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 17
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eminent servants of Christ, Joel Hawes and Horace Bushnell. At Buffalo also, where the last eleven years of his life were spent, he was much honored and beloved for his work's sake.
JOSEPH HOWLAND (1860-1874) was born in New York, De- cember 3, 1834. He was a lineal descendant of that "godly man and ancient professor in the ways of Christ," John How- land, who signed the memorable compact in the cabin of the Mayflower shortly before the landing at Plymouth. The name of his father, Samuel Shaw Howland, who, as one of the well known firm of Howland and Aspinwall, stood fifty years ago among the foremost merchants of the city, is on the first sub- scription roll of the Seminary for a thousand dollars. This is noteworthy from the fact that he belonged to a Dutch Reformed congregation. Joseph was educated partly at home and partly abroad. While yet a boy, he had formed for himself the ideal of a life to be lived in the service of God and his fellow men ; and no contact with the world and its cares or its pleasures, no prosperity, no adversity, ever dimmed or turned aside his clear vision and steadfast purpose. At one time he contem- plated studying for the ministry. In a letter to me dated May 30, 1856, having expressed the fear that he must give up his cherished plan, he adds : -
The effects of recent comparatively light studies, and a true realization of the severity of the preparation I should require, have shown me my physical unfitness for the work. The idea of preach- ing Christ's Gospel was the greatest thing I could propose to my- self. Perhaps it will be better for me to be obliged to work in what I consider a lower sphere. I know God will do His own good will, and lead me to do His work in some way, if I truly and rightly desire it. A genial industrious life, full of all the good my hand finds to do, - fruitful, and yet free from the unremitted labors, tax- ing both body and mind, of the ministry, - seems to me to be the way before me.
Marrying at the age of twenty-one, he went abroad with his wife and passed several years in foreign travel. In 1859 he
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settled down in Matteawan, building for himself there one of the finest country-seats on the banks of the Hudson. Upon the outbreak of the Rebellion, he forsook his beautiful new home, and enlisted in the service of his country as Adjutant of the 16th Regiment of New York State Volunteers ; later, he was Adjutant-General and Chief of Staff of General Slo- cum's Brigade, and afterwards Colonel of the 16th Regiment. At the bloody battle of Gaines's Mill, June 27, 1862, he re- ceived a severe wound, but continued to direct the movements of the regiment until it left the field.
In this engagement, besides its Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel, the regiment lost in killed and wounded 260 men, rank and file, fully one quarter of its effective force on that day. No battle- scarred veteran ever bore himself with higher valor, or inspired his command with more heroic bravery, than did Colonel Howland on this occasion. Brave without rashness, he was at his post, where danger was thickest. With an intrepidity that seemed to defy death, he led his men on the field, and remained with them so long as there was hope.1
For his gallantry on this occasion Colonel Howland was brevetted Brigadier-General. But though disabled, his influ- ence, his money, and his whole soul were still given to his country. In 1865 he was elected treasurer of the State of New York, and as such took part in drafting the trust deeds of Cornell University ; also, in the organizing and building of the Hudson River Hospital for the Insane, of which he was a manager for fifteen years.
His devotion to the best interests of Matteawan is shown in such lasting monuments as the Tioronda chapel, dedicated in 1865 to education and the worship of God; the public library, which bears his name, opened in 1872; the Presbyte- rian church, in the building of which his liberality, taste, and active sympathy were largely exercised ; and the Highland Hospital, which he founded. For years he was the faithful
1 Colonel J. J. Seaver.
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superintendent of the Tioronda Sunday school, and swayed all hearts with the mild sceptre of his love. At the age of twenty-five he was elected a Director in the Union Theologi- cal Seminary, - by many years the youngest man who ever received that honor. I happen to know, through Prof. Henry B. Smith, between whom and himself there existed the warm- est friendship, that he year after year supported several stu- dents in their Seminary course, contributing thus thousands of dollars, and yet I doubt if five persons in the world knew anything about it. This may serve to show the spirit by which he was ruled, not only in his munificent gifts and chari- ties, but in all his relations to society and the church, whether public or private. He was, in truth, one of the most attractive characters I have ever known. A friend, who was also for years his pastor, writes : -
Amidst all that unspeakable beauty, where God and nature and man had done so much to glorify what we beheld, the most beauti- ful thing of all was that lovely human character; so refined, so unselfish, so pure, so devoted to man and so consecrated to God, so nearly perfect, so unique, that the only description is the name JOSEPH HOWLAND.1
General Howland died at Mentone, in France, on April 1, 1886. Almost his last words, and they struck the key-note of his life, were : " We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we give thanks to Thee."
