USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 3
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1 Sabine, American Loyalists; MS. Letter of the Rev. Dr. Payne, of Schen- ectady, 1888; Bolton, Church in Westchester, 288. R. G. W. was grandson of the Rev. James Wetmore, S. P. G. missionary at Rye, 1724-60; educated for the law, which he abandoned to become a missionary of the Church.
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FIRST SETTLERS AND MISSIONARIES
"goodly Stone Church" of Sir William Johnson at Johnstown, of both which churches the Rev. John Urquhart was then Rector. At Oneida Castle (after a weary journey through snow two feet deep) he found the " warriors" from home, but was welcomed by Shenandoah's " Queen," "Queen Mother," and " Princess," in their " little but neatly kept home, sitting round a fire on a clean-swept hearth, the smoke issuing through an aperture in the roof without a chimney. The royal dames sat round the boiling pot, making strings and garters, and the Princess affixing brooches to a piece of blue cloth wound around her person." He visited the death-bed of the Christian inter- preter, an Indian educated at Dartmouth College. At Utica, with the help of Col. Benjamin Walker, the friend of Washington and Steuben, he organized a parish under the recent Act of the Legislature ; but this and other organizations on this journey, proved only temporary, and were afterwards renewed. At Paris Hill he found the new parish well kept together by regular Sunday Services held by lay-readers from their own number in a private house. At Onondaga he found the present site of Syracuse " one dreary salt-marsh," two or three cabins for boiling salt, tenanted only in the winter, being the only sign of civilized life ; but at " Hardenberg's Corners," now Auburn, he was heartily welcomed by the notable Church family of the Bostwicks, from Lanesborough, Massachusetts, a family which through three or four generations has given clergymen as well as devout lay- men to the Church. Services were held, children were baptized, and a congregation gathered, the nucleus of S. Peter's Church. Later in the winter he reached " Canadahqua," where the Senecas were still lingering around their old homes among the lovely lakeside hills from which they believed the human race to have sprung. In the newly built Court House the villagers met for several Sundays, the services resulting in the organization of S. Matthew's Church, Feb. 4, 1799. Seven years before, at the burial of Mr. Caleb Walker, the first since the settlement of the village three years earlier, the Ser- vice of the Prayer Book was read by the physician, Dr. William Adams of Geneva, who was a Churchman ; this being the first instance known of any Church service in Western New York, though there is reason to believe that there were other occasional services by laymen nearly or quite as early, particularly in Avon, where the Missionary was next welcomed by the well-known pioneer family of Dr.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
Hosmer. This was the end of his journey, " there being then," as he says, "no road to the West except an Indian trail through the Tonewanta plains, uninhabited even to the Niagara River." He therefore " returned by the way he came, visiting the congregations he had planted at Canandaigua, Auburn and Utica, and proceeded to pay his respects to Father Nash, in Otsego County."* In this mis- sionary tour he says he had travelled about 4,000 miles, baptized 14 adults and 319 infants, performed Divine Service and preached 213 times, and distributed many Prayer Books, Catechisms and tracts. But these statistics probably include his work in the Eastern part of the State. On his return he went to what was then known as the Oquaga Hills, now Harpersville, Broome County, where was a little flock of Connecticut Churchmen, whom he organized into S. Luke's Church, the second permanent parish in old Western New York, April 15, 1799.1 Lay services had been held meanwhile in Manlius, Onondaga County, where a few families from that place and the neighboring town of Pompey used to "assemble at each others' dwellings and conduct worship after the Episcopal manner."} An appropriation for building a church at Constantia, Oswego County, was made by Trinity Church, New York, as early as 1797, but nothing came of it. § And in the last year of the eighteenth Cen- tury services are recorded at Paris Hill by the Rev. John Urquhart of Johnstown (monthly for part of a year) and by the afterwards unhappily notorious Ammi Rogers, then of Ballston. || The yellow
* Father Nash and the Rev. Daniel Burhans were in Otsego County as early as 1795, but did not officiate in Western New York till some years later.
t Reminiscences of Bishop Chase, I. 28-37. Turner, Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, 185, 372 . At Canandaigua, the good missionary and future Bishop incurred some scandal from the Puritan element through his kindness of heart in making a so-called fiddle (a little æolian harp, from a shingle and some threads of silk) for the children of his hostess, Mrs. Sanborn.
