USA > New York > Orange County > Montgomery > The history of Montgomery classis, R.C.A. To which is added sketches of Mohawk valley men and events of early days, the Iroquois, Palatines, Indian missions, etc > Part 12
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SYRACUSE: FIRST REFORMED CHURCH
The First Re- formed (Dutch) church of Syra- cuse was organ- ized by the Classis of Cayuga on March 10, 1848, the same year that Syracuse ob- tained its first charter, and was incorporated March 25, 1848. Among the ori- ginal members both Salina and Syracuse (joined by the charter) were represented, while others came from the Dutch churches of Chittenango and Geneva, and a few from the First and Park Presbyterian churches of Syracuse. The services at the very be- ginning were held in Market Hall where the magnificent City Hall now stands. The services, however, were transferred to a frame chapel which had previously been used by the Baptists, Congrega- tionalists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Unitarians. Here the Re- formed congregation worshipped for two years. In 1850 the church bot its present site and built a fine frame edifice which served them until February, 1878, when the church was burned. The original site and church cost $16,000. W. B. Van Wagenen and B. C. Vroman, elders, and Peter Burns and S. V. A. Featherly, deacons, made up the first consistory. After the burning of the church, plans were set on foot for rebuilding, with the result that the present beautiful and enduring stone church was dedicated in February, 1881. This church cost $60,000. At first the church was in the Cayuga Classis, but was transferred to Montgomery in 1889. Rev. James H. Cornell was the first pastor (1848-1851), installed November 9, 1848. His father was Rev. John Cornell a student of Livingston, his mother being Maria Frelinghuysen, daughter of Gen. Frederick Freling- huysen. After leaving Syracuse he had short pastorates at Raritan, N. J., and Coeymans, N. Y., spending his last years in this latter place. He died in 1899. Dr. Cornell is best remembered by the church at large as a good Secretary of the Board of Education, as well for his personal efforts and gifts which increased the Seminary endowment at New Brunswick for upwards of half a million of dollars. It was during Cornell's pastorate that the first church was built, being dedi- cated July 16, 1850. In May, 1851, the consistory unanimously re-
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solved to approve the action of the Classis of Cayuga which had officially and solemnly decreed that every minister that joined their body should thereby attain the degree of "Doctor of Divinity." Rev. J. Romeyn Berry followed Dr. Cornell (1851-1857). At this time the church reported a hundred and twenty members and at the close of his ministry a hundred and forty-nine. Dr. Berry was President of General Synod in 1890. He was a grandson of Rev. J. V. C. Romeyn and a great grandson of Rev. Thomas Romeyn( cf Fonda), whose four sons were in the Reformed church ministry. Dr. Berry had several pastorates after leaving Syracuse, including one of eighteen years in the Montclair, N. J. Presbyterian church. His last charge was at Rhinebeck where he died in 1890. Following Dr. Berry, Prof. J. B. Condit of the Seminary at Auburn, supplied for a while. Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage came to the Syracuse church in 1859 from his first charge at Belleville, N. J. and remained thro the larger part of 1862. General Synod met in the church in 1861, and again in 1885. From Syracuse Dr. Talmage went to the Second church of Philadelphia for an eight year pastorate. The church had called him the year previous- ly but he postponed going for a year. In 1869 he became the pastor of the Central Presbyterian church of Brooklyn, which church in 1870 became the "Brooklyn Tabernacle." Here he was pastor until 1894 when he went to the Presbyterian church of Washington, D. C. He died in 1902 in this pastorate. He was a preacher of world-wide reputation and influence. The late Rev. Frank Talmage was his son.