REV. JOSEPH STEELE GALLAGHER (1863-1876) was born on October 25, 1801, in New York City. During his school days he had the instruction of Mr. Mattaniah Nash, a good mathe- matician and astronomer, as well as classical scholar, who favored his more advanced pupils with lessons in astronomy and the use of a good telescope. In January, 1818, when only sixteen, the youth received from Colonel Barclay, the commissioner of Great Britain under the fifth article of the
1 Dean Bartlett, of the Protestant Episcopal Divinity School at Philadelphia.
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Treaty of Ghent for fixing the boundary line between Canada and the United States, the place of assistant to the British As- tronomer, Dr. Tiaik. He remained in this service till 1820, when he was appointed by President Monroe Second Lieuten- ant of Artillery in the United States Army, and was first sta- tioned at Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor. In May, 1822, while stationed at Sackett's Harbor, N. Y., he came under the influence of a devoted Christian lady. Shaken in his then sceptical opinions by a little tract on the inspiration of the Bible, and asking her for a fuller treatise upon the subject, she procured for him Letters to a Young Officer on Christian Education, etc., by Olynthus Gregory, LL. D., Professor of Mathematics in the Royal Woolwich Military Academy, an author whose mathematical works he had studied, and who must, he felt, as a mathematician have solid ground for his convictions. His earnest study of this book convinced him of his obligation to read and obey the Word of God, as he would do in case of any commands from military authority, and he persisted for months in reading the Bible with fidelity, but, as he thought, with little spiritual interest, though made to feel profoundly that he had no sympathy with the mind of God. At last, after a night resolutely spent in confession and prayer, in which he became deeply distressed by a sense of guilt and darkness, Romans iii. 19-28, fastened on his mem- ory by many readings, came vividly to mind, and was so clear to his apprehension that he seemed suddenly to emerge into full light and hope. With characteristic promptness he com- municated his experience the very next day to his fellow offi- cers, and also endeavored to explain to each one of a body of prisoners under his charge the way of salvation. He began then to employ his life-long gift of introducing with rare felicity the subject of religion in personal intercourse of the most varied character. Henceforward, too, he always com- bined with military duty that of a Christian officer religiously to instruct and influence his soldiers. In 1823, when in
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command on Bedloe's Island, New York harbor, he established a Bible class in the fort. Mrs. David Codwise, with whom his long and intimate friendship then began, obtained from the Ladies' Bible Society a gift of one hundred Bibles for his use.
In his subsequent military life, at St. Augustine, Sackett's Harbor, Bangor, and elsewhere, his Christian efforts were un- remitting. He ordinarily held two religious services on Sun- day, with prayer-meetings in the week, and also organized societies for promoting temperance.
Being convinced of the value of established religious in- struction for soldiers, and wishing due sanction for his own procedure, he early communicated his views to Mr. Calhoun, then Secretary of War, in a personal interview in 1824, and received his "cordial approval of judicious efforts for the moral and religious improvement of the army." His friend, Major-Gen. E. P. Gaines, also gave him his hearty sympathy and support. Lieutenant Gallagher was promoted in 1831 to the captaincy of a company at Fort Gratiot, at the outlet of Lake Huron, and, after considerable arduous duty at that fron- tier, was ordered with his command to active service against the Sac and Fox Indians, led by Blackhawk. During that campaign he was on the staff of General Scott, and had much personal intercourse with him. As a testimony to General Scott's humane and Christian principles, he relates that the General laid before him, in private, the terms of a treaty he was about concluding with the Indians, asking his judgment especially on the moral aspects of the provisions, and saying, " I am desirous of making a treaty with these conquered tribes that an American may hear recited in London or Paris with- out a blush." Captain Gallagher was promoted to the adju- tancy of his regiment in 1833, served as such till 1835, when he resigned his commission in order to enter the ministry. He received from General Scott a letter expressing earnest regret at his decision to leave the army, but accepting it, offer- ing the provision that it take effect after a year's furlough, in
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consideration of his long and faithful service with very slight indulgence of that kind.