¿ Clark, Onondaga, II. 215. The names given are Green, Roberts, Hurd, Ward and Dodge.
§ Berrian, Hist. Trinity Church, p. 376. Gosp. Mess. XXVII. 110 (July 29, 1853).
|| Gosp. Mess. XVIII. 146 (Oct. 5, 1844). The story of Ammi Rogers hardly belongs to Western New York; but he was a very noted (and troublesome) character for many years. By means of a forged certificate, he was ord. in 1792, by Bp. Provoost, and on his deposition by Bp. Jarvis in Connecticut, appealed in vain to the House of Bishops in 1804 and 1808 (Journ. Gen. Conv. Bioren. pp.
BENJAMIN MOORE Second Bishop of New York
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FIRST SETTLERS AND MISSIONARIES
fever of 1798 prevented any meeting of the General Convention (in Philadelphia) for that year, and that of the Diocese of New York was suspended for three years, till 1801, partly on account of Bishop Provoost's increasing illness, which ended in his resignation of his jurisdiction, Sept. 3, 1801. Only one ordination was held by him after 1798, and nothing more is said of any missionary work until the Convention of October, 1802, under the Second Bishop of New York, BENJAMIN MOORE, consecrated in S. Michael's Church, Trenton, New Jersey, Sept. 11, 1801. With his Episcopate begins a new era of Church life and work in Western New York.
225-9, 258). For at least a quarter of a century after his deposition he wan- dered from place to place, preaching and telling his story of "persecution " wherever he could find hearers, while in every diocese Church people were warned against him by their Bishops.
CHAPTER VI
DAVENPORT PHELPS
ITHIN two months after the Consecration of Bishop Moore (that is, Dec. 13, 1801), he admitted to Holy Orders one in whose short ministry was wrought a great and permanent work of the Church in Western New York,-DAVENPORT PHELPS.
A native of Hebron, Conn.,(born 1755,) graduating with high honours at Dartmouth in 1775, he immediately entered the Army of the Revo- lution, and thereafter endured a long captivity in Montreal, with the result of being an accomplished French scholar. In 1785 he married Catharine, daughter of Dr. Gideon Tiffany of Hanover, N. H. His mother was the daughter of the Founder and first President of Dart- mouth College, and through this parentage he became a life-long friend of the great Mohawk chief Joseph Brant, who had been in early life a pupil of President Wheelock under Sir William Johnson's patronage. After several years in mercantile business in Hartford, with his mother's brothers, and two or three as a lawyer and magistrate in New Hampshire, he removed in 1792 to Niagara, Canada West, where, with James Whee- lock, he had obtained a large grant of land from Governor Simcoe. He was here a lawyer, printer, merchant and farmer ; but his great desire was to enter the Ministry of the Church, and in December, 1797, Brant, without Mr. Phelps's knowledge, and from his own anxiety to secure him as Missionary to the Mohawks, applied to Sir John John- son and to the Governor of the Province, and subsequently to the Bishop of Quebec, to accomplish this purpose. He speaks of Mr. Phelps as " one with whose character and family he had long been acquainted, who had ample testimonials respecting his literary and moral qualifications, and who would consent to devote his life to the service of the Church among the Mohawks." "Their choice was fixed on him in preference to any other." But Sir John and the Gov- ernor seem to have put him off on one pretext or another, the real difficulty being, apparently, his service in the Army of the Revolution. At length, despairing of getting Mr. Phelps ordained in Canada, Brant in May, 1800, addressed letters to General Chapin of Canandaigua (then
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DAVENPORT PHELPS
