The History of Slavery at Christ Church, New Brunswick

The History of Slavery at Christ Church, New Brunswick

 

There have been several prominent and influential leaders at Christ Church, New Brunswick who have enslaved Blacks.[1] Among them are Philip French, the layman who gave the church its first property (a two-thousand-year lease at the rent of “one peppercorn [per year] only if demanded”)[2] on which the first building was erected and the current nave still stands (in 1742).[3] He published a runaway notice in the local newspaper seeking the return of “Claus” in 1741,[4] and on at least one occasion brought one of his enslaved Blacks (in 1767 “Toney”) to the Rev. Beach for baptism.[5]

Ralph Earl artist QS:P170,Q1350959, Ralph Earl - Samuel Seabury - NPG.84.171 - National Portrait Gallery,
marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons

            The Rev. Samuel Seabury, who served from 1754 to 1757, and was later the first bishop of the Episcopal Church, became an active enslaver during his time as the priest of Christ Church.[6] Seabury continued to accumulate more enslaved persons through his career. The Rev. McKean[7] and The Rev. Leonard Cutting[8] both enslaved or facilitated the enslavement of Black people. The Rev. Abraham Beach served as Rector of Christ Church New Brunswick from 1767-1784, during which time he countenanced the practice of owning slaves among his parishioners. He himself enslaved Blacks on his estate and only freed them in his old age when his retirement annuities from his church work fully covered his expenses. 

Rev. Abraham Beach 1740 -1828, marked as public domain,
more details on Wikimedia Commons, Ralph Earl creator QS:P170,Q1350959.

This practice among the clergy of building wealth through the enslavement of Blacks and then freeing them only when most convenient was also practiced by Bishop Croes, the first bishop of the Diocese. He served as the rector of Christ Church, New Brunswick starting in 1801 and served through his episcopate, until 1832. He is recorded as having practiced manumission immediately before he became legally liable for the care of his enslaved Blacks in their old age.[9] This kind of practice not only harmed those Blacks manumitted under these conditions, but often required support of those manumitted through almshouses due to the commonly destitute state of the newly manumitted.[10]

Perry, William Stevens, The Rt. Rev. John Croes,
marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons

The oldest person now interred in the Christ Church graveyard is: “Dinah (there is no surname, just Dinah). The records indicate that she was born sometime around 1760, was the property of James Dore. He came to New Brunswick via Novia Scotia and has family members buried here. Dinah died in 1866, in service in the Boggs household, whose family members are also buried in the graveyard of Christ Church. This makes her 106 years old at the time of her death... Her life spanned [from before] the Revolution to the Emancipation Proclamation. Born enslaved, died free.”[11]

The legacy of colonial times continued for Blacks at Christ Church well into the twentieth century. Blacks were members of the church but they were not seated with Whites. In the nineteenth and twentieth century Blacks were seated in the gallery, along with those who could not afford pew rents. When pew rents were abolished in the early 1920s the decision was made to relocate the organ from the chancel to the gallery displacing the Black members of the church. Taking that as an indication that they were not particularly welcome, the displaced African-American members formed their own parish, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in New Brunswick, a prominently Afro-Anglican mission parish. Today Christ Church is a multi-cultural, multi-racial congregation with a significant African-American membership, with many immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. In 2013 the parish called its first African American priest, the Rev. Joanna Hollis:

The Rev. Joanna Hollis, rector of Christ Church, New Brunswick
(photo by Rev. Beth Rauen Sciaino)

And so here I am, the rector of a parish with a long history of slavery. Every Sunday I stand in the chancel and look down at the cross that marks that Bishop Croes is buried underneath my feet. I walk back to the church and read the list of rectors knowing the history of those whose names are written above mine. When I look at the pictures and the sketches of all the former rectors, I notice that while I am not the first woman rector of Christ Church, one thing is not like the other. I do not take lightly the significance of my presence as the first Black rector of Christ Church. And I know that for some of our little ones, I am who they are growing up with as their priest. I am their normal. And yet I link the far past to the present by virtue of my own enslaved ancestors and pray that I am doing them proud. And I pray that I am doing right by Dinah and by the many enslaved people who were connected with Christ church. I quite literally am their wildest dream. Yet there is still so much more work to do; So much to atone for. And with God’s help we can do what needs to be done.[12]

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[1] This reading was delivered by Jonathan Gloster, vestry member of Christ Church, New Brunswick on March 25, 2023 at the “Stations of Reparations” service at St. Peter’s Church, Freehold, New Jersey. Based in part on text provided by Jolyon Pruszinski.

[2] Nelson Burr, The Anglican Church in New Jersey, p. 546.

[3] Burr, p. 546.

[4] “Run Away on the 23rd of August Past from Philip French,” American Weekly Mercury (Philadelphia), August 27, 1741, reprinted in Graham Russell Hodges and Alan Edward Brown, eds., “Pretends to Be Free”: Runaway Slave Advertisements from Colonial and Revolutionary New York and New Jersey (New York: Garland, 1994), 17. See also Marisa Fuentes and Deborah Gray White, Scarlet and Black, Vol. 1 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2016), 181 n. 32.

[5] “Some Early Records for Christ Church, New Brunswick, and Saint James Episcopal Church, Piscataway: Marriages, Baptisms and Burials, 1758–1759 and 1767–1784,” Genealogical Magazine of New Jersey 91 (January 2016): 8. See also Fuentes and Gray White, 181 n. 33.

[6] This occurred through a dowry gift upon his marriage to Mary Hicks in 1756, though Seabury’s father had also been an enslaver.

[7] McKean served Christ Church from 1757 to 1763, married the granddaughter of Gov. Lewis Morris (who accumulated vast wealth through slavery), and as such came into ownership of a plantation on the Raritan.

[8] Early in his career, Cutting ran plantations for wealthy enslavers. He later served Christ Church from 1764 to 1766.

[9] Bayker, Blakley, and Boyd, “His Name Was Will: Remembering Enslaved Individuals in Rutgers History,” p. 80.

[10] Graham Russell Gao Hodges (Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present Day [New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019], p. 59) describes an example of this phenomenon in the 1820’s in Cape May County.

[11] Text furnished by Rev. Joanna Hollis of Christ Church, New Brunswick, from the planned virtual graveyard tour of Christ Church graveyard.

[12] Concluding address by the Rev. Joanna Hollis, rector, Christ Church, New Brunswick.