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 15
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President Dwight, in his Travels, gives two instances of Colonel Davenport's extraordinary firmness. The 19th of May, 1780, was long remembered as "the Dark Day." Candles were lighted in many houses; the birds were silent and disappeared ; the fowls retired to roost. The Legislature of Connecticut was then in session at Hartford. A very general opinion prevailed that the day of judgment was at hand. The House of Representatives, being unable to trans- act their business, adjourned. A proposal to adjourn the Council was under consideration. When the opinion of Colonel Davenport, one of its members, was asked, he an- swered, "I am against an adjournment. The day of judg- ment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment ; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish, therefore, that candles may be brought." This is the incident so happily commemorated by Whittier in his poem entitled Abraham Davenport : -
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And there he stands in memory to this day, Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen Against the back-ground of unnatural dark, A witness to the ages as they pass, That simple duty hath no place for fear.
The other instance took place at Danbury, at the court of Common Pleas, of which he was Chief Justice. This vener- able man, after he was struck with death, heard a considerable part of a trial ; gave the charge to the jury ; and took notice of an article in the testimony which had escaped the attention of the counsel on both sides. He then retired from the bench, and was soon after found dead in his bed. Of his country and of all its great interests, adds President Dwight, he was a pillar of granite.
With such an ancestry, it is no wonder that John Alfred Davenport was himself a man of marked traits. And his whole training had been fitted to bring out and strengthen these native traits. He entered Yale College in 1802, - a year memorable in the religious history of the institution, as well as his own. Among his fellow students were Jeremiah Evarts, Pelatiah Perit, and others, who in their day became eminent in business and in public life. Dr. Dwight's acces- sion to the presidency was one of the most important events in its annals. A great spiritual awakening followed his com- ing. At the administration of the Lord's supper on Sep- tember 1, 1801, there was not a single undergraduate among the communicants. A year later, twenty-five members of the graduating class, with many from the other classes, sat down together at the table of the Lord. One third of the class, which numbered fifty-six, became ministers of the Gospel. John A. Davenport was one of those who at this time began to follow Christ.
Upon his graduation he came to New York, and for fifty years was known among the prosperous merchants of the city. His first pastor in New York was the Rev. Dr. John
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M. Mason, one of the most powerful preachers of the age. When Dr. Mason removed from the city, Dr. McElroy became his pastor ; afterwards the Rev. Mr. Christmas of the Bowery Church, - in which, as a ruling elder, he spent some of the most useful years of his life. Later he joined the Bleecker Street Presbyterian Church, serving it as an elder; and later still removed to Brooklyn, where he helped to found the South Presbyterian Church, of which the Rev. Samuel T. Spear was for many years pastor. He served as an elder in this church also, was one of its strong pillars, contributed liberally to its pecuniary support, and to the end of his life took a deep interest in its prosperity. His closing days were tranquilly passed at New Haven, where he died on October 14, 1864, in the eighty-second year of his age.
JASPER CORNING (1851-1852) was born in Hartford, Conn., December 15, 1792. He was trained in the common school,- that nursery of so many of the most useful sons of New Eng- land, - and while yet a boy entered as a clerk the dry goods store of David L. Dodge. In 1811 he came to New York as clerk in the house of Pratt and Smith, Pearl Street. Under these employers he was trained to be a model business man, accurate, prompt, and faithful in the least, no less than in the greatest things. In 1813 he became deeply exercised on the subject of personal religion, and after frequent conference with his pastor, the Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring, united with the Brick Church. In 1817 he went to Buffalo to reside. Later he made this brief record : " I tried while there to do something in the service of my blessed Master. I superintended the first Sun- day school established in that village, and the first west of the Genesee River." After residing for several years in Charles- ton, S. C., and then in New Orleans, and devoting himself in both cities to earnest Christian work, he came to Brooklyn, N. Y., where as an elder in the Second Presbyterian Church, then under the care of the Rev. Dr. Spencer, he was widely
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known and esteemed. In 1851 Mr. Corning removed to this city, and connected himself with the Madison Avenue Pres- byterian Church, of which he also became a most exemplary and efficient ruling elder. One of his pastors, the Rev. Wil- liam Bannard, testifies that he was unwearied in relieving the poor and visiting the afflicted ; like Job, he was " eyes to the blind and feet to the lame, while he caused the widow's heart to sing for joy." He took a deep interest also in all forms of evangelistic work, and was for years treasurer of the American Home Missionary Society. His punctuality and integrity of character as a business man were proverbial. The Rev. Dr. Scott, who had been his pastor in New Or- leans, said at his funeral : " Wall Street has lost one of its purest and most honored names ; and I verily believe, if it had been necessary to call ten righteous men to save the city, Jasper Corning would have been one of them." Mr. Corning died in the peace and hope of the Gospel, on November 16, 1869, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.