Indian Agent), and Colonel Burr (a personal friend of Brant, and then residing in New York, just before the tremendous political contest which made him Vice-President instead of President of the United States), asking their aid in obtaining ordination for Mr. Phelps from the Bishop of New York. In the fall of the following year Mr. Phelps presented himself with an introduction from Brant and a characteristic present of a pair of embroidered moccasins for Burr's daughter Theodosia, Mrs. Allston. Bishop Coxe has told us * that he would not make an earlier application for American Orders because he would be ordained only by a Bishop who believed in his chosen work, the work of Mis- sions. Such a Bishop, Provoost was not, and Moore was. But Phelps had already seen Philander Chase at Poughkeepsie, and said to him, " You know I have long been attached to the Church ; how I love her doctrines and esteem her discipline. I now tell you that I feel it my duty, if found qualified, to seek for Holy Orders. I am uninformed how to proceed, having never seen any rules on the subject; but do you think that the Bishop of New York will ordain me?" " None," says Bishop Chase, " but such as knew the person speaking, and the necessities of the Church at that day,can imagine the feelings of pleas- ing surprise which the above address occasioned. His suavity of manners, his more than ordinary abilities, and very respectable acquire- ments, and, above all, his character for true piety of heart and holi- ness of life, seemed to constitute him a God-send to the Church ; and most gladly was a letter written to the Bishop, telling him the whole story, and most earnestly recommending Mr. Davenport Phelps for Orders."t
And so he was ordered Deacon by Bishop Moore on the Third Sun- day in Advent, Dec. 13, 1801. The next day he received from the Bishop a letter of Instructions which I cannot but give in full, not- withstanding its length.#
" Instructions for the Rev. Davenport Phelps, in the discharge of his duty as a Missionary on the frontiers of the State.
* Address at N. Y. Diocesan Centennial. Hist. p. 110.
+ Reminiscences, I. 42; MS. Life of Phelps by the Rev. John C. Rudd, D.D .; Stone, Life of Brant, II. 432-8. (An error in Stone's Brant in regard to his mar- riage is corrected by Dr. Rudd in the Gospel Messenger, XVI. 41, April 9, 1842.) ¿ From the Original in the Archives of the General Convention, Registrar's office, Church Missions House, New York.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
" Having been admitted to the office of a Deacon in the Church, you are now going forth as an Ambassador of Christ, to beseech a rebellious world to be reconciled to God. No doubt, your mind is impressed with a becoming sense of your own infirmity, and of the difficulty of the task which you have undertaken to perform. Pray then without ceasing for the aid of Divine grace, which alone can effectually strengthen and support you under the trials which you may have to encounter.
"In the performance of your duty as a preacher of the Gospel always remember that your admonitions and instructions will have little influence upon the minds of those who hear you, unless your religious precepts be enforced by a virtuous and pious example.
" Exposed as you will be to the seducements of a vitious world, and to the malevolent inspection of many who love not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, you must be careful not only to shun vice, but to abstain from all appearance of evil.
" In your ministrations to the Indians, after laying the foundation in the belief of the existence of an Almighty Creator and wise Gover- nor of the Universe ; endeavour to impress them with a proper sense of the fallen nature and actual depravity of mankind. This will naturally open the way for the doctrine of atonement thro' a Redeemer, and sanctification by the influence of the Holy Spirit. And you may then prompt them forward to religious obedience, from a principle of love to their Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.
" The prayer-books and catechisms which are to be placed in your hands, you are to distribute in such manner as you conceive will best promote the benevolent design of your mission. 3 Instruct those who are able to read, how to unite decently in the performance of public worship according to the Liturgy of our Church ; and be assiduous to give a proper direction to the minds of the young, by diligently teach- ing them the fundamental principles of religion according to our cate- chism.
