USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > The annals of Albany, Vol. I > Part 13
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sistory. And we do will and grant that the said deacons of the said church, and their successors for ever, shall and may lawfully and peace- ably, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, at the meeting of the said congregation for the public service and worship of Almighty God, to collect and receive the free and voluntary alms and oblations of the members of the said congregation, and the free and voluntary offer- ings made by the communicants at their receiving of the holy sacrament of the Lord's Supper for the uses aforesaid, and to dispose thereof for the pious and charitable uses aforesaid. And we do will and grant that the kirkmasters aforesaid, and their successors for ever, shall and may from time to time, and at all times hereafter, and so often as it shall be necessary, shall and may demise, grant, and to farm let, of the demesnes of the said church, demisable and grantable to and for the profit and advantage of the said church, and receive and collect the rents and reve- nues arising therefrom, or otherwise, and apply the same for and towards the buildings and reparations of the said church and parsonage, and other the hereditaments belonging to the said minister, elders and deacons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in the city of Albany, and such other uses as are proper and necessary, provided always that the said elders, deacons and kirkmasters in their separate offices, be always accountable to and under the direction of the consistory of the said church for the time being, and not otherwise. And we do further will and grant that it shall and may be in the power of the consistory of the said church, and their successors for ever, if they shall agree thereupon, and find themselves able and capable of mantaining him at any time or times hereafter, to nominate and call one or more able and sufficient minister, lawfully ordained according to the constitution afore- said, in all things to assist and officiate in the ministry which dotlı belong to the sacred office and function of a minister of the gospel in the said church, provided always that there be no preheminency or su- periority in that office, and not otherwise. And we do likewise will and grant to the said minister, elders, and deacons of the Reformed Pro- testant Dutch Church in the city of Albany, and their successors for ever, that it shall and may be lawfull to and for the consistory of the said church, to nominate and appoint a clerk or precentor, schoolmaster, sexton, bellringer, and such and so many other officers and servants of the same church, as they shall think convenient and necessary, and to call them by the same or what other names they shall think fit. And we do will and grant that it shall and may be lawfull to and for the con- sistory of the said church, and their successors from time to time, and at all times hereafter, to make rules, orders, and ordinances for the better discipline and government of the said church, provided always that such rules, orders, and ordinances shall not be binding, nor effect any other of our reformed protestant subjects within the same city, than the voluntary members of their said congregation, and be no ways re- pugnant to our laws of Great Britain and of this colony, but agreeable to the articles of faith and worship agreed upon and instituted by the National Synod at Dort, aforesaid. And further of our especial grace, certain knowledge and meer motion, we have given, granted, ratified, and confirmed unto the aforesaid minister, elders, and deacons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, in the city of Albany, and to their
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successors and assigns for ever, all that their said church and ground whereon it standeth, their said parsonage or minister's dwelling house, with its herditaments and appurtenances thereunto belonging or any ways appertaining, and all the alms house or poor house aforesaid, all that the pasture or pastures, and all other the premises aforesaid, to- gether with all and singular edifices, buildings, gardens, orchards, back- sides, wells, ways, hollows, cellars, passages, privileges, liberties, profits, advantages, hereditaments, and appurtenances whatsoever, to all and every of them belonging, or in any ways appertaining. And all that our estate, right, title, interest, properly and demand of, into or out of the same or any part of any of them, and the revertions, remainders, and the yearly rents and profits of the same, saving only the right and title of any other person or persons, body corporate and politick what- soever, to any of the premises hereby granted, or meant, mentioned, and intended to be hereby granted, or to any of them, to have and to hold, all that their said church and ground parsonage or minister's dwell- ing house, alms house or poor house, pasture or pastures, and all and singular other the premises with their and every of their heridiatments and appurtenances unto the aforesaid minister, elders and deacons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, in the city of Albany, their succes- sors and assigns for ever, to the sole and only proper use, benefit and behoof of the aforesaid minister, elders and deacons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, in the city of Albany, and their successors and assigns for ever, (save only as before is saved and expressed) to be holden of us, our heirs and successors for ever, free and common soccage as of our manor of East Greenwich, in the county of Kent, within our realm of Great Britain, yielding, rendering and paying therefore, yearly and every year, for ever unto us, our heirs and successors for ever, at our custom house in New York, unto our and their receiver general for the time being, on the feist day of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, commonly called Lady Day, the annual rent of one pepper corn, if the same be lawfully demanded, in lieu and stead of all other rents, services, dues and duties and demands whatsoever, for the same church parsonage, ahs house, pastures, and all other the above granted premises, with the heriditaments and appurtenances. And we do hereby will and grant unto the aforesaid minister, elders, and dea- cons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, in the city of Albany, and to their successors for ever, that these our letters shall be made patent, and that they and the record of them remaining in our secretary's office of our province of New York, shall be good and effectual in the law to all intents and purposes whatsoever, according to the true intent and meaning of them, and shall be construed, reputed, esteemed and adjudged in all cases most favorable for the benefit and behoof of the aforesaid minister, elders and deacons of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church in the city of Albany and of their successors forever, notwith- standing the not true and well reciting of the premises, or of the limits . and bounds of any of them, or any part of them, any law or other restraint, incertainty or imperfection whatsoever to the contrary thereof in any way notwithstanding. In testimony whereof we have caused the great seal of our province of New York to be affixed to these pre- sents, and the same to be entered of record in one of the books of pa-
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tents in our said secretary's office remaining. Witness our said trusty and well beloved Colonel Peter Schuyler, president of our council at Fort George, the 10th day of August, in the 7th year of our reign, anno domini 1720.
