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Preacher Politics and People Power: Congregational Conflicts in New York City, 1810–1830
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2009
Extract
The 1812 Methodist Episcopal Church general conference in New York City proved contentious. In his journal entry of May 17, Bishop Francis Asbury recorded that the conference participants hotly debated the power of the denomination's bishops, particularly regarding their unchecked right to appoint lesser ministers to positions of authority. While spirited, the disagreements did not deeply divide the contestants. That evening Asbury ate dinner with seventeen ministers, many of whom had fought on opposite sites. Asbury commented, “We should thank God we are not at war with each other, as are the Episcopalians, with the pen and the press as their weapons of warfare.”
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References
1 Journal of Francis Asbury, Sunday, 17 May 1812, 3:327. On some of the Methodists' disputes regarding church polity at this time, see Stevens, Abel, Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, D.D. (New York, 1863), 196 passimGoogle Scholar.
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5 Cave Jones, “A Solemn Appeal to the Church Being a Plain Statement of Facts in the Matters Pending between Dr. Hobart with others, and the Author” (New York, 1811), 3, 6–9, 23–25, 30, 26, 85.
6 Dix, Morgan, A History of the Parish of Trinity Church in the City of New York, 5 vols. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1898–1906), 2:216, 2:222–225Google Scholar. Cave Jones, “Dr. Hobart's System of Intolerance Exemplified in the Late Proceedings against His Colleague, the Author” (New York, 1811). Jones argued several points, among them being that his dismissal hearings were invalid because they were not impartial.
7 Matthew L. Davis, “Report of the Case between the Reverend Cave Jones and the Rector and Inhabitants of the City of New-York in Communion of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New York” (New York, 1813); Dix, History of Trinity Church, 2:225–226.
8 For examples of anti- and pro-Hobart perspectives, see “The Resolutions Adopted at a Meeting of the Episcopalians at Mechanic Hall also Two Letters from the Honorable John Jay to the Reverend Cave Jones” (New York, 1812), 10–12; An Episcopalian, “A Plain Address to Episcopalians on the Proposed Meeting at Mechanic-Hall” (New York, 1812); “The Charter of the Rector and Inhabitants of the City of New-York; Communion of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New-York: Commonly Called the Charter of Trinity Church, with Notes by an Episcopalian of the City of New-York” (New York, 1813); A Friend to Truth [John Henry Hobart], “The Charter of the Corporation of Trinity Church Defended against the Attacks of a Late Pamphlet” (New York, 1813); Hieronymous, “Serious Thoughts on a Late Administration of Episcopal Orders, Submitted to the Calm Reflection of the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America” (New York, 1812); John Bowden, “The Essentials of Ordination Stated, in a Letter to a Friend; on the Subject of the Right Reverend Bishop Hobart's Consecration” (New York, 1812); John Henry Hobart, “A Defence of the Essentials of Ordination in Answer to a Pamphlet Entitled Serious Thoughts on a Late Administration of Episcopal Orders” (New York, 1812). These are a few examples; pamphlets flooded the presses between 1811 and 1813.
9 See, for example, Dix, History of Trinity Church, 2:216–226.
10 On High Church theology, see Mullin, Robert Bruce, Episcopal Vision/American Reality: High Church Theology and Social Thought in Evangelical America (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986)Google Scholar.
11 Hobart supporters are found in Davis, “Report of the Case.”
12 Davis, “Report of the Case”; Peter Augustus Jay to John Jay, 31 January 1812, John Jay Papers, Butler Library, Columbia University; Bonomi, Patricia U., Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; Johnson, Curtis D., Islands of Holiness: Rural Religion in Upstate New York, 1790–1860 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Mullin, Episcopal Vision/American Reality.
13 Pessen, Edward, Riches, Class, and Power: America before the Civil War ([1973] reprint, New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1990), 320–322Google Scholar; Fischer, David Hackett, The Revolution of American Conservatism: The Federalist Party in the Era of Jeffersonian Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 301Google Scholar.
14 “Resolutions Adopted at a Meeting of the Episcopalians at Mechanic Hall,” 10–12. John Henry Hobart replied to Jay in “Remarks on the Honorable John Jay's Letter, to the Reverend Cave Jones; In a Letter to a Friend” (New York, 1812). Hobart mildly rebuked Jay for commenting from afar on matters of which he had little knowledge.
15 Davis, “Report of the Case”; Peter Augustus Jay to John Jay, 31 January 1812, John Jay Papers; Dix, History of Trinity Church, 2:225–226. King's testimony may have been legalistic in part because he delivered it in writing, since by the time of the trial he was in Washington serving as a U.S. senator.
