USA > New York > Queens County > Jamaica > The origin and history of Grace church, Jamaica, New York > Part 3
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That Mr. Gordon was a man of such traits of character and piety and devotion as was indicated in the advice of Mr. Keith to them as to their appointees, is a reasonable inference beside the testimony of Col. Morris, which was founded on personal acquaintance with him, a few weeks after Mr. Gordon's appointment.
It has not been possible so far to trace in any of the Society's records the personal history of Mr. Gordon. In his letter to Mr. John Chamberlane, Secretary, he writes that "the person whom I expect will bring you this is my elder brother, lately come up from Scotland, and it's prob- able may make some stay in England. I take this oppor- tunity to introduce him to the benefitt of your acquaint- ance. My service to your father and all other good friends." This letter not only shows his relatives were resident in Scotland, but that Mr. Gordon had considerable acquaintance and experience in England, in a ministry
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from which he proceeded to the new field for which he was thought to be eminently fitted.
Mr. Gordon was delayed only a month longer in Eng- land. He was able to join a notable company that took passage with him on the ship Centurion, which sailed on April 23, 1702, from England, bound to Boston. Col. Morris and Col. Dudley were shipmates, and Rev. George Keith, who had started on his mission at large for the Society among the American Colonies. Rev. John Talbot was chaplain of the ship.
The letters to the Society written by these gentlemen, after their arrival, are preserved in the annals of the Society. Those of Mr. Gordon and Colonel Morris are specially valuable as giving us an insight into the character of Mr. Gordon, in these last months of his life. Mr. Gor- don's has not before been published. It was found in Vol. I, No. XI, of the manuscript letters.
Mr. Patrick Gordon to the Secretary:
Boston, New England, 13 June, 1702.
Worthy Sir :
This comes to acquaint you of our safe arrival in this place. We had, blessed be God, an excellent passage being only five weeks from land to land, and above half that time either contrary winds or calms. Had the time of our passage been as many months as weeks, I might have reckoned it short, being so happy in the good company I came with. Thanks to Heaven we enjoyed per- fect health all the way except sea sickness, to which that worthy gentleman, Governor Dudley, and my fellow travellers, Col. Morris, were somewhat subject, during anything of rough weather. Honest Mr. Keith held out to a miracle and as for myself, I am a thorough paced seaman. Col. Morris, Mr. Keith and I do, (God willing) intend to sett out for Rhode Island a few days hence, providing that we find no vessel here that is shortly bound for New York.
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The ship that brings this letter to old England falls down from this place this forenoon, and therefore I have only time to tell you that Mr. Keith has found a very worthy Gentleman, Chaplain of the Centurion, to accompany him on his mission. The Gentleman's name is George Talbot, M. A., a person of very good parts and no worse man. I have personally known him for some years and can warrant what I say
I beg the prayers of the Corporation and am, worthy sir,
Your Very Humble Servant,
P. GORDON. (Letter, Vol. I, No. XI.)
Of this voyage Mr. George Keith writes, more in detail, under nearly the same date, to the Secretary.
Worthy Sir:
Boston, 12 June, 1702.
After signifying my christian respects to yourself this is to ac- quaint you with our good passage and safe arrival in Boston in New England the IIth of this instant, having been but six weeks between our sailing from Cowes and our arrival at Marblehead, a good harbor about 20 miles from Boston. Our worthy friend, Governor Dudley, is well and I heard him say he never had a more comfortable passage. He was so very civil and kind to Mr. Gordon and me that he caused us both to eat at his table all the voyage, and his conversation was both pleasant and instructive, insomuch that the great cabin of the ship was like a Colledge for good dis- course both in matters theological and philosophical, and very cor- dially he joined with us daily in divine worship and I well under- stand that he purposeth to give all possible encouragement to the congregation of the Church of England in this place.
Also Col. Morris was very civil and kind to us, and so was the Captain of the ship called the Centurion, and all the inferior offi- cers and all the mariners generally, and good order was kept in
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the ship ..... .. The seamen as well as officers joined devoutly with us in our daily prayers according to the Church of England and so did the other gentlemen that were passengers with us.
GEORGE KEITH.
The Commencement at Cambridge was near at hand, and Col. Morris induced Mr. Keith to remain in Boston before he began his travels westward with Mr. Talbot, who was appointed his associate and assistant Sept. 18, 1702, as recommended to the Society by Mr. Gordon. While Mr. Keith entered into the controversies which arose be- tween him and the Quakers with whom he had previously been connected, Mr. Gordon went on to New York, where he met the Rev. Mr. Vesey of Trinity Church, and from there came to Long Island and to Jamaica, in accordance with his appointment.
