USA > New York > Dutchess County > Poughkeepsie > The records of Christ church, Poughkeepsie, New York, Vol I > Part 21
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I hope it will not be understood by this communication that I wish to be relieved from any labor which God shall give me ability to perform. I came among you in the first in- stance to live, to labor and to die with you. That is still my intention and wish.
Intellectually, Dr. Reed's attainments were solid and substantial, rather than brilliant; logical, rather than imaginative. Dr. Brown, who for many years was Rector of St. George's, Newburgh, and a close friend of Dr. Reed's, said1 of him:
His mental processes were rather deliberate, and hence he rarely had occasion to reverse or set aside his conclusions. He was not only a careful observer of what was passing in the world around him, but he was also, for a parish minister, a diligent student,-he kept himself acquainted with the various phases of theological opinion, which were developed during his ministry. His excellent judgment and great pru- dence made him an admirable counsellor. These same qual- ities gave him great influence beyond the more immediate sphere of his labours. His brethren in the ministry attached great importance to his opinion, and it may safely be said that he was among the more influential ministers of the Diocese. The type of his Churchmanship was as nearly like that of Bishop Hobart as of any other man. He was an Episcopa- lian, not only from education but from thorough conviction; but he was willing that others should enjoy the liberty that he claimed for himself.
If in Churchmanship Dr. Reed resembled Bishop Hobart, of the latter it has been said that "he was one of the High Churchmen of his day, and admitted no compromise in regard to the opinions he held as an Episcopalian; but he was still in the most agreeable relations with many clergymen of other communions."
1 Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit (Episcopal), pp. 506-509.
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The History of Trinity Parish speaks of the friendship between Bishop Hobart and Dr. Reed, saying that the latter, "a frequent cor- respondent of the Bishop, always wrote to him in the frankest manner possible; his letters are therefore worthy of consideration as revealing not only his own feelings, but undercurrents of those times which it is hard to realize today."
Dr. Nott, President of Union, under whom Dr. Reed graduated, wrote1 of him:
During his entire life, he not only fulfilled the duties of his office to the satisfaction of a large and most respectable con- gregation, containing many learned and distinguished men, but he was considered a wise and prudent counsellor, and exert- ed a powerful and extensive influence in the measures adopted and the acts performed by the Church to which he belonged.
He retained to the last his affectionate regard for his Alma Mater, and the charm of his character was that, though a true Churchman, he never misrepresented the doctrines, or under-rated the talents, or impugned the motives of those who differed from him. Claiming in matters of faith to think for himself, he freely conceded the exercise of the same right to others, and ever recognized and treated other evan- gelical denominations as brethren in the bonds of a common Christianity, so that he not only lived to the end of his useful life in peace with all good men, but died lamented by the whole community.
Dr. Reed's own writings support the testimony of Dr. Nott and Dr. Brown that he was a High Churchman. He published a small work in defence of the Episcopate, and his farewell sermon, already referred to, contains passages indicating his ecclesiastical position, and showing his familiarity with the Oxford Movement and (by inference) approval of the same.
In the last years of his life Dr. Reed suffered several paralytic strokes, and became unable to perform the active duties of the ministry. He died July 6th, 1845, and his body was buried at the northwest corner of the present church square, where a monument was erected to his memory. The vestry placed a marble mural tablet in the church, "in testimony of the universal affection and veneration of the Parish," and his daughter gave a circular window picturing the Good Shepherd, which is in the present parish house.
1 Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit (Episcopal), pp. 506-509.
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The Journal and Eagle of Poughkeepsie, in its issue following his death, made an obituary of him one of its most important items, an act of much significance then, when papers printed almost no local news:
Death of the Rev. Dr. Reed. On Sunday evening last the Rev. John Reed, D.D., of this village, died at his residence in Cannon street at the age of 68 years.
The departure of no individual resident among us could have made so great a vacuum in Society as that of the venerated clergyman whose death we today record. For nearly forty years he had filled the office of Rector of Christ Church in this place, and during all that period was not only most devotedly attached to the flock over which he was placed, but as warmly beloved by that flock, and all with whom he had intercourse.
In the faithful discharge of his duties as a minister of Christ, his labours were greatly blest to the Church, and his charities and kind attentions to the poor, especially in times of distress, sickness, sorrow and death, were so constant and untiring that his place can scarcely be filled by another.
As a minister and as a private gentleman, no man was ever more respected by the Christian community of all denomina- tions. To all, especially his own Church, the loss is one that can never be repaired.
Dr. Reed married in his young manhood Susan Robinson, of Plain- field, Connecticut, who died in 1832, leaving two sons and one daughter, the wife of Thomas L. Davies of Poughkeepsie.