Rev. Joachim Elmendorf, who had already served the Reformed churches of Ithaca and Saugerties, was called to the church in 1862, and resigned in 1865. Leaving Syracuse Dr. Elmendorf became the pastor of the Second Church of Albany (1865-1872) and later of the Second Church of Poughkeepsie (1872-1886), leaving in the latter
egiate Church of New York City in year to enter the Harlem Congrued which pastorate he died in 1908. Dr. Elmendorf was Press Agent of General Synod in 1872 and was a Rutgers trustee for nearly forty years. Rev. Jeremiah Searle was the succeeding pastor (1866-1869), whose father of the same name, studied theology under Prof. Yates of Union College while pursuing a course there and whose brother, Rev. S. T. Searle, was the father of Rev. Dr. J. Preston Searle, Presi- dent of the Faculty of New Brunswick Seminary. Leaving Syracuse Rev. Jeremiah Searle became the pastor of the Calvary Presbyterian church of Newburgh in 1873, and served this church for forty years, or until 1913, when he died. In the interim of the pastorate the pulpit was again supplied by Prof. Condit of Auburn Seminary. Rev. Martin Luther Berger was the sixth pastor of the Syracuse church, during whose time some two hundred were added to the membership. At the close of a seven year's work (1869-1875) he entered the Pres- byterian church at San Francisco. He died in 1910. Prof. W. P. Coddington of Syracuse University supplied the pulpit until the com- ing to the field of Rev. Evert Van Slyke who was called in July, 1876, and remained nine years. It was during his pastorate that the church was burned, February 3, 1878, and the new present stone structure erected. Dr. Van Slyke left in April, 1885, and had later pastorates in Catskill and Brooklyn. He died in 1909. The church had no settled pastor now for about three years. Rev. Dr. Codding- ton of Syracuse University supplied the pulpit thro 1886-1888 when Rev. H. D. B. Mulford of Franklin Park, N. J. was called and came
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in 1889. He remained until 1897. During his pastorate and thro the efforts of his Christian Endeavor Society the Second Church of Syracuse was organized in 1895. Two hundred and twenty additions to the church membership are recorded during Rev. Mulford's pas- torate. Mr. Mulford next went to Rutgers as Professor of English. In 1912 he became the pastor of the Upper Red Hook Reformed church. In November, 1897, Rev. Dr. Philip H .Cole became the pastor and remained ten years. Dr. Cole has been pastor since leaving Syracuse of the First Presbyterian church of Rome. Follow- ing Dr. Cole came Rev. Dr. John F. Dobbs (November, 1908) of Mott Haven, who remained until May, 1915, when he was dismissed to the Woburn (Mass.) Congregational Conference. Rev. Ulysses Grant Warren succeeded Dr. Dobbs, coming to the church from the Brook- lyn Congregationalists in September, 1915. Hon. Nathan F. Graves, who endowed a Missionary Lectureship at the Syracuse University and another at New Brunswick, was a member of this church, and one of its officers for many years. Rev. Maltbie D. Babcock and Rev. Willard King Spencer (Auburn '79) were also in membership here.
SYRACUSE: SECOND REFORMED CHURCH
The Second Re- formed church of Syra- cuse was organized May 27, 1895, begin- ning with a charter membership of twenty- seven. The church was the direct outgrowth of a Sunday School work which had been carried on for some months by the young people of the First Reformed church while Rev. H. D. B. Mulford was the pas- tor. The first pastor called to the field was Rev. Charles Maar, who after two years at New Brunswick, took a third year at Auburn Seminary, and on his graduation in 1892, was ordained by Montgom- ery Classis and installed over the church at Owasco Outlet. After a second pastorate at Cobleskill, Rev. Mr. Maar took up the work at Second Syracuse in October, 1895, remaining until May, 1899. After pas- torates at Upper Red Hook and Walkill, Mr. Maar entered the employ of the State at Albany, where he now resides. Within a short time the church called Charles G. Mallery who took up the work of his first pastorate on graduation from New Brunswick in 1899 and was ordained and installed over the church by the Classis. During his pastorate sixty-four were received into the church, the building erect- ed, and the work progressed. Mr. Mallery resigned in 1904, going to Rhinebeck, N. Y. from which field he went to Bedminster, N. J. in 1914. Rev. Peter Edwin Huyler, a graduate of Auburn, next took up the work at Second Syracuse in the early summer of 1905, and resigned in September, 1914, to follow Mr. Mallery in the Rhinebeck
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church. Rev. Alexander S. Van Dyck came to the pastorate from Philmont in January, 1915. He had served the denomination for twelve years in the foreign missionary work at Amoy, China. The Second Reformned church of Syracuse is in a fine field, a favored and growing residential section of the city, and is coming into its own in the influence upon the community. The first consistory of the church was made up of Elders John Boyd, and F. G. K. Betts, and Deacons E. F. Hammeken and Alexander Gee. The present con- sistory is composed of Elders W. A. Boyd, E. F. Hammeken, N. W. King, and H. H. Snyder, and Deacons E. E. Hull, C. W. Taylor, Oscar Hauptli, and G. C. Hutchings.
