Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 68

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 68

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CATHEDRAL OF SS. PETER AND PAUL, PROVIDENCE

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The movement to establish an Episcopal Church at Newport was initiated by Sir Francis Nicholson, agent of the crown, and supported by resident British officers and by Gabriel Ber- non and Pierre Ayrault, French Huguenots, who had been members of the party which had settled in Rhode Island in 1686. Reverend John Lockyer,* the first Episcopal clergyman resident in Newport, built a church. He was succeeded in 1704 by Reverend James Hony- man, missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, during whose rectorship a second building, the historic Trinity Church of 1725, was erected. The church lost member- ship by the exile of Tories, and was closed temporarily after the British withdrew from New- port. Other Episcopal churches established before the Revolution were St. Paul's of Narra- gansett, the edifice for which was built at Kingstown and removed in 1800 to Wickford ; St. Michael's of Bristol, 1720, the edifice for which was burned in 1778 by a British raiding party, who mistook it for the Congregational Church; and St. John's of Providence, first called King's Church, which was established in 1722. The Episcopal Church, as the American branch of the Church of England, suffered more than any other because of the Revolution. Besides the destruction of the edifice at Bristol, the three other churches were closed for want both of rectors and active members. A revival was undertaken in 1790, when the Epis- cepal Church in Rhode Island organized a union and practically "declared its independence" by recognizing Bishop Samuel Seabury of Connecticut as its Bishop, instead of the Bishop of London.

The wealth of Newport, its flourishing trade, and the religious liberty for which Rhode Island had become well known throughout the world attracted Hebrew merchants to Newport in considerable numbers early in the eighteenth century. They not only contributed to the development of commerce and industry in the seaport town, but established their own congre- gation for worship, thus exercising the priceless privilege of religious liberty. They built in 1762 a synagogue, which was dedicated in 1763. The Hebrew merchants departed early in the Revolution because of the interruption of commerce, and they returned not to Newport after the war. The synagogue was closed for a long period of years, although provision for care of the property was made by pious Hebrews resident elsewhere. Under the will of Abraham Touro, who died in 1822, liberal endowment was provided for permanent care of the synagogue; and of the Hebrew cemetery under the will of Judah Touro, who died in 1856. Newport had also, in the middle of the eighteenth century, a society of Moravians which was affiliated with the society at Bethlehem in Pennsylvania and which endured for almost an even century.

The Revolution in its later stage brought a French army to Rhode Island and a French fleet to the waters of Narragansett Bay. The French were Roman Catholics, and their chap- lains were Catholic priests. The Mass and other rites of the Catholic Church were celebrated on shipboard, in camps and in buildings which were made available for use by the French, including the State House at Newport and the college edifice at Rhode Island College, now University Hall at Brown University. There had been Catholics in Rhode Island in earlier times, including priests who visited Newport and were mentioned by Reverend Ezra Stiles in his diary, but for the most part the people of Rhode Island, until the French came as allies in arms, had little contact with Catholics. Under the liberal polity of Rhode Island, Catholics could come and stay or go without question, whereas elsewhere Catholics were subject to dis- abilities. The French officers, many of them members of the French nobility, mingled with the best Rhode Island society of the time; the French soldiery left only pleasant memories of exemplary behavior and excellent discipline. Not all the French returned to France; besides those whose bodies lay in cemeteries on the island of Rhode Island and in the North Burial Ground in Providence, others chose to remain in America. It was fitting, as well as gracious, that the Rhode Island General Assembly, at almost the first opportunity after independence

*Died in Newport the Thursday before April 22, 1704 .- "Boston News Letter."

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was assured, repealed a statutory record of doubtful validity, and abolished political discrim- ination because of religion, if indeed, it ever had been practiced in Rhode Island. The num- ber of Catholics in Rhode Island after the sailing of the French was not such as to lead to the establishment of congregations and churches, and the eighteenth century closed with no permanently organized Catholic worship.

