USA > New York > The documentary history of the state of New York, Vol. III pt 2 > Part 35
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May 31st. We met with difficulty about getting a canoe, and sent an Indian into the woods to get ready a bark, but he made small progress.
In the afternoon came from Otsego lake, which is the source of this stream, George Winedecker and another, in a small battean, with goods and rum, going down to Onohoghgwage upon a trading voyage. We agreed with them to carry the interpreter and Mr. Woodbridge in their batteau ; and bought a wooden canoe to carry our flour and baggage.
We soon saw the ill effects of Winedecker's rum. The Indians began to drink, and some of our party were the worse for it. We perceived what was coming.
Our lodgings was not in their wigwams ; but in a little store- house set up on crotches, six feet and more from the ground, into which Mr. Woodbridge, myself, the interpreter, and her husband, could but just enter and lie down. This night we
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REV. GIDEON HAWLEY'S JOURNEY
went to sleep with some apprehensions. We were awoke by the howling of the Indians over their dead. The whole village was agitated. We arose very early in the morning. We soon saw the Indian women and their children skulking in the adjacent bushes, for fear of the intoxicated Indians, who were drinking deeper. The women were seereting guns, hatchets, and every deadly or dangerous weapon, that nmurder or harm might not be the consequence. Poor unhappy mortals ! without law, religion or government ; and therefore without restraint.
June Ist. 1753, is with me a memorable day, and for forty years and more has not passed unnoticed. We got off as silently as we could, with ourselves and effects. Some went by water ; and others by land, with the horses. I was with the land party. The Indians, half intoxicated, were outrageous, and pursued both the party by water, in which was Mr. Woodbridge, and the party by land. One came so near us as with his club to strike at us, and he hit one of our horses. We hastened. Neither party met till we arrived at Wauteghe, at which had been an Indian village, where were a few fruit trees and considerable cleared land, but no inhabitants. Here, being unmolested and secure, we all refreshed ourselves. But Pallas was the worse for his rum ; was so refractory, that Mr. Ashley's hired man, who had been in the canoe with him, did not like to proceed with him. I reproved him ; got into a canoe with him, to keep him in order ; was young and unexperienced ; knew not Indians, nor much of mankind ; whereby I endangered my life.
We went with the stream, till we came to slack water, when Pallas, took his gun, to aim at fowl ahead of us. I was appre- hensive of his gun ; for I perceived him to be in liquor. I took a paddle, and was turning the canoe, when the dueks rose, and took wing. The Indian was taking in his piece, which at that instant was discharged, and had it not been for the turn of iny body, and particularly my head, the charge must have been mortal. Mr. Woodbridge who had his eye upon me, looked to see my drop ; and was surprised, when he saw me unhurt. I had no certainty, but always suspected that Pallas designed to have murdered me.
This unexpected event filled us with amazement, and with
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TO BROOME COUNTY.
such feelings and affections, that we immediately landed on the west bank of the river ; and passed the day in pensive and silent recollection, and such meditations as were natural to men in our situation. I retired from company. Here a small stream empties into the river, and our horses were turned out to graze on its margin ; but in the night three or four of them returned to Wauteghe, which is twelve miles back.
June 2d. Our Indians did not recover the horses till late in the morning ; and to-day we fall down the river only six or eight miles, and lodge by the Kaghneantasis or whirlpool, because there was herbage for our horses at that place. Mr. Woodbridge made many observations concerning the consequences which would have followed, in case I had been killed.
Lord's day, June 3d. To-day we embarked and proceeded down the river, and about noon passed a considerable village ; some families of which were of the Houssantunnuk Indians, and of the same language with the Stockbridge tribe : But as it was the christian sabbath, we did not permit Winedecker to land. They stood on the bank and beheld us. Here we left Pallas. At this place, from the N. W. rolls into the Susquehanna a river, which is navigable with canoes a day's journey. Its name is Teyonadelhough. Five or six miles below, we landed on the west bank, and put up for the night.
June 4th. In the afternoon appeared at a distance On- ohoghgwage mountain, and shewed us the end of our journey and the object of our wishes. It rained. Wet and fatigued, we arrived near night. The Indians flocked around us, and made us welcome. Our hopes were raised by favorable appearances. But our accommodations, considering our fatigues, were not very comfortable. Our lodgings were bad, being both dirty and hard ; and our clothes wet.
