The Kirk on Rutgers Farm

THE
KIRK
on
Rutgers Farm

By
Frederick Brückbauer

Illustrated by
Pauline Stone

NEW YORK
Fleming H Revell Company
1919

To the
Men and Women
who gave
that the old church
might remain at
Market and Henry Streets

INTRODUCTION

It is evident that the preparation of this volume has been a labor of love.

Of the sanctuary which, for one hundred years, has stood on the corner of Market and Henry Streets, the author, like many others who have put their lives into it, might well say:

The story of "The Kirk on Rutgers Farm" is one of pathetic interest. In its first half-century it sheltered a worshipping congregation of staid Knickerbocker type, which, tho blest with a ministry of extraordinary ability and spiritual power, succumbed to its unfriendly environment and perished.

In its second half-century it became the home of a flock of God, poor in this world's goods, but rich in faith, to whom the environment even when changing from bad to worse, was a challenge to faith and valiant service. Those of us who in our unwisdom said a generation ago that it ought to die judged after the outward appearance. Those who protested that it must not die, took counsel with the spirit that animated them, saw the invisible and against hope believed in hope.

Not the least impressive pages of this book are the pages which record the names of ministers and other toilers for Christ, who in this field of heroic achievement have lived to serve or have died in service.

The author has very skilfully concealed his personal connection with the history of which he might justly say: "Magna pars fui." But for his wise and winsome leadership the chronicle would have closed a quarter of a century ago.

By putting in form and preserving the memories which cluster about the Church of the Sea and Land, he is performing a real service to the Christian community and earning the gratitude of fellow-laborers to whom it has been a shrine of their heart's devotion.

George Alexander.

ILLUSTRATIONS

I

If there be one thing certain about New York it is that nothing remains unchanged. Not only do public works like the bridges change the face of things, but private activity effaces great structures to build up still greater ones. This march of progress is as relentless as a modern army, levelling all before it.

In other lands churches have been spared tho other buildings went down, but even these in New York have disappeared, whole districts being deliberately deserted because churches were no longer able to maintain themselves there financially. This is especially true of the great down-town section of Manhattan, the Old New York, in which only two churches remain that have stood unchanged for a century. Trinity church let old St. John's go, and sixty churches have disappeared in forty years on the lower East Side alone. We lose much when old landmarks go, when we can not make history more vivid for our children by pointing out where the great men of another day worshipt, men of a day when other public assemblies were rare, and the church was the center that radiated influence. The old building is of value because of the living beings associated with it that were the life of the community.

New York has hardly appreciated what its great families have meant for it in the past. The members of the Rutgers family, for instance, always had a noble share in the day and generation in which they lived. Their ancestor came over in the early days from Holland, spent some time about Albany, and then came to New York, branching out till Rutgers bouweries and Rutgers breweries were found in more than one place.

A Rutgers was on the jury in the great Zenger trial that establisht the freedom of the colonial press,—"the germ of American freedom." The Rutgers were Sons of Liberty and the Rutgers farm near Golden Hill was one of their meeting places. A Rutgers was a member of the New York Provincial Congress and also of the Stamp Act Congress. Alexander Hamilton was engaged in a famous case when a Rutgers defended herself against a Tory who had taken possession of her property during the Revolution.

It was a Rutgers who drained the marshes west of the old Collect Pond and so laid the foundations for the Lispenard fortunes: a Lispenard married a fair daughter of his neighbor Rutgers. That stream still runs into the Broadway Subway at Canal Street apparently uncontrollable.

One Rutgers fell in the Battle of Long Island, and while the old father died in Albany, the British revenged themselves on the younger brother by making a hospital of his fine house in New York. The owner kept on fighting for freedom during the whole Revolutionary War, distinguishing himself at White Plains.

This was Henry Rutgers, in whom culminated many of the finest characteristics of a noble ancestry. His breadth of view in an age not quite so broad, is well shown in his attitude towards churches and schools. When he decided to open up his farm in the Seventh Ward for building purposes he gave land at Oliver and Henry Streets, at Market and Henry Streets and at Rutgers and Henry Streets for churches, and there was more for the asking, tho only the Baptists, the Dutch Reformed and the Presbyterians took advantage of the offer. The Rutgers Street site became the birthplace of the Rutgers Presbyterian church, beginning May 13, 1798, in a frame building 36×64. In 1841 the present stone church was built, and in 1862, as did others, this organization moved uptown. A Mr. Briggs, who was holding the property for a Protestant denomination, finally tired of waiting and sold the building to the Roman Catholic church, in whose hands it remains.

