but he used only brief notes in the pulpit, and preached with the ease and animation which belong more particularly to ex- temporaneous address. His voice was strong and penetrating, not especially musical, but resounded like a trumpet, and seemed full of impassioned fervor when conveying the grand
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Old Sands Street Church.
truths of the gospel to the hearts of men. One of his brethren writes from an intimate acquaintance with his habits as a preacher :
His subjects, usually practical, were selected and treated with an obvious aim to be useful. Tenaciously holding the grand verities of the evangelical system, he assumed them as settled points in all his pulpit work, seldom or never opening them for an analysis or debate. A worker, even more than a thinker, regarding truth rather with a view to immediate practical uses, he was never trammeled with doubts, but aimed, by a natural logic, to work such truths into the convictions of his hearers, and by fervid natural eloquence to impress them upon their hearts.2
His great heart was always young, and earnestly enlisted in the Sunday-school work. He never lost his interest in the Sands-street Sabbath-school, and he was often seen and heard at its anniversary gatherings. His attachment to the Sands- street church was only equaled by his devotion to the old John-street church. No man in later years did more than he to promote the honor and usefulness of that venerable home of Methodism in New York. His virtues are appropriately com- memorated by a marble tablet on the walls of the old church.
JULIA M., his first wife, experienced the pardoning love of God in her sixteenth year. She died during the second year of her married life, June 21, 1851, leaving a helpless babe ; but " every object and interest this side of the grave was commit- ted to the care of God. She requested that her husband might admit to her room all the neighbors and friends, that they might see how a Christian could die." 3
His second wife. CORNELIA AUGUSTA, after six years of in- tense suffering from cancer, closed, in Christian triumph, a pure and exemplary life, December 17, 1880. Both wives, with the husband, sleep in the Greenwood cemetery. Two sons by the second marriage are the only surviving members of the family.
2 Rev. T. II. Burch, in The Methodist.
3 A. 11. Mead, in The Christian Advocate.
Rial Goodall
REV. BUEL GOODSELL.
LXIX. BUEL GOODSELL.
ONG ISLAND was detached from the old New York District in 1840, and thenceforward till 1864, the Long Island District, including the entire is- land, was a presiding elder's charge. To this field the REV. BUEL GOODSELL was appointed in 1855, and during his term of four years the number of pastoral appointments increased from 48 to 58, and the number of members and probationers from 8,384 to 11,380. The pastors of Sands-street church during this time were Levi S. Weed, John Miley and John B. Hagany. Mitchell B. Bull was supernumerary pastor with Weed and Miley, and Wilbur F. Watkins was preacher in charge for a short time as a supply.
It is a matter of regret that so few of the facts of Mr. Goodsell's history are now within our reach. He was born July 25, 1793, in the town of Dover, Dutchess County, N. Y. When about sixteen years of age he professed conversion and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in Dover. Zenas Covel, the elder John Crawford, and Smith Arnold were the preachers on the Dutchess circuit that year. Five years lat- er, when not quite twenty-one years of age, he joined the New York Conference with Charles W. Carpenter, Wm. M. Stillwell, and seven other young men.
CONFERENCE RECORD: 1814, (New York Conf.,) Granville cir., Conn. and Mass., with C. Culver; 1815, Stowe cir., Vt., with G. Lyon; 1816, ordained deacon,-Plattsburgh cir., N. Y. with E. Barnett and J. M'Daniel: 1817, Middlebury, Vt .; 1818, ordained elder, -St. Albans, with J. B. Stratton; 1819, ditto, with J. Covel, Jr .; 1820-1821, Chazy, N. Y .; 1822, Charlotte cir., Vt., with L. Baldwin; 1823-1826, presiding elder, Champlain Dist .; 1827, Pittstown' cir., N. Y., with C. Prindle and M. Bates; 1828-1829, Schenectady; 1830, New York city cir., with S. Luckey, S. Merwin, L. Pease, S. Martin- dale, HI. Bangs, and S. D. Ferguson; 1831. ditto, with S. Merwin, L. Pease, S. Martindale, S. Landon, J. Clark, B. Sillick, and C. Prindle; 1832-IS33, (Troy Conf .; ) Troy; 1834-1837, presiding elder, Troy Dist .; 1838-1839, (New York Conf.,) New York, John-street; 1840-1841, North Newburgh
' Erroneously printed "Fitchtown," in the conference memorial.
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1842-1843, White Plains ; 1844-1845, Brooklyn, York-street; 1846-1847, New York, Willett-street ; 1848-1849, (New York East Conf.,) Norwalk, Conn. ; 1850-1851, Hempstead, L. I., N. Y .; 1852-1853, New Rochelle ; 1854, Brooklyn, Franklin ave .; 1855-1858, presiding elder, Long Island Dist .; 1859-1860, Greenpoint ; 1861-1862, Far Rockaway and Foster's Meadow ; 1863, East Chester and City Island.