June 5th. To day there were many the worse for the rum that came with us. One of our horses hurt an Indian boy ; and this raised and enraged such a party against us, as Ashley, his wife the interpreter, and the Indians at whose house we lodged, hid themselves, and would have me and Mr. Woodbridge get out of sight ; but we did not think proper to discover the least symptoms of fear, although they threatened us in the most provoking and
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REV. GIDEON HAWLEY'S JOURNEY &C.
insulting manner. In the afternoon came chiefs of the On- ohogligwages, and assured us that those insulting and ill-behaved Indians did not belong to them,* but were foreigners. We point- ed out to them the ill effects of intemperance, and remonstrated against their permitting rum to be brought among them ; and that it was necessary in future it should be prohibited, or the dispensing of it regulated, in case we founded a mission and planted christianity among them. In short, we now opened a treaty with them upon the affairs of our advent, and the impor- tance of our business in every view. Having shewn our credentials, Mr. Woodbridge addressed himself in a well adapt- ed speech of considerable length, to an assembly who were collected upon the occasion.
It affected them, and they appeared to be religiously moved, convicted, and even converted. But I must reserve a further account of our mission to another time, when I may copy our addresses, and the answers returned by the Indians thereto.
I am &c. GIDEON HAWLEY. Rev. Dr. Thacher.
. This was partly the case.
NOTE. Sec Doc. Hist.ii. 627 for a letter from Mr Woodbridge to Sir W. Johnson dated Albany 26 June 1753 on his return from Oquaga. ED.
XVII. STATE
9 OF THE
Anglo - American Church,
IN
1776.
BY THE REV. CHARLES INGLIS Rector of Trinity Church, N. Y., and afterwards Bishop of Nova Scotia
WITH NOTES BY THE EDITOR
STATE OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN CHURCH.
New York, Oct. 31, 1776.
REVEREND SIR,-The confusions which have prevailed in North America for some time past must have necessarily inter- rupted the correspondence of the Missionaries with the Society, and that to such a degree as to leave the Society in the dark with respect to the situation both of the Missionaries and the Missions at present. I flatter myself, therefore, that a short authentic account of them; and of the Church of England in general in this and the adjacent colonies, may be acceptable to the Society at this most critical period. The success of his Majesty's arms in reducing this city, and driving out the rebels, the 15th of last month, affords me an opportunity of doing this, as packets are now again established between this port and England.
I have the pleasure to assure you that all the Society's Mis- sionaries, without excepting one, in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and so far as I can learn, in the other New England colonies, have proved themselves faithful, loyal subjects in these trying times; and have to the utmost of their power opposed the spirit of disaffection and rebellion which has involved this con- tinent in the greatest calamities. I must add, that all the other Clergy of our Church in the above colonies, though not in the Society's service, have observed the same line of conduct; and although their joint endeavours could not wholly prevent the rebellion, yet they checked it considerably for some time, and prevented many thousands from plunging into it who otherwise would certainly have done so. You have, doubtless, been long since informed by my worthy friends, Dr. Chandler' and Dr.
1 THOMAS BRADBURY CHANDLER, D. D., was born in Woodstock, Conn. and graduated at Yale College the year 1745; he was appointed in 1748 Catechist at Elizabethtown N. J. In 1751, he went to Eng. & was ordained Minister and became rector of his former parish in New Jersey. Ile published in 1767, "An Appeal to the Public in behalf of the Church of England in America;" in support of a resident episcopate, and in 1774 he undertook to point out the dangerous conse- quences of resisting parliament, in a tract entitled the " Friendly Address,"
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Cooper,? to what an height our violences were risen so early as May 1775, when they were both obliged to fly from hence, and seek protection in England.
