USA > New York > New York City > Walks in our churchyards; old New York, Trinity Parish > Part 4
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old churchyard will do its best to hide the defects in the tombstones which bird and tree alike revere as comrades of their infancy. Then, too, once more those who pass by will look in upon the quiet beauty of these acres of the dead and carry away from these mossy stones a panacea of peace for their unquiet hearts such as no collection of shafts and mausoleums could supply.
I have spoken of the Clarksons as typical mer- chants of New York, and I might also add as typical vestrymen of Trinity. The family name became illustrious in the colony from the time Matthew Clarkson came to this city, towards the close of the seventeenth century, and took up his duties as Secretary of the colony. From his nephew David a site for St. George's Church on Nassau Street was bought in 1748 for five hun- dred pounds, which was afterwards exchanged for a site on Beekman Street. At the time of the breaking out of the war, the elegant town house of the Clarksons (their country seat was at Flush- ing) was considered one of the show places of the city. It stood at the corner of Whitehall and Pearl Streets, was sumptuously furnished with London upholstery, and its fine table service of
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silver, cut glass and costly porcelain was the talk of the town. After the battle of Long Island the Flushing mansion was turned into a hospital, and the disastrous fire that followed the British occu- pation of New York immediately afterwards, swept away the city residence. Yet the patriotism of the Clarksons did not flinch. Two of the sons, David and Matthew-the latter a lad of nineteen, followed Washington into the field, and Matthew returned a major-general. The descendants of the old colonial secretary became allied with the Jays, De Peysters, Van Cortlands, Verplancks, Ruther- fords and the old New York families, and it would be difficult and lengthsome to follow out their genealogies. There are three vaults in Trinity churchyard bearing the name Clarkson, and orig- inally there were three brothers, David, Levinus and Matthew, merchants in London, Amsterdam and New York respectively. David came to this city in 1723, married and settled and became one of the most tenacious advocates of colonial in- dependence.
The close of the Revolutionary war found David M. Clarkson in business at 73 King near Pine Street; later he removed his counting house and
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dwelling to No. 31 Broadway. Thomas S. Clark- son lived next door at No. 33 Broadway. David, son of David M. Clarkson, lived at 16 Cortlandt Street at the beginning of the century and for some years afterwards. In 1793 Gen. Matthew Clarkson purchased the site of the old family resi- dence, at Whitehall and Pearl Streets, and here built a large brick mansion where he lived till his death in 1825. I have heard old men who knew these and other members of the family speak of them as noble specimens of their race. One of their contemporaries said to me once, " It was a sight to see them all go to Trinity Church as they moved slowly and dignifiedly up Broadway in the early twenties and thirties. And the women of the family were as gracious as they were stately in my eyes."
Close by one of the family vaults of the Clark- sons is the burial place of John B. Coles, eminent as a merchant, philanthropist and civic official. He was Alderman of the First Ward from 1797 to 1801 and again from 1815 to 1818, in the time when most of the wealth and aristocracy of the city was embraced within its limits, and it was an honor to be its municipal representative. Dur-
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ing most of these years, too, he served as a ves- tryman of Trinity parish. A flour merchant on a large scale, he had his store at No. I South Street and his home at No. I State Street. In the whole city there were no pleasanter places than those in which to live and do business. He could stand upon the mansion steps of his home and watch the ships pass up and down the East and Hudson Rivers, and he could stroll upon the Battery with his business cronies and drink in the salt air un- sullied by the smell of steam and the oil of ma- chinery and with its breezes unbroken by the screech of the steam whistle. Here he lived un- til about sixty years ago, when he was gathered to his fathers, leaving a name for rectitude and charity which any man might envy. And yet he was only one of many such who have helped bear the burdens of Trinity Parish with honor during its career of two centuries.
