Religion
in the Marketplace
The Churches of East Hampton
By Reverend
John Turner Ames
East Hampton Library
November 20, 2003
At a time in which organized religion,
even to its own adherents, has been relegated to the margins of society, it
is almost impossible for moderns to understand the kind of relationship that
existed between church and society in Colonial America.
I imagine
that all of us are horrified - certainly I am - in our own time when so-called “religious leaders” seek to
impose their own doctrines or piety on the rest of society; and it’s much worse
when they attempt to use the power of the state to do so. One of the geniuses
of the American experiment was the doctrine of the separation of church and
state - the “wall of separation” to use Thomas Jefferson’s term - that enables
persons of all religious beliefs - or none - to practice their religion
freely. The state can neither hinder nor assist any church in teaching its doctrines
or practicing its piety.
When this
doctrine was articulated, in the late 18th century, it was unique
in the western world. No western society since the conversion of Constantine
had ever been organized without a single religion being part and parcel of the
state. The religious wars of the 16th and 17th Europe
were based precisely on that assumption - there could not be a society in which
more than one religion was present. It was one thing on which Catholics and
Protestants in Europe agreed. No one could conceive of a society in which Catholics
and Protestants lived happily side by side - or even one in which Episcopalians
and non-Episcopalians could share the same country. We believe that we have devised a better solution.
We wish others around the world would learn that lesson.
This conviction
- which is so strongly embedded in the American psyche - makes it hard for us
to understand, much less evaluate, the situation that existed in 17th
and 18th century East Hampton, and indeed in all of colonial America.
We tend to judge our ancestors in the light of our modern convictions - on all
sorts of subjects - and to damn them for their failures to come to the point
at which we have arrived.
Nowhere is
this more true than when we think of the Puritans - who founded East Hampton
and who for the first hundred years dominated this community. One of the first
things they did when they arrived was to conduct worship - lay led for the first
three years until Thomas James arrived in 1651 as the first minister. Thomas
Baker, the owner of the local “ordinary,” was
paid one shilling, six pence a week to allow the “meeting,” as it was called,
to be held in his tavern. The first “meeting house” was built in 1653
in what is now the South Burying Ground. Lion Gardiner’s house was right across
the street and Thomas James, the minister, lived next door.
The houses
in the village were small and modest, and the church was similar. The Town Records
for November 17, 1651 describes the Meeting House. It was a rude structure built
of logs with a thatch roof. It was 26 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 8 feet “stoode.”
High, I assume. Undoubtedly, a perfectly simple rectangular room. There would
have been an elevated pulpit, probably along one of the long sides, and benches
where the worshipers sat. There were probably two doors, one used by men, the
other by women and children. The sexes did sit separately in the Puritan Churches.
East Hampton
remained Puritan until at least the second third of the 18th century
when the movement more or less came to an end. That is the most important single
thing that one needs to know about the earliest settlers of this community in
order to understand how they lived; how they organized their community and conducted its affairs; how
they related to each other and to the indigenous inhabitants who lived here
before them; and, of course, how they understood their relationship to their
God.
Puritanism
was a theology. It was a particular way of understanding the Christian faith.
That is of critical importance, but that is not the only thing we need
to know about Puritanism in order to understand it. For though Puritanism was a theological movement, it was also a
political movement and a social movement and an economic movement. It regulated
the relationships between persons of various social and economic classes. It
determined how political decisions would be made and how the business of the
community would be organized.
Puritanism
has gotten a very bad reputation in the modern age, because it is almost totally
misunderstood. Our ancestors are believed - even by us - to be censorious busy-bodies,
preaching a legalistic religion which we equate with modern fundamentalism.
H. L. Mencken - more of a wit than a historian - is famous for describing Puritanism
as the "horror that someone, somewhere, may be enjoying themselves."
Nothing could be further from the truth.