These violences have been gradually increasing ever since ; and this with the delay of sending over succours, and the King's troops totally abandoning this province, reduced the friends of government here to a most disagreeable and dangerous situation, particularly the Clergy, who were viewed with peculiar envy and malignity by the disaffected; for, although civil liberty was the ostensible object the bait that was flung out to catch the populace at large and engage them in the rebellion, yet it is now past all doubt that an abolition of the Church of England was one of the principal springs of the dissenting leaders' conduct; and hence the unanimity of dissenters in this business. Their universal defection from government, emancipating themselves from the jurisdiction of Great Britain, and becoming independ- ent, was a necessary step towards this grand object. I have it from good anthority that the Presbyterian ministers, at a synod where most of them in the middle colonies were collected, passed
which was followed by another under the title of " What think ye of Congress now?" The only effect of these writings was to turn the principal of his con- gregation against him & " partly starved into a surrender and partly under the apprehension of some violent proceeding against him," he withdrew to Eng- land in 1775. In 1787, he was selected to fill the proposed Episcopal see of Nova Scotia, but n fatal malady from which he was suffering compelled him to decline the elevation. He died June 17th 1790, aged 61. Hle left behind him a life of the Rev. Dr. Johnson, Ist president of King's Coll. N. Y., which was printed in 1805 .- Condensed from Hawkins' Missions.
2 MYLES COOPER, D. D., was educated at Oxford, where he graduated in 1760. Ile arrived in New York in 1762, as assistant to Dr. Johnson, of Kings (now Columbia) Coll., in which institution he was appointed Professor of Moral theology. lle became president of the College after Dr. J.'s resignation in 1763. Hle took considerable interest in the conversion of the Indians, and with a view of promoting that interest, visited England in 1771. After his re- turn he took such a decided part in his writings against the American colonies as to render him obnoxious to the whigs of the day, whose fury, it is said, he narrowly escaped. IIe retired to his native country in 1775, and afterwards became one of the ministers of the Episcopal chapel of Edinburgh, in which city he died on the Ist of May 1785, aged about 50 years. He was the author ofa vol. of Poems; of some Sermons, and maintained whilst in this country a lite- rary character of considerable eminence. ALLEN. Mrs. Washington's son by her first marriage, was a pupil of Dr. Cooper, of whom Washington, himself, spoke in very handsome terms.
a
d
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ANGLO-AMERICAN CHURCHI.
a resolve to support the continental congress in all their meas- ures. This and this only can account for the uniformity of their conduct; for I do not know one of them, nor have I been able, after strict inquiry, to hear of any, who did not, by preaching and every effort in their power, promote all the measures of the congress, however extravagant.
The Clergy amidst this scene of tumult and disorder, went on steadily with their duty ; in their sermons, confining themselves to the doctrines of the Gospel, without touching on polities ; using their influence to allay our heats and cherish a spirit of loyalty among their people. This conduct, however harmless, gave great offence to our flaming patriots, who laid it down as a maxim, " That those who were not for them were against them." The Clergy were everywhere threatened, often reviled with the most opprobious language, sometimes treated with brutal violence. Some have been carried prisoners by arined mobs into distant provinces, where they were detained in close confinement for several weeks, and much insulted, without any crime being even alleged against them. Some have been flung into jails by committees for frivolous suspicions of plots, of which even their persecutors afterwards acquitted them. Some who were obliged to fly their own province to save their lives have been taken prisoners, sent back, and are threatened to be tried for their lives because they fled from danger. Some have been pulled out of the reading desk because they prayed for the king, and that before independency was declared. Others have been warned to appear at militia musters with their arms, have been fined for not appearing, and threatened with imprisonment for not paying those fines. Others have had their houses plundered, and their desks broken open under pretence of their containing treasonable papers.
I could fill a volume with such instances ; and you may rely on the facts I have mentioned as indubitable, for I can name the persons, and have these particulars attested in the simplest manner. The persons concerned are all my acquaintances, and . not very distant ; nor did they draw this treatment on themselves by any imprudence, but for adhering to their duty, which gave offence to some demagogues, who raised mobs to persecute them
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STATE OF THE
on that very account. Whatever reluctance or pain a benevolent heart may feel in recounting such things, which are, indeed a disgrace to humanity and religion, yet they ought to be held up to view, the more effectually to expose the baneful nature of persecution, make it detestable, and put mankind on their guard against its first approaches. Were every instance of this kind faithfully collected, it is probable that the sufferings of the American clergy would appear, in many respects, not inferior to those of the English clergy in the great rebellion of last century; and such a work would be no bad supplement to " Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy."