Except the visits of John Burnyeat and George Fox to the Yearly Meetings of the Society of Friends at Newport, which were in their purpose partly missionary, and the positive effort to inaugurate a branch of the Church of England under the patronage of Sir Francis Nichol- son, the organization of religious societies in Rhode Island previous to 1700 was for the most part spontaneous, in the sense that the movement was from within. The eighteenth century witnessed more of missionary effort and the preaching of several revivalists in Rhode Island ; the century was notable also for the number of distinguished clergymen who ministered to Rhode Island churches. Besides the Reverend James Honyman, who came to Trinity Church in Newport, the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent other missionaries to Narragansett, Bristol and Providence, and expended the equivalent of $100,000 to promote its purposes in Rhode Island. The Missionaries included Reverend James MacSparran, whose parish included practically all of what is now Washington County and whose memory is associated with the finest traditions of the Narragansett country. Reverend George Ber- keley, Dean of Derry and afterward Bishop of Cloyne, during the three years, 1729-1732, which he spent at Newport, preached frequently at Trinity Church and was influential in attracting to it many of the brilliant society with which he surrounded himself. The eighteenth century Congregational ministers at Newport included Reverend Ezra Stiles, who became President of Yale College, and Reverend Samuel Hopkins, author of a "System of Theology" and nearest rival to Jonathan Edwards for the title of greatest American theologian of the period. Tradition relates that George Whitefield preached at Bristol in 1740; Rhode Island participated in the religious awakening of the middle of the eighteenth century. "New Light" churches were established, and conventions of "New Light" societies met in Exeter in 1753 and 1754. The movement was not permanent. Neither was the society led by Jemima Wil- kinson of Cumberland, who after temporary residence at the Old Abbey on the estate of Judge William Potter of South Kingstown, founded "Jerusalem" in New York. Jesse Lee visited Westerly in 1789 and there preached a Methodist sermon. He preached subsequently at Bristol, Cranston, Cumberland, East Greenwich, Newport, Providence, Warren and Wick- ford as part of a tour of New England. Other Methodist preachers were heard, and Metho- dist churches were established at Bristol, Warren, East Greenwich, Portsmouth, Phenix, Wickford, Providence, Cumberland, Newport and Centreville within fifteen years.

The initiative for the founding of Rhode Island College in 1764 rested with Rhode Island Baptists, and to them control of the corporation was given by a preponderance of members of the governing body. Otherwise the enterprise belonged to the colony of Rhode Island, as indicated by representation in the corporation of the religious denominations then established in Rhode Island, by provisions for liberal teaching of the sciences and arts, and for the exclusion of religious tests in determining admission to the privileges of the college. While the Baptists undertook the work of raising money for the new enterprise, the kindly interest of the colony and its purpose to promote an institution for liberal education appeared in exemption from taxation, and unusual privileges granted to college, teachers and students. The assistance of the most prominent and influential men of the period was assured by the inclusion of so many of them in the original membership of the self-perpetuating corpora- tion. The Baptist wish to use the college as an institution for training ministers for the denomination was conserved in the provision that private teaching of doctrine was not excluded. In its development the college trained ministers for many.denominations, even among the earliest classes graduated. To the same period and to similar initiative belongs also the

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building of the historic First Baptist Church edifice in Providence as a place for worship and for "holding the public commencements in." The Rhode Island General Assembly in the years following 1733 frequently granted licenses for public lotteries to promote the building of churches ; as aid for the new church and commencement hall a lottery was granted.

It happens infrequently that the accession of one member becomes of transcendental importance to a church; yet such was the effect upon the fortunes of the Society of Friends in Rhode Island when Moses Brown became a member in 1774. Moses Brown brought to the society the prestige of a great family, wealth for the promotion of the society's purposes, and leadership. His wisdom equalled the adventurous daring of his brother, John Brown. He became a Friend at the age of thirty-five, and for sixty-two years thereafter was one of the most prominent figures in the denomination. The eighteenth century closed with five out- standing denominations established in Rhode Island-Baptist, Congregational, Episcopal, Friend and Methodist. In the period following the war the Episcopal Church had become American by separation from the Church of England.

