USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 43
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Founders : William Hiscock, Samuel Hubbard, Stephen Mumford, Roger Baxter and three sisters, Tacy Hubbard, Rachel Langworthy, -- Mumford.
Pastors : Reverends William Hiscock, 1671-1704; William Gibson, 1704-1717 ; Joseph Crandal, 1717-1737 ; John Maxon, 1737-1788; Ebenezer David, 1775-1778; William Bliss, 1788- 1808 ; Arnold Bliss, Henry Burdick, 1808-1843 (the last pastor).
House of Worship .- In 1729 a building was erected for them by Henry Collius, one of the founders of the Redwood library, on the north side of Barney street, near to Spring street. In 1884 this ancient structure which, in the long lapse of time, preserved its original appearance without and within, passed into the hands of the Newport Historical Society. During the year 1887 this young but vigorous institution, desirous of preserving from all possible danger this, almost the last of the quaint rel- ics of the olden time, purchased a fine lot on Touro street, next to the Jewish synagogue, and removed their building. It now stands safe and sound alongside of its durable neighbors. It is an odd conjuncture that after a century brings together, alike de- serted of worshippers, the two buildings in which the Hebrew ritualists and their followers in striet observance of the Sab- bath day commandment, were wont to gather in worship on the seventh day.
CENTRAL BAPTIST CHURCH .- This church, organized Janu- ary 7th, 1847, had its origin in the interference of members of the Society of Baptists, who were not professors of the faith, in the church government ; one hundred and forty-five members, including all the officers of the church, asked letters of dis- missal, which were granted them, and under the lead of Dr. Henry Jackson founded a new church, which has proved a sound and thriving organization, maintaining besides their own religious instruction a Sunday school on Callender avenne. Their meeting house was dedicated in September, 1847, and the society has had a career of uninterrupted prosperity.
House of Worship .- On their organization in 1847 the Central Baptist Church purchased the Second Congregational meeting honse, a handsome frame building, erected on the west side of
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Clarke street in 1733. This was entirely remodelled with a tower, galleries, vestries, a bell and an organ.
Pastors : Henry Jackson, D. D., 1847-1863 ; II. E. Robbins, 1861-1867; S. F. Hancock, 1867-1869 ; N. J. Wheeler, 1869- 1879; Warren Randolph, 1879. .
THE SHILOH BAPTIST CHURCH was organized on May 10th, 1864. The Rev. William Barnett was the first pastor. Rev. H. N. Jeter is the present pastor. The meeting house of this so- ciety is on the southwest corner of Mary and School streets. It was erected in 1798, and was for many years the property of Trinity church. It was purchased in 1869 by Shiloh church. The present membership is about seventy.
FRIENDS' OR QUAKERS' SOCIETY .- George Fox, the father of this denomination of Christians, began his labors in England in the year 1644. In the year 1656 Mary Fisher and her com- pany arrived at Boston, where the appearance of this "eursed sect of heretics" alarmed and mortified the worthy Puritans to the appointment of a day of linmiliation. Laws were passed for their suppression, and in 1658 their tenets were made a capital offense. A persecution followed which continned for five years, and was only stayed by the order of Charles the Second, requiring a stoppage of all punishments, capital or corporal, and the dispatch of the offenders to England. But before adopting their violent measures of suppression, the Massachusetts au- thorities had resorted to their favorite method of exclusion. The party of eight which arrived in 1656 was returned to Eng- land the same year, but nothing daunted by their experience or the terrors of the sea, they re-embarked for America in 1657, this time, however, for New Amsterdam. The Dutch colony and the city of Manhattan was at this period the only soil where liberty of practice as well as of conscience in matters of religion, save in the case of Roman Catholics, was freely allowed. Yet even here the Quakers were harshly dealt with in the city proper, though permitted to live undisturbed on Long Island, where they rapidly grew in numbers and prosperity. A part of this little emigrant party landed in the Dutch city, the rest remained on the vessel, the ship " Woodhouse," which carried them on to Rhode Island. A trade and intercourse had already grown up between the settlers in Narragansett bay and the Hollanders at the western extremity of Long Island sound.