February 9th, 1834, Dr. Reed married, for his second wife, Miss Elizabeth Parkinson of Poughkeepsie, a woman of years and of means, who survived him, dying May 8th, 1858, aged about eighty.
Until his second marriage he lived in the parsonage, on the corner of Academy and Cannon streets; after it, he occupied a house, owned by his wife, on Cannon street. This house, in which he died, stood op- posite the home of the late senior warden, Mr. Cornwell, but it has long since been taken down, and the lot is vacant.
AUTHORITIES
Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit (Episcopal), pp. 452, 506-509.
Records of Christ Church, Poughkeepsie.
Dix: History of Trinity Parish, Vol. 3, p. 200.
Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. 5, p. 208.
The Churchman, July 26th, 1845.
The Journal and Eagle of Poughkeepsie, July 12th, 1845.
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HOMER WHEATON
RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH
APRIL 12TH, 1846,-MAY 1ST, 1847,
Homer Wheaton was a native of Dutchess County, New York, his birth occurring at The Square, in the town of North East, on Decem- ber 15th, 1804. His parents removing, soon after it, to central New York, he received his preliminary education at the academy at Pompey, and graduated with the class of 1822 from Hamilton College, Clinton. He was a precocious child, translating Xenophon when nine years old, and his ability further manifested itself in college, the delivery of the English oration being assigned to him at graduation.
After studying law, Mr. Wheaton began practise in Syracuse, but in a few years came to Lithgow, Dutchess County. He had married in 1830 Louisa, daughter of Judge Isaac Smith of Lithgow, a large land owner in that neighborhood, and, Mrs. Wheaton inheriting at her father's death much of this estate, it became expedient for them to occupy and care for it.
Between 1830 and 1840, Mr. Wheaton's attention began to be cen- tered upon the Church, and he came under the personal knowledge of Dr. Reed, of Christ Church, Poughkeepsie, whose influence was un- doubtedly an agent toward his decision to take Orders. Dr. Reed baptized him December 7th, 1841, and, being already prepared for Orders, he was ordained Deacon two days later (December 9th, 1841) by Bishop Onderdonck, in Christ Church. He became assistant to Dr. Reed January 1st, 1842, serving in Deacon's Orders until Novem- ber 13th of that year, when he was advanced to the Priesthood by Bishop Onderdonck, this ordination, also, taking place in Christ Church.
Mr. Wheaton was Assistant Minister in Christ Church the last years of Dr. Reed's life, being made Rector of the parish, in succession to Dr. Reed, on April 12th, 1846. Also as successor to Dr. Reed, he was elected in 1846 a member of the Board of Trustees of the General Theological Seminary. He resigned from the Board in 1855.
The illness of Mrs. Wheaton's mother making it necessary for her and her husband again to live in the old home at Lithgow, Mr. Whea- ton relinquished his charge in Poughkeepsie on May 1st, 1847.
The correspondence between him and the vestry of Christ Church on this occasion (and on those of his election as Assistant and as Rec- tor) clearly shows the esteem in which he was held, and his own thoughtful, conscientious spirit. A Common Place Book, begun by
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Mr. Wheaton in 1820, bears upon its fly-leaf, "Nil actum reputans si quid superesset agendum," and the sentiment that nothing should be considered accomplished, if anything remained to be done, is one that expressed a governing rule of Mr. Wheaton's life. The corner-stone of his character was his devotion to duty, combined with inflexible resolution in carrying it out in the least detail, but this strength was saved from harshness by other traits equally marked.
A few are now living who were members of the parish during his ministry, and they bear tribute to the beauty of his character. One, who knew him well and loved him, said to the writer, with much feel- ing,-"he had the personality of a Christian, the manners of a gentle- man, and the heart of a woman!" Another recalls that, in preaching, he was used to address "My Christian Brethren," and frequently to urge them to "hear the Voice of the Church." His own speaking voice is described as exceptionally fine.
It has also been said of him that "he held himself up to a very high standard, and he never, in large or little things, fell a bit below it. With this, went a self-sacrifice, a humility about himself, a great courtesy toward others, and, withal, a wholesome, almost joyful nature. He had a wonderfully hearty laugh, and enjoyed a good story. There was no touch of the morbid, no suggestion of offering himself as an exemplar."
His was, in short, one of those rare natures, shot through with charm, and fixed in principle, which evoke in men's hearts love and reverence, and inspire them with freshened faith in the best things of life.
