USA > New York > Oneida County > Utica > One hundred years of Trinity Church : Utica, New York > Part 2
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Trinity Church saw Utica cradled. We grew up around this church. Here on Broad Street were the culture, refine- ment and wealth of the early settlers located. A change has come over us. The wealth and fashion of Utica, like other cities, have taken themselves to the hills, they are moving up on higher ground, and business and manufacturing establish- ments are encroaching on old Trinity's parish. We all hope that in the march of progress in this city, Trinity will keep abreast of the times, and that she, too, will go to the hill and seek a larger vineyard and build a church worthy of her noble record. As she was with us in the beginning, we all hope she will continue to shower her blessings upon us "till time shall be no more."
For The Oneida County Historical Society. MR. THOMAS R. PROCTOR.
"I am reminded that but for an accidental lack of courtesy I should doubtless be one of you at this time," said Mr. Proc- tor. "Many years ago, when I came here as a stranger, I met one or two families who attended this church, but no word of encouragement came from them, and so with my family I went to another church, where I was met with the usual per- functory reception of a sexton, and was shown to a pew-one of the poorest-and I have been in the same location ever
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since. There has been one great improvement inaugurated in most of our churches since those days. Prominent young men of the congregation now act as ushers, and meet strang- ers with a pleasant smile, and show them to the best seats at their disposal. There is nothing so gratifying to a stranger's heart as a cordial welcome in the house of God.
But I am here as the representative of the Oneida Historical Society. When I received the courteous note of your rector inviting me to be present I wondered what possible connec- tion could there be between Trinity Church and the Oneida Historical Society, and then I remembered that the historical society was founded by Horatio Seymour, Charles W. Hutch- inson and others of Trinity Church, and some other promi- nent citizens. Gov. Seymour was our first president, and re- mained in office during his life; he was at the same time the senior warden of Trinity Church. So we are an off-shoot of old Trinity, or perhaps we may be better considered a lay mis- sion. As such it seems proper that we should give a brief ac- count of our stewardship.
The society was founded in 1876, and has prospered ever since. It was the means-under the guiding hand of John F. Seymour, whom many of you will remember as a most courteous and kindly gentleman-of the building of the monu- ment on the battle field of Oriskany, which stands to com- memorate a most important battle of the revolution. It has assisted in the building of other monuments. It has col- lected a library of several thousand volumes, many of them relating to the early history of this vicinity, which is always open for the use of students, historians and others who take an interest in such matters. It has been honored by statesmen, historians, scientists and other distinguished men, who have delivered addresses and lectures in its hall-and these have been reported in the press of this city and State. So these ad- dresses and lectures have been read by thousands of people.
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It has in its new building many articles of historic interest, portraits, manuscripts, and the like. It has in many instances assumed the care of complete church records and other docu- ments relating to the early history of this vicinity.
During the past year there have been collected the battle flags of the Oneida County regiments, carried during the late war, and they have been deposited in a large case provided for that purpose. Here they will remain to speak to the present and future generations of the valor and patriotism of Oneida's sons. This will give you some idea of the work done by the Oneida Historical Society. It hopes and expects to continue its vigorous policy, and that it will commend itself to the good will and support of the people of Central New York. To-day we join with other associations and institutions, and in fact with all the people, in wishing that only good things may come to Trinity Church." .
The Early History of the Church in the Lower Mohawk Valley.
BY THE REV. J. PHILIP B. PENDLETON, D. D., RECTOR, ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH, SCHENECTADY, N. Y.
The invitation of my reverend brother, the Rector of this Parish, to be present at this centennial anniversary, and to read a paper on "The Early History of the Church in the Mo- hawk Valley," was accompanied, I am frank enough to say, by a suggestion of the appropriateness of such action on my part, rather than by an allusion to any special qualifications that I might possess for the undertaking. "As you represent," he writes, "the oldest parish in the valley at the Eastern end, and Trinity, Utica, the oldest at the Western end, I thought it most appropriate to ask you to give such a paper at that time."