Before the arrival of these professed Friends at Newport,
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opinions similar to theirs had been held by a sect termed Seekers, who soon after were merged in the former society. The business of "Seekers," Callender defines to be, "to wait for new apostles to restore Christianity." Mr. Arnold, writing of 1647, states that up to that date the Friends did not exist as a distinct society holding to the unlawfulness of oaths. Among these was William Coddington, one of the founders and the first judge of the colony. The opinions of the new sect spread rapidly, and it is said that in 1658 there were no less than fif- teen ministers of the society in New England, nearly all of them in prison at once place or another.
The commissioners of the United Colonies assembled at Bos- ton in 1657, wrote to Rhode Island urging the banishment of the Quakers already arrived and the prohibition of any more from coming to the state, but the authorities and the general assembly answered that freedom of conscience, the principle and ground of their charter, should be maintained; adding that " being unmolested the Quakers were becoming disgusted with their want of success." In this they were probably ill informed, as the free soil of Rhode Island was fast becoming the haven of rest to the persecuted Friends. Again in 1658 the commissioners summoned the general courts of all the colonies. Massachusetts passed a law punishing with death any Quaker returning after banishment. Rhode Island was threatened with non-intercourse and stoppage of trade with all the other New England colonies and again held fast to her freedom. It is true that the threat of non-intercourse had no terrors for the colony so long as the English and Dutch were at peace. New Amsterdam was a nearer port and of easier and safer reach than Massachusetts bay. But the commissioners cared more for the rotundity of their phrases than the soundness of their facts.
In 1658 the wife of one of the Providence settlers was pub- licly llogged in Boston for protesting against the cruelty prac- ticed on three of her brethren whose ears were cut off as Qua- kers under the penalty of the law, and in 1660 Mary Dyre, the wife of the first secretary of Aquidneck, having embraced the proscribed tenets and returning to Boston in spite of a decree of banishment, was hanged. She had before been condemned and reprieved on the scaffold, but returned to brave the general
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court, which was at the time sitting; this third appearance proved fatal. That the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church was now shown in the history of the Friends. They gathered at Newport in 1661 in such numbers as to alarm the people of Boston for their personal safety. This gathering is called the First Yearly Meeting of Friends in America.
In 1672 George Fox, the founder of the English Society of Friends, visited Newport when the yearly meeting was held at the house of William Coddington and lasted six days. Fox arrived from the Barbadoes, barely escaping capture by an Al- gerine rover, a good fortune lie ascribed to the power of prayer. The Quakers were already in considerable numbers in the En- glish West India islands, and naturally found their way to the shores of Narragansett, whose settlers were already coasting on the islands and the main in a trade of barter. While Fox was in Newport a grand religious combat was proposed. No less a champion than Roger Williams himself sent a written challenge to the Quaker apostle to meet him in public discussion of four- teen propositions denouncing the Quaker tenets; seven to be disputed at Newport, the remainder at Providence. The chal- lenge was some days on the way, and when it reached the hands of Deputy Governor Cranston, to whom it was consigned, Fox had already left the island. The dispute came off never- theless. Williams, though then seventy-three years of age, rowed himself down the bay from Providence. He was met by three of Fox's disciples. For three days the war of words raged high. The next hearing was at Providence, where one day suf- ficed. No result is recorded; one fact remains, however, to whatever influence it be ascribed, whether the persuasion of Fox or the failure of Williams: at the October election, 1673, William Coddington was chosen governor of the colony. The Quakers were in control.
It has been found impossible to ascertain the date of the first organization of the Friends as a society. The first records of a monthly meeting at Newport are of the year 1676. The records of the yearly meetings begin at 1683. This meeting also was held at the house of Coddington; the date is of the 11th of the fourth month (June). The record states the assembly of Rhode Island to begin " ye second daye of ye 4th month in every year til friends see cause in ye wisdom and council of God to alter it."
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Friends' Meeting House .-- The house of Governor Codding- ton, where the early meetings were held, stood on Marlborough street, opposite Duke street. Coddington's lot of six acres was bounded by what are now Marlborongh, Farewell. North Bap- tist and Thames streets. Then in open grounds, this must have been an admirable spot in the lovely month of June for an ont- of-door gathering. Occasionally the meetings were held at Portsmouth, at the house of Joshua Coggeshall, or at Adam Mott's, on the northern end of the island toward Bristol ferry, a large country house well fitted for the purpose.