His prominence among the preachers is indicated by the high grade of his appointments, and by his election as General Con- ference delegate in 1828, 1832, and 1836.
After he had traveled as a conference preacher about seven years, he was married to MISS EUNICE WILLIAMS. At thirty years of age he was appointed to preside over a district em- bracing both sides of Lake Champlain, extending eastward to the Green Mountains, and manned by some of the strong men of the conference, such as John J. Matthias, James Covel, Jr., Noah Levings, and Seymour Landon. While on this Champlain District he was sorely bereaved by the death of his wife and infant child. He was married on 18th of April, 1827, to Miss ADELINE FERRIS, of Peru, N. Y.
The Carlton avenue (now Simpson) church, of Brooklyn, was organized by him in the summer of 1844 ; and, on Sunday, July 13, 1845, he dedicated the first chapel erected by that society. His conference memorial gives the following account of his death :
He went to his appointment, [East Chester, ] the next Sabbath after re- ceiving it, and preached with great power, greatly exciting the hopes and strengthening the faith of the brethren. He returned [to Long Island] the next day (Monday) for his family and effects. The latter part of the same week he set ont with his wife and daughter in his own carriage for their new home, was arrested by disease on the way, called on his friend, Dr. Van Ness, [once a member of Sands-street church, ] in Brooklyn, where he received all the attention that affection and medical skill could suggest, and after lingering about a fortnight, amid alternate hopes and fears for the results, he died in great peace and holy triumph on the 4th of May, [1863, almost seventy years of age. ]2
He is buried in Cypress Hills cemetery. His record in the church is that of "a laborious, faithful, and successful servant of the Lord Jesus Christ," a scholar of respectable attainments, and a preacher of marked ability, more thoughtful and pro- found than his memoir in the Conference Minutes would imply, and at the same time often producing a marvelous emotional
2 Minutes of Conferences, 1864, p. 89.
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Record of Ministers.
effect upon his bearers. He did the work of an evangelist, and made full proof of his ministry, and many are the stars in his crown.
EUNICE WILLIAMS, the first wife of Buel Goodsell, was born December 4, 1797. She was left fatherless at ten years of age. At nineteen she sought the Lord at a camp-meeting near her home, and five years later she was married to Mr. Goodsell. She departed this life on 16th of March, 1826, aged twenty- nine years. A circumstantial account of her farewell to earth was written by her husband and published as a magazine article.3 It is a most affecting story of resignation and faith and triumph in the last hours of life. After comforting her weeping husband, she called her eldest daughter to her bedside, and imparted to the child a dying mother's blessing. Then followed most impressive appeals to others :
She said : " I shall.soon be gone, I must improve the moments that re nain." She began by addressing herself to her mother, saying, " Mother, I expect to meet you in heaven ; pa, too. Tell my sisters and brothers I expect to meet them in glory. Tell the rest of the family they have a heaven to gain and a hell to shun." After this she addressed an exhortation to every one present ; and O! with what words of fire and feeling did she exhort some of her uncon- verted acquaintances to seek religion and prepare for death, * * * adding, " I shall soon be with holy angels, with the great and good God, with the holy and blessed Redeemer ! Come, Lord Jesus ! come quickly ! Glory ! glory ! glory !"
Besides the infant, deceased, there are two daughters by the first marriage, Lucy Elliott, who married Jordan Searing, of Brooklyn, and Elizabeth Williams, who married James H. Chip- man, of Albany.
Mr. Goodsell's second wife, the faithful partner of his minis- try for thirty-five years, is now in the twenty-second year of her widowhood. She bore him seven children, the eldest of whom, Charles Buel, was graduated from the University of the City of New York, studied medicine, enlisted in the volunteer army, was wounded, and at the time of his death, in 1867, in his thirty- eighth year, was principal of a school in Yonkers, N. Y. The second son, Henry, died in infancy. Julia Adeline married Dr. Geo. A. Dewey, of Brooklyn, N. Y. The Rev. George Henry Goodsell and the Rev. Daniel Ayers Goodsell, D.D., are useful and honored members of the New York East Conference. . Mary C. married Thomas R. Ball, of Brooklyn, N. Y.