Regarding, therefore, both my hearers and myself on this occasion as victims of propriety, and before proceding to the more general considerations of our subject, let me venture
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to strengthen this plea of appropriateness by one or two his- torical reminiscences. From these, it will appear, I trust, peculiarly proper that the Rector of St. George's Church, Schenectady, should be here to-day to extend to Trinity Church, Utica, his hearty congratulations on the successful completion of its first century of corporate life, not only on the ground of geographical and chronological relationships, but also on account of personal influences and associations that have united these two parishes during this period, in a common work for the Divine Master. It may, perhaps, sur- prise some of you to hear me say, that St. George's, Schenec- tady, has been a potent factor in the establishment and devel- opment of this venerable parish, and perchance, you wonder on what grounds I feel authorized to make this statement. I will endeavor to explain.
In October, 1796, a little more than two years previous to the first visit of the Rev. Philander Chase to Utica, the Con- vention of the Diocese of New York (which then of course in- cluded the whole State), passed a Canon, from which we quote as follows:
"It is hereby ordained and directed that a committee, con- sisting of three clergymen and three laymen, of which the Bishop of this Church, for the time being, shall be chairman, shall be elected at each annual Convention, and shall continue in office until their successors shall have been appointed. They shall be styled 'The Committee of the Protestant Episcopal Church for the Propagation of the Gospel in the State of New York,' and shall have power to dispose of all such moneys as now are, or hereafter shall be, contributed for the purpose aforesaid, in such way as they may judge most expedient, or according to such directions as may hereafter be given them by the Convention."
In accordance with the provisions of this Canon, a commit- tee was immediately appointed, and funds were collected in
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the congregations of the Church throughout the State. The first general itinerant missionary that was appointed under this Canon was the Rev. Robert G. Wetmore, who spent portions of 1797 and 1798 in visiting the remote and unsettled parts of the State, and in supplying services for vacant parishes. Mr. Wetmore's labors were arduous and exacting. He travelled about 2,400 miles, performed divine service and preached 107 times, baptized 47 adults, and 365 infants, and distributed many copies of the Book of Common Prayer, as being in his opinion a most effective missionary agent. In the discharge of his duties, he had occasion frequently to confer with the Rev. Thomas Hillison, the rector of S. Peter's, Albany, and while there often came in contact with Mr. Philander Chase, a Can- didate for Holy Orders, who was pursuing his studies under the direction of the Rector of S. Peter's. Mr. Wetmore's en- thusiasm was contagious and when the state of his health prevented him from undergoing for a second year the fatigues incident to the itinerant work, the Rev. Mr. Chase volunteered to take his place, and was appointed by the committee as its second missionary. He was ordered deacon on May 10th, 1798, in S. George's Chapel, New York City, by the Rt. Rev. Samuel Provoost, and the Rev. Mr. Wetmore was advanced, at the same time, to the priesthood. The latter clergyman had spent considerable time during the preceding year in the neighborhood of Utica, officiating for several months at Paris, and he was strongly impressed with the advisability of begin- ning stated services at Utica.
He had evidently imparted his conviction to the new Mis- sionary, for we find in Bishop Chase's "Reminiscences" about this time, the following record of a visit that he paid to Mr. Wetmore, who had then become settled at Schenectady-"re- turning to Albany, and taking sweet counsel with the worthy Mr. Wetmore at Schenectady, the writer set his face towards Utica."
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May we not, therefore, very properly claim a share in the initiation of the movement which resulted in the establishment of Trinity, Utica? Not contented, however, with this early in- fluence, S. George's has been instrumental on several other oc- casions in furnishing the men to carry on the work of God in this parish. Of the eighty-nine years of her history covered by permanent rectors, twenty-seven years, or nearly one third of the whole period, have been occupied by the supplies from S. George's.