The first Friends' meeting house, devoted to that service and the place of the yearly meetings, was begum in the year 1699 and completed the next year. The women's section was added in 1808. This was the period of the Friends' greatest prosper- ity when it is estimated that one-half of the population of this neighborhood were of this persuasion. Newport retains its prestige among the New England Friends. There is still a monthly meeting, a quarterly meeting for Rhode Island and a part of Massachusetts, and the great yearly meeting of all New England, held here every other year. This church is the first house of worship built in Rhode Island.
THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH had its origin in the gatherings attracted by the preaching of Mr. Nathaniel Clap of Dorchester in the Massachusetts Bay, a graduate of Harvard College, and a member of the church of this denomination in Boston, who, at the instance of his minister, came to Newport, where he preached until his death.
In 1720 the First Congregational church in Newport was or- ganized, and Mr. Clap was chosen its pastor. The church grew and flourished ; its membership rapidly increasing for a few years when the pastor, whose ideas of discipline and church government were severely rigid, refused both to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and the right of baptism to the child of two of the communicants of his church on the ground that these members of his church were "not of sufficiently holy conversation" for the sacred ordinances. This course gave rise to heart burnings and differences which culminated in 1724 in a respectful petition to the pastor for consent to receive the sacrament in other churches ; to which he replied that he had come to Newport on the advice of the reverend minister of Boston, and warning them of the awful account they would
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have to render for the " damnation of souls lost for the want of his preaching." Mr. Clap was evidently an eccentric person, and it would be difficult to understand how such strained relations could exist between a minister and his parish if it be not borne in mind that the connection was at that time held "as solemn and as sacred as the marriage contract." In 1725 his people proposed a colleague, but this he also declined, and when, notwithstand- ing his objection, a minister was engaged, he took care to occupy the pulpit throughout the service to the exclusion of the new- comer, and in 1723 he maintained the same stand, in spite of the recommendation of an ex-parte council of churches, con- vened in April of that year. Exasperated by this persistence, a large part of the congregation withdrew and organized a new church. Meanwhile it appears that in some way Mr. Adams, the minister with whom Mr. Clap refused to divide his charge, preached in the church building, whereupon Mr. Clap declined to preach in it thereafter, and a new house of worship was erected for him on Mill street. Mr. Clap died at an advanced age in 1745. There is a portrait of him in the church vestry.
In 1755 the Reverend Samuel Hopkins, one of the most dis- tinguished divines in the history of New England, was installed as pastor of the First church. He was in charge when the rey- olution broke out, and in 1776 left the city for Great Barring- ton, in Massachusetts. He returned to his parish in the spring of 1780, and set himself to work to build up the broken con- gregation.
Founders : Nathaniel Clap, John Reynolds, Thomas Brown, Culbert Campbell, Ebenezer Davenport, William Sanford, Richard Clark, Job Bisset, Joshma Statson, Kendal Nichols, John Mayhem, James Carey, Nathaniel Townsend and John Labeer (Peterson's History of Rhode Island).
Pastors : Reverend Nathaniel Clap, 1720-1745 ; Joseph Gard- ner, 1740-43; Jonathan Helier. 1744-1745 ; William Vinal, 1746-1768 ; Samuel llopkins, 1755-1803; Caleb T. Turney, 1804 -1815 ; Calvin Hitchcock, 1815-1820; Sammel Austin; 1821- 1826; William Torrey, 1827-1829; William Beecher, 1830- 1833.
House of Worship .- This building was used for barracks by the British troops during their occupation of the city, and was left by them in a very bad condition. The pulpit, pews and fixtures were all demolished and the bell sent over to England.
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THE SECOND CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH was organized in 1728. Perhaps the most interesting event in its history is the connection with it of the Reverend Ezra Stiles, who was or- dained its pastor in 1755, and continued in its charge until October, 1776, when the remnant of the congregation in the city resolved to suspend public worship during the winter be- cause of its disturbed state in the British occupation. In March of the following year Doctor Stiles left Newport and be- came president of Yale College, although he was not dismissed from his charge until after the close of the war. In 1786 he was succeeded in it by the Reverend William Patton, an ad- mirable scholar and worthy man, but of Doctor Stiles it may be said that he was one of the most learned and profound scholars of his own or indeed of any age in American history.