They had quite
a lot of fun in early East Hampton. Famously they did not celebrate Christmas
or other religious holidays which they regarded as relics of Papistry, but they
had plenty of times to eat well and drink plentifully. Nor were the Puritans ascetics. They had a
lusty appreciation of the “things of the flesh” and had no shyness about sex
- though always within marriage, of course. The great Catholic apologist, Sir
Thomas More, was horrified at what he called the “sporting and feasting” of
the early Puritans, and was scandalized at their insistence that celibacy was
not superior in virtue to marital sex. They were also criticized for not keeping
the Lenten fast - in fact they were accused of teaching that a Christian should
feast at every meal.
Incidently,
and more or less in passing, the secular origins of the popular American Christmas
come precisely because the Puritans didn’t celebrate it in their churches. Catholics
and Episcopalians have a right to be indignant about the commercialism and secularism
of our modern Christmas. Presbyterians and other Protestants do not - they are
responsible for it when they decreed that no “popish” celebrations would be
held in their churches.
You simply
cannot understand 17th or 18th century Puritanism by reference to fundamentalism,
revivalism, or any other modern religious movement or to 19th century prohibitionists
or blue nosed prudes. That simply is not who they were.
Puritanism
was a third generation development of the Protestant Reformation in England
which established the Church of England as independent from Rome. Unlike the
continent, in which the reformation was a religious revival, in England it was
an act of state. Henry VIII, an enthusiastic - though not necessarily very gifted
- theologian, established a church which was simply independent - not necessarily
protestant.
Under Henry's
three children - the protestant Edward, the Catholic Mary, and the politically
astute Elizabeth - the circumstances of whose birth required that she be a protestant
- the Church of England was buffeted by theological and liturgical change for
a generation until it reached a compromise accommodation when Elizabeth assumed
the throne in 1560. The original Puritans were those who flocked back to England
from the continent at Elizabeth's accession - having breathed the heady wind
of Calvinism during the Marian exile - determined to continue the religious
reform in England in a more protestant direction.
Under Elizabeth’s
Stuart successors, these Puritans rose to increasing prominence in both church
and state. Far from being an oppressed underclass, they dominated the commercial
and business life of the nation - especially in the city of London. They controlled
one of the two universities - Cambridge. Many were prosperous, middle class
farmers. It is estimated that about a third of the clergy of the Church of England
were Puritans.
Beginning
with John Winthrop and the establishment of Massachusetts Bay in 1630, many
hundreds of Puritans flocked to these shores during the decades preceding the
English Civil War and many more came after the collapse of the Puritan experiment
in government in 1688. They established here a society based on a Calvinistic
understanding of Christianity. This included a political theory in which governmental
authority is given - by God - to "the people" - not to the king.
Exactly who
comprised "the people" has been a subject of continuing dialogue in
American history. Originally, of course, it did mean "white males,"
and our history has been the sometimes uneven story of the expansion of that
definition. Sometimes other restrictions, such as land ownership or church membership,
were included; though neither was ever required for the voting franchise in
East Hampton. But at least it did not mean that power came from the top down,
but from the bottom up. The bedrock political principle of Puritanism was that
governmental power belonged to "the people;" that free people had
a right - a right given them by God - to self-government.
As they spread
through southern New England, the Puritans perhaps inevitably came to eastern
Long Island and established a community here. And the church was as integral
a part of their community as was any other part. They also started a school,
dug a pond and fenced in a sheep fold, established procedures for sharing common
grazing land and conducting whale watches, built wind-mills which were shared
communally, and did a great many other things. The church was simply a normal
and essential part of the community's life.
The church
building was built and maintained by the community, which also paid the minister’s
salary. This was done out of what was
called a “general assessment” - what we would call a property tax - which constituted
the only communal funds of the community. The minister and the school master
were the only people regularly paid out of public funds for quite a long time.
The “spiritual”
life of the community was entrusted to the elders - elected annually by the
church members. The entire “social service” function of the community - caring
for the poor and supporting those who were dependant, classically the “widows
and orphans” - was done under the leadership of the elders. They were also the
guardians of the public morals of the town.