The Oxford Movement, started in 1833, had established an influence in the Church in the United States in the early forties, and Mr. Whea- ton was one of those who were profoundly affected by it. While he was in Poughkeepsie his High Church teaching was sufficiently pro- nounced to make some of his people consider his views very advanced, and one member of the congregation, in alarm lest a general with- drawal to the Church of Rome was about to take place, himself with- drew to the Reformed Dutch Church.
However, when Mr. Wheaton removed from Poughkeepsie to Lithgow in 1847, he interested himself at once in St. Peter's Church, there, to the Rectorship of which he was called in 1848. He continued in that office about seven years, in which time he also labored at mission stations in the county, taking charge of St. Mary's, at Poughquag in the town of Beekman; of St. Paul's, Pleasant Valley; and of St. Thomas's, Amenia Union, at which latter place he was instrumental in the erection of a church building designed by Upjohn.
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In 1854, after Bishop Wainwright's death, a number of the clergy urged his name for the Bishopric of New York, but the movement was discouraged by him as his views were then changing. The following year, 1855, he entered the Roman Church, and the re- mainder of his life was spent in retirement, at Lithgow, as a layman of that Communion. He died November 12th, 1894, in his ninetieth year.
Mr. Wheaton had two sons, Isaac Smith Wheaton, who died in 1872 without issue, and Judge Charles Wheaton of Poughkeepsie, who left descendants. Of Mr. Wheaton's family, his son's wife, the late Mrs. Charles Wheaton of Poughkeepsie, and her two daughters shared the ecclesiastical beliefs of his later years.
AUTHORITIES .
Family records in the possession of Isaac S. Wheaton, Esq., of Lith- gow.
Records of Christ Church, Poughkeepsie.
Records of Hamilton College.
Journal of the Convention of the Diocese of New York, 1841-1855.
Proceedings of the Board of Trustees of the General Theological Seminary, 1846-1855.
SAMUEL BUEL, A.M., S.T.D.
RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH
SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1847,-MAY 10TH, 1866
Samuel Buel was born at Troy, New York, June 15th, 1815. He graduated from Williams College, in the class of 1833, at the early age of eighteen, being the valedictorian of his class. The subject of his oration was "Originality of Character," a fact that cannot fail to have a humorous side for those who knew him personally, for he is said to have possessed that quality himself, in large measure.
Having obtained his Master's degree in 1836 from Williams and graduated from the General Theological Seminary in 1837, he was ordained Deacon July 2d, 1837, by Bishop Onderdonck, in St. Luke's Church, New York City. For a short time he was Assistant in St. Peter's, Albany, but removed in 1838 to the Diocese of Michigan. He was still in Deacon's Orders at the time of his removal from the Diocese of New York, and the date of his ordination to the Priesthood has not been obtained.
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The fifty years of Dr. Buel's active life in the ministry were almost equally divided between parochial charges and professorial chairs. From 1838 to 1866 he held four Rectorships: that of Trinity Church, Marshall, Michigan, 1838-1839; of St. James's, Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania, 1840-1841; of Emmanuel Church, Cumberland, Mary- land, 1841-1847; and of Christ Church, Poughkeepsie, New York, 1847-1866.
His first professorship was that of Ecclesiastical History and Divin- ity, in the Seabury Divinity School, at Faribault, Minnesota, from 1867 to 1871; his second, that of Systematic Divinity and Dogmatic Theology in the General Theological Seminary, New York City, in which he continued in active duty from 1871 to 1888, being made Professor Emeritus in the latter year. The degree of S.T.D. was con- ferred upon Mr. Buel by Columbia in 1862 and by the General Semi- nary in 1885. From 1857 to 1866, while Rector of Christ Church, Poughkeepsie, he was a Trustee of the Seminary.
Extended scholarship was possessed by Dr. Buel, and he was in his most successful field of work when among his books. He published A Treatise on the Eucharistic Presence, Sacrifice and Adoration, and an essay on The Apostolic System of the Church Defended, . and, after his retirement from his active professorship, his lectures at the General Seminary were published in two large octavo volumes, under the title of A Treatise of Dogmatic Theology.
Dr. Buel died in New York City, December 30th, 1892, and was survived by his widow and one son. His wife was a daughter of the Rev. Dr. William Holland Wilmer, President of William and Mary College, and a sister of Richard Hooker Wilmer, who was made Bishop of Alabama in 1862 by the short-lived Church in the Confed- eracy.
The Board of Trustees of the Seminary, in taking appropriate action at the time of his death, said of him: "No one could have been more regular and attentive in filling the duties of a Professor's chair than Dr Buel. Never absent from his lectures, or from the daily service in the Chapel, he was untiring in the work of his Department. A most in- dustrious student, with an extraordinary memory for all he had read, he was literally a living encyclopedia of sacred learning. Before its removal to the new building most of the books of the library were catalogued and put in place by his own hands. Below a certain brusqueness of manner, he always had a very warm heart, and his loss will long be felt by his colleagues in the Faculty and by those who had the privilege of sitting under his teaching."