Mr. Gallagher had for some time carried on special theo- logical studies as his duties allowed, especially improving the period of his command at Bangor, Me., to study Hebrew with Professor Talcott of the Theological Seminary there. After further studies at Andover and Princeton Theological Seminaries, he became the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Orange, N. J., in October, 1837, and labored there with characteristic assiduity and marked success till 1850, when he resigned his charge and took a season of rest and travel. In March, 1852, he was elected by the Directors of the Union Theological Seminary special agent to obtain an adequate endowment. In March, 1853, he had secured sub- scriptions to the amount of one hundred and three thousand dollars, and in a second effort, ending in 1859, arduous and long continued, (for the era of large single gifts had not then arrived,) he raised the endowment to two hundred and thirty thousand dollars. He acted for some years as general agent of the Seminary, until in 1863, on the death of Mr. Halsey, he was elected Director and Treasurer, with the additional title of General Secretary. Those positions he held till May 10, 1874, when from serious failure of health he felt constrained to resign them all. After a long period of declining health, he died in Bloomfield, N. J., on April 13, 1879.1
HANSON KELLY CORNING (1863-1878) was born in Hart- ford, Conn., in 1811, and died in New York on April 22, 1878. He was for a long period engaged as a merchant in the Brazilian trade. It is said that he imported the first cargo of india-rubber that was brought into this country. Having been greatly prospered in his business, Mr. Corning employed
1 This sketch was prepared by Mr. Gallagher's son-in-law, Professor Packard of Princeton College, at the request of Dr. Hitchcock, and is printed in the Ap- pendix to the Address of the latter at the dedication of the new Seminary buildings in 1884.
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his large means in promoting such causes as commended themselves to his clear judgment. He took a special inter- est in the evangelization of Brazil, where he had resided for several years. He was a man of uncommon worth, a Chris- tian gentleman, and noted for his good works. He passed several of the later summers of his life at Manchester, Vt. The venerable Dr. Wickham of that place, now in his ninety- third year, writes me concerning him : -
When a little past middle life Mr. Corning retired from active busi- ness. The home of his family had been in Brooklyn ; but remov- ing to New York, into the neighborhood of the Brick Presbyterian Church, he became a member of that church during the pastorate of Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring, and sustained this relation for the re- mainder of his life. Having acquired wealth, he became noted for his judicious liberality in dispensing it. His ears were ever open to appeals in behalf of institutions of Christian benevolence and objects of charity, and he was ready with heart and hand to respond to the same, where the claims for aid were in his view satisfactory. He was naturally a diffident man and one of few words, but yet of sound judgment, and a wise adviser of those who sought his counsel, whether young or old. The apostolic injunc- tion, " Ready to distribute, willing to communicate," was one which he conscientiously obeyed, and when, at the age of sixty- seven, he was called away by death, all that knew him felt that a good and useful man had gone to his reward, and that his re- moval was a loss to mankind.
The following is an extract from a minute of the Board of Directors on the occasion of his death, prepared by the Rev. Dr. Adams : -
Mr. Corning felt a personal concern in the prosperity and use- fulness of Union Seminary, and manifested it not only in the dis- charge of his duties as one of its managers, but by frequent visits of inspection, whereby he became acquainted with its wants. To these he was ever ready to respond. His frequent and generous gifts to the Library, as well as to the private libraries of the students, will long keep his memory fresh in the minds of many ministers of the Gospel.
