with spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our ghost
used to heave deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlour, as
if he were turning over a sermon in the long upper entry,--where,
nevertheless, he was invisible in spite of the brilliant moonshine that
fell through the eastern window. Not improbably he wished me to edit
and publish a selection from a chest full of manuscript discourses that
stood in the garret. Once, while Hilliard and other friends sat talking
with us in the twilight, there came a rustling noise as of a minister’s
silk gown, sweeping through the very midst of the company so closely
as almost to brush against the chairs. Still there was nothing visible.
A yet stranger business was that of a ghostly servant maid, who used to
be heard in the kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding coffee, cooking,
ironing,--performing, in short, all kinds of domestic labour,--although
no traces of anything accomplished could be detected the next morning.
Some neglected duty of her servitude--some ill-starched ministerial
band--disturbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her at work
without any wages.
But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor’s library
was stored in the garret--no unfit receptacle indeed for such dreary
trash as comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books would
have been worth nothing at an auction. In this venerable garret,
however, they possessed an interest, quite apart from their literary
value, as heirlooms, many of which had been transmitted down through
a series of consecrated hands from the days of the mighty Puritan
divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in faded ink
on some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations
or interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible
shorthand, perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom. The
world will never be the better for it. A few of the books were Latin
folios, written by Catholic authors; others demolished Papistry, as
with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. A dissertation on the Book of
Job--which only Job himself could have had patience to read--filled
at least a score of small thickset quartos, at the rate of two or
three volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio body of
divinity--too corpulent a body, it might be feared, to comprehend the
spiritual element of religion. Volumes of this form dated back two
hundred years or more, and were generally bound in black leather,
exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to
books of enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to
be carried in the large waistcoat pockets of old times,--diminutive,
but as black as their bulkier brethren, and abundantly infused with
Greek and Latin quotations. These little old volumes impressed me as if
they had been intended for very large ones, but had been unfortunately
blighted at an early stage of their growth. The rain pattered upon the
roof and the sky gloomed through the dusty garret windows, while I
burrowed among these venerable books in search of any living thought
which should burn like a coal of fire, or glow like an inextinguishable
gem, beneath the dead trumpery that had long hidden it.
By and by, in a little time, the outward world puts on a drear
austerity. On some October morning there is a heavy hoar-frost on the
grass and along the tops of the fences; and at sunrise the leaves
fall from the trees of our avenue without a breath of wind, quietly
descending by their own weight. All summer long they have murmured like
the noise of waters; they have roared loudly while the branches were
wrestling with the thunder gust; they have made music both glad and
solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I paced
to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they can only
rustle under my feet. Henceforth the grey parsonage begins to assume
a larger importance, and draws to its fireside,--for the abomination
of the air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather,--draws closer
and closer to its fireside the vagrant impulses that had gone wandering
about during the summer.
When summer was dead and buried the Old Manse became as lonely as a
hermitage. Not that ever--in my time at least--it had been thronged
with company; but, at no rare intervals, we welcomed some friend out
of the dusty glare and tumult of the world, and rejoiced to share with
him the transparent obscurity that was floating over us. In one respect
our precincts were like the Enchanted Ground through which the pilgrim
travelled on his way to the Celestial City! The guests, each and all,
felt a slumberous influence upon them; they fell asleep in chairs, or
took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, or were seen stretched among
the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily through the boughs.
They could not have paid a more acceptable compliment to my abode, nor
to my own qualities as a host. I held it as a proof that they left
their cares behind them as they passed between the stone gateposts at
the entrance of our avenue, and that the so powerful opiate was the
abundance of peace and quiet within and all around us. Others could
give them pleasure and amusement or instruction--these could be picked
up anywhere; but it was for me to give them rest--rest in a life of
trouble.[13]
THE JAMESTOWN TOWER
CHARLES FREDERICK STANSBURY
Since the last decade of the Seventeenth Century a dismantled church
tower has stood on Jamestown Island in Virginia, a relic of the
settlement which defined the destiny of our country and a remnant of
the first Episcopal church in America. Fire, the destruction of the
elements, and decay have removed all that was James’ Fort save this
remnant to liberty and religion. Only students of history knew this
tower a year ago--now it has been brought into the prominence it
deserves.
Having decided that the three hundredth anniversary of the real birth
of the nation deserved adequate commemoration, the United States
has invited all the world to share in a celebration to be held in
1907 on Hampton Roads and its shores--an apotheosis of the small
but determining village which was thirty miles distant and now is
represented only by a mouldy tower.
[Illustration: THE JAMESTOWN TOWER, JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA]
Speaking eloquently of the period which marked the inception of this
historic building, former Governor of Virginia, William E. Cameron
said: “The vista of years which stretches backwards into the dim
distance of the Sixteenth Century presents an imposing avenue of
events and deeds. Momentous occurrences loom up as era markers in the
country’s progress some of which are spectacularly brilliant, and
yet there is perhaps no event of all the long line which completely
ranks with the first act in the country’s drama.”
