USA > New York > Dutchess County > Poughkeepsie > The records of Christ church, Poughkeepsie, New York, Vol I > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33
175
The Records of Christ Church
practical, and doctrinal," three hundred and twenty-six volumes constituting the library when it opened. Mr. Wheaton, James Emott, Jr., and John Grubb were ap- pointed a library committee, and R. North, secretary. The original subscribers were:
A. Christopher Appleton; E. C. Arnold.
B. Caroline F. Barrett; Elijah Park Benjamin; Dr. Jacob Bockee; Virgil D. Bonesteel.
C. John F. Coxhead; Cornelia B. Crooke; Mary H. Crooke; Frederic Cunningham.
D. Alice Davies; Sarah Davies; Mrs. Thomas L. Davies; Christina L. DePew; Le Grand Dodge; Eliza De Witt Dutton.
E. James Emott; James Emott, Jr.
F. Mary Louisa Finlay; Sarah Finlay; James H. Fonda; John Fonda; William Fonda; Elizabeth French.
G. John Grubb.
H. Louisa P. Holthuysen; Mary C. Holthuysen.
J. The Rev. Hiram Jelliff.
K. Alice A. Knill.
M. William P. Maison; Harriet A. Myers.
N. Isaac Burhans Newcomb; R. North.
P. Robert Palmer; Isaac Platt.
R. F. W. Ritter; Charles H. Ruggles.
S. William I. Street; Sarah A. Strouts; Amelia Stuart; Julia Stuart; Mary Stuart.
T. Olivia Thomas; Theodore Trivett.
V. George M. Van Kleeck.
W. Isaac S. Wheaton; John H. Wood; Maria Woodruff; John Worrall.
In 1845 Mr. Wheaton had the church building ex- tensively repaired and some additions made to its fur- nishings. Memoranda relating to accounts, from Octo- ber, 1844, to October, 1845, show that $626.00 was spent
176
The Records of Christ Church
for mason work and painting, and that the marble font, still in use in the church, was "procured by the Ladies of the Parish at a cost of about $120.00." In the new font may be seen a suggestion of the emphasis laid by Mr. Wheaton upon the sacraments, as also in the gift "by one individual," at this same time, of "a Communion Table and appropriate books1 at a cost of over $30.00." To this same year are to be assigned the three chandeliers, composed of circles of prism pendants, which hung in the old church so long as that was occupied. Mr. Wheaton, Mr. Charles Crooke and the latter's sister, Mrs. Elijah Park Benjamin, were the committee which went to New York one warm summer day to buy them. When the present church was built, one of these chandeliers was hung in the study, made up from the original three, many prisms having been broken in the transfer from the old church to the new.
It is in 1845, in a bill for minor repairs, which is still on file, that the item is found, "Gilding dove, $3.00." And thus, in the clear light of documentary evidence, stands out our mysterious parochial possession, a life-size dove, of wood, gilded. The writer has had the privilege of consulting seven persons, born between 1825 and 1835, who have said that this dove was one of their earliest recollections in Christ Church, perched, as it was, upon the top of one of the Gothic arches of the screen behind the pulpit. Old enough in 1845 to need repairing, it may be, perhaps, that it was in Dr. Reed's mind, when, in his farewell sermon in February, 1845, he said,
1 These books were used until 1889, and were then given by Dr. Ziegenfuss to Mrs. Horace Sague, in whose possession they now are. They are marked as having been presented to the Church by Mrs. Thomas L. Davies.
177
The Records of Christ Church
"Peace is the dove of the Holy Ghost, and perched above God's mercy seat, she extends her wings over the man- sions of the Angels and the Seraphs."
Six of the seven persons, with whose childhood mem- ories the dove was associated, never heard how it came into the possession of the parish. The seventh had a shadowy, uncertain impression of hearing that it "came from Fishkill." If this were true, when and why did Fishkill give it? Was it so far back as 1797, when the glebe difficulties of the Fishkill and Poughkeepsie con-
THE GILDED DOVE
gregations were settled amid such peace and good-will? Or, was it when the two Churches parted company in 1810, and ceased to call a Rector jointly?
If this vague recollection were mistaken, then there must be taken into consideration what is, at the least, a marked coincidence, between this dove and the seal which the Corporation of Christ Church adopted in 1789. How is it that the seal bears a dove, flying with an olive branch to the ark, and that we, from such an early date, have owned this wooden dove, in the beak of which it was long customary, in the old church, to place a fresh sprig of green when the Christmas decorations were in progress?
