USA > New York > The earliest churches of New York and its vicinity > Part 17
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During the last twenty years of the seventeenth con- tury, the Huguenot emigration into Holland became a political event, and the first bloody " Dragoonade " gave the signal in 1681. Holland, glorious Protestant Hol- land ! of all lands received most of the French Refugees. Bayle called it "The grand ark of the refugees." No
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documents exist by which their numbers can be correctly computed, but they have been estimated by historians from fifty-five to seventy-five thousand souls. The greatest numbers were to be found at Amsterdam, Rot- terdam, and the Hague. In 1680. there were not less than sixteen French pastors to the Walloon churches at Amsterdam. The Wallcons and the Huguenots, in fact, were the same Protestant people-oppressed and perse- cuted Frenchmen. Of the former, as early as the year 1622, several families from the frontier, between Belgium and France, turned their attention to America. They applied to Sir Dudley Carleton for permission to settle in the colony of Virginia, with the privilege of electing their own magistrates. But the Virginia Company seemed to have imagined this request and privilege too republican. Heuce many Walloons looked toward New Netherland, where some of their number arrived in 1624, with the Dutch Director Minuit.
These French emigrants first settled on Staten Island, but afterward removed to " Wahle Botch," or the Bay of Foreigners, since anglicized or corrupted into Walla- bont. To the Chamber of Amsterdam was committed the superintendence of this new and extensive country, and this body. in 1623, had dispatched an expedition in the "New Netherlands, " " whereof Cornelius Jacobs, of Hoorn, was skipper, with thirty families, worthy Wal- loons, to plant a colony there." They arrived in the beginning of May, 1623. In 1625, three ships and a yacht reached Manhattan, with more families, farming implements, and one hundred and three head of cattle. These were the earliest Huguenot settlers of which we 17
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have found any authentic records. As yet there were no clergymen in the colony of New Netherlands, but two visitors of the sick, as they were called in the Dutch settlements, were appointed for their important and pious duty, and also to read God's Word to the people on Sundays. Thus, more than two hundred years ago, was laid the corner-stone of our Empire State, on the firm and sure foundation of justice, morality, and religion. This historical fact places the character of the Dutch and French settlers in the most honorable light.
The Rev. Joannes Megopolensis, as early as 1642, took charge of the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany, and five years afterward became the Dominio at Manhattan. In 1652, he selected the Rev. Samuel Drissius for his colleague, on account of his knowledge of the French and English. From his letters, we learn that he visited Staten Island once a month, to preach there to the French Protestants. His ministry continued from 1652 to 1671. About 1690. the New York Consistory invited the Rev. Peter Daille, who had ministered among the Massa- elinsetts Huguenots, to preach occasionally in French on Staten Island. From 1656 to 1663. more French emi- grants from the Palatinate obtained grants of land on the island, and in 1675 they erected a church near Rich- mond village. I have often visited the venerable spot, and all that remains to mark the sacred place is a single broken gravestone. Nor is any record of its history left.
NIT٣٠٤٧٣ .١١ SS
SE OXD JOHN STREIT CHUECA.
WISHEN CHAPEL OR FIRST JOHN SIDEIT CHERCH.
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CHAPTER XXIV.
HUGUENOT REFUGEES SETTLE NEW ROCHELLE, 1698 -- CHURCH OR- GANIZED AND BUILT-DAVID BONREPOS, D. D., FIRST PASTOR -- PREACHES ON STATEN ISLAND-RECEIVES " LETTERS OF DENIZA- TION"-MANOR OF PELHAM-DANIEL BONDET THE NEXT HUGUENOT MINISTER -IHIS EARLY HISTORY -MISSIONARY TO THE NIPMUG INDIANS. 1693-WAR COMPELS IHIM TO LEAVE-CALLED TO NEW ROCHELLE-SALARY THIRTY POUNDS -- PRAYERS IN FRENCH -IIIS CONGREGATION CONFORMS TO THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, 1709 --- NEW CHURCH BUILT -- GOVERNOR HUNTER-NEGRO COMMUNICANTS -LEWIS ROUX, HUGUENOT MINISTER IN NEW YORK-BONDET'S DEATH, 1722-PIERRE STOUPPE SUCCEEDS HIM-THE " ANCIENS," OR ELDERS-NEGRO BAPTISMS-FRENCH "DISSENTERS"-MR. MOU- LINARS-EARLIEST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ROCHELLE -- MR. STOUPPE'S DEATH, 1760-BURIED UNDER CHANCEL OF THE CHURCH -- HIS SUCCESSOR, REV. MICHAEL HOUDIN.