3 Methodist Magazine, 1826, p 293.
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LXX. no. Miley
OHN and Anna (Miller) Miley, the parents of the REV. JOHN MILEY, D. D., LL. D., were natives of Pennsylvania. Their ancestry was German. They were highly respectable people and Methodistic in their creed. In the year 1810 they emigrated from their home near Brownsville, Pa., and settled in Butler County, a little way east of Hamilton, in the state of Ohio. There John Mi- ley was born and reared on his father's farm. His father died when he was twelve years of age, and his mother when he was eighteen. He is now the only surviver of the family of five sons and two daughters.
When a boy he manifested an unusual taste for reading and study, and was sent to such schools as the neighborhood furnished, and later to a good school in Hamilton. At length he entered Augusta College, Kentucky, where Drs. Tomlin- son, Bascom, M'Cown, and Trimble were professors, and where he was graduated in 1838. One other Sands-street pastor, J. B. Merwin, was graduated at the same college six years earlier, and one of the same professors, H. B. Bascom, was a member of the faculty in Merwin's time.
Dr. Miley was converted in Hamilton, Ohio, in his fif- teenth year, under the ministry of the late Rev. John. A. Baughman. The church was in an active state at the time, but there was no special revival. Young Miley improved his gifts in the meetings, and was licensed to exhort in 1833, and to preach in 1834.
MINISTERIAL RECORD: 1838, (Ohio Conf.,) Batavia cir., O., with D. Whitcomb; 1839, Cincinnati, Western charge, with W. H. Raper; 1840, ordained deacon-Hamilton and Rossville circuit; 1841, Chillicothe circuit; 1842, ordained elder-ditto, with John Barton; 1843-1844, Columbus; 1845- 1846, Zanesville, 7th-street; 1847, Cincinnati, Wesley Chapel; 1848-1849, pro- fessor of languages and mathematics in Wesleyan Female College; 1850-1851,
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Record of Ministers.
Cincinnati, Morris chapel ; 1852-1853, (New York East Conf.,) Brooklyn, Pacific-street ; 1854-1855, Williamsburgh, South Second-street ; 1856-1857, Brooklyn, Sands-street, with M. B. Bull, sup'y ; 1858-1859, Danbury, Conn .; 1860, New York, Forsyth-street; 1861, ditto, with E. L. Janes ; 1862-1863, Bridgeport and Fairfield, Conn .; 1864-1865, New Rochelle, N. Y .; 1866-1868, (New York Conf.,) Newburgh; 1869-1871, Sing Sing ; 1872, Peekskill, St. Paul's ; 1873-1884, professor in Drew Theological Seminary, Madison, N. J.
He was married, June 9, 1840, to OLIVE C. PATTERSON, in Ba- tavia, Ohio. His ministerial brethren elected him to the Gen- eral Conferences of 1864, 1872, and 1876. The Ohio Wesleyan University conferred upon him the degree of D.D. in 1859, and the degree of LL.D. in 1872.
As preacher, pastor, and teacher, Dr. Miley has proved him- self to be a workman that needeth not to be ashamed. Re- vivals have attended his labors on several charges. He is now faithfully serving the church in one of those eminent and re- sponsible positions which only the best and ablest men can acceptably fill.
Dr. Miley has written extensively for various periodicals, and is the author of two important works, which have been widely read and highly commended. The first is entitled " Class- Meetings," and the second, "The Atonement in Christ."
OLIVE CHICHESTER, his wife, died in Madison, N. J., August 29, 1874. "She was rich in the best womanly endowments, true and good, intelligent, bright, full of kindly sympathy, but for many years feeble in health. During her extreme suffering she exhibited, in a remarkable measure, the sweet graces of the Christian life."1 She is buried in a beautiful cemetery in Morristown, N. J. Three months previous to her death a beloved Christian daughter, a teacher in Dr. Van Norman's school in New York city, passed on to the heavenly rest. The entire list of the children is as follows: Annie Brooks, Olive Comfort, Sallie Foster, John William.
1 Editorial note in The Christian Advocate.
LXXI.
W. F. WATKINS.
s a supply for a brief season, the REV. WILBUR FISK WATKINS, D.D., when a very young man, was pastor of the Sands-street church. A recently-published sketch contains the following account of his birth and childhood :
Hle first saw the light on the 9th of July, 1836, in the city of Baltimore, Md. His early youth was spent in that city, where his father hoped to es- tablish him at a proper time in a mercantile life. But in his young boyhood Wilbur was noted for his religious impressionability and exemplary con- duct, and his dreams and hopes for life were quickly centered on the ministry.1
After studying at the Govanstown Academy, he entered Dickinson College when sixteen years of age; but severe appli- cation to study undermined his health, and for this reason he left college at the close of his sophomore year, and being less than eighteen years of age, began his ministerial career as a junior supply on one of the circuits in the mountains of Penn- sylvania. He rode horseback with saddle-bags, after the fash- ion of the fathers. The biography already referred to says :
This exercise in the bracing air of the mountains brought back the wasted vigor, and imparted additional strength, developing the slight youth into a sturdy and robust man. His first sermon was preached on Manor Hill, Pa., from the text, " I have fought a good fight," etc., thus beginning his procla- mation of the g' od news of God by anticipating the close.
