USA > New York > The diocese of Western New York : a history and recollections > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
" B. MOORE."
" Favored by Revd. D. Phelps."
*History of S. Peter's Church (Auburn, 1901), p. 3. Shortly before this Wil- liam Bostwick and others had read the church service " in the usual place of meeting " in the absence of the Congregational minister, whose sermon of the following Sunday " was a severe rebuke to the worthy men " who had thus offi- ciated by the general desire of the people. The result was the organization of S. Peter's Church at the house of Dr. Hachaliah Burt, by Mr. Phelps, assisted by Thomas Jeffries, Jeduthan Higby, Timothy Hatch, Ebenezer Phelps, John Pierson, William Bostwick and Joel Lake.
tFrom the original in the possession of the Hon. Geo. W. Nicholas of Geneva, grandson of the first Warden.
30
DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
Mr. Phelps was engaged "to preach every other Sunday," and thus became practically, though not canonically, the first Rector of the Parish ; the Corporation of Trinity Church, New York, contrib- uting $250 annually towards his salary .* From this time (and appar- ently for some time before) he " resided for the most part at Geneva," from this place making excursions to various congregations more or less remote ; from Manlius and Lenox on the east to Clifton Springs and Palmyra on the west, some ninety miles over roads often all but impassable. "I can see him," says the elder Bishop Doane, then a boy of seven years in Geneva, " a perfect gentleman of the old school, as he rode up on his white horse, putting me in mind of Gen- eral Washington." He tells us also of the Junior Warden, Mr. Lewis, " a sound and learned lawyer " who " came to church on horse- back with his niece and adopted daughter [whom some of us remem- ber so well in later years as the good wife of the Rev. Dr. Shelton of Buffalo] on a pillion behind him."t
The church building, however, was not begun till All Saints' Day, 1808 (what an anniversary has that day become in later years in Geneva !), from plans by the well-known carpenter Jonathan Doane, (father of the great Bishop of New Jersey,) and completed (except the galleries) on the same day in 1809 : forty feet by fifty-eight in the clear ; cost $5,471, (including the lot, fencing and pavement,) of which $1,500 was given by Trinity Church, New York, and the remainder, with $1,387 for organ, bells (three successive ones) and stoves, by the congregation. # " On our Lord's Nativity " that same
* Bishop Moore says in his Address of 1808 that "Amos G. Baldwin and Davenport Phelps are considered as more immediately attached to the churches at Utica and Geneva, but, at the same time, are employed as missionaries to the neighbouring destitute congregations." Journ. 1808, p. 9.
Life, I. 29. Sprague, Amer. Pulpit, V. 543. In S. Paul's Church, Buffalo, is a memorial window to " Lucretia Stanley Shelton, b. July 21, 1798, d. Sept. 6, 1882." She was one of the Connecticut Stanleys of Geneva, and m. I. Stephen K. Grosvenor of Buffalo, and II. April, 1843, Dr. Shelton.
# Major Rees's Notes, 1840. Gosp. Mess. XLIII. 53. I must add here Bishop Coxe's vivid description of the old church as he saw it "when a college boy, on a visit to Niagara Falls, spending a Sunday in Geneva [in 1835]. There I saw the little church of timber, evidently designed in imitation of its nursing
mother, Trinity Church, New York. It was church-like, and like all churches of those days, the altar was behind the pulpit, under the great window, and the pulpit was a graceful lily on its stem, at the head of the mid-alley. It was
31
DAVENPORT PHELPS
year," says Mr. Phelps, "read prayers, preached, and administered the Holy Communion to about thirty persons at Geneva. At this time the seats in the church, except in the gallery, were nearly all up and well filled. [Christmas Day 1809 fell on Tuesday. ] Besides the usual hymns for Christmas, the anthem from S. Luke's, 'Behold I bring you glad tidings,' etc., was well sung, and the ' Gloria in Excel- sis' chanted by our choir, which is now considerably enlarged. The season was solemn, interesting, and, I trust, edifying.
