USA > New York > Queens County > Jamaica > The origin and history of Grace church, Jamaica, New York > Part 4
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LONG ISLAND INDI- CIE
RAGDEL
THE CHALICE AND PATEN PRESENTED TO GRACE CHURCH BY QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY.
OFFERING PLATES BY JOHN TROUP AND THE LADIES' MISSIONARY AID SOCIETY.
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usurped authority. His rightful parsonage was, through the action of the widow of Mr. Urquhart, in possession of the family of a dissenting ministry, and he was excluded from it throughout his rectorship. He found a few pro- fessed Churchmen with some members of the Dutch Church and a few other disaffected dissenters in his con- gregation in Jamaica, and from fifty to one hundred hearers in Newtown and Flushing.
Although these churches had agreed with the Society on an annual stipend of £40, for six years he received no salary from them, and afterwards he could collect dues only by legal suits against his Vestrymen. Yet, according to the letters of Col. Heathcote to the Society, Mr. Poyer's parish contained 8,000 souls and was fifteen miles long and six and a half miles wide. At times when his salary was collected by a constable, he encountered a riot. Mr. Poyer had a suit at law against tenants of his parsonage lands and homestead, which the jury decided against him. Likewise suits for salary were defeated in the courts. Mr. Poyer was therefore obliged to live on the £50 per year allowed him by the Society, with occasional gifts from the same source in his greatest needs.
In the first ten years he is proved to have been no idle sufferer in the labors of his ministry, nor unworthy of respect and confidence. He had gathered 400 hearers and sixty communicants in seven years. His adherents testi- fied to the Society that he had strained himself in travelling through his parish even beyond his strength, giving fre- quent lectures and catechisings on week days; but even then hospitality was denied him by his parishioners, who tried to tire him out by their ill usage.
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Nevertheless Mr. Poyer sought to educate the community into a more intelligent and kindly spirit. He endeavored to establish a free school, and he maintained a parochial library for his people, from which he personally gave out books, which he preserved with great care. He freely dis- tributed charities from the sacramental offerings and from his own scanty funds. His wife, Frances, who had left England with him, having in nine years, with great Chris- tian patience, endured the loss of two children, and her husband's parochial trials, died, leaving two other children. Having for three years after her death, with other minis- ters of the Society, officiated at intervals and continuously for one year at Rye, he married, near the close of his ser- vices there, the widow of his predecessor, Mrs. Elizabeth Bridge, a daughter of a distinguished New England family. After her death, Mr. Poyer married for his third wife, a daughter of a wealthy parishioner of Jamaica, Justice Joseph Oldfield. Four children, Joseph, Thomas, John and Sarah, were born to them, and by this wife's inheri- tance, Mr. Poyer became proprietor of fifty acres of land in the village of Jamaica, and of enough other property to enable him to dispense Christian hospitality to a com- munity where he had been treated with neglect, injustice and contumely.
Although his life in Jamaica was a troubled one, he main- tained his charge there, when inducements were frequently made by the church at Rye, and by offers of £400 and £500 salaries in the West Indies to leave the church over which he was thought fit to be appointed in so much trouble.
By vote of a majority of the freeholders of Jamaica in town meeting Feb. 21, 1726-7, Mr. Poyer was expelled
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from the stone church and their action confirmed by suit of the Presbyterians to whom it had been assigned by the same town meeting. So having lost parsonage and church, and compelled to hold services in the County Court House, and in public houses at his own expense in Flushing and Newtown, with the infirmities of age prematurely bearing him down, on June 16, 1731, he asked permission of the Venerable Society to quit his mission and return to his native land. But he died before his successor could be appointed, having fulfilled a ministry of twenty-five years.
Mr. Poyer's rectorship of the three Churches was effec- tive in many ways. He could praise God that the Church was in a fairer way of flourishing than ever. Through his persistence in duty her sturdy character in a turbulent community had been maintained. His ministrations, under great difficulties, led to a settlement, however un- justly, of vexed questions at law, and to the building of a Church in Jamaica by Churchmen alone. The Churches in Newtown and Flushing had been held steadfast, and were more prosperous than in Jamaica. These communi- ties had become weary of disputes and bitterness which belied their Christian character and hindered their influ- ence for the Kingdom of Christ. They were prepared to receive a new rector with some wholesome regrets that might bear fruits unto righteousness.