Pastors: Reverend John Adams, 1728-1729-1730; James Sear- ing, 1731 1755: Ezra Stiles, 1755-1776; William Patton, 1786- 1833.
House of Worship .- This building fared little better than the first during the revolution. It was used also for barracks by the British troops, the pews were destroyed and a chimney built through the middle of the pulpit. In 1787 a new bell weighing about eleven hundred pounds was imported from Copenhagen, and was hung in the belfry of the Union Congre- gational church in Springfield. "The City of Newport" is cast on the bell.
UNITED CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH .- In 1833 the First and Second churches, after their separation of more than a century, resolved to nnite again, and carrying their purpose into effect, the Reverend A. Henry Dumont was installed by an ecclesias- tical council the first pastor of the United church. A new house of worship was the next year erected.
Pastors : Reverend A. Henry Dumont, 1833; Thatcher Thayer, 1833-73; J. P. Taylor, 1873-76; IL. J. Van Dyke, 1881- 1883: Forest F. Emerson, 1883.
House of Worship .- On the union of the First and Second Congregational churches it was resolved to erect a new house of worship. This was dedicated to the worship of the Triune God on the 4th of June, 1834. Later a new house was erected on the corner of Spring and Pelham streets.
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UNITARIAN CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH .- Congregationalism, Channing himself defined to be " the independence of Christian churches." This was the fundamental principle of the fathers of New England. "They taught," he says, "that every church or congregation of Christians is an independent com- munity; that it is competent to its own government, has the sole power of managing its own resources, electing its own ministers and deciding its own controversies; and that it is not subject to any other church, or to bishops or synods or assemblies, or to any foreign ecclesiastical tribunal whatever." Newport was Channing's birthplace, yet such was the heredi tary distaste to any innovation which threatened the "essen- tials," as they were called, of religion and faith, that for many years he rarely found welcome in any pulpit in the city. Nor is this surprising; for not half a century ago a Unitarian was heldl to be no better, indeed by many as somewhat worse, than a heathen. This exclusion of Channing was of course the consequence of his open identification with the Liberal church. The decisive beginning of the Unitarian movement in Newport was in the autumn of 1835, when the Reverend Charles Briggs of the American Unitarian Association repeatedly preached in the state house. On the 24th of October a meeting was held at the house of William Ellery, whose sister was the mother of Doctor Channing. There was present Sammuel St. John, Richard Randolph of Virginia, Josiah C. Shaw, Charles Gyles, James Hammond, George Wanton Ellery, William V. Taylor and Robert 1. Taylor. A society was formed and the old Hopkins meeting honse, then in possession of the Fourth (Freewill) Baptist Society, was purchased and remodelled. The society was originally Formed as the Unitarian Association but at the next meeting of the general assembly, in Jannary, 1836, it obtained an act of incorporation as the Unitarian Con- gregational church. . The last preaching in the state house was by Dr. Hale of Providence.
The opening service in the church building formerly the Con- gregational, on Mill street, which they purchased in 1835, was held by Mr. Farley. He was followed during the winter by Mr. Angier of New Bedford, Samuel Barret of Boston, George Briggs of Fall River, on Thanksgiving day and in December by Ezra Stiles Gannett. In May Mr. Charles G. Brooks arrived on the island for the first time and preached the next day. The
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church was dedicated on the 27th of July, 1836, Doctor Chan- ning himself preaching. Here they continued to worship until the present edifice, known as the Channing Memorial church was dedicated in 1881. The corner-stone of this structure was laid April 7th, 1880, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chan- ning. In August Mr. Brooks, of Salem, was invited to come to Newport and organize the church. He began his settled minis- try in December and was ordained on Wednes- day, June 14th, 1837, Doctor Brazer of Salem preaching the sermon and Doctor Channing de- livering the charge. Mr. Brooks ended his ser- vice, which had been rarely inter- rupted either by absence or ex- change, on the last Sunday before Thanksgiving, 1871, when the condition of his eyes compelled him to retire. He resigned his charge in the winter of 1872-73 and in Oc tober was succeed- ed by the Rever- end John C. Kim- ball as pastor, who served until Rev- erend M. K. Scher- merhorne took charge. He was followed by the CHANNING MEMORIAL CHURCHI. Reverend John W. Day who resigned in 1887. The church is now without a settled pastor. There is a fine medallion of Doctor Brooks in bronze in the Newport Historical Society.
