Rev. James C. Ward (1777-1834), the first African American clergyman in the Diocese of New Jersey

In his invaluable book History of the African-American Group of the Episcopal Church, George F. Bragg lists James C. Ward as the fourth ordained African American clergyperson in the Episcopal Church, one of only seventeen ordained before the end of the Civil War.[1] Bragg’s brief biographical precis states: “James C. Ward, deacon in 1824. By Bishop White. Mr. Ward was a school teacher, and it does not appear that he was ever in pastoral work. He only lived a few years.”[2] Ward had formerly been ordained as a Presbyterian. He left the Presbyterian Church for the Episcopal Church and was ordained a deacon by the Bishop of Pennsylvania in 1824.[3]

List of the Diocese of New Jersey clergy, including Rev. James C. Ward,
from the Convention Proceedings Journal of 1830.

            The Rev. Ward was a schoolteacher in Philadelphia while canonically resident in Pennsylvania. His ordination was not an entirely traditional ordination though. He was ordained to the diaconate on the condition that he would not have voting rights in convention proceedings.[4] and even when in attendance he was not considered among the clergy composing the convention.[5] During his time in Pennsylvania he was under consideration for an appointment with the Church Missionary Society (CMS) as a teacher in Sierra Leone, but the appointment was never finalized.[6]

            However, in his state convention address of 1830, the Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey, the Rt. Rev. John Croes, notes among the clergy changes that year the following: “The Rev, James C. Ward, a coloured man, lately a Deacon of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, has, by a letter dismissory from the Right Rev. Dr. White, Bishop of that Diocese, been admitted into this.”[7] In the state convention journal of that year the Rev. Ward is included in the list of clergy, but is listed last, after the priests, and after the other deacon ministering in the Diocese.[8]
            It is unclear where Ward taught when in New Jersey, or if he taught at all. In the 1830 convention journal nearly all other clergy have their church assignment listed,[9] but Rev. Ward does not. Marion M. Thompson Wright, in her magisterial treatment of Black education in New Jersey, does not mention him though she reviewed the diocesan records that refer to him.[10] It appears that she concluded that he did not end up teaching in New Jersey, or at least, not very much. Due to the ambiguity of the records, it is difficult to determine where Rev. Ward may have taught in the Diocese during his tenure.
            In 1830 nine churches in the Diocese mention formalized regular Sunday Schools in their convention reports[11] including Christ Church, New Brunswick, St. Mark’s Church, Orange, St. Peter’s Church, Morristown, St. John’s Church, Elizabethtown, Christ Church, Newton, St. James Church, Piscataway, St. Mary’s Church, Burlington, St. Peter’s Church, Berkeley, and St. John’s Church, Salem. By 1831 the Sunday School Society had reorganized its constitution and worked to formalize instruction and membership. According to their reports there were five churches running Sunday Schools that met the Society guidelines including 483 students, though most still-unaffiliated churches had some kind of Sunday School program.[12] There is no list of diocesan clergy in the 1831 convention journal, and no mention of Rev. James C. Ward.
            By 1832 there were seven churches in the Diocese that had affiliated Sunday Schools and among all of those schools and hundreds of students there were a total of only 23 “coloured” children listed as students.[13] At this time the education of African-Americans in Episcopal Churches was, almost without exception, segregated. As such, it is possible that the Rev. Ward did not have adequate pupils among the Sunday Schools, and by extension, did not have adequate teaching opportunities (or pay) in the Diocese at that time to warrant continued residence. There is no record of a diocese-associated school for those of African descent at this time, either on Sunday or otherwise, unlike those in Pennsylvania and New York. New Jersey was one of the few colonies where such a school had never been founded by the S.P.G.[14] during the colonial era,[15] and by the time of Rev. Ward’s residency no such school appears to have been yet founded.[16]
            According to the state convention journal of 1834, Trinity Church, Newark had just then started a segregated school for Black children.[17] It is possible that Rev. Ward taught there briefly, but it is unlikely and no evidence of this has been discovered. It is possible, though also unlikely, that Rev. Ward continued to work as a schoolteacher in Philadelphia while living in New Jersey during this period. However, it seems most likely that Rev. Ward had been invited, perhaps aspirationally, to the Diocese of New Jersey to teach African-American students at one or more of the churches with a significant segregated Sunday School, or to found an “African school” affiliated with one of the churches, but that the arrangement did not work out.
            Bishop Croes’ letter to the convention of 1832 provides another terse update: the Rev. Ward had left the Diocese. “The Rev. James C. Ward (a coloured man) a Deacon in the Diocese, having made application to me for a letter dismissory to the Rt. Rev. Dr. Stone, Bishop of the Diocese of Maryland, it was granted to him and of course he no longer belongs to this Diocese.”[18]
It appears that this move was already in the works as early as the previous summer. Bishop Croes had written a favorable letter of reference for Rev. Ward on July 16, 1831 which he sent to Ward in Annapolis, Maryland.[19] Apparently Ward had either already moved, or was in the process of setting up what would be his next teaching job in Maryland. This would mean that Ward was resident in New Jersey for as little as under one year. Unfortunately Ward did not teach long in Maryland, passing away soon after his move in 1834.
            Whatever the circumstances that led to Rev. Ward’s extremely brief tenure in the Diocese of New Jersey, we can at least conclude a few things. Firstly, Rev. Ward’s experience shows that Bishop Croes, who was an enslaver for much of his life, was willing to work with Black clergy, at least to some degree. He affirmed Ward’s ordination and welcomed him to the diocese. Secondly, however much support Rev. Ward received from the bishop, it did not translate into a stable teaching position in the diocese. There was likely not yet widespread support for Black clergy in any particular White churches in the diocese. Further, Ward would likely have needed a church affiliation to start a school of his own creation, and churches in the diocese, in addition to having limited established programs for Black pupils at the time, showed in the subsequent period a significant interest in hiring only White instructors for segregated parish schools.[20] All this is to say, Ward did not find the Diocese of New Jersey to be as hospitable a location for his teaching as Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) had been, or Maryland would be, and as a result, his tenure in New Jersey was fleeting. He remains, however, the first Black man to be counted among the clergy of the Diocese of New Jersey.

