USA > New York > Westchester County > Origin and History of Manors in the Province of New York and in the County. > Part 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
The question is a purely historical one. And only in an historical point of view can, and will, it be con- sidered here.
From and after the English conquest of New York in 1664, excepting only the fifteen months that the Dutch reconquest of 1673 lasted, under all the Eng- lish Governors, their Chaplains maintained the ser- vices of the Church of England and performed all clerical duties in the chapel in the Fort in New York.
By the several "Commissions " and "Instructions" to the Governors under the signs-manual of their Sovereigns, and their several oaths of office, the dif- ferent Governors were commanded and compelled to maintain and support the Church of England in the Province of New York. This was the exercise in New York of a power which was legally vested in the Sovereign of England by the law of England, and which by his coronation oath he was bound to exer- cise. Although so strictly commanded, the Governors were unable to carry out their Instructions in any other way than in the King's chapel in the Fort, as above stated, for twenty-nine years. This was owing to the fact that the English speaking people in the
Province were so few in comparison with the Dutch, and the French, (the latter alone being one-fourth of the City population prior to 1790), that the church in the Fort was sufficient for their needs in the City ; while those in other parts of the Province where there were any English at all were so very few, that it was impossible to act at all in the matter. All this time it must be borne in mind that the Commissions and Instructions of the Governors were continually in force. At length the increase of the English population became sufficient to justify a movement putting them in operation. On the 28th of August, 1692, Colonel Benjamin Fletcher arrived in New York as Governor in the ship "Wolf," having been ap- pointed by William and Mary on the 18th of the preceding March.' He was warmly attached to the Church of England. Chief Justice Lewis Morris in a judicial opinion in 1701, speaks of him as "Colonel Fletcher (justly styled the great patron of the Church of England here)."" At his instance, pursuant to his Commission and Instructions, the Legislature, com- posed of the Governor, Council, and Assembly, an- swering to the present Governor, Senate and Assembly, passed on the 24th of March, 1693, seven months only after his arrival as Governor, "An Act for Settling a Ministry and Raising a Revenue for them in the City of New York, County of Richmond, Westchester and Queens Counties."+ This act gave an impetus to the Church of England in New York, which it never af- terwards lost. Under it and the efforts and support of a few English Churchmen in the City of New York who had organized themselves into a body styled "The Managers of the Church of England in New York," at the head of which was Colonel Caleb Heathcote, that Church began a growth, which has continued to this day. Increasing ever after, some- times faster, sometimes slower, that Church became during the Colonial era, as it has continued to be since the American Revolution, under its present title of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, the leading church in influence and standing, but not in numbers, in the City, Province, and now State of New York.
Under, or rather by, this Act of 1693, the Par- ishes of Westchester County were constituted.
The reasons why this "Ministry Act," as it was commonly styled, was confined to the regions it names in establishing the Church of England have not been adverted to by any writer who has mentioned it. The Counties it designates were the only portions of the Province in which English-speaking people dwelt, with the single exception of the County of Suffolk, in the eastern portion of Long Island. In all the other counties of the Province, the Dutch, with many French in two or three of them, were the sole inhabi- tants. In those counties the Dutch church, for fifty
2 III. Col. Hist., 846, 833.
3 Chalmers Opinions, 257.
" II. Bradford's Laws, 19.