" In the celebration of public worship, you are to confine yourself to the established Liturgy. Whenever the service can be performed with decency, you are to use the whole form of morning and evening prayer. On other occasions you are to make a selection of collects as circumstances may require ; but never to indulge in extemporan- eous effusions.
" Endeavour to introduce family worship by gentle and persuasive methods ; and be very particular in a devout observance of the Holy Sabbath, on which day you are always to perform Divine Service, unless prevented by sickness or some other urgent necessity.
" Whenever your services are required by Indians residing within the British territory you are to take care that your ministra- tions among them be conducted in such a manner as not to give the least offence to either the civil or Ecclesiastical Authority.
CONY
TRINITY CHURCH, UTICA Consecrated 1806
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DAVENPORT PHELPS
" You are to keep a regular journal of all your proceedings, which must be transmitted to me, at the expiration of every three months. This journal, among other matters which you may think proper to communicate, must contain a Register of Baptisms, Marriages, and places where you have performed Divine Service.
" BENJ'N MOORE " Bishop of the " Prot. Ep. Church "in the State of New York."
From the above instructions it would seem that Bishop Moore con- templated Mr. Phelps's working among the Canada Indians as well as in New York. He returned at once to Canada (that is, to his home of that day), and his first Report of March 15, 1802, is from " Glan- ford, U. C." We give an abstract of this and some later ones from the originals :
I. "Left New York Dec. 17, 1801, Hudson Feb. 3, 1802; officiated at Herkimer Sunday, Feb. 7, at Canandaigua (a handsome flourishing town, service in the Court House) Feb. 19, and Sunday, Feb. 21 ; Grimsby, U. C., Feb. 28, and March 7. The Indians at Buffaloe Creek were absent on hunting. Feb. 3, officiated at Hartford, [Avon, ] Genesee River. The people at Canandaigua and Hartford were anxious for my return."
2. "June 17, 1802. Services in Canada [ i. e., up to] May 29, [at which time ] arrived at Buffaloe Creek. Sunday, June 13, 1802, first service at Buffaloe Creek, to white people. Next day visited the Indians by request of Red Jacket, and welcomed by him with a speech, then preached to them and received thanks. Capt. Johnson reports the Chiefs favourably impressed. Baptisms 32, marriage I."
3. "Sept. 15, 1802, Grand River [Brantford], Canada. Services mostly in Canada ; the ill health of Mrs. Phelps, and my own, prevent work in the Genesee Country .* My work among the Mohawks in Upper Canada has been hindered by the jealousy of certain British officials."
4. "Dec. 15, 1802, Grimsby, U. C. In October I visited the Tuscaroras in their village, and was well received. Oct. 29, bap- tized 24 of them, II adults and 13 infants. They promise to join the Mohawks to build a church. Service again Nov. 11, and services also in Grimsby, with good promise."
* Where the " Genesee Fever " (fever and ague) was a severe affliction at this time through much of Western New York.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
5. "Jan. 8, 1803, New Amsterdam,* Buffaloe Creek. On Christ- mas Day preached at South Hampton, t twelve miles west of the Genesee River ; Sunday, [Dec. ] 26, preached at Hartford [Avon] on the east side of the River, and baptized 13 children. Twenty-five miles east, at Canandaigua, a decent [Congregational] minister is settled, but thence west, in New York, the country is entirely desti- tute. A number of the influential inhabitants are Episcopalians, and are disposed to organize the Church. [This doubtless refers to Can- andaigua, where the organization by Bishop Chase seems to have been given up.] January 2, at Hartford ; Jan. 4, 29 miles west, [probably Batavia, the centre of the Holland Purchase, ] preached and baptized one child ; Jan. 6, 22 miles east of Buffaloe, baptized two children. I request further instructions."