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

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[1] George F. Bragg, History of the African-American Group of the Episcopal Church (Baltimore: Church Advocate Press, 1922), 15.

[2] Bragg, History, 185. Italics original. Bishop White was the bishop of Pennsylvania.

[3] Bragg, History, 185; See also General convention record for 1826. For record of some kind of proceedings against him in the Presbyterian Church see “Records of the Presbytery of New Castle, 1814-1834,” Journal of the Department of History (The Presbyterian Historical Society) of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. 19.2 (1940): 93-97, here page 95. David L. Holmes (“The Making of the Bishop of Pennsylvania, 1826-1827: Part I: The Nestor’s Finest Hour” Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 41.3 [1972]: 225-262, here page 260) reports his ordination as having occurred in 1825. This date accords with most Episcopal Church records.

[4] George Burgess, List of Person Admitted to the Order of Deacons in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, from A.D. 1785 to A.D. 1857 (Boston: A. Williams, 1874), 13.

[5] Holmes, “The Making of the Bishop of Pennsylvania,” 260.

[6] D. Elwood Dunn, A History of the Episcopal Church in Liberia 1821-1980 (London: Scarecrow Press, 1992), 37.

[7] John Croes, “Address,” in Journal of the Proceedings of the Forty-Seventh Annual Convention, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of New Jersey (New Brunswick: Terhune & Letson, 1830), 12.

[8] Croes, “Address,” in Journal of the Proceedings of the Forty-Seventh Annual Convention, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of New Jersey (New Brunswick: Terhune & Letson, 1830), 29.

[9] All save Ward and one other.

[10] M. M. Thompson Wright, The Education of Negroes in New Jersey (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1941).

[11] And they would have every incentive to do so.

[12] The Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Forty-Eighth Annual Convention, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of New Jersey (New Brunswick: Terhune & Letson, 1831), 34. Churches affiliated with the Society included Christ-Church, New Brunswick, St. John’s Church, Salem, St. Peter’s Church, Spotswood, Christ Church, Newton, and St. Mark’s Church, Orange.

[13] The Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Forty-Ninth Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of New Jersey (New Brunswick: Terhune & Letson, 1832), 33. Most of the churches had Sunday Schools of some kind, but not all had yet affiliated with the Sunday School Society. Churches with some kind of Sunday School included Christ Church, New Brunswick, St. Paul’s Church at Paterson, Trinity Church, Newark, St. John’s Church, Elizabethtown, St. James Church, Knowlton, St. Peter’s Church, Perth Amboy, St. Peter’s Church, Spotswood, St. Mary’s Church, Burlington, St. Andrew’s Church, Mount Holly, St. Peter’s Church, Berkeley, St. John’s Church, Salem, St. George’s Church, Penns Neck, St. Mark’s Church, Orange, Christ Church, Newton, and St. Luke’s Church, Hope.

[14] Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.

[15] New Jersey is conspicuously missing from the accounts in Edgar Legare Pennington, “Thomas Bray’s Associates and Their Work Among the Negroes,” Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 48 (1938): 311-403. In his correspondence with the S.P.G. Rowland Ellis expressed an intention to teach a night school for those of African descent in Burlington in the winter of 1715-16 but it is unclear if he ever actually followed through, and certainly the intended “school” was never formalized. See Rowland Ellis to S.P.G., October 8, 1715, British Online Archives, Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.) Correspondence Collection: “American in Records from Colonial Missionaries, 1635-1928,” A Series Letter Book Vol. 11, page 118.

[16] M. M. Thompson Wright mentions no school of this kind in The Education of Negroes in New Jersey.

[17] The Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Fifty First Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of New Jersey (Camden: Josiah Harrison, 1834), 10.

[18] The Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of New Jersey, Journal of the Proceedings of the Fifty First Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the State of New Jersey (Camden: Josiah Harrison, 1834), 8.

[19] John Croes to Revd. James C. Ward, July 16, 1831; Record ID 108178, Accession number MA 365.121, The Morgan Library & Museum.

[20] See, for example, the example of Trinity Church, Princeton described in Kyra N. Pruszinski and Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, ed., “Trinity Church, Princeton and Slavery: A Brief Introduction,” Diocese of New Jersey Racial Justice Review (10 April 2023), https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com/2023/04/trinity-church-princeton-and-slavery.html, last accessed October 1, 2023.

