The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York : historical and biographical sketches of its first fifty years, Part 14

Author: Prentiss, George Lewis, 1816-1903
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: New York : A.D.F. Randolph
Number of Pages: 322


USA > New York > New York City > The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York : historical and biographical sketches of its first fifty years > Part 14


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JAMES C. BLISS, M. D., (1842-1855,) was born in Benning- ton, Vt., January 3, 1791. Having commenced the study of medicine, he came to New York in the winter of 1811-12 and entered the office of Dr. Borrowe, became resident house surgeon of the New York Hospital, and graduated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1815. He then en- tered on the long and successful career which placed him among the foremost members of his profession in this city. He held important offices in numerous medical, scientific, hu- mane, and charitable institutions ; and performed an amount of gratuitous service in the families of clergymen and the offi- cers of religious societies, and among the destitute and suffer- ing, which made him a benefactor of the whole community.


His religious life began in childhood, and developed with uncommon vigor, intelligence, and power. For many years he served as an elder in the South Dutch Church, and later in the Bleecker Street and Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church. He early took an active part in the New York Young Men's Missionary Society and the New York Religious Tract Society. Of the latter he became corresponding secretary in 1824, and within about one year prepared for the press of the society, chiefly by labors at night after the professional services of the day, no less than seventy-five children's tracts, by the circula- tion of which its operations were soon more than doubled. He urged strongly the importance of nationalizing the insti- tution ; and the first meeting for consultation and prayer on the subject was held at his house, at the corner of Broad and Garden Streets, in February, 1825. When the American Tract Society was at length formed, he was among its most


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devoted friends. As a member of its distributing and execu -. tive committees, he labored for more than thirty years with the utmost zeal and fidelity. The records of the executive committee show that, notwithstanding unavoidable absences to meet professional calls, and his own occasional attacks of sickness, he was present at 375 out of 416 stated and special meetings of this committee. For twenty-eight years he was secretary of the committee, and kept its minutes. On his death-bed he expressed his gratitude that he had been per- mitted to associate with such men of God as Milnor, Willett, Stokes, Timothy R. Green, and others like them, in the service of the Master. He died in the peace and triumph of Chris- tian faith, on July 31, 1855. Although not one of its founders, he was a devoted friend and influential Director of the Union Theological Seminary.


JAMES WOODS MCLANE, D. D., (1842-1864,) was born at Charlotte, N. C., May 22, 1801. He graduated at Yale Col- lege in the class of 1828; studied theology at Andover ; was ordained in 1835; and later became pastor of the Madi- son Street Presbyterian Church in the city of New York. Here he labored eight years, when he was called to the First Presbyterian Church in Williamsburg, N. Y., where he con- tinued until failing health led him to resign. He died on February 26, 1864. Dr. McLane was an able, scholarly man, positive and uncompromising in his opinions, intensely hostile to all innovations upon the old orthodoxy, especially to every- thing that he thought savored of "German theology," and very decided in maintaining his own position. He was an earnest preacher, a faithful pastor, and an eminently good man. He served the Union Seminary as its Recorder for a score of years. He was greatly esteemed by his brethren ; and those who attended his funeral cannot have forgotten the singularly beautiful and edifying address which Dr. William Adams delivered on the occasion.


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CYRUS PORTER SMITH.


CYRUS PORTER SMITH (1844-1848) was born at Hanover, N. H., April 5, 1800. Like so many New England boys who have won their way to eminence in the various spheres of life, he worked on his father's farm, and attended the district school in the winter. In 1824 he graduated from Dartmouth College, having supported himself while there by teaching during the winter. He studied law with Chief Justice T. S. Williams, of Hartford, Conn., and was admitted to practise in 1827. He had a remarkable voice, and sustained himself, while pursuing his legal studies, by teaching music and sing- ing. In his singing school at Bristol, Conn., he first met the lady who became his wife, Lydia Lewis Hooker, a direct de- scendant of Rev. Thomas Hooker, " father of the Connecticut churches."


In September, 1827, he came to Brooklyn, with little money and no friends, and for seven months he never saw a client nor made a dollar by his profession. But this did not dis- courage him. He soon became the choir-master of the First Presbyterian Church, in which position he continued thirty- two years. He was a member of that church for fifty years, served it as a deacon and elder, and for forty years was chairman of its board of trustees.