I find no further report from Mr. Phelps before 1804. In October, 1802, the Committee for Propagating the Gospel state that he " was employed as a missionary on the frontiers of the State, subject to instructions delivered to him by the Bishop ; and from several com- munications from him it appeared that he was zealously prosecuting the objects of his mission."# These communications are of course the reports given above. In 1803 the Journal only states that the Minutes of the Committee, "and also communications from the Rev. Mr. Phelps containing an account of his transactions on his mission, were severally read." § He certainly officiated at Paris, Manlius and Onondaga, and probably at Geneva and Clifton Springs (or Phelps), some time in 1803. | In the same year " Father Nash, the faithful missionary of Otsego county, found his way to these few sheep of the flock of Christ in the wilderness [at Paris Hill], whom he visited for about a year at intervals of a month ; but he never forgot them till the day of his death. He is known here by the name of ' the Apostle of the West.' "IT
* The original name of Buffalo under the Holland Purchase.
t Caledonia.
# Journ. N. Y. (reprint), p. 116. § Id. p. 122.
|| The Hon. J. V. H. Clark says (Gospel Messenger, XVI. 41,) that Mr. Phelps held the first service in Manlius in March, 1802 ; but his own journal given above (p. 67) shows this to be an error. It is more likely that this first service was held by Father Nash. Ralph R. Phelps, brother of Davenport, was one of the earliest settlers of Manlius, and one of two persons who had the only Prayer Books in the place at that first service.
T Rev. Isaac Swart, in Gosp. Mess. XVIII. 146. (Oct. 5, 1844.)
CHAPTER VII
DAVENPORT PHELPS : 1804 to 1811
N October, 1804, at the Eighteenth Convention of New York, we have the first definite report from the diocesan missionaries, of whom there were now three in Western New York.
I. DAVENPORT PHELPS. " From October, 1803, to April, 1804, the date of the last accounts from him, he had per- formed Divine service at Paris, at Hamilton, at Sullivan,* and at Pompey ; and at each of these settlements had baptized several child- ren, and at Paris had administered the Holy Communion. A church had been organized in the town of Manlius. [Christ Church, organized as Trinity Church in January, 1804, the third permanent parish in Western New York. ]t . He removed his family the last spring into this State."
2. "Mr. JONATHAN JUDD, ordained Deacon in February last," had officiated among other places at "Chenango" [S. Luke's, Oquaga, organized by Bishop Chase in 1799, as noted above, ch. V. p. 52] where the congregation, though destitute for several years of the ministrations of the Priesthood, had regularly assembled on Sun- days, when the prayers of the Church and sermons were read." He had also visited Paris, Camden, Utica and Redfield (all in Oneida county) and had attempted a journey to " Lowville, a town on the Black River," but was obliged to return on account of the badness of the road. " At Utica they were building a church ; and at Paris their diligence and zeal were worthy of high commendation." He was to be engaged through October at Lowville, Onondaga, Norwich, Chenango county, etc.
3. The Rev. GAMALIEL THATCHER had officiated at a number of places east of Utica, where on Tuesday, August 14, 1804, he organ-
* Afterwards Lenox. These two are in Madison county.
+ Mr. Phelps organized "S. John's Church, Onondaga Hill," Nov. 27, 1803, but this organization died out, and was succeeded in 1816 by "Zion Church." Clark, Onondaga, II. 134, 215. He was ordained Priest by Bishop Moore, in S. Peter's Church, Albany, in 1803.
