Summary: Prominent lay Anglicans laid the foundation for the Church in New Jersey, but much of its formal expansion can be credited to the priests sent by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (S.P.G.), a voluntary organization of the Church of England founded in 1701. The S.P.G. provided a large percentage of the funding for New Jersey priests, but the building of churches was mostly funded by wealthy locals. By the end of the colonial era over twenty churches had been built, many of which shared priests.
The Church of England in Colonial New Jersey
Even before the founding of the first Anglican churches in New Jersey, the influence of the Church of England there was significant. Such influence should probably be dated to the first British settlement, but certainly at least to the period after annexation in 1664. It is true that most European-descended settlers to New Jersey were not expressly devoted to the Church of England. Presbyterians, as a result of prior Dutch settlement, and Quakers, as a result of movement of settlers from other North American English colonies, were more numerous. Members of other Christian sects, including Baptists and Congregationalists, migrated to New Jersey as well, in part because there was no established Church.
Nevertheless, the Anglican heritage of and influence upon many of the English settlers can be easily seen within a few decades through the settler interest in organizing worshipping Anglican communities.[1] This interest was prompted neither by a significant presence of ordained Anglican priests, nor by Anglican missionaries, who did not come to New Jersey in any numbers until after 1702. The first Anglican parish in New Jersey, St. Peter’s at Perth Amboy, dates its founding to 1685, even as this early self-organization by the laity was viewed rather dimly by the ecclesial authorities in England. The opinion of George Keith that the inhabitants of the region were afflicted by “little else but… heathenism”[2] is indicative of the general feeling among S.P.G.[3] clergy toward the colonial settlers before their coming. But such perspectives should be taken with a grain of salt.
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| Seal of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.) |
The Anglican church in the American colonies was marked by more prominent empowerment of the laity than in England proper, in part as a result of the modest early presence of formal representatives of the church hierarchy and the absence of a local bishop until after the Revolutionary War. As such, the descriptions of the woeful state of affairs of “religion” and the Anglican Church in the colonies given by members of the church hierarchy, including the S.P.G., should not be taken literally. Such negative statements are perhaps more accurately indicative of a failure to establish the Church of England in New Jersey.[4] While they accurately describe the absence of ordained clergy, such comments should not be taken as fully accurate regarding the state of the influence of the Church among the laity. This is certainly evidenced by the repeated urgent requests from the colonies for priests to minister locally.[5] Such interest hardly indicates a land bereft of the influence of religion generally, or the influence of the Anglican Church in particular. In fact, many of the English settlers had an affinity for the Church of England and her particular approach to religion.[6]
Thus, the development of the Anglican Church in New Jersey began during this period before a significant presence of priests, and involved the early organization of a few local meetings in homes and, in some instances, building of church buildings.[7] These groups of laity did want the ministration of priests, and petitioned the newly formed S.P.G. to send them, promising support in various forms. The S.P.G. answered the call according to its means and began a campaign of support for the growth of the church in New Jersey. This mostly involved sending a few priests, providing a large portion of their stipend, and providing books and pamphlets. Most of the establishment of church buildings, rectories, and glebes came from the contributions of the laity of nascent New Jersey parishes.[8] Many of the missionary priests sent to New Jersey were assigned more than one parish, and some to several parishes. It was the minority of locations with a quorum of Anglican sympathizers who could fund a church building, a partial salary for a priest, and a rectory and/or glebe. Many locations that were visited by clergy for preaching and administering the sacraments never built a church, not for lack of Anglican sentiment, but more due to the subsistence nature of the economy, and the understandably inconsistent visitation from the limited number of clergy the S.P.G. did send.
In short, during the colonial period, the church grew significantly, as did the population of the state, but well-established parishes were the minority, and the coverage and support the S.P.G. could provide for the Province was limited. By 1775 there were eleven S.P.G. missionary priests operating in New Jersey, twenty-four churches built and operating, and an approximately equal number of “occasional preaching stations” being visited by the clergy.[9] When the attentions of the S.P.G. began in 1702 the population of the state was likely no more than 20,000,[10] and by the time of the first U.S. census in 1790 it had grown to over 184,139
[1] E.g. the promptings of Colonel Lewis Morris recorded in “The Memorial of Col. Morris Concerning the State of Religion in the Jerseys, 1700,” Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society 4 (1849-50) 118-21. Another typical example is the petition from the laity of Salem, New Jersey in 1704: “A poor unhappy people settled by God’s Providence, to procure by laborious Industry a Subsistance for our Familys, make bold to apply ourselves to God, thro’ that very pious and charitable Society… our Indigence is excessive, and our Destitution deplorable, having never been so bless’d as to have a Person settled among us, to dispence the August ordinances of Religion… Be pleased to send us some Reverend Clergyman… to whom we promise all Encouragement according to our Abilities…” British Archives Online, S.P.G. Correspondence, MSS Collection A, Vol. 16, pp. 201-2.
[2] George Keith, A Journal of Travels from New-Hampshire to Caratuck on the Continent of North-America (London: Joseph Downing, 1706), 47.
[3] The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (S.P.G.) was a voluntary association within the Church of England, founded in 1701.
[4] It was never established.
[5] And the conditions were described by some devoted Anglicans in America in particularly negative terms with the specific goal of inducing the Church to send priests. Some of the communications of Colonel Lewis Morris, Sr. in particular fall into this category.
[6] And this Anglican influence played a significant role in shaping slavery in the region.
[7] Burr notes “unorganized” (read: lay-organized) congregations in Shrewsbury, Middletown, Toponemus, Perth Amboy, Woodbridge, Piscataway, Elizabeth Town, Crosswicks, Burlington, and Salem. Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey, 19.
[8] Though, oftener than not, what was promised was never made good, as may be readily seen in the highly complainant missionary correspondence (summarized in Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey, pp. 128-41).
[9] Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey, pp. 114-15. Churches or chapels were to be found in Newark, Second River, Elizabeth Town, Newton, Delaware, Kingwood, Amwell, Trenton, Allentown, New Brunswick, Piscataway, Woodbridge, Perth Amboy, Spotswood, Freehold, Shrewsbury, Middletown, Burlington, Mount Holly, Waterford, Berkeley, Salem, Greenwich, and Boonton. Of these Newark, Second River, Newton, and Boonton were in the region that became the Diocese of Newark in 1874. There were also several (non-ordained) preachers active on the three preaching circuits of New Jersey commissioned by the colonial volunteer Methodist society, who at least until after the Revolution, considered themselves under the authority of the Church of England.
[10] Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey, 9.
[11] U.S. Census of 1790. This figure is likely an undercount.