Such men shine at best in times of trouble. Probably there was never more distress in New York than in the summer of 1798 when the yel- low fever made its first visitation. An old mer- chant, who was taken sick at his store on Coen- ties Slip, was the first victim, and several of his
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neighbors followed, and then a universal panic en- sued. Nearly all who could leave town did so, moving up to Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Harlem, far away from infection. John B. Coles was one of those who remained behind and stood at the post of danger. He went from house to house, bearing relief in his hands and encourage- ment in his speech, and of all men, had no idea that he was doing anything beyond his bare duty to his race. The section of the city in which he lived was boarded in, but this did not frighten him. Custom-house, post office, banks and in- surance companies had all been removed to Greenwich Village, but he kept right on at his work, and left his business to take care of itself. It is curious to read in the publications of the day how this brave citizen levied his contributions on the absentees who, it is only just to say, gave willingly of everything except themselves. John Watts, from his farm on the Harlem River, sent down oxen, sheep and forty barrels of Indian meal. Dominick Lynch, the friend of Irving,
sent pigs, oxen, sheep and chickens. John Mur- ray, Jr., brother of Lindley Murray, the gram- marian, came generously forward in September
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with a gift of $10,000, and Archibald Gracie, Gen. Horatio Gates, Charles L. Camman, Her- man LeRoy, Thomas Buchanan and other well- known citizens, chiefly merchants, contributed freely of their means. John B. Coles sleeps un- der a plain tombstone slab, as he would have wished, but if a time comes for distributing shafts to the meritorious, will not those who have the passing of judgment be compelled to decide that the plain, old-fashioned citizen and merchant, who served God and his country with all his heart, mind, soul and strength, and never dreamed that he was doing aught but the plain, everyday duty of his life, deserves the first of the honors dis- tributed.
The peculiarity of the inscription upon the stone that covers the vault of the Earl of Stirling, has often attracted me to it, as it lies on the west- ern slope close by the fence in the southern half of the graveyard, and yet, perhaps, the only pe- culiarity about it is that it differs from the modern American mortuary inscription and groups the family together at the grave. The stone bears these words : "Vault built 1738. James Alexan- der and his descendants, by his son William, Earl
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of Stirling, and his daughters Mary, wife of Peter Van Brugh; Elizabeth, wife of John Stevens ; Catharine, wife of Walter Rutherford; Susane, wife of John Reid." The story of the third Earl of Stirling, who figured with such conspicuous honor in the war of the Revolution, is familiar to every child who studies history, and the loveliness of his two daughters, Lady Mary Watts and Lady Kitty Duer, shed brightness upon the Republican court of President Washington. There are a
score or more of our leading families of to-day who are proud to trace a connection with the il- lustrious Earl and his daughters. The Livings- tons, Jays, Stuyvesants, Rutherfords are of these, and the commercial and military, the banking business and the literary profession, are strangely blended among those who gather about this tomb and claim kinship to the stout old Scotch Earl, who sacrificed a coronet in drawing the sword for freedom.
As I turn from the tomb of this race of warriors and look around upon the familiar city and colo- nial names of Hamersley, Mesier, Hoffman, Ap- thorpe, Seymour, Davis, Desbrosses and others that meet my eye as I walk up and down under
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the eaves of the grand old church, I think how well adapted to the dead as to the living is the prayer of the church for all sorts and conditions of men. Surely no such petition for humanity has been framed before or since. Those who sleep here were gathered in to hold the faith in unity of spirit, and after patience under their sufferings there came to all-priest and soldier, merchant and lawyer, physician and storekeeper, the little child and the famous statesman-a happy issue out of all their afflictions. I could fancy that if they could now step up for a moment from their graves how gladly they would greet one another, forgetful of the class distinctions that had mouldered into dust with their coffins and remembering only the bond of peace. I had never realized as I did then, standing amid the graves of long ago, the sweet and loving wis- dom of this prayer which our mother the Church puts daily into our mouths. I never understood so well what it meant to give a cup of water, in His name, to the perishing.
It is beginning to rain again and I leave the churchyard reluctantly. I had been wishing to hear once more the song of my old friend the blue-
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bird who has already been reported within less than a hundred miles of his old haunts above the tombstones, but he will only come with the sun- shine. If he could only bring us a message from the land beyond the swellings of Jordan, in which there is neither night, nor storm nor sea, and the work of the kingdom shall keep hand and heart busy perpetually in His service, or bid us whisper about it to the silent sleepers under the sod ! But the time is not long. Happy is it for him who is glad to lie down to sleep with all sorts and con- ditions of men, with other birds to sing over his grave and God's sunshine to lighten his darkness.
