Previous articles in this series have covered records in the NYG&B Collection for the Methodist, Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Episcopalian and Presbyterian churches of old New York City (Manhattan). This article will describe the Collection's holdings for other Protestant denominations in the city.
The Guide to Vital Records in the City of New York, Borough of Manhattan, Churches, published in 1942 by the Historical Records Survey of the Works Projects Administration (WPA), gives basic data on records held by churches or meetings as of that date. Rosalie F. Bailey, Guide to Genealogical and Biographical Sources for New York City (Manhattan) 1783-1898, 1954, provides similar information on churches or meetings in existence by 1814 (pp. 59-65). These publications are useful for establishing which records may still exist, but the current locations of those records may have changed. Besides the holdings of the NYG&B Collection (now at the New York Public Library) described below, records may be found at the Family History Library [FHL], New-York Historical Society [NYHS], and in other holdings of the New York Public Library [NYPL]); at the individual churches if still in existence; or at archives maintained by the denominations.
Baptist
New York's First Baptist Church dates its founding at 1745. Numerous other Baptist churches were formed at later dates. Records of several of these churches have been turned over to the American Baptist Historical Society now located at Mercer University in Atlanta, Georgia. The NYG&B Collection has the following:
- Souvenir of The First Baptist Church of the City of New York (1905) contains a few names, but records are available only at the church itself.
- Oliver Street Baptist Church [alias Second, Fayette Street, Epiphany], “Marriage records, 1792-1844, of Rev. John Williams, a Welsh minister who came to New York City in 1772 and conducted a church on Oliver St.,” microfilm from NYG&B Collection, NYPL Milstein Division call no. *R-USLHG *ZI-1281. See also B-Ann Moorhouse, "The Marriage Registers, 1796-1825, of the Oliver (formerly Fayette) Street Baptist Church, New York City," The NYG&B Newsletter 11 (2000): 31-32.
- Fair [Fulton] Street Baptist Church, and others: "Marriages Peformed in New York City 1794-1830 by Rev. John Stanford," The New-York Historical Society Quarterly Bulletin 21:23-30, 57-62.
- A History of the Stanton Street Baptist Church of the City of New York (1860) contains membership 1823-1860, with notations of deaths.
- Amity Street Baptist Church: marriages by the Rev. William R. Williams 1834-85 [NYG&B MS. File: NYC-Churches-Baptist, not yet found in NYPL catalog].
- "Laight Street Baptist Church Marriages 1841-50," The N-YHS Quarterly Bulletin 5:19-23 [NY G 11].
- “Manhattan’s Light Street Baptist Church” [list of founding members, 1842], The New York Researcher 21 (2010):43.
Friends (Quakers)
Quakers appeared in New Amsterdam in the 1650s, and were living in the city before the first meeting house was erected in 1696. However, their numbers were insufficient to constitute a separate monthly meeting (MM, the level within the Society of Friends at which vital records are maintained) and they were part of the Flushing MM until 1795, when that meeting was renamed the New York MM. A separate Flushing MM was reconstituted in 1805, but New York City Friends remained under the New York MM.
John Cox, Jr., Quakerism in the City of New York 1657-1930, (1930) gives the history of the denomination in the city, with some names. The vital records of the Flushing/New York MM are abstracted (as the New York MM) in William W. Hinshaw, Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, vol. 3 (1940). However, these and other abstracts noted below should be checked against the full records, which in addition to vital records, include voluminous minutes that are rich in historical and biographical data. The original records are now at the Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, but many of them are available on film in the NYG&B Collection at NYPL (Milstein Division microfilm call no. *ZI-1376, Reels 1-148). New York Yearly Meeting: Microfilmed Records is a finding aid for use of the film. For further information see Records of the Society of Friends (Quakers), New York Yearly Meeting.
The early Flushing MM vital records were published in the Record 3:184; 4:32, 94, 190; 5:38, 102, 186; 6:97, 192; 7:39, 85 (see also 3:51). Later New York MM records were transcribed by several genealogists and their typescripts can be found in the NYG&B Collection (search the NYPL catalog for New York Monthly Meeting) and at the Brooklyn Historical Society.
Moravian
The Moravians, or Unitas Fratrum (United Brethren) are one of the oldest Protestant groups, predating the Reformation. In the mid-18th century Moravian missionaries established churches in the city and on Staten Island. New York City's First Moravian Church (officially founded 1748) still exists. Its early records are at the denominational archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with photocopies of some of them at NYHS. In the NYG&B Collection is a two-volume handwritten transcript, New York Moravian Church Records. Volume 1 contains Baptisms 1744-1890, and Volume 2 members admitted 1750-1788, marriages 1750-1890, and deaths (burials) 1752-1801, both volumes indexed by Thelma E. Smith, 1991. NYPL Milstein Division call no. NYGB AZ+ LOC 09-524 v. 1 and vol. 2 (index also catalogued as NYGB AZ Loc 09-813).
The marriage records have been published in the Record 134:22 (1751-1801) and 141:121 (1802-1832).
An additional source for membership data is Harry Emilius Stocker, A History of The Moravian Church in New York City, 1922.