Bishop Doane's 1854 Reparations Mandate

In his state convention address of 1854, Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey, the Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane had the following to say about the fledgling Black congregation of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Newark (the first Black church in the Diocese):

On Wednesday, 26 April, I laid the corner stone of St. Philip's (African) Church, in the City Newark, and made an Address. There were present the Rev. Messrs. Joshua Smith, the Rector elect, Rosé, Lowell, Hoffman, Doane, Leach, (of the Diocese Missouri,) and Berry, (of the Cape Palmas Mission.) It was with peculiar pleasure, that I laid this corner stone. These poor, and simple-hearted, people have clung, for years, through great discouragements, to their pious purpose, of building a House, where they may worship God, together. I trust, they will now be able to accomplish it. I have great confidence in the prudent zeal of their Minister, that they will. I commend them to the good will of their more favoured brethren. I claim for them, as a debt, the generous consideration of those, by whose forefathers, their fathers were brought to this country, without their own consent, and greatly to their hindrance.[1]

 

Mingled with a somewhat paternalistic sentiment toward the “simple-hearted” members of this Black congregation, Doane acknowledges White privilege, referring to the White Christians of the Diocese as the “more favoured brethren.” What is more, he clearly states what should be done about this privilege and the gulf between it and the poverty of his Black brethren. He calls for reparations: “I claim for them,” that is, the Black parishioners of St. Philip’s, “as a debt,” which is to say, something owed. He calls for this “consideration,” i.e. reparations, due to the state of poverty of these Black Christians resulting from the enslavement of their forebears. The reparations are due not because of the actions of the present generation of White Christians, but because of those of their “forefathers.” Doane claims this debt for the descendants of those whose “fathers were brought to this country, without their own consent, and greatly to their hindrance.” It is from the current generation of Whites that the debt is claimed and to the current generation of Blacks that the debt is owed. 

Figure 1: G.W. Doane, bishop of New Jersey (NYPL Hades-256141-431158), 
Scan by NYPL, modified, CC0 1.0

Doane’s convention address shows an awareness of 1) White privilege, and 2) the need for reparations for slavery to repair the presently-felt negative effects of the sins of previous generations. As such, it is clear that these concerns are not modern inventions. The Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey recognized these issues 169 years ago and insisted that their ongoing presence required remediation. In subsequent convention addresses he repeatedly implores his White Episcopalian brethren to support St. Philip’s financially.[2] Modern acknowledgments of White privilege and the need for reparations, though at times deploying different language, align closely in structure and content with Bishop Doane’s statement. The dramatic discrepancies in household wealth between White and Black households that persist to this day[3] suggest that the conditions that once drew Doane’s pastoral concern have not yet been repaired, and still require redress.

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

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[1] The Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, D.D., LL.D., Diocese of New Jersey: The Episcopal Address, to the Seventy-First Annual Convention, in Grace Church, Newark, Wednesday, May 31, 1854 (Burlington: Printed at the Gazette Office, 1854), 14.

[2] See The Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, D.D., LL.D., Diocese of New Jersey: The Episcopal Address, The Twenty-Third, to the Seventy Second Annual Convention; in St. Mary’s Church, Burlington, Wednesday, May 30, 1855 (Burlington: Printed at the Gazette Office, 1855), 26; The Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, D.D., LL.D., Diocese of New Jersey: The Episcopal Address, The Twenty-Fourth, to the Seventy Third Annual Convention, in Trinity Church, Newark, Wednesday, May 28, 1856 (Burlington: Samuel C. Atkinson, Printer, 1856), 17-18; Diocese of New Jersey, Journal of Proceedings of the Seventy-Fifth Annual Convention in Trinity Church, Newark, on Wednesday, 26 May, 1858 (Burlington: Franklin Ferguson, Printer, Broad Street, 1858), 22.

[3] In 2019 the average White household was approximately 700% wealthier ($983,400) than the average Black household ($142,500). See Neil Bhutta, Andrew C. Chang, Lisa J. Dettling, and Joanne W. Hsu, "Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances," FEDS Notes (Washington: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2020), https://doi.org/10.17016/2380-7172.2797(last accessed October 4, 2023).

A History of Trinity and St. Philip's Cathedral: Slavery, Racism, and Renewal in "God's House"

 A History of Trinity and St. Philp's Cathedral: Slavery, Racism, and Renewal in "God's House"

Address delivered by Anne Calloway, Historian

Diocese of Newark Racial History Committee 

Stations of Reparations Service, March 25, 2023

St. Peter’s Church, Freehold, New Jersey

Edited by Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I just want to preface this by saying I’m not a “legal beagle” historian, but when your bishop sends you a letter out of nowhere and says you have to do something, you just do it! So, I got a letter from Bishop Carlye and she said, “I want you to serve on the racial history committee.” I said, “What does that mean?” She [said], “You’re going to do the history of Trinity and St. Philip’s.” And I said, “Ohhhhh!” 

Now I’ve been a member of Trinity Cathedral for over fifty years. I’ll be eighty-seven this year. I’ve been an Episcopalian since 1936… So, I’ve seen a lot of history. I originate from the Diocese of Los Angeles. I attended a small Community Church. Our black churches were always named St. Martin, St. Philip, or St. Barnabas. I attended St. Martin. And back in those days, we too had priests in charge and we also had… supply priests... So, that means this is something we’ve been going through a lot, okay?[1] At any rate, I came to New Jersey and I joined the Church of the Epiphany. That was the first Black church I joined that wasn’t named St. Martin, St. Philip’s, or St. Barnabas. And when I left there, I joined Trinity Cathedral. 

 

In 1733 Newark suffered a torrential rainstorm that lasted several days. It was after this storm that Colonel Josiah Ogden, a faithful member of the First… Presbyterian Church (which is our neighbor down the street), hitched up his horse and harvested his wheat. If not harvested the wheat would have spoiled. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and the word of this deed quickly got around. Colonel Ogden was disciplined for Sabbath-breaking. Ogden, the son of Elizabeth Swaine, did not take this harsh criticism and punishment lightly. The controversy was long and bitter. Finally, Colonel Ogden withdrew from the church stating “I’ll have a church to attend if I have to build one myself.”[2]

 

Thus, Trinity Church became Trinity Church. And that’s the beginning of Trinity and St. Philip’s Cathedral.