1 II. Bradford, 39.
101
THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
years prior to 1664, the Established Church in the Province, with which the French Protestants, outside of New York City, generally affiliated, was maintained in its worship, privileges, property and dependence on the Church of Holland, by the Crown of England, pur- suant to the Articles of Surrender of 1664, the Treaty of Breda in 1667, and the Articles of Surrender of 1674. All that it really lost by the change of dominion from Holland to England was the pecuniary support it derived from the Dutch West India Company under the different charters of Freedoms and Exemptions, and the title of the ' Established Church.' Hence it was impossible to establish the English Church in those parts of the Province, where not only were there no English-speaking people, but where the pre- existing Dutch Church was guaranteed by the English Crown in its faith, worship, and rights of property, neither of which, by the law of the land, could be interfered with in any way whatsoever. In Suffolk County, the only other English-speaking region of the Province, there existed an Established church, the Congregational Church of New England. That County claimed to be a part of, and was claimed by, the Colony of Connecticut, was represented for years by delegates in the "General Court " at Hartford, and was an integral part of that Colony. As such, the "General Court," under the "Body of Laws of Connecticut, concluded and established in May, 1650," ruled supreme in church and state on the east end of Long Island. What that rule so "estab- lished " was, is best stated in the very words of "The Laws of Connecticut Colony." "It is ordered by the Authority of this Court; That no persons within this Colony shall in any wise imbody themselves into Church Estate without consent of the General Court, and the approbation of Neighbour Churches.
"It is also ordered by this Court; That there shall be no Ministry or Church Administration entertained or attended by the Inhabitants of any Plantation in this Colony distinct and separate from and in opposi- tion to that which is openly and publicly observed and dispensed by the approved Minister of the place, except it be by approbation of this Court and Neigh- bour Churches, upon penalty of the forfeiture of Five pounds for every breach of this order. .
"This Court having seriously considered the great Divisions that arise amongst us about matters of Church Government, for the Honour of God, welfare of the Churches, and preservation of the publick peace so greatly hazarded.
"Do Declare ; That whereas the Congregational Churches in these parts for the general ' of their Pro- fession and practice have hitherto been approved ; We can do no less than approve and countenance the same to be without disturbance until better light in an orderly way doth appear.
"But yet forasmuch as sundry persons of worth for
prudence and piety amongst us are otherwise perswad- ed (whose welfare and peaceable satisfaction we desire to accommodate; this Court doth Declare; That all such persons, being so approved according to Law, as Orthodox and Sound in the Fundamentals of Chris- tian Religion, may have allowance in their perswa- sion and Profession in Church ways or Assemblies without disturbance. . ..
" It is further ordered; That wheresoever the Minis- try of the Word is established according to the order of the Gospel throughout this Colony, every person shall duely resort and attend thereunto respectively upon the Lord's day, and upon such publick Fast dayes and dayes of thanksgiving, as are to be general- ly kept by the appointment of Authority. And if any person within this Jurisdiction, shall without just and necessary cause, withdraw himself from hearing the publick Ministry of the Word, after due means of conviction used, he shall forfeit for his absence from every such meeting five shillings. . . .
"It is ordered by this Court; That the Civil Authori- ty here established hath power and liberty to see the Peace, Ordinances and Rules of Christ be observed in every church according to his Word ; as also to deal with any Church member in a way of civil justice notwithstanding any Church relation, office, or inter- est, so it be done in a civil and not in an ecclesiasti- cal way, nor shall any church censure degrade or de- pose any man from any Civil Dignity, Office or Au- thority he shall have in the Colony.2
Such was the Established Congregational Church of Connecticut, on the East end of Long Island. To both it and the Colony, the final determination of the Joint-Commission appointed to settle the boundary question after the Dutch surrender, that the eastern part of Long Island was included in the Duke of York's Patent and was a part of New York, was a blow as severe as it was unwelcome, and the people of that region protested against it, but in vain. Al- though this decision severed the civil connexion between Suffolk County and the Colony of Connecti- cut, it did not affect the ecclesiastical connexion be- tween them except that it ended the latter's power to enforce its church laws there by the civil arm. And its effect is perceptible to this day, notwithstanding the fact, that Presbyterianism came there about 1717, and that, since the American Revolution, several other forms of Christian belief have obtained a foothold in that County. So strong was, and is, this old feeling, that the editor of the Southampton Records, published in 1877, says in his preface to the second volume, "Had the wishes of the people been consulted, this union would have still continued, and to-day our delegates to the Legislature, would ascend the Connecticut River rather than the Hudson." 3
These were the causes, the efficiency of which can-
1 So in the original.
" Book of the General Lawa, collected out of the Records of the General Court, pp. 21, 22. Brinley's Reprint of 1866, of the ed. of 1673. 3 Mr. W. S. Pelletreau.