It is this
function that has caused the Puritans to become regarded as censorious busy-bodies,
largely because the definition of public immorality has changed in modern times.
Blasphemy and profanity, sabbath breaking, wife-beating and dishonest business
practices - along, of course, with sexual immorality - were among the offenses
for which citizens were routinely cited to appear before the Elders for repentance
or censure. That, by the way, was the extent of their powers of punishment.
If anything greater was needed, the offender was turned over to the magistrate
to be fined or imprisoned.
By the second
decade of the 18th century, the village was large enough, and prosperous
enough to make the construction of a larger and more beautiful church feasible.
So in 1717 the Town Trustees voted to replace the rude little wilderness chapel
by a much larger building on the south-east side of Main Street - approximately
where Guild Hall now stands. It was described by Long Island historians Thompson and Prime as
“the largest and most costly church edifice on Long Island.”
It was a rectangle,
45 by 80 feet, covered by clapboards and then three foot cedar shingles fastened
with hand wrought nails. There was a tower at the west end which projected slightly
beyond the line of the main building. There was a belfry in the tower whose
floor was covered with lead. Above this square tower rose a sexagonal steeple,
made of wood; and above that, a red
cedar spire atop which was an iron spindle on which hung a large copper vane
with numerals cut denoting - incorrectly, we now believe - the year of the town’s
settlement and the building of the first church. This weather vane is now in
Clinton Academy, and a replica of it adorns the church steeple now.
The church
was built of massive white oak beams, 10 by 10, and the sills and posts much
larger. The timber came from Gardiner’s Island, a gift of the proprietor. Originally
there was one door in the middle of one of the long sides of the church. In
an 1822 renovation, the entrance was moved to the steeple end of the church.
The church
contained benches at first, later pews were built and placed around the perimeter
of the room with benches in the middle. Women and children sat in the east,
men on the west. The pulpit was on the long wall, opposite the door. Over it
hung the sounding board. The pulpit from the 1717 church - though maybe not
the original one - is now displayed in the church sanctuary, on loan from the
East Hampton Historical Society.
There was
a balcony, reached by stairs on either side of the door. Later, galleries were
erected on each side of the building. These were all removed in the 1822 renovation,
and the door on the long side was closed when new doors were built beside the
tower.
At that renovation,
a narthex, or vestibule as it was called, was created at the west end. There
was an arched entrance to the church, looking to the pulpit which was then moved
to the east end of the room. The narthex was divided in half, and one section
was reserved for the seating of black members of the church. Incidently, though
there were slaves in East Hampton - 25 in 1687 and 35 other persons who are
described in the records as “coloured servants” - there was not segregated seating
in the church until the 1822 renovation. This presumably lasted until the construction
of the present church building in 1861. The blacks were full members of the
congregation, though they were not given the dignity of having their last names
recorded. The Session minutes say things like “Phoebe, servant of Mrs. so-and-so,
is admitted to communion.”
Four tall
round pillars supported the pulpit, which was very high; reached by curved stairs
on either side. In front of the pulpit, at floor level, was the deacon’s seat;
and in front of that the communion table. It was a simple cherry table, with
one leaf - turned down on hinges when used, folded up when not in use. That
table is also now on display in the church sanctuary, courtesy of the Historical
Society.
Nathaniel Huntting, like his predecessor, was
one of the most prominent citizens of the town. He was regularly involved in
the perennial controversies with the Royal Governors in which the East Hampton
Town Trustees were always engaged. Though the right of dissenters to worship
legally was no longer contested, as it had been prior to 1688 when non-Anglican
worship was illegal in the colony of New York, the residents of East Hampton
objected vociferously to the requirement that they pay taxes to support the
established Anglican Church.