The Rev. Mr. Keith reported to the Society on Nov. 29, 1702, that "many have been visited with great distempers in diverse parts which have proved mortal to many in the town of New York, where near 500 persons died in the space of three months, but now, thanks to God, the place is very healthful."
The same month the town of Boston was reported to Mr. Keith to be "very sickly both of fevers and small pox, of both of which distempers many die."
Mr. Gordon arrived in Boston in perfect health, as his correspondence indicates. It was either there or in New York that he was seized with the prevailing fever, which developed immediately on his arrival in Jamaica. He was, however, preparing to meet his people on the Sunday that followed his untimely death July 28, 1702. He had made a happy impression on those for whom he had left
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England, and was also fully prepared to minister in the offices of the Church of England, as the first missionary of the Society to New York.
There are no records preserved of his last days, or of the sickness that ended his labors as a faithful and devoted servant of Jesus Christ.
Happily for his memory, and the honor due to him for what he so zealously attempted for the people of Jamaica, a letter is preserved, written by Col. Lewis Morris of East Jersey to Mr. Archdeacon Beveridge, a month after his decease.
(From " Annals of the Society," Vol. I, Letter XLV.) East Jersey, 3 September, 1702.
Reverend Sir :
Mr. Gordon's abilities, sobriety and Prudence which gained him the good opinion of everybody acquainted with him, both of the Church and among the dissenters, gave me great hopes I should be able to transmit your reverence an account of the great progress he had made in his mission, but God who disposeth things wisely and best was pleased to take him away just as he was entering upon his charge.
He went from New York with design to preach in his Parish, (at the invitation of some of the best men in it), took sick the day before he designed to preach and so continued till his death, which was in about eight days after.
He was partly by force buried in a Dissenting Meeting House newly erected at Jamaica, the chief town of his parish. The people are very numerous there and some of them tainted with Independ- ency, but most of them fitt to receive any impression. If there is any good to be done here it must be by men of Learning, Sobriety and Prudence and not young, and to give good encouragement to such is cheap, for others will not serve but disserve the Church.
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(Mr. Gordon was laid under the communion table in the Stone Church, July 28, 1702. When the building was taken down in 1813, the ground underneath was thoroughly dug over, especially in front of the pulpit, and the remains of those who had been buried there were carefully gathered up, reverently placed in a box, and borne in a procession, headed by Jeffrey Smith, the Sexton, to the Village Cemetery, where they were re-interred. No stone marks the spot. -H. ONDERDONK.)
By the papers filed in the administration of his estate, he is named as "late Chaplain of the Royal Navy" in the Province of New York. The inventory including bills and drafts amounted to £375, 12s., 4d. A long list of his books, by their titles, is also filed in the Surrogate's office, New York.
As administration papers were also given to his brother, James Gordon, in England, by the Archbishop of Canter- bury, his personal effects, of which no trace is known, were probably returned to England. They constituted, as enu- merated, a complete outfit for a gentleman and clergyman of moderate means.
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CHAPTER V. The Beginning of Controversy-Temporary Ministries of Messrs. Bartow and Honeyman-The Rectorship of Rev. Mr. Urquhart.
Fifty of the churchmen of Jamaica and vicinity sent a petition to Lord Cornbury to fill the vacancy occasioned by his death, and the Rev. Mr. Vesey of Trinity Church was directed by the Governor to supply them with a suit- able minister until one should be sent by the Society in England.
Lord Cornbury at this time made a temporary residence in Jamaica, on account of the prevailing fever in New York. He summoned the vestry into council with him there.
Meanwhile the Rev. John Bartow had been appointed, April 2, 1702, a missionary of the Society at a salary of £50. Sailing from Portsmouth, England, he arrived in New York Sept. 29, 1702, after a voyage of eleven weeks. He came to Jamaica to present his credentials to Lord Cornbury. He was assigned to West Chester as his field of labor, but preached all the next summer at Jamaica, at his own charge and expense, alternating with West Chester. Mr. Bartow had been highly recommended to the Venerable Society, having been Vicar of Pamperford, Cambridge, and assistant in the Parishes of Lynton and Hadstock, England.