The present rebellion is certainly one of the most causeless, unprovoked, and unnatural that ever disgraced any country ; a rebellion marked with peculiarly aggravated circumstances of guilt and ingratitude ; yet amidst this general defection, there are very many who have exhibited instances of fortitude and adherence to their duty which do honour to human nature and Christianity ; many who, for the sake of a good conscience, have incurred insults, persecution, and loss of property, when a com- pliance with the spirit of the times had insured them applause, profit, and that eminence of which the human heart is naturally so fond. Perhaps such cases are the most trying to a man's fortitude, much more so, in my opinion, than those which are sudden, and where danger, though more apparent, yet is not more certain or real. The one is like a weight indesinently pressing on us, which wastes and consumes our strength ; the other, like a transient impulse, which, by sudden exertion of strength, may be resisted. It is but justice to say that those instances were exhibited by the members of our Church : there is not one of the clergy in the provinces I have specified, of whom this may not be affirmed ; and very few of the laity who were respectable or men of property, have joined in the rebellion.
Thus matters continued ; the clergy proceeding regularly in the discharge of their duty where the hand of violence did not interfere, until the beginning of last July, when the congress thought proper to make an explicit declaration of independency, by which all connexion with Great Britain was to be broken off, and the Americans released from any allegiance to our gracious
1
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ANGLO-AMERICAN CHURCH.
sovereign. For my part, I had long expected this event : it was what the measures of the congress from the beginning uniformly and necessarily led to.
This declaration increased the embarrassments of the clergy. To officiate publicly, and not pray for the king and royall family according to the liturgy, was against their duty and oath, as well as dictates of their conscience ; and yet to use the prayers for the king and royal family would have drawn inevitable destruction on them. The only course which they could pursue, to avoid both evils, was to suspend the public exercise of their function, and shut up their churches.
This, accordingly was done. It is very remarkable that although the clergy of those provinces I have mentioned did not, and, indeed, could not, consult each other on this interesting occasion, yet they all fell upon the same method in shutting up their churches. The venerable Mr. Beach, of Connecticut, only is to be excepted, if my information be right, who officiated as usual after independency was declared, and, upon being warned of his danger, declared, with the firmness and spirit of a primi- tive confessor, " That he would do his duty, preach and pray for the king, till the rebels cut out his tongue."1 All the churches in Connecticut, (Mr. Beach's excepted, if the above account be true, and I had it from pretty good authority,) as well as those in this province, except in this eity, Long Island, and Staten Island, where his Majesty's arms have penetrated, are now shut up. This is also the case with every church in New Jersey ; and I am informed by a gentleman lately returned from Pennsylvania, who had been a prisoner there for some time,
I JOHN BEACH, for several years a Congregational minister at Newtown, Conn., was born in the year 1700, and graduated at Yale Coll. in 1721. Having been subsequently induced, thro' the influence of the Rev. Dr. Johnson, to conforin to the English church, he was deposed from his church and proceeded to England for orders, and on being ordained, was appointed to the mission of Newtown, where he arrived in Sept., 1732. Reading was annexed to this mis- sion. Hle continued the pastor of these Churches until his death, which occurred on the 19th March, 1782. He was a strong and decided opponent of American Independence, and his influence over his flock was such " that scarcely a single person of his congregations at Newtown and Reading but persevered stedfastly in his duty and loyalty." He continued to pray for the King to the last, though it is said he was handled roughly by the Whigs. His writings are mostly polemical, and his doctrines are represented as decidedly Arminian.