THOUSAND ISLES REFORMED CHURCH
Probably the first white man to gaze on the beauty of the Lake of the Thousand Isles was Samuel de Cham- plain, the founder of New France, who, in 1615, took part in an expedition against the Iroquois. After him the first man of note was Father LeMoyne, the Jesuit priest while on his journey to the On- ondagas in the summer of 1654. After Le- Moyne came LaSalle, Frontenac, De La Barre, La Hontan, Hennepin, Charlevoix, et al. This church is in Jefferson county (called after Thomas Jefferson) at Alexandria Bay (named after Alexander Le Ray, son of the proprietor of the tract). The site for the church and par- sonage was given by Francis DePeau. "The Church of the Thousand Isles" is the corporate and euphonious name of this Reformed church, which owes its origin to the indefatigable labors of Rev. Dr. Bethune, the noted hymn writer and at one time the pastor of our Utica church (cf). While pastor of the old Third Church of Philadelphia (now extinct) Dr. Bethune made annual pilgrimages to the "Thousand Isles," usually preaching on Sundays in the school house at Alexan- dria Bay. The first Sunday school in the town was soon organized. Later Dr. Bethune met the Rev. Jerome A. Davenport, and sent him to the field, caring for him largely out of his own means, with no thot whatever of a church-just a sort of itinerant preaching at the Bay and in the surrounding communities. But Mr. Davenport's work soon outgrew the little stone school house, and compelled a church building. Mr. Davenport went to Wisconsin and later entered the Episcopal church. After two years spent in raising funds, a church was built costing $2,800, while in the following year a manse was erected which cost $825. The first consistory of the church was Alvah Ford, elder, and James Wordworthy, deacon. The first pastor of the church was the Rev. Anson DuBois, who came in 1850 and remained four years.
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He had just graduated from the Seminary (New Brunswick) and spent over fifty years in the pulpit. During Mr. DuBois' ministry here the church was organized in 1851, reporting to the Particular Synod the following year. Among the early patrons of the church, besides Dr. Bethune, were Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Throop Martin of the Owasco Outlet church, who largely contributed toward its erection and John G. Holland to whom a memorial tablet was erected. The building was dedicated in August, 1851, Dr. Bethune preaching the sermon. A Presbyterian church in Troy, N. Y. gave the bell. Very few of the members of the church were ever before connected with the denomination. The land for both church and parsonage were given by the estate of Frances DePeau.
The second pastor of the church was the Rev. George Rockwell, who staid by the organization for twenty-three years. Relinquishing this pastorate owing to extreme deafness in 1877, Mr. Rockwell spent some time in Fulton, N. Y. and New York City, going for residence finally to Tarrytown, where he died in 1897. Rev. De Vries came to the work in 1877 and remained five years. Since 1884, Mr. De Vries has been the pastor of the Peekskill, N. Y. church. Rev. Dr. Egbert C. Lawrence followed De Vries in 1882 and resigned in 1886. Mr. Lawrence has been in the Presbyterian ministry for many years, and has been spending a good many years as supply to vacant churches, making his home in Schenectady, N. Y. After Dr. Lawrence, the. Rev. Charles P. Evans supplied the church for a couple of years. He is living at present in Watervliet. Rev. George Z. Collier was next on the field, coming in 1890 and remaining thro a part of 1896. Mr. Collier is now serving the Middleburgh church in the Classis of Schoharie. Rev. Isaac J. Van Hee came to the field from the Semin- ary (New Brunswick) in 1897, being ordained by the Classis. He re- mained thro 1901 when he accepted a call to the Fultonville church which he left in 1905. After pastorates at North Paterson (N. J.), Little Falls (N. J.), and Pekin, Ill., he entered the Presbyterian church. His principal task for some years has been in social work for the Ford Auto Co. of Detroit, Mich.
