USA > New York > Orange County > Wallkill in Orange County > The Wallkill Valley in art and story > Part 2
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22 Franklin St; First Reformed (Dutch) , (1661). Rev. J. G. Van Slyke; Second Reformed (Dutch). (1848). Rev. T. B. Seeley; Re- formed Church of the Comforter (1770), Rev. S. E. Winnie; Roman Catholic, Rev. Francis Fabian: Roman Catholic, Rev. D. P. Ward; Roman Catholic, Rev. R. L. Burtsell; Roman Catholic, Rev. E. M. Sweeney; Roman Catho- lid. Rev. M. Kueken; Union Children's Church, Rev.
The First Reformed Church of Kingston is undoubtedly the oldest organization in the Valley, around which cluster many historic memories. The early settlers with the daunt- less spirit and Holland courage, settling as early as 1665, near Kingston, at the mouth of the Wallkill, were earnest and devoted in their religion. Their names have become a syn- REV. JOHN A. THURSTON, NEW HURLEY, N. Y. onym for stern morality on ardent church lines. The ruling passion seemed the love of Church and God. Faith to them was more than the homeland, and their sturdy religion became rich heritage of their new country. These factors, touched and entwined together making and transmitting still each its element of blood and virture close together in this very valley of the Wallkill, to this day betray their lineage. The first edifice was erected in 1661, at the corner of what is now known as Main and Wall Sts. It was built of logs and regularly dedicated; in 1679 a stone building was erected, and the church was incorporated in 1719. The in- terior of the building was consumed by fire, when Kingston was burned in 1777; the building remained stand- ing until 1832. A stone building was again erected; this has been supplanted by the present modern structure erected in 1851.
NOTE-We are indebted to Mr. Charles E. Stickney of Deckertown, N. J., for data and information relat- ing to the Churches south of Goshen.
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Our Valley contains many religious denominations, but only those who accept Christ as their chief corner stone, may expect a Union of Creeds in Heaven as there are no Sects in that Holy place. What a grand life it would be if we could all
THE OLD KINGSTON DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH.
"So live, that when our summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Go not like the quarry slave at night, Seourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach the grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."
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The Huguenot Memorial House, New Paltz, N. Y.
ALFRED HARCOURT.
"THE old colonial building, widely known as the Hasbrouck house, has recently been purchased by the Huguenot Patriotic, Historical, Monumental Society of New Paltz, for the purpose of preserving it, both on account of its historic interest, and because of its suitability as a place for the storing of historic documents and ancestral relics.
The old, steeped roofed homestead, which is full of interest to any one who takes pride in a Huguenot an- cestry, was erected in 1712, and with the exception of the DuBois house, which has lost much of its historic interest through being remodeled, it was and is the finest of the seven homesteads erected by the patentees and their children.
The first point of interest about the Hasbrouck house is that it is entirely hand made. The nails were
hammered out by the vil- lage blacksmith, and the boards were planed by the home carpenter. The wide chimneys, made to receive the large sticks of fire- wood without splitting. were built of bricks brought from Holland to Kingston, and drawn from there to New Paltz over the primi- tive roads of two centuries ago.
The rooms of the lower floor on the north side were originally used as a store. Here were kept the few necessities of the early settlers, and here also from time to time THE HUGUENOT MEMORIAL HOUSE NEW PALTZ, N. Y. liquor was sold. The bar, a large slah of wood, was placed across one cor- ner of the room from the chimney to the window sills. On it is s till "chalked up" a genuine account of a sale of rum. Near the chimney is a closet which might easily escape notice and which, itis said, was used as a money drawer. There are two other rooms on the lower floor which were used as living rooms by the family, and which were large and commodious for a house of that time. The family rooms on the second floor are of good size ; and the heavy beams and stanting ceilings give them a truly colonial appearance.
The beginning of the movement which resulted in the purchase of the house this winter, was made in April, 1894. Until his recent death, the late Edmund Elting was an earnest and prominent worker in the matter, serving the society in the capacity of secretary.
The present officers of the society are: President, Ralph LeFevre; First Vice-President, Jesse Elting; Secretary, Jesse M. Elting; Treasurer, Jacob M. Hasbrouck. The trustees of the society are Louis Bevier, A. T. Clearwater, G. M. Sharpe, Irving Elting, Frank Hasbrouck, Joseph E. Hasbrouck, Jesse Elting, Jacob LeFevre, Jonathan Deyo, Solomon DuBois, Abram D. Broadhead and Jacob M. Hasbrouck.