EXTENSION OF CHURCH SOCIETIES-The nineteenth century witnessed further exten- sion of religious denominations previously settled in Rhode Island, and the appearance of new sects. Older societies divided in some instances, but the reasons for division and separation less frequently were dissension than in the more contentious period of the preceding century and a half. Church edifices became too small for congregations, and were replaced by larger buildings, or it was found expedient to divide societies and build new churches at locations more convenient for some who had traveled long distances to attend services at the old estab- lishments. Thus in 1805 two new societies of Baptists were projected from the First Baptist Church in Providence, as the Second Baptist Church, first located on Pine Street in Provi- dence, and the First Baptist Church at Pawtucket. The Pine Street church removed later to High Street, and was known as the Central Baptist Church. Another removal, incident to the gradual retirement of church societies from locations within the compact business section of the city, carried the Central Baptist Church to its present handsome edifice on Wayland Ave- nue, in the new section of the East Side of the city of Providence, north of Angell Street. Baptist churches were established at Pawtuxet in 1806, at Bristol in 1811, at Olneyville in 1830, and the Roger Williams Baptist Church in Providence in the same year. By 1813 the Baptists had thirty-six churches in Rhode Island, and the membership was 5000. The num- ber of Baptist churches reached seventy-nine in 1890, and the membership at that time exceeded 12,000. Ten years later there were seventy-seven Baptist churches with 13,772 members. At the same time, 1900, the enrollment in Baptist Sunday Schools was 12,854, and there were 1655 teachers.

Among the Friends the greatest achievement of the nineteenth century in Rhode Island was the founding of Friends School, in 1819, after an unsuccessful first trial at Portsmouth in 1784. Moses Brown was the most influential factor in assuring the ultimate success, and he gave liberally of his wealth to assure a permanent foundation. The Friends attained their largest membership during the century in 1836, when there were eighteen local meetings, and an enrollment of 1339. The meetings were at Burrillville, Cranston, Cumberland, East Greenwich, Jamestown, Little Compton, Portsmouth, Providence, Tiverton and Warren, with two each in Hopkinton, Newport, Smithfield and South Kingstown. The Society of Friends declined during the second half of the nineteenth century. In later years the distinctive dress and language usage, except between themselves, were abandoned. By 1900 the membership of the Society of Friends in Rhode Island was less than 1000, and the local meetings had been abandoned in several places.

Five of the nine Congregational churches in Rhode Island before the Revolution were in Rhode Island's "restored provinces," in the towns of Barrington, Bristol, Little Compton, Tiverton and Warren; the four others were located two each in Newport and Providence.

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The Newport churches recovered slowly from the effects of the Revolution; the Providence churches were more fortunate. The denomination, because of its relation to the Puritan organization in Connecticut and Massachusetts, grew slowly in Rhode Island, and up to 1813 only two additional churches had been established, one each in East Greenwich and Provi- dence, and the total membership of the eleven churches was approximately 1000. New Con- gregational societies were established at Pawtucket, 1829; at Providence, 1834, the High Street Congregational Church; at Elmwood, 1851; at Providence, 1852, the Central Congre- gational Church; at Peacedale, 1857. The Central Church of Providence, located on Benefit Street in the building now known as Memorial Hall, in Rhode Island School of Design, was removed to a fine new edifice on Angell Street. The Newport churches consolidated in 1833 as the United Church. Richmond Street and High Street churches in Providence consoli- dated as Union Congregational Church with a brick edifice on Broad Street, near Stewart Street. Congregational churches numbered twenty-five in 1869, and the membership at that time was estimated as 4000; in 1900 the membership was 9400 and there were forty-two Con- gregational churches in Rhode Island.

The Unitarian movement which divided Congregationalists as Unitarians and Trinitar- ians, the latter retaining the name of the older denomination, affected Rhode Island churches. William Ellery Channing, one of the outstanding leaders in the Unitarian movement, was born at Newport, April 7, 1780. The one hundredth anniversary of his birth was observed in Newport by laying the cornerstone of Channing Memorial Church, for what had been the First Unitarian Church of Newport, founded in 1835. The First Congregational Church in Providence had become Unitarian by 1815; the church edifice, the building with double bel- fries seen in old pictures of Providence, was destroyed by fire in 1814, and replaced by the present structure, on the same site at Benefit and Benevolent Streets, in 1816. Other Uni- tarian societies in Providence were the Westminster Congregational Church, 1829, which built an edifice on the site now occupied by the Rialto Theatre on Mathewson Street, and the Olney Street Church, 1878.