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There was, on the first Sunday of Mr. Bartow's officiating at Jamaica, a serious disturbance and wrangle over the use and possession of the Stone Church. The Reverend Mr. Hubbard, a Presbyterian minister, held service in the morn- ing and excluded Mr. Bartow. In the afternoon, while the Episcopal service was in progress, the Presbyterians inter- rupted it and drew away part of the congregation to a meeting out doors. Mr. Bartow, however, finished the service and delivered the key to the Sheriff. An appeal to Lord Cornbury decided it to belong to the established church of the Colony, having been built by public tax, and he summoned Mr. Hubbard and the head of the faction before him, and forbade him ever more to preach in that church. He also threatened them all with the penalty of the statute for " disturbing divine service," but upon their submission and promise of future quietness and peace, he pardoned the offense.
This was the beginning of the controversy the develop- ment of which embittered the three following ministries and pastoral relations for a period of over thirty years.
Rev. James Honeyman was commissioned by the Bishop of London to Jamaica, the Society having appointed him while a Chaplain in the Navy to serve in Jamaica. He arrived in Boston after a tedious voyage, and found that he had been preceded by a slanderous charge, from which he had to vindicate himself to Governor Cornbury. He began his labors in Jamaica after many trials of his spirit, from which he came out with a clear conscience. But he found in Jamaica a church building which was so far from being ornamental that he says, "We have not those neces- sarys that are requisite to the Daily discharge of our offices, namely, neither Bible nor Prayer Book, no cloaths, neither for Pulpit nor Altar."
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Yet he says, "To this Parish belong two other towns, viz., New Town and Flushing, famous for being stocked with Quakers, whither I intend to go upon their meeting days on purpose to preach Lectures against their Errors."
The bitter feeling which had been aroused by the oppo- sition to the Rev. Mr. Bartow when the church building, erected by taxes and subscriptions, had been occupied by the authority of Governor Cornbury, continued against Mr. Honeyman, who, supplying the church under the license and during the pleasure of Lord Cornbury, was not able to remain three months in charge of these missions.
Rev. Mr. Honeyman was sent to New England and took up a mission in Newport, where he continued to reside and gained eminent success in a long rectorship of forty-five years.
He was one of the first to urge upon the Society the need of a Bishop in 1709. He presented a memorial to Gover- nor Nicholson in 1714, on the religious condition of Rhode Island, the Establishment of Schools, and a proper encour- agement to the Clergy from the Civil Government where the population was hostile in great part to the Church, and he sent to England five years later a memorial of the frowns and discouragements to which they were subjected by the Government, when there was "only one baptized Christian in their whole Legislature."
He sent an application to the Society for the establish- ment of a mission in Providence in 1732, where he had preached to such great numbers that they had to adjourn to the fields, and ten years later the first church with a missionary from the Society was built in that city. This Priest, the Rev. Mr. Pigot, became the adviser and helper
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of President Johnson and other professors of Yale College when they turned to the Church.
There was much activity among the Churchmen of New York and vicinity during the period of a year and a half which preceded the ministry of Rev. Mr. Urquhart at Jamaica, who was inducted July 27, 1704.
A convention of the Anglican Church was held in New York in 1702. It was composed of seven members, all of whom were ministers of the Society. Grace Church was represented in this convention by Rev. John Bartow. The others were Reverends John Talbot, George Keith, Alex- ander Innes, Edmund Mott, Evan Evans, and Mr. Vesey of Trinity Church.
They continued for a week the sessions, where measures for the extension of Episcopal services were proposed and discussed, the importance of which was remarkably dem- onstrated in subsequent events. It was proposed that a Suffragan Bishop be sent out from England. A forcible statement of this was made and sent to England, the effect of which was weakened by political conditions then prevailing.
The necessity of educational influences to strengthen the Church was made apparent, and the duty of reaching out to the Indian peoples, which had been one of the special objects of the founding of the Society in England. A memorial from the Churchmen in New York was received in 1703 by the Society, sent by Robert Livingston, Secre- tary of Indian affairs in the Province of New York, asking for the appointment of six men, "of youth, learning and orthodoxy to go as missionaries to the Indians, one to each of the four nations and one to the River Indians, with two
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young attendants to learn the language and assist in the work, and that a house should be built for each minister at each of the Indian castles."
It was proposed as early as 1703 to found a College, in which Col. Morris, Col. Heathcote and Gov. Cornbury were much interested. The farm of 32 acres, belonging to Trinity Church, and which rented for only £35 per annum, was proposed to be granted to the Society for this purpose, as an appropriate foundation for the College. This was the Anneka Jans farm, first sold to Mr. Lovelace in 1670 by her heirs, which was nearly thirty years before Trinity Church was founded, and which, on Nov. 20, 1705, became the possession of Trinity Church in fee by royal patent. Fifty years after this movement by Church- men culminated in the founding of Kings, now Columbia College.