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Joseph Brant, the Chief of the Mohawks, who command- ed at the Battle of Minisink.
BY HARRISON W. NANNY.
J
OSEPH BRANT-TAYENDANEGEA is a household name in Orange county, and he who bore it looms a dark lurid figure against the background of our Revolutionary history. A pure blooded Mohawk, his education and training was had in the schools of the white man. In the fierce warfare which England waged to coerce her re- bellious colonies into obedience, his part has been much misunderstood. He was never, in any sense of the word, a border ruffian, nor is he to be reckoned of the ilk of those who, within the memory of men hardly beyond middle age, made the term a reproach in the Kansas-Missouri trouble, just prior to the Civil War.
On the contrary Brant was a Christian and a member of the Episcopal Church and aided in the transla- tion of the Prayer Book, the Acts of the Apostles and Catechism into the Mohawk tongue. One of the earliest recorded incidents concerning him is by Rev. Dr. Wheelock. a clergyman in the Mohawk valley, in which he says "that in the French War Brant went out with a company against the Indians, (these were allies of the French) in which he behaved so much like the christian and the soldier, that he gained great esteem."
He was presented at the court of the king in London, and was the friend of Boswell. His portrait, painted in 1776, has been preserved at Warwick, and a copy of same accompanies this sketch.
When the trouble between England and the Colonies began, he was urged to remain neutral, but refused. He asserted that his race was bound by the faith pledged in ancient treaties to their great father, the king, who had defended them against the French, in the struggle for the dominion over this continent, to aid him against his enemies, and he loyally kept that pledge. But the hand on the dial was not to be turned backward. In the providence of God a new nation was to have birth, in which crowns, scepters and royalty were to have no place, and Joseph Brant was to be put down on the record by the troubled colonists as the most blood-thirsty and cruel of those who sought to compel their obedience to law and an established government. To this belief the disaster at Minisink, which brought death to many a Goshen family, in a no small degree contributed. But it is not so. War is not humane, "war is hell," and the part acted by Joseph Brant as a commander of men in armed hostil- ity to other men acting from a different point of view, can in no wise be considered as more culpable than that of Grant or Sherman. To him, as well as to them, is laid no charge of personal cruelty or rapine. Some of the followers of each, we know, left behind them a trail dishonorable to human instincts, and to whom either of the three commanders would have meted death as the penalty, if the offender were known.
The massacre at Wyoming was mainly at the hands of white men, yet the same has been laid at the door of Brant, and Campbell, in his "Gertrude of Wyoming," sings:
"The Mammoth comes-the foe-the Monster Brant-
With all his howling desolating band."
A cherished tradition of one of the oldest families in Orange county-the Fullerton-relates of an ances- tress, Mary Whittaker, who at the age of twelve years escaped the slaughter at Wyoming, thus: (Eager is quoted page 414) "Brant took her by the hair of the head and held her up by one hand and painted her face with red paint with the other and then let her go, telling her that was the mark of safety." On the same oc- casion, (Eager is again quoted, page 415) "A little boy, John Finch, also an Orange county ancestor, was saved without being painted. This little boy laughed at the odd and grotesque appearance of the Indians, and one raised his tomahawk to strike him down. Brant saw the motion of the Indian, seized and ordered him not to in-
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jure the boy." While in both these incidents is found the kernel of that which the after-time has conceded [to Brant, his gentleness and humane disposition, it is necessary to dispel this romance of these two old families. If any one fact has been established in history, it is that Brant was not at Wyoming. and the poet Campbell, in the notes to the second edition of "Gertrude of Wyoming," remarks that "since writing the poem I have had access to documents which completely satisfy me that Brant was not at that scene of desolation." And adds, "I also ascertained that Brant strove to mitigate the cruelty of Indian warfare, and his name remains in the poem a pure and declared character of fiction."
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An incident, not unlike those above noted, is preserved in the tradition of the Van Auken school-house. During the raid of 1779, at Minisink, the girls stood lamenting around the dead body of their teacher, and bemoaning their own coming doom, when a strong muscu- lar Indian suddenly came along and with a brush dashed some black paint across their aprons, as the symbol of safety. "This (Eager is being quoted, page 389) was Brant, and the little daughters of the settlers were saved." These girls impressed the paint up- on the boys and they too were passed un- harmed.