IN the Documentary History of New York# we find a "Petition from New Rochelle," of "above twenty" Huguenots, or French Protestants, asking Governor Fletcher "to grant them for some years what help and privileges your Excellency shall think convenient" (1689). By the pious emigrants and sufferers for con- science, sake the village was first settled. naming it after their
"Own Rochelle, the thir Rochelle. Proud city of the waters."
Tradition says they landed on Davenport's Neck. But roeval with the commencement of the settlement was the organization of a Protestant church, in which the
* Vol. in. p. 926.
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Huguenots adhered to the pure principles of their pious forefathers, as contained in the " Articles, Liturgy, Dis- cipline, and Canons, according to the usage of the Reformed Church in France." "It was for their reli- gion," they said, "that they suffered in their native country ; and to enjoy its privileges unmolested, they fled into the wilderness."
A church was immediately erected, about the year 1692-3, and constructed of wood. "in the rear of the Mansion House, close by the old Boston Road."* Louis Bongard, at the same time, "did give unto the inhabi- tants of New Rochelle a piece of land forty paces square for a churchyard to bury their dead," . . . to "have a particular lane or road from Boston Road going to the churchyard, all along the swamp . . . making a door (gate) which shall be shut by those who will make use of it."-(Town Records of New Rochelle. p. 20.) Sub- sequently the town gave a house and three-quarters of an acre to this church forever.
At this early period the Rev. David Bonrepos, D. D., was the first minister of this Huguenot church. He accompanied the emigrants in their flight from France, but we have ascertained nothing concerning his minis- try, except his resignation, in 1694. The following year, we find him laboring among the French Protestants on Staten Island, as the Rey. John Miller, describing the province of New York, states (1693): " There is a meet- . ing-house at Richmond, of which Dr. Bonrepos is the minister. There are forty English and thirty-six French families." On the 9th of March. 1696, " David de * Bolton's History of the Church in Westchester County.
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Bonrepos, of New York city, Doctor of Divinity, and Blanche, his wife, did grant to Elias de Bonrepos, of New Rochelle. husbandman, all that certain parcel of land situate and lying at New Rochelle, in the Manor of Pelham . . . containing fifty acres of ground."*
On the 6th of February, 1695-6, "letters of deniza- tion were granted to David Bonrepos and others. Elias Bonrepos was licensed to keep school within ye town of Rochelle, upon the 23d of June, 1705."+ Thus we discover that the minister and the schoolmaster came together with the Huguenots to America. Letters of administration were granted to Martha Bonrepos, wife of David Bonrepos, 25th of October, 1711 .; On the 24th of March, 1693, the General Assembly of the New York Province passed an act by which the name of Pelham became one of the four districts of Westchester parish, and in 1702 New Rochelle contributed seven pounds three shillings towards the rector's salary. During 1720 the benefaction increased to twelve pounds fourteen shil- lings one and a half penee.
The Rev. Daniel Bondet, A. M., a native of France. was the next minister of the Huguenot church, New Rochelle. Born in 1652, he studied divinity and on- tered the ministry at Geneva, but iled to England upon the revocation of the Ediet of Nantes. Here he obtained holy orders from the Bishop of London, Henry Comp- ton, and reached Boston, with a company of French Protestants, in the summer of 1686. He was then em- ployed, also, during eight years, by the Society for
* Town Rre., Lib. A., 301-5. + Albany Deed Bock, vol. x. 65. # New York Surrogate's Office, Lib. viii. 61.
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Propagating the Christian Faith among the Indians at New Oxford, near Boston. These were the "Nip- mugs ;" and Cotton Mather, 1693, speaks of him as a faithful minister "to the French congregation at New Oxford, in the Nipmug country."* He complained of the sale of rum to the Indians "without order and meas- ure ;" a public disgrace and evil, alas! fatally continued among the poor Red Men of the forests to our day. This settlement was broken up by the Indians in the year 1696, where he had labored on an "allowance of a salary of twenty-five pounds a year, and consumed the little he brought with him from France in settling himself for that service, and being afterwards, by reason of the war, compelled to fly from thence, his improvements were wholly lost." During the time of his stay there, about eight years, the same old account from which we have extracted adds : "It appears by a certificate under the hands of the late Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton, of Boston, Wait Winthrop, Increase Mather, and Charles Morton, that he, with great faithfulness, care, and indus- try, discharged his duty, both in reference to Christians and Indians, and was of an unblemished life and con- versation."