178
.
THE STUDY From a photograph taken in 1910
The Records of Christ Church
It is impossible not to feel that, in the symbolism of the seal and the dove, combined with the keynote sounded in Dr. Reed's farewell sermon, Christ Church inherits a beautiful watchword, the preservation and perpetuation of which the present generation owes to the future. The parish has passed through stormy seasons, and will inevitably encounter dangers and difficulties in days to come, but the message is here bequeathed to us from the past that through them all we shall come safely, when we apply as their solvent the spirit of peace and hope typified in the seal and the dove.
From September, 1844, to September, 1851, annual reports of all gifts and offerings made by Christ Church were recorded, which are interesting because of the de- tailed evidence they contain that the parish was support- ing home missions and educational work more than for- eign missions. Between the dates mentioned, a total of $5,114.82 was raised for special objects, and the follow- ing table enumerates some of those, and shows which attracted the largest contributions:
$800.00 Alms and Sunday School
770.53 Domestic Missions
626.00 Repairs to the church building
422.00 Diocesan Missions
368.19 Bible and Common Prayer Book Society
312.00 Foreign Missions
261.26
Poor of the Parish
249.00
Poor Parishes Abroad
101.27
Aged and Infirm Clergy
89.21
Theological Education Fund
87.50 Sunday School Union
62.34 Tract Society
52.25 Diocesan Fund
59.00 Mission to Seamen
40.00 Theological Seminary
179
The Records[of Christ Church
The report made in October, 1845, contains this clause: "Last June a Parochial School for the free instruction of young girls was established by some of the Ladies of the Parish which gives promise of great usefulness."
How much Mr. Wheaton may have had to do with the inception of this school it is impossible to say, but its history is indissolubly associated with Mrs. Thomas L. Davies.
The only daughter of Dr. Reed, Jane C. E. Reed, was in 1826 married to the elder son of William Davies, the warden of the parish. Thomas L. Davies, her husband, was one of the leading residents of Poughkeepsie. A gentleman of the old school, a Churchman by birth and conviction, he was, for many years, vestryman and warden, treasurer of the Corporation and a generous contributor to the support of the parish. But Mrs. Davies was (if such a thing were possible) even more devoted to Christ Church than he. She was a woman of commanding characteristics, and, having inherited from her father a love for this parish and Churchmanship of a pronounced type, she was an influence deeply felt in all that concerned Christ Church.
In her social relations she has been described as the Mrs. Astor of Poughkeepsie, which sufficiently indicates her relative position in the place, a position occupied by no one person before or since her day. Her appearance in the grande dame stage of her later years has been vividly pictured to the writer, as she rode in dignity in a capacious family coach, broad of build, wearing a scoop bonnet, puffs at her temples, a thread lace veil falling in long full folds over her face, and her hand in the swinging window-loop that was covered with tan brocatelle.
The Parish School was managed by the Rector, a
180
1
THE PARISH SCHOOL BUILDING Corner Market and Pine Streets The Gift in 1857 of William A. Davies
The Records of Christ Church
vestry committee and a board of visitors composed of ladies of the parish, but Mrs. Davies's interest in it was the moving power behind them all, and for many years she made it her chief charge.
As started, the school was for girls only, but after- ward a boys' department was added. From 1845 to 1858 the sessions were held in the basement of the church, but, on December 7th, 1857,1 Mr. William A. Davies and his wife conveyed to the Corporation of Christ Church a lot and building on the corner of Market and Pine streets. The deed recites that the consideration was "$1.00, and a desire to promote the interests of the Protestant Episcopal Church," and that the building, thus presented, had been erected and furnished by Mr. Davies, "for the use of the Parish Schools connected, or to be connected, with Christ Church, and in which, among other things, the peculiar faith and worship of the Protestant Episco- pal Church in the United States of America shall daily be inculcated."
The school was conducted in this building from 1858 until 1884,2 when it was discontinued, and the building stood vacant until leased to the Quincy School in 1885.
May 3d, 1888, the vestry of Christ Church resolved, "that, with the approval of Mr. William A. Davies, the Parish School property, donated by him to the Church, be sold, and the proceeds be used for building a Sunday School room back of the new church, the building when finished to be known as the Davies Memorial." A sale to the Quincy School Corporation was effected, and, on October 3d, 1888, $4,500.00 was received by the treas-
1 Dutchess County Clerk's records, deeds, Liber 110, p. 300.
2 Parochial Reports, Journal of the Convention of the Diocese of New York, 1858-1884.
181
The Records of Christ Church
urer of the Church in payment for the property, which money was applied, in accordance with the vestry resolu- tion, to the cost of the present "Davies Memorial Parish School House."
