USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 2
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Henry Barclay, son of the Rev. Thomas, appointed Catechist in 1735, and ordained in 1738, served at Fort Hunter most efficiently till 1746. Born and educated in America, he could teach and preach in Dutch and Indian as well as in English, and by this time a large number of Dutch and Irish settlers were gathered around the Fort. He reports an Indian congregation of above five hundred, " regular sober Christians," fifty of them communicants, and a great reforma- tion from the habits of drunkenness they had learned from the traders .¡ He was succeeded in 1749 by the Rev. JOHN OGILVIE, a Yale graduate of 1748, who, in his thirteen years' service as Mis- sionary, was the first to traverse the whole extent of Western New York, from Fort Schuyler (Utica) to Niagara Falls. In 1759 he was Chaplain of the " Royal Americans " # in the Expedition which ended in the capture of Fort Niagara by Sir William Johnson.
" The Mohawks," he says in a letter to the S. P. G. of Feb. I, 1760, " were all upon this service, and almost all the Six Nations, in the whole 940 at the time of the siege. I officiated constantly to the Mohawks and Oneidoes who regularly attended Divine Service. The Oneidoes met us at the Lake near their Castle [Oneida Lake, ] and as
*Digest, 72.
t Digest, 78.
A Provincial regiment raised at Albany. See Mrs. Grant's "Memoirs of an American Lady," p. 192.
IROQUOIS COUNCIL TREE At Kanadesagea (Seneca Castle)
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ENGLISH MISSIONS
they were acquainted with my coming, they brought ten children to receive Baptism, and young women who had been previously instructed came likewise to receive that holy ordinance. I baptized them in the presence of a numerous crowd of spectators, who all seemed pleased with the attention and serious behaviour of the Indians. During this campaign I have had an opportunity with some of every one of the Six Nation Confederacy and their Dependents, and of every nation I find some who have been instructed by the priests of Canada and appear zealous roman Catholics, extremely tenacious of the Ceremonies and Peculiarities of that Church ; and from very good authority I am informed that there is not a nation bordering upon the five great lakes, or the banks of the Ohio, the Mississippi all the way to Louisiana, but what are supplied with Priests and Schoolmasters, and have very decent Places of worship, with every splendid utensil of their Religion. How ought we to blush at our coldness and shameful Indifference in the propagation of our most excellent Religion. In this Fort, there is a very handsome Chapel, and the Priest, who was of the order of St. Francis, had a commission as the King's Chaplain [of France ] to the garrison. I performed Divine Service in this Church every day during my stay here. "*
Under Lord Amherst's orders, Mr. Ogilvie spent the following winter (1760-1) as Chaplain at Montreal, where he was able to reach the Caughnawagas, a clan of the Mohawks settled near that city. His residence was however mostly at Albany, in charge of S. Peter's Church, and with little time to give to the Indian work at Fort Hun- ter. Mrs. Grant of Laggan, in her delightful " Memoirs of an Ameri- can Lady" (Madame Schuyler), says that his office as Indian Mis- sionary was rather nominal than real, but in Albany he was " much beloved by all who were capable of appreciating his merit ; his appear- ance was singularly prepossessing ; his address and manners entirely those of a gentleman ; his doctrine was pure and scriptural, and his life as a clergyman exemplary."¡ Sir William Johnson writes of him as " one who has upon all occasions done everything in his power for
* S. P. G. Digest, 153.
t About 1765 he became Assistant Minister of Trinity Church, New York, and in 1770 one of the Governors of King's (Columbia) College,from which he received degrees of A.M. and D.D., the latter also from Aberdeen. He completed the translation of the Prayer Book into the Mohawk language (begun by Dr. Barclay) in 1769. He died Nov. 26, 1774, aet. 51. A fine portrait of him is in Doc. Hist. N. Y. IV. 195.