16 Wosh, Peter J., Spreading the Word: The Bible Business in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), 40Google Scholar. On benevolent societies, see Griffin, Clifford S., Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800–1865 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Foster, Charles J., An Errand of Mercy: The Evangelical United Front 1790–1837 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Walters, Ronald G., American Reformers, 1815–1860 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978)Google Scholar.
17 “Proceedings of a Meeting of the Citizens of New-York and Others, Convened in the City-Hall on the 13th of May, 1816 at the Request of the Board of Managers of the American Bible Society, with the Speeches of George Griffin and Peter A. Jay, Esquires Delivered on the Occasion” (New York, 1816), 9–10.
18 In 1809 Hobart established the Bible and Common Prayer Book Society, which distributed the standard Episcopalian church liturgy with the Bible.
19 Wosh, Spreading the Word, 121; John Henry Hobart, “An Address to Episcopalians on the Subject of the American Bible Society” (New York, 1816). The address is dated 11 May 1816.
20 An Episcopalian [William Jay], “An Answer to Bishop Hobart's Pastoral Letter, on the Subject of Bible and Common Prayer-Book Societies, by an Episcopalian” (New York, 1815).
21 For an example of the exchanges, see William Jay, “A Reply to a Second Letter to the Author; from the Right Rev. Bishop Hobart, with Remarks on His Hostility to Bible Societies with His Mode of Defending It; and Also on His Vindication of the Reverend Mr. Norris's Late Pamphlet” (New York, 1823). High Churchman Morgan Dix declared Hobart the clear winner in Dix, History of Trinity Church, 3:5–6; E. Clowes Chorley argued that Jay struck a lasting blow for freedom of conscience in Men and Movements in the American Episcopal Church ([1946] reprint, Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1961), 281–282.
22 Historians who have noted this elite participation in benevolent societies have attributed the efforts at evangelization as attempts to control unruly lower orders. The classic formulations of this social control interpretation are found in Foster, Errand of Mercy, and Griffin, Their Brothers' Keepers.
23 Jay, John, The Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, vol. 4, ed. Johnston, Henry P. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1893), 459–461Google Scholar. Due to poor health, John Jay attended few meetings and issued his annual presidential addresses in absentia.
24 A list of active ABS board members is found in Wosh, Spreading the Word, 38. Pewholders and vestrymen at Trinity can be found in Trinity Church Pew Rents before 1828, Trinity Church Archives, and Berrian, Historical Sketch, 358–365. I am also indebted to Kristen Miller, archivist at the American Bible Society archives, for compiling a list of early ABS board members that I used to supplement Wosh's list.
25 Stevens, Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, 183–184.
26 Ibid. On the social composition of John Street relative to its Methodist neighbors, see Kyle T. Bulthuis, “Four Steeples over the City Streets: Trinity Episcopal, St. Philip's Episcopal, John Street Methodist, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches in New York City, 1760–1840” (Ph.D. diss, University of California, Davis, 2007), chapters 2 and 3.
27 Stevens, Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, 185–186.
28 Ibid., 225. The issue of pew rents was an old one among Methodists generally and in New York City in particular, for by 1796 some members feared John Street would implement pews and rents. See Seaman, Samuel A., Annals of New York Methodism, Being a History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the City of New York from a.d. 1766 to a.d. 1890 (New York, 1892), 137Google Scholar.
29 Seaman, Annals of New York Methodism, 215–231.
30 Ibid.; Stilwell, Samuel, Historical Sketches of the Rise and Progress of the Methodist Society, in the City of New-York (New York, 1821)Google Scholar. See also Sutton, William R., Journeymen for Jesus: Evangelical Artisans Confront Capitalism in Jacksonian Baltimore (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press), 75–78Google Scholar.
31 Also prominent in the group was Samuel Stilwell, William's uncle and a longtime Methodist layman.
32 Stilwell, Historical Sketches, 11–12.
33 Several class leaders' names were crossed out in the 1819 class lists. Most of these were Stilwellite (they appeared in Stilwellite publications or on the Methodist Society's new charter), so I assumed that x's by names indicated defection. The story of the returning defectors is found in Stevens, Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, 234–235. Bangs estimated that 70 members and three class leaders returned to the mother church. I found just over 30 names listed together in the probationer lists, returning with three former Stilwellite class leaders. Although many other names are listed as probationers under the three Stilwellite leader names, they are placed singly or in small groups in the lists; each individual's entrance into the church may therefore not have reflected status as a former Stilwellite but rather as a new probationary member. I compiled the list determined to err on the side of caution.
34 Members 1819; Probationers 1822–1832; Stewards, Exhorters, Leaders, Local Preachers 1818–1835; in Methodist Episcopal Church Records, vols. 75, 76, 79, respectively, New York Public Library. Trustees' names are available in Office of the County Clerk, New York County, Religious Incorporations 1784–1836 vol. 1, New York Municipal Archives. Longworth's American Almanac, New-York Register, and City Directory, for the Forty Fourth Year of American Independence (New York, 1819); Longworth's New York Directory, for the Forty Seventh Year of American Independence (New York, 1822).