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WINTHROP SARGENT GILMAN (1870-1875) was born at Marietta, Ohio, March 28, 1808. His father, Benjamin Ives, and his grandfather, Joseph Gilman, had at the close of the Revolution associated themselves with the Ohio Company, and in 1788 had removed to the new Northwest Territory from Exeter, N. H., the original home of the Gilmans in America. Joseph Gilman, who had not long after his ar- rival been appointed Judge of the Territory by Washington, died in Ohio in 1806; and in 1813 his son, Benjamin Ives, having acquired a good estate and desirous of securing the advantages of a city in the education of his children, returned to the East, choosing Philadelphia as his home. The subject of this sketch was then five years old, the youngest of a circle of nine brothers and sisters.
In 1823 he began his commercial career as clerk with the firm of Mactier and Company of New York, in which his brother Robert was a partner. In 1827, when but nineteen years old, he made a journey to the West, intrusted by Mr. Mactier with the entire responsibility of large purchases, sales, and shipments of provisions along the Ohio and Mis- sissippi rivers. Two years later he determined to begin an independent career in the region thus familiarized to him. St. Louis was then " a straggling French and American town of about 6,000 inhabitants." Alton, Illinois, was a rough site amid woods, with but one occupied house, past which the young merchant rode on his first visit without a suspicion that he had reached his destination ; here nevertheless he resolved to start in business. He afterwards wrote thus to one of his children : -
When my goods reached St. Louis, I embarked with them on a tiny steamboat for Alton, twenty-two miles distant, taking also pine lumber necessary for my counter and shelves. I arrived there, after some five or six hours' paddling, about midnight. It was lonely enough, for it rained, and after covering my goods with the pine boards I crept under the same shelter myself. . . . I was full of
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life and enthusiasm, and enjoyed the novel order of things. Traders were scarce, and such as offered to purchase produce largely, as I did, still scarcer. Many farmers with their hogs and cattle, many hunters with their furs and peltries, came from Morgan and Sanga- mon counties sixty to eighty miles to trade with the young New Yorker who was ready to buy their produce. . .. Northern Illinois was then unsurveyed, Indians roamed over it, and game abounded. So plentiful were the deer that I could usually start them up within a mile of our residence.
Here Mr. Gilman remained in successful business for sev- eral years, at first alone, and later forming with his brother Arthur and Captain Benjamin Godfrey the firm of Godfrey, Gilman, & Co .; here his religious life first had outward ex- pression through his uniting with the church; here also he became identified with the cause of temperance, as chairman of the Illinois State Temperance Society ; and here, on De- cember 4, 1834, he married Miss Lippincott, a daughter of the Rev. Thomas Lippincott, one of the first ministers of the Presbyterian Church in the State of Illinois.
It was Mr. Gilman's warehouse at Alton that was stormed by a mob in the memorable " Lovejoy Riot " of November 7, 1837, the first tragedy in the long conflict which ended in the abolition of slavery, - an event which, though long forgotten save by students of the fall of the slave power, caused at the time, according to The Boston Recorder of that day, " a burst of indignation which has not had its parallel in this country since the battle of Lexington in 1775."
In consequence of the expression of anti-slavery sentiments in the columns of his religious newspaper, the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy had been violently persecuted in St. Louis and Alton, and one after another of the presses used in printing the paper had been destroyed. At a meeting of the citizens of Alton to consider the subject, Mr. Gilman was the only one of a committee appointed to prepare resolutions who pro- tested against their containing the recommendation to Mr. Lovejoy to leave the town. In his opinion, the right of free
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speech was here involved and should be vindicated. When, notwithstanding all warnings, Mr. Lovejoy persisted in send- ing for a new press to replace one just destroyed, Mr. Gilman offered his warehouse for its safe keeping. The "Lovejoy Riot " was the storming of the warehouse the following night by a large mob, and its defence, under the sanction of the mayor of the city, by a party of twenty citizens, among them Mr. Lovejoy and Mr. Gilman. The result was the death of Mr. Lovejoy and of one of the attacking party, the wounding of several others, the firing of the warehouse, and the capture and destruction of the press. Mr. Gilman writes : -
The five years at Alton after the Lovejoy riot were years of trial, but also of joy. I was a great Bible student, and enjoyed the precious revivals of religion of those days. Although in a dull place and suffering the disadvantages of the lack of enlarged social intercourse, we had warm Christian friends, a sweet little family circle to interest us and to care for, so that we could bide God's time for something better, and stay our souls on hope.