ALFRED E. CAMPBELL, D. D., (1852-1859,) was born in Cherry Valley, N. Y., in January, 1802. Graduating at Union College in 1820, he pursued his theological studies at Prince- ton, and was then settled successively at Worcester, Newark, Palmyra, Ithaca, and Cooperstown. At the last place he labored with much acceptance for twelve years. In 1848 he became pastor of the Spring Street Church in the city of New York, and in 1858, secretary of the American and Foreign Christian Union. He died on December 28, 1874. Dr. Campbell was a genial, warm-hearted man, kind, sym- pathetic, beloved by his ministerial brethren, and a useful servant of Christ in his day and generation.
JOSEPH FEWSMITH, D. D., (1852-1888,) was born in Phila- delphia, January 7, 1816. Graduating at Yale College in 1840, he studied theology under Dr. Laurens P. Hickok at
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Western Reserve College, became pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at Valatie, N. Y., in 1841, and in 1843 of the Presbyterian Church in Winchester, Va. In 1848 he was appointed to the chair of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology in the Auburn Theological Seminary. In 1851 he accepted a call to the Second Presbyterian Church, Newark, N. J., where he remained in active service until his death, on June 22, 1888. He was one of the founders of the German Theological Semi- nary at Bloomfield, N. J .; was long president of the Board of Church Erection ; and a Director for thirty-six years of the Union Theological Seminary. The character of this emi- nently wise and good man is very happily delineated in the following tribute to his memory by the Rev. W. C. Stitt, D. D., of New York : -
It was more in the balance of many excellent qualities than in the prominence of any single trait, that we can find the reason for his undoubted eminence in his profession. With a dignified carriage and pleasing presence, a voice that was grateful to the ear and especially adapted to the solemn utterance of sacred truth, a piety undoubted, a robust common sense, a delicate and sensitive re- gard to the refinements and courtesies of life, an excellent mind, well stored and trained, and a sympathetic nature, he had ele- ments of success combined in a way to secure it. As a preacher, he was simple, solid, solemn, earnest, spiritual, edifying, clinging closely to the cross and its tenderest teachings. He often so im- pressed his people by a sermon in the ordinary course of his minis- trations, as to convince them of its usefulness in a printed form, and to force them to call for its publication. In public prayer he was full of unction. As a pastor, he reached his highest eminence, knowing when to speak and what to say to families in their sorrows and trials, to individuals in their temptations, business worries, and various burdens. In times of religious interest his power was felt in the whole community ; and the absolute confidence always felt in his sincerity, opened the door wide to his influence in prayer and speech in his own church or in union services elsewhere. In the conduct of funeral services perhaps Dr. Fewsmith had no su- perior. In purity of taste, in the variety of his utterance, in his perfect tact and his wise self-restrained fidelity to God's word, in his
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power to search the conscience without personal offence, and above all, in the deep spirituality of his consolation of the bereaved, he was an acknowledged master.
On occasions he would abandon his manuscript, and the quiet dignity of delivery which usually accompanied it, and flame forth with a nobility of diction, power of thought, and intensity of emo- tion, which made us feel that he had a vocation to the extem- poraneous form of preaching which he ought to have heard and heeded. His culture was so complete, his vocabulary so full and chaste, his taste so perfect, his life so prayerful and earnest, his voice so well controlled, and so powerful and pathetic under the stress of strong emotion, that we cannot but feel that it was a mistaken judgment on his part, or an unfortunate timidity of tem- perament, that prevented his becoming what lay within the scope of his gracious and natural endowments, namely, one of the best extemporaneous preachers of the day.