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the promotion of true Religion," and asks that his " very inconsidera- ble salary " both as Missionary and Rector at Albany be increased. *
Dr. Ogilvie was followed in the Mohawk mission by the Revs. John Jacob Oel (1750-77), Thomas Brown (1760-66) and Harry Munro f (1768-74, these last two Rectors of S. Peter's, Albany), and in 1770 by JOHN STUART, known later as " the Father of the Church in Upper Canada."# Mrs. Grant introduces him to us (from personal knowl- edge) as one for whom Madame Schuyler " had the utmost veneration. Perfectly calculated for his austere and uncourtly duties, he was wholly devoted to them, and scarce cast a look back to the world which he had forsaken. He was the link which held her to the Mohawks, whom she now [since Colonel Schuyler's death ] saw so much more seldom, but always continued to love. . . She found much entertainment in tracing the unfoldings of the human mind in its native state, and the gradual progress of intellect when enlightened by the gentle influence of pure religion ; and this good Father of the desarts gratified her more by the details he was enabled to give of the progress of devotion and of mind among his little flock, than he could have done by all that learning or knowledge of the world can bestow."§
The storm of the Revolution was already impending when Mr. Stuart began his mission, but he laboured faithfully at Fort Hunter until long after most of the Mohawks had followed Sir John Johnson and their Chief Joseph Brant to Niagara at its outbreak in 1775. He had brought them to daily public prayer when at home from their hunt- ing ; to come often long distances to Holy Communion at the greater Festivals ; to a marked reformation in habits of living, especially in abstinence from strong liquors ; and to keep their children steadily at the School which he taught with the help of a faithful Catechist, Cornelius (?) Bennet (who was also useful as a physician). That the Indians, both Mohawks and Oneidas, appreciated his excellence, is shown by their repeated and urgent requests that he might be per- mitted to remain among them. In their Conference of August, 1775, with the American Commissioners at Albany, they call him " our father, the Minister, who resides among the Mohawks, and was sent
* N. Y. Col. Doc. VII. 43.
t Grandfather of Frances Munro, wife of Bishop De Lancey.
# Digest, S. P. G., 73, 877.
§ Memoirs, p. 237.
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ENGLISH MISSIONS
them by the King. He does not meddle in civil affairs, but instructs them in the way to heaven. They beg he may continue in peace among them. It would occasion great disturbance was he to be taken away They would look upon it as tak- ing away one of their own body." *
But with the increasing bitterness of border warfare, Mr. Stuart was forced to give up his work at Fort Hunter (where a part of the Mohawks still remained), although he had gathered there a congrega- tion of two hundred white settlers, for whom he held regular Sunday services in English in addition to those for the Indians. He officiated also once a fortnight at Johnstown (where a church had been built by Sir William Johnson), a service freely given by him.
In 1777, being suspected (without reason, as was afterwards shown) of correspondence with the British officers, his house and church were plundered, and for three years he was kept a prisoner on parole at Schenectady, and then allowed to go to Montreal on exchange for an American officer. On the termination of the war he was urged to return to Philadelphia and to Virginia, but he was " resolved not to look back, . if it pleased God to make him the instrument of spreading the knowledge of His Gospel among the heathen." In 1785 he removed to Cataraqui (Kingston), where he again taught a school, but from time to time visited his former charge, the Mohawks, now on Grand River (Brantford) and at Niagara. He became the Bishop's Commissary for all Canada West; Chaplain to the first Colonial Legislature and to the garrison at Kingston ; declined an appointment as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas ; received from his Alma Mater, the University of Pennsylvania, in 1799, the degree of Doctor in Divinity ; and from his Canada friends a large estate (4,000 acres) of valuable land. But to the last he continued ever active in his labours for the Indians, which brought him repeatedly within the borders of Western New York. In 1784 we find him at Brant's Indian (log) church near Lewiston (where in a tree near by, hung the bell given by Queen Anne for the now ruined Chapel at Fort Hunter), preaching to a congregation (of Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Tuscaroras) which the little church could not begin to contain, baptizing over one hundred of them (the adults