Mr. Poyer says of his ministry: "I have labored faith- fully in my Lord's vineyard and in my private advise from house to house as well as public discourses, I have exhorted them to faith in Christ and amendment of life, and to live in love. I give frequent lectures on week days; many live twelve miles distant, and I must keep two horses which is expensive and troublesome; and this wears out more clothes in one year than would last in three or four, if I
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did not have to ride. In Newtown and Flushing there is no convenience of private houses, so I have to use public ones at very great charge, for I usually bring some of my family with me. I have service every Lord's day, and on the days set apart by the Church. I have communion four or five times a year or oftener, as I have health, and seldom have over forty communicants at a time. I cate- chise and expound the catechism to all such as are sent to me, twice a week in the Church, and once a fortnight the year round at my house."
Mr. Poyer's representations to the Venerable Society Nov. 9, 1722, and Oct. 16, 1724, give a pathetic summary of his afflictions:
"I was so as to have little hopes of recovery; indeed I have been in poor health for several years last past; * * * My life has been one continued scene of trouble; kept out of my allowance from the County for years, and some of it lost; a great deal of sickness I had myself and in my family, seldom all of us being in health at the same time; I have buried two wives and two children in less than five years; and am now eleven in family; the oldest, (Daniel) a little over sixteen; my house rent £16 per year, and an expense every other Sunday of taking my children with me to Newtown and Flushing."
June 7, 1731, he was in custody of the Sheriff for a judgment of £42 obtained against him by Henry Cuyler, merchant of New York. In 1724 he was cast in the suit for the parsonage, and in 1728 he was deprived of the Church and had to preach in the County Court House. Need we wonder that he writes, June 16, 1731, that the infirmities of age bear very hard on him; he is almost unable to officiate and prays the Venerable Society to be
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permitted to quit this mission and return to his native land. (Doc. Hist., III, 310, quoted by H. Onderdonk.)
Some of Mr. Poyer's sermons have been preserved in manuscript carefully and neatly written in a fine hand- writing and with notes of the occasions on which they were composed and delivered. They indicate a wider activity and influence than of his predecessors while they were at Jamaica. He officiated at Trinity Church, New York, while Mr. Vesey went to England. He made jour- neys once or twice into New England.
They were adapted to the events which called them forth, showing the sympathy, loyalty and courage of his mind and character. A list of these relics of his thought and piety was made by Mr. Henry Onderdonk, in his "An- tiquities of the Parish Church, Jamaica," p. 39.
On December 13, 1731, Mr. Poyer was taken ill with a prevailing distemper which is supposed to have been the small pox. He made his will with much difficulty on Jan. 8, 1732, being unable to sign his name in full, but did not die until a week after. In his will he says:
"I give my soul to God: my body to be Christianly buried, in certain hopes of a reunion of my body and soul at the last day, and of eternal life through the merits of Christ my Savior."
To his wife, Sarah, and her heirs he bequeathed his es- tate, real and personal, appointing her Executrix with power to sell such part as she pleased for the payment of his debts and to provide for the maintenance of herself and his children, distributing to them his estate at her discretion.
Mr. Poyer was buried on the north side of the village burying ground, but no stone marks his grave or that of
-
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his widow. Two wives were buried under the Stone Church while he was in possession.
The homestead with sixteen acres of land was sold to Mr. Poyer's successor. His wife was left in great need when the estate was finally settled, and subscriptions in the parish were given for her support. (Onderdonk.)
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CHAPTER VII.
The Jamaica Church Controversy-A Review of its His- tory, Legal Aspects, and Decisions.
The contention of the missionaries of the Society in New York, as well as the Governors, was that the true intent of the Act of the Provincial Assembly in 1693, which con- tains the words "Instituted and inducted Church Wardens and Vestrymen," was the settlement of the National Min- istry according to the laws of England.