Colonel Ogden was a very rich man. He… owned… mines… [including] one in Boonton [and one in Ringwood], which [he jointly] owned [with various family members][3]…  I’m still trying to figure out [which] is which… [in] this historical game … You read [about something] and the next week you go and you read [about] it again [and] it’s something totally different [in a different source]! Because we’ve had wheat, corn, and tobacco [recorded in different sources as the crop] that Colonel Ogden had, and nobody knows which one it really was. So I just go with wheat and call it a day. And the reason I do is because on the spire of our Steeple, there is a [sheaf of] wheat… that was… carved there, in remembrance of Colonel Ogden because he actually was the first founder of Trinity Church.

Trinity Church has such a rich history. But when you think about slavery… it is a proven fact… that slavery was apparent and slavery was there. And we know that Colonel Ogden didn’t take that wheat out of those fields himself and take it to his barn. We also know that Colonel Ogden did not work his own mines. So all that was done by slaves. 

We also know that the balcony that was built in the cathedral, was not built to house extra communicants, but was built for the slaves of the owners who owned the pews in the Cathedral. Because, you see, they bought pews. They paid money. They took care of those pews. And, of course, they had to buy the box that the slaves [sat in too]… So if you ever come to our church and look up at our balcony, you will see that it’s like boxes in the theater. And each slave owner owned one of those boxes where his slaves sat. So the church welcomed the slaves and their families. They baptized over a thousand children, five hundred and-some-odd families, during that time. But they condoned slavery. That’s very interesting. They condoned it, but they welcomed you. 

Figure 1: Slave balconies at Trinity Cathedral, Trinity Cathedral Church, Rector and Broad Streets, Newark, Essex County, NJ HABS NJ,7-NEARK,4- (sheet 1 of 10), National Parks Service, Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons

And so the rich history of Trinity [is]… so huge that it would take me three and a half days ([and] we’re not going to be here that long) to tell you everything that I found. But I would like to invite you to something that I found very interesting, and that is the exposé Dr. Pruszinski has on your New Jersey reparations website.[4] The exposé he’s done of Trinity and St. Philip’s Cathedral is absolutely on point and absolutely beautiful, and I invite you to read it because it is your history. You see, at that time, Trinity and St. Philip’s was under the diocese of New Jersey. There was no Newark diocese. Everybody was [in] one place. And so I also found that many of the other churches had slaves too [and] many of the ministers had slaves. So slaves were everywhere. I tell you, we [Episcopalians] were very powerful people. I think we still are. At any rate, the slavery continued. 

Trinity and St. Philip’s was built in [1743], and it was finished in one year. “It was made of hewn stone. It was 63 feet long by 45 feet wide, 27 feet high. The steeple was 95 feet high.”[5] It is now 190 feet high today. And it’s twenty feet square, so you can see how big it is. I was sharing with Father George this morning the reason that the steeple can be seen from an airplane or any place you come [from] as you come into Newark, is [that] back in the day they were fighting the [Presbyterians]. And so they built that (this is Josiah Ogden now)… they built that steeple [so high, as a sort of competitive threat] to let the [Presbyterians] know they were out of business in Newark… I found that to be very funny and [so] I [said] “let me share that with you today.” 

Colonel Ogden had a [cousin][6] who was a minister… and he almost became the first bishop of New Jersey… There were three times that he was put up for bishop, and three times he was voted down, and each time [it] was for the same reason: they said he was too Methodist. So I said, “Well, gee, what was going on in those days?” Politics in the church, right? “He was too Methodist. We can’t have that,” because there was a lot of rivalry between the churches at the time. There’s a lot of history on that as well. 

Figure 2: Rev. Uzal Ogden (cropped), brother of Josiah Ogden, from Wheeler, William Ogden, 1837-1900. cn;
Van Alstyne, Lawrence, b. 1839, ed; Ogden, Charles Burr, 1855- joint ed, 
marked as public domain, more details on Wikimedia Commons

“Colonel Ogden died before the Revolutionary War and was buried somewhere in the Old Burying-ground.”[7] Now the old burial ground, of course, where slaves were buried as well, was the grounds behind 24 Rector Street, which was [where] the Cathedral house… was built, and it was covered over and became the parking lot. So once we sold the building to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center we had to go and exhume all the bodies. And Jim Churchman, maybe some of you… know the Churchman family who [were] the first black undertaker family (and still very much in business today) in the city of Newark; he [Jim Churchman] took it upon himself to get all the paperwork that was necessary [and] all the history that was necessary, [to] dig up all of those graves, all of those bodies. Some are in columbariums behind the Cathedral and some are buried in Fairmont Cemetery in Newark,[8] and that is where Josiah Ogden is now, in Newark in the Fairmont Cemetery. 

My most important piece for today is simple: that out of… slavery always comes a phoenix. And I’m also very happy to share this with you today because now we can’t say anything about Trinity without speaking about St. Philip’s because we are one church. And so when you speak of one, you must give the other one as much credit. 