In 1901 the church called Rev. Charles F. Benjamin, a member of that year's class in the Seminary, who was ordained by the Mont- gomery Classis and installed over the church, and is its present pastor. The present consistory consists of Norman Hay, Noris Houghton, John Betz, C. B. Forsythe, elders, and C. W. Cornwall, George Russell, J. B. Reid and Fred Chayn, deacons.
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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY CLASSIS UTICA REFORMED CHURCH
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Oneida county, in which Utica is situated and which was form- ed January 27, 1789, was the home of the Oneida Indians, the only tribe who remained friendly to the colonists, except a part of the Tuscaroras. The work of the Rev. Samuel Kirkland among them made this possible (cf Note on Indian Education, etc.). The earliest mention of Utica is in the Cosby Manor Patent, dated 1734, and, again, in the itinerary of a French spy, traveling in 1757 from Oswego to Schenectady. President Dwight of Yale passing thro Utica in 1798, speaks of it as a pretty village of fifty houses. Reference is also made to it in the "Story of Castorland." The Reformed Protestant Dutch church of Utica was organized in 1830. The first church organ- ized in Oneida county was by the Congregationalists at New Hart- ford, the Presbyterians having formed one later (1786) at Whites- boro. With Reformed churches established so many years previously in the vicinity of Utica it is a cause of surprise that one was not found- ed here earlier. Soon after 1800 (Utica was incorporated as a village in 1798), a number of Dutch and German families settled at Deer- field, near Utica. The pastor at German Flatts, Rev. John P. Spin- ner, as well as Rev. Isaac(Labagh and Rev. John F. Schermerhorn, missionaries of the Domestic Board, made frequent visits to this field. The preaching was in the German and Dutch tongues, the services be- ing held at first in the Deerfield Baptist church, then the old Utica Methodist meeting house, kindly loaned for this purpose. Up to
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1825 Mr. Spinner came to Utica nearly every alternate Sunday. In the Reformed Church Magazine of January 28, 1828, is an account of a consistory meeting of the Collegiate church, New York City, held at the corner of Nassau and Amsterdam streets, at which the matter of organizing a church at Utica was discussed. Rev. John Ludlow of the First Church, Albany, and Secy. Schermerhorn, were the men who urged it. It was shown that a sum of $3,000 was avail- able at Utica, and a lot worth $4,000. The Albany church had prom- ised $3.000. It was thot that $10,000 was necessary to begin the work. We do not know the results of this meeting, but in the follow- ing years plans were consummated for the organization. The Broad Street church building was erected in 1830, and dedicated on June 3d. It cost $15,000. At the organization, late in October, there were thirty-nine members, while fifteen more united at the first communion. This building was used until 1866. The first pastor of the church was Rev. George W. Bethune, who remained four years. He was in- stalled November 7, 1830, and preached his farewell sermon June 29, 1834. The Utica church resulted from an unusual religious con- dition in the city, and was started by certain men and women of strong Calvinistic faith. Rev. Charles G. Finney had occupied the pulpit of the First Presbyterian church during the winter of 1827. While his influence was powerful, many questioned the methods he pursued, while they regarded much of the preaching as un- scriptural. But rather than oppose what passed in those days for a revival, certain persons, principally Scotch, came together and formed the Utica Dutch church. The first officers were Abraham Varick and George M. Weaver, elders, and Nicholas G. Weaver and Richard Vaughan, deacons.