"On every Friday, and sometimes on Wednesdays, when the duties of my mission have not required my absence, public prayers have been attended in Geneva. A devout attention to the duties of religion is paid by the Churches generally."*
On Whitsun Eve, June 9, 1810, the hearts of the little congre- gation were gladdened by the presence of their Bishop, Benjamin Moore, the first time that a Bishop was ever seen in the present " Western New York,"t and by the consecration of their church, in which service the Bishop was assisted by Mr. Phelps and the Rev. Amos Glover Baldwin, another diocesan Missionary, and "preached a highly appropriate and interesting sermon," and confirmed twenty- two persons.+
Meanwhile missionary work was going on in other parts of the Diocese. Under the vigorous efforts of the Rev. Jonathan Judd, § the present venerable edifice of Trinity Church, Utica, was erected at a cost of $4,200, || and consecrated by Bishop Moore Sept. 7, 1806,
canopied, and resembled the pulpit of S. Paul's Chapel in New York. .
. The altar, unhappily obscured by this arrangement, was yet a 'Holy Table' within its rails, and by its very isolation preserved its character as eminently the holy place, to which it was the pulpit's function to invite the flock to draw near." (Quarter-Centennial of Central New York, 1894, p. 201.) In my own school- days in Geneva, 1845-52, the altar, pulpit and desk were still in use in a chapel formed in the crypt of the present church.
* Missionary Report, Journ. 1810, p. 17.
t He had been as far as Utica, as we shall see, in 1806.
# Geneva Gazette, June 13, 1809. Major Rees's Notes. One of those con- firmed that day was George Hadley Norton, a nephew of Judge Nicholas and Robert S. Rose, and for half a century one of the most noted and faithful Mis- sionaries of Western New York. ("Allerton Parish," by his son, John Nicholas Norton, D.D., p. 29.)
§ Ord. Dea. by Bp. Moore, Feb. 8, 1804 ; Priest, June 24, 1807.
| See Pomroy Jones's Oneida, p. 570 ; Centenn. Trinity Church, 100. Samuel
32
DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
on his first journey within the border of old Western New York. On the following Sunday, Sept. 14, Amos Glover Baldwin (afterwards so noted as a faithful Missionary) was ordered Deacon, * and eighteen persons were confirmed. In the same week (Sept. 10) the Bishop held his first visitation and confirmation at S. Paul's, Paris Hill. And these, with the consecration of 1810 at Geneva, are the only record I find of services by him in old Western New York. t Mr. Judd was suc- ceeded in the winter of 1806 by the Rev. Mr. Baldwin, who remained in charge for twelve years (instituted as Rector May 18, 1808), offici- ating, however, from one-third to one-half the time in Paris Hill, Fair- field, and other places in or near Oneida county. The church, though consecrated, was not fully completed or permanently occu- pied till the end of 1810.
In 1808 the parish received from Sir James and Lady Pulteney an endowment of 265 acres of land in Madison county, and in 1811, one of four city lots in New York (then renting for $265, but in later years of great value) from Trinity Church, New York. The Madison county lands were soon sold under an Act of the Legisla- ture. #
S. Peter's Church, Auburn, for which $1,400 had been subscribed as early as 1806, was not completed and consecrated till Aug. 22, 1812, having then the faithful and efficient services of the Rev. Wil- liam Atwater Clark.
Meantime an interesting Mission had been growing up in Phelps
and John Hooker of Utica were the builders. Among the original subscribers were Benj. Walker, Bryan and Aylmer Johnson, James Hopper, Nathan Williams, John C. Devereux, Jeremiah Van Rensselaer, John Post, Samuel and John Hooker, Francis A. Bloodgood, Hugh White, Jonas Platt, Thos. R. Gold, Wm. G. Tracey, Nathan Butler, and Amos Bronson, mostly of noted Utica families.
* Bp. Moore's and Bp. Burgess's records. The date of the consecration I find only in the Churchman's Magazine of New York, III. 359 (Sept., 1806), taken from the Albany Gazette, which says that "a number of the clergy were present and assisted the Bishop in the services of the day." The "number" must have been three or four at the most.
t Bishop Coxe says in his C. N. Y. address of 1894 (Journ. C. N. Y. p. 202) that "an aged Warden" of S. John's Church, Phelps, remembered a visit of Bp. Moore to that Mission (or perhaps Clifton Springs, the two places then forming one mission) which must have been, if ever, in 1810. But I am inclined to think that the visitation remembered was more likely that of Bp. Hobart in 1815.