After a rectorate of fifteen years in Schenectady, the Rev. Pierre Alexis Proal came to Utica, and for over twenty years guided the affairs of Trinity parish with rare sagacity, untiring energy and intense spirituality, and for a period of seven years, a son of S. George's by Baptism, Confirmation and Ordination, the reverend brother who is to succeed me on this occasion with an address, the immediate predecessor of the present Rec- tor, discharged the duties of the rectorship with unfailing cour- age and incessant devotion. And since writing the above, I learn that the present Rector of Trinity, while an under- graduate in Union College, was a member of S. George's Parish, and a teacher in the Sunday School, and speaks of Schenectady as his "second home."
With such a record, have I not substantiated my claim, and demonstrated to your satisfaction the peculiar appropriateness of the presence on this occasion of the Rector of S. George's, Schenectady.
To return, however, from this digression, let me offer a word or two of explanation, as to the method and scope of the treatment of the subject that has been adopted by the writer on the present occasion.
The field is so extensive, the accumulation of material is so vast, the facts to be noted are so interesting, and the fascina- tion of the subject is so engrossing, that he has experienced
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Trinity Church, Utica, N. Y.
considerable difficulty in determining where to begin and where to end, what to narrate and what to omit.
Should any one be disposed, therefore, to criticize the length of this sketch, let me volunteer the trite remark that "If I had had more time I would have made it shorter;" should any of my brethren be inclined, on the other hand, to think that they have been slighted, let me suggest that on this occasion at least, "age comes before beauty," and that unless a parish can trace the initiatory movement of its existence to a period prior to the beginning of the present century, it has been purposely, though in some instances very reluctantly, excluded from our narrative.
The Jesuit Mission in the Mohawk Valley.
In this locality and in view of some quite recent publications which add considerable interest to the early efforts of the French Missionaries among the Indians of the Five Nations, I have thought that it might be interesting, before passing on to the history of our own Communion, to allude briefly to the labors of that noble band of Christian heroes who, "Despising ease, comfort, life and every attachment which nature renders dear to man, endured captivity, suffering and mutilation,' that they might preach among the heathen 'the unsearchable rich- es of Christ.'"
It is somewhat of a coincidence, that the first written de- scription of the Mohawk Valley, occurs in a letter of Arendt Van Curler, a resident of the colony at Rensselaerwyck (Al- bany), and the future founder of Schenectady, to the Patroon, Kilian Van Rensselaer, of Amsterdam, Holland, under date of June 16th, 1643. The contrast of its rich and varied scenery, to the monotonous and barren sand plains which he had tra- versed in his journey thither from Beverwyck, made an in- delible impression upon his mind, and induces us to place him
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at the head of that long list of writers who, whether in prose or poetry, have descanted on the natural beauties of this far famed valley.
"Within half a day's journey from the Colonie," he writes, "lies the most beautiful land on the Mohawk River that eye ever saw." The immediate cause of Van Curler's journey was for the purpose of visiting the lower castle of the Iroquois, and of obtaining the release of several Frenchmen whom the war- like Mohawks had recently taken prisoners. Among these was the saintly Isaac Jogues, learned Jesuit Missionary, "One of the first to carry the cross into Michigan, and now the first to bear it through the villages of the Mohawks."
To save these unfortunate men, Van Curler, in company with two friends, had set out from the colony of Beverwyck, provided with suitable presents, and upon his arrival at the Indian castle, called together the various Mohawk chiefs, and demanded the release of their captives, offering at the same time for their ransom, a generous gift of money, which to their honor be it recorded, the Dutch settlers of the Colonie, "for- getful of all differences of creed, and actuated by the holy im- pulses of the Gospel, had generously subscribed to purchase the freedom of their Christian brethren."