In 1806 Rutgers gave the land for the second free school, and he succeeded Governor Clinton in 1828 as president of the Free School Society. Before that day education was not a state matter, but left to private enterprise, and the free schools then establisht were for the poor. Rutgers more than once paid salaries and other school bills out of his own pocket. He was a Regent of the University of the State of New York for twenty-four years, and a Trustee of Princeton.

Rutgers was not above mixing in with the political life of his time: he was a member of the legislature four times and took a prominent part in the election of Thomas Jefferson as President of the United States.

In 1811 he raised funds for the first Tammany Hall, then a benevolent organization.

During the War of 1812, Rutgers presided at a large mass meeting calling for the defense of New York when the port was blockaded and it seemed as if the British would attack it. He was a large contributor to the fund from which forts were hurriedly erected to keep the enemy out.

Rutgers was a member of a committee of correspondence formed in 1819 to check slavery. He lived to see the day, in 1827, when slavery was abolisht in New York State.

His services to the Dutch church and his munificence brought about a change of name of the college at New Brunswick from Queens to Rutgers College. It is true the sum given was only $5,000 and Rutgers was one of the richest men in New York. In our day when only billions seem to count we may well hark back to the days of simpler things.

For many years Henry Rutgers gave a cake and a book to every boy who called on him on New Year's Day. The children gathered about his door and he made an address "of a religious character."

Colonel Rutgers lived in "a large, superbly furnished mansion," on Rutgers Place, "for many years a capitol of fashion, where met all the leaders of the day." Here was given "the most notable reception of the time to General Washington and Colonel Willett," after the latter's return from his mission to the Creek Indians, the most powerful confederacy then on our borders. Here, also, in 1824, Lafayette was entertained "like a prince," so the great Frenchman said.

The house was built in 1755 by the Colonel's father, with brick brought from Holland. It stood on Monroe Street till 1865. But it was none too fine for the owner to give his fences for firewood one hard winter when fuel was scarce and trees in the streets were cut down to burn. Next summer the Rutgers orchard was said to have been safer than if the fence had been there.

"The well-beloved citizen" died February 17, 1830, in the mansion in which he had lived nearly eighty years. On February 28, a great memorial service was held in the Market Street church. Dr. McMurray, the pastor, whose tablet is opposite that of Rutgers in the church, preached the sermon, which was printed later, speaking of his "unimpeachable moral character, his uniform consistency," and saying that there was "scarcely a benevolent object or humane institution which he had not liberally assisted." Colonel Rutgers spent one-fourth of his income in charity, many of his benevolences being personal, gifts not only of money, but advice and sympathy.

Rutgers was a bachelor and on his death the bulk of his estate, over $900,000, went to the grandson of his sister Catherine, William B. Crosby. "Uncle Rutgers" had virtually adopted the boy when early left an orphan. Among the provisions of the Rutgers will was one that bespoke the testator: Hannah, a superannuated negress, was to be supported by the estate for the rest of her life. This while slavery was still legal in 1823.

William B. Crosby was a colonel in the War of 1812. He died March 18, 1865. A son of his was Howard Crosby, more than a generation ago one of the best-known preachers of New York, a man great physically and spiritually. He was moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly and one of the revisers of the Bible. He died in 1891. Another Crosby was in the State Legislature.

The direct line of the Rutgers family died out, but they were intermarried with about every prominent family of the city. The daughters were more numerous than the sons and appear to have had a reputation for good looks and good works. They were the wives of rectors, bishops, postmasters, mayors, secretaries of state, judges, and so on.

On November 25, 1816, Rutgers had deeded five lots for a Dutch Reformed church.

The neighborhood in which the Market Street church was to be located was redolent with historic associations. The British provost marshal hung Nathan Hale on "an apple tree in the Rutgers orchard," the exact spot adjoining the church property. Nearby on Cherry Hill, in the Franklin House, the first President of the United States lived for a time, as did John Hancock and members of Washington's cabinet on the inauguration of the Federal Government.

In the immediate vicinity was the Walton House, referred to in parliament as so richly furnished that the colonies needed no relief from taxation.

Close by the church lands, on July 27, 1790, Rutgers on his own grounds paraded the militia before President Washington, Governor Clinton and visiting Indian chiefs, and thereafter he was Colonel Rutgers. Gilbert Stuart painted Washington's portrait at that time and it was a prized possession in the Rutgers mansion.