Mr. Smith's lire was closely connected with the life and growth of the town. In 1833 he was chosen clerk of the Board of Trustees of the Village of Brooklyn, and Corporation Counsel of Brooklyn from 1835 to 1839. In 1839 he was chosen Mayor by the Aldermen, and at the first election by the people in 1840 he was again chosen, holding the office until 1842. In 1856 and 1857 he was a State Senator. For thirty years (1838-1868) he was a member and president of the Board of Education. He was also an original incorpo- rator of the Greenwood Cemetery Association, and a trustee until his death. In connection with General Robert Nichols he founded a hospital, which is now the City Hospital, and in which he was a trustee to the time of his death. He was also


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a trustee of the Polytechnic and Packer Institute, of the House of Refuge on Randall's Island, and of various other institu- tions. He died on February 13, 1877.


REV. WILLIAM B. LEWIS (1844-1849) was born on July 29, 1812, and died, after a lingering illness, on December 27, 1849. He was pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, N. Y. He had the reputation of being a critical and exact scholar in the original languages of the Bible, a theologian of clear thought, a devout man, and a faithful minister of Christ.


HORATIO N. BRINSMADE, D. D., (1844-1851,) was born at New Hartford, Conn., December 28, 1798. Graduating at Yale College in 1822, he at once entered Princeton Seminary, where he spent nearly a year, and then went to Hartford and completed his theological studies under the care of the Rev. Joel Hawes, D. D., teaching at the same time, and for several years later, in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in that city. He was licensed to preach in 1824 by the North Congregational Association of Hartford, and ordained by the same body as an evangelist in 1828 ; in 1831 he began to preach at Collinsville, Conn., serving for two years a Congregational church which was organized there in 1832. In February, 1835, he was in- stalled over the First Congregational Church at Pittsfield, Mass. After laboring here for six years he accepted a call to the Third Presbyterian Church in Newark, N. J., where he remained twelve years. His next pastorate was at Beloit, Wis., where he continued until 1861. He then returned to Newark, and gathered a new congregation, which he served until 1872. He died at Newark, on January 18, 1879. Dr. Brinsmade was a man of large and generous views, full of zeal for the kingdom of Christ, an earnest, spiritual preacher, a model pastor, greatly beloved, and signally useful in his day and generation.


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DAVID HOADLEY.


SAMUEL W. FISHER, D. D., LL. D., (1846-1848,) was born in Morristown, N. J., April 5, 1814. He graduated at Yale College in 1835, and studied theology at Princeton for two years, and for another year at the Union Theological Semi- nary. In 1839 he was settled at West Bloomfield, in 1843 became pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church at Albany, and in 1846 was installed over the Second Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, where he labored successfully eleven years. In 1858 he accepted a call to the presidency of Hamilton Col- lege, and in 1867 resumed the pastoral work in Westminster Church, Utica. After several years of broken health, he died, on January 18, 1874, at College Hill, Ohio. Dr. Fisher was a man of marked and varied ability, positive in his convictions, with a lofty sense of right and duty, full of glowing zeal for the cause of humanity, an eloquent speaker, and a most ear- nest preacher of the Gospel.


DAVID HOADLEY (1846-1873) was born at Waterbury, Conn., February 13, 1806. A few years later his father re- moved with the family to New Haven. It was the desire of his parents that he should go to college and then enter one of the professions; and with this end in view he pursued a course of preparatory study at New Haven, and for a year at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. Owing, however, to a frail consti- tution and impaired health, he changed his plan of life, and decided upon a business career. He became a clerk in the drug store of Hotchkiss and Durant, remaining in New Haven until 1827, when he started for New York in quest of fortune. Here he entered, as a partner, the firm of Frisby and Ely. At twenty-four he was left at the head of the house. He then associated with himself Mr. George D. Phelps, and, later, Mr. John W. Fowler, when the firm became widely known under the name of Hoadley, Phelps, & Co. In 1848 he retired from the drug business. After serving for some years as vice- president of the American Exchange Bank, he accepted the


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presidency of the Panama Railroad, a position which he held for eighteen years. During the last eight years of his life he resided at Englewood, N. J., where he died on August 20, 1873, lamented by the whole community.


