Metadata
Title
Vestry correspondence, 1836-1847
Date
1836/1847
Digital Identifier
ChristChurch.VestryCorrespondence1836-1847_1-7-0-6
Call Number
1.7.0.6; F62(c)
Description
Correspondence includes letters relating to church and organ repair and a thank you letter to a Frances Lapsley, who went to care for Rev. James when he took ill on a trip to Western Pennsylvania.
Other correspondence includes more typical subjects like parishioner's rights to pews, requests for marriage records, and church music. Letters between Horace Binney and Charles Hommann detail a dispute over changes to the congregation's music, leading to the organist's resignation.
A particularly interesting letter/report discusses the failure of public schools to teach the neighborhood children to read as a reason to maintain support of the church's Parochial Day School, noting that poor children attend public schools for years without learning to read.
Other correspondence includes more typical subjects like parishioner's rights to pews, requests for marriage records, and church music. Letters between Horace Binney and Charles Hommann detail a dispute over changes to the congregation's music, leading to the organist's resignation.
A particularly interesting letter/report discusses the failure of public schools to teach the neighborhood children to read as a reason to maintain support of the church's Parochial Day School, noting that poor children attend public schools for years without learning to read.
Subject
Place
Pennsylvania--Philadelphia
Congregation
Christ Church, Philadelphia, PA
Extent
14 documents
Format (Digital)
tiff
Rights
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
Language
eng
Type
Text
Abstract
This collection of fourteen documents comprises the correspondence of the Vestry of Christ Church, Philadelphia, from 1836 to 1847, touching on church repairs, the death of the rector, pew disputes, church music, parish education, and record inquiries.
Architect Thomas U. Walter wrote to Moses Kempton in August 1836 regarding plastering and the decision whether to paint the church walls, promising to examine the organ in New York on his return [p.1]. A later 1837 letter from Walter concerns an outstanding bill and his examination of stained glass belonging to Mr. Caldcleugh, which he found unsuitable because the gothic figures could not be adapted to the church's windows [p.7r, p.7v]. Thomas H. White resigned his vestry membership in July 1836 [p.2].
Several documents concern the illness and death of Rector Rev. John Waller James. The Vestry's letter of September 1836 to Frances Lapsley expresses gratitude for her Christian kindness in ministering to James, who arrived at Huntingdon suffering from a sharp dysentery during court week and lay in a crowded, noisy tavern until Lapsley cared for him night and day; the letter records his dying message that the congregation should "take heed to the words that he had spoken" [p.4r, p.4v]. Lapsley's reply of October 1836 acknowledges the Vestry's note [p.3]. Rev. Henry W. Ducachet offered in November 1836 to officiate gratuitously while the church was without a rector [p.5r, p.5v], and a committee requested Rev. W. H. De Lancey to preach a sermon on James's death [p.6r, p.6v].
Pew and sitting rights are addressed in Anna Maria Williams's December 1838 defense of her family's four sittings in Pew No. 12, held for 31 years and rented in the name of James Williams, against forfeiture for underletting [p.8r, p.8v], and in Thomas H. White's 1839 correspondence submitting documentary evidence—a receipt from Mrs. Anna Morris—to prove his father's title to a pew [p.9r, p.9v].
An 1844 appeal from the Wardens of the Church of the Nativity, Spring Garden, solicits missionary funds for a field of fifteen thousand inhabitants without any church [p.10]. Church music correspondence includes organist Charles Hommann's December 1844 resignation after his introduction of new tunes (including Mozart) met with congregational discontent [p.11r, p.11v], and Horace Binney's November 1844 letter as chairman of the Committee on Music, regretting the discontinuance of familiar tunes and noting that recent chants were too long [p.12r, p.12v].
An 1845 communication from the female managers of the Parochial Day School details the school's founding in January 1843, prompted partly by the observation that poor children attending public primary schools continued for years without learning to read; it recounts teacher turnover, declining enrollment, financial difficulties in meeting the teacher's $200 salary, and an appeal for the Vestry to subscribe $80 per annum for the education of ten poor Episcopalians, along with complaints about the unsafe and filthy entrance to the school building [p.13r, p.13v]. Finally, a June 1847 letter from James R. Hitchcock of New York inquires how to prove the marriage of Lewis I. Costigan, said to have been performed by a minister of the church between 1792 and 1798; a notation records that the name was not found on the register [p.14].
Architect Thomas U. Walter wrote to Moses Kempton in August 1836 regarding plastering and the decision whether to paint the church walls, promising to examine the organ in New York on his return [p.1]. A later 1837 letter from Walter concerns an outstanding bill and his examination of stained glass belonging to Mr. Caldcleugh, which he found unsuitable because the gothic figures could not be adapted to the church's windows [p.7r, p.7v]. Thomas H. White resigned his vestry membership in July 1836 [p.2].
Several documents concern the illness and death of Rector Rev. John Waller James. The Vestry's letter of September 1836 to Frances Lapsley expresses gratitude for her Christian kindness in ministering to James, who arrived at Huntingdon suffering from a sharp dysentery during court week and lay in a crowded, noisy tavern until Lapsley cared for him night and day; the letter records his dying message that the congregation should "take heed to the words that he had spoken" [p.4r, p.4v]. Lapsley's reply of October 1836 acknowledges the Vestry's note [p.3]. Rev. Henry W. Ducachet offered in November 1836 to officiate gratuitously while the church was without a rector [p.5r, p.5v], and a committee requested Rev. W. H. De Lancey to preach a sermon on James's death [p.6r, p.6v].
Pew and sitting rights are addressed in Anna Maria Williams's December 1838 defense of her family's four sittings in Pew No. 12, held for 31 years and rented in the name of James Williams, against forfeiture for underletting [p.8r, p.8v], and in Thomas H. White's 1839 correspondence submitting documentary evidence—a receipt from Mrs. Anna Morris—to prove his father's title to a pew [p.9r, p.9v].
An 1844 appeal from the Wardens of the Church of the Nativity, Spring Garden, solicits missionary funds for a field of fifteen thousand inhabitants without any church [p.10]. Church music correspondence includes organist Charles Hommann's December 1844 resignation after his introduction of new tunes (including Mozart) met with congregational discontent [p.11r, p.11v], and Horace Binney's November 1844 letter as chairman of the Committee on Music, regretting the discontinuance of familiar tunes and noting that recent chants were too long [p.12r, p.12v].
An 1845 communication from the female managers of the Parochial Day School details the school's founding in January 1843, prompted partly by the observation that poor children attending public primary schools continued for years without learning to read; it recounts teacher turnover, declining enrollment, financial difficulties in meeting the teacher's $200 salary, and an appeal for the Vestry to subscribe $80 per annum for the education of ten poor Episcopalians, along with complaints about the unsafe and filthy entrance to the school building [p.13r, p.13v]. Finally, a June 1847 letter from James R. Hitchcock of New York inquires how to prove the marriage of Lewis I. Costigan, said to have been performed by a minister of the church between 1792 and 1798; a notation records that the name was not found on the register [p.14].
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