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DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
ized Trinity Church, the fourth permanent parish in Western New York .*
" The Bishop and Committee cannot refrain from earnestly calling the attention of the pious and wealthy members of our communion to the destitute situation of their brethren in the northern and western parts of the State. They are earnest and pressing in their wishes to be supplied with a ministry that will promulgate to them the truths of salvation as professed by an Apostolic and Primitive Church. .. There is at present in the hands of the Treasurer £242, almost the whole of which will be necessary to defray the expenses of the past year."¡
The Journal of 1805 gives the first Parochial Report from Western New York, " S. Paul's Church, Paris, the Rev. Jonathan Judd, Dea- con, officiating Minister ; Baptisms 5, Communicants 45." There is nothing about Missions or Missionaries. But in this year regular services were begun by Mr. Phelps in Geneva, then a village of 68 houses and 325 inhabitants, the congregation occupying jointly with the Presbyterians a small frame building on the N. W. corner of the square (now Pulteney Park).# About the same time, perhaps some-
*The first Wardens were Abram N. Walton and Nathan Williams. The Church building was begun, however, more than a year earlier (June 1, 1803) and $2,067.50 subscribed for its completion. (Centennial of Trinity Church, 1898, p. 100).
tJourn. N. Y. 1804, reprint, p. 179.
# Major James Rees's letter of Dec. 4, 1840, Gosp. Mess. XLIII. 53 (April 1, 1869). He mentions among those who took part in this beginning the follow- ing well-known Geneva names: John Nicholas, Daniel W. Lewis, James Rees, Robert W. Stoddard, John Collins, Robert S. Rose, Samuel Colt, Jacob W. Hallett, Mrs. Susannah Lawson, Mrs. Margaret Rose, Thomas D. Burrall, Thomas Powell, Abraham Dox, John Woods, Jonathan Doane, John Rumsey, Thomas Lowthrop, Jacob Dox and twenty-five others, twenty-one of the whole number " with their families." Of these, the Nicholases, Roses and Lawsons had come from Virginia in 1803, with a large body of slaves, many of whose descendants are to-day in the "S. Philip's Church " of Geneva. Samuel Shekells of Phelps, one of the first vestry, was a Churchman from Maryland. Forty of the whole number, Major Rees says, were " Episcopalians," and fifteen commu- nicants. Dr. John N. Norton says that Judge Nicholas, "who enjoyed the respect and confidence of the whole community," officiated as lay-reader for the little flock of Churchmen before Mr. Phelps came to give them regular services. (" Allerton Parish," p. 29.) Bp. G. W. Doane says that both wardens were lay- readers when Mr. Phelps was absent. (Life by Bp. W. C. D., I. 29; Sprague, Annals of Amer. Pulpit, V. 343.)
:
THE FIRST S. PETER'S CHURCH, AUBURN 1812
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DAVENPORT PHELPS
what earlier, he had founded a Mission in " Aurelius," Cayuga county, whose principal village had just begun to be called Auburn, where " the prospect of gathering a respectable congregation is truly flattering, especially so, when the moral and pious habits of the mem- bers of this church are connected with the other considerations." i. e., the flourishing condition of the village, now to be made the county seat. Here the now venerable parish of S. Peter's was organized July 1, 1805,* thus antedating Trinity Church, Geneva, which came into being as the sixth Western New York parish, August 16, 1806 ; John Nicholas and Daniel W. Lewis being the first Wardens, and Samuel Shekells (of Phelps), John Collins, Robert S. Rose, Richard Hughes, Ralph T. Wood, David Nagle, James Rees and Thomas Powell, Ves- trymen. How important this movement was felt to be by Bishop Moore, appears from the following letter from him " to the Church- wardens of Trinity Church, Geneva."t
" Gentlemen :
"NEW YORK, NoVr. 9, 1806.
" The incorporation of a protestant Episcopal Church in the town of Geneva, is a matter which has afforded me great satisfaction. As this is a place which is every day rising more and more into importance, I am anxious to have our Church established there, on a respectable footing ; for this purpose, I have requested Mr. Phelps to pay that Town, in future, very particular attention. Towards his support we shall yield from this quarter every aid in our power ; but something must be done on your part, in order to provide for him a decent maintenance. I am sure every prudent method will be adopted for the completion of the work which you have in hand, and that your exertion shall be crowned with full success, you shall have the good wishes and hearty co-operation of your friend and svt.
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