After his call to New Rochelle, the same corporation. in consideration of his past sufferings and services, con- tinned bis salary, which he enjoyed until the arrival of Governor Bellamont, from England, who settled upon him thirty pounds a year from the publie revenue. The governor afterwards withdrew this benefaction, and suc- cessfully used his influence with the Propagation Society
* Magnolia, B. vi. G.
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to withdraw theirs of thirty pounds, so that the French missionary had only the twenty pounds a year from the New Rochelle church to support himself and family."
In the year 1701. we find this record from the clergy of New York: "Mr. Daniel Bondet has gone farther and done more in that good work (converting the heathen) than any Protestant minister that we know ; we commend him as a person industrious in ye service of the Church and his own nation, ye French, at New Rochelle."
At first Mr. Bondet used the French prayers ; but, subsequently, on every third Sabbath, the Liturgy of the Church of England. This important change took place June 12, 1709, all the members of the Huguenot church, except two, agreeing to conform to "the reli- gious worship, Liturgy, and rites of the Church of Eng- land as established by law." This official act was signed by "Elias Badeau, Andrew Reneau, J. Levillain, with twenty-six others."+ Proper religious services were held on the occasion. June 13, 1700. in the old wooden church, erected 1692-3; Bartow, the parish rector, being pres- ent, read the prayers, and the Rev. Mr. Sharp, an Eng- lish chaplain, delivered a discourse. Then conformity was proposed to the congregation, and adopted by sub- seribing their names to the proper document.+ At the time it was hoped by Churchmen that this example would influence the French Protestant congregation in New York, likewise, to conform.
Immediately, a committee of Isaac Guions, Louis
* Doc. Ilistory of New York, vol. iii. + " Dr. Hawk ;, MISS. Archives at Fulham."
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Guions, Jejeune, Anthony Lispenard, and Pierce Val- leau, with twenty-two others, petitioned the venerable Society for Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to grant Mr. Bondet the thirty pounds which had been withheld by the Earl of Bellamont. They also asked for "a considerable number of Prayer Books in the French language." Both requests were granted, and his salary increased from thirty to fifty pounds per annum."
The congregation increasing, Governor Ingoldsby, in 1700, issued an order or license for the inhabitants to erect a new church, which was accomplished during the administration of Governor Colonel Robert Hunter, who zealously espoused the cause of the church. Mr. Sharp, the chaplain, collected the subscriptions, with the Rev. Elias Neau ; and they were made in sums from six pounds (Governor Hunter's) down to five shillings sixpence. The sums do not seem very large, but we must not for- get the relative value of money at that period and the present. So anxious were all to contribute towards the new undertaking, that even the females carried stones in their hands and mortar in their aprons to finish the sa- cred temple. It was nearly square, of stone, and plain. A royal patent was secured from Queen Anne. February 7, 171.+ An old record of this date says that Mr. Bon- det "is a good old man, near sixty years of age, sober, just, and religious," " minister of the French Calvinistie congregation at New Rochelle." The Vener- able Propagation Society forwarded to him " ten pounds, in consideration of his diligence and care in performing English service, every third Sunday, for the edification * Dr. Hawks. + Alb. Roc, Lib. viii. pp. 1, 2, 3.
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of the French youth, who have learnt so much of that language as to join with him therein." At the request of the same body, in the year 1714, he took the religious charge of the Mohegan or River Indians. The same year he requests the honorable Society to allow him "the benefit of an English Bible, with a small quantity of English Common Prayers, because our young people, or some of them, have sufficiently learned to read English for to join in the public service when read in English." He also informus the same body, November 12, 1717, of the death of his wife (Jane) : "God having crowned the hardships of her pilgrimage with an honorable end, I keep and rule my house, as I ought to be exemplary in house ruling as in church ministry. My congregation continue in the same terms that you have been informed by my precedents: forty. fifty, and sixty communicants. I have of late admitted to the Communion two negroes, to the satisfaction of the Church."
Mr. Bondet experienced some trouble in his latter days from the Consistory of the French church in New York, and some of the people in New Rochelle separated from those who conformed to the Established Church, and continued their religious services after their old way. The New York French Consistory approving this course, in opposition to the sentiments of their own Jawful pastor, Monsieur Louis Roux, he was ultimately dismissed from this pastoral charge, and his place filled by a Rev. Mr. Moulinars. Monsieur Roux declares, in a letter to Governor Hunter (1721-5), that this now party had "fomented, for several years, a scandalous schism at New Rochelle." This religious strife continu
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ing some time, the New York party ultimately left that Church ; while the seceders of New Rochelle erected a meeting-house of their own, styling themselves "The French Protestant Congregation." They seem to have been "Independents."