In fact, in
the long series of controversies between Samuel Mulford, whom East Hampton regularly
elected to the General Assembly of the colony, and Lord Cornbury, the fanatically
High-Church royal governor, the payment of church taxes was routinely included
among the villager’s protests against what Mulford called “the encroachments
of our Liberties.” In 1728 the Town Trustees voted that “right or wrong, the
town money shall go to ye payment of Mr. Huntting’s taxes” - meaning his salary.
Toward the
end of Huntting’s active career in East Hampton the malaise, which had affected
religion in this country and had caused the decline of Puritanism, came to a
more or less sudden end with what is called the “Great Awakening.” This remarkable
movement, which affected all the English colonies, from New Hampshire to Georgia,
should be neither surprising nor accidental. Puritanism was itself, by expressed
intent, a religious reform movement which carried the seeds of its own reform
within it.
We will not
linger long here, though the revival tremendously affected the East Hampton
church and caused great controversy here. In the midst of this controversy,
the Trustees issued an invitation to Samuel Buell to replace the venerable,
but now quite elderly, Nathaniel Huntting. Mr. Buell, again straight from the
University, this time Yale, was an excellent choice as the third minister of
East Hampton. He was a worthy advocate of the revival who exhibited none of
the excessive emotionalism which had characterized the extremists and which
had caused so much controversy here.
He was ordained
here in 1746, his ordination sermon being preached by Jonathan Edwards, the
most renowned minister in America. Edward’s ordination sermon, “The Church’s Marriage to her Sons and
to her God” demonstrates the scholarly character of these revivalists. It is
a scholarly work of thirty seven octavo pages, with carefully crafted arguments
and skilled use of language. The manuscript is in the Long Island collection
of this library, and as far as I know, it has never been published. It should
be. Maybe I will do it.
At about the
same time as Buell became minister, the East Hampton Church became Presbyterian.
Buell was, in fact, one of the charter members of Suffolk Presbytery, which
was established in 1747 in Southampton. The Presbytery organized itself and
petitioned to be received into the “New Side” branch of the Presbyterian Church.
The denomination had split in 1745 over the revival, and the “new side” or pro-revival
branch, was attractive to the independent Puritan Churches of New York and New
Jersey. At the same time, most of the churches in New England became Congregational.
Like both
his predecessors, Buell was very actively involved in the public affairs of
the community. He supported the colonists’ position in the increasingly acrimonious
controversies with the British authorities, but when the Revolutionary War broke
out and all of Long Island was occupied by the British, Buell remained in East
Hampton. Like all adult males, he signed the oath of allegiance to George III,
which Colonial Abraham Gardiner required, and he was a regular visitor to the
headquarters of General William Erskine, which was located in the Brown House
on Main Street - now the LVIS house. But he also conducted regular correspondence
with the Patriot Governor Trumbull of Connecticut. He protested to each his
loyalty to their cause, but he also fearlessly condemned soldiers of both sides
who came to East Hampton to steal cattle - as evidently both sides did.
In 1783, with
the ratification of the Treaty of Paris, the British evacuated New York City
and Long Island, and the people of East Hampton turned to the pursuits of peace.
Buell turned his attention to the establishment of a school in East Hampton,
and in 1784 the “East Hampton Academy” was established. It met in the church
until the building now known as Clinton Academy was built a few years later.
Apart from
the eccentricities and notoriety of Lyman Beecher - called by a professor mine
“father of half the brains in America” - by the nineteenth century the East
Hampton Church had evolved into a recognizably conventional pattern. The town
trustees still ran the business affairs of the church - they chose and paid
the minister and maintained the property in East Hampton for several decades
into the 19th century. I don’t know the exact date when this ceased,
but the church first elected Trustees in 1848. The following year, in a divided
and controversial vote, the town trustees voted to deed the manse to the church’s
trustees. Apparently there was no controversy about giving the church property
to the church, but there was over the manse.