John Henry Lydius .- The council of the province in 1747, brought serious charges against John Henry Lydius, son of the dominie, alleging that he was a person of desperate fortunes; that he had resided several years in Canada, married a woman there of the Romish church, after having abjured the protestant religion, and that his intrigues, together with other popish emissaries, had tended to alienate the friendship of the Indians and perplex the administration.
Rev. Mr. Frelinghuysen .- A regiment came to town about this time, the superior officers of which were younger, more gay, and less amen- able to good counsel than those who used to command the troops, which had formerly been placed on this station. They paid their visits at the Flats, and were received; but not as usual, cordially; neither their manners nor morals being calculated for that meridian. Part of the Royal Americans, or independent companies, had at this time possession of the fort; some of these had families : and they were in general per- sons of decent morals, and a moderate and judicious way of thinking, who, though they did not court the society of the natives, expressed no contempt for their manners or opinions. The regiment I speak of, on the contrary turned those plain burghers into the highest ridicule, yet used every artifice to get acquainted with them. They wished in short to act the part of very fine gentlemen ; and the gay and superficial in those days were but too apt to take for their model the fine gentleman of the detestable old comedies. These dangerously accomplished heroes made their appearance at a time when the English language began to be more generally understood ; and when the pretensions of the mer- chants, commissaries, &c., to the stations they occupied were no longer dubious. Those polished strangers now began to make a part of gene- ral society. At this crisis it was that it was found necessary to have recourse to billets. The superior officers had generally been either re- ceived at the Flats, or accommodated in a large house which the colonel had in town. The manner in which the hospitality of that family was exercised, the selection which they made of such as were fitted to asso. ciate with the young persons who dwelt under their protection, always gave a kind of tone to society, and held out a light to others.
Madame Schuyler's sister was married to the respectable and intelligent magistrate,f who administered justice not only to the town, but to the whole neighborhood. In their house, also, such of the military were
' The residence of the Schuylers.
t Cornelins Cuyler, mayor of Albany, who had been a most successful Indian trader in his youth, and had acquired large possessions, and carried on an extensive commer- cial intercourse with the traders of that day, bringing from Europe quantities of those goods that best suited them, and sending back their peltry in exchange ; he was not only wealthy, but hospitable, intelligent, and liberal minded, as appeared by his attachment to the army ; which was, in those days, the distinguishing feature of those who in know- ledge and candor were beyond others. [It will be seen by reference to the list of mayors of Albany, page 25, that the authoress has committed a mistake in the name of this per- con. Mrs. Grant returned to England in 1768, when but 13 years of age, and there was no mayor of the name during her residenco in America.]
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received and entertained, as had the sanction of her sister's approbation. This judicious and equitable person, who in the course of trading in early life upon the lakes, had undergone many of the hardships, and even dangers, which awaited the military in that perilous path of duty, knew well what they had to encounter in the defence of a surly and self-righted race, who were little inclined to show them common indul- gence ; far less gratitude. He judged equitably between both parties ; and while with the most patriotic steadiness he resisted every attempt of the military to seize any thing with a high hand, he set the example himself, and used every art of persuasion to induce his countrymen to every concession that could conduce to the ease and comfort of their protectors. So far at length he succeeded, that when the regiment to which I allude arrived in town, and showed in general an amiable and obliging disposition, they were quartered in different houses; the supe- rior officers being lodged willingly by the most respectable of the in- habitants, such as not having large families, had room to accommodate them. The Colonel and Madame happened, at the time of these ar- rangements, to be at New York.
In the meanwhile society began to assume a new aspect; of the satel- lites, which on various pretexts, official and commercial, had followed the army; several had families, and those began to mingle more fre- quently with the inhabitants, who were as yet too simple to detect the surreptitious tone of lax morals and second-handed manners, which pre- vailed among many of those who had but very lately climbed up to the stations they held, and in whose houses the European modes and diver- sions were to be met with; these were not in the best style, yet even in that style they began to be relished by some young persons, with whom the power of novelty prevailed over that of habit; and in a few rare in- stances, the influence of the young drew the old into a faint consent to these attempted innovations; but with many the resistance was not to be overcome.