35 William Stilwell, the group's minister, attended John Street in the 1810s. Forsyth had been called the Bowery chapel in its first years. The city's second chapel, its working-class composition is explained in Bulthuis, “Four Steeples,” ch. 2. Methodist Episcopal Church Records, vols. 75, 76, 79, New York Public Library; Longworth's New-York Directory, 1819, and Longworth's New-York Directory, 1822. On church locations and founding dates, see Seaman, Annals of New York Methodism, 110, 152, 155, 180–181.
36 Trials were to be held by three, five, or seven members of the same sex as the disputants.
37 Discipline of the Methodist Society, 1, 13; Sutton, Journeymen for Jesus, 78. That men and women entered classes together is deduced from the list of the defecting Stilwellites, who entered mixed-sex classes in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
38 Stilwell, Historical Sketches, 9.
39 Seaman, Annals of New York Methodism, 215–231; Friendly Visitor vol. I (1825); Journal of Francis Asbury, 3:265. The Friendly Visitor was William Stilwell's attempt to reach a wider audience with nondenominational stories of moral instruction and uplift.
40 Sutton, Journeymen for Jesus, 94.
41 Seaman, Annals of New York Methodism, 215–231; Stevens, Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, 234–235.
42 Classes were intense small groups, usually sex- and race-segregated, intended for members to pray and grow spiritually. Early Methodists often identified more with classes than with specific congregations or church buildings.
43 In these years the congregation was often called the African Chapel or the Zion Chapel.
44 Rush, Short Account, 27–28. The Thompson-Scott defection must have occurred between 1810, when the two represented Mother Zion for the African Marine fund, and 1819, when Rush narrates the conflict with the Bethelites, during which Thompson weighed in as an active participant.
45 Andrews, Methodists, 321, n. 144; David Longworth, 1796 New-York City Directory; Rush, Short Account, 28.
46 The single name “Abraham,” suggesting slave status, appears in both the 1785 and 1786 class lists.
47 Methodist society class records, 1796, Methodist Episcopal Church Records, vol. 241, New York Public Library.
48 Methodist Episcopal Church Records, vol. 79, New York Public Library.
49 White, George, A Brief Account of the Life, Experience, Travels, and Gospel Labours of George White, an African (New York, 1810)Google Scholar.
50 Wheeler, B. F., The Varick Family in America, with Many Family Portraits (Mobile, Ala., 1906), 15Google Scholar; on the social status of departing blacks in 1796, see Bulthuis, “Four Steeples,” ch. 2.
51 Hamilton strongly identified with his status as a carpenter and an artisan. When neighbors sued Hamilton for the “nuisance” of working in a wooden building, thus creating a fire hazard, the court acquitted him, citing the “generality of mechanics” who faced similar circumstances. Hamilton's artisan status won an innocent verdict, trumping animosity that his neighbors directed at his race. City Hall Recorder, March 1817, recounted in Howard B. Rock, Artisans of the New Republic, 170.
52 White, Brief Account.
53 The prohibition extended to Asbury, Zion's daughter chapel: Rush, Short Account, 32–33. On this and the following events, see also George, Carol V. R., Segregated Sabbaths: Richard Allen and the Emergence of Independent Black Churches 1760–1840 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 99–103Google Scholar. In Journeymen for Jesus, 75–77, Sutton identifies the African Methodists as a branch of Stilwell's group. However, evidence indicates the Zionites made autonomous decisions apart from Stilwell and the plebeian church.
54 Rush, Short Account, 34–35.
55 Ibid., 35–37.
56 Ibid., 33, 39. Rush notes that the Mott Street Bethel Church was consecrated on 23 July 1820, the week after Stilwell approached the Zionites. Varick opened the service for Allen “the second or third Sunday night” after the consecration. Facing white confiscation of black church property, early opposition to Allen briefly faded.
57 Rush, Short Account, 39. The first black Episcopal Church in America formed this way when Philadelphia Episcopalians induced former Methodist Absalom Jones to form a church under white authority. Thompson's hesitation also paralleled Philadelphia, for Allen rejected Episcopalian overtures, preferring to remain Methodist.
58 Hobart was out of town; his ally (and ex-Methodist) Thomas Lyell suggested that the Zionites turn to Stilwell.
59 Rush, Short Account, 45, 78.
60 In Journeymen for Jesus, Sutton argues a common identity between the Stilwellites and African Methodists.
61 Rush, Short Account, 34; quote on 46.
62 On Williams and the John Street blacks, see Bulthuis, “Four Steeples,” ch. 3.