The first resident Bishop of the Rhode Island Episcopal Church was Right Reverend Alexander V. Griswold, who was rector of St. Michael's Church, Bristol, before he was elected head of the diocese, which then included New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachu- setts. The extension of Episcopal worship was retarded by the Anglican tradition, in spite of the separation from the Church of England in 1790. New churches were established as St. Paul's of Pawtucket, 1816, and at Tower Hill, 1818. The Tower Hill Church eventually was united in 1840 with the Church of the Ascension at Wakefield. Between 1829 and 1839 a dozen new parishes were established, including Grace Church, Providence; St. Mark's, Warren; St. Paul's, South Kingstown; Trinity, Pawtucket; St. James', Woonsocket; St. Luke's, East Greenwich; Christ Church, Westerly; Christ Church, Lonsdale; St. Stephen's, Providence; St. Andrew's Church, Providence, 1847, which became All Saints' Church. Bishop Griswold was succeeded by Righ Reverend John P. K. Henshaw, 1843-1852, whose diocese was Rhode Island; and by Right Reverend Thomas M. Clark, 1854-1903. Right Reverend William N. McVickar had been elected as Bishop Coadjutor in 1897 with right of succession. In 1900 the Episcopal Church included fifty-three parishes, twenty chapels and missions, and a membership of 12,392.

The Jesse Lee mission, which had resulted in the establishment of ten Methodist churches in Rhode Island in fifteen years, had spent its effort in 1805. Fifteen years later a fresh movement began, and churches were established in Little Compton, Newport, Pawtucket and Westerly, and three in Providence. Other churches followed, and the Methodist societies in 1900 numbered forty-one, with 5900 members. East Greenwich Academy, which had been founded in 1802 as Kent Academy, became a Methodist school in 184I.

Other Protestant denominations establishing churches in Rhode Island in the nineteenth

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century included Adventist, African Methodist Episcopal, Christian, Presbyterian, Primitive Methodist, Swedenborgian, Swedish Lutheran, and Universalist. Evangelist Adventists had churches in 1900 at Bristol, Charlestown, Hopkinton, North Kingstown, Providence, Scituate, South Kingstown, Warwick and West Greenwich; Advent Christians, at Exeter, Providence and South Kingstown; and Seventh Day Adventists, at South Kingstown and Westerly. The largest Adventist church then was the Church of the Yahveh in Providence. Christians, sepa- ratists from Methodist churches in Southern states, sent a missionary to Rhode Island in 1813. Churches were established in Bristol, at Rice City and Summit in Coventry, at Foster Centre and Moosup Valley in Foster, in Little Compton, Middletown, Portsmouth, and Providence, at Rockland in Scituate, in Tiverton and Westerly. Of these, the Bristol, Little Compton, Middletown and Tiverton churches had disappeared at the end of the century, and the Coventry, Foster and Scituate churches had no ministers. The Broad Street Christian Church, survivor of two in Providence; the Portsmouth and Westerly churches were still active. The Congregational Church was called Presbyterian by some persons before the Revolution; the Presbyterian Church, not Congregational, had two societies in Providence and one each at Newport and Narragansett Pier in 1900. The movement was then a quarter- century old in Rhode Island. The Church of the New Jerusalem, Swedenborgian, was estab- lished in Providence in 1839; other churches of the denomination in 1900 were located at Pawtucket and Warwick.

The First Universalist Church of Providence was organized in 1821; the brick edifice, at Westminster and Union Streets, was one of the earliest in the business district of Provi- dence to yield to commerce. The society sold the building in 1871 to the proprietors of a retail dry goods store, who demolished it and built upon the site an extension of their estab- lishment. The society removed to a new church building at Greene and Washington Streets. The Second Universalist Church in Providence, at Broad and Eddy Streets, now Weybosset and Eddy Streets, also went the way of down-town churches; the building was sold and used for commercial purposes. The society, as the Church of the Mediator, removed to a new edifice on Cranston Street. The High Street Universalist Church of Pawtucket, founded in 1827, disbanded and sold its building to Baptists. The society was revived later, built a tem- porary church on Exchange Street, and in 1868 returned to High Street. The Pawtucket society had changed its name to Church of Our Father. With the Universalist church at Woonsocket, the largest in membership in 1900, the Universalists had ten churches and 1200 members.