So by 1849
the town’s financial involvement in the church’s life was over. This is very
late. The first amendment to the US Constitution prohibited the national government
from either “establishing” or prohibiting the free exercise of any form of religion,
but the state and local governments had no such strictures until the adoption
of the 14th amendment following the Civil War. Nevertheless all state
governments, including New York, dis-established churches in the Jeffersonian
period, and support of churches by local governments, which persisted longest
in New England, had come to an end almost everywhere by the 1830s. It lasted
in East Hampton until the 1840s.
Beecher was
succeeded by several short pastorates, until Stephen Mershon was called as pastor
in 1854, straight from Princeton Theological
Seminary. He was a remarkably able man and under his ministry the church grew
rapidly. In 1858 the building known as the “Session House” was built. It was
originally located on Main Street, about where White’s Pharmacy now stands.
It was moved to the corner of Main Street and David’s Lane in1903, when it was
doubled in size; and to the present site in 1928 when it was doubled again by
raising it and making it two stories.
In 1861, the
present church sanctuary was constructed, on a lot which James Madison Huntting,
the great-grandson of Nathaniel Huntting and the President of the Church’s Board
of Trustees, purchased from his cousin Deacon David Huntting for $1500. At that
time the immense sum of $9,300 was already in hand for the construction of the
new building. Additional funds were raised by the Hunttings and the building
was built without debt.
The 1717 building,
which had served the community well for 140 years, was sold to Jeremiah Dayton for $250 and the
lumber was used to construct a house on Newtown Lane. I don’t know which one.
Perhaps some of you do.
The original
design of the 1861 building was what might be called, by some stretch of architectural
definition, “Romanesque.” There were two unequal and dis-similar towers in front.
The one on the north-east corner was capped by a four sided spire, a much taller
one on the right, or north-west corner was capped by a sort of mansard roof.
The facade
of that church was altered in 1961, making the church look like what we think
it is - a New England-style “meeting house.” The chancel was also altered during
that renovation, but apart from re-arranging the pews to create a center aisle,
no other changes were made to the interior. Visitors routinely comment on the
beauty of the building, with which I agree, and say what a perfect example it
is of the Georgian New England church style. I just smile and say “thank you,”
and don’t point out that the style is not original, and that the rounded windows
are left from the original romanesque building.
By the second
third of the nineteenth century, not everyone in the community adhered to the
“Olde Town Church.” It was sometime in the 1840s that John Wallace, who is almost
always described in East Hampton historical lore as “a mysterious Scotsman,”
came to the community and began to conduct Episcopal services. My guess is that
Mr. Wallace was not particularly mysterious, but that the writers of the histories
simply didn’t know much about him. Or maybe they think all Scotsmen are “mysterious.”
In any case, he acted as a lay reader to a small group of Episcopalians,
with a priest coming occasionally from Sag Harbor or, in the summer, New York to celebrate the sacraments.
Wallace, and
another parishioner, Dr. Alfred Wagstaff, raised $43,000; and in 1859 they bought
the land where St. Luke’s now stands and constructed a little wooden chapel
there. Dr. Wagstaff named it after St. Luke, the patron saint of physicians.
The first priest, Charles Gardiner, was called in 1869 and he served the congregation,
part time, for 31 years. In 1902, it became a parish of the Diocese of Long
Island.
Quoting from
the church’s own account of its history, “.
. . with the coming of the `summer people’ the little chapel’s congregation
began to grow. It was through the enthusiasm, efforts and money of the summer
people that in 1910 the simple chapel was replaced by the present beautiful
building.” The building was designed
as a replica, on a smaller scale, of All Saints Church in Maidstone, England
from which some of East Hampton’s early settlers emigrated.
There had
been Roman Catholics in East Hampton for many years before any formal Catholic
services were held. Indeed, the first Catholic mass in East Hampton was celebrated
by Father Thomas Harvey in Montauk when Governor Thomas Donigan landed there
in 1683. A few Catholic families began to settle in Sag Harbor early in the
19th century, drawn by the industries associated with whaling. This
community grew, and St. Andrews Church was established as the 9th
Roman Catholic congregation in New York State in 1835.