Mr. Hoadley combined in an unusual degree the qualities which make a man strong and efficient in the world of busi- ness, personally beloved, and useful as a member of society. His religious, like his natural character, was very attractive ; his humility and his solid worth were equally conspicuous ; and both as a private member, and for more than a third of a century a ruling elder, of the Presbyterian Church, he enjoyed the confidence and affection alike of his pastor and all his brethren. For years he was associated with William E. Dodge, Christopher R. Robert, and others like them, in the session of the Fourteenth Street Presbyterian Church, during the pastorate of Dr. Asa D. Smith. His service in the Direc- tory of the Union Theological Seminary continued for twenty- seven years. On the occasion of his death, the Board ex- pressed its " gratitude to God that one so pure, so gentle and faithful," had been spared to the world so long.


EDWIN F. HATFIELD, D.D., (1846-1883,) was born at Eliza- bethtown, N. J., January 9, 1807. He graduated from Middle- bury College, Vermont, in the class of 1829; studied theology for two years at Andover, and then accepted a call to the pas- torate of the Second Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, Mo. In 1835 he became pastor of the Seventh Presbyterian Church in the city of New York, succeeding the Rev. Elihu W. Bald- win, who had been appointed President of Wabaslı College, Indiana. The Seventh Church was organized on March 27, 1818, and, under the faithful ministry of Dr. Baldwin, had grown strong and prosperous. Dr. Hatfield continued its pas- tor until 1856. During this period he received to its fellow- ship 1,556 persons on confession, and 662 persons by letter. Several remarkable seasons of awakening attended his labors.


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EDWIN F. HATFIELD.


He was a preacher of deep spiritual carnestness and power, and great crowds flocked to hear him. In 1856 he was in- stalled over the North Presbyterian Church, near Thirty-first Street. In 1863, owing to loss of health, he retired from the pastorate. Dr. Hatfield was an accomplished ecclesiastic, perfectly versed in all the affairs of the church. From 1846 until his death he was stated clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, first of the New School branch and then of the reunited body. He was also a member 01 the Reunion Committee of 1866. The General Assembly that met at Saratoga in 1883 elected him as its moderator, and, although in his seventy-seventh year, he discharged the duties of the position with the readiness and energy of a man of fifty. This honor fitly crowned his long and invaluable ser- vices to the church which he loved. He died at Summit, N. J., on September 22, 1883.


Dr. Hatfield was a frequent contributor to the religious press, and the author of Memoir of Elihu W. Baldwin, D. D .; The History of Elizabeth, N. J. ; The Church Hymn-Book with Tunes; and other works. After his death appeared, The Poets of the Church, a Series of Biographical Sketches of Hymn Writers, with notes on their hymns. His large library, presented by his children to the Union Theological Seminary, was especially rich in the department of hymnology. His connection with the Seminary as a member of its Board of Directors continued thirty-seven years. For ten years he filled the office of its Recorder. Of his labors as its financial agent, I have spoken elsewhere.1


In 1876, on its fortieth anniversary, he delivered a very


1 In a minute of the Board of Directors, adopted January 13, 1875, in which they express to Dr. Hatfield their thanks for his services as special financial agent of the Seminary, these services are said to have been the means by . which "the initial steps were taken in that work of endowment, which has since been carried on to a complete success." This is a mistake, the initial steps having been taken, as stated in the Address, through the agency of Mr. Gallagher.


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valuable historical discourse, afterwards published under the title, The Early Annals of the Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. While Dr. Hatfield cherished an ardent affection for the Presbyterian Church, his affection for the Church of Christ was stronger still. His life in New York extended over nearly half a century, and was filled with usefulness. He had a happy home, his old age was serene and cheerful, and he died, as he had lived, in the peace of God. Among the pleasantest recollections of my pastoral life are hours spent with him in his library, where companionship with books was constantly brightened by the loving compan- ionship of his wife and children and friends.


FRANCIS PEOPLES SCHOALS (1847-1850) showed his interest in this Seminary by endowing the Fellowship which bears his name. One who knew him well writes to me as follows : -


Francis P. Schoals was for many years connected with the Spring Street Church under the pastorates of Drs. Patton and Campbell. Here he was well known by his consistent Christian character. An active business man, his success always marked the increase of his benevolent gifts. His sympathies were generous and broad, and so his gifts were widely diffused. While not known in public life, he is still to be numbered among the public's benefactors, for he never drew back from personal service, and had a " conscience for giv- ing." Like many of his contemporaries, he " builded better than he knew," and in not a few private circles, as well as in public institutions, he will be long remembered, not only for what he gave, but for what he was.