The Parish School received one other large individual gift, that of Mrs. John D. Robinson, who bequeathed by will to the Corporation of Christ Church $4,000.00, the income from which was to be used for the maintenance of the school.
Mrs. Thomas L. Davies's desire, originally, was that all classes of children should be included in the school, and that it should be a powerful factor toward the upbuilding of the Protestant Episcopal Church, but it was found impossible to induce well-to-do parents to send their children to it, and it resolved itself into a philanthropic work only. The children wore a uniform, and their garments and shoes were almost entirely supplied by Christ Church. They received a general elementary grounding, which was overlaid by instruction in religious and ecclesiastical matters.
As a feeder to the Protestant Episcopal Church the school was without result. The free clothing and free tuition brought to it large numbers of needy children, but these same children when they outgrew school age quickly drifted away from the parish. They and their descendants still frequently look to Christ Church for the occasional ministrations of baptism, marriage and burial, but, with very few exceptions, they have become part of the great non-Church-going mass of this genera- tion.
The Parish School exhibits a more fortunate aspect as a retroactive agent. It was the equivalent, for its time, of modern institutional work, and afforded the parishion-
182
10T
THE DAVIES MEMORIAL PARISH SCHOOL HOUSE Erected 1889
The Records of Christ Church
ers of Christ Church opportunity for the expression of the spirit of Christian helpfulness.
The social and economic conditions of the period were radically different from those of today, and were such as to make the Church a large factor in the lives of its members, there being fewer outside demands and interests to compete with it.
In Poughkeepsie, after the Improvement boom of the thirties, Main street ceased to be a combined business and residence street. Here and there, at scattered points in the town, occasional substantial dwellings were built, but the compacted residence quarter was Mill street, which became the scene of a network of the ties of blood and friendship. Some unconscious bias toward city development placed the houses close to the sidewalk, but the deep rear lots were full of fruit trees and garden vegetables, and bright with flowers which were tended by their owners' hands.
Deeper rooted family life, and many inter-relation- ships, created a family esprit de corps in the town. Articles that now pour forth from factories were slowly and laboriously made by hand, household duties were numerous, and there was little travel. Recreation was found in the interchange of simple entertainment; mid-day dinner was the universal rule, and the canonical, two-course "party supper" consisted of fried oysters and chicken salad, syllabub and homemade cake and pre- serves in variety. A great deal of solid reading was done; people were familiar with standard novels, history and biography, little trash finding its way into print. There was not much extreme poverty; but the poorer people were personally known to those in better estate, and most families had their particular pensioners, whose needs
183
The Records of Christ Church
they watched over; out of which relations grew life-long attachments and allegiances.
Thus it was natural that the Church should be, not only the expression of an interest in spiritual things, but an intellectual and social center. By the time Dr. Reed died he had baptized a second generation, and it was this second generation of Churchmen which gave strength and and character to the parish at the time we are consider- ing. By inheritance the Church was dear to them, and their environment enhanced its influence. They were held to it by none of the more recent developments which now serve to attract some; the Prayer Book service and their own well defined sense of the place of religion in the world sufficed to fix it in their hearts and minds.
A great deal of parish visiting was done; partly in behalf of the Parish School, but also among the old and sick and those in want. Among the many faithful workers in this field, one stands pre-eminent in the recollections of persons, now living, who were familiar with those days; to them the name of Lydia Ingraham Phinney suggests holy living. A woman of true consecra- tion, she gave her whole life to the service of God in this parish, and was a deaconess all but in vow and title. At her death in 1879 Dr. Edward H. Parker, then a vestry- man, wrote some lines which have been widely quoted (and which have had a strange literary history), and, in 1893, Mrs. Parker and Mrs. Robert E. Taylor proposed that a memorial of Miss Phinney should be made, which proposition took form in a bronze cross, affixed to the wall of the south transept of the new church. The cross is carved in relief in passion flowers, and is as chaste and exquisite as the spirit of the woman it commemorates. Dr. Parker's lines were:
184
The Records of Christ Church
"There Remaineth Therefore A Rest To The People Of God."
Life's race well run, Life's work all done, Life's victory won; Now cometh rest.