There were several slaves who were communicants of Trinity Church [Newark]. They were of British origin, because most of the slaves came from the islands or from Africa, and interesting[ly] enough, you will find it in a lot of our Black churches, Episcopal churches, that they are predominantly island people. So when you go in, you have to know the dialect… so you understand what everyone is talking about. The names of the founders of St. Philip’s Church, [the historically Black church formed by former congregants at Trinity, Newark] confirmed their British origin: Rector, the Reverend James H. Tyng. The Reverend Tyng was, at the time, the first rector at Saint Philip’s and he was also the headmaster of Newark Academy. I don’t know if any of you know about Newark Academy, but it is a huge… campus now in Livingston, New Jersey across from the mall. It [at times has had as many as] three thousand students, but Mr. Tyng was the principal and the headmaster then. And he was also the CFO and CEO and all the other things. And [the local St. Philip’s church tradition holds that] Mr. Tyng was a black man.[9] Interestingly enough as I went into the historical [materials at] Newark Academy I never found his name listed. That’s not unusual. But he’s in so many other places that we know that he was there. 

[Among the founders of St. Philip’s were] also Nicholas Duffin, Samuel Thompkins, John and Peter O’Fake, Elias Ray, and George Mitchell. Now these all sound like English people don’t they? Those were the… names that the slaves took because they took their owners’ names… and the Anglican ancestry can be traced. [St. Philip’s… became a mission in 1847, and] Trinity Church made the difference for St. Philip’s. Trinity Church, because of Josiah Ogden and the other people that worked with him, was a very rich church... They had a lot of property. They owned everything in Newark. And they also supported any missions that they opened and quite a few of the missions, [which became] churches in the Diocese of Newark, were founded through Trinity Church. And they also supported them until they became a parish. And so, when St. Philip’s became a parish, of course, Trinity said, “you’re on your own now. Move it, we’ve somebody else we’ve got to help.” And so that is how Trinity became [critical for the formation of St. Philip’s]…

“The first charter [for Trinity itself] was granted [in] 1746 and a year later was suspended. The present charter was granted in 1748 by George II.”[10] And… the original church structure has been changed because there was a guy named George Washington that came along, and he needed a place for his troops in the hospital. And interestingly enough, the military park [which] was called a training ground, [was] what Josiah Ogden owned, and that’s how Trinity got there. It was there before the military park was a park. It was a training ground. And so he said, well we’re going to put our church right here. It wasn’t even supposed to go there. It wasn’t even supposed to be built the way it is because it wasn’t enough room. It’s one acre with this big church on it, but they put it up anyhow. They said, “we’re gonna do it.” 

Now, I wonder who built that church? Again, an unanswered question. That’s why I put it to you that way. It wasn’t Josiah, he was not out there pushing the wheelbarrow, I’m sure. And neither were his communicants. So we know what happened. Some of those slaves built that church. That’s what we’re trying to find out now: Who they were, and how they were brought in. … I’m telling you this historian thing is a trip. I hope I live long enough to keep going, but I’m telling you, I don’t know. It is unbelievable. [Now] to make everything come together: 

 

The original church building was completed in [1743]. The site of the church, according to tradition, was granted by the town of Newark in the Training Place (Military Park). Its original structure was destroyed by fire in 1804, was rebuilt and refurbished in 1810. Its white steeple stood 168 feet facing Broad Street. The church became the cathedral of Newark Diocese in 1942. In 1966 it was united with St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, and became known as Trinity and St. Philip’s Cathedral in 1992.[11]

 

There is so much history… I find it with the New Jersey Historical Society. I find it in other churches. I have gone into other churches and found Trinity’s history. It is very sweet. I call her God’s house because it was built by the hands of his people. Because it has been destroyed and it’s still coming back up. It has been empty and it still lives. And I believe that Trinity Cathedral was especially anointed by God because it is now and always has been, but now especially, [one of] the oldest Episcopal Church building[s] in the United States of America.

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[1] A “Priest in Charge” does not have long-term tenure like a Rector, but only a brief contractual term. “Supply priests” provide even shorter-term leadership. Often, having to rely on short-term leadership solutions like these has been indicative of a lack of support from the Diocesan administrative structures for historically Black churches.

[2] Glenn G. Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church,” at http://newarkreligion.com/episcopal/trinity.php (last accessed October 4, 2023). 

[3] And other business partners.

[4] https://dionj-racialjusticereview.blogspot.com.

[5] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”

[6] Rev. Uzal Ogden.

[7] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”

[8] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”

[9] Unfortunately Rev. Tyng was not in fact a Black man. There is no record of Rev. James H. Tyng in the scholarship on early Black Episcopalian clergy, and he served as the founding rector for several white congregations both in New Jersey and elsewhere at a time when a Black man holding that position was effectively unheard of. He was in fact the brother of the comparatively better-known Dr. Stephen H. Tyng. For a portrait of Dr. Stephen H. Tyng see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stephen_H._Tyng.jpg (last accessed October 3, 2023). The Rev. James Tyng was part of the early paternalistic oversight of St. Philip’s, Newark from the Diocese of New Jersey. Bishop Doane’s convention address of 1848 refers to his “disinterested zeal” in gathering the congregation, likely a reference to his ministry there being to those not of his own race. See: The Rt. Rev. George Washington Doane, D.D., LL.D., Diocese of New Jersey: The Episcopal Address to the Sixty-Fifth Annual Convention; in Grace Church, Newark, Ascension Day, June 1, 1848 (Burlington: Edmund Morris, at the Missionary Press, 1848), 10).

[10] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”

[11] Geisheimer, “Trinity Episcopal Church.”

Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854): Middlesex County Judge, Notorious Enslaver, and Respected Episcopal Lay Leader

James Gigantino, in his recent book[1] about the gradual abolition era in New Jersey,[2] describes one enslaver’s actions as especially heinous: Middlesex County Judge Jacob Van Wickle, who used his standing as a judge to facilitate an illegal kidnapping and slave trading ring for his own family’s profit.[3] A number of scholars[4] and public history projects[5] have lately documented many aspects of his actions.

Judge Jacob Van Wickle, adapted artist's rendering by Jolyon Pruszinski of detail from
Jacob Van Wickle, by George H. Durie (1841), Reproduced in Louisiana Portraits,
comp. Mrs. Thomas Nelson Carter Bruns (New Orleans: National Society of the
Colonial Dames of America in the State of Louisiana, 1975), 292. 

One largely neglected part of this story, however, is that Van Wickle acted as he did while serving as a committed and influential leader at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Spotswood, New Jersey. Neither he, nor his immediate church community saw anything wrong with what he was doing from the standpoint of Episcopal faith practice at the time. He was never removed from church leadership and there is no record of any church censure for his actions. In fact, other leaders from his church helped to cover up his actions. What he did is not only appalling in retrospect, but the public outcry at the time shows that many, at least outside of his church, considered it a sensational transgression even then.

            In 1795 Van Wickle married Sarah Morgan and thereafter became inextricably connected with Morgan family financial concerns related to plantation ownership in Pointe Coupee Parish Louisiana. His professional life of many decades was spent as a judge in Middlesex County, New Jersey. 

During this time, the New Jersey legislature passed its gradual abolition legislation in 1804, limiting the number of years enslaved persons born after that date could remain enslaved to at most 25 years (for men).[6] Soon after, in 1808, federal law ended the legal importation of enslaved persons to the United States.[7] One effect of this change was to increase the volume of domestic inter-state slave trading, since no additional enslaved persons could be brought into the U.S. This limitation on supply, combined with the increase in interstate slave trading, created a problem for enslaved persons in New Jersey. They were now in the very great danger of being sold or moved to states that had no gradual abolition law and where their promise of ultimate emancipation would not be upheld. The New Jersey legislature responded to this issue by passing further legislation in 1812 preventing the sale out-of-state of enslaved persons without their express consent.[8] This legislation, combined with the gradual abolition law, depressed the sale value of the enslaved in New Jersey markets since their enslavement was legally temporary and they were not easily transferrable to other markets. Meanwhile, the federal ban on importation had dramatically increased the value of already enslaved persons in the South. Van Wickle and his family saw this valuation discrepancy between the local slave markets as an opportunity for massive profit through arbitrage.

            The consent required by law in New Jersey to transfer an enslaved person out-of-state had to be verified by a judge of the county Court of Common Pleas. In Middlesex County, that was Van Wickle. His family members and co-conspirators canvassed their contacts, including many politically connected individuals in the state, soliciting the sale of enslaved Blacks. When they wanted to acquire more Blacks, they engaged their henchmen in kidnapping, deceitful recruiting through promises of paid labor, and by the purchase of imprisoned free blacks being held by local jails for being apprehended without papers. They kept the entrapped at the Van Wickle compound in South River, which was described by one visitor as “like a garrison.”[9] Then Van Wickle would use the authority of his office to forge papers of acquiescence to allow the export of these enslaved Blacks, under color of law, to the Morgan family plantations in Louisiana. He even claimed that the cries of infants constituted consent.[10]

Van Wickle was never indicted, even though some of his indicted co-conspirators were found guilty after public outcry came to a head in 1818.[11] However, the sentences these co-conspirators received were exceedingly mild. Citizen petitions and legislative action[12] put an end to the operation of the ring, but not before at least 137 enslaved and free Blacks had been removed from the state against their will and sold into a lifetime of slavery by Van Wickle and his cronies.[13]

Van Wickle’s notoriety among slavery researchers is one thing. Less well known is the fact that he was a devoted and celebrated Episcopalian and an integral member of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Spotswood, New Jersey for well over half a century, including the entire period of the operation of the “ring.” 

Van Wickle was baptized as an infant,[14]  but it seems unlikely that this was a pro forma baptism since as a very young adult[15] he was already serving on the vestry of St. Peter’s. This began coincident with his older brother Evert’s service as church clerk in 1787.[16] Spotswood was very clearly their family church. Jacob’s wife and children were later baptized at St. Peter’s, and he and his family are listed first on the parish list of communicants in 1823.[17] Such pride of place on the list indicates that he was held in high regard in the church, even in the immediate aftermath of the slavery ring controversy. He served on the vestry periodically during his time at St. Peter’s, but most consistently held the office of church warden starting in 1810. He continued  in this role without interruption to the time of his death in 1854.[18]  In summary, he was a very central member of the church lay leadership well before the slave ring affair, during it, and long after it. Just before his death he gave a very large sum of money for the building of the second church building,[19] which is the building in use by St. Peter’s today.

St. Peters Church Spotswood, photo by Ben McLaughlin, 
modified by Jolyon Pruszinski, CC BY-SA 3.0

He, his wife, and many of his children are buried in the graveyard,[20] an exclusive honor typically allowed only to those who were highly regarded in the church and involved heavily in its financial support. The funerial entry made in the parish register at the time of his death, likely by the rector, reads: per multos annos sacrorum ustor dem in aedem sacram,[21] or “for the sake of many years of sacrifice I, the cremator, commit [van Wickle] to a holy grave.” This note may explain the rationale for interring his remains in the particularly honored burial place of the church graveyard. 