In the official report made of the battle of Minisink, among other absurdities, it is grave- ly asserted that Brant carried off a number of children as prisoners. Happily, for the truth of history as well as humanity's sake, a pris- oner, the only one captured, Capt. John Wood, of the Goshen company of Col. Tusten's reg- iment, left behind him a journal of the events following the battle, and his journey while a captive with Capt. Brant, as he terms him, and those under him, to the Indian country, which disposes of the question to the contrary. And this journal well sustains Brant's official report of the Minisink raid and battle, in which he says, "we in no wise injured women or children.'
It is the desire of the author of this mono- graph to refrain from any discussion of the Minisink battle, as that properly belongs to a work now in course of preparation for the publisher.
Yet it may be remarked that, since Goshen's JOSEPH BRANT-TAYENDANEGEA. first commemoration of that event, which was The Great Chieftan of the Six Nations, from the original painting in 1779, by G. Romney, in the collection of the Earl of Warwick, Eng. the subject of an article in the Souvenir of 1898, much has been brought out which reveals a tale of the cowardice and flight of a portion of the forces which marched to oppose Brant, and which in numbers exceeded those of the latter, and thus left the Goshen regiment to annihilation.
Another incident, no less characteristic of Brant, is preserved in a letter written by him to Gen. Van Ren- selaer, which accompanied a returned captive girl, in which he says: "I send you by one of my runners, the
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VALLEY AND STREAM, ESSEX COUNTY, N. J.
child, which he will deliver that you may know that whatever others may do, I do not make war on women and children. I am sorry to say that I have those engaged with me in the service who are more savage than the savages themselves." A sad commentary of the red man upon the Tory.
"Historical accuracy is a plant of slow growth," says a historical writer. The same might be observed concerning biography. Washington is asserted to have been a Christian, a man of prayer. That Howe, Clinton, Burgoyne and Cornwallis were followers of the Divine Master, no American historian has yet put upon the record. Praying Generals always belong to the same side as their biographers. Brant has had no biographer of his race or blood, yet a white historian has written that Brant, prominent among those of his day, was devoted to christianizing, civilizing and uplifting his race, and declared himself as having always striven to avoid the un- necessary shedding of blood, and to avert the cruelties incident to war.
Three generations have been upon the stage since Joseph Brant ceased to be a factor among the affairs of the living. The fury of political passion which marked his era is dead; the bitterness engendered by the loss through war, of the results of years of labor to the border settlers, has been obliterated by the county which years of peace has brought to their descendants, and to these there lingers only the tradition
"Of far off unhappy things. And battles long ago."
Prejudice has been yielding to the results of calm and cold historical research and investigation, and an impartial judgment can now be rendered by the tribunal sitting at the dawn of the twentieth century, a decision which for fairness, was impossible to be accorded during the years so closely allied with the events, of which the bitter memories had not passed away.
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St. Andrews.
MISS MAY HUNT.
THIS quiet peaceful hamlet is located in the northwest corner of the Town of Montgomery on a patent of 3,000 acres, granted to Henry Wileman in the year 1709, within the then County of Ulster. The hamlet is rich in tradition and interest, being one of the oldest within the present borders of Orange.
Mr. Wileman was the first settler and divided the patent into lots in 1712. The settlement adopted his name and was known as Wilemantown. His nationality was Irish. He was a Free Mason and a lawyer, the first admitted to practice (1727) in Orange Co. It was upon his land in 1774 that Log Church was erected and a plot of land adjoining set aside as a burial place. The property is now owned by Mr. George Dunn. and the location was in the corner of the field on the fork of the roads leading from St. Andrews to Walden and Wallkill. He was a benefactor of the church, and it is here in the old yard that his dust reposes with that of many other early settlers.
It is a much to be lamented fact that all vestige of this ancient. burial place should have been destroyed over half a century ago.
Under the pastoral care of the Rev. John Sayre in the year 1770, Log Church became incorporated under the name of St. Andrews, and a new edifice erected in the southeast of St. Andrews Cemetery. The hamlet then assumed the church name. and it was here that the family of Lieutenant Governor Colden attended worship. A visit to the cemetery which adjoined the church reveals the fact that it has served as a burial place for over a century and a quarter.
Here rest the remains of the Dorcases', Galation's. Banks', Gee's and Graham's. Capt. George Graham being interred 1774-families all connected with the early history of the church. Here also we find the graves of heroes of the Revolutionary and the Civil War. Peace to their ashes, and let us hope that this (God's Acre) may never share the fate of the old Episcopal yard.
Previous to the location of the new church, a number of buildings had been erected. The principal ones being a school house built of mud and logs, located on the old road leading to King's Hill, opposite the present residence of Mr. Chauncey Radiker, a tavern on the brink of the brook and a store. Here also was established one of the first Post Offices of the county.