* Speech of "Little Abraham," a Mohawk Chief, Stone's Life of Brant, I. 447 ; N. Y. Col. Doc. VIII. 623.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
having been instructed by the Indian Catechist) and solemnizing several marriages. "It was very affecting," he says, "to see these affectionate people, from whom he had been separated more than seven years, assembled in a decent and commodious church, erected principally by themselves, with the greatest seeming devotion and a becoming gravity."*
And what became of all this missionary work and sacrifice? Of the Oneidas our history will have something to tell much later on. A few years ago (in 1884) it was my privilege to meet at Brantford, Dr. Stuart's successor, the Rev. Abraham Nelles, and learn from him something of the results among the Mohawks to this day. I cannot give statistics here ; but there is a large body of the descendants of Joseph Brant's followers, most of them earnest and faithful Church- men, and in life and character far above what we think of as attain- able by the Indians under white rule. This may be said indeed of a much larger number of the Indians in Canada, of various nations, who have been trained in the Church, and, as wards of the State, received what they so seldom find among us, decent and honest treatment. The Christian work of well-nigh two centuries has not been thrown away on them. t
* S. P. G. Digest, p. 154.
Dr. Stuart died Aug. 15, 1811, aet. 70, at Kingston. "Being six feet four inches in height, he was known among his New York friends as ' the little gen- tleman.' His manners were gentle and conciliatory [ spite of the "austere and uncourtly duties " of which Mrs. Grant tells us above], and his character was such as led him rather to win men by kindness and persuasion, than to awe them by the terrors of authority. His sermons found a way to the consciences of those long insensible to any real religious convictions." His oldest son, the late Ven. George Okill Stuart, D.D., LL.D. (Harvard, 1801), Archdeacon of Kingston and Dean of Ontario, d. 1862. See the interesting Memoir of Dr. J. Stuart in Doc. Hist. N. Y., IV. 313-22.
t They still carefully preserve Queen Anne's gifts of massive altar plate, fine old service books, and delicately embroidered altar linen, now worn to a thread and no longer available for every day use. The altar plate for the Onondaga chapel which was not built, came into possession of S. Peter's Church, Albany, where it is still to be seen.
ALTAR PLATE Given by Queen Anne to Mohawk Chapel at Fort Hunter, 1712
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SITE OF FIRST INDIAN (MOHAWK) CHURCH, LEWISTON, 1775
CHAPTER IV
PROTESTANT MISSIONS : ZEISBERGER AND KIRKLAND
WORD must be said of some other Christian work among the Iroquois in the Eighteenth Century. In 1750, two earnest Moravians, " Bishop" Cammer- hof, and " Brother" David Zeisberger, traversed the wilderness from Bethlehem, Pa., to Onondaga, where on the 20th of July they obtained permission to establish themselves as Missionaries. They returned to Bethlehem before winter, having bap- tized a number of Indian converts ; and in the spring of 1751 Zeis- berger went back with two others (Gottfried Rundt and Martin Mark) and remained about a year. Again in 1754, and for many years after, he was at Onondaga, and completed two Indian grammars (English and German), a large dictionary, and various books of instruction and devotion. The mission was however abandoned at the beginning of the Revolution, and left no visible permanent fruit .*
Much more effective, for forty years at least, were the labours of the Congregationalist SAMUEL KIRKLAND among the Oneidas.