The savages, however, were not to be moved, either by ap- peals to ancient friendship, or by the influence of the gifts. All that Van Curler could accomplish was the promise, on the part of the Mohawks, that they would spare the lives of their prisoners and restore them at some future time to their country. Meanwhile war-parties were continually going out against the French and Indians of Canada. If they were de- feated and slain, Father Jogues was threatened with death at the stake; and if they came back, as they usually did, with booty and captives, he was obliged to see his countrymen and their Indian friends mangled, burned, and devoured, for it is an undeniable fact that the Mohawks were cannibals. Jogues
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went about from town to town ministering to the Christian prisoners, and converting and baptizing the heathen. He had baptized up to the time of his escape, about seventy of the children of the Mohawks and their neighbors, and began to regard his captivity as a Providential interposition for the sav- ing of souls. So conscientious was he with regard to this sub- ject, that when on the occasion of his visit to the settlement of Fort Orange (Albany), he was offered by Van Curler an opportunity to escape from his Indian captors, he greatly as- tonished that worthy Dutchman by asking for a night to con -. sider the matter and to take counsel of God in prayer. And when he finally decided to accept the kind offer, his spirit was sorely troubled, as to whether or not he was justified in such action.
After experiencing various painful vicissitudes, he reached his home in France on January 5th, 1644, but after a short period of recuperation, during which he was the recipient of royal honors from the Queen, the yearning for his work among the Indians overpowered him, and in the spring of that same year he returned to Canada. After remaining in Mon- treal for two years, he set out again to visit the land and the people of the Iroquois. His errand was partly political, part- ly religious. While he was the bearer of gifts and messages from the French governor, he was also prepared to establish a new mission, designated in advance with a prophetic name, "The Mission of the Martyrs." It was shortly after this, on October 18th, 1646, that he obtained the crown of martyrdom. "Thus died Isaac Jogues," writes Francis Parkman, in his history of "The Jesuits in North America," "one of the purest examples of Roman Catholic virtue which this Western con- tinent has seen."
In the course of the following year Father Bressani, another Jesuit Missionary, fell into the hands of the Iroquois, and en- dured every variety of torture that the cruel malice of his
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captors could devise, until he also was rescued from their hands by the payment of a generous ransom, on the part of the Dutch settlers at Fort Orange. The mission to the Iro- quois was continued by the Jesuit Missionaries Le Moyne, Garmier, Fremin, Bruyas and others, until in 1684 Jaegues de Lamberville, the last Jesuit teacher among them departed for Canada amid the lamentations of the Onondagas, who escorted him to his northern home, and in a few generations all ves- tiges of the work of these devoted men had apparently van- ished from the Mohawk Valley.
First Services in New York.
In the year 1664, the members of our American Church, which was then known as "The Church of England in Ameri- ca," first held stated religious services in the City of New York, in the Dutch Chapel that had been erected in the fort which stood near the Battery. With the exception of the Chaplains to this fort, and one peculiar representative of the ministry who had made his appearance in Albany, in 1674, there seems, in the language of an early writer to have been "no face of the Church of England in the Colony of New York," so far as its clergy were concerned, until the year 1697, when the Rev. William Vesey was ordained by the Bishop of London, and settled over the parish of Trinity, New York, the charter of which had been signed at the Fort by Governor Fletcher, on May 6th, 1697.
Schenectady in 1695.
The first clergyman of the Church of England to visit the Mohawk Valley, of whose visit we have any record, was the Rev. John Miller, who was Chaplain to the fort at New York City from 1692-1695. He visited all the up-river posts, includ- ing Schenectady, and returned to England in this latter year. His manuscript "Description of the Province and City of New York, with plans of the city and several forts as they existed
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Trinity Church, Utica, N. Y.
in the year 1695," is in the British Museum. His map of Schenectady is one of the earliest extant after the burning of the town in 1690, by the French and Indians from Canada.
After giving a description of Albany, he thus refers to Schenectady, "Dependent on this city (Albany), and about twenty miles northward from it, is the Fort of Scanectade quadrangular with a treble stockado, with a new block house at every angle, and in each block house two great guns." At this time, the garrison at Schenectady consisted of a detach- ment of about thirty soldiers from the forces at Albany. These occupied the block houses, and there were besides these with- in the stockade, twenty-eight houses of the settlers, and two "long houses" of the Mohawk Indians. At this time there was no minister in the Dutch Church, and it is quite probable that on the occasion of this visit, the Rev. Mr. Miller held the first services of the Church of England in Schenectady in "the block-house known as the Church."