His dying was ideal. On the evening of June 21, the session of the Second Presbyterian Church waited on him and acquainted him with a resolution they had passed to extend his vacation until October Ist, in the hope that his health would be recruited, and his wonted tone recovered. He was much pleased, but cheerfully added that he hoped to resume his duties earlier than the date named. The next morning, while dressing, he was attacked by apoplexy, and clasping his wife's hand and uttering the words " God be with you !" he passed in a few minutes into the rest of heaven. After a long pastorate among a people who prized him as the best of men, after building a magnificent sanctuary in the last year of his ministry, after entering a new parsonage built with a view to his personal comfort, in the fulness of his years, without painful decay of body or mind, he suddenly is not, for God has taken him with his harness on. He is missed and mourned not only by the church he served, but also by Christians of every name and by citizens of every class in the city of Newark.
Dr. Fewsmith's last public service to the Seminary was giving the charge to Professor Schaff upon his inauguration as the successor of Dr. Hitchcock in the chair of Church His- tory. Like all his public utterances, it was sensible, appro- priate, and in excellent taste. As a member of the Board of Directors he was a model of punctuality and faithful service.
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JAMES BOORMAN (1852-1866) was born in Kent, England, in 1783. In 1795 he came to this country and was appren- ticed to Davie Bethune, a noted merchant of that day and father of the celebrated divine and pulpit orator, Dr. George W. Bethune. In 1805, on coming of age, he was taken into partnership with Mr. Bethune. Eight years later, in 1813, the partnership was dissolved, and he founded the firm of Boorman and Johnston. For a long time after its forma- tion, this house enjoyed a virtual monopoly of the Dundee trade. At a later period, it introduced the iron of Sweden into the American market, and for many years stood at the head of the iron trade of New York. It carried on also large dealings in Virginia tobacco. For more than half a century it ranked among the most stable, prosperous, and honored firms in the city. In 1839 Mr. Boorman founded the Bank of Commerce, and his name stands first on the list of the original board of directors of that institution. For many years he was one of the most active and influential members of the Chamber of Commerce. But his greatest service and achievement were in the planning and construction of the Hudson River Railroad. This work is an enduring monu- ment of his sagacity, enterprise, and perseverance. There was at the time no railroad connection between this city and the State capital, and the North River was closed, on an average, more than one hundred days each year. It is doubtful if any other New York merchant could have carried through this formidable undertaking with the indomitable energy and de- termination which Mr. Boorman put into it. He was one of the original corporators, and for a long time president, of the Hudson River Railroad Company. In 1855 he retired from business with a record unspotted by any suspicion of other than upright dealing. He departed this life on the 24th of January, 1866, in the eighty-fourth year of his age.
Mr. Boorman commenced his Christian life while a member of the Laight Street congregation, then under the pastoral
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care of the Rev. Dr. S. H. Cox. I once heard from the lips of Dr. Cox a deeply interesting account of his conversion. He was a man of great self-restraint, undemonstrative, and not easily moved. But his exercises of mind on this occasion stirred him to the depths of his being; he confessed himself a lost sinner, and accepted Christ as his Saviour with the ingenuousness and simplicity of a child; and his whole sub- sequent course showed how sincerely and thoroughly he gave himself up to the service of God. Accustomed to take large views in the sphere of business and worldly affairs, he carried the same habit of mind into religion. His charities embraced the principal organizations of benevolence, both in the city and country ; they were numerous, constant, discriminating, and often on a very liberal scale. He was one of the earliest members of the Mercer Street Presbyterian Church, and con- tinued in its fellowship until his death. Its successive pastors were sustained and cheered by his steadfast friendship, his wise counsels and his unfailing generosity. He was very con- servative in his sentiments, both theological and political, - more so at times than his minister; but while decided in his own views, he respected an honest difference of opinion and was a parishioner to be trusted and leaned upon. He was especially conservative on the subject of slavery, and looked with strong disfavor upon the whole Abolition movement, as well as its leaders and supporters. This was owing in part, no doubt, to his early and intimate business relations with the South. The so-called "Southern Aid Society," of which he was president, was largely sustained by his lib- erality. He did not cease to cherish to the last the memory of his old friends in Virginia. No sooner was the war over than his charities began again to flow South. In a letter to the Rev. Dr. Read of Richmond, dated only a few weeks be- fore his death, he writes : -
Your application to me for aid in rebuilding the place of worship of the "United Presbyterian Church," which was destroyed by fire
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on the evacuation of the city by the Confederate army, has led my mind vividly back to reminiscences of the mercantile men who occupied that field at the beginning of the present century, and of many of their successors in later years, to whose patronage and confidence as their commercial agent here I am in no small de- gree indebted for my success in the pursuit to which Providence directed me.
