m<[ o V ^*^°x. „.-.*- ^.•^"•/ *^^'.?^\/ %*^-\*° .*' -'Mi' \/ •«• %/ -^"t *--^/ • ^ o5^^ ^x>^ ' "i'^ ^'} ei» * ^>syS->" • <L^ .-^'' r> * <? . * C (I o V ,0^ •^'^.-J^ .. V Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2008 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/newyorkgenealog18newy .^^ THE NEW YORK GENEA^ii*li^ND Biographical -^7 DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF AMERICAN GENEALOGY AND BIOGRAPHY. ISSUED QUARTERLY. VOLUME XVIII., 1887. 1WASHIN6V PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY MoTT Memorial Hall, No. 64 Madison Avenue, NEW YORK CITY. PUBLICATION COMMITTEE: Rev. BEVERLEY R. BETTS, Chairman. Dr. SAMUEL S, PURPLE. Gen. JAS. GRANT WILSON, ex-officio. Mr. CHARLES B. MOORE. 4122 Press of J. J. Little & Co. , Astor Place, New York. / ) . J:m}7/zrpif\ IE IRDSKT I^E^. SARfflOJEL !p[a©^®®STjl FIRST 3ISEOP OF SEW-YOSK. Original Portrait in. dve aosaessiou of DT Jain es R.Chi1toii THE NEW YORK Vol. XVIII. NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1887. No. i. SAMUEL PROVOOST, FIRST BISHOP OF NEW YORK.* AN ADDRESS TO THE GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. By Gen. Ja.s. Grant Wilson. [With a Portrait of BishoJ> Provoost.) Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : " It is a pleasing fancy which the elder Disraeli has preserved, somewhere, in amber, that portrait-painting had its origin in the inventive fondness of a girl, who traced upon the wall the iirofile of her sleeping lover. It was an outline merely, but love could always fill it up and make it live. It is the most that I can hope to do for my dear, dead brother. But how many there are—the world-wide circle of his friends, his admiring diocese, his attached clergy, the immediate inmates of his heart, the loved ones of his hearth—from whose informing breath it will take life, reality, and beauty." These beautiful words are borrowed from Bishop Doane, of New Jersey, who used them as an introductory paragraph in a memorial of one of Bishop Pro- voost's successors, Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright. They are also, in a measure, suitable for the same purpose on this occasion. The Provoosts are of Huguenot origin, and first settled in the New World in the year 1638. They came from Normandy, where the name may be seen in Rouen and elseyvhere, at this day, in the various forms of Prevot, Pre- vort, Prevost, and Provost. It is unnecessary for me to enter upon the genealogy of this ancient New York family, as that has already been done by Edwin R. Purple, in the sixth volume of the Society's quarterly publica- tion, The Record. John Provoost, fourth in descent from David, the first settler, and father of the future bishop, was a wealthy merchant, and for many years one of the Governors of King's College.f His wife, Eve, was a daughter of Harmanus Rutgers. Samuel was their eldest son. He was born in the city of New York, February 26, 1742, and was one of the seven graduates of King's (now Columbia) College at its first commencement, *A portion of this address appeared in The Centennial History of tlie Protestant Episcopal Church of the Diocese of Ne.v York, 17S5-1SS5. New York, 1SS6. f tlis cousin David was known as " Ready-money Provoost," from his gi-eat wealtl and willingness to use it promptly in loans and speculation. His widow married agair and became the mother of General William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. Bishop New York. [Jan., 2 Samuel Frovoost, First of of his class. in 1758, carrying off the honors, although the youngest but one Bloomer Judge Isaac Ogden, of the His classmates were the Rev. Joshua ; Jost-ph Reade, of New Jersey, Master in Supreme Court of Canada ; lieutenant-colonel in the British army ; Col- Chancery ; Rudolph Ritzema, onel PhiHp Van Cortlandt, of the American service, and Samuel Ver- planck, one of the (Governors of King's College. Among others who soon after were graduated at Provoost's alma mater, and who at a later period all became his personal friends, were Alexander Hamilton, Egbert Benson, Morris. John Jay, Robert R. Livingston, Henry Rutgers, and Gouverneur In the summer of 1761 young Provoost sailed for England, and in No- vember of the same year entered St. Peter's College, Cambridge. He soon became a favorite with the master, Dr. Edmund Law, afterward Bishop of Carlisle, and the father of Lord EUenborough, and two English bishops. John Provoost, being an opulent merchant, his son enjoyed, in addition to a liberal allowance, the advantage of an expensive tutor in the person of Dr. John Jebb, a man of profound learning, and a zealous advocate of civil and religious liberty, with whom he corresponded till the doctor's death in 1786. in February, 1766, Mr. Provoost was adr)iitted to the order of dea- con at the Chapel Royal of St. James' Palace, Westminster, by Dr. Richard Terrick, Bishop