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VI.
ONE of the most peaceful and pathetic spots of earth that I ever saw, is the graveyard of the Moravian community in the old-fashioned village of Nazareth, in Pennsylvania. A bit of meadow, shaded by forest trees under which the Indian once pitched his tent, it was set apart as God's Acre nearly a century and a half ago. It is now thickly sown with the dead, but in its en- tire extent there is no monument : only on a hillock just beyond the enclosure, stands a mod- est shaft to commemorate the missionaries and their red converts who were slain at their posts by bands of hostile savages. A broad path di- vides the graveyard in twain. On one side lie the men who died in the faith and the women rest on the other side. A plain slab of brown stone or of marble rests upon each quiet bosom, and rich and poor alike are equal there as they will be when risen. There is still another division of the sleepers. Here, in a long line and clustered close together with almost military precision, sleep a row of married men, next comes a row of single men and a row of boys follows. So it is on the
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other side. The little girl babies form one group and another is made by the single women of the community, and side by side lie the wives and mothers who made home happy. Each is placed in death where he or she belongs by rule, and the grave next to the last that has been filled always opens to the next that dies. It may seem arbi- trary, but the Moravians are very tender towards their dead. They use no hearse or hireling bear- ers, but carry their dead with their own hands from his home in life to his final place of rest, and, preceded by the clergyman and the four official players on the trombone, the long line of men, women and children follow reverently on foot and sing hymns of faith at the grave. Then on Easter morning, before it is yet day, the trombones sum- mon all the people to the graveyard, and there at the rising of the sun they march through the broad paths and scatter flowers upon the graves of all the sleepers, while they sing hymns that are full of the promise of the resurrection.
I know no more peaceful and impressive spot than this ; impressive because of its lack of pre- tension-and yet, as I have said, the picture had a deeply pathetic side. It seemed unnatural that
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the wife should be separated from the husband and the child from its parents. I ventured to ex- press this feeling to the grey-haired minister upon whom I had called for information, and he said quietly that it was the rule of the Church, and that he was opposed to any display or favoritism in death. But his wife, gentle-eyed and grey as himself and keeping the sweetness and simplicity of girlhood even in age, asked me if I had no- ticed that in one case it had so happened that a minister and his wife lay buried at either end of a row so that their graves came next to each other and only separated by the main path. Then she added, with a look of unutterable love bent upon the quiet old scholar at the fireside, " I have always hoped it may happen so to my husband and myself when we come to die."
The look and the words were the unprompted revelation of a loving though reverent heart and they have come back to me more than once when wandering among the old brown stone slabs that cover the entrance to so many family vaults. Usually there is but a name and perhaps a date also, upon the stone, but that is enough to indi- cate to the survivors all that they need to know
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and to point to the antiquarian its mute though most interesting connection with the past. In the narrow home to which that stone is the only door, half a dozen generations may sleep, but the family tie is perpetuated in the ashes gathered there, and the simple slab is more elegant than a Grecian temple in Woodlawn or an architectural Pantheon in Greenwood. I am to a prejudice in favor of the family vault, perhaps for the reason that half a dozen States hold the ashes of those of my own family whom I knew and loved. It was only the other day that in walking through this ancient churchyard I said to Master Felix -whose little hand has been in mine through all my antiquarian researches in old New York -that I should like, when brain and pen have ceased from work, to lie down to sleep some- where in the city I have loved so long and well, after the organ of old Trinity had pealed and the rosy-cheeked little choristers, of whom I was one once, had sung a hymn of triumph over my dust. Then my heart spoke out but not in words, and I thought that if far in the next century he was brought to sleep at my side, his hand would be next to mine and I would reach
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out to take it first of all in the morning of the resurrection.