Dr. Bethune was the son of Divie Bethune, one of the founders of Princeton Seminary, a publisher and distributor of free tracts and Bibles years before the founding of the societies for this purpose. He was born March 18, 1805, spent three years at Columbia, and gradu- ated at Dickinson College (1823). He was a Princeton Seminary graduate of 1826. His first work was among the colored and poor people, and the sailors at Savannah, Ga. He came to the Utica church from Rhinebeck. His reasons for entering the ministry of the Re- formed church, briefly, were these, "a preference for her order, equally removed from the democracy of Congregationalism, the monarchy of Episcopacy, and the oligarchy of Presbyterianism, she presents in her representative government, united to rotation in office, the purest republican constitution." He wrote that "he liked her liturgy, de- lighted in her sound doctrine, admired her spirit ...... her ministers were a band of brethren ...... children of the same beloved mother .. who never meet but with joy, and never part but with tears and mutual benedictions,. . .a united, respected, influential body .. . . . and they shall prosper who love her." Dr. Bethune's correspondence shows the marked opposition of the other local churches to the Dutch church at its organization, which was continued for some years. In his inaugural sermon we hear him making a sort of apology for the denomination. But it was the spirit of the man and those first mem- bers who won the day, for despite all scorn and ridicule, the Dutch church, under the leadership of their pastor, made a name and fame for itself. When the cholera visited Utica in 1832, Dr. Bethune was one of the two ministers who did not flee the city. Indeed he
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took one minister into his home and nursed him back to life. After pastorates at Philadelphia and Brooklyn, he went to the 21st St. Church of New York. He died while in this pastorate, at Florence, Italy, April 28, 1862. He was the founder of the church at Alexandria Bay (cf). He gave his library of seven hundred volumes to New Brunswick Seminary. He was a scholarly man of sweet, rare character, whose contributions to Christian Hymnology constitute one of his chief claims to remembrance. President James K. Polk urged Dr. Bethune to accept the chair of Moral Philosophy at West Point, but he felt obliged to decline. Later he was selected to succeed Chancellor Frelinghuysen of the New York State Uni- versity, but this honor also he declined to accept. A handsome marble mosaic of Dr. Bethune, once in the Third Church of Philadelphia, is now in the Sage library at New Brunswick.
The second pastor at Utica was Rev. Henry Mandeville (1834- 1841). He was born in Kinderhook, and was a professor of Moral Philosophy at Hamilton College. He died in 1858 while pastor of the Presbyterian church at Mobile, Ala. Rev. John P. Knox was the next pastor, coming from the Nassau Reformed church in 1841 and remaining thro 1844. He entered the ministry of the Presbyterian church later and died June 2, 1882. The Rev. Charles Wiley succeed- ed Dr. Knox, June 15, 1845, and remained ten years (1845-1854). Be- fore coming to Utica he had been pastor of the Northampton (Mass.) Congregational church. In 1849 the church had 225 members. After leaving Utica he became the President of the Milwaukee University, but again entered the active ministry and was pastor in the Geneva church in 1859. He edited a series of Latin Classics and wrote a volume on "Why I am not a Churchman." He died in December, 1878, at Orange, N. J. The fifth pastor at Utica was the Rev. George H. Fisher (1855-1860), who became one of the great preachers of the country. For six years he was secretary of the Domestic Missions Board. He died in 1872 while pastor of the church at Hackensack, N. J. For two years the church was supplied by Rev. Charles E. Knox, a tutor at Hamilton College, and, later and for thirty years President of the Bloomfield Theological Seminary, where a $65,000 Knox Hall was erected in 1914 to commemorate his work there. When Rev. Dr. Knox was asked to supply the pulpit he felt that the church ought to move up town and consented to supply on con- dition that he be permitted to raise the funds necessary to build in another section of the city. He raised $17,000 for this purpose. The Civil War provided an impediment to this project, but Dr. Knox's work paved the way for his successor to build. He died April 30, 1900. Rev. Ashbel G. Vermilye succeeded to the pastorate, coming to the church in 1863 and leaving in 1871, to become the pastor of the old First Dutch church in Schenectady. He was the son of Rev. T. E. Vermilye, at the time the senior pastor in the Collegiate church, New York City. He was born at Princeton, N. J. in 1822. Before coming to Utica he had had pastorates at Little Falls, N. Y. (Presby- terian) and Newburyport, Mass. For thirty years before his death in 1905, Dr. Vermilye was not in the active work, much of the time being spent abroad and in literary labors. It was during his pastorate that a new site was secured for the church at the corner of Genesee and Cornelia streets, where the second church was erected, being dedicated on May 3, 1868. This building was burned February 6,
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1881, but rebuilt the following year. When Rev. Dr. Vermilye went to Schenectady he became the first pastor of the new church, the fifth erected, and preached his first sermon there on the day of its dedi- cation, August 6, 1871.