The first
permanent Catholic residents in East Hampton arrived not by choice, but by accident. In August, 1851 a British ship,
The Catherine, was wrecked off the coast of Amagansett. The ship was
bound from Dublin to New York with cargo, but in addition there were some 300
passengers, headed for the slums of the Lower East Side or the mines of Pennsylvania.
All the passengers survived the shipwreck, and a few days later most of them
were put aboard another ship for New York. But two of them, Patrick Lynch and
James Gay, both young men bound for the gold fields of California, decided to remain where they were.
Not long after
they arrived in East Hampton, Lynch and Gay discovered the Irish community in
Sag Harbor and began to go there - both to meet friends and compatriots, and
also to worship at St. Andrews Church. Both found wives there, and the Lynchs
and Gays settled down in East Hampton soon afterward.
Following
the Civil War and the influx of wealthy second homeowners - many of whom maintained
large homes with large staffs of servants - the Irish population of the East
Hampton increased rapidly. Patrick Lynch’s home on North Main Street, now the
“Mill House Inn,” became the center of the religious life of this community.
They said the rosary, read lives of the saints, and said Catholic prayers. Occasionally
priests would come from Sag Harbor or elsewhere to say mass, hear confessions,
baptize babies and marry those who were waiting. Often in the summer these services
would be conducted on Sunday evenings, when the servants were off duty, and
sometimes the Lynch’s entire front yard would be filled with worshipers who
could not get inside.
This piece
of information comes from the diary of Miss Fanny Huntting who lived next door.
Miss Huntting’s main interest in the Catholic worship in the neighborhood, however,
came from the fact that the widow of John Tyler - always called in East Hampton
records, “Mrs. President Tyler” - had converted to Catholicism and was among
those who worshiped in the Lynch living room. She, of course, was the former Rose Gardiner,
who had married the widowed President in 1845.
The Catholic
community continued to grow, but there was no resident priest and no church
building. Lay led services were sometimes held in Clinton Academy, which was
a public assembly hall. Other services were held in the “Eel pot” in which William
Lynch, Patrick’s brother, lived for a time. By the 1880s a priest from Sag Harbor was holding regular mass in
the summer at Clinton Academy.
In August,
1890 the Star carried an advertisement for a fund-raising dinner at Clinton
Academy sponsored by the “Catholic Young People.” The following year property
on Buell Lane was purchased in the name of Bishop John Laughlin and the Star
noted that the Bishop proposed to build a church there. Numerous fund raising
efforts ensued, and in September, 1894, St. Philomena’s Church was dedicated
by Charles McDonnell, the Bishop of Brooklyn. Father Lawrence Guerin was the
pastor. Though the building has been remodeled and restored over the years,
it is essentially unchanged today.
The church
was named for Philomena, a somewhat legendary and mythical virgin-martyr of
the early Christian centuries. The parish was given that name in honor of Father
Guerin’s sister, Philomena, who had died as a young girl. Sadly, in the 1960s
the Second Vatican Council removed the names of many of the semi-legendary saints
from the early centuries and the East Hampton Church was re-named in honor of
the Most Holy Trinity.
At almost
exactly the same time as the founding of St. Philomena’s, the Methodists of
East Hampton were organized into a congregation by the Long Island Conference
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The original nucleus of that congregation
consisted of persons who had moved to East Hampton from New York City and elsewhere
on the island who were already Methodists, but even before a Methodist pastor
was sent to organize the church, a Sunday School for children from “down hook”
was organized - once again, meeting in the famous “Eel pot.” The church met
there until the present building was built, shortly before 1900. In the early
years the Methodist Conference sent itinerant ministers to serve the East Hampton
congregation and there were many of them. It was not until the 1920s that there
was a resident pastor.
Quickly touching
congregations outside the Village, the Amagansett Presbyterian Church was organized
in 1861 by about 150 persons who were transferred from the First Presbyterian
Church. Stephen Mershon preached the dedication sermon that year. In 1883 the
Presbyterian Church built a chapel in Springs, at the head of Accabonic Harbor.