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STATE OF TIIE
that the churches in the several Missions of that province are shut up, one or two excepted, where the prayers for the king and royal family are omitted. The Churches in Philadelphia are open. How matters are circumstanced in the more southerly colonies, I cannot learn with any certainty ; only that the provincial convention of Virginia have taken upon themselves to publish an ediet, by which some collects for the king are to Le wholly omitted in the liturgy, and others altered; the word " commonwealth" being substituted for the " king." For my part, I never expected much good of those clergy among them who opposed an American episcopate. If such should now renounce their allegiance, and abandon their duty, it is no more than what might naturally be looked for. There are, however, several worthy clergymen in those provinces, some of ' whom I hear have taken sanctuary in England, particularly from Maryland. This province, although the most loyal and peacea- ble of any on the continent, by a strange fatality is become the scene of war, and suffers most. This city, especially, has a double portion of the calamities brought on by the present rebel- lion ; and perhaps a brief detail of our situation for some months past, may gratify curiosity, and convey to the Society the clear- est idea of the state of things here. Upon general Howe's de- parture from Boston to Halifax, early in the last spring, the rebel army was drawn to this city, which they fortified in the best manner they could, expecting it would be attacked. Most of the inhabitants, warned by these symptoms of the gathering storm, moved into the country, and carried their valuable effects with them. Among others, I moved my family, consisting of a wife and three small children, seventy miles up Hudson's River where they still remain, that part of the country being yet pos- sessed by the rebels.' Dr. Auchmuty, the reetor,? being much
I They were sent to New Windsor, Orange Co. in Oet 1775, whence they removed to Goshen. Mr. I. obtained a flag of truce in the beginning of Dec. 1776 and applied to the Com. of Safety, then at Fishkill, for permission to re- move his family, together with his furniture, books and papers back to the city. It does not appear whether he obtained permission or not. Ilis family then consisted of his wife, Mrs. Cookes her mother, and three children, the oldest not quite three years, the youngest about three months old, and four servants. Journal of the N. Y. Prot. Congress, i. 746, 748; ii. 249.
2 SAMUEL AUCHMUTY, D. D., son of Judge A. was born at Boston, and grad-
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ANGLO-AMERICAN CHURCH.
indisposed during the spring and summer, retired with his fami- ly to Brunswick in New Jersey ; and the care of the churches, in his absence, of course, devolved on me, as the oldest assistant, a situation truly difficult and trying in such times, especially as the other assistants were young and inexperienced, though very loyal, and otherwise worthy young men.
About the middle of April, Mr. Washington, commander in Chief of the rebel forces, came to town with a large reinforce- ment. Animated by his presence, and I suppose, encouraged by him, the rebel committees very much harassed the loyal inhabit- ants here and on Long Island. They were summoned before those committees, and upon refusing to give up their arms, and take the oaths that were tendered, they were imprisoned or sent into banishment. An army was sent to Long Island to disarm the inhabitants who were distinguished for their loyalty. Many had their property destroyed, and more were carried off prisoners. It should be observed, that members of the Church of England were the only sufferers on this occasion. The members of the Dutch Church are very numerous there, and many of them join- ed in opposing the rebellion ; yet no notice was taken of them, nor the least injury done to them. About this time, Mr. Bloomer' administered the sacrament at Newtown, where he had but four or five male communicants, the rest having been driven
uated in 1742, at Harvard. In 1717, he was appointed, on the special recom . mendation of Gov. Clinton, successor to the Rev. Mr. Charlton, as catechist to the Negroes, and assistant minister of Trinity Church, N. Y., of which church on the death of the Rev. Dr. Barclay in 1764, he was elected rector. Ilis degree of Doctor of Divinity he obtained from Oxford. On the commencement of the revolutionary troubles, he evinced strong loyalist feelings, and on the ocenpa- tion of N. York by the American army, retired with his family to Brunswick, N. J., but on the return of the British forces, he succeeded in getting back to town. The fatigue to which he exposed himself on this occasion, being obliged to travel by night, brought on a severe cold, which threw him into a fever that proved fatal on the 3d March 1777. His son Sir Samuel A. died in 1822, a Lieu- tenant General in the British army.
1 JOSHUA BLOOMER graduated at Kings Coll. N. Y. in 1761. Ile had been a major in the provincial service and afterwards a merchant. He went to Eng- land in 1765 for orders, and succeeded Dr. Seabury in Jamaica, L. I., to which were attached Newtown and Flushing. Ilis letters, some of which will be found in this Vol. among the Queen's Co. papers, denote his opinions on politi- cal subjects. Ile died at Jamaica on 23d June 1790, aged 55, and was succeeded in his church by the Revd. William Hammel. Thompson's Ilist. L. I., ii. 125.
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off, or carried away prisoners. At this present time there are many hundreds from this city and province prisoners in New England ; and among these the Mayor of New York.' Several judges and members of his Majesty's Couneil, with other respect- able inhabitants.
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