# Jones, Oneida, p. 572.
-
S. PAUL'S CHURCH. HONEOYE (ALLEN'S HILL) Consecrated 1818
33
DAVENPORT PHELPS
and Clifton Springs, a little west of Geneva, under the name of S. John's Church, composed in 1807, of twenty-four Church families. Mr. Phelps says that "they are people strongly attached to the Church, of sober, virtuous habits ; and though their circumstances are not above mediocrity, even for farmers, yet they are so earnestly engaged to be provided with a small church, that they have raised or sub- scribed about 700 dollars, and hope soon to increase it to 1000."*,
The Journal of 1808 gives no missionary reports, but on April 25 of that year, S. Mark's Day, Mr. Phelps organized S. Paul's Church, Honeoye, afterwards Richmond, and later, and now, known as Allen's Hill.
" Davenport Phelps," says Dr. Norton, in his charming story of " Allerton Parish," which is Allen's Hill under a very thin veil of fiction, "was the first to break ground for the Church, and the more intelligent portion of the settlers began to flock about him.
Like Father Nash, he had the happy faculty of winning the affections of children, whom he always recognized when he met them, and called by their names. The Catechism was his daily food for the lambs of the flock." He found congenial spirits in this little hamlet, a mere group of houses (as it is to this day), making a centre for a wide and lovely hill country ; the families of Nathaniel Allen, from whom the hamlet had its name,-Samuel Chipman, one of whose sons was famous as a pioneer in Temperance reform, and another, and two grandsons, notable Church clergymen, t-and later, Robert L. Rose (son of Robert S. of Geneva), and Z. Barton Stout, with others equally worthy of commemoration. From that little parish in after days went out nine Priests of the Church who did good service in their time. #
* Report, 1807, Journ. N. Y., p. 13. The parish organized and admitted to the Diocese in 1807 (next to that in Geneva), afterwards "died out," and was re-organized at Phelps in 1832, and at Clifton Springs not till 1874. (Journ. W. N. Y., 1874, p. 139.)
t Tapping Reeve Chipman, George N. and Charles E. Cheney.
# These were, besides the three already mentioned, Orsamus H. Smith (1823- 78), Burton H. ('23-44) and William W. Hickcox ('38-69), Charles B. Stout ('37-80), John N. ('45-61) and George H. Norton ('46-93) the two last, sons of the long-time Missionary of Ontario County. The deed of incorporation of the Parish (printed for the " Western New York Exhibit " of the Woman's Auxiliary at the General Convention of 1901), calls the church S. Paul's, " Honeyoy." It
34
DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
" S. Paul's Church, Honeyoy," was "received into union" with the Diocese of New York the same year ; S. Peter's, Pultneyville (not a permanent parish), organized 1808, admitted 1809 ; S. John's, " Catherine Town," Tioga (now Schuyler) County, organized 1809, admitted 1810; "a church at Chenango Point" (Christ Church, Bing- hamton), organized 1810, not admitted for want of legal evidence (but promised admission on legal evidence being exhibited) in 1811 .* All these were organized by Mr. Phelps, who reports also in 1810 and 1811 services at Clifton Springs, Auburn, Johnstown, (Montgom- ery, now Fulton County), Angelica (Allegany County, these last two places being more than two hundred miles apart by the nearest route), Sheldon (near Batavia), and various places in Cayuga and Onondaga Counties ; and one hundred and eleven baptisms. But no new churches were completed till some years later, and no other Mission- ary laboured in Western New York in Bishop Moore's time.
Thus was the seed sown for the abundant harvest which began to spring up in the Episcopate of JOHN HENRY HOBART.
was for many years called S. Paul's, "Richmond," that being from 1815 the name of the town. The hillside on which the church stands overlooks the beautiful little lake of Honeoye, from which the town had its first name in 1808.