Bondet died in the year 1722, aged sixty-nine, twenty- six of which were devoted to the ministry of this church. Eminently useful, under adverse circumstances, he lived greatly beloved, and thus lamented died. He was buried under the chancel of the old French church at New Rochelle. He bequeathed all his books (four hundred volumes) to the use of the Church.
The Rev. Pierre Stouppe, A. M., succeeded Mr. Bon- det, in 1724. He was also a native of France, born in 1690 ; and, studying divinity at Geneva, accepted a call to the French church, Charleston. South Carolina. HIere he remained until the year 1723, when, resigning his charge, he conformed to the Church of England, went to England, and was ordained by Gibson, the Lord Bishop of London. He was appointed a missionary to New Rochelle, with a salary of fifty pounds per annum, and proved very acceptable to his flock, receiving fifty pounds per annum, and preaching in French to those who only understood this language. When Mr. Stouppe arrived, his elders, or "anciens, " as they are sometimes called, were Isaac Quantien and Isaac Guion. In a letter to the " Venerable Society for Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," he complains of the conduct of the speeding party, and that Mr. Moulinars had declared " that he finds our Church (the Established) and that of Rome as like one another as two fishes can be : besides,
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the said minister and his party have threatened the yet dissenting French inhabitants of New Rochelle of break- ing with them all commerce, and of suspending all acts of charity and support towards them, if even they should dare to join themselves at any time to the Church. . I heartily wish the honorable Society would pity our assaulted Church, and take some effectual means for the removing of the cause and instrument of the un- happy divisions we are in. Our endeavors here, without their assistance, having proved of but little avail and of none effect." In 1726, he writes " that he has baptized six grown negroes and seven negro children, fifty-eight young people, for the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to which they have been accordingly admitted ; and that the number of his communicants at Easter last was thirty."*
At first, Mr. Stouppe's salary from his church was only ten pounds nineteen shillings, "a little more than half part of it," he states, "actually paid ; adding to that the provisions of firewood which they make to their minister for the time being, is by much the better part of his salary, though little in itself."
He gives some valuable information concerning the settlement of the Huguenots in New Rochelle. They numbered about a dozen families, "French Refugees," and most of them merchants. Purchasing six thousand acres of land from Lord Poll, they divided it into parcels of from twenty to three hundred apiece, and then sold it in lots to the Dutch, English, and French settlers, but most to the latter. Its population then numbered four
* Dr. Hawks, MESS. from Fulham, vol. i.
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hundred persons, and among them, he says, "two Quaker families, three Dutch ones, and four Lutherans. The first never assist our assemblies; the Dutch and Lutherans, on the contrary, constantly assist, when divine service is performed in English, so that they may understand it; and their children likewise have been baptized by ministers of the Church. Only the French Dissenters have deserted it, upon Mr. Moulinars, for- merly one of the French ministers of New York, coming and settling, now a year ago, among us ; and 'tis also by his means and inducement that, while he yet was min- ister of New York, they have built a wooden meeting- · house, within the time they were umprovided for, that is, from my predecessor's death to my arrival here. The said Moulinars and followers, to the number of about one hundred persons, and the said meeting-house, built by his persuasion, are the sole dissenting teacher, people, and meeting-house within New Rochelle bounds."
No schoolmaster had yet arrived in New Rochelle : but, greatly to the praise of the settlers, parents in- structed their own children, besides the teachings of their minister at church, during the summer. The num- ber of slaves was seventy-eight, and part "constantly attend divine service, and have had some instructions in the Christian faith, by the care and assistance of their respective masters and mistresses, so that my prede- cessors did not seruple to baptize some, and even to admit to the Communion of the Lord's Supper ; and I myself have, for the same consideration, baptized fifteen of them within these three years, some children, and some grown persons, indifferently well instructed in the
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fundamentals of our holy religion." Mr. Stouppe adds that these slaves "shall always share in my assistance and care, and, as far as will be necessary to make them good and religious persons, without the least prejudice to the rest of my flock." Noble, pious sentiments and conduct for this early and zealous Huguenot missionary in America ! He continued thus faithfully to discharge his ministerial duties for a number of years. In 1736, he had eighty communicants, and officiated to numerous congregations, both of French and English. In an address to the " Venerable Society," about this period, by Jean Soulice, Peter Bonnet, Giel Le Count, Peter Sicard, and fifty-six others, "his preaching," they say, . "is much to our satisfaction and edification, his doctrine being very sound and his pronunciation full, clear, and intelligible."