At the farther end of the avenue one may see the ruined and dismantled
tower of the Jamestown church, all that is left to mark the spot where
sufferings were endured and deeds performed outranking the wildest
imaginings of poet or romancer.
Although the Jamestown tower is the pathetic ruin of Columbia’s oldest
church, it does not represent the earliest effort by English speaking
people to plant Christianity in this part of the world. We read that in
the year 1588, Sir Walter Raleigh gave 100 Pounds for the propagation
of Christianity in Virginia, “the glorie of God, and the saving of the
soules of the poor and blinded infidels.” Yet it was not until 1607
that the first church was erected at Jamestown. Its humble beginning
has been nowhere better described than by Captain John Smith in a
pamphlet published in 1631, some years after his history of Virginia,
in which he says:
“When I first went to Virginia, I well remember, we did hang an awning
(which is an old sail) to three or four trees, to shadow us from the
sun; our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, till we
cut planks, our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighbouring trees;
in foul weather we shifted into an old rotten tent, for we had few
better, and this came by way of adventure for new. This was our church
till we built a homely thing like a barn, set upon crotchetts, covered
with rafts, sedge and earth, so was also the walls. The best of our
houses were of the like curiosity but the most part far much worse
workmanship, that could neither well defend wind nor rain, yet we held
daily Common Prayer morning and evening, every Sunday two sermons, and
every three months the holy communion till our minister died, (the Rev.
Mr. Hunt) but (after that) our prayers daily with a homily on Sundays,
we continued two or three years after, till more preachers came.”
Captain Smith says further that the log church first erected was
burned down the following winter with many other houses. Mr. Hunt lost
all his books and everything else but the clothes on his back. This
first Episcopal minister in the new world appears to have been a man
of noble character and fine attainments. Although his sufferings were
almost incredible, “yet none ever saw him repine; upon any alarm he
was as ready at defense as any, and till he could not speak he never
ceased to his utmost to animate us constantly to persist,--whose soul,
questionless, is with God.”
Nor must we forget that the first legislative body in America, to which
eleven boroughs sent burgesses, was opened in the Jamestown church with
prayer by Mr. Bucke who succeeded Mr. Hunt. Laws were now superseded
by others of a different character and the church of England more
formally established than ever before. From Hening’s statutes at large
we learn that there was enacted by the General Assembly in 1623, 1.
That there shall be in every plantation where the people use to meete
for the worship of God, a house or roome sequestered for that purpose
and not to be for any temporal use whatsoever, and a place empaled in,
sequestered only to the buryal of the dead.
2. That whosoever shall absent himselfe from divine service any Sunday
without an allowable excuse shall forfeit a pound of tobacco, and he
that absenteth himselfe a month shall forfeit 50 pounds of tobacco.
3. That there be an uniformity in our church as neere as may be to the
cannons in England; both in substance and circumstances, and that all
persons yield readie obedience unto them under paine of censure.
The fourth statute refers to holidays and the fifth to a subject that
has been often discussed, namely: that no minister be absent from his
church above two months in all the yeare upon penalty of forfeiting
halfe his means, and whosoever shall absent above fowre months in the
year shall forfeit his whole means and cure.
The sixth statute refers to slander and provides
That whosoever shall disparage a minister without bringing sufficient
proofe to justify his reports whereby the minds of his parishioners
may be alienated from him, and his ministry prove the less effectual
by their prejudication, shall not only pay 500 lb. weight of tobacco
but also aske the minister so wronged forgiveness publicly in the
congregation.
In the Jamestown church of her period Pocahontas was doubtless baptized
in the Christian faith, taking the name of Rebecca. Here, also the
famous Indian girl was married to John Rolfe before proceeding to
England where her too early death occurred.
There is some conflict of opinion concerning the date of the erection
of the church now represented by the picturesque tower of Jamestown.
It has been affirmed that the ruined tower is what is left of the
church that was destroyed in Bacon’s rebellion in 1676. Bishop Meade
of Virginia, who visited the ruins in 1856, gives the history of
the succession of the Jamestown churches as follows:--The first as
described by Captain Smith, was made of the awning or old sails,
taken from vessels, and fastened to trees. The second was a very
plain log building, which was burned down in the second or third year
of the colony during the ministry of Mr. Hunt. The third was larger
and better, probably of wood, built during the presidency of Captain
Smith, repaired and adorned by Lord De la War when he arrived in
1611. The dimensions were twenty-four feet by sixty. The chancel or
_quoir_ was large enough to hold the Governor, the council and
other officers of state. In this structure, doubtless, was held the
first legislative session in 1619. Bishop Meade is of the opinion that
this was the structure that was burned down during the Bacon rebellion.