* Until the founding of Christ Church, the only minister of the place was a thorough old-fashioned Calvinist. In a pastoral visit to Mrs. Waterman, the young married daughter of Gen. Joshua Whitney (one of two brothers who founded the village), he asked her, " Are you in a state of grace?" " I hope I am," was her answer. "Are you willing, perfectly willing to be damned, if it be God's will ?" "No, I am not." "Then you are not of our faith." "No, I am not." She repeated the conversation to her father. " What creed do you prefer?" said he. "I like the Episcopal Church best, father." " You shall be gratified, my daughter. I will give the ground for a church, and we will build it; meantime, I shall send for an Episcopal Minister, and pay his salary." And so he did. I am indebted to the Rev. William S. Hayward for this story, which was told first in print, I believe, by Mrs. Waterman herself.
CHAPTER VIII
BISHOP HOBART AS COADJUTOR, 1811-16
ISHOP MOORE was only sixty-two, and in the tenth year of his Episcopate, when his labours for the work so near his heart were brought to an end by the first of succes- sive paralytic strokes. It seems strange in this day that with his little physical strength, he could have filled at once and efficiently, the offices of Bishop of New York, Rector of Trinity Church, and President of Columbia College ; and could have made himself personally beloved and revered by his whole Diocese.
The election of a Coadjutor being absolutely necessary, a Special Convention of the Diocese, assembled May 14, 1811, chose to that office on the first ballot JOHN HENRY HOBART, D.D., one of its youngest members (then thirty-five), but ten years in Priest's Orders, and for the same time an Assistant Minister of Trinity Church, New York. His consecration, with that of Alexander Viets Griswold, elected Bishop of Massachusetts, was held in Trinity Church, New York, May 29, 1811, by Bishops White, Provoost, and Jarvis .*
It is not too much to say that this consecration began a new era for the Diocese of New York, but especially for the Missionary work of Western New York. It is only in this last connection that we can enter here at all on the story of Bishop Hobart's wonderful Episcopate of nineteen years ; and even that can be given only in outline. His work was begun here " at a time of great trial and distress, in the first disastrous year of the war of 1812, felt nowhere more severely than through this region, whose border, from Niagara to Sackett's Har-
* The consecration was accomplished with peculiar difficulty, owing to the more or less extreme illness or inability of nearly all the Bishops of that day, giv- ing rise to Bp. White's "well founded apprehension that the American Church would be again subjected to the necessity of having recourse to the Mother Church for the Episcopacy ;" and was followed by a bitter controversy springing from a disappointed rival of Dr. Hobart, and issuing in impugning the validity of his con- secration on the ground of an accidental omission in the form of words. A bulky volume, which few have ever read, survives to tell the story on the side of the opponents.
36
DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
bor, was nearly desolated until the victories of Perry and McDonough turned the tide."*
On the other hand, the years following the war brought favouring conditions of growth and prosperity such as the country had not seen before ; the population increasing in fifteen years from 350,000 to . 875,000, or one hundred and fifty per cent., in the territory between Utica and Buffalo, and the Church gaining in that time at least three- fold on the population. But that was the least part of her real growth. The voice of Bishop Hobart was a trumpet-call such as the Church had not heard since Seabury's day, and never in New York, to stand up for " Christ and the Church." Four years before his consecration he had put on record (at the close of his famous " Apol- ogy ") the memorable words which became a motto in after years for the whole American Church,-" My banner is Evangelical Truth and Apostolic Order."t His clergy, and especially his Missionaries, soon felt the difference between the tone which had prevailed, of timid excuse for " our peculiarities " and " our liturgy," and that of triumphant confidence and enthusiasm in the Divine Constitution and Mission of the Church, which became, from that time on, more and more the pervading character of Western New York Churchmanship. But he was felt by the laity also, and in the most secluded parishes of his diocese, as a mighty champion of the Truth and Office of the Church, and regarded with a personal affection and veneration which it is not easy to realize at this day.