On the south side of the church and close to the sacred edifice is a plain slab of brown stone bearing the names of Michael and Elizabeth Thody in letters that seem almost as perfect as when first inscribed, nearly one hundred and thirty years ago. Who this couple were I do not know, for they left no mark in the history of the little city of their day beyond the fact that Mi- chael Thody was assistant Alderman of the South Ward from 1756 to 1766. But I made a pause here in my pilgrimage because this record of the parents is followed by the names of eleven of their children, who were all called away in infancy or the bloom of youth. Such patriarchal households are not common in these days, and there is some- thing touching in the fact that the Good Shepherd gathered these lambs into His bosom one by one, not letting their tender feet be bruised by the rough pathways of earth, and that the family circle was unbroken in the grave that garnered its members. There is something irrepressibly sweet in this recognition of the family tie in God's field of the dead, especially where, as in this case " Hc
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giveth thus households like a flock" and then takes them away in one unbroken group from the snares and sorrows of earth to the green pastures beside the still waters.
Perhaps the family idea finds no better example than in the vaults that bear the honored name of Ludlow. From the time of the foundation of the parish, that name has been prominent in its an- nals. Gabriel Ludlow, ancestor of the family on this side of the Atlantic, was a member of the vestry from 1697 to 1704, and was buried in his vault which is now under the present edifice. His son Gabriel held the same position for twenty- seven years prior to 1769, and another son, Henry, acted in the same capacity for twelve years of that period. Since then, Gabriel H., Charles, Thomas W., Gabriel W. Ludlow and other mem- bers of this numerous family have held office in Trinity parish, and have created an enviable record for their labors in behalf of church and charity. The gallant young Lieutenant Ludlow whose name is imperishably associated with that of the heroic Captain Lawrence, of the Chesa- peake, belonged to this old New York family, whose first representative, the original Gabriel, left
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twelve children to perpetuate his name and en- twine it with the leading families of the city and state. Descended from ancient and noble ances- try in England, they naturally became connected here by marriage with their social peers in the English colony-the Livingstons, Harrisons, Ver- plancks, Waddingtons, Ogdens and Mortons. Many who read this paper have still a vivid re- membrance, no doubt, of the fine old mansion erected on State Street by Carey Ludlow (grand- son of the original Gabriel) in 1784, and inhabited for many years later by General Jacob Morton, who married Carey Ludlow's daughter Catharine, the belle of her day. Its oak chimney-pieces, wainscoting imported from England, its double stairway to the porch and its ample balcony which gave a magnificent view of the harbor, made it a noteworthy edifice. As to its builder, I shall always feel a debtor to the great-hearted citizen who set out three hundred trees on State Street and the Battery to give shade to a coming gen- eration. No doubt it is a pleasant thing to recall as he sits in the shade of the Tree of Life and lets memory come back to these scenes.
Very different from these family gatherings in
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the windowless homes under the sod, is the record of a solitary headstone at the rear of the church and towards the north. Its inscription reads : " In memory of Michael Cresap, First Captain of the Rifle Battallions and son to Colonel Thomas Cresap, who departed this life October 18th, A. D. 1775." The soldier who rests beneath was the son of a neighbor and friend of General Washington, had done brilliant service in the In- dian wars on the frontiers of Virginia and had at- tained the rank of Colonel of Volunteers in that state. Unfortunately the men in his command, without his orders, exterminated the family of the Indian chief Logan, "the friend of the white man," and many a schoolboy of my day declaimed the noble speech of Logan in which he denounced Colonel Cresap, declared that he had glutted his vengeance and asked " Who is there to mourn for Logan ? Not one !" without the least idea that Logan's foe slept quietly in Trinity churchyard. At the beginning of the Revolution, Michael Cresap raised a company of picked riflemen, drilled them carefully and marched to take his place by the side of Washington, the friend of his family, who was then besieging Boston. So much
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had been said about their marksmanship and drill that when they reached New York, the riflemen from the Blue Ridge were compelled to give an exhibition in " the Fields," now the City Hall Park. His military career lasted but a few months. The doctors say he died of a slow fever ; tradition declares that his heart was broken because of the unjust accusation made against him in connection with the massacre of Logan's wife and children. In October he came back to New York, dying here a week after his arrival and being interred in Trinity churchyard. His ob- sequies were marked by an unusual display. A newspaper of the time says: "His funeral was at- tended from his lodgings by the independent com- panies of militia and by the most respectable in- habitants, through the principal streets to the church. The Grenadiers of the First Battallion fired three volleys over his grave. The whole was conducted with great decency and in military form." Alone and apart from all their kindred are the graves of Cresap and Logan. It may be a mere coincidence, but the student of history may think otherwise.