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AUTHORITIES
Proceedings of the Board of Trustees, General Theological Seminary, Vol. 6, pp. 752-753.
Schaff's Religious Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 29.
Williams College General Catalogue, 1905, p. 49.
Williams College, Biographical Annals, pp. 471-472.
Obituary, The Churchman, January 7th, 1893.
PHILANDER KINNEY CADY, A.M., S.T.D.
RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH
SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1866,-OCTOBER 31ST, 1875
The Rev. Dr. Cady is one of the two, living, ex-Rectors of Christ Church.
Dr. Cady was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, October 23d, 1826, graduat- ed in 1843 from Woodward College, Cincinnati, from the General Theological Seminary in 1847, and received his Master's degree from Trinity College, Hartford, in 1856.
In 1850 he was ordered Deacon by Bishop Whittingham, in Trinity Church, New York City, and in 1851 was advanced to the Priesthood by Bishop DeLancey, in Grace Church, Brooklyn. His parochial charges were: Trinity Church, West Troy, New York, 1851-1857; Grace Church, Newark, New Jersey, 1857-1860; Grace Church, Al- bany, New York, 1861-1865; Christ Church, Poughkeepsie, 1866-1875; and St. James's, Hyde Park, New York, 1876-1888. In 1871, 1874, and 1877 the Diocese of New York elected him one of its clerical deputies to the General Conventions which met in those years.
From 1889 to 1904 Dr. Cady was associated with the General Theo- logical Seminary, holding the Professorship of the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion 1889-1902, and serving as Acting Dean 1903- 1904. Columbia University conferred upon him in 1878 the degree of S.T.D., and in 1895 the Seminary did the same.
June 11th, 1863, Dr. Cady married Miss Helen S. Hamilton of Troy, who died in 1868. His only son, Hamilton Cady, is also deceased, and Dr. Cady, with his only daughter, now lives at Ridgefield, Connec- ticut.
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The Records of Christ Church HENRY LAFAYETTE ZIEGENFUSS, A.M., S.T.D.
RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH
NOVEMBER 1ST, 1875,-FEBRUARY 8TH, 1894
ARCHDEACON OF DUTCHESS, 1886-1894
Dr. Ziegenfuss was born November 3d, 1844, at Kresgeville, Mon- roe County, Pennsylvania, of Lutheran parentage. He was prepared for college in a Moravian school at Nazareth, and in 1862 matriculated at Pennsylvania College, a Lutheran institution at Gettysburgh, Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honor in 1866. He was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and of the Phrenokosmian Literary Society, and his college course was further marked by service in the Civil War. In June and July, 1863, a company was enlisted from among the students of Pennsylvania College and placed under the command of Colonel W. W. Jennings, of the 26th Pennsylvania, and participated with that regiment in the battle of Gettysburgh, July 1-3, 1863.
From Pennsylvania College Mr. Ziegenfuss went to Mt. Airy Luther- an Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, in 1866, and graduated in 1869. On Trinity Sunday, 1869, he was ordained to the Lutheran ministry, in which he remained for three years, during which time he was Pastor of the Third Lutheran Church at Rhinebeck, New York, and for part of which he was also Professor of Chemistry in DeGarmo Institute, Rhinebeck.
In 1872 Mr. Ziegenfuss resigned his pastorate, was confirmed by Bishop Horatio Potter, in the Church of the Messiah, Rhinebeck, and, on October 3d of that year, became a candidate for Orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church. His admission to the Diaconate took place October 17th, 1873, in the Church of the Messiah, and to the Priesthood on April 20th, 1874, in St. Paul's, Poughkeepsie, Bishop Horatio Potter officiating at both ordinations.
As lay reader, and as Deacon, he held services at St. Margaret's, Staatsburgh, and for six months in 1864, after his ordination to the Priesthood, while the Rector of St. James's, Hyde Park, was abroad, he supplied that parish. In the autumn of 1874 he was invited to take charge of Christ Church, Poughkeepsie, while Dr. Cady was absent for a year for the recovery of his health. When Dr. Cady resigned in 1875, Mr. Ziegenfuss was elected Rector of Christ Church, and con- tinued as such until his death in 1894.
