Nowadays, thanks to Margaret Schram's Hudson's Merchants and Whalers: The Rise and Fall of a River Port 1783-1850 and other sources, most Hudsonians know the story of the founding of Hudson. Early in 1783, months before the official end of the Revolutionary War, the brothers Thomas and Seth Jenkins, representing an association of men primarily from Nantucket and involved in whaling and maritime commerce, set out to find a safe harbor where they could relocate their families and their ships. They found what they were looking for on the east bank of the Hudson River, about a hundred miles north of New York Harbor, purchased the land from a Dutch family whose ancestor had purchased it from the Mohicans generations before, and set about creating the City of Hudson.
Historians seem pretty confident that the founders of Hudson, who called themselves the Proprietors, were Quakers, with maybe a few Congregationalists among them, but the St. Mary's Centennial Souvenir book, celebrating the first hundred years of the parish's history (1848-1948), tells a different story. A copy of the souvenir book is now on display in the church vestibule, and a parishioner shared with Gossips these images of pages from the book.
The first three paragraphs of the history of St. Mary's Church are of particular interest. They are transcribed here:
With the establishment of tanneries, hemp manufacturing and the New England Whaling Company in the prosperous Dutch settlement at Hudson in 1768, the history of the Catholic Church in the city was begun.
Thomas Jenkins, the first Catholic to locate in the section, according to available records, purchased a tract of land bordering on the river and was soon joined by twenty others of the same faith, attracted to Hudson by the commercial opportunities. They formed the first Catholic community. There is also a record of a number of French Catholics who resided in Hudson in 1797.
The religious activities of the group from this time to more than half a century later is clouded in obscurity, for no record has been found previous to 1841. Nevertheless, missionaries undoubtedly ministered to the section and tradition indicates that French priests visited the settlement annually.
It seems odd that, if Thomas Jenkins and other Proprietors were indeed Catholics, it took fifty years for a Catholic church to be organized and built in Hudson, when a Quaker meeting house was established in 1784 and in 1785 a Congregational Church was built at the corner of Second and Partition streets. According to Franklin Ellis's History of Columbia County (1878), several churches were established in Hudson before the Catholic church: Methodist Episcopal, Episcopal, Baptist, Universalist, Reformed. The following account of the beginning of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church is from Ellis's history:
This, the first Roman Catholic church in Columbia county, was organized in 1847 by Rev. William Howard. The first meetings were held in St. John's Masonic hall. The next year the church, a brick edifice, was erected and dedicated. It has since been improved at various times, and will seat six hundred people. Subsequently, the society has made additions to its property, and now owns,--in addition to the church on South Third street, a convent, a school-building, corner of South Third and Allen streets, and a pastoral residence at 73 Allen street. The total valuation of the property in 1871 was S30,000.
The original St. Mary's Catholic Church, which was completed in 1848, stood at the corner of Third and Montgomery streets.
Fascinating. It’s a common misconception that Quakers dominated early Hudson. While many of the original Proprietors were Quakers, not all the settlers shared that background, and the town quickly became more diverse. As for Catholics, there’s not much evidence of a strong Catholic presence in Hudson itself in the early years, but the broader Hudson Valley did see Catholic communities start to take shape—for example, St. Mary’s Church was established in Albany in 1796. So maybe we’re missing something. Everything is worth exploring.
ReplyDelete(..."purchased the land from a Dutch family whose ancestor had purchased it from the Mohicans") -- What's the name of the Dutch family?
ReplyDeleteIt is Van Hoesen. Jan Franse Van Hoesen purchased the land on which Hudson and much of Greenport, Stockport, and Claverack are located from the Mohicans in 1662.
DeleteThank you, Carole!
Delete