Just north on the Bowery was the old Bull's Head Tavern, "the last stop before entering town." On the evacuation of New York, Washington and his officers rested here before re-occupying the city. In connection with it the Astor fortunes were laid, and Astor was not very popular with the other butchers either, because of his business methods.

In Cherry Street a hundred years ago a sea captain and his wife made the first American flag of the present type: thirteen stripes and an ever-expanding starry field.

At the foot of Pike Street,—the river then was nearer the church than now,—Robert Fulton built his first steamboat in 1807, and in May, 1819, just one hundred years ago, the Savannah docked in the same place, after the first steamboat trip across the ocean, made in twenty-two days.

Not quite so pleasant a memory is the fact that Market Street was the new name for George Street, of not very favorable repute, until the quiet Quakers built fine little houses there, surrounded by gardens, driving out denizens of a less sedate disposition.

A fine story is told of an old lady, who was advised not to go to the Market Street church because of the neighborhood it was in. She replied that Colonel Rutgers was going there "and where Colonel Rutgers goes any lady can go."

In 1819 wolves were still killed on the "outskirts," that being the present Gramercy Park.

After the establishment of the Franklin Street church in 1807, no further attempt was made by the Dutch church to extend its work until in 1817 the offer made by Henry Rutgers was taken up. About the same time the Houston Street and Broome Street churches were added.

To make the Market Street building possible Rutgers gave a large sum, and he named the trustees "under whose superintendence" the building was to be erected. They were a noble group:

Rev. Philip Milledoler, D.D.; Rev. James M. Matthews, Peter Wilson, LL.D.; Isaac Heyer, Matthias Bruen, Peter Sharpe and William B. Crosby.

Dr. Milledoler was one of the great men of the time. He was born in Rhinebeck, September 22, 1775, and educated in Edinburgh. He was one of the founders of the American Bible Society, and Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Presbyterian Church. In November, 1803, he became colleague pastor of the First Collegiate church, and in April, 1809, on division by Presbytery, sole pastor of the Rutgers Presbyterian church. He remained here until 1813, when he entered the Reformed Church. He was president of Rutgers College from 1823 to 1841.

Rev. James Macfarlane Matthews was professor "in the first theological seminary of which New York could boast." It was considered Scotch Presbyterian.

Dr. Peter Wilson was professor of languages in the university, as was also Isaac Heyer.

Matthias Bruen was "one of the merchant princes of New York."

Peter Sharpe was a "whip manufacturer" and William B. Crosby is listed as "gentleman."

Nothing is known of the architect or builder, tho they were probably the same, as was the fashion of the time. The building was required by the deed "to be of brick or stone materials, and the whole building of a size not less than that of the Presbyterian church in Rutgers Street." A hundred years have proven the substantial character of the Market Street church. The men of that day did their work well. Whether it was a simplified copy of the North Dutch church or not is not known. It looks much like it, tho the tower is simpler and the two rows of windows in the Fulton Street building become one row of great windows on Henry Street. But it has all stood the test of time. The old hand-hewn oak timbers still span the lofty ceiling, the glistening gray stone walls still stand four-square against all the winds that blow. The hand-made hinges and numbers are still on the pew doors, and the so-called slave galleries are still there, tho neither colored servants nor Sunday school children are consigned to them now. Hidden away, but still there are the hand-made laths, the shingles under the tin roof and the four-foot thick foundations.

The old tower is there, for many years untenanted, until the men came who worked and lived there, a place of seclusion in a busy time and neighborhood, and if the symbols on the rough walls have made their thoughts roam to the early Christian days the telephone brings them back again into 1919.

The years have brought some changes; better heating than the first stoves,—the first coal bill was paid in February, 1832, and a new furnace cost $150 in 1848; better lighting than in 1819,—they had no gas till May, 1843,—but there have always been men who studied to maintain the quiet simplicity and beauty of the house, never more marked than in the days of its centennial.

The Reformed Protestant Dutch church in Market Street was "dedicated to the worship of Almighty God" on June 27, 1819, the Rev. Dr. Milledoler preaching the sermon. On September 8, 1819, twenty-four members united, on the 29th more were added, but "on account of the prevailing sickness" the consistory was not elected until November 10. Henry Rutgers, John Redfield and Isaac Brinkerhoff were elected elders, and William B. Crosby, Elbert A. Brinkerhoff and Thomas Morrow were chosen as deacons. On November 28, 1819, they were ordained. On the day following they met at the mansion of Colonel Rutgers, when he was chosen president of the consistory. On January 2, 1821, the property was finally deeded to the consistory.

The first minister of the church was William McMurray, D.D., "who with fidelity and zeal" served from 1820 to May, 1835.