In this state of matters, one guardian genius watched over the com- munity with unremitting vigilance. From the original settlement of the place there had been a succession of good quiet clergymen, who came from Holland to take the command of this expatriated colony. These good men found an easy charge, among a people with whom the external duties of religion were settled habits, which no one thought of dispensing with; and where the primitive state of manners, and the con- stant occupation of the mind in planting and defending a territory where every thing was, as it were, to be new created, was a preservation to the morals. Religion being never branded with the reproach of imputed hypocrisy, or darkened by the frown of austere bigotry, was venerated .even by those who were content to glide thoughtless down the stream of time, without seriously considering whither it was conveying them, till sorrow or sickness reminded them of the great purpose for which they were indulged with the privilege of existence.
The dominies, as these people called their ministers, contented them- selves with preaching in a sober and moderate strain to the people; and living quietly in the retirement of their families, were little heard of but in the pulpit; and they seemed to consider a studious privacy as one of their chief duties. Dominie Frelinghuysen, however, was not contented with this quietude, which he seemed to consider as tending to
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languish into indifference. Ardent in his disposition, eloquent in his preaching, animated and zealous in his conversation, and frank and popular in his manners, he thought it his duty to awaken in every breast that slumbering spirit of devotion, which he considered as lulled by se- curity, or drooping in the meridian of prosperity, like tender plants in the blaze of sunshine. These he endeavoured to refresh by daily ex- hortation, as well as by the exercise of his public duties. Though rigid in some of his notions, his life was spotless, and his concern for his people warm and affectionate; his endeavors to amend and inspire them with happier desires and alms, were considered as the labor of love, and rewarded by the warmest affection, and the most profound veneration ; and what to him was of much more value, by a growing soli- citude for the attainment of that higher order of excellence which it was his delight to point out to them. But while he thus incessantly "al- lured to brighter worlds, and led the way," he might perhaps insensibly have acquired a taste of dominion, which might make him unwilling to part with any portion of that most desirable species of power, which subjects to us, not human actions only, but the will which directs them.
The progress which this regiment made in the good graces of his flock, and the gradual assimilation to English manners of a very inferior standard, alarmed and grieved the good man not a little ; and the intel- ligence he received from some of the elders of his church, who had the honor of lodging the more dissipated subalterns, did not administer much comfort to him. By this time the Anglomania was beginning to spread. A sect arose among the young people, who seemed resolved to assume a lighter style of dress and manners, and to borrow their taste in those respects from their new friends. This bade fair soon to undo all the good pastor's labors. The evil was daily growing ; and what, alas, could Domine Frelinghuysen do but preach! This he did earnestly, and even angrily, but in vain. Many were exasperated but none re- claimed. The good dominie, however, had those who shared his sor- rows and resentments; the elder and wiser heads of families, indeed a great majority of the primitive inhabitants, were stedfast against inno- vation. The colonel of the rigiment, who was a man of fashion and family, and possessed talents for both good and evil purposes, was young and gay : and being lodged in the house of a very wealthy citizen, who had before, in some degree, affected the newer modes of living, so cap- tivated him with his good breeding and affability, that he was ready to humour any scheme of diversion which the colonel and his associates proposed. Under the auspicies of this gallant commander, balls began to be concerted, and a degree of flutter and frivolity to take place, which was as far from elegance as it was from the honest, artless cheerfulness of the meetings usual among them. The good dominie more and more alarmed, not content with preaching, now began to prophesy : but like Cassandra, or to speak as justly, though less poetically, like his whole fraternity, was doomed always to deliver true predictions to those who never heeded them.
Now the very ultimatum of degeneracy, in the opinion of these simple good people, was approaching ; for now the officers, encouraged by the success of all their former projects for amusement, resolved to new fashion and enlighten those amiable novices whom their former schemes had attracted within the sphere of their influence; and for this purpose,
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a private theatre was fitted up, and preparations made for acting a play; except the Schuylers and their adopted family, there was not perhaps one of the natives who understood what was meant by a play. And by this time, the town, once so closely united by intermarriages and num- berless other ties, which could not exist in any other state of society, were divided into two factions; one consisting almost entirely of such of the younger class, as having a smattering of New York education, and a little more of dress and vivacity, or perhaps levity, than the rest, were eager to mingle in the society, and adopt the manner of those strangers. It is but just, however, to add, that only a few of the more estimable were included in this number; these, however, they might have been captivated with novelty and plausibility, were too much attached to their older relations to give them pain, by an intimacy with people to whom an impious neglect of duties the most sacred was generally im- puted, and whose manner of treating their inferiors, at that distance from the control of higher powers, was often such as to justify the im- putation of cruelty, which the severity of military punishments had given rise to. The play, however, was acted in a barn, and pretty well attended, notwithstanding the good dominie's earnest charges to the con- trary. It was the Beaux Stratagem; no favorable specimen of the deli- cacy or morality of the British theatre; and as for the wit it contains, very little of that was level to the comprehension of the novices who were there first initiated into a knowledge of the magic of the scene, yet they "laughed consumedly," as Scrub says, and actually did so, " because they were talking of him." They laughed at Scrub's gestures and appearance, and they laughed very heartily at seeing the gay young ensigns, whom they had been used to dance with, flirting fans, display- ing great hoops, and with painted cheeks and colored eye-brows, sailing about in female habiliments. This was a jest palpable and level to every understanding; and it was not only an excellent good one, but lasted a long while; for every time they looked at them when restored to their own habits, they laughed anew at the recollection of their late masquerade.