Mr. Stouppe's ministry closed by death in July, 1760. He evidently was a simple-minded, conscientious, zealous missionary of his Master, continuing during seven and thirty years to discharge faithfully the solemn duties of his mission. His remains were also interred under the chancel of the old French church, to await the resur- rection's morn, when all God's true children shall hear : " Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
Mr. Stouppe was succeeded by the Rev. Michael Houdin, A. M.
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CHAPTER XXV.
REV. PETER DAILLE AND MICHAEL HOUDIN AT NEW ROCHELLE-THE HUGUENOTS THERE CONFORM TO THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH (1781)- REV. T. BARTOW FIRST RECTOR-HIS DESCENDANTS-SUCCESSORS IN THE MINISTRY-TRINITY BUILT-REV. MR. BAYARD-PENNSYLVANIA AND MARYLAND AN ASYLUM FOR HUGUENOTS -DR. RICHIEBOURG THEIR FIRST PASTOR IN VIRGINIA-" MANNIKIN TOWN"-CURIOUS FRENCHI RELIC-REV. JOIIN FONTAINE-HUGUENOTS IN SOUTH CARO- LINA, AND PASTORS-CHURCH IN CHARLESTON -REV. ELIAS PRIO- LEAU-THIS CONGREGATION THIE ONLY ONE OF THE KIND IN OUR LAND-IT'S LITURGY.
REV. MICHAEL HOUDIN, A. M., was the fourth French or Huguenot preacher at New Rochelle, and born in France, in 1703. He was educated a Franciscan friar, and on Easter Day, 1730, ordained a priest by the Arch- bishop of Treves, and subsequently preferred to the post of Superior in the convent of the Recollects at Montreal. But, disgusted with monastic life, at the com- mencement of the French war M. Houdin left Canada and came to the city of New York. Here, at Easter, the same holy day on which, seventeen years before. he had entered the Romish priesthood. he now made a public renunciation of Popery, joining the Church of England. Having attained great proficiency in the English tongue. in June, 1750, he was invited to Trenton, New Jersey, to labor as a missionary in that State.
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When M. Houdin first reached New York, with his wife, in June, 1744, Governor Clinton, suspicious of all Frenchmen at that moment, confined the strangers to their lodgings, and guarded them by two sentinels. The next day, examined by his Excellency, he learned from him that " the French intended to attack Oswego with eight hundred meu, the French having a great desire to be masters of that place." Then M. Houdin was ordered to reside at Jamaica, Long Island, where he complained that his circumstances were "very low," and he " could do nothing to get a living ; that his wife and himself must soon come to want unless his Excel- lency would be pleased to take him into consideration." After this honest appeal, the authorities advised his return to the city, on his taking the oath of allegiance.
For some years M. Houdin officiated at Trenton and the neighboring places as an "itinerant missionary," and in 1759 his services were required as a guide for General Wolfe, in his well-known expedition against Quebec. Before marching, he preached to the Provin- cial troops destined for Canada, in St. Peter's Church, Westchester, from St. Matthew x. 28: "Fear not them which kill the body." The French chaplain escaped the dangers of the war, but his brave general fell mor- tally wounded, at the very moment of victory, on the heights of Abraham, September 13, 1759. After the reduction of Quebec, he asked leave to join his mission again, but General Murray would not consent, as there was no other person who could be relied on for intelli- gence concerning the French movements.
While M. Houdin was stationed at Quebec, the Vicar-
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General of all Canada made an attempt to seduce him from English alliance by an offer of great preferment in the Romish Church. This intrigue or invitation found its way to Generals Murray and Gage, when they sent a guard to arrest the Vicar-General.
M. Houdin, returning to New York in 1761, was ap- pointed "itinerant missionary" to New Rochelle by the " Venerable Society of England," " he being a French- man by birth, and capable of doing his duty to them both in the French and English languages." The French Church at New Rochelle had been named "Trinity," and during his incumbency received its first charter from George III., which the present corporation still enjoys, with all its trusts and powers, and under which they are now finishing a new and very beautiful stone church. The charter is dated in 1762, and was exemplified by Governor George Clinton, 1793.
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