Governor Cornbury, on Oct. 5, 1704, addressed the Episcopal Clergy, assembled in New York, on the subject of education. He obtained from the Council the enact- ment of a law establishing a Latin Free School which was endowed with £50 per annum.
Rev. Mr. Keith and Rev. Mr. Talbot, from 1702 to 1704, were holding services in New York, in Flushing, and Hempstead, and also going as far as Philadelphia in one direction, and Newport, Rhode Island, and Boston in the other, preparing the way for missionaries who were being sent out by the Society. It was at this time in December, 1704, that Episcopal services were permanently estab- lished in Hempstead by the Rev. John Thomas, a mission- ary, about the time that Mr. Urquhart was inducted in his work at Jamaica.
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OF GRACE CHURCH
Rev. William Urquhart was appointed by the Society to the uninviting charge, the Church of England in Jamaica, Newtown and Flushing, when these communities, espe- cially that of Jamaica, were torn with religious jealousies and strife. The Presbyterians and Independents in Jamaica were contending for the possession of the church building; and the vestrymen were mostly of the hostile, rather than friendly part of the Churchmen of the township. The Dutch, who had sympathized with and aided the Church of England families, were organizing a church of their own faith in Jamaica. The Quakers and Independents of Newtown and Flushing were not dominated by any de- cided Christian spirit, but had fallen into loose ways of 1.ving. There were but very few staunch Churchmen, the rest discredited their Church preferences.
It was fortunate that Mr. Urquhart was vested with the authority of the Governor and of the laws of the Province, passed in 1693 to 1699, which gave the Church of Eng- land a preference over all other churches, so that church property erected by public taxes was the property of the Church of England. This is plainly stated in the laws enacted in 1784 by which such preference and privileges were abrogated, abolished, rescinded and made void.
The constitution of 1784 says: "It nevertheless ordained that nothing in this constitution should be construed to affect any grant made by the King or his predecessors, or to annul any charters and bodies politic made by him or them prior to Oct. 14, 1775."
Mr. Urquhart was, moreover, a Scotchman and a Chap- lain of the Royal Navy before he came to America, and was fitted by sturdy qualities and experience to deal with the contentious spirit and claims of those with whom he
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came to abide. He had to maintain his parochial rights, where malice instead of Christian love largely prevailed. His ministry began with the association of the Church people in Jamaica, Flushing and Newtown, which con- tinued from the year 1704 to 1797. During this century in which they represented the Church of England, the three churches, Grace, St. Georges and St. James, received the ministrations and guidance of five rectors, missionaries of the Society, by whom chiefly they were nourished and developed.
The names of Urquhart, Poyer, Colgan, Seabury and Bloomer stand out among others, conspicuous for their strength, endurance, duration of their rectorships, and their ability and success in overcoming and harmonizing the discordant elements in their parishes.
Mr. Urquhart found in Jamaica a tolerably good church of stone standing in the highway near the junction of what are now Jamaica and Union Avenues. Its furnishing was a book of Common Prayer and a cushion on the reading desk.
The Church erected in 1699 stood in the middle of the main street, at the head of Union Hall Street, which was then and long afterwards called Meeting House Lane. This building was taken down in 1813, when the Presby- terian Church was built a short distance from it, to the northwest. After the War of the Revolution it was used as a Court House. The pulpit was on the north side with a sounding-board above it, and was opposite the gallery. There was no stove in the building. The women kept their hands and feet warm by portable stoves. The min- ister had gown and bands; the women sat in scarlet cloaks on chairs along the wide aisle, and on the sanded floors.
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There was a house for the minister with an orchard on a glebe containing two hundred acres. From this with the stipend of the Society, contributed by the Yorkshire clergy, which was £50, and £15 for books, he had to gain his sup- port; for the parish revenues were mostly withheld from him by the contending vestrymen. In Newtown there was a chapel, and there was also a house available for his use. In Flushing most of the inhabitants were Quakers of a roving disposition. In all three places he found only unlearned men, and few of an exemplary life. Mr. Urqu- hart made his parochial residence in Jamaica, preaching two Sundays there, one Sunday in Newtown, and in Flush- ing, where also he lectured on one week day in a special effort to convert the people from their errors of faith and conduct.