TRINITY EPISCOPAL CHURCH .- On the 20th of September, 1699, the people of the Church of England then resident in Rhode Is- land delivered a petition to the Earl of Bellomont, captain-gen- eral of the New England colonies and the New York province.
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to the effect that they had agreed and concluded to erect a church for the worship of God according to the discipline of the Church of England yet that, though disposed to encourage a pions and learned minister to settle among them, they were not able to provide a requisite maintenance; they therefore prayed the earl to intercede with the king for letters to the government of Rhode Island in their favor and also to interest himself with the lords of council of trade and plantations. This petition the earl sent to the board of trade with a cordial concurrence. They placed it in the hands of the bishop of London who presented it to the king. The king referred it back to the board of trade. To this and other petitions for promoting the Gospel among the Indians is ascribed the incorporation in 1702 of the "Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts," which soon be- came an effective missionary agency of the Church of England among the whites as well as Indians of the American colonies.
From the fact that the first two signatures to the Rhode Is- land petition were of French Huguenots, Gabriel Bernon and Pierre Ayrault, it is probable that the movement to organize an Episcopal church here sprung from them. The Huguenot col- ony at Frenchtown had just been dispersed by the encroach- ments of their neighbors; the families scattered and their church closed. The forms of the French Protestant church, its ritual and services, do not vary much from that of the Church of England and were more acceptable to the French than the want of form of the Puritan non-conformists in any of their sect varieties.
The original founder and patron of Trinity church, the first Episcopal church in Newport, was Sir Francis Nichol- son. Of English birth and by profession a soldier, he held continuously from 1687 to 1725 various posts of the highest honor in the provinces of the British crown in America. He was successively lieutenant governor and governor of New York, of Virginia, of Maryland, and again of Virginia. He com- manded the British forces sent to Canada in 1710, and cap- tured the post of Port Royal. In 1713 he was appointed governor of Nova Scotia, and in 1720 of Carolina. He re- turned to England in 1725, and died in London in 1728.
The church in Newport was gathered by Mr. Lockyear, an Episcopal clergyman who began his ministry in 1698. A soci- ety was soon collected which, aided by the bounty of Nichol-
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son, built a handsome church. It was completed in 1702. In that year the " Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts " being incorporated in England, the wardens of Trinity applied to it for aid. In response, the Reverend James llon- eyman was sent over as a missionary in 1704, and also a fine theological library of seventy-five volumes, mostly in folio. A bell was presented by Queen Anne in 1709, and funds to hang it were sent by the governor of Massachusetts and the Reverend Samuel Miles, minister of Boston, in whose respective hands Sir Francis Nicholson had left funds. The society grew and prospered in the charge of Mr. Honeyman, who is said to have been of a broad and conciliatory spirit to other religious denominations, all of whom he "embraced with the arm of charity."
In 1713 the rector, church wardens and vestry petitioned the queen for the establishment of bishops in America. Among the signers of the petition was Mr. Nathaniel Kay, the collector of the queen's revenue and a liberal patron of the church. In the year 1724 the society had so much outgrown the church that there were not seats enough to accommodate its own mem- bers and those who desired to join the communion, to say noth- ing of the numerous strangers who, even at that early day, were attracted to Newport. The communicants of the church numbered more than fifty. A thousand pounds were pledged toward the cost of a new building, which was completed in 1726, when Mr. Honeyman preached in it. The old structure was given to the people of Warwick, who were without a building. The church society was at this time in high prosperity, having increased fonr fold in the quarter of a century since its founda- tion. The denomination was spreading over the island and its neighborhood, Mr. Honeyman having under his care also the towns of Freetown, Tiverton and Little Compton.
In 1729 occurred an event interesting in itself and fraught with advantage to the church and town. This was the unpre- meditated arrival from England of Dean Berkeley, whose name is indissolubly connected with Newport history. The dean was an eloquent preacher and attracted large numbers to Trinity church. His son and his servants, to whom, after the fashion of the day, were given the family name of their master, were baptised into it by himself in the year of his coming. On his
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