In 1871 Rev. Isaac N. Hartley was installed pastor of the church and remained on the field nearly eighteen years, resigning in 1889, to enter the ministry of the Episcopal church. He died while rector at Great Barrington, Mass., in 1899. In 1880 Dr. Hartley wrote a semi-centennial history of the church. Rev. Oren Root, at the time Professor of Mathematics at Hamilton College, began supplying the pulpit in 1890. Later he was called to the pastorate and remained five years (1890-1894). Rev. Dr. Root (brother of U. S. Senator, Elihu Root) frequently supplied the Utica church pulpit when there were no pastors. He died August 26, 1907. The pastorate of Rev. Peter Crispell was of nine years duration (1894-1902). This was his second charge, his first being at Warwick, N. Y. Leaving Utica he went to Montgomery. In 1914 he retired from active work and is living at Newburgh. For some years the church seemed to be losing its grip in the community, but in the hour of its need, at the close of the pastorate of Mr. Crispell, Rev. Oren Root came back to it with generous and helpful service, and with the aid of the faith- ful few (found everywhere) saved the church to the denomination and the city, and prepared the way for the coming of the present pastor, Rev. Louis H. Holden, who was installed over the church October, 1904. The work done in the past decade has strengthened the organization and given the church a place of widespread influence in the religious life in the city. The present consistory are, Charles W. Weaver, Herbert F. Huntington, Joseph Hollingsworth, Edward Williams, Roy D. Barber, elders, and Frederick R. Drury, Floyd E. Ecker, Newton B. Hammon, Allen C. Hutchinson, and Roy C. Van DerBergh, deacons, while the board of trustees are, Herbert F. Huntington, Roy D. Barber, George DeForest, Newton B. Hammond, Joseph Hollings- worth, John W. MacLean, and Harry W. Roberts. The late Vice- President Sherman was for years a trustee of this church.
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WEST LEYDEN REFORMED CHURCH
The county of Lewis in which are situated the West Leyden and Naumburgh churches (as was also the New Bremen church) was formed from Oneida county March 28, 1805 (Jefferson county being formed the same day). Alex- ander Macomb, who came from Ireland in 1742, had five sons in the War of 1812, one of whom was Maj. Macomb of Plattsburgh fame. On June 22, 1791, Macomb bought near- ly all the land in Lewis coun- ty, some 3,816,960 acres (cf Naumburgh). The town of Lewis was formed November 11, 1852. West Leyden was first settled in 1789 by two families named Newel and In- graham, who remained, how- ever, but a few years. In 1799 Col. John Barnes, Joel Jenks, from Rhode Island, Medad Dewey and John and Cornelius Putman, from Somers, Ct., settled here. Major Alpheus Pease (dec. 1816) built the first grist mill in 1802. The names of Hunt, Tiffany, Felshaw and Pelton are among the earlier settlers. In 1831 ten German families came to West Leyden. The first church formed in the village was a Baptist organization in 1798. Its building stood where the present Union church is. The Congregationalists formed a church in 1806, Rev. Nathaniel Dutton being the organizer. Other ministers of this church were Reuel Kimball, Amaziah Clark, Eli Hyde, Calvin Ingalls, Jedutha Higby, and Comfort Williams. In 1826 the congregation joined the St. Lawrence Presbytery. The building stood on what is now cemetery ground. On August 16, 1847, the St. Paul's Lutheran and Reformed church was formed of which Frederick Meyer, Frederick Schopfer and George Tries were the trustees. A question arising in 1885 concerning the matter of worship the families of the Reformed persuasion in this Union church withdrew and organized the "Reformed Protestant Dutch church of West Leyden." This was September 17, 1856, and the first trustees were, Philip Rubel and Frederick Meyer, elders, and Frederick Schopfer and Valentine Gleasman, deacons. Rev. John Boehrer came to the church as its first pastor soon after the organiza- tion and continued with it until 1862. Mr. Boehrer later on was pastor of the nearby churches of Naumburgh and New Bremen. Leaving Naumburgh he became pastor of a Buffalo church (1887- 1897), but was without charge from 1897 to the time of his death, 1913. During Boehrer's pastorate another church was organized December 7, 1858 and was called the "United German Protestant Lutheran and Reformed Congregation," in which Peter Wolf, Jacob
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