The honor in which he was held, and the leadership he was allowed to exercise, were not a result of Van Wickle’s actions in the ring being unknown to his church community. The court case was very high profile, being both initiated by printed newspaper allegations and covered extensively thereafter.[22] Moreover, Van Wickle’s fellow church leaders actually helped him cover up his crimes. A former St. Peter’s vestryman, Cornelius Johnson,[23] testified before a Justice of the Peace that he was “well acquainted with the house of Jacob Van Wickle” and the condition of the “colored people” there, claiming that he “never saw anything like a garrison or a guard, or cruel treatment, but the reverse, they all appeared to have their liberty and to be well-satisfied.”[24] His testimony, and that of five other men, was taken by Oliver Johnston,[25] who was a then- and long-serving, vestryman at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.[26] Johnston submitted this testimony to the New Brunswick Fredonian for printing alongside Van Wickle’s aforementioned public statement disavowing any illegal activity. 

It is clear from the complicity of fellow church leaders in the cover-up, and from his seamless participation in St. Peter’s leadership before, during, and after the affair, that Jacob Van Wickle’s horrific actions against free and enslaved African-Americans in New Jersey for the sake of his own family’s profit were not widely considered untoward or unchristian in the Episcopal Church in New Jersey at the time.

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] James J. Gigantino, II, The Ragged Road to Abolition: Slavery and Freedom in New Jersey, 1775-1865 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015).

[2] That is, the period in New Jersey after the passing of the 1804 bill which “gradually” abolished slavery (children born into slavery after the passing of the bill had to serve as a slave 21 years if female or 25 years if male before the law required that they be freed) and 1865 when the ratification by the states of the 13^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution made slavery illegal except as punishment for a crime throughout the United States.

[3] Also known as “Van Wicklen,” “Van Winkle,” “Van Sickle,” etc.

[4] Some excellent documentation of primary sources related to Van Wickle and the slave ring are available through the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center which hosts New Jersey slavery records. See “Jacob Van Wickle (1770-1854)” at https://records.njslavery.org/s/doc/item/1284, accessed September 26, 2023. See also Francis Pingeon, “An Abominable Business: The New Jersey Slave Trade, 1818,” New Jersey History 109.3 (1991): 15-35; James J. Gigantino, II, “Trading in Jersey Souls: New Jersey and the Interstate Slave Trade,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 77.3 (2010): 281-302; Calvin Schermerhorn, The Business of Slavery and the Rise of American Capitalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 69-80; Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present Day(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019), 79; and Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 157-160.

[5] See the presentation from the Lost Souls Memorial Project (“Inside the Van Wickle’s Slave Ring: ‘Exposing a Scene of Villany’” at https://lostsoulsmemorialnj.org/wp-content/uploads/Inside-Van-Wickles-Slave-Ring.pdf, accessed September 25, 2023); the material published by the East Brunswick Historical Society (“Van Wickle and Morgan Slave Ring Leaders East Brunswick, NJ (1818)” at https://purehistory.org/van-wickle-and-morgan-slave-ring-leaders-east-brunswick-new-jersey-1818/, accessed September 26, 2023); “The 1619 Project” article by Anne C. Bailey, “They Sold Human Beings Here,” New York Times, February 12, 2020 at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/12/magazine/1619-project-slave-auction-sites.html, accessed September 26, 2023; the Rutgers University Scarlet and Black Research Center article “Removal to Louisiana: The Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://scarletandblack.rutgers.edu/archive/exhibits/show/hub-city/removal-to-louisiana, accessed September 26, 2023); Regina Fitzpatrick “New Jersey State Archives Van Wickle Slave Ring Free Digital Collection,” at https://www.njstatelib.org/news/vanwickleslaveringcollection/, accessed September 26, 2023; and the State of New Jersey, “Documents at the New Jersey State Archives relating to the Van Wickle Slave Ring,” at https://www.nj.gov/state/darm/WebCatalogPDF/VanWickle/VanWickleTableOfContents.pdf, accessed September 26, 2023.

[6] “An act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery,” February 15, 1804, Acts 28th G.A. 2nd sitting. https://dspace.njstatelib.org/xmlui/handle/10929/68964, accessed September 26, 2023.

[7] See “An Act to prohibit the importation of Slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eight,” passed March 2, 1807, at https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/2/STATUTE-2-Pg426.pdf, accessed September 26, 2023.

[8] “An act supplemental to the act entitled ‘An act respecting slaves,’” at https://www.nj.gov/state/darm/WebCatalogPDF/VanWickle/1812_An%20Act%20Supplemental%20to%20the%20Act%20entitled%20An%20Act%20Respecting%20Slaves_29%20January%201812.pdf, accessed September 26, 2023.

[9] As reported in the Philadelphia Franklin Gazette, May 22, 1818.

[10] Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 158.

[11] It is possible that this was due to his practice of attributing ownership of the enslaved Blacks held on his property to his family members rather than to himself. It is also possible that he was not indicted simply because he was a sitting judge and such an indictment would have tarnished the reputation of the justice system generally. But he also turned on his fellow conspirators and testified against Charles Morgan and others in the ring in the trial, all the while publicly claiming that nothing illegal had been done. See Gigantino, The Ragged Road to Abolition, 160. Van Wickle’s public letter to this effect was published in the New Brunswick Freedonian on August 13, 1818.

[12] “An act to prohibit the exportation of slaves or people of color out of this State,” November 4, 1818, at https://www.nj.gov/state/darm/WebCatalogPDF/VanWickle/1818_An%20act%20to%20prohibit%20the%20exportation%20of%20slaves%20or%20servants%20of%20color%20out%20of%20this%20State_5%20November%201818.pdf, accessed September 26, 2023.