of London. During the month of March he was ordained, at the King's Chapel, Whitehall, by Dr. Edmund Kean, Bishop of Chester. In St. Mary's Church, Cambridge, he married, on June 8th of the same year (1766), Maria, daughter of Thomas Bousfield, a rich Irish banker, re- siding on his beautiful estate of Lake Lands, near Cork, and the sister of his favorite classmate. Provoost's brother-in law, Benjamin Bousfield, afterward a member of the Irish Parliament, wrote an able reply to Ed- mund Burke's celebrated work on the French Revolution, which was pub- lished in London in 1791. The young clergyman with his attractive and accomplished wife sailed in September for New York, and in December he became an assistant minister of Trinity Parish, which then embraced Sf. George's and St. Paul's, the Rev. Samuel Auchmuty, rector, the Rev. John Ogilvie and the Rev. Charles Inglis, assistant ministers. During the summer of 1769 Mr. and Mrs. Provoost visited Mrs. Bousfield and her son on her estate in Ireland, and spent several months in England, and on the Continent. Some time previous to the commencement of the Revolutionary War Mr. Provoost's connection with Trinity Church was dissolved. Dr. Ber- rian and other writers are wrong in giving the year 1770 as the date of this event. From indorsements on MS. sermons submitted to the speaker it appears that Provoost was preaching regulaily in the parish church and chapels as late as the month of December, 1771. It is probable that the connection was continued beyond this date, possibly as late as the begin- ning of 1774. The reasons assigned for the severance of this connection were— first, that a portion of the congregation charged him with not being sufficiently evangelical in his jireaching ; and, second, that his patriotic views of the then approaching contest with the mother country were not in accord with those of a majority of the parish. Before the spring of 1774 Mr. Provoost purchased a small place in Dutchess (now Columbia) County, adjacent to the estate of his friends, Walter and Robert Cambridge Living- ston, who had been fellow-students with him in the English University, and removed there with his family. At East Camp, as his rural retreat was called, the patriot preacher occupied himself with literary pursuits !7. Samuel Provoosf, First Bishop of New York. atid with the cultivation of his farm and garden. He was an ardent dis- cii)le of the Swedish Linnaeus, and he possessed, for that period, a large and vahiable library. Provoost was, perhaps, the earliest of American biblio- l>hiles. Among his beloved books were several magnificent Baskerville?, numerous volumes of sermons, and other writings of English bishops, including the scarce octavo edition of the poems of the eccentric Richard rare Vene- Corbet, of whom Provoost related many anmsing anecdotes ; a tian illustrated Dante of 1547; Rapin's ^//t,--/.?;/^, in five noble folios; a collection oi America?.ia and Elzeviriana, and not a few incunabula, includ- ing a Sweynheym and Pannartz imjirint of 1470.* These were chiefly purchased while a student at Cambridge, and contained his armorial book- plate, witii his name engraved, Sanuiel Provost. It was not until 1769 that he adopted the additional letter which appears in his later book-plate and sig- natures. While in the enjoyment of his books and flowers and farm, and finding happiness in the society of his growing family and his friends, the Livingstons, and far away from " the clangor of resounding arms," Mr. Provoost occasion- ally filled the pulpits of some of the churches then existing in that part of the diocese—at Albany, Catskill, Hudson, and Ponghkeepsie. At the latter place he preached the con- secration sermon at Christ Church, the Rev. John Beards- ley, rector, on Christmas Day, 1774. In the following year, among his literary recreations was the translation of favorite hymns in Latin, French, German, and Italian ; also the preparation of an exhaustive index to the elaborate " Historia Plantarum" of John Baushin, whom he styles the "prince of botanists" on a fly-leaf of the first volume of this work, purchased while at Cambridge University in 1766. To the year 1776 belong the passages appended below, which are written on the last leaf of a sermon that would seem to have been delivered in St. " distress, Peter's Church, Albany : In times of impending Calamity and when the liberties of America are imminently endangered by the secret machinations and open assaults of an insidious and vindictive administra- tion, it becomes the indispensable duty of these hitherto free and hajipy * The author of this address is fortunate in the possession of two of Bishop Benjamin Moore's Sermons, printed by Hugh Gaine, at the Bible, in Hanover Square, in 1792-3, bound together, from the library of Bishop Provoost, and containing his book-plate as seen on this page.