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A HISTORY OF GRACE CHURCH
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01067 6598
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GRACE CHURCH, 1929 FROM AN ETCHING BY ALBERT R. THAYER
0 HOUSE OF GOD, which stands so calm and fair, Amid the turmoil and the noise and strife, Within thy doors are hope and peace and rest, Without the struggle and the pain called Life.
HOW WONDERFUL it is to turn aside And kneel before thine Altar, lost in prayer, Yet know that just outside lie tragedy And strangely mingled laughter and despair.
WELL ART THOU NAMED, thou stately Church of Grace, So calmly standing 'midst Life's wild alarms. May we like thee wait trusting in our place; May we be folded fast in God's own arms !
Sent anonymously to the Rector of Grace Church, New York
A HISTORY OF GRACE CHURCH IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND
1829-1929
BY
HENRY BARRETT HUNTINGTON
TOGETHER WITH
AN INVENTORY OF
MEMORIALS and FUNDS
-
Compiled by JOHN HUTCHINS CADY
PRIVATELY PRINTED PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND
1931
Copyright, 1931 By the Vestry of Grace Church Providence, R. I.
Eisel # 5.00
Contents
119547
Page
Preface
7
Chapter I-The Background 9
Chapter II-Organization-Fuller-Clark
17
Chapter III-Vinton-Henshaw-Clark
34
Chapter IV-Kellogg-Currie-Greer
87
Chapter V-Babcock-Tomkins-Rousmaniere 115
Chapter VI-Crowder-Sturges-Lawrence
149
Inventory of Memorials and Gifts
193
Inventory of Bequests and Endowments
217
Appendix .
223
Sketch of Woman's Auxiliary
225
Rectors
229
Assistant Ministers .230
Vestrymen and Wardens
231
Subscribers to the Parish House Fund.
235
Illustrations
Facing Page
First Church on Present Site 3I First Four Rectors 47
Architect's Sketch of Church and Chapel 63
Clark, Kellogg, Currie, and Babcock
79
Original Chancel
94
Rev. David H. Greer III
Chancel and Christmas Tree II8
Rev. Floyd W. Tomkins, Jr
I27
Chancel about 1903 .
I34
Rev. Edmund S. Rousmaniere.
I43
Rev. Frank W. Crowder 159
Rev. Philemon F. Sturges . 175
Rev. William Appleton Lawrence
18I
The New Chancel (1918)
. 190
Preface
The motive behind the preparation and publication of this book has been to give expression to a spirit of veneration of the past and of gratitude to the men and women who gave themselves generously to the up-building of Grace Church. Grace Church has been and is one of the important Episcopal parishes in this country. Bishop Clark often said publicly that there were few in our land more important, and in the generation from 1860 to 1890 this was notably true. It is eminently fitting that such a parish should have a clear and careful record of the personalities and the events that make up its history. This much, it seems, so distin- guished a church really owes to the past.
The limitations of this preface forbid paying tribute to the many persons whose generous interest has led them to assist in the preparation of this history. The list would be a long one. Mr. Cady and I gratefully acknowledge our debt for their gracious cooperation. The thorough and painstaking inventory of Memo- rials speaks eloquently of Mr. Cady's important contribution to this volume; but further recognition is due him for ready help and suggestion in all sorts of ways and on many occasions. The sketch of the one society as old as the church, the work of Mrs. Nichols and Mrs. Cooke, merits special mention, as does the cooperation of Bishop Clark's daughter, the late Mrs. Eugene Sturtevant, and of Mrs. Charles Slattery, together with that of the Morehouse Publishing Company and Longmans, Green and Company, in permitting the publication of copyright matter of large interest in the accounts of Bishop Clark and Bishop Greer.
The editor undertook to compile this volume in his leisure time, but developments proved that there was no leisure. For the unreasonable delay in its appearance he is humbly apologetic. Its preparation would have been even more difficult had it not been for the help of Miss Dorothy P. Hull of Wykeham Rise, Washing- ton, Connecticut, the daughter of a former vestryman of Grace
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A History of Grace Church
Church. Not only has Miss Hull aided again and again in pre- paring material for the press, but most of the matter, and even much of the phrasing, of the sections dealing with the rectorships of Dr. Tomkins and Dean Rousmaniere are her work. To Miss Dorothy E. Jones grateful acknowledgment is due for typing the manuscript for the printer.