The memorial of the inhabitants of Jamaica in Queens County to Governor Robert Hunter in 1710 claimed that the town of Jamaica was purchased from the Indians by their predecessors and ancestors, who were subjects of the realm of England and Protestant Dissenters in the man- ner of worship from the forms used in the Church of England, who settled and improved the lands and called a minister of their own to officiate among them and several others successively, until 1673. In 1676 the townsmen set apart lands for the encouragement and support of the minister; in 1693 they purchased a house and other con- veniences for the accommodation of their ministers. In 1699 they erected a meeting house or public edifice for the worship and service of God in their own way, and peace- ably possessed and used it; that in 1703-4 they were, with force and violence, without any trial or judgment at law, turned out and dispossessed of the same.
The original settlers of Jamaica, being Dissenters and mostly Presbyterians, for a few years had their own way
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in all public matters, and conducted the affairs of the Church organized in 1662, in the town meetings.
Col. Morris, who was a Judge and later Chief Justice of the Province of New York, in a letter to the Society, Feb. 20, 1711, gives the history of the building of the first Church in America, and of the passage of the two acts by which the Church of England, through her ministers, laid claim to the Church properties, built under these acts, which were passed when Governor Fletcher was in office.
Col. Morris says: "The Church was built and a Dissent- ing minister called and if I mistake not paid, the other Dis- senters who were forced to comply were very much dis- satisfied at this procedure of their brethren, and many of them appeared in the interest of the Church; thinking no other way so effectual to defeat their adversaries; and this was the beginning of the Church of England in Jamaica on Long Island: the Church and parsonage house con- tinued in the possession of the Dissenters till some time after the arrival of Mr. Urquhart, when a representation was made to my Lord Cornbury that the Church and house being built by Public Act could belong to none but the Church of England. My Lord upon this gives his warrant to dispossess the Dissenters which immediately (by force), was done without any procedure at Law, and Mr. Urqu- hart put in possession of them: this short method might be of some service to the Minister, but it was very far from be- ing of any to the Church, as no such unaccountable step ever can be. Mr. Urquhart kept the possession during his life, and though he gained not many converts, yet his con- duct was so good that I don't think he lost any."
There were two Acts of the Provincial Assembly of New York in the years 1693 and 1695 in which "Church Ward-
P
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ens and Vestrymen" were mentioned as well as "institu- tion and induction," plainly referring to an Episcopal Establishment of religion. On these Acts, being the latest legislation on the subject in the Province, were based the present demands of the Missionaries and Churchmen for the rights of the Church of England ministry.
These included the possession of the Church building erected by taxes, and completed under an Enabling Act of 1699 and private contributions, and of the parsonage likewise secured by public assessments and vote of the town meeting; also for the salary raised in the same way from the parish.
The contention of the Dissenters was that the Act of 1693, as its own language proved, did not establish the Church of England in the Province. The Legislature of 1695, in an Act for better explaining the Act of 1693, posi- tively declared that the Vestry and Church Wardens had power to call a dissenting minister and that "he is to be paid and maintained as the law directs."
Governor Fletcher, however, asserted the meaning of the law to be what was contrary to the declaration of the Assembly; but was the intention of the Act.
There was involved in the Jamaica troubles the rights of the English Church in the Colonies of Great Britain.
Rev. John Thomas, the first missionary of the Church of England settled in Hempstead, Long Island, Dec. 26, 1704, wrote of it to the Venerable Society in England: "I humbly beg leave," he says, "to present to the Venerable Society the ill consequences that may ensue by this exam- ple, if a call from the Dissenting party entitle a Dissenter to be Parish minister and to the salary of the parish, then
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upon the death or removal of the present incumbent, the vacancies in most parishes will be filled with Dissenters, so will Dissention sit triumphant on the throne supported by the countenance of the laws of the Government."
Later on, in a memorial to the Society by eight American rectors, dated Nov. 13, 1711, it was stated that the loss of this cause would bring certain ruin eventually upon the Established Church in the whole government of New York and bad influences upon the Church in all the adjacent Col- onies, especially the Jersies and Pennsylvania.
The Presbyterians avowed openly "in the face of the Country," as Mr. Poyer wrote the Society, that "the Lord Bishop of London had no power here."
The jurisdiction of the Bishop of London over the Col- onies made him the most important person next to the Governor. He was a non-resident official in close rela- tionship at home with the Crown. There was nothing beneath his notice which might be for the civil or ecclesi- astical benefit of the realm.