The total membership of Protestant churches in Rhode Island was estimated in 1900 as 54,500, with 51,500 teachers and scholars enrolled in Sunday Schools. Church edifices num- bered 330, and ministers of various titles 390. The Newport Hebrews, who had scattered when the British occupied Newport during the Revolution, had left a synagogue without a congregation ; nearly a century elapsed before the synagogue was reopened with Abraham Mendes as rabbi. Community observance of Hebrew holidays began in Providence after 1840; the society became the Reform Temple Beth El in 1854. Hebrews came to Rhode Island in large numbers after 1875; by 1900 three synagogues had been built in Providence, on Chalkstone Avenue, Friendship Street and Orms Street.

CATHOLIC CHURCH BEGINNINGS-"Tuesday last, being the festival of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Reverend Abbe de la Poterie,* French Roman Catholic priest and doctor of divinity, celebrated the holy sacrifice of the Mass in this town at the request of several Catholics of the Roman Communion and addressed to the Almighty his humble prayers for the constant and permanent prosperity of the state of Rhode Island."

*Claudius Florent Bouchard de la Poterie. He had been, by appointment of Bishop Carroll of Balti- more, whose see included all of the United States, curate of the Church of the Holy Cross at Boston, but had been relieved by Bishop Carroll in midsummer of 1789, and in December was an unassigned priest. He came to Providence from Quebec.

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The event was reported thus in the "Providence Gazette" of Saturday, December 12, 1789, and also in the "United States Chronicle." The Catholic population of Rhode Island was increased in 1793 by French refugees from Santo Domingo and Guadaloupe; for some of these the General Assembly made provision for relief from the public treasury as a gracious gesture of gratefulness and memory of French assistance during the Revolution. There was Irish immigration following the Emmet Revolution of 1798, including both Catholic and Protestant Irishmen, and with the development of textile factories further immigration of Irish, many of whom came to Rhode Island after a sojourn first in English or Scotch indus- trial towns, where they acquired trade skill and learned of the opportunities in America. The Irish in Providence were sufficient in number in 1814 to volunteer their labor as a group in the building of forts to defend the town against capture by British. Before that the Catho- lics in Rhode Island were visited by priests from Boston, among them Father Thayer and Father Tisseraud. Bishop Carroll passed through Rhode Island on his way to dedicate the Church of the Holy Cross in Boston in 1802, and on the return trip stopped at Newport while his vessel was "wind bound" in the harbor.

As the number of Catholics increased, visiting priests came with greater regularity to baptize children, celebrate Mass, and otherwise minister to the religious needs of groups in Bristol, Newport and Providence. Among those who came thus to Rhode Island were Right Reverend Jean Lefebvre de Cheverus,1 Reverend Francis A. Matignon,# and Father Patrick Byrne. On one such visit to Bristol, Bishop Griswold invited Bishop Cheverus to preach a sermon in St. Michael's Episcopal Church, and the invitation was accepted.§ The earliest Masses in Providence were celebrated in the old schoolhouse on Sheldon Street, known as Sheldon's, which was so decrepit that it collapsed during the September gale of 1815. In the years that followed Masses were celebrated in private houses or other places as these were made available. Rhode Island continued to be a mission field without an establishment until 1828.

Bishop Fenwick of Boston, designated Reverend Robert Woodley, on January 4, 1828, as pastor of Rhode Island, Connecticut and southeastern Massachusetts, the parish including essentially the four original southern New England colonies of Rhode Island, Plymouth, Hartford, and New Haven. Father Woodley was pastor without church edifice or rectory, his flock scattered over an area of some 8000 square miles. He found at Newport the nucleus for a congregation among those employed in the construction of public works for the United States government, and others working in the coal mines at Portsmouth, and felt encouraged to purchase for use as a temporary church building Trevett's private schoolhouse, on what is now Barney Street. Eight years later a wooden building was constructed, and in 1852 the brown stone edifice on Spring Street, known as Our Lady of the Isle, was opened. The con- struction of the third building had proceeded under the direction of Lieutenant Rosecrans,* who was then stationed at Fort Adams. At Pawtucket, Father Woodley found another

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 68

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716