102
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
not truthfully be denied, why the English Governors of the Province of New York, in obedience to the "In- structions " of the English King, could take no steps to establish the Church of England, except in those parts of that Province, where it could possibly be done.
The Church of England in New York originated not in this " Ministry Act " as has been so generally believed and stated, but in the earlier action of the English Sovereigns, in virtue of the law of England. That act was merely the second step taken in obedi- ence to the Royal Instructions. It was also an illustration of a principle, which obtained through- out British America from the earliest settlement of Virginia down to the close of the American Revolution. That principle was this, "that some form of religion, dissent from which in- volved serious civil disabilities was established in nearly all the Colonies by virtue, of either the local or the imperial law." These are the words of Ex-Pro- vost Stille of the University of Pennsylvania, in his "Religious Tests in Provincial Pennsylvania." 1 Mr. Stille has treated this subject so ably, and so well, and his conclusions being so nearly identical with those to which its investigation had already led the writer, that his statement (which has only appeared since this portion of this essay was begun) is here given in preference to the writer's own, which was not quite so full, and because it corroborates his views.
.
"The truth is," says Mr. Stille, "that during the Colonial period we were essentially a nation of Pro- testants, with fewer elements outside Protestantism than were to be found in any country of Europe, and that we, forced to do so, either by our own earnest conviction that such was the true method of support- ing religion, or by the laws of the Mother-country, took similar methods of maintaining and perpetuating our Protestantism, excluding those who dissented from it from any share in the government, and frankly adopt- ing the policy which had prevailed in England from the time of Queen Elizabeth. . . . . There were, it is true, in some of the Colonies, especially New York, at times ' ineffectual murmurings' against laws which forced people to pay taxes for the support of a ministry whose teachings were not in harmony with the re- ligious sentiment of the great mass of the inhabitants,2 and in Pennsylvania there was a long, and at last a successful struggle to induce the Imperial Govern- ment to regard the affirmation of a Quaker as equiv- alent to the oath of another man; but if there were any men in our Colonial history who, after the ex- ample of William Penn, and Lord Baltimore, lifted up their voices to protest, as these men had done, against the violation of the principle of religious liberty here, I have not been able to discover their names. The
only subject of a quasi-ecclesiastical nature which appears to have excited general interest and to have met determined opposition was a scheme, at one time said to have been in contemplation of sending Bishops to this country. It was opposed not so much because it was thought to be the first step towards forming a Church Establishmentin this [whole] country, as be- cause the Colonists had a peculiar abhorrence of the methods of enforcing the jurisdiction of the English Church as they were familiar with them in the old country. They may have forgotten many of the sufferings they had endured in England in conse- quence of their non-conformity and even committed themselves to a theory of Church establishment, but there was one thing they never could forget, and that was the prelatical government of Land and the High Commission, and upon this were founded the popular notions of the authority wielded by Bishops. . . . I I am well aware that these statements of the general prevalence of a principle here during the Colonial period, which in contrast to that now universally re- cognized I must call the principle of religious intol- erance, will appear to many too wide and sweeping. But a very slight examination of the provisions in this subject in the laws of the Colonies will, if I mis- take not, produce a different impression. In Virginia where the English Church was early established by law and endowed, men who refused or neglected to bring their children to be baptized were .punished with civil penalties; Quakers were expelled from the Colony, and should they return thither a third time, they were liable to capital punishment. Any one who denied the Trinity or the truth of the Christian religion was deprived by the Act of 1704 of his civil rights, and was rendered incapable of suing for any gift or legacy. In New England, except in Rhode Island, religious intolerance was very bitter. It is true that in Massachusetts, under the charter of 1691, the power of committing those barbarous acts of perse- cution of which the theocracy of the old standing order had been guilty was taken away, and all Christians, save Roman Catholics, were permitted to celebrate their worship, yet none but members of the Congre- gational Church could be freemen, and all were taxed for the support of the Ministry of that Church. In Maine which was a District of Massachusetts, in New Hampshire, and in Connecticut, the same general system of religious intolerance prevailed. Conformity was the inflexible rule throughout New England. In New York, the Dutch were protected by the provisions of the Treaty of Breda, which guaranteed them the possession of their property then held there for reli- gious purposes and their ecclesiastical organization.3 But the royal Governors of that Province expelled any Catholic priests who might be found within their territory on the plea that they were exciting the In-