This brings us to his
MINISTERIAL RECORD : 1854, supply in the Allegheny Mts .; 1855, (Balt. Conf.,) Manor Hill cir., Pa., with J. W. Haughawout; 1856, West Harford cir., Md., with F. Macartney ; 1857-1858, "located," student in Biblical Institute, Concord, N. II .; 1858, (April and May,) Brooklyn, Sands-street, supply ; 1858, (several months,) Lawrence, Mass., supply ; 1859, (New York East Conf .. ) Mamaroneck, N. Y .; 1860, ditto, with N. Tibbals, sup'y ; 1861, ordained deacon ; 1861-1862, New
' Hanson Place Quarterly, October, 1883. Sketch by the Rev. Charles A. Tibbals.
Desgy
REV. WILBUR F. WATKINS, D. D.
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York, Twenty-seventh-street ; 1863-1865, Brooklyn, Washington street : 1866- 1868, Brooklyn, Hanson Place; 1869-1870, New Haven. Conn., First ch .; IS71, withdrew : 1871, ordained deacon in the Protestant Episcopal Church by Bp. Littlejohn, of Long Island,-assistant minister, St. James Church, Brooklyn, in charge of St. Barnabas Mission-later in the same year, ordained priest-rector, St. Barnabas ; 1872-1875, rector of the Church of the Epiph- any, Washington, D. C .; 1876-18So, rector of Christ Church, Baltimore, Md .; 1881-1884, rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, New York.
As the " boy preacher " in Pennsylvania and Maryland, it is thought that " he enjoyed the sweetest notoriety of his life; " but, being conscious of the need of a systematic theological training, he stepped aside from the conference and entered the theological school in Concord, N. H. There the author formed his acquaintance, heard him preach, and spent many pleasant hours in his company.
In the midst of his theological course Mr. Watkins visited Brooklyn, and was invited to address the Juvenile Missionary Society of the Sands-street church on the first Sabbath in April, 1858. That was the spring of the " great revival." It hap- pened that year that the New York Conference met in May, several weeks after the session of the New York East Confer- ence. Dr. Miley, of the latter, was the retiring pastor ; Dr. Hagany, of the former, was the coming pastor. Services were held in Sands-street every night. Mr. Watkins preached sev- eral times during the week succeeding the missionary anniver- sary, and considerable interest was manifested. The pulpit being vacant, and this young and talented minister being on the ground, the official board of Sands-street church passed very complimentary resolutions concerning Mr. Watkins, and peti- tioned the faculty at Concord to grant him leave of absence until Dr. Hagany's transfer. That petition was granted, and, by appointment of the presiding elder, Buel Goodsell, he was in charge of Sands-street church for a few weeks. He preached every night during the week and twice on Sundays, and there were many conversions. .
His work at Sands-street led to his invitation to the church in Mamaroneck. Under his administration a new church was built at the latter place, and Methodism received a new im- pulse. While there, in 1860, he was married at the age of twenty- four to MISS ESTHER GRIFFIN, daughter of the late Schure- man Halstead, one of the most eminent Methodist laymen of New York. During his pastoral term in the Washington-street
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church, as the successor of Dr. De Hass, that church nearly reached its zenith in respect to members and strength. In Hanson Place church he followed the Rev. George W. Wood- ruff, and his ministry was there, as elsewhere, a very marked success. He was prostrated by a severe illness while serving this church, but a three-months' stay in the West Indies re- stored his health.
An Episcopalian rector, who likewise was formerly a Method- ist pastor, gives the following history of the change which took place in Mr. Watkins' church relations :
From Hanson Place Mr. Watkins went, in response to a call, to the First Methodist Episcopal Church of New Haven, Conn., where he was admired and beloved as pastor and preacher, as he had been in all places where he had exercised those holy offices. But here a change was made in his views and convictions which was destined to alter his whole after-life. It was not suddenly or quickly done, but rather it was the expression of thoughts and purposes which had been growing within him for years. Although so re- markably successful in his work, and to all appearances so admirably adapted to it, Mr. Watkins had for years been feeling less and less at home in the Methodist connection. It was in New Haven that the conchision forced itself upon him that if he were to make the change, of which he had thought so long and earnestly and prayerfully, it must be done at once, without fur- ther delay.
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