Sorrows are o'er, Trials no more, Ship reacheth shore; Now cometh rest.
Faith yields to sight, Day follows night, Jesus gives light; Now cometh rest.
We a while wait, But, soon or late, Death opes the gate; Then cometh rest.
In this middle era of the history of Christ Church the Davies family was identified, not only with the Parish School, but with all other parochial interests. Approxi- mately, from the erection of the second church building in 1834 (to which William Davies was the largest con- tributor), to the death of Thomas L. Davies in 1880, its members all were active workers and generous contribu- tors in and to the parish, and it is a pleasure to declare here a due appreciation of the benefits thus received. No one family has ever done more in Poughkeepsie for the Protestant Episcopal Church, and a permanent wit- ness to their devotion to it, and of their desire for its extension, is the Church of the Holy Comforter. This was erected by William A. Davies in memory of his wife (Sarah Van Wagenen Davies, deceased 1858), on land
185
The Records of Christ Church
given jointly by him and his brother, Thomas L. Davies, and was largely furnished and equipped by them and members of their family.
The organization of this new parish was effected in 1859. Prior to that, it was recognized in Christ Church that there was need for Church services among people living down town, near the river, at inconvenient dis- tance either from Christ or St. Paul's Church, and, in January, 1859, a room on lower Main street was rented, in which the Rev. Dr. Samuel Buel officiated on Sunday evenings until June. The congregations were of such promising numbers that, on May 10th, the incorporation of a board of trustees took place. These original trustees for the Church of the Holy Comforter were the Rev. Dr. Buel and Messrs. Thomas L. Davies, William A. Davies, Robert E. Coxe, John W. VanWagenen, George Cornwell and Benjamin R. Tenney, all commu- nicants of Christ Church. The half century of exist- ence of the Church of the Holy Comforter has been distinguished by the forty years' rectorate of the Rev. Dr. Robert F. Crary, and reference by the mother parish to the founding of the daughter would be incom- plete without a tribute to his unselfish and untiring labors.
Contemporaneous with the Parish School and the es- tablishment of the Holy Comforter, were two large schools for girls in Poughkeepsie, under Protestant Epis- copal auspices.
The Rev. Dr. D. Grosvenor Wright conducted the Poughkeepsie Female Academy from 1859 to 1886, where large numbers of girls received a thorough academ- ic education. The boarding pupils filled several pews in Christ Church all those years, and Dr. Wright and his
186
The Records of Christ Church
own family were devout communicants in the parish, maintaining their close ties with it after the Academy closed.
Cottage Hill Seminary, from 1860 to 1873, under the Rev. Dr. George T. Rider, had the characteristics of a present-day, fashionable, finishing school. It was distinctly a Church school, and daily services, courses in Church history and the study of the Prayer Book were part of the curriculum. In place of the usual commence- ment, an annual choral service was the custom, held in Christ Church in June. The music was rendered entire- ly by the girls, who practised for it all the year, the church was profusely decorated with flowers and filled with the friends of the pupils, and addresses were delivered by such well known clergy as Bishop Horatio Potter, Dr. Morgan Dix, Dr. Henry C. Potter and Dr. William R. Huntington.
The founding of St. Barnabas's Hospital in 1871 was still another interesting expression of the spirit of its time. The hospital was the first in Poughkeepsie, and was established and maintained by members of the three parishes of the Episcopal Church. The board of trus- tees, consisting of the three Rectors and representative laity from each congregation, conducted St. Barnabas's until 1887, when Vassar Brothers' Hospital was opened. The income from the endowment was used from 1887 to 1909 for relief among the sick poor, and, since January, 1909, it has provided the services of a trained nurse, who makes house-to-house professional calls, where illness and want occasion their need. Episcopalians in Pough- keepsie have a right to some pride in the fact that they were first in the local field of hospital work, and it is cause for rejoicing that a continuous record of beneficent
187
The Records of Christ Church
accomplishment belongs to the administration of the fund they created.
In more intimately parochial matters many changes and developments took place between 1845 and 1875, the extent of which is more fully evident when conditions at the beginning of this time are contrasted with those at its close. Minute details of the church and Sunday School have been supplied by Miss Elizabeth Shepherd of New York City, her reminiscences relating to the time of Mr. Wheaton's work in the parish (1842-1847). Miss Shepherd's family came to Poughkeepsie in 1833, when she was a young child, and removed to New York City in 1847, but her affection for her mother parish is as fresh as in her girlhood, and it may not be malapropos to add, as a bit of inner history, that it was she, who, in 1900, suggested to the vestry committee on calling a Rector to Christ Church that they consider the Curate of the Church she attended in New York City, her suggestion resulting in the call to the present Rector.