That this history may stimulate memories of the devotion of past generations and increase in a measure the interest and zealous emulation of the generation in Grace Church now coming to the front is the earnest hope of the present writer.
HENRY B. HUNTINGTON.
Chesham, New Hampshire
September, 1931
CHAPTER I
THE BACKGROUND
The state of the Episcopal Church throughout New England in the opening decade of the 19th Century was feeble in the extreme. Before the Revolution many of its churches had been under the strong support of the powerful Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in London. Large numbers of the church members in New England were closely bound by interest and affection to the mother country; and scores of the most influential had fled at the outbreak of the war to England or the maritime provinces of Canada, and those that remained were often not far from poverty. In colonial times at the best the Church of England hereabouts was somewhat exotic, and its members were conspicuous for their difference in Pilgrim and Puritan communities where Bishop and Priest were regarded in almost the same light as Pope. Speaking of conditions in Boston at a date later even than the founding of Grace Church, Providence, Phillips Brooks said, "The Episcopal Church in Boston had still a sort of foreign air. The taint of Toryism still clung about it. It was an English importation. Its venerable rites were curi- osities. Its holy days were puzzling superstitions." Small wonder then that for a generation after the Revolution the way was hard and progress impossible. For the Church even to hold what it had won was quite remarkable and only to be achieved by conspicuous ability and rare devotion. Outside of Connecticut, moreover, in these early years of the century after the death of Bishop Bass in 1803, the few scattered churches were almost or quite without episcopal supervision and encouragement. There were undaunted spirits however, who determined to end this distressing state of affairs and at least to put themselves in a position to move forward. To have an Episcopal Church with no episcopal oversight was a handicap not to be tolerated. A coali- tion of the four New England states,-outside of Connecticut,- together with the District of Maine, was effected; a fund raised that would ensure an income of about one thousand dollars; and the Rev. Alexander Viets Griswold, Rector of St. Michael's Church in Bristol, was invited to add the duties of Bishop of the Eastern Diocese to those of Rector. This saintly man, then in
IO
A History of Grace Church
his forty-fifth year, was teaching school through the week to help support a large family of young and frail children, since his salary, though not small as the salaries of Church ministers went, was by no means adequate for his needs. It was, therefore, not as unreasonable as it might appear to suppose that for a meagre addition of a thousand dollars to his salary he could afford to undertake the episcopal care of churches hundreds of miles away and scattered over some thousands of square miles of territory. The plan at any rate was the best in sight and was worth trying. Thanks to the faith of these organizers and the extraordinary devotion and endurance of the man they selected the Episcopal Church in this great region was saved from what seemed almost inevitable decline. Bishop Griswold appears never to have thought of self when the work of the Master called. Again and again when wife or child was dangerously ill1 and often when he himself was utterly unfit for the long trips on horseback or by stage, he would, with indomitable courage, start on a long mission- ary journey to Vermont or New Hampshire with more than a premonition that the parting was final.
One incident shows the heroic spirit that crowned the hazardous experiment of the Eastern Diocese with success. It is related that Bishop Griswold in Newport had to meet an episcopal appointment at the old Narragansett Church in Wickford. A fierce storm came up. Ocean-going boats put back and even the ferry-packet had not ventured to come across from Wickford. But the Bishop was almost fanatical about keeping appointments, and a local boatman undertook to take him across in his sailboat. Soon, however, the skipper said, "It's no use, Bishop, I must put back. I haven't enough ballast to make headway." "Would it help if I were in the bottom of the boat?" "It might," was the reply. And the rest of that wild crossing was made with the Bishop flat on his face in the bottom of the boat. Small wonder that on its organization the young Grace Church endeavored to help its Bishop and itself by inviting this sad and stalwart saint to move from Bristol to Providence and become its first rector, an interesting omen of the later epoch when two Bishops should be also rectors of Grace Church, the one Griswold's pupil in Bristol
1 Eleven of his twelve children died either in childhood or in early manhood or womanhood, mostly of tuberculosis. There is intense pathos in the inscription he placed on the stone of his second daughter, Julia, who for eight years after his wife's death had been the head of his household,-"Ye that pass by, behold and see, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow."
