Excerpt from A Retrospect of Fifty Years: A Discourse
New York and Brooklyn were then much smaller cities than they now are, and much further away for all practical purposes. Staten Island was a rural suburb occupied mainly by people of wealth, and culture; and was some thing of a summer resort for people from the Southland elsewhere. In the summer of 18 52 there were already existing upon the island two very young churches, neither of them having as yet a house of worship, although both seem to have had a goodly number of supporters, and to have been sanguine of planting here what they always referred to as Liberal Christian Religion. The word Unitarian was seldom used in their reports. The title page of the oldest record book in our possession reads as follows: Records of the Churches established on Staten Island for the propagation of Liberal Christianity, viz., The United Independent Christian Church at Stapleton ad. 1851. The Congregational Church of the Evangel ists at New Brighton ad. 1851. The above were unitedinto one society April 2oth 18 52, and incorporated Oct. 24th 1852 as the Church of the Redeemer. It is evident that the record of the early business meetings, and the subscription papers of both societies were carefully copied into the same book at a later date by a faithful hand, probably that of Mr. G. A. Ward, the first clerk of the united church: at all events, to its possessor, whoever he may have been, you and I are greatly indebted to-day It is hard to decide from the early records whether there was in the beginning a spirit of rivalry between the liberal Christians of the North and the South shore, as they then called themselves. I am inclined to infer that at first there was, but, if so, that rivalry was carried on in the most gentlemanly and respectful manner, and lasted something less than a year. It is evident that the Rev. Jotark man, m.a., who was the minister of both churches, preaching on alternate Sundays at the Lyceum in Staple ton, and in Belmont Hall, New Brighton, was influential in bringing about that union of forces which was effected in the early autumn of 1852.
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