Religious History

Beaten & Burned Out: Welsh Anti-Slavery Hero Robert Everett

September 14, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Rev. Robert Everett was a Welsh-American who came to Oneida County, NY in 1823 from Wales. He very quickly became involved in the anti-slavery movement. In 1835, Utica was selected as the site for the first New York State Anti-Slavery Convention.

The meeting was broken up by an angry mob. From Utica Everett was forced to move several times as his church services were often interrupted by people who continued to support slavery. He was physically assaulted while preaching and had his horse injured and home burned down by pro-slavery activists. [Read more…] about Beaten & Burned Out: Welsh Anti-Slavery Hero Robert Everett

Lake George Millionaires and Ministers

August 29, 2022 by Anthony F. Hall Leave a Comment

I spent my last year of high school at a day school in Brooklyn Heights named Saint Ann’s. Across the street was the church with which the school was loosely affiliated – the Church of Saint Ann and the Holy Trinity.

I don’t think I entered the grand though deteriorating Gothic Revival church for any reason other than to take part in my class’s graduation ceremonies – though I later came to know it as a peerless concert venue. (In some circles, it’s best known as the hall where an unknown Jeff Buckley launched his tragically short career with a tribute to his late father, the folk singer Tim Buckley.)

I wish I had found reasons to visit the church more often. I would have introduced myself to its assisting priest, the Rev. W. Howard Melish, a leftist activist who had written articles for the Daily Worker, the newspaper edited by my father in the 1940s and 50s.

And we could have talked about Lake George. [Read more…] about Lake George Millionaires and Ministers

The 19th Century Hunt for New York’s Dutch History

August 23, 2022 by Jaap Jacobs Leave a Comment

Over the centuries, numerous American visitors to the Netherlands produced travel accounts, filled with their fresh insights and observations as they viewed the familiar from a foreigner’s perspective. John Romeyn Brodhead is no exception, but he was not a regular tourist. He was, or rather became, a man with a mission, hunting for American history in Dutch archives. [Read more…] about The 19th Century Hunt for New York’s Dutch History

Ralph Waldo Emerson in the Capital District in 1852

August 21, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Throughout the 1840s, members of the commercial and professional classes of New York’s Capital Region cities established “Young Men’s Associations,” loosely based upon the Young Men’s Christian Association recently founded in England. In Schenectady, ten prominent men formed their own Young Men’s Association in an attempt to bring culture to their growing city of 10,000.

Although the Association required an annual fee of $2, members and ladies were allowed to attend the lectures for free. The entrance fee for men who were not members was 25 cents. “The association is the only place in our city, aside from the pulpits, where you are able to find any discoursing,” announced its founders in the Schenectady Reflector. “It is the only place where an amusement of a miscellaneous nature is to be found…It is the only place where the clerk, the mechanic, or lawyer, can spend an hour (profitably) out of his store, workshop, or office.” [Read more…] about Ralph Waldo Emerson in the Capital District in 1852

The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton

August 10, 2022 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Andrew Porwancher, the Wick Cary Associate Professor of History at the University of Oklahoma and the Ernest May Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center, joins Liz Covart to investigate the Jewish world and upbringing of Alexander Hamilton using details from his book, The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton (Princeton, 2021). [Read more…] about The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton

Calvin Fairbank: Imprisoned 17 Years For Helping Enslaved People to Freedom

August 9, 2022 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Rev. Calvin Cornelius Fairbank was born November 3, 1816 in Pike, Wyoming County, NY. He began his academic studies at a seminary in Lima, Livingston County, NY, and became a licensed preacher in 1840. In 1842 he was ordained an elder in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he graduated Oberlin College in Ohio two years later. At Oberlin he met John Mifflin Brown (1817-1893), a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and an Underground Railroad activist.

Fairbank was a radical abolitionist who not only spoke out against slavery, but actively worked to free as many enslaved people as he could. [Read more…] about Calvin Fairbank: Imprisoned 17 Years For Helping Enslaved People to Freedom

Missions and Mission Building in New Spain

July 27, 2022 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

In this episode of Ben Franklin’s World, Brandon Bayne, an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and author of the book Missions Begin with Blood: Suffering and Salvation in the Borderlands of New Spain (Fordham, 2021) joins host Liz Covart to investigate the work of Spanish missionaries and why this missionary work was carried out by just a few religious orders, namely the Franciscans and Jesuits. [Read more…] about Missions and Mission Building in New Spain

Educating Black Children at the Williamsburg Bray School

June 29, 2022 by Liz Covart Leave a Comment

In a town as old as Williamsburg, Virginia, which was established in 1638, it’s often the case that historic buildings with interesting pasts stand unnoticed and in plain sight.

Such was the case for the building that once housed Williamsburg’s Bray School. A school founded by a group of Anglican clergymen with the express purpose of educating Black children in the ways of the Anglican faith. It was an education that included reading, possibly writing, and the Book of Common Prayer. [Read more…] about Educating Black Children at the Williamsburg Bray School

1798 Quitman Parsonage Historic Sign Installed in Rhinebeck

June 5, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Town of Rhinebeck in Dutchess County, NY celebrated the installation of a historical marker at Quitman House on May 28th.

The building served as the Parsonage for the minister serving St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, better known as the Stone Church, located next door. The parsonage is known today as Quitman House and was built in 1798 to house the minister, Reverend Frederick H. Quitman, D. D.

Dr Rosetta Sherwood Hall: Catskills to Korea

April 13, 2022 by John Conway 2 Comments

Dr. Rosetta Sherwood Hall was born in Liberty in Sullivan County, NY on September 19th, 1865, grew up on the family farm and attended the Chestnut Ridge School and the Liberty Normal Institute.

After receiving her teaching degree from Oswego, she taught in local schools for a few years before entering the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1886, and becoming a missionary doctor in Korea in 1890.

Her pioneering work with deaf and blind Korean children and her founding of what eventually became the Korea University College of Medicine in Seoul. [Read more…] about Dr Rosetta Sherwood Hall: Catskills to Korea