[13] According to the documentation of The Lost Souls Memorial Project.

[14] Beyond of course the record of his infant baptism on June 24, 1770 (less than two months after birth); See L. Irving Reichner, “Nicasius de Sille Bible,” Publications of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, 7.2 (1919): 128.

[15] Today he would be considered a minor (sixteen or seventeen) at the age when he began to serve on the vestry of St. Peter’s. Beatrice Grace, History of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Spotswood, New Jersey (Spotswood, NJ: St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 1956), 78.

[16] He was the first clerk listed in the vestry minutes according to Grace, History of St. Peter’s, 12. At the close of the eighteenth century, the church had also purchased a home from Evert to be used as the rectory; Grace, History of St. Peter’s, 14.

[17] According to Macy’s notes on the parish register in Harry Macy, Jr., “The Van Wicklen/Van Wickle Family: Including its Frisian Origin and Connections to Minnerly and Kranchheyt,” The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 128.4 (1997): 241-51.

[18] Grace, History of St. Peter’s, 73.

[19] Grace, History of St. Peter’s, 20.

[20] Macy, “The Van Wicklen/Van Wickle Family,” 241-51. 

[21] According to the flawed transcription reported in John Van Wicklin’s “Family of Jacob^5 Charles Van Wickle,” (https://facultysites.houghton.edu/JohnVanWicklin/Home%20page/Genealogy/FamPages/jacob^5charles.htm, accessed September 24, 2023), the parish register entry reads per nultos annos sacrorum oustordem in aedem sacram but this cannot be entirely correct. It is unlikely that the priest knew enough Latin to make the note but mistakenly wrote “nultos” for what should clearly be multos. The text “oustordem” may be a correct transcription but should probably be understood as ustor dem and could indicate a variant spelling used by the priest.

[22] Including in The True American (Trenton, NJ), the Trenton Federalist (Trenton, NJ), The Fredonian (New Brunswick, NJ), and The Times and New-Brunswick General Advertiser (New Brunswick, NJ).

[23] Grace, History of St. Peter’s, 75.

[24] The Fredonian, New Brunswick, NJ, August 13, 1818.

[25] That is, the aforementioned Justice of the Peace.

[26] Grace, History of St. Peter’s, 76.

NEWS: First Public Session of the History of Slavery in New Jersey Committee, 9/26/23 at 6:30pm

The History of Slavery in New Jersey Committee of the New Jersey Reparations Council, convened by the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice (NJISJ), will hold its first remote public meeting on September 26, 2023 at 6:30pm, Eastern time. The Committee will share details about its work and receive input from stakeholders and community members. This will be the first of nine planned sessions.

To watch only: Visit youtube.com/@dosocialjustice

 

To comment live during the event: Register at bit.ly/NJRCPublicSession1 (link is case sensitive; copy and paste link into your browser). Commentary is limited to three minutes and should be related to the History of Slavery in New Jersey.

 

To submit longer commentary: You may write, submit audio or video, or another form of commentary to be considered by Committee members at bit.ly/NJRCPublicComment (link is case sensitive; copy and paste link into your browser).

 

If you are not able to attend live, a recording will be made available after the event on the NJISJ youtube channel: youtube.com/@dosocialjustice

NEWS: Georgetown U. and Jesuits Commit Initial $27 Million to Reparations Fund

The Descendants Truth and Reconciliation Foundation (DTRF)[1] has recently announced commitments from Georgetown University of $10 million and from the Jesuits of $17 million in reparation for wrongs committed when slavery was legal in the United States, specifically, the 1838 sale by the Jesuits of 272 enslaved persons. The Foundation is a “first-of-its-kind initiative” involving both descendants of the enslaved, and descendants of the enslavers. According to the press release:

The contributions announced today will add to the capitalization of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Trust, bringing the Trust total to $42 million. Earnings from the Trust will support programming in the Foundation's three core focus areas: supporting the educational aspirations of Descendants from early childhood education through post-secondary education; investing in truth, racial healing and reconciliation in communities and organizations throughout America; and supporting elderly and infirm Descendants.[2]

Much of the reporting around this financial commitment is inaccurately referring to the transfer as a “gift.”[3] Such language perpetuates the idea that reparations are not owed, required, or a bare-minimum ethical standard, but are somehow a charitable benevolence. Especially in a religious context, reparations are penitential, designed to make restitution for and repair previous or  ongoing wrongs. Reparations are not a gift, and the language used affects whether the action actually repairs the wrongs committed. According to Monique Trusclair Maddox, the CEO of DTRF, 

These contributions from Georgetown University and the Jesuits are a clear indication of the role Jesuits and other institutions of higher education can play in supporting our mission to heal the wounds of racism in the United States, as well as a call to action for all of the Catholic Church to take meaningful steps to address the harm done through centuries of slaveholding.

The announced financial commitments are only an initial portion of the stated intention of Georgetown and the Jesuits, which is ultimately to fund the foundation at an amount of one billion dollars.

 

Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, Ph.D.

Reparations Commission Research Historian

Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey

---

[1] https://www.descendants.org

[2] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-descendants-truth--reconciliation-foundation-announces-27-million-in-new-contributions-10-million-from-georgetown-university-and-17-million-of-the-estimated-value-of-jesuit-owned-plantation-land-301925822.html

[3] E.g. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12514479/Georgetown-University-Jesuits-gift-27million-charity-descendants-enslaved-people-sold-pay-debt-school-19th-century.html