Born at Norwich, Conn., 1741, and prepared for college in Dr. Wheelock's Missionary School at Lebanon (where began his friend- ship with Joseph Brant, and, probably, his life-long interest in the Indians), he set out in November, 1764, while yet a Princeton under- graduate, for Johnson Hall, where he was most cordially received by Sir William, and staid till Jan. 16, 1765 ; then by a journey of 150 miles through the wilderness, on snow-shoes (in company with two Seneca Indians'), he reached Kanadesagea (the " Seneca Castle," afterwards Geneva), in twenty-three days. After careful explanation of his plans and motives, he was kindly received, and finally adopted by their principal chief. He remained only one year with the Sene- cas, and after his ordination (Congregational) as missionary, began in August, 1766, his forty years' work among the Oneidas. He soon made himself familiar with their language, customs and feelings, endeared himself to them, and gained their confidence more fully,
*J. V. H. Clark, Onondaga, I. 220-3.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
probably, than any other of the white race ever did. Sympathizing entirely with the cause of the Colonies, (at the loss, of course, of Sir John and Guy Johnson's friendship, though not, it seems, of that of Brant, who is said to have saved his life at the outbreak of the Revo- lution), he was able to render most important service in securing the neutrality or the aid of the Oneidas, who for the most part, alone of all the Five Nations, continued faithful to the American side. During most of the war he was separated from his family, who were sent for safety to Stockbridge, Mass., while he was serving not only as mis- sionary, but as Post Chaplain at Fort Schuyler, and Brigade Chaplain in Sullivan's Expedition of 1779 against the Senecas. At the close of the war he resumed his residence at Oneida, and from that time laboured incessantly till his death (Feb. 28, 1808), often visiting the remoter Indians, as far west as Buffalo, preaching three times every Sunday, and giving daily instruction wherever he might be. His character and services were not unappreciated by his own countrymen ; from Phelps and Gorham he received a gift of two thousand acres of land (" No. 7 " in Ontario County) and from the State of New York nearly five thousand more near Oneida. Out of the " Plan of Edu- cation for the Five Nations " which he put forth in 1792, grew the Hamilton Academy of 1793 (subsequently the Hamilton College of 1810), to which he gave a large endowment in land. It has been well said of him that " few missionaries have been more faithful and devoted to the cause of truth, have made larger sacrifices, exposed themselves to greater perils and hardships, or had their efforts crowned with a greater degree of success, than Samuel Kirkland."*
* Clark, Onondaga, I. 223-9. See also Lothrop, Life of Kirkland, and num- erous references and letters in N. Y. Doc. Hist. and Col. Doc. Kirkland was the intimate friend of the famous Indian preacher Samuel Occum (d. 1792), who officiated occasionally at Oneida and Onondaga. I need hardly add that the 16th President of Harvard, John Thornton Kirkland (Harv. 1789), D.D., LL.D., was a son of the great missionary. In most early documents the name is spelled Kirtland.
PART SECOND
DIOCESE OF NEW YORK : 1785-1838
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST SETTLERS AND MISSIONARIES
UR story of Colonial days, interesting as it is (or as it seems to me), has little to do with the subsequent his- tory of the Church in Western New York ; for as far as we are concerned, there was no Western New York till after the Revolution. But it began to be within the first year from the Peace. Hugh White of Middletown, Conn. (great-great-grandson of John of Cambridge, 1632), who had become in 1783 (at the age of fifty years) one of the proprietors of the "Sada- queda (Sauquoit) Patent," now Whitestown, Oneida County, arrived at his new home, with his large family, June 5, 1784, after a month's journey mostly by the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers; one of his sons with two yoke of oxen keeping pace with them all the way by land, to the mouth of the Sauquoit Creek .* Almost at the same time came James Dean and Jedediah Phelps to Wood Creek, near Fort Stanwix (Rome);t three years later there were twenty-one log houses in what is now Oneida County, and solitary families near where are now the cities of Syracuse, Auburn and Geneva.
