The Kirk on Rutgers Farm Part 1

The Kirk on Rutgers Farm.

by Frederick Bruckbauer.

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:

"Thy saints take pleasure in her stones, Her very dust to them is dear."

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

In its second half-century it became the home of a flock of G.o.d, 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 leaders.h.i.+p the chronicle would have closed a quarter of a century ago.

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

George Alexander.

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 wors.h.i.+pt, men of a day when other public a.s.semblies were rare, and the church was the center that radiated influence. The old building is of value because of the living beings a.s.sociated 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 n.o.ble 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 Ca.n.a.l 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, distinguis.h.i.+ng himself at White Plains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Henry Rutgers]

This was Henry Rutgers, in whom culminated many of the finest characteristics of a n.o.ble ancestry. His breadth of view in an age not quite so broad, is well shown in his att.i.tude 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 3664. 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 ma.s.s 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rutgers Mansion]

Colonel Rutgers lived in "a large, superbly furnished mansion," on Rutgers Place, "for many years a capitol of fas.h.i.+on, where met all the leaders of the day." Here was given "the most notable reception of the time to General Was.h.i.+ngton 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 inst.i.tution which he had not liberally a.s.sisted." 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rutgers Tablet]

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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sociations. 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 Hanc.o.c.k and members of Was.h.i.+ngton'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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Nathan Hale Statue]

Close by the church lands, on July 27, 1790, Rutgers on his own grounds paraded the militia before President Was.h.i.+ngton, Governor Clinton and visiting Indian chiefs, and thereafter he was Colonel Rutgers. Gilbert Stuart painted Was.h.i.+ngton'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, Was.h.i.+ngton 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: First Presidential Mansion]

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.