In Jamaica he found that the Wardens and Vestrymen would not qualify themselves according to law. The Parish was made up of Dissenters, and there were only twenty communicants in a place numbering 2,000 inhabi- tants. The Wardens refused to provide bread and wine for the Holy Sacrament, and to impose or submit to taxes for the minister's maintenance: Newtown clamored for a minister to settle among them.
Mr. Urquhart, finding his expenses increasing, joined himself in marriage to a widow in Jamaica, of some prop- erty, Mrs. Mary Whitehead Burroughs, and endeavored to defeat those who would starve him out. He had the hon- esty and endurance of Scotch blood to sustain him; he was a good man and brave, industrious and without pretence or display. He won at last the estimation of the com- munity, and his congregations in the three communities increased, even if his trials did not lessen. Staunch Church-
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men, Colonels Heathcote and Morris, gave in their reports to the Society the strongest testimony to his Christian spirit and work.
Mr. Urquhart bravely maintained in the face of bitter opposition the laws of the Church and of the Colony. As · the inhabitants of Queens County were generally Inde- pendents, and kept themselves in close correspondence with New England, from which they had come to Long Island, they resented obligations under the laws of Eng- land for Church establishment. They claimed that cor- porations residing out of England were not bound to her laws of civil policy.
Dissenting ministers from New England preached to them resistance to the public taxes by act of the General Assembly of New York in 1705. Yet at that time there was the closest relation between the State and the Puritan religion in Massachusetts and Connecticut, where vigor- ous enforcement of laws excluded any but the ruling sect from political affairs, or the free enjoyment of religion.
Rev. Mr. Urquhart died Sept., 1709, without having settled this controversy by his remonstrances and argu- ments, which were justified by the existing laws. He left his family in straitened circumstances, as the effect not only of his native hospitality, but of those persecutions and losses to which he was subjected by the withholding of his dues from the people, in the first rectorship they were priv- ileged to have through the beneficence of the Missionary Society of the English Church.
Col. Heathcote wrote to the Society Nov. 9, 1705: "Mr. Urquhart, minister of Jamaica, has the most difficult task of any missionary in this Government he has
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not only the character of a good man, but of being extra- ordinarily industrious in the discharge of his duty, he has very little assistance in his parish except from those who have no interest with the people."
Mr. Urquhart's reports speak of success in the conver- sion of some of his oppressors to close communion with the Church; of the prejudices of their education, as a mis- fortune to him; of the expenses of living, making the sup- port of the Venerable Society the chief reliance of their missionaries.
He desired in his will that no great pomp or formality be used at "my funeral and that none except my wife be put in morning; that no rings, gloves or scarfs be given." He was buried, probably, beside Rev. Mr. Gordon, in front of the pulpit of the church.
At the time that his ministry ended in Jamaica, the Colony of New York was reputed to be in a deplorable moral condition. So greatly had increased the profanity, drunkenness and immorality of the people that a special enactment was made by the Council to check and punish and repress the prevailing evils of society.
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CHAPTER VI.
The Ministry of Rev. Thomas Poyer, 1710-1732.
Rev. Thomas Poyer's ministry to the Church of England churches in Jamaica, Flushing and Newtown, from A. D. 1710 to 1732, makes a chapter of grievances and perse- cutions, which display in contrast an activity and zeal for the Church, a maintenance of her rights, an unwearied patience in ignominy, losses and sufferings, and an un- tarnished Christian character. He was a grandson of Col. Poyer, who heroically defended Pembroke Castle, in Cromwell's time. Mr. Poyer was born in Wales. He was educated at Brasenose College in the University of Oxford. He was ordained as Deacon by the Bishop of Worcester, June 9, 1706, and as Priest, by the Bishop of St. Davids, on Sept. 21, 1706. He was a Curate at Haverford West, and Chaplain of H. M. S. Antelope, Feb. 21, 1709. He entered the service of the Venerable Society Sept. 27, 1709, and was appointed to Jamaica, Long Island. He embarked with his family and household goods, Dec. 30, 1709. The fleet to which his ship belonged was delayed, passing from one harbor to another, and after a stormy voyage of thirteen weeks his ship, His Majesty's Frigate Herbert, was wrecked on the coast of Long Island, within one hundred miles of his destined parish. There was much damage done to his household goods in this ship- wreck. Here he came into an inheritance which no one would covet. The church glebe had been divided up by the Vestrymen, and sold in lots and parcels by their
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