All the clergy who were sent out to the Colonies were sent out by the Bishop of London. No one else could send them.
The British law implied and assumed that to make good subjects was to make good Christians, and the Church of England was the best Church to do this with Englishmen.
So the Bishop of London found it his duty to search for missionaries, supply those sent abroad with a church house, glebe, library and wages until local effort could supply their needs. The providing of schools and school- masters was also a difficult part of his work at home and abroad, where he kept in touch with the Governor in
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things pertaining to education as well as to the church ministrations.
The opposition to Episcopy in New York, partly on account of this controversy, led to new provision for its defence. A charter had been granted to Trinity Church in New York in 1697, in which it is frequently asserted that the Church of England in the Province was established by law. The rector, Rev. Mr. Vesey, was sent to England carrying a copy of this charter, in order to present the matter to the highest authorities and secure some relief to the cause of the Church, in the contention.
In the year 1705 another Act of General Assembly was passed for the better explaining the previous one, for set- tling the ministry and paying the salaries of the incumbents of the Church Wardens. The Independents made com- plaint against Lord Cornbury for his arbitrary course in regard to the Jamaica parsonage and other property, lay- ing claim also to the Church because they were more in number than the Churchmen who had paid for it.
Lord Lovelace succeeded Lord Cornbury, and these com- plaints came before him, but the matter was not deter- mined before he died. The Lieut. Governor, Col. In- goldesby, recommended that neighboring ministers of the Church should serve at Jamaica, alternately. When he was removed, in the interim of Governors under Col. Beekman, President of the Council, some of the Independ- ents took possession forcibly of the Church, but were arrested and fined for the proceeding.
They obtained possession again through the action of the widow of Rev. Mr. Urquhart, whose daughter had married a Presbyterian clergyman, Mr. George McNish,
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and who turned over the parsonage to him: The Sheriff, who was a strong Independent, refused to turn them out, and so Mr. Poyer, on his arrival and induction, and after numerous efforts and demands, which were made in vain, was kept out of possession of the parsonage and glebe.
The Act to settle the Church, it was contended by the Churchmen, "is very loosely worded, which as things stood then when it was made could not be avoided, the Dissenters claiming the benefit of it as we, and the Act without such wrestling will admit a construction in their favor as well as ours, they think it was intended for them and that they only have a right to it."
It appears that the members of the Legislature which passed the Act were all but one Dissenters, but the Gov- ernor and Council who constituted part of the Legislature were Churchmen, and that the Act was really intended to aid the Churchmen to build churches by the maker of the bills, who was James Graham, Esquire, the Speaker of the Assembly.
In Mr. Poyer's time Gov. Hunter, according to Col. Morris, could not help thinking the Church was right with respect to their claims for the property, and urged Mr. Poyer to bring suit of law, to recover possession, and of- fered to pay the expenses of the suit from his own purse. So also did Col. Heathcote, but Mr. Poyer referred the matter to the judgment of the Society; because he could not prevail on the Governor to take summary proceedings, as Lord Cornbury had done for Mr. Urquhart.
Mr. Poyer was charged by Col. Morris and Governor Hunter with being weak in his character and action. The contention was made to the Society in Memorials by Gov. Hunter, Col. Morris and Col. Heathcote, the Clergy of
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New York, missionaries and rectors of New York and of some of the Colonies; and by Mr. Poyer. Finally suit was brought by Mr. Poyer by advice of Council for the parson- age and glebe, which was lost.
*The only record made of the trial of the suit of Mr. Poyer against the tenants of the parsonage lands, home- stead and outlands that has been found reads as follows, in the minutes of the trial in Judge Morris's book:
At a Court, by nisi prius, held at Jamaica. Present, Lewis Morris, Esq., Chief Justice.
John Chambers vs. Joseph Hegeman, Jr.
The Same vs. Robert Denton.
Defendants confers lease, entry and ouster.
EVIDENCE FOR PLAINTIFF.
Thomas Welling, John Dean, Nehemiah Smith Sworn.
A Vote of town meeting in 1676, for parsonage lands, Richard Combs.
Warrant from Lord Cornbury to Cardale to survey Church lands.
Act of Assembly to explain the former Act (1705).