The fame of these exhibitions went abroad, and opinions were formed of them no way favorable to the actors or to the audience. In this re- gion of reality, where rigid truth was always undisguised, they had not learned to distinguish between fiction and falsehood. It was said that the officers familiar with every vice and every disguise, had not only spent a whole night in telling lies in a counterfeited place, the reality of which had never existed, but that they were themselves a lie, and had degraded manhood, and broke through an express prohibition in scrip- ture, by assuming female habits; that they had not only told lies, but cursed and swore the whole night, and assumed the character of knaves. fools, and robbers, which every good and wise man held in detestation, and no one would put on unless they felt themselves easy in them. Painting their faces, of all other things, seemed most to violate the Al. banian ideas of decorum, and was looked upon as the most flagrant abomination. Great and loud was the outcry produced by it. Little skilled in sophistry, and strangers to all the arts " that make the worse appear the better reason," the young auditors could only say "that in- deed it was very amusing; made them laugh heartily, and did harm to nobody." So harmless, indeed, and agreeable did this entertainment
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appear to the new converts of fashion, that the Recruiting Officer was given out for another night, to the great annoyance of Mr. Frelinghuy- sen, who invoked heaven and earth to witness and avenge this contempt, not only of his authority, but, as he expressed it, of the source from whence it was derived. Such had been the sanctity of this good man's life, and the laborious diligence and awful earnestness with which he inculcatel the doctrines he taught, that they had produced a corres- pondent effect, for the most part, on the lives of his hearers, and led them to regard him as the next thing to an evangelist; accustomed to success in all his undertakings, and to " honor, love, obedience, troops of friends," and all that gratitude and veneration can offer to its most distinguished object, this rebellion against his authority and contempt of his opinion, (once the standard by which every one's judgment was regulated), wounded him very deeply. The abhorrence with which he inspired the parents of the transgressors, among whom were many young men of spirit and intelligence, was the occasion of some family disagreements, a thing formerly scarcely known. Those young people, accustomed to regard their parents with implicit reverence, were un- willing to impute to them unqualified harshness, and therefore removed the blame of a conduct so unusual to their spiritual guide; " and while he thought, good easy man, full surely his greatness was a ripening, nipt his root." Early one Monday morning, after the dominie had, on the preceding day, been peculiarly eloquent on the subject of theatrical amusements, and pernicious innovations, some unknown person left within his door a club, a pair of old shoes, a crust of black bread, and a dollar. 'The worthy pastor was puzzled to think what this could mean; but had it too soon explained to him. It was an emblematic message, to signify the desire entertained of his departure. The stick was to push him away, the shoes to wear on the road, and the bread and money a provision for his journey. Too conscious, and too fond of popularity, the pastor languished under a sense of imaginary degrada- tion, grew jealous, and thought every one alienated from him, because a few giddy young people were stimulated by momentary resentments to express disapprobation in this vague and dubious manner. Thus, insensibly, do vanity and self-opinion mingle with our highest duties. Had the dominie, satisfied with the testimony of a good conscience, gone on in the exercise of his duty, and been above allowing little personal resentments to mingle with his zeal for what he thought right, he might have felt himself far above an insult of this kind; but he found to his cost, that "a habitation giddy and unsure hath he that buildeth on the fickle heart" of the unsteady, wavering multitude.
Madame now returned to town with the Colonel; and finding this general disorder and division of sentiments with regard to the pastor, as well as to the adoption of new modes, endeavored, with her usual good sense, to moderate and heal. She was always of opinion that the in- crease of wealth should be accompanied with a proportionate progress in refinement and intelligence; but she had a particular dislike to peo- ple's forsaking a respectable plainness of dress and manners for mere imperfect imitation and inelegant finery. Liberal and judicious in her views, she did not altogether approve the austerity of the dominie's opinions, nor the vehemence of his language; and as a Christian, she still less approved his dejection and concern at the neglect or rudeness
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