JOHN CENTER BALDWIN (1848-1870) was born at Danville, Vt., on March 29, 1800, and died at Orange, N. J., on April 21, 1870. He belonged to one of the oldest and most noted New England families. Its records go back to 1500, and abound in worthy and distinguished names. A younger brother of John C., Henry Porter Baldwin, was twice elected


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JOHN CENTER BALDWIN.


Governor of Michigan, and later succeeded Zachary Chandler as United States Senator from that State. While still young, John moved to Brimfield, Mass., where he made public con- fession of Christ, and entered upon his business life. His mercantile career was chiefly in the cities of Baltimore and New York. Starting without means of his own, by industry, prudence, and rigid economy he soon laid the foundations of an estate which enabled him to become one of the most mu- nificent and useful philanthropists of his day. In a sermon on The Influence of the Dead upon the Living, preached by Dr. William Adams, his pastor for a third of a century, first in the old Broome Street Church and then in the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, he is thus referred to :-


Within a few days a member of this church, a man of such mod- est habits that he would have shrunk from the public mention of his own name, Mr. John C. Baldwin, has been removed by death. For more than thirty years, as his pastor, I have known him as an humble, unpretending, sincere Christian. After all he had done in dispensing charity after the ordinary manner of our times through- out his life, fifteen years ago he set himself resolutely about the matter of executing his own will. Convinced of the great impor- tance of our colleges, our seminaries, our hospitals and asylums, and all agencies connected with humanity, learning, and religion, he distributed his property among them according to a most intelli- gent judgment. Not to mention gifts to kindred and friends, for whom he has done all that kindness could suggest, he has within the period of time I have mentioned given to public institutions in our city and country, within my own knowledge, between eight and nine hundred thousand dollars. Think now how this man of infirm health, long struggling with disease, has perpetuated his life and influence on earth. And this, you will observe, was not the dis- position of property on compulsion, when death was about to wring from his hands what he could hold no longer, but the action of one resolved to be his own executor, instead of leaving his recorded will to contingencies and uncertainty and failure.


In another notice of Mr. Baldwin's death, also written prob- ably by Dr. Adams, occurs this passage : -


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The influence of this good man, from the seed planted in very many of our educational and philanthropic institutions, will be felt for ages in the moral and spiritual instruction of the youth of our land, as well as in the healing mercies of the afflicted. He lived to see much fruit of his good works. Those who have known him for the last five years have witnessed a life which seemed prolonged only for the purpose of illustrating a true Christian stewardship of property. His benevolence was of a kind which did not require to be hunted out. He would often send for the secretary of some board, and pay over to him a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars, besides sending the same amount to some other charitable insti- tution. After he had only strength enough to sit up in his bed and count out coupons or sign checks, and make his brief memo- randa while some one held his inkstand, serenely contemplating his own end as likely to come at any time, he appeared only anxious to dispose of his earthly substance in such a way as to accomplish most for truth and humanity. Had one so feeble clung to his pos- sessions as an idol, they would have been a sad mockery of his increasing weakness ; but as he employed them, they were the very sinews of moral power. From his silent sick-room he sent forth influences which made glad the waste places far and wide.


It is estimated that Mr. Baldwin dispensed, chiefly before his death, considerably over a million of dollars. He gave more than one hundred thousand dollars to the Union Theological Seminary, and was the founder of its " Baldwin Professor- ship of Sacred Literature." I find it stated that he gave twenty thousand dollars to endow the presidency of Wabash College ; that he contributed ten thousand dollars to Hamil- ton College, and that to Middlebury, Williams, Hamilton, and Wabash Colleges he bequeathed not less than one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.


I served with Mr. Baldwin on important committees of the Board of Directors, and formed the highest opinion of his character and his wisdom. He was indeed a true philanthro- pist, deeply impressed with the feeling that life is a sacred trust, and anxious to make the most of it in furtherance of Christian truth and righteousness in the world. It is very


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JONATHAN B. CONDIT.


pleasant to pay this tribute to the memory of so modest and good a man.