Replying to a request for information about the parish, as she recalled it in her youth, Miss Shepherd wrote:
"As soon as I received your letter I began to remi- nisce! My recollections of my early Church life in Poughkeepsie are very pleasant, and I write them as I remember them, though so long ago, and being so young at the time. Dr. Reed I remember, but indistinctly. He always lived in Cannon street in my day. I attended his funeral; the remains were carried from the church on a bier to the 'English burying ground,' and the pall bearers wore white linen scarfs, tied on the left side, with black ribbon (or crepe) fastened on the right shoulder, and black gloves; we followed on foot. The Sunday School
188
The Records of Christ Church
children wore a black band on one arm for a period of time, according to the custom of English Churches in those days.
"Mr. Wheaton was the one that remains indelibly impressed on my memory; he was a clergyman after my own heart, and was the Teacher that taught me all I knew about the Church.
"My first recollection of going to church is the dove with the olive branch in its mouth. I do not remember its being perched, I thought it was sus- pended as in the act of flying. I never heard how it came to be placed there.
"Our Church service was not like the present day; there was no Hymnal, only a few hymns and psalms in the back of the Prayer Book. The Gloria in Excelsis was sung in the morning. The Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis were not used, and were not in the Prayer Book.
"The Communion Table stood in the middle, before the reading-desk, and the reading-desk in front of the high pulpit; the Table was a perfectly plain wooden one, without a cover; usually two silver plates for the 'collection' were on it. The Communion service consisted of a 'pitcher' and two 'Communion cups,' supposedly of silver. No offer- ing was taken up, except the first Sunday in the month, or Communion Sunday. My mother always took her shilling or sixpence on those Sundays. Offerings did not run up into the thousands in those days; there was not need of it, for there were no poor in the Church, although several pews in the back of the church were reserved for that class. I remember the two chairs in the chancel,
189
.
The Records of Christ Church
as you describe them, but I do not know who gave them.
"The seats in the body of the church were high. A few of the wealthy had their pews lined with moreen, studded with brass-headed nails; all pews had cushions, but no kneeling benches; people bent their heads in prayer, and rested them on an inclined plane; there was a similar plane for feet, if one tired of swinging them in the air. Some few pews had a plate on the door, with the owner's name; all pews had doors that fastened with buttons; all carpeted pews. The vestibules were uncarpeted, and the bell rope hung from the middle of the ceiling in the tower entrance, and, if the sexton was ringing the bell, we had to circle around him to enter the church.
"Sunday School was at nine o'clock in the morning; service at ten o'clock; afternoon catechising at one o'clock before the Communion-rail; service at three P. M .; again at seven P. M., the church being lighted with oil lamps until the new chandeliers came. It was a custom on Sundays, after the after- noon service, to visit the burying-ground, walk about, and meet the same people we had seen during the day. I often wonder how we had time to do so much in our Sunday. Now, one service is exhaust- ing. My mother and the people at that time called the Church 'the English Church,' and the burying-ground ' the English burying-ground.'
"Dr. Reed and Mr. Wheaton both acted as super- intendent of the Sunday School. The school was so small it did not need much superintendence till Mr. Wheaton became Rector, then there was a change, and children began to pour in. The early superin-
190
The Records of Christ Church
tendents-Mr. Van Vliet and Mr. Jelliff 1-I re- member perfectly; but Mr. James Emott I believe was the best, and the last I remember. He was the son of Judge Emott. He was there in the capacity of superintendent when we came to New York. The Sunday School was not well conducted until Mr. Wheaton came.
"The school was first held in the cellar of the church, the entrance to which was on the south side, in Church street. It was very dark and musty, poorly lighted by two windows on the side of the entrance. The earth had broken through on the north side, and some benches, not in use, were backed up against the break, but that did not keep the soil out. Only a few benches were needed for the school; they were well in front on account of the light. There was a small pulpit; and a hanging closet called a library, with a few religious books, such as Lives of the Bishops, Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, Vicar of Wakefield, Dairyman's Daughter and Hannah More's works, beside many books of sermons. Dr. Reed had Wednesday evening service there with lecture. The room was lighted with oil lamps-bad odor -- seats so high that my feet never touched the floor in sitting.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.