For 90 years it was part of First Presbyterian Church, often served by an Associate
Pastor, but in 1972 it became a separate congregation. St Peter’s, the Episcopal
chapel in Springs, dates from 1881 and has always been affiliated with St. Luke’s
Church.
There had
been an Italian community in Amagansett since the establishment of the fish
factories in “Promised Land” in the 1890s, but there was no Catholic Church
there until 1920 when the pastor of St. Philomena’s bought the Baker-Parson
house on Main Street. The house was moved to Egypt Lane, where it still is,
and St. Peter’s Church was built in 1928. It has always been affiliated with
Most Holy Trinity.
There was
no church of any kind in Montauk until after the First World War, but the rapid
growth of that village in the 1920s made the establishment of churches natural.
An ecumenical group of Protestants began worshiping in the Montauk Theater in
the early 20's. Catholic worship was held in Montauk Manor Hotel by visiting
priests who were given accommodations in exchange for conducting services. When Carl Fisher began the development of Montauk
he gave land and money for the construction of both the Montauk Community Church,
which was established by the Presbytery of Long Island in 1927, and St. Therese
of Lisieux Roman Catholic Church the same year. Apparently he did not give enough money for
sound construction, and both those congregations have had numerous and severe
problems with their buildings over the years.
Also in the
20th century came the founding of Calvary Baptist Church. I am very
sorry that I do not have more information on the establishment of that congregation.
There had been blacks in East Hampton since colonial times, of course, and prior
to the Civil War they were members of the Presbyterian Church. I do not know
when, or by whom, Calvary Baptist Church was established. I know that the property
which the church now owns was given to it, and that a basement sanctuary, now
a Fellowship Hall, was constructed shortly after the Second World War. Later
the present sanctuary, in the modern architectural style, was constructed with
contributions from the whole East Hampton community as well as the members of
the congregation, of course.
The most recent
congregation in East Hampton is the Living Waters Full Gospel Church, established
in the 1980s. It is an independent, Pentecostal church which now has several
hundred members, meeting in a building which they purchased from the Town on
Industrial Road, near the airport. Michael Smith was the founder and remains
pastor. Untypical of Pentecostalists, he is ecumenically minded and very active
in the community’s religious affairs.
There had
also been Jewish residents of East Hampton from very early times, but there
were not enough to establish any Jewish institutions until after World War Two.
A tailor, whom the records identify only as “Isaac the Jew,” was recruited to
come to East Hampton in the 1780s, to supply a much needed service to the community.
In 1786 he built the house and tailor shop on Main Street in which I now live,
it having been purchased by the Presbyterian Church as a manse in the 1870s.
The next time he is mentioned in the records he is identified as “Isaac Tailor.”
He married the daughter of one of the local families and eventually became an
Elder in the Presbyterian Church!
For the subsequent
history of the Jewish community I think you will be happy that I am just going
to read to you some remarks made by Charlotte Markowitz at the Jewish Center
of the Hamptons a few years ago. I could summarize and paraphrase her remarks,
but why do that. She writes, and I am slightly abbreviating her words:
The few Jewish families that were here back in the mid-50s - and some are here today - felt a need to establish a meeting place, a synagogue, and a place in which to educate our children. We met in each other’s homes and taught our own youngsters. Then our good friends and neighbors at the Presbyterian Church offered us the use of their Session House on Friday evenings so we could conduct Shabbat services there. We gratefully accepted.
A few more
Jewish families settled here and we grew. The need for our own house of worship
persisted and a handful of us purchased two acres on Montauk Highway. We put
up a sign proclaiming that as the future home of the “Jewish Center of the Hamptons.”
and hoped it would arouse interest. Two wonderful people took notice - Jack
Kaplan and Evan Frankel, who together gifted this Borden estate to us.