By an Act of the Legislature of New York of March 7, 1788, the
* Seventy-seven years later, in August, 1861, I said the Burial Service at New Hartford for Esther (White) Storrs, granddaughter of Judge White, widow of the Hon. Henry L. Storrs of Whitesboro, mother of the Rev. Henry S. Storrs of Yonkers, and grandmother of the Rev. Leonard Kip Storrs, D.D., of Brook- line, Mass.,-a devoted Church woman. She was the first white child born with- in the limits of the old Diocese of Western New York.
t What a pity that the old historical name, memorial of the brave old Irish General who built the Fort " at the Oneida Carrying Place " in 1758, should be lost, and lost in Rome ! But there are too many instances of such bad taste in W. N. Y. nomenclature.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
County of Montgomery (the "Tryon County" of the Revolution) was divided into seven towns, the last of which, named "White's Town," was bounded north, south and west by the bounds of the State, and east by a north and south line extending to those bounds, and "crossing the Mohawk River at the Ford near and east of the house of William Cunningham" (near the foot of Genesee St., Utica). This last boundary was in 1798 extended two miles east to the present east line of Oneida County. With this exception, the " Town of White's Town " comprised exactly the territory of the original Dio- cese of Western New York, and contained when thus set off a white population of two hundred souls .*
Meanwhile the General Convention of the Church in the United States had been organized at Philadelphia on the " Tuesday before the Feast of S. Michael" 1784 ; and the Diocese of New York held its primary Convention in New York, June 22, 1785, with the Rever- end Samuel Provoost as President, the Reverend Mr. [Benjamin] Moore as Secretary, and three other clergymen and eleven laymen. Two years later, on S. Peter's Day 1787, the New York Convention (still only five Priests) welcomed their first Bishop, the Right Rev. Samuel Provoost, D.D. (consecrated at Lambeth Feb. 4, preceding), with Morning Service at S. Paul's Chapel (following " an anthem suitable to the occasion sung by the Charity Scholars") and an address of congratulation. t
The earliest action of the Convention relating in any way to West- ern New York was in 1796, when its first Canon was passed, providing for a Committee of three clergymen and three laymen "for Propaga- ting the Gospel in the State of New York."# The Committee appointed were the Rev. Benjamin Moore, D.D., the Rev. Abraham Beach, D.D., the Rev. John Bissett (all Assistant Ministers of Trinity Church), Dr. John Charlton, Hubert Van Wagenen, and David M. Clarkson (also all of Trinity Church, though the last named was not a member of the Convention till 1813). The immediate result of this
* Spafford, N. Y. Gaz. (1813), 327. Jones, Oneida, 8, 819.
1Journ. N. Y. 5, 18 (reprint).
#This action grew out of an " Act" of the General Convention of 1792 (repealed in 1795) for "supporting missionaries to preach the Gospel on the frontiers of the United States." It was repealed because it was found that the object could be better accomplished by the Church in the respective States. (Journ. Gen. Conv. 1792-5, pp. 119, 145.) (Bioren's Reprint.)
Newyork, Hor? 1,1006 ...
Gentlemen A2.
The incorporation of a protestant Chopal Church in the formof Geneva is a matter which has afordi me great entrifaction. On this is aplace show In every day oning more & more into import. and I am anderen to have our Chiarch es- Zallike there in a rekertable fortuna; for this purpose, I have requested ch"Thelps to pay that town in future very partrenben attention Towards hur support we shallspeld from the quarter every and in our power but something must be done on your part, on order to provide for him a decent maintenance I am sure, every prudent method will be adopted for the completion of the work much you have in hand, What you eartions maybe crowned with full onewho you shall have the good wisher I hearty co-operation of your friend fare B. Moon
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FIRST SETTLERS AND MISSIONARIES