His first visitation, reported in 1812, included all the churches in Western New York between Utica and Honeoye, and he specially mentions a service in " Canandaigua, in which place there are a few Episcopal families," the beginning of a revival from the extinct S. Matthew's of 1799. To the solitary Missionary of 1811 were now added William Atwater and Orin Clark, two of the three brothers who made such an honourable record in the work of the Diocese through many years.# The elder brother, ordered Deacon in Connecticut,
*W. N. Y. Semi-Centennial, p. 20.
t The opponent whose bitter attack on Church principles brought forth the " Apology," says that its positions are " of such deep-toned horror, as may well make one's hair stand up like quills upon the fretful porcupine, and freeze the warm blood at the fountain ! " (Dr. M'Vickar, Professional Years, p. 254.)
# Sons of John and Chloe (Atwater) Clark of New Marlborough, Mass., after- wards of Manlius, N. Y., and still later of Geneva. The mother was an earnest Churchwoman of New Haven, of the same family as the pioneer Churchman of Canandaigua, Judge Moses Atwater.
37
BISHOP HOBART AS COADJUTOR
Oct. 31, 1810, began work in November, 1811, at Auburn, Manlius, and Skaneateles, visiting also, in assisting Mr. Phelps, various churches from Johnstown to Honeoye, and receiving Priest's Orders from Bishop Hobart in Auburn, Sept. 5, 1812. The younger, Orin, at once became Mr. Phelps's assistant at Geneva (from his ordination as Dea- con by Bishop Jarvis, Oct. 27, 1811), and in June, 1813, succeeded him in charge of Trinity Church, becoming its first Rector until his decease, at Geneva, Feb. 24, 1828, aet. 41 .*
S. John's Church, Sheldon, organized in 1811, was received into the Diocese the same year ; Christ Church, Manlius, organized 1804, in 1812, and its church building, the same now in use, of wood, " as large and elegant as any in this part of the country," was completed in December, 1813, at a cost of five thousand dollars, and consecrated by Bishop Hobart in September, 1815, when 44 persons were con- firmed. Its zealous Missionary (William A. Clark) reports services (in 1813-14) in "Marcellus, Brutus, Mentz, Cayuga, Genoa, Pompey, Cazenovia " and other small places, and in addition, thirty funeral sermons in 1813 alone. " Of the unanimity, the liberality, and the attention of the whole village to public worship," he cannot speak too highly."t
In his account of his second visitation, in 1813, Bishop Hobart gives an interesting picture of the little congregation of S. Luke " at the Ochquaga hills, Harpersville, Broome county."
" In this retired district a congregation was organized about seven- teen years since by the Rev. Mr. Chase. From that time till I vis- ited them, with the exception of the services of the Rev. Jonathan Judd, who, when a missionary, spent a few weeks with them, they have only enjoyed three or four times the ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Nash, who, amid the multiplicity of his labours, sought and cherished this destitute congregation. And yet notwithstanding these disadvantages, they have kept themselves together ; they have reg- ularly met for reading the service and sermons; and I found among them a knowledge of the principles of our Church, and a fervent attachment to its doctrines and worship, which astonished and grati- fied me. Confirmation was administered to about thirty persons, and the Holy Communion to as many. Could you have witnessed, breth-
* The third brother, John Alonzo, was not ordained till 1826. All three became Doctors of Divinity, but were more distinguished as men of the highest moral and spiritual character.
t Journ. 1813, p. 19, and 1814, p. 19.
38
DIOCESE OF WESTERN NEW YORK
ren, the expressions of their gratitude, and their earnest solicitations, accompanied even with tears, for only the occasional services of a Minister, your treasure and your prayers would have been poured forth to gratify them. I had not the treasure, but most assuredly I gave them my prayers, and I promised them my best exertions. I cannot leave their case, without applying it to establish the import- ance and inestimable value of our liturgy. , But for the constant and faithful use of it the congregation at the Ochquaga hills would long since have become extinct."*
" In noticing the changes in the Diocese," the Bishop continues, " we no longer perceive in his place in this Convention our venerable brother the Rev. DAVENPORT PHELPS. He has gone to his rest.