Referring to the pleasure with which he had subscribed fifteen hundred dollars to aid in rebuilding the church edifice, he adds : -
The desolation of your beautiful city must have left many of your population in destitution and want; permit me, therefore, to hand you the enclosed check for one thousand dollars to your or- der, with the request that you, in conjunction with your trustees, will apply it, as need and opportunity offer, to the relief of such subjects of want as your discretion may dictate.
I have spoken in the Address of the Davenport Professor- ship which he founded. The following extract from a letter to the Board of Directors, dated April 25, 1853, affords a beautiful comment upon his motive in founding it: -
There are few families in which the inestimable benefits of Gos- pel nurture have been more practically developed than in that of the Rev. John Davenport, the first minister of New Haven. Mrs. Boorman is descended from him in a direct line. I have for some time past had a desire to evince my respect for and veneration of the name by some permanent testimonial of the grateful sense I have felt to the kind Providence which brought me in connection with it. I think the present a fitting opportunity. I therefore propose to raise my subscription to the endowment fund of the Seminary now in progress to the sum of twenty thousand dollars, on condition that my contribution of one thousand dollars per annum during the last five years, be deemed by the Board of Direc- tors such a compliance with Art. VI. as to entitle me to exercise the privilege of naming a Professorship.
By his marriage Mr. Boorman was brought into peculiarly close relations with Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, for whom his
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esteem and affection were very great. To this esteem and affection the Union Theological Seminary is in no small degree indebted for his strong and effective interest in its prosperity.
ANSON G. PHELPS, JR., (1852-1858,) was born in the city of New York, October 18, 1818. He was the fifth child and only son of Anson G. Phelps and Olivia, his wife. At the age of eight years he was placed in the school of the Rev. Mr. Stebbins at West Haven, Conn. In 1830 he was sent to the school of Mr. Ely of South Hadley, Mass. He became much attached to this spot, the picturesque beauty of the scenery making upon him a vivid impression. He regarded South Hadley also as the birthplace of his new life in Christ. In 1833 he accompanied his parents on a visit to Europe. After his return, at the age of fifteen, he entered his father's office, and began a mercantile career. But he never engaged in it with enthusiasm. Other interests lay nearer his heart and occupied much of his thought and time. He was passion- ately devoted to music, which he studied at home and abroad. He had a special delight in the organ, which he played upon often late into the night. He delighted also in books, and collected a fine library of his own. At its organization, in 1835, the family became connected with the Mercer Street Presbyterian Church, then under the pastoral care of Dr. Skinner. In 1840, in consequence of ill-health, Anson revis- ited Europe, and remained abroad a year. A part of the time was spent in France, and in travel through the East. Wher- ever he went, he sought out the libraries and heard all the best music. The old church music, to which he devoted spe- cial study, entranced him. Indeed, had he simply followed his own impulse, he would willingly have remained abroad for years, giving himself up to the culture and gratification of his æsthetical tastes. On returning to his native land, he resumed his place in the firm of Phelps, Dodge, & Co. In November,
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1845, he was married to Miss Jane Gibson, of New York, a union full of blessing to him.