II
The Background
in 1812 at the very beginning of his long episcopate, the other his disciple and friend at its end in Boston in 1843. On both these young men, Henshaw and Clark, Bishop Griswold exerted so formative and lasting an influence, and through them so affected Grace Church, that this alone would justify special attention to the devoted Bishop of the Eastern Diocese.
The following account gives a forlorn but all too true picture of the condition of the diocese when Bishop Griswold entered on his duties in 18II and presumably for several years thereafter.
"The condition of his diocese, when he entered on his duties, may be judged by what has already been incidentally said, and from the following statement. In the four states of Massachusetts, (which then included the District of Maine,) Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont, there were in all twenty-two parishes, and sixteen officiating clergymen. Of these parishes, however, several existed in little more than name; several others were very feeble; and the main strength of the Diocese lay in a small number of old and comparatively wealthy congregations. Even of these, however, Trinity Church, Boston; St. John's, Providence; and Trinity, Newport, were the only ones possessed of much strength. Christ Church, Boston; St. Paul's, Newburyport; St. Michael's, Bristol; St. Paul's, Narragansett county; St. John's, Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and St. James', Great Barrington, were respectable and ante-revolutionary parishes, able to support their own clergymen, but not able to contribute much towards the endowment of a bishopric. Besides the twenty-two parishes in actual existence, there were the ashes of a few extinct ones, upon which, however, have since sprung up new and thriving con- gregations."1
The church edifices at that time were distributed as follows: none in Vermont, two in Maine, four in Rhode Island (Newport, Wickford, Bristol, Providence), five in New Hampshire, and thirteen in Massachusetts.
"On the whole, the state of the Diocese was one of great and previously increasing weakness. Its eight years of existence without the superintending care of a Bishop, had proved years of decay. Its tone of religious feeling and confidence had become confessedly depressed. Discouragement in some parts was setting in to sink it still lower. And the lack of discipline was
1 MEMOIR OF THE RT. REV. ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD, D.D., by John S. Stone, D.D., p. 173. Philadelphia, 1844.
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A History of Grace Church
admitting irregularities both in morals and in order, especially in the more retired parts of the Diocese. The consecration of a new Bishop was, indeed, hailed with satisfaction everywhere; and everywhere he was received with cordiality and warm support. Still, as it is easy to see, an arduous work lay before him; in some respects more arduous than that of building up an entirely new Diocese."1
' By vigorous efforts, aided by enthusiastic lay-readers like young J. P. K. Henshaw, Bishop Griswold very gradually revived the dying parishes, quickened the interest of church people all over New England, and even added converts from among unbelievers and those dissatisfied with other forms of faith. In Rhode Island the advance was especially slow. Before the organization of Grace Church, in May, 1829, there were only two additions to the four colonial parishes just mentioned. St. Paul's Church, Paw- tucket, then North Providence (1816), was fostered by Nathan B. Crocker, the energetic rector of St. John's, Providence. St. Mark's, Warren, just preceded Grace Church, being organized in 1828, although admitted to convention just after Grace Church at the session of 1829, whether as a mark of courtesy or of alpha- betical order it is hard to say. St. Mark's was the result of the efforts of Rev. John Bristed, then Bishop Griswold's assistant at St. Michael's, Bristol, and presently his successor in that historic rectorship. With five relatively strong churches in the five chief centers of population, Bishop Griswold naturally obeyed his instinctive impulse to undertake what was hardest and devoted his missionary zeal as Bishop to Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, rather than to Rhode Island. Moreover, till the coming of the English mill populations this field was hardly ripe for the spread of the church. As Bishop Clark quaintly observes:
"In the earlier part of the century the Episcopal Church made slow progress, and its influence was not felt very seriously in society. The impression prevailed that it was an aristocratic fold, of limited extent, for the accommodation of respectable persons who wished to get to heaven by an easy road and without much disturbance from any source. It is related of the Rev. Dr. Gardiner,2 rector of Trinity Church, Boston, that when he
1 MEMOIR OF BISHOP GRISWOLD, by John S. Stone, p. 174.
2 At the time of Bishop Griswold's consecration Dr. Gardiner was by far the most prominent Episcopal clergyman in the Eastern Diocese.