1 IX. Penn. Mag. of History, 372.
" The laws in the New England Colonies, though not mentioned by Mr. Stille, were still more severe than the Ministry Act of New York in compelling dissenters from the Puritanism of those colonies, to pay taxes to support their "Established Church."
$ The articles of the two "surrenders of 1664 and 1674," should have been mentioned also in this connexion.
103
THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
dians to revolt against the government, and they established the English Church, so far as it could be done in a Province where the Episcopalians were very few in number by requiring each of the towns to raise money for the support of the clergy of that church, by dividing the country into parishes, and by exercising the power of collating and inducting into these parishes such Episcopal Rectors as they thought fit.1 In New Jersey, after the surrender of the Charter, when the Colony came directly under the royal authority in 1702, liberty of conscience was pro- claimed in favor of all except Papists and Quakers; but as the latter were required to take oaths as quali- fications for holding office, or for acting as jurors or witnesses in judicial proceedings, they, of course the great mass of the population, were practically dis- franchised. But the story of the arbitrary measures taken by the Governor of this Colony [New Jersey], Lord Cornbury, to exclude from office or the control of public affairs all except those who conformed to the Church of England is too well known to need to be retold here. In Maryland the English Church was established in 1696, and one of the first acts of the newly organized Province was to disfranchise those very Catholics and their children by whom the doctrine of religious liberty had been established in the law of 1649. In Carolina after the fanciful and impracticable Constitution devised for it by the cele- brated philosopher, John Locke, had been given up, by which the English Church had been established and endowed in the Colony, the Church feeling was so strong, and the determination to secure its supremacy so unyielding, that an Act was passed in 1704 requir- ing all members of the Assembly to take the sacra- ment according to the rites of the Church of England. Georgia, following the example of her elder sisters, gave free exercise of religion to all except Papists, and such rights in this respect as any native born Englishman at that time possessed ; a grant, as we bave seen, of very doubtful value to English non- conformists, then ruled by the tender mercies of the Toleration Act .? The result of this review is to show that in all the Colonies named except, perhaps, Rhode Island, liberty of worship was the rule, ex- cepting, of course, in the case of Roman Catholics. Throughout the Colonies, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the man who did not conform to the established religion of the Colony, whether it was Congregationalism in New England, or the Episcopal form elsewhere, was not in the same position in regard to the enjoyment of either civil or religious rights as he who did conform. If he were a Roman Catholic
he was everywhere wholly disfranchised. For him there was not even the legal right of public worship. If he were a Protestant differing in his creed from the type of Protestantism adopted by the rulers, although he could freely celebrate in nearly all the Colonies his peculiar form of worship, he was nevertheless ex- cluded from any share in public affairs. He could neither vote nor hold office,' and he was forced to contribute to the support of a religious ministry whose teachings he in his heart abhorred. And this condition of things, extraordinary as it seems to us now, had not been brought about by any conscious arbitrary despotism on the part of the rulers, but was the work of good but narrow-minded men who were simply following out the uniform practice of the Christian world, and who no doubt honestly thought that in so acting they were doing the highest service by obeying the will of God."+
The Ministry Act of New York was simply the carrying out as far as it was possible of the Commis- sion and the " Instructions " which Governor Fletcher had received from the King. These "Instructions " to the Governors of the British Crown Colonies, which were delivered by the English Sovereigns in writing to each Governor when first appointed, were the Con- stitutions of the Colonies under which they were ruled by their Governors, just as the Charters from the same Sovereigns were the Constitutions of the Char- tered Colonies under which they were governed. Both were given in the exercise of the Royal Prerog- ative, and were in fact grants of it. The charters could not be revoked except for cause as long as they were lived up to and obeyed. The "In- structions" were the Royal directions from the King for the governing of his Province, and could be altered, varied, or revoked at his pleasure. In point of fact they were never changed in the time of each Governor, except to meet some exigency not contempleted when they were issued. Upon the appointment of a new Governor, either new "In- structions " were given to him, or, if those of the preceding Governor were satisfactory to the Province and the King, he was simply directed to carry them out as his own.