St. Andrews is not lacking in bloody historical events. It was here that an Indian massacre took place at the beginning of the French and Indian war. Gen. Clinton as Captain was engaged in the attack, and seven- teen Indians were killed. Again at the beginning of the Revolution, Lieutenant Governor Colden came very near being shot by the indignant Whigs as he attempted to read the King's decree. South of the hamlet in front of the residence of Mr. Corsey, is the site of an Indian fort, and to the west of the village during the winter of 1782, a company of Revolutionary soldiers laid encamped. It was while acting as a special messen- ger from this encampment to the Commander-in-chief at Newburgh, that John McLean afterward Commissary General of this State, was attacked, taken from his horse, gagged, tied to a tree and the papers referring to his errand taken. He was rescued the following morning.
We still find many of the descendants of the old colonial families here. Arthur Mckinney located here in 1745, and a portion of his original tract is still owned and occupied by his great-great-grand-son. Soon after came the Beattie's, Snyder's, Kidd's, McKissock's, Coe's and Crowell's-descendants of which are still num- erous about the village. Robert Crowell purchased the King's Hill farm, then a wilderness, about 1771, from the St. Andrews Church.
Approximate to the village is the old stone house built previous to the Revolution, occupied by Mr. Charles Thorne. Four generations of the Thorne family family have been born in this house.
I leave many other points of interest to be gleaned by the local historian, of which space here is to limited to mention.
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"THE SUNSHINE OF THE VALLEY."
RESIDENCE OF REV. ROBERT H. MCCREADY, CHESTER, N. Y., A FORMER PASTOR OF THE HISTORIC BRICK CHURCH, MONTGOMERY, N. Y.
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Rev. Robert Houston McGready, Ph. D.
R EV. ROBERT HOUSTON MCCREADY, PH. D., was born at Pittsburgh, Pa., July 12, 1853. At the age of fourteen his father died, and in that same year he began life for himself as a store boy. At sixteen he made a public confession of faith, and became a member of the church. He received the average English education at the public schools, later he studied under Prof. Love. He graduated from the Western University of Pennsylvania, June, 1870. One preparatory and three college years were spent in West Geneva College, Ohio. Previous to his University course, he spent the required four years in the Alleghany Seminary, and graduated in the summer of 1883. He received calls from New Castle, Pa., New Concord, O., Oil City, Pa., Barnesville, N. B., and Coldenham, N. Y., accepting the latter, March 6, 1884. Later he filled pastorates at Prospect Hill, Eighty Second St. near Park Ave., N. Y. In 1890 he accepted the pastorate of the Old Brick Church at Montgomery.
He was married to Miss Bell H. Beattie, daughter of Rev. David Beattie ot Scotchtown, N. Y., June 21, 1888.
The writer of this sketch is fully acquainted with his earnest zeal in his ministry at Coldenham and Montgomery-of the good fellowship existing between pastor and people, and his watchful care over the interests of the community at large. His name is honored and revered among the citizens of the Valley of the Wallkill. Mr. McCready is the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, at Chester, N. Y.
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Rev. Robert Bruce Glark.
THE REV. ROBERT BRUCE CLARK has been pastor of the historic Goshen Church since January 1st, 1886, and is the successor of the Rev. Dr. Snodgrass, who in his day was amongst the famous Presbyterian divines, and was settled at Goshen durng the last thirty-six years of his venerable life. Mr. Clark is a grad- uate of Amherst College, Union Seminary, and is identified with various interests of the beautiful village in which he lives. The Presbyterian Church of Goshen was organized in the year 1720. Three edifices have been used by the congregation since that time. The first was built sometime between 1720 and 1730; the second was built in 1812, and the present commanding structure was dedicated 1871. It is massive, commodious, beautiful for situation; of solid, rough stone to the top of its spire of 186 feet, comfortably seating 1,200 people, and in the midst of a large and beautiful park in the centre of the village. The 175th anniversary of the church was celebrated in the Spring of 1895.
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Charles Edward Millspaugh.
C
HARLES EDWARD MILLSPAUGH was born on the homestead, in the town of Goshen. Educated at the Farmers' Hall Academy. Goshen, graduating from that institution. Six years were spent in the employ of W. L. Vail, a merchant of Florida, N. Y. A partnership was formed under the firm name of Merriam & Mills- paugh, in the village of Goshen, in 1860, engaging in the general dry goods business, which continued until 1872, being then dissolved by mutual consent. Mr. Millspaugh immediately entered into partnership with D. Redfield, under the firm name of Redfield & Millspaugh, continuing until the death of Mr. Redfield, since which time the business has been conducted by Mr. Millspaugh.