John Chambers sworn and Thomas Whitehead.
An Exemplification of the Special Verdict read.
EVIDENCE FOR DEFENCE.
An agreement of the town of Jamaica with Rev. John Prudden read.
Votes of the town for Rev. John Hubbard and George Mc- Nish, to be ministers read.
Joseph Smith and Elizabeth Stillwell sworn.
Mr. Prudden's Exchange of land with the town, (September 29, 1693) read.
Jury find for defendant.
Murray for plaintiff and Jamison for defendant.
The postea returned up November term, 1724.
*Onderdonk.
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The judges in the trial denied all authority from Eng- land in spiritual matters, and the memorialist to the Society declared it was impossible to get an impartial jury in that County where all are concerned in the event, and the greater number of them stiff Independents.
A suit for salary was undertaken under the extremely urgent representations to Mr. Poyer of Gov. Hunter, Col. Morris, Col. Heathcote, who blamed him for lukewarm- ness and hesitancy in bringing his case to decision by law, the costs of which they again and again offered to defray. Mr. Poyer in reply to their charges averred that he had exerted himself in this affair with a zeal suitable to his office and duty, and meanwhile had borne the burdens and hardships which the nonpayment of his salary imposed on himself and his family.
An address of the Clergy of the Province of New York to Gov. Hunter March 3, 1712, attempts to exculpate Mr. Poyer from the charges of disregard of the Governor's representation and advice relative to bringing to trial by law the matters of the Jamaica controversy.
Aug. 26, 1712, the Society brought the Jamaica case before the Queen; and representing to her that Mr. Poyer had not yet brought suit by advice, because the Clergy had declared justice could not be obtained in such trial, asked her Majesty to instruct the Governor and Council of New York that "in causes relating immediately to the Church an appeal may lie to her Majesty and Privy Council here without any restriction or limitation of the value or sum appealed for."
An order in the Queen's Council, Jan. 8, 1712, was granted in consideration of the Jamaica case, authorizing such direct appeal from the Governor and Council to
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Her Majesty and Privy Council without limitation as to value aforesaid, and instructions given accordingly to Gov. Hunter, Feb. 6, 1713. Thus the Jamaica contention carried to the highest court of England fixed the course of procedure for all the colonial churches.
The Vestry refused to allow Mr. Poyer to be present at their meeting to lay a tax for the minister and poor, telling him he had nothing to do there, though they took Mr. McNish with them.
ANNE.
The Governor informed Mr. Poyer that by Her Majes- ty's instructions they can hold no Vestry without Mr. Poyer, having been regularly inducted in that case. He continued, "so what they do as a Vestry without you, is null and void. Had my advice been followed these de- bates had been at an end, but that it seems is none of your
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Intention, at least not theirs who advise you, or have ever had, or thought to have and find their interest in confusion."
The Justice and Vestry of Jamaica met Jan. 22, 1714, and ordered the salary to be paid to Mr. McNish, the Pres- byterian minister, as they had done the previous year, taking no notice of the Governor's instructions.
Rev. Mr. Colgan, twenty years after this, thus wrote the Society:
One of the stratagems of Independents and Quakers was to sue for an edifice wherein divine service was performed by ministers of the Church of England near 30 years by pretence that they had a better right than the Church members and thus met with not a little success, for in sueing Mr. Poyer my prede- cessor, who being Defendant in the case they upon a very odd turn in the trial cast him.
I am informed that in this suit, the Counsel upon the part of the Church always designed to put the matter on some points of the law which are clearly in the Church's favor and accord- ingly in the time of trial offered to demur in law but was di- verted therefrom by the late Chief Justice Morris Esq., before whom the trial was, who told them that he would recommend to the Jury to find a special verdict, and if they did not, but found generally and against the Church, he would then allow a new trial; which after the Jury had found a general verdict against the Church he absolutely refused when the Counsel for the Church laid claim to his promise and strongly insisted upon the benefit thereof.
I have been told by some of the Counsel for the Church that the only seeming reason he gave for his denial was that a bad promise was better broke than kept and thus an end was put to the controversy.
THOMAS COLGAN.
June 14, 1734.
Doc. Hist. New York, Letter to Secy. S. P. G., III, p. 190.
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