The Instructions of Charles II. to Sir Richard Nicolis the first English Governor of New York, dated the 23d of April, 1664, five months prior to the capture of New York from the Dutch, directed him to avoid giving umbrage to the people of Massa- chusetts, where he was to stop on his way to New York, by being present at their devotions in their churches, but the document thus continues, " though wee doe suppose and thinke it very fit that you carry with you some learned and discreete Chaplaine, ortho- dox in his judgment and practice, who in your owne
1 All this was done under the " Ministry Act " above mentioned, and its amendments, An Act which was not repealed till 1784, one year after the establishment of Independence. It was the binding law of New York from 1693 to 1784, full ninety years.
"I. W. and M., Ch. 18. Exempting dissenters from the penalties of certain laws against non-conformity, but requiring an oath against transubstantiation, and of allegiance to William and Mary.
* New York was an exception to this, as to all religions, except the Roman Catholic.
IX. Penna. Mag. Hist., 372-376.
·
104
HISTORY OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY.
familyes will reade the book of Common Prayer and performe your devotion according to ye forme established in the Church of England, excepting only in wearing the surplesse which haveing never bin seen in those countryes may conveniently be for- borne att this tyme." 1
The Instructions of Lovelace the second Governor seem not to have been preserved, but he says in a letter of the 28th of August, 1668, to Secretary Lord Arlington : "I have since happily accomphisht my voyadge and am now invested in the charge of His Royal Highnesses teritorys being the middle position of the two distinct factions, the Papist and Puritane."?
In the time of Thomas Dongan, afterward the Earl of Limerick, the third Governor of New York, Charles the Second died, the Duke of York succeeded as James the Second, and his Lord Proprietorship merging in the Crown, New York thenceforward be- came a Royal Province, governed directly by the King through his appointed Governor. Though a Roman Catholic himself, and his Governor, Dongan, was of the same religion, James, as King, acted promptly, and without hesitation, and gave Dongan the most pointed, and strongest possible, "Instructions " to establish the Church of England in New York. A King of England by the law of England could not do otherwise. But the thoroughness of James's action under the circumstances is very surprising. His " In- structions" to Dongan bear date May the 29th, 1686. They not only established the Church of England, but also placed it under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and are in these words :
"31. You shale take especial care that God Al- mighty bee devoutly and duely served throughout yo" Government: the Book of Common Prayer as it is now established, read each Sunday and Holyday, and the Blessed Sacrament administred according to the Rites of the Church of England. You shall bee careful that the Churches already builtt here shall bee well and orderly kept and more built as yº Colony shall, by Gods blessing bee improved. And that be- sides a competent maintenance to be assigned to yº Minister of each Church, a convenient House bee built at the Comon charge for each Minister, and a com- petent Proportion of Land assigned him for a Glebe and exercise of his Industry.
"32. And you are to take care that the Parishes bee so limited & settled as you shall find most con- venient for ye accomplishing this good work.
"33. Our will and pleasure is that noe minister be preferred by you to any Ecclesiastical Benefice in that our Province without a Certificat from ye most Rev- erend the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury of his being conformable to ye Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, and of a good life and conversa- tion.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.