Dr. McMurray was born of Scotch-Irish parents in Washington in 1783, and graduated from Union College in 1804, studying theology under the famous J. M. Mason. He was a great worker, preached three times each Sunday, conducted catechism classes, and is said to have known nearly everyone in the Seventh Ward. He contracted typhoid fever, lingered for a while and died September 24, 1835.

A Sunday school was started in 1821.

In 1834 the elders and deacons are recorded as being: Crosby, Hoxie, Andrews, Doig, Moore, Herrick, Cisco, Montanye, Conover and McCullough, all famous names. Hoxie and Cisco were wholesale clothing merchants in Cherry Street then the center for that trade.

In August, 1836, Dr. McMurray was succeeded by Isaac Ferris. He was a New Yorker, entered Columbia when only fourteen years old, graduated with first honors and fought in the War of 1812 with his father. The Sunday school reported 213 pupils at the time of his coming, which soon increased, for Dr. Ferris paid special attention to the school. He was president of the New York Sunday School Union and first president of the Foreign Mission Board of the Dutch Church. The church had 600 communicants, and was described as "a fashionable church in the aristocratic Seventh Ward."

His son, Dr. John Ferris, spent much of his earlier life with his father. Dr. Isaac Ferris died June 13, 1873. He was tall, broad shouldered and of commanding presence.

In 1841 the organ was ordered and finally completed in 1844. It was built by Henry Erben, of New York, whose son became admiral in the Navy. Experts tell of the amount of lead used in the construction of its pipes. It is still pumped by hand as in the olden days. John Pye was the first man to do this. George Loder was the first organist, and P. A. Andri the first chorister.

In 1843, on the land back of the church the "Consistory Building" was erected. It was a plain brick building with a high stoop and heavy wooden shutters. The upper floor was for the Sunday school and provided with circular seats for classes. In an alcove on one side and closed by glass doors was the library railed off from the rest of the school. On the main floor was the lecture room, the floor of which rose in the back. Between the stairways leading to the next floor was a platform with two heavy Greek columns and a reading desk between them. It was a bold boy who would run back there thru the dark when the "infant class" met in the room. The columns were removed in the seventies and later on the rounded stiff seats went too. Then the floor had to be leveled so that the room could be put to general use. Before that it was possible to reach most of the seats only by passing between the "leader" and the audience.

In the basement in dingy quarters in the rear lived the sexton. He had the great improvement of having water brought into the house in June, 1847, by a sixty-foot hose. Six years later the hydrant was put up in the front church yard, remaining there until quite recently.

To the right and under the stoop there was a hallway, which later was changed to the "pastor's study," in which all smaller important meetings were held. It was in this little room that the session received members and for many it holds very sacred memories.

There were no pictures in the building, but later a few mottoes with Bible texts were hung about.

In early days a part of the building was rented for use as a school. The rental was only nominal. At the time of the erection of the consistory building the sidewalks around the whole property were flagged and the iron fence erected.

In 1848 the upper floor was arranged for the Sunday school at a cost of $500. About 1871 doors were cut thru to the galleries of the church from the upper floor. For more than twenty years this had been urged.

John Crosby is recorded as "paying off the church debt of $10,542" in June, 1852.

Dr. Ferris left in 1853 to become chancellor of the University of New York, succeeding his friend, Theodore Frelinghuysen. The first chancellor had been Dr. Matthews, a trustee of the church, and the successors of Dr. Ferris were Howard Crosby, John Hall and Henry M. McCracken. So of six chancellors of the university, four were vitally interested in the Market Street church.

II

With the coming of Theodore Cuyler a new era opened up for the old Market Street church. Two years before Dr. Cuyler had spoken at a large temperance meeting in Tripler Hall, together with General Houston, Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Mann and other celebrities. It was his first public address in a city that was to know much of him.

In 1853 Mr. Cuyler was called and installed by the South Classis of New York, November 13, 1853. He says that while walking along Henry Street Judge Hoxie said to Mr. Lyles: "If our young brother will come and work in the Market Street church we might do something yet."

Cuyler lived at Pike and Madison Streets and later in Rutgers Street. His salary was $1,500, advanced later to $2,500. The church building was painted, and in 1855 a new roof was put on at the expense of the pewholders.

Opposite the church on the northeast corner was a large and select private school. At 11 Market Street later was a smaller one, headed by a German patriot, whose son-in-law was one of the great generals during the Rebellion.