Few men are more useful or prominent in church work. For many years he has filled the position of trus- tee of the Goshen Presbyterian Church, with the office of Clerk and Treasurer, and Chairman of several import- ant committees of the Church. For more than twenty years he has been the honored Superintendent of the Sunday School, and is the best known and most prominent Sunday School worker in the county, frequently serv- ing as President of the Orange County Sunday School Association, organized May 22, 1861.
The writer of this sketch was intimately associated with Mr. Millspaugh in this work for a period of ten years, and can attest to the great services rendered, which resulted in the general revival of Sunday School in- terest throughout the county.
When the limitations of this life is reached, when the tabernacle of the body is broken, like the jar that holds the roses, though broken in fragments, the perfume of the roses lingers, so the memory of a good and use- ful life will cling like green vines about the broken fragments of the past.
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Rev. J. H. Thompson.
R EV. J. H. THOMPSON was born at Bemis Heights, New York, April 28, 1862. He prepared for college at The Hudson River Institute, at Claverack, New York, from which he graduated in 1883. In the fall of the same year he entered Hamilton College, at Clinton, New York, and graduated in the class of '87. He entered Princeton Theological Seminary in the fall of 1887, and graduated in 1890. He was ordained to the Gospel Min- istry by the Presbytery of Troy, New York, in May 1890; and entered temporarily in home mission work in Northern Idaho. On September 4, 1890, he was married to Miss S. Cornelia Lansing, daughter of the Rev. A. G. Lansing, of the Reformed Church. In the spring of 1891, he was called to the pastorate of the Goodwill Presbyterian Church of Montgomery, New York, where he still remains.
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John G. Howell.
THE father of the subject this sketch was a native of the old town of Goshen, where he was born in1797. His father, Silas Howell, was one of the many early emigrants from Long Island, who, in themselves and their descendants, have so largely contributed to the substantial elements of our country's population and worth. He removed from Goshen to Newburgh with his father, and located on the Newburgh and Cochecton Turnpike, and in that vicinity he spent nearly the whole of his long and worthy life of 85 years among the notable sons of Orange County, which to enumerate them would be legion. The subject of our sketch is the younger son of R. and O. Belknap Howell, born July 23d. 1829, on the farm where he now resides, being a man of sterling character, keeping abreast of the times by strictly attending to the business of agriculture, with a desire to make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. He is eminently successful in his business, and is one of the well-to-do men of the town. He has been a member of the Goodwill Church for 30 years, and trustee for about 15 years. His family consist of two children, David B. Howell and Sarah Francis Howell. Both are married and have homes of their own.
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Rev. William Wyckoff Schomp.
R EV. WILLIAM WYCKOFF SCHOMP, the youngest son of David G. and Phoebe A. (Todd) Schomp, was born on his father's farm, near Bedminster, Somerset County, N. J. He is of Holland descent-the first of his name coming to this country in 1672 and settling in Bushwick, Long Island; he is thus entitled to be and is a member of the Holland Society of New York.
He prepared for college at Rev. William Cornell's Classical Institute, Somerville, N. J. After passing the June examinations, he entered Rutger's College at New Brunswick, N. J., in the fall of 1872, graduating in June, 1876. Having had the ministry in view before entering college, he became a student in the Theological Seminary and graduated from that institution in May, 1879. After a summer's rest, he accepted a call to become the pastor of the Reformed Church of Glenham, Dutchess County, N. Y., and began his work there November 16, 1879. His pastorate at Glenham was noted, like each succeeding one, for harmonious, quiet work, and the forming of most delightful friendships. The first pastorate closed November 8, 1885, under conditions similar to those with which each succeeding pastorate has ended, viz., with an urgent call to another field and earnest solicitations to remain in his present charge. Having received and accepted a call to become the pastor of the Reformed Churches of Marbletown, (Stone Ridge, N. Y.), and North Marbletown, Ulster Co., N. Y., he began his labors in his new charge November 15, 1885. After a successful and laborious term of seven years' service with these churches, he resigned to accept a call to the First Reformed Church of Athens, Greene Co., N. Y., and commenced his service with that church January 8, 1893. He was installed as pastor of the Reformed Church, at Walden, September 1, 1897, preaching his first sermon on the following Sunday (5th).
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