In opposition to the theory that the present are the ruins of the old
church which was burned in the rebellion, he places the fact that the
dimensions of the church which Smith built and Lord De la War repaired
were different from the one whose ruins are now seen. The dimensions
of the former were twenty-four by sixty; of the latter twenty-eight by
fifty-six feet. He claims that other circumstances render it almost
certain that another church had been built since the destruction of the
one by Bacon. He points out the fact that in 1733 a silver font, still
in existence was presented to it by two members of the Ambler family
and adds that it surely would not have been presented to the ruins
of a deserted church. He concludes, therefore, that the ruined tower
which we now behold represents the remains of a church put up since
the rebellion and his contention is certainly logical. Howe’s outline
history of Virginia takes the ground that previous to 1617, or ten
years after the first settlement of Jamestown there were two churches
destroyed. The tower now standing may have belonged to the second
church and survived its destruction. It could not have been part of the
first, for that “cost no more than 50 Pounds”; or it may have been the
tower of a third. We can only surmise that the tower has been standing
upwards of three hundred years.
Bishop Meade has alluded to the fact that for several years after the
death of Mr. Hunt the colony was without a minister. This is referred
to in “A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colony in Virginia,”
etc., published by the council in England in 1610 as one of the
causes which had provoked God to visit the plantation with those dire
calamities that beset it at the time that Lord De la War was first sent
out as Governor for life.
An ardent task must have been that of the first ministers of the
Jamestown church. A part of the religious services enjoined were as
follows: On week days, early in the morning, the captain sent for
tools, in the place of arms where “the sergeant-major, or captain
of the watch, upon their knees made public and faithful prayers to
Almighty God for his blessing and protection to attend them in their
business for the whole day after succeeding.” The men were divided
into gangs who worked on alternate days. The gang for the day was then
delivered to the maisters and overseers of the work appointed, who kept
them at labour until nine or ten o’clock; then, at the beat of the
drum, they were marched to the church to hear divine service. After
dinner, and rest till two or three o’clock, at the beat of the drum the
captain drew them forth to the place of arms, to be thence taken to
their work till five or six o’clock, when, at beat of drum, they were
again marched to the church to evening prayer: they were then dismissed.
The ruined graveyard, or “place impaled in, sequestered only to the
buryal of the dead,” at base of the Jamestown tower is not without
interest. An inscription records the fact that “Here lyeth the body of
the Rev. John Gough, late minister of this place, who departed this
life, January 15, 1683–4, and waits in hopes of a joyful reunion.”
There are tombstones and fragments of such, that record the deaths of
Philip Ludwell and Sarah his wife, of Ursula Beverly, wife of Robert
Beverly and daughter of William Byrd. There are likewise the tombs of
Edward Jacqueline, Jacqueline Ambler, B. Harrison and Mrs. Edwards.
There were in addition two tombs interestingly described by Bishop
Meade as he saw them in 1856. They were those of Commissary Blair and
Mrs. Blair. The tombs were placed side by side and were very heavy and
strong. The platform, sides, and ends were of white freestone and the
interior filled with bricks, well cemented. The top slab, on which
the inscriptions were made, were of thick dark iron stone, or black
marble. A sycamore-shoot sprung up between the graves and grew to be a
large tree. In its growth it embraced, on one end and on the top the
tomb of Mrs. Blair, one third of which lay embedded in the body of the
tree and held immovable. All the interior, consisting of brick, and two
of the side stones, had been entirely forced out of their places by the
tree and lay scattered around while the dark iron-stone slab was held
in the air three feet above the surface of the earth, fast bound by the
embrace of the body of the tree into which it had sunk between one and
two feet, the inscription being only partially legible. On the other
side the whole tomb of Commissary Blair had been forced away from its
place by the roots and body of the tree and was broken to pieces in all
its parts.
Three hundred years have come and gone since the seed from which has
grown English speaking America was planted on the spot where stands the
old Jamestown tower.
The page in our History relating to it is fraught with perennial
interest. In picturesqueness it is unsurpassed. The romantic story of
Pocohontas, the grandeur of the character and attainments of Captain
John Smith which grows brighter with the passing centuries and the
almost incredible sufferings of the early settlers, combine to make a
story the fascination of which is not decreased by its sadness. The
crumbling tower makes a powerful appeal to the imagination such as
inspired the British Spy to exclaim:
“Whence arises the irrepressible reverence and tender affection
with which I look at this broken steeple? Is it that my soul, by
a secret, subtle process, invests the mouldering ruin with her own
powers; imagines it a fellow being; a venerable old man, a Nestor or
an Ossian, who has witnessed and survived the ravages of successive
generations, the companion of his youth and of his maturity, and now
mourns his own solitary and desolate condition, and hails their spirits
in every passing cloud? Whatever may be the cause, as I look at it, I
feel my soul drawn forward as by the cords of gentlest sympathy and
involuntarily open my lips to offer consolation to the drooping pile.”