From the time of his coming to Christ Church he was closely in touch with diocesan mission work, and had much to do with the direc-
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tion of it, its machinery then consisting of a diocesan missionary committee, elected by the Diocesan Convention, and local Convo- vocations of the clergy and laity. Mr. Ziegenfuss was made secretary of the Convocation of Dutchess in 1880, and in 1883 he was elected a member of the missionary committee of the diocese. The Diocesan Convention of 1885 reorganized the administration of its domestic missionary affairs, and adopted the present archdeaconry system, Mr. Ziegenfuss being appointed in May, 1886, by Bishop Potter, the first Archdeacon of Dutchess, which office he filled in a way that created for it an ideal standard. He was an Examining Chaplain of the Diocese of New York, 1884-1894, and was elected a provisional deputy to the General Conventions of 1886 and 1889.
Prior to its disbandment in 1882 Dr. Ziegenfuss was for seven years Chaplain of the 21st Regiment, N. G. N. Y., and from 1869, when he was admitted to the Rhinebeck Lodge, until his death in 1894, he was an active Mason. He was a charter member in 1879 of Triune Lodge, No. 782, of Poughkeepsie, and Chaplain thereof 1879-1894; affiliated 1872 with Poughkeepsie Commandery, No. 43, Knights Templar (of which he was Prelate 1879-80, 1890-91, 1892-93), and with Poughkeepsie Chapter, No. 172, Royal Arch Masons, in 1893. He was also an honorary member of the Euterpe Glee Club.
The degree of A.M. was conferred upon Mr. Ziegenfuss in 1869 by Pennsylvania College, and of S.T.D. by Hobart College in 1890. He published What Constitutes a Lawful Ministry (E. P. Dutton, 1874); a paper on The Position and Work of the Laity (American Church Congress, 1882); a paper on The Higher Education of Women (American Church Congress, 1887); articles in Forest and Stream, entitled Up and Down in Colorado, Piseco and T Lake Falls, and other fugitive work in periodicals.
To gather and record such facts as those above is a necessary part of the work of a biographer, but how faintly they suggest the character of the man whose life history they outline!
Adequately to write of Dr. Ziegenfuss for those who knew him, or, to convey to those who did not know him, any idea of what he really was, are equally impossible tasks for an unworthy pen. He was dis- tinguished as a student in theology and in science, he was able as a preacher, and indefatigable as a worker; but it was not these qualities which made him a leader of men, and it is as such he will be best re- membered. High and low, rich and poor, Episcopalian, non-Episco- palian, in Poughkeepsie, throughout Dutchess County, held him in affection; there has probably never been a minister in Poughkeepsie
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more generally popular, among all Churches, and all classes, than he; but it was not for his learning that this esteem was accorded, nor was it by the exercise of any tact or diplomacy that it was won.
The essence of the great power of his personality might be defined as its humanness. He sounded the note of brotherhood, and that not consciously. He was a brother to men, and really loved them; a fact they instinctively recognized, and which drew forth its own response, for love begets love. He was approachable, genial, cheery, sunny, and there radiated from him an influence that imparted a warmth and glow at heart to those about him. In the drawing-room, and in the tenement, in the councils of the diocese, and in lonely mission stations, he carried with him that touch of nature which made him kin to all. Unselfish, strong and tender, modest and withal accomplished, he lived his life here, and when he died the whole community voiced grief.
The circumstances of his death were peculiarly touching. His wife, a daughter of Dr. Isaac F. Van Vliet of Rhinebeck, whom he had married in 1873, in the Church of the Messiah, was for many years an invalid and unable to bear the care of a home. Her illness grew acute in the winter of 1894, while they were living at the Nelson House, and she died January 23d. Fatigued by the unceasing care he had given her, Dr. Ziegenfuss became ill with grip, and, a few days after his wife's funeral, he was removed to Vassar Hospital. A heart weakness, the knowledge of which he had long kept to himself, proved the bar to his recovery, and, in his sleep, on Thursday evening, February 8th, 1894, he died.
1
His body was borne to his study at the church, and lay in the shadow of the book-lined walls, guarded by members of the Brother- hood of St. Andrew, until Monday, February 12th, when a funeral ser- vice was held in the church. The solemn ceremonial of that day is part of the public history of the parish and of Poughkeepsie, but, for his own people, the real farewell was on the Sunday morning intervening, when they gathered at the Altar-rail in the celebration of the Holy Communion, with all that was mortal of him they loved lying so near them. The processional hymn, "Hark, hark, my Soul, angelic songs are swelling," sung as the choir passed the closed door of the study, had the joyous ring of hope he would himself have chosen. There was no sermon, no reference to what had occurred, except in the deep silence that followed the words in the Communion Office, "We also bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear," but the whole service was surcharged with the throbbing sense of loss that filled the heart of each one present.
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