For some time after his return from Europe, Mr. Phelps's religious life seemed to be in a state of eclipse. He passed through a season of great spiritual apathy and trial. But when, by the blessing of God, he at length emerged from it, his path was thenceforth like "the shining light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." The last ten years of his life were marked by a pious zeal and self-devotion of the rarest type, and were crowded with usefulness. He became known all over the land, and even beyond the sea, as a Chris- tian philanthropist. He passed away from earth very sud- denly, on May 18, 1858. The funeral services were held in the Mercer Street Presbyterian Church on May 20, and such eminent ministers of Christ as the Rev. Drs. Thomas De Witt, Asa D. Smith, George W. Bethune, and William Adams took part in them, and gave expression to the sentiment of mingled affection and sorrow which pervaded the community. Mr. Phelps's benevolence, like his piety, was of the most catholic sort, and embraced so large a number of objects that it would require no little space barely to enumerate them. But his services to the Union Theological Seminary deserve special mention in this sketch of his life. The following account is taken from a memoir written by his friend, Prof. Henry B. Smith, and printed not long after his death.
In 1851 it became necessary to make decided efforts to relieve the Seminary from pecuniary embarrassments. Dr. Prentiss and his church were thoroughly enlisted in this work ; that church from first to last has been as a staff to this institution, ever ready to help it in its emergencies, and contributing about one third of its perma- nent endowment. Mr. Phelps, not only by his money, but also by his active efforts, largely aided in securing this result. He gave in all, during his life, not less than eighteen thousand dollars, besides occasional aid to temporary objects. He was a member of the committee appointed in February, 1852, at a meeting called at
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the house of Charles Butler, Esq., to procure an endowment of one hundred thousand dollars for the institution, and obtained sev- eral large subscriptions to it. When it was found that seven thou- sand dollars were needed to complete the amount and make the subscription binding, he promptly added thirty-five hundred dollars to his original subscription. The sum was made up, and the largest donor then added three thousand dollars to his subscription. All the students' rooms in the Seminary were furnished at his sole charge. The second subscription, begun in 1856, to raise the en- dowment to two hundred thousand dollars, was started at his house ; to this he subscribed five thousand dollars. To the Library and to the students he made occasional donations of books. At the period of the severe mercantile pressure of 1857, when the students were in great need, and when he himself was pressed by numerous en- gagements, he gave during the winter about fifteen hundred dol- lars for their relief, and for the furnishing of their rooms. The annual bills for repairs sometimes passed through his hands, and he would not allow them to go to the treasurer. A casual allusion, in a report upon the Library, to the need of a fire-proof building for the security of this invaluable collection (the Van Ess), led him at once, as appears from the dates, with characteristic promptitude, to put into his will a noble bequest of thirty thousand dollars for that object. . .. To the annual collection in the Mercer Street Church for the current expenses of the institution, he also made liberal contributions. In him the Seminary deplores the loss of one of its best and wisest friends. The Rev. Joseph S. Gallagher, to whom the Seminary is under such invaluable obligations for his wis- dom and energy in completing its endowments, says : " My labor in connection with the Seminary is self-denying and trying to my sen- sibilities ; and I owe more to the sympathy, counsel, encouragement, and aid of Mr. Phelps, for whatever success I have had, than it is possible to describe. I never had occasion to solicit his benefac- tions, for they were always volunteered with the greatest cheerful- ness. I admired him as a Christian philanthropist, as a man of great discrimination and solid judgment, and I loved him as a friend and a brother. His example will doubtless do much to stimulate others to good works. A friend of mine, who, though personally unac- quainted with him, greatly admired him, soon after his death saw his name on a subscription book for five hundred dollars, and, after writing beneath it, 'Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord,'
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subscribed a like amount. At the close of the Seminary term in May, 1858, only a week or two before his lamented death, I called to thank him for his liberal benefactions, saying I did not know how we should have got through the year without him, when he replied with great seriousness and humility, 'O, my friend, if I should be taken away, God would raise up others, who would do far more for this object than I have ever been able to do.' On this occasion he advised me to take some recreation the ensuing summer, that I might be prepared in the autumn to resume the efforts to com- plete the endowment, (which had been suspended for a year on account of the monetary crisis of 1857,) saying that he would make an additional subscription of five thousand dollars, and hoped that a friend he named would do the same. This was my last interview with him. God indeed took him away, - took him to Himself; and God has indeed raised up others to complete the work which lay so near his heart."
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