It seems almost anti-climatic to be obliged to record the fact that
the Society for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities is arresting
the hand of Time and taking measures to preserve this famous ruin
for future generations. In the process of so doing the Society has
unearthed much that is of interest to the historian of the subject. It
is not therefore as literally true as it appeared to be when John Esten
Cooke said that at present nothing remains of this famous settlement
“but the ruins of a church tower covered with ivy and some old
tombstones. The tower is crumbling year by year and the roots of trees
have cracked the slabs making great rifts across the names of the old
Armingers and Honourables. The place is desolate with its washing waves
and flitting sea fowl, but possesses a singular attraction. It is one
of the few localities which recall the first years of American history:
but it will not recall them much longer. Every distinctive feature of
the spot is slowly disappearing. The river encroaches year by year, and
the ground occupied by the original huts is already submerged.”
Three hundred years, as pointed out by Congressman Towne, seems a
long time as we speak the words; yet in the life of nations it is but
a little while. There are while this is being written five members
of the House of Representatives that could clasp hands and unite the
settlement of Jamestown with its proposed celebration in 1907. The
present Senators from two of the states in the Union could compass the
interval with ten years to spare.
Brief period through three centuries appear on the page of history, the
disintegrating ruin standing on Jamestown Island as the isolated emblem
of the nation’s birth, accentuates the immutable law of material change
whereby both humble and gorgeous monuments reared by the hand of man
“Shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wrack behind.”
NASSAU HALL, PRINCETON
Princeton Univerity, once known as the College of New Jersey, was
founded by charter in 1746, under the auspices of the Presbyterian
Synod of New York, which at that time included many Presbyterian
churches of New Jersey. The college was opened in Elizabethtown in
1847, but was soon removed to Newark, and, in 1757, to Princeton, where
a large building had been erected and named Nassau Hall in honour of
King William III. of England, who was of the House of Nassau.
Nassau Hall has had an interesting history. During a part of the
Revolutionary War, it was used by both American and British soldiers
as a barrack and hospital, and during the Battle of Princeton (Jan. 3,
1777), the British troops made a stand within its walls until they were
driven out by Washington’s advance. In 1783, the Continental Congress
met in it, and in company with General Washington, attended the
commencement of that year. At this time General Washington presented
the trustees with fifty guineas to aid in repairing the damages caused
by the war; and the money was appropriated for a full length portrait
of General Washington, painted by the elder Peale, to replace the
portrait of George III., which a cannon ball had ruined. Washington’s
portrait was placed in the original gilt frame. Nassau Hall was burned
in 1802 and again in 1855.
[Illustration: NASSAU HALL, PRINCETON]
Many of the buildings suffered during the Revolution, and much trouble
was found to raise sufficient funds to repair them; but, as time
wore on, the college revived and its income increased. The first
president was the Rev. Jonathan Dickinson; the second, the Rev. Aaron
Burr (father of the famous Aaron Burr); the third, Jonathan Edwards;
and the sixth, Dr. Witherspoon, a member of the Continental Congress
and a Signer of the Declaration of Independence.
With a few exceptions, the buildings, numbering forty-two, are grouped
around Nassau Hall. They are built, for the most part, of stone, and
are situated in the midst of beautiful grounds, composed of hills,
meadows and woodlands and avenues of tall elms. One of the most
conspicuous of these is known as “McCosh’s Walk,” named for Dr. James
McCosh, who came from Queen’s College, Belfast, Ireland, to become the
president, a post which he held from 1868 to 1888.
Among the most important buildings are the Library, Marquand Chapel,
Witherspoon Hall, Blair Hall, Alexander Hall, the John C. Green School
of Science, Dickinson Hall, Murray Hall, Edwards Hall, Reunion Hall,
Chancellor Green Library, Biological Laboratory and the Gymnasium.
There are also several fine museums and collections of pottery,
antiquities, geology and archæology.
The Princeton Theological Seminary associated with the college, was
organized in 1812 and chartered in 1822.
Princeton celebrated its sesqui-centennial in October, 1896, and on
October 22, 1896, President Patton announced its change of name to
Princeton University by the authority of the legislature.
CASTLE GARDEN, NEW YORK
ESTHER SINGLETON
In 1814, an important mass meeting was held at the City Hall to
consider the best means of defending New York in case the British army
came northward; and in this year among the other defences erected was
that of Fort Clinton. The construction of this fort out on the rocks
beyond the Battery was watched with much patriotic interest, and it
is said that one New York lady of high social position became so
enthusiastic that she trundled a wheelbarrow full of earth with her
own fair hands from Trinity Churchyard to the Battery. Whether or not
she despoiled the grave of one of her forefathers for this purpose,
tradition is silent.