In 1843 Mr. Gilman removed to St. Louis, where he be- came one of the elders of the Second Presbyterian Church and superintendent of its large Sunday school. As his prop- erty increased the question of its right use became one of absorbing interest to him, and the conception of systematic beneficence as the duty correlative to the right of property never afterward left his mind. His offer in 1848, through the American Tract Society, of a prize of two hundred dollars for the best essay on systematic beneficence led to the publication by the Society of three such essays, of one of which many copies were distributed by Mr. Gilman throughout the country. This interest in beneficence, both theoretical and practical, was one of his strongest traits. He had no deeper or more constant impulse than to give liberally of his sympathies, his personal efforts, and his substance to all who were in need, in aid of every charitable work, and for the advancement of the cause of Christ.
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In 1849, Mr. Gilman returned to this city, and entered with his sons into the banking business under the firm name of Gilman, Son, & Co. In New York he was at first connected with the church then under the pastoral care of Dr. James W. Alexander, and a few years later joined the Brick Church, of which at the time of his death he was the senior elder. During the pastorate of Dr. James O. Murray, Mr. Gilman united with him and the late Mr. Daniel Lord in preparing a collection of hymns known as the Sacrifice of Praise, which continued for a number of years in use in that and other churches. On the founding of the Presbyterian Hospital by Mr. James Lenox, Mr. Gilman was selected as one of its first board of trustees; he also became a Director of the Union Theological Seminary, and a member of the Presbyterian Board of Church Erection. He was many times a commis- sioner to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church ; and in 1870, after the Reunion, the Assembly appointed him chairman of the committee formed to raise a fund of five millions of dollars in commemoration of that event. Into this work he threw himself with his accustomed ardor, the efforts of the committee resulting in a thank-offering by the reunited Church of over seven millions. He was later appointed by the Assembly chairman of its committee on benevolence and finance, holding that office until the com- mittee was discharged from its duties, in 1874, and devoting to his labors therein an enthusiastic energy very remarkable in view of his growing physical frailness.
In 1871, Mr. Gilman passed his first summer in the house on the Hudson, twenty miles from New York, which was to be the home of his remaining years. Those quiet years in a charming seclusion, amid a joyous circle of children and children's children, were among the happiest of his long life. They were full of intellectual and spiritual activity, marked by ardent solicitude for the welfare of those dear to him, and by the warmest interest in all good causes, above all the cause
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of the Church he loved so well. He had always been a devoted student of Shakespeare, and a wide reader of general poetic and religious literature ; and in the numerous commonplace- books which, though extending over a period of nearly sixty years, were in large part written toward the close of his life, he left the record of a rich and varied spiritual experience. His was a nature in which strong religious feelings, the ten- derest sympathies, and the most delicate poetic tastes, were happily balanced by a vigorous delight in activity and a keen interest in practical life. He died at Palisades, N. Y., after a short illness, on the 3d of October, 1884, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.1
ZEPHANIAH MOORE HUMPHREY, D. D., (1874-1875,) was born at Amherst, Mass., on August 30, 1824. He graduated at Amherst College; studied theology at Andover; was pastor of churches at Racine and Milwaukee, Wis., from 1850 to 1859; the First Presbyterian Church, Chicago, from 1860 to 1868; of Calvary Church, Philadelphia, from 1868 to 1875; and was Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Polity in Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, from 1875 to 1881. He was moderator of the General Assembly which met in his old church at Chicago, in May, 1871. He died on November 13, 1881.
Dr. Humphrey's connection with the Union Theological Seminary, although very brief, was yet long enough to leave the pleasantest impression. He was seen at once to be a man worthy of the honored name he bore. The blood of several very old and vigorous New England family stocks ran in his veins, and he seems to have inherited their best traits. His father, Heman Humphrey, for many years President of Am- herst College, was one of the strongest, wisest, and most influ- ential men of his generation. His Grandmother Humphrey
1 For the sketch of this very interesting and admirable man I am chiefly indebted to two of his surviving children.
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