REV. W. H. BIDWELL (1850-1857) was born at Farmington, Conn., June 21, 1798. Graduating at Yale College in 1827, he studied theology there, and in 1833 became pastor of the Congregational Church at Medfield, Mass. In 1838, his voice failing him, he resigned and removed to Philadelphia, where he started the American National Preacher, which he con- tinued to publish for nineteen years. From 1843 to 1855 he was editor and proprietor of The New York Evangelist. In 1846 he became proprietor of the Eclectic Magazine and Bib- lical Repository, and in 1860 of the American Theological Review. After the war, he was appointed by Mr. Seward United States special commissioner to visit various points in Western Asia. He died on September 11, 1880. Mr. Bidwell showed no little skill and versatility in his various literary undertakings. He was of an excellent spirit, and as an editor did good service to the cause of truth and piety.


JONATHAN B. CONDIT, D. D., (1848-1851,) was born at Hanover, N. J., December 16, 1808. He pursued both his collegiate and theological studies at Princeton. In 1830 he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Newark. He served successively as pastor of the Congregational Church at Longmeadow, Mass .; as Professor of Rhetoric in Am- herst College ; as Pastor of the Second Parish in Portland, Me .; as Pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, New- ark, N. J .; as Professor of Sacred Rhetoric and Pastoral Theology in Lane Seminary (1851-1855) ; and as Professor of the same branches in Auburn Theological Seminary (1855- 1874). In 1861 he was elected moderator of the New School General Assembly. He died at Auburn, January 1, 1876, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. Dr. Condit was a man of


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very attractive qualities, a gifted preacher, a thoughtful, culti- vated theologian, and a faithful servant of Christ.


JOSEPH C. STILES, D. D., (1848-1852,) was born in Savan- nah, Ga., December 6, 1795. Graduating at Yale College in 1814, he studied law at Litchfield, Conn., and entered upon a professional career in his native town, which promised to be brilliant and successful. In 1822 he left the law for the study of divinity, which he pursued at Andover Theological Seminary. Ordained in 1826, he labored for eight or nine years as an evangelist, chiefly at his own charges, in the low country of Georgia and in Florida, reviving old churches and organizing new ones. In 1835 he removed to Kentucky, and spent nine years in the West, taking an active part in the exciting theological debates then the order of the day, as well as preaching the Gospel. In 1844 he became pastor of what was then the Shockoe Hill Presbyterian Church, at Rich- mond, Va. Four years later he accepted a call to the Mercer Street Presbyterian Church in the city of New York. His health failing, he resigned and returned to the South as gen- eral agent of the American Bible Society. In 1853 he took charge of the South Church, New Haven, Conn. Later, he organized and devoted himself for several years to the service of the Southern Aid Society, whose object was to help feeble churches in the Slave States. During the closing years of his life he labored as an evangelist in Georgia, Virginia, Ala- bama, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, and Maryland. He died on March 27, 1875, in the eightieth year of his age.


Dr. Stiles was a splendid specimen of Christian manhood, whole-souled, courageous, unselfish, of indomitable energy, yet gentle, tender-hearted, and full of loving sympathies. As a popular preacher and evangelist, he stood in the front rank. At times the effect of his eloquence was marvellous; for it combined in an uncommon degree intellectual power, impas- sioned feeling, and that spiritual unction which comes of inti-


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JOHN ALFRED DAVENPORT.


mate communion with God and a deep personal experience of His saving grace and love in Jesus Christ.


JOHN ALFRED DAVENPORT (1851-1858) was born in Stam- ford, Conn., June 24, 1783. He sprang from one of the oldest and most honored Puritan stocks in New England, being a lineal descendant of the Rev. John Davenport, the founder and patriarch of New Haven. His father, Major John Davenport of Stamford, was a Revolutionary patriot, and for many years one of the Representatives of Connecticut in the American Congress. The name of his grandfather, Colonel Abraham Davenport, "a rough diamond " as he was often styled, is famous in Connecticut annals. Governor Trumbull and Gen- eral Washington always consulted him in the most trying days of the Revolutionary war. His public spirit, his con- siderate and large-hearted benevolence, his culture, good sense, sagacity, and plain, homely virtues, rendered him one of the remarkable men of his time.




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