In his address in the church at the Eightieth Anniversary, Dr. Cuyler called it "fighting the adversary of souls and geography," for even in Dr. Ferris's time there were indications of waning strength because of "the continued emigration of the more substantial class of church members from the down-town districts of the city uptown."

But the indefatigable Cuyler postponed the evil day, and for seven years of intensest activity he remained in Market Street.

To quote Dr. Cuyler: "I looked around me and saw there were a good many substantial families that could support a church and East Broadway swarmed with young men."

"Here was the lord of the manor, the nephew of Colonel Rutgers, Wm. B. Crosby. What a devoted Christian he was. His good old gray head moved up to the pew every Sunday, rain or shine. There was a deacons' pew, and in the center sat the best-known man in New York, Judge Joseph Hoxie. When we said the creed and nobody joined he shouted it, and in song his voice was heard above the choir. There sat Jacob Westervelt, the mayor of New York, and he boasted that he was the only member of the Dutch Church who could read a Dutch Bible."

The galleries were packed with young men. One, a young Irish boy, Robert McBurney, became the great secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association. Charles Briggs was another young member, and around him later raged the bitterest theological controversy of the century.

During the summer of 1854 the service was changed to 4 P. M., 7:30 being resumed in September.

In 1855 the seats in the gallery were changed from four rows to three rows, and the infant school was held in the "scholars' gallery" of the church. The low seats are still in the second gallery.

A stove was put in, too, as the heating was not satisfactory.

In 1855, A. D. Stowell came as Bible class teacher at a salary of $12 per month.

Dr. Cuyler rightly referred to it as a busy old hive, for from Market Street church emanated some of the greatest religious movements of the century.

Howard Crosby, son of William B. Crosby, and brought up in the Market Street church, was the first president of the Young Men's Christian Association. Cuyler became interested in it the second year of its existence in New York, and during his long lifetime he never ceased to work for it. But if the church had done nought else than bring Robert McBurney to the Association it would have been amply repaid. The master spirit in the Association for thirty years McBurney's name is written in golden letters in the city's history. Morris K. Jesup and William E. Dodge, life-long friends of the church, were early Association supporters.

A work typical of Market Street church was the Fulton Street prayer-meeting, started by Jeremiah C. Lamphier, who sang in the church choir. Dr. Cuyler credits this with being the first move in the tremendous revival that from 1856 to 1858 swayed the city, and went on to other cities, gathering momentum. Cuyler says: "In three or four weeks the revival so absorbed the city that business men crowded into the churches from 12 to 3 each day, and when Horace Greeley was asked to start a new philanthropic enterprise he said: 'The city is so absorbed with this revival that it has no time for anything else.'"

Market Street church gathered in 150 new members, and 1859 was one of the glorious ones in the history of the church.

Mr. Lamphier died December 26, 1898.

In the Temperance cause, Dr. Cuyler was also a ceaseless worker. From 1851 to 1857 he was in close alliance with Neal Dow, then at the height of his fame as a prohibition advocate.

Another organization that had an earnest supporter in Dr. Cuyler was the Christian Endeavor Society, tho Cuyler gives all the credit for its fatherhood to Rev. F. E. Clarke.

In a day when such things were not common Market Street church got deeply into matters civic. "The most hideous sink of iniquity and loathsome degradation was in the then famous Five Points," Baxter, Worth, Mulberry, Park Streets, not far from the church. An old building, honeycombed with vaults and secret passages, called the Old Brewery, was the center of a locality that boldly flouted the police. Indeed, for years the Old Brewery was a harbor of refuge for any criminal, for the law never reached him there, nor were the Five Points ever a safe place to walk thru. At night no one dared be seen there. For some years the Five Points had played a physical part in the elections, and many a riot had its inception there.

Then the city put thru Worth Street, formerly known as Anthony Street, after a Rutgers, and the Old Brewery Mission was establisht there. Thru Mrs. Pease, a member of the Market Street church, whose husband was the brave projector of the Five Points House of Industry, the church became interested in improving conditions. When Mr. Pease went south, his place was taken by Benjamin R. Barlow, one of the Market Street elders.

In his autobiography, Dr. Cuyler tells how he "used to make nocturnal explorations of some of those satanic quarters" to keep public interest awake in the mission work at the Five Points. New Yorkers who remember the House of Industry of thirty years ago and who now look at Mulberry Bend Park may well thank the old Market Street church that the Cow Bay, Bandit's Roost, the Old Brewery and Cut Throat Alley are things of the past, and that the Five Points are known to this later day only as a name. No second Charles Dickens will cross the ocean to tell us that "all that is loathsome, drooping and decayed is here."