action was the appointment of the Rev. ROBERT GRIFFITH WETMORE, a Lay Deputy from New Rochelle, ordained Deacon by Bishop Pro- voost May 21, 1797, as their first Missionary in Western New York. The Journal (of 1797) tells us nothing more of him except that his letters and journal accompanied the report of the Committee of that year. So far as I can find, the letters and journal have never seen the light ; but his immediate successor, Philander (afterwards Bishop) Chase, who must have seen them, records that Mr. Wetmore " travel- led 2386 miles, performed Divine Service and preached 107 times, baptized 47 adults and 365 infants, and distributed among the indi- gent and deserving a number of copies of the Book of Common Prayer. To learn what good this pious man did by his ministrations throughout the State, one must travel where he travelled, and con- verse with those with whom he conversed. The benefits arising to the Church of Christ and to individuals were apparently many and great. He exhorted the indolent, comforted the desponding, and awakened the careless ; in short, he so roused the people from their lethargy, and excited them to a sense of their religious duties, that in the year fol- lowing there were incorporated in the State seven new congregations, and Divine Service began to be performed in many places where people had never attempted it before."*
From other sources we learn that Mr. Wetmore went in the fall of 1797 to Canandaigua, where he received from some of its earliest settlers, such as Judge Moses Atwater and the Sanborn family, sturdy Connecticut Churchmen, the same hearty welcome which they gave a year later to his successor. In December he is on a visit to the Oneidas at their " Castle," baptizing 24 of them ; thence to Bridge- water, Oneida county, where he hears of some Churchmen at Paris Hill, and sets out before daylight for that place. There his work had been anticipated by the organization on the 13th of February, 1797, of S. Paul's Church, the first in the old Diocese of Western New York. Eleven men met to effect the organization, and all were taken into its first Vestry. Eli Blakeslee (who had sold his farm at a sacrifice, and moved to Paris, solely to establish the Church there), and Gideon Seymour were the first Church-Wardens of Western New York; and the ninth Vestryman and last survivor of that body, Silas
*Bishop Chase's Sermon at Poughkeepsie, 1801, quoted in his " Remi- niscences," I. 37.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
Judd, was a lay delegate at the Diocesan Council within my own recollection .*
Our first missionary was not allowed to see any further results of his labours. Already in failing health, he served for a short time after this as Rector of S. George's Church, Schenectady, and going thence to the South, died at Savannah, Georgia, yet a young man, in 1803.1
This work was taken up in the winter of 1798-9 by the Rev. PHIL- ANDER CHASE, afterwards known throughout the land as the first great Missionary Bishop of the West, who was ordained Deacon in S. George's Chapel, New York, May 10, 1798, Mr. Wetmore receiving Priest's Orders at the same time. Mr. Chase records that on his way from Albany to Western New York he preached both in the ruined Chapel of S. Anne's (or Queen Anne) at Fort Hunter, and in the
* Churchman's Magazine, VII. 62 (1810) ; Gospel Messenger, XVIII. 146 (Oct. 5, 1844), XXVII. 190 (Dec. 16, 1853), XLII. 78 (May 14, 1868). " Until the spring of 1796 there were but three Churchmen, Uri Doolittle, Peter Selleck and Selah Seymour. During the spring and summer their number was increased to seven ; and in October, at a company training, in a cart (whence the church got the name of ' the ox-cart church '), they first had a consultation about organizing a congregation, adjourning to the house of Selah Seymour. There they agreed to meet for public worship on the first Sunday in Advent ; when Gideon Sey- mour offered prayers, and Eli Blakeslee read a sermon." At the organization, in the same house, Feb. 13, 1797, the wardens above named were chosen, and "Uri Doolittle, Selah Seymour, Benjamin Graves, Thomas Stevens, Peter Selleck, George Harden, Epos Bly, Noah Hummaston and Silas Judd, vestry- men." For one year services were held in the house of Selah Seymour ; then in other private houses or in a temporary building (bought in 1799 for $250), until 1808, when a small wooden church was built, supplanted by the present one (also of wood) in 1818. It is stated that from the organization of this rural parish, Sunday services have never been omitted. Nov. 9, 1798, the Clerk records that he "paid to Mr. Peck twenty-two shillings for keeping church in his house." March 28, 1807, " David Wildman was engaged to sweep and wash the Church house for the ensuing year, at the rate twenty-three shillings," to which salary $1.37 was added the next year. Nov. 26, 1801, a long subscription list is found "for a bass viol for the use of the Church." At the organization, "voted, the name of this Church shall be styled and called St. Paul's Church, Herkimer County."
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