I3
The Background
was asked to contribute toward the erection of an Episcopal church in a village some ten or fifteen miles away he declined, on the ground that this Church was designed for ladies and gentle- men, and they did not live in the country. When someone remarked to a Methodist bishop that the Episcopal Church was a very respectable Church, he replied: 'I know it is. The Lord deliver the Methodists from ever becoming respectable.' "1
That Bishop Griswold had seen to it that good seed was sown even in Rhode Island is evident from the marked growth in the years that followed his removal to Salem, Massachusetts, early in 1830. No less than ten churches sprang up all over the state between 1832 and Bishop Griswold's death in 1843. The churches in Woonsocket, East Greenwich, Lonsdale, Portsmouth, Westerly, Manville, Jamestown, and Wakefield, as well as St. George's, Newport, and St. Stephen's, Providence, testify alike to the preparations for the harvest made by the Bishop, and the splendid zeal of the Rhode Island clergy in that remarkable decade of material and spiritual growth. Not the least devoted and earnest among those who spread the gospel at this time by zealous mission- ary efforts, not only in Rhode Island but in Southern Massa- chusetts, were Rev. John A. Clark and Rev. Alexander H. Vinton of Grace Church.
Even by the time Grace Church was founded, the records show that, as additions to the sixteen clergymen of the Eastern Diocese in 18II at the time of his consecration, Bishop Griswold had ordained over one hundred clergymen; and in the same period had confirmed nearly ten thousand persons. This record is all the more remarkable when it is estimated that in the whole country there were at this time hardly more than five hundred organized parishes and some six hundred clergy. Indeed, the first quarter of the nineteenth century was the day of small things for the Episcopal Church in New England, but in these small things there was growing a deep spiritual life ready to burst forth with contagious zeal in a splendid forward movement. Such was the ecclesiastical and spiritual environment in the Eastern Diocese when Grace Church entered the field.
In the life of the town of Providence, too, there was ferment at work and promise to be seen even in the financial disturbances of the troubled years from the Embargo of 1807, through the War of 1812, the close of the Napoleonic Wars, and the tariff
1 REMINISCENCES by Rt. Rev. Thomas M. Clark, D.D., p. 34, New York, 1895.
I4
A History of Grace Church
and banking difficulties of 1816 to 1824. Before the Embargo, shipping and commerce had been the chief industrial activity of New England. But the loss of trade and the rapid displacement of sailing vessels by steam navigation caused much of the capital that in Rhode Island had been invested in commerce to shift to manufacture, especially of cotton, woolen, and jewelry. Even the famous shipping firm of Brown and Ives started cotton mills at Lonsdale about 1830, and sold the "Hanover," their last ship, in 1838. The silversmith and jewelry trades grew rapidly from 1825-1850 and brought rich returns not only to the manufacturers but to the workmen to whom notably high wages were paid. The woolen industry was yet in its infancy in Rhode Island, but it advanced rapidly and the number of mills is said to have doubled in the thirties. This development of factories was furthered by the improvements in steam engines which had been made in Providence in the early decades of the century. Of all these manufacturing industries Providence was unquestionably the center, and its growth at this period in both wealth and numbers was rapid.
From a population of not quite 12,000 in 1820 Providence increased to 17,000 in 1830 and 23,000 in 1840, almost doubling in those twenty years. In 1821 the town began the systematic construction of sidewalks on the important streets, and notably in- creased its protection against fire the next year. In 1828 the legislature gave permission to bring the railroad from Boston from the State line into Providence, though the first train did not run until June, 1835. In the fall of 1828 the Blackstone Canal was opened. In that year, too, the town meeting discussed the establishment of a free public high school, free elementary schools having been established by John Howland in 1800. It was not, however, only in material affairs that Providence was manifesting life and activity. In 1827 were held the first public meetings in the temperance movement, which gained such strength in the thirties that in 1838 the city of Providence declared against licensing the sale of liquor. On the fourth of July, 1833, a public meeting was held against slavery. Several years of agitation for a city charter to replace the town organization resulted in the establishment of a city government in 1832. Prominent on the committee to draft the Charter was William T. Grinnell, who was Treasurer of Grace Church from '43-'45 and one of the Wardens from '54-'65. He became the first alderman from the Fourth Ward and was for many years a prominent member of the School Committee.