He is justly revered as the founder of the congregations in the most western part of the State, whom he attached not merely to his personal ministrations, but to the doctrines, the ministry, and the liturgy of our Church. It was highly gratifying to me to observe in the congregations where he officiated, the devotion and decency with which the people performed their parts of the public service."t
The year 1814 is noticeable for the founding of S. Paul's Church, Oxford, and S. Andrew's, New Berlin, Chenango County, parishes which for ninety years have not only been fruitful in missionary work in that county and Central New York, but have sent many a standard- bearer of the Church into the far West. The Missionaries of that year are William B. Lacey, with head-quarters at Paris ; William A. Clark, at Manlius ; Russell Wheeler, at Unadilla ; Alanson W. Wel- ton at Honeoye and Victor ; and Amos G. Baldwin at Utica, who records first services at Trenton (Holland Patent). The services of these Missionaries, the Bishop says, " have been faithful, and by the blessing of God, eminently useful."
But this period (1813-14) of Bishop Hobart's Episcopate marks the first step in a new and most important advance of the Church in West-
* Journ. N. Y. 1813, p. 13. This was of course their first visit from a Bishop.
t Mr. Phelps's grave, a short distance west of the beautiful little village of Pultneyville, on the shore of Lake Ontario, is marked by a large slab of red sand- stone, with the inscription : "Sacred to the memory of the Rev. DAVENPORT PHELPS, who departed this life on the 27th of June, 1813, aged 57 years. He was for many years a Missionary of the Protestant Episcopal Church for the western part of the State of New York, and by his indefatigable exertions in the discharge of all the duties of the pastoral office, succeeded in diffusing much religious knowledge and in forming many churches. He was the devoted servant of God, and the warm and unwearied friend of man."
. Mrs. Phelps died at Pultneyville, Nov. 17, 1836, and is buried by his side.
39
BISHOP HOBART AS COADJUTOR
ern New York. The Rev. Amos G. Baldwin, of Utica 1806-18, and Missionary at Fairfield, Herkimer County, seeing, as he says, "the necessity of training up ' the sons of the soil' in order to secure them to the Church and provide ministers for her altars," wrote in 1812 to the Rev. Drs. Beach and Bowden of New York, asking a grant from Trinity Church for a " Theological Instructor," and partial support for four students in Divinity to be taught free of charge in the Academy at Fairfield. This grant of $500 a year, with $250 additional for an assistant teacher, was made by Trinity Church in 1813 ; the Rev. Virgil H. Barber became Rector and Principal, and Samuel Nichols (ord. Deacon 1817) Tutor. Mr. Barber was succeeded in 1817 by the Rev. Daniel M'Donald, under whom, four years later, the " Branch Theological School" (i. e., branch of the newly-founded General Theological Seminary), was transferred by Bishop Hobart to Geneva, to become the nucleus of HOBART COLLEGE .*
It is only just to Mr. Baldwin to say that his first effort for the founding of this school was made in a letter to Bishop Moore (as Rector of Trinity Church, New York) as early as Oct. 8, 1811. But the same project was already working in Bishop Hobart's mind. He alludes to it in his Address of 1813 ; but some months earlier he had written to Mrs. Startin, of New York, who had proposed to make a personal bequest to him, urging its appropriation to the founding of a theological school, which, " with a view to the combined objects of health, quiet, and facility of access, he proposed to place in a retired elevated district known as ' the Short Hills,' New Jersey, near New York, [now the beautiful suburban park of that name, ] where he had some years before bought a farm of ten acres with a view to devote it to such an establishment, and with it, 'as soon as a favourable oppor- tunity should offer, whatever talents or zeal he might possess.' The Bishop of New Jersey was to be associated with him in the govern- ment of the school, and the whole to be under the sanction and con- trol of the General Convention." This plan, which must have been in the Bishop's mind from the very beginning of his Episcopate, was frustrated by the war of 1812, and "the only effect of the scheme was to open the eyes " of Churchmen " to a sense of its necessity, and prepare them for action under more favourable auspices." The story of the foundation at Geneva belongs to a later date.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.