We spruced
up the old house. We painted the upstairs bedrooms, converting them into bright,
sunlit classrooms. We transformed the front parlor into our sanctuary. One of
our members carved the ark doors. My mom and dad gave us our first Torah, our
first yad and our first shofar. My husband, Irving, practiced
blowing the ram’s horn until I thought that if there was a moose on the east
end of Long Island it would be converging on this front lawn.
Now we had
a Shul and a steeple, and we opened up the doors for the Jewish people.
We conducted our own services for two years, then hired our first Rabbi, Albert
Friedlander, now of London, who came on weekends. Soon afterward we realized
we couldn’t accommodate everyone for High Holy Days and so our first small tent
was erected.
A few years
passed. We needed a larger synagogue and plans were drawn up to build a modest
addition to our building. But by that time Evan Frankel was our President .
. . and he had a dream. We were going to erect a place of great beauty - awe-inspiring
- and with the architectural genius of Norman Jaffe . . . our dream became a
reality. . . .
If someone
had suggested to me, forty years ago, when we could barely count on a minyan,
that I would be addressing today over 1,500 Jewish people under a tent on the
old Borden estate on Rosh Hashanah, I wouldn’t have believed it. That sounds
like a Jewish fairy tale.
The whole
thing sounds like a fairy tale to me. I am a preacher and I could easily
turn this into a sermon now. But I will not. Just a reminder, that in our pluralistic
and secular society, from the beginning of this community the churches and synagogues
of East Hampton have been an integral part of our common life.
They have
enjoyed, and have inculcated, a very unusual degree of cooperation with each
other and with the community. For the first two hundred years, there was but
one church and in the beginning at least, everyone was a member of it. As the
community became more pluralistic, other churches and the Jewish Center were
welcomed and encouraged. Citizens of all faiths contributed to the numerous
fund raising activities that preceded the construction of St Philomena’s Church.
Calvary Baptist Church was also built by donations from the entire community.
The Ku Klux Klan, which was very strong in Long Island in the mid 1920s, dominating
the politics of some towns, never attracted any following here. The Klan tried
to have a rally in Sag Harbor, but they were denounced by the Protestant clergy
and were simply laughed at by most local residents.
Immigrants
were welcomed, and though there were some snide comments about the Irish - poor;
clanish; inclined to crowd together in sub-standard houses; willing to work
in menial jobs for low wages; speaking
poor English; given to playing ball on Sunday, which of course the Protestants
didn’t do; drinking in taverns instead of clubs or homes - for the most part
the new residents were welcomed and by the 2nd generation at least
thoroughly included in the community.
For almost nineteen thousand weeks the bells
have rung; the hymns and psalms have been sung; ministers, priests and rabbis
have come and gone and the religious institutions of this community have remained
strong witnesses. Not only to the creeds and doctrines to which they adhere,
but also to the common faith which has united the community through political
controversy, military occupation, hurricanes and ship wrecks, the transformation
to a sophisticated beach resort.
In some ways
the religious institutions of this community are no longer at the center of
its life. East Hampton is a thoroughly secular community. The vast majority
of its people, even counting only the year round residents, never worship and
are not affiliated with any of the churches or synagogues. The same is true
for the part time residents, though they are numerous in some churches and at
the Jewish Center.
Yet they remain
strong and vigorous institutions, well
supported and well attended. And they remain at the center of the community’s
life. In the days after September 11
there were many hundreds of people at the “Olde Town Church” every day - summoned
there by the conspicuous leadership of Rabbi David Gelfand - who commented,
every time he rose to speak that week, that this was the appropriate place for
the community to gather to worship, to grieve, to hear from its public officials,
to express its solidarity. Through every crisis in our nation’s history, he
said, the community has gathered here for this purpose.
The beautiful
buildings of which the churches and synagogues are proud stand as much more
than scenic backdrops to a “Hampton Weekend Experience.” They are real places
to which real people go for comfort, inspiration, challenge, education, fellowship,
and service to the community.