Mr. Miller's "Description" is dedicated "To the Rt. Rev. Father in God, Henry, Lord Bishop of London," and is ex- ceedingly valuable for the light which it throws upon the con- dition of the Colony at this time, as well as for the elaborate suggestions which he offered for the establishment of an American Episcopate. In striking contrast to the energy and zeal which had been displayed by the French in their labors to convert the Iroquois, he places before us the indifference and neglect of the English government.
After treating of various other evils which existed in the province he thus refers to this subject: "The next thing in this province blameable is the heathenism of the natural Indians who here, in the very heart of a Christian country, practice their barbarous and devilish customs and modes of worship, notwithstanding it is now sixty years and more since Chris- tians first inhabited this country, and thirty years since the English were possessed thereof especially when the
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Indians are so inclinable to receive the Christian faith, as they have made appear they are, both by that considerable number of the Mohawks whom Dr. Dellius has converted (though by a method not so exact and prevalent as might be used), and those Oneidas converted to Popery by the Jesuit Millet, much to the advantage of the French," one of the Mohawks, indeed, who had migrated to Canada having recently said "that he had lived long among the English, but they had never all that while had so much love for him as to instruct him in the con- cerns of his soul, and show him the way of salvation, which the French had done upon their first acquaintance with him."
As a remedy for the evils which he had enumerated, he offers the following suggestion, "The great, most proper, and as I conceive effectual, means to remedy and prevent all the disorders I have already mentioned, and promote the settle- ment and improvement of religion and unity, both among the English subjects that are already Christians, and the Indians supposed to be made so, is that his Majesty will graciously please to send over a Bishop to the province of New York." Among other details of this suggestion, in order to provide for his support, he recommends that the Bishop should be re- garded as a suffragan of the Bishop of London, and that he should have affixed to his ecclesiastical office, that of the Governor of the Province.
Mr. Miller thus places himself on record as among the first of that long list of special pleaders for an American Episcopate, whose earnest pleas were not to be granted by the officials of Church and State, until nearly a century had elapsed.
About six years after Mr. Miller's return to England, there was organized in London, largely through the efforts and rep- resentations of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bray, who had been ap- pointed as Ecclesiastical Commissary for Maryland, by the Bishop of London, in 1696, a society which was destined, un- der Almighty God, to exert a powerful and permanent influ-
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ence upon the religious history of the North American Colo- nies, and of this Mohawk Valley in particular. I refer to the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," more familiarly known to us as "The S. P. G."
At a missionary meeting in London, in 1878, in connection with the assembling of the Bishops of the Anglican Commun- ion at the Lambeth Conference, Bishop Littlejohn, of Long Island, could truthfully say, without any exaggeration, that "For nearly the whole of the eighteenth century this Society furnished the only point of contact, the only bond of sym- pathy, between the Church of England and her children scat- tered over the waste places of the New World. The Church herself, as all of us now remember with sorrow, was not only indifferent to their wants, but, under a malign State influence, was positively hostile to the adoption of all practical measures calculated to meet them." As another undesigned co-inci- dence in connection with this present anniversary, it may be stated that the charter of this venerable Society bears the date of June 16th, 1701.
Church Services in Schenectady.
In the Rev. John Miller's "Description of the Province and City of New York," to which we have previously referred, he recommends that a Chaplain should be allowed "to the sol- diers at Albany in particular (to be paid out of the advance of their pay), who are lately gone over, and to be sometimes changed with him at New York," and in 1708 we find that the Rev. Thomas Barclay occupied that position. In 1709 he was appointed a Missionary of the S. P. G., and officiated at Schen- ectady, and occasionally for the Mohawk Indians, at their set- tlement at Fort Hunter.
In a letter to the Secretary of the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel, under date of September 26th, 1710, he thus refers to his work at Schenectady :
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"At Schenectady, I preach once a month, where there is a garrison of forty soldiers, besides about sixteen English, and about one hundred Dutch families; they are all of them my constant hearers. I have this summer got an English school erected amongst them, and in a short time I hope their chil- dren will be fit for catechising.
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