Not far from the grave of this soldier of the
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Revolution is a memorial in stone which tells of another sort of warfare and other and more lasting triumphs. It lies upon the ground a sim- ple and unpretentious slab, but it has a story of its own to tell and an interesting one. This is the graven legend : " Here lieth ye body of Susannah Nean, wife of Elias Nean, born in ye city of Ro- chelle, in France, in ye year 1660, who departed this life 25 day of December 1720, aged 60 years." " Here lieth enterred ye body of Elias Nean, cat- echist in New York, Born in Soubise, in ye Prov- ince of Caentonge in France in ye year 1662, who departed this life 8 day of September 1722 aged 60 years." "This inscription was restored by or- der of their descendant of the 6th generation, Elizabeth Champlin Perry, widow of the late Com'r. O. H. Perry, of the U. S. Navy, May, Anno Domini, 1846." Thus much the stone says, but it does not tell that Elias Nean suffered im- prisonment and was sent to the galleys in France because he would not renounce the reformed re- ligion; that he was not merely catechist and schoolmaster but a vestryman of Trinity Church for many years, and that such distinguished names as the Belmonts and Vintons as well as
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the Perrys are numbered among his descendants. The number of Huguenot refugees and their de- scendants who are buried in Trinity churchyard is very large. The first burial vault at the south- ern entrance bears the name of "D. Contant," a victim of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, which cost France so dearly and enriched America with the best blood of that kingdom. It was this persecution which gave us the Bayards, Jays, Bou- dinots and Tillons, and peopled South Carolina with such Revolutionary leaders as Marion and Laurens, which erected Bowdoin College, the literary cradle of Longfellow and Hawthorne and which, as we have seen, erected Faneuil Hall to be the cradle of liberty. One of the most unique of the Huguenot memorials in Trinity churchyard is a headstone with a quaint inscription in Latin, which tells that Withamus de Marisco, " most noble on the side of his father's mother," born on the 8th of May, 1720, died January II, 1765, and is buried here. His family had lived in the colony for nearly a century and their name had become Anglicised into Marsh, but when the exile came to die, his thoughts turned to the home of his an- cestors and his forgotten glories, and his last act
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in life was to write the inscription which says so little and suggests so much about the pioneers of church and state in the colonial days of the republic.
As I turn away from this humble gravestone and its unwritten romance, an inscription that looks like poetry catches my eye and I stop for a moment to read it. The stone bears the date of a death that occurred in the year 1730, before the genius of poesy had crossed the Atlantic to our shores. Here is the record as engraved by a sculptor who evidently had no rhythm in his soul, or he would have divided the lines differently :
Let no One Mourn, the Reason
Why her soul Ascended
To God on high. There
With Angels and Arch
Angels for to dwell
Hallelujah! Hallelujah. Made by herself.
Poor soul ! Her little vanity causes a smile after all the years have passed and yet her triumphant faith must have blotted its memory out of the great Book of Remembrance long ago. There is no undertone of doubt to this dead woman's liv- ing cry of victory.
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They tell me that already half a dozen blue- birds have made their appearance in the old churchyard and whistled a melodious greeting to their old friends the sparrows. A pioneer robin also paused there in his flight on a sunshiny day, rested for a moment in an elm and then flew down and chirped to the tombstones a promise of the near coming of spring. I have seen none of these messengers yet, but I marked the swelling of the brown tips of branches on tree and shrub. I know that they are ready to burst out with the new life of another spring, and that presently they will put forth slender fingers of green, as fair and delicate as the fingers of an infant. Then, awak- ened from their sleep the trees of the wood shall clap these hands of verdure, as they swing to and fro to the motion of the breeze, for very joy at the coming of the Lord in the sunshine of another summer.
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