15
The Background
At this time (1829), according to Bishop Clark, there were only thirteen houses of worship in the town. The Baptists and Congregationalists had four each and the Episcopal Church together with the Methodists, Universalists, Friends' Meeting, and Roman Catholics, had each one.
One marked result of the change from Providence as a port to Providence as a manufacturing community had been the gradual shifting of the bulk of the population from the East to the West side of the river. In 1820 we find that, of the population of about 12,000, nearly 57%, and undoubtedly a much larger proportion of the wealth and influence of the town, was on the East side. The business interests of large numbers of these residents were grouped about India Point, where the various enterprises con- nected with the great foreign trade of the Browns were located. As early as 1822 the Manufacturers and Farmers Journal notes in regard to Westminster Street,-"A number of shops have lately been fitted up in superb style for the retail dry goods trade. The pleasant promenade on the north side of the street will probably be more frequented than ever by our belles and beaux." In 1828 the Arcade was built to the satisfaction and pride of the whole community. The old center of the retail business on "Cheap- side" (North Main Street), was destined to be speedily superseded. By 1835 the West side had slightly surpassed the East side in population, having 9,750 out of a total population of 19,277, a proportion which for many years steadily increased.
Such was the situation when the Rev. Nathan Crocker, the wise and energetic rector of old St. John's Church, gave ear to the suggestion of certain of his parishioners, residents of the West side, that it was fitting that there should be an Episcopal Church in that rapidly growing section of the town. Mr. Crocker had already given practical proof of his interest in expansion by starting Church services in what is now Pawtucket, then part of the town of North Providence, Pawtucket being the part of the community in Massachusetts lying east of the river that then formed the boundary between the two states. Out of this mission- ary enterprise of Mr. Crocker's soon grew St. Paul's Church, admitted to Convention in 1816 as the first new parish since St. John's itself was organized in 1722.
That Mr. Crocker may for a time have had some question as to the wisdom of having lent his support to a move which took from St. John's some twenty-five of her hundred and eighty
16
A History of Grace Church
communicants, including two or three of her most earnest workers, may be indicated by the quaint phrasing in his report to the Rhode Island Convention of 1829, in which he referred to the desire of Grace Church to be received into union with that con- vention. His report to the Convention reads:
"But we should do violence to our feelings, and incur the charge of indifference to measures which are supposed to promise efficient aid to the cause of piety and Episcopacy, were we not to say that sundry individuals of this Church have organized an Episcopal Society on the west side of the river. Their Delegates are now here, and claim to be admitted as its legal representatives in this Convention. We trust that it will be your pleasure to recognize and honor their claim, when they shall have shown by their articles of association, or otherwise, that the Constitution of the Ep. Church in this State is acceded to by the Society they represent."
Later in the Convention the following promise of conformity was received and read by the Secretary, and ordered to be recorded:
"At a meeting of the Pewholders of Grace Church, holden at their house of worship, on Tuesday, June 2nd, 1829, it was re- solved, 'That this Church promise conformity to the Constitution and Canons of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this State, and also to the Constitution and Canons of the Eastern Diocese, and of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America.'
A. M. VINTON, Sec'y.
A true Copy.
"And on motion made and seconded,-Grace Church was received into union with the Convention.
"Whereupon Thomas B. Lippitt having been regularly elected a Delegate to represent said Church in Convention, as was shown by certificate, took his seat as member thereof."
CHAPTER II
ORGANIZATION AND FIRST RECTORS SAMUEL FULLER-JOHN A. CLARK 1829-1835
The first volume of "Grace Church Records" begins as follows: "At a meeting of Gentlemen friendly to the organization of a Protestant Episcopal Church to be located on the West Side of Providence, the Reverend Nathan B. Crocker was chosen Chair- man and Amos M. Vinton, Secretary. On motion of Mr. Thomas B. Lippitt it was unanimously Resolved
"That it is expedient to organize a Protestant Episcopal Church in this town on the West Side of the river."
"That a Committee consisting of George S. Wardwell, Ben- jamin F. Hallett, John Taylor, and Amos M. Vinton be authorized to make the necessary arrangements for procuring a place of public worship and Church services to be performed therein, and that said Committee take measures to obtain the necessary means by subscription, the letting of pews, or otherwise to carry this resolution into effect, with power to add to their numbers such persons as they may think proper.
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