French Reformed (Huguenot)
Many of the first permanent European settlers on Manhattan Island were French-speaking Calvinists, but they attended the Dutch Reformed Church. A French church was created in 1682, its growth spurred by the influx of Huguenots before and after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In 1804 this church became the Episcopal Church of St. Esprit, and it remains so today. Records from both its Reformed and Episcopal periods are available in the NYG&B Collection as follows:
Register of the Births, Marriages and Deaths of the "Eglise Françoise à la Nouvelle York" from 1688 to 1804, Volume 1 of the Collections of the Huguenot Society of America, 1886. Be sure to use the improved index compiled by Kenn Stryker-Rodda, 1970, NYPL Milstein Div. call no. NYGB N.Y. L M314.62 E6 E411 INDEX.
Registre de l'Eglise Reformée Protestante Française à Newyork: baptisms 1797-1852, confirmations 1842-1872, deaths 1843-1852, marriages 1798-1835, bound photocopies of the original records, NYPL Milstein Div. call no. NYGB AZ+ Loc 09-820. Index by Kenn Stryker-Rodda, 1978, NYGB AZ Loc 09-819.
Two histories of this church mention individuals associated with it: John A. F. Maynard, The Huguenot Church of New York, A History of the French Church of Saint Esprit, 1938, and J.-A. Cabaret, Notice Historique sur l'Eglise Evangélique Française de New-York (Presbytérienne), 1897.
NYHS has early church financial accounts which may yield genealogical data (e.g., see Record 118:78 note 7).
German Reformed
German-speaking Calvinists were numerous enough by 1758 to form the German Reformed Church in the City of New York, located on Nassau Street. For background see Record 126:97-98. The earliest records of this church are at NYHS. Marriages 1759-1805, members 1759-1786, and deaths and burials 1764-1803 were published in Record volumes 126-128 (1995-97). Charles Farrell, who transcribed these records for publication, contributed to the NYG&B Collection a copy of his full transcript of the NYHS records, covering baptisms 1758-1805 in addition to the records published in the Record. The transcript is available in the NYPL Rare Books Collection, call no. NYGB AZ Loc 09-67 (restricted use). This church continued to exist until 1968, known in later years as the East 68th Street Reformed Church. It was affiliated with the (Dutch) Reformed Church in America, and its later records (1823-1967) are in the denominational archives at New Brunswick, N.J., and available on FHL films 0961888-89 (records for 1805-23 existed in 1939 but their present whereabouts is not known).
The great growth of the German population of the city in the 1840s led to the creation in 1852 of the “First German Reformed Church,” on Suffolk Street on the Lower East Side. It was affiliated with the denomination organized at Philadelphia in 1793 as the German Reformed Church, renamed the Reformed Church in the United States in 1869, merged with the Evangelical Synod to form the Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1934, and combined with the Congregational Christian Churches in 1957 to form the present United Church of Christ. In 1900 the First Church was renamed St. Paul’s Evangelical Reformed Church, and was located in the Bronx until it was closed in 1948. The records of this church are at the NYG&B and may be viewed by appointment. Joan Koster-Morales has created an index to marriages 1852-1864, and plans to expand it to cover later years.
For additional German Reformed churches see Richard Haberstroh, C.G., The German Churches of Metropolitan New York, A Research Guide (NYG&B Society, 2000).
See also Rev. Francis J. Schneider’s records under Non-Denominational, below.
Congregational
New Englanders moving into the city after the Revolution formed Congregational churches in 1789 and 1803, but both were short-lived and left no known records. New England families will generally be found in the records of other denominations in the city.
The Broadway Tabernacle was organized 1840 as the "first Congregational church on Manhattan Island," succeeding a Presbyterian church of the same name. In the NYG&B Manuscript Collection was a box [catalogued by NYG&B as Vault Room: Broadway Tabernacle, not yet catalogued by NYPL] containing notes on members of this church, largely from the 19th century. Lists of 20th century members are found in Lewis S. Judd, The Broadway Tabernacle Church 1901-1915, 1917, and Year Book of the Broadway Tabernacle Church, New York, 1925.
Manual of the Congregational Church and Society of Harlem, New York, 1866, includes a list of members of that church 1862-66.
Unitarian Universalist
The Rev. Edward Mitchell was New York City's first Universalist minister. His records, preserved at NYHS, include a few baptisms 1803-4 and marriages 1804-34, published in the Record 93:129, 226.
The first Unitarian church in New York (now All Souls) dates from 1819 and retains its records. The present-day Unitarian Universalist Association combines these two denominations.
Non-Denominational
Marriage and baptismal registers of Rev. Henry Chase, minister of Mariner's Church, New York City, 1821-1853: transcripts, circa 1900, NYPL Manuscripts Division call no. MssCol NYGB 18063 v. 1-2 (advance notice required). Also on NYPL Milstein Division microfilm *R-USLHG *ZI-1319 (copies of FHL films 17785 item 5 [marriages] and 17777 item 1 [baptisms]). Rev. Chase (1790-1853) was a Methodist Episcopal clergyman, but the Mariners’ Church on Roosevelt Street was non-denominational. The some 8,600 marriages performed by Rev. Chase are indexed in William Scott Fisher’s two-volume New York City Methodist Marriages 1785-1893 (Picton Press, 1994). Chase’s original marriage records and diaries at The New-York Historical Society contain additional data.
Marriage and baptismal records of Rev. Francis J. Schneider, minister of a non-denominational “German Evangelical Congregation” first organized in Melrose (now part of the Bronx) and then moved to “Little Germany” (Kleindeutschland) on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. See Rev. Francis J. Schneider's German Evangelical Congregation in New York for the church’s charter and list of members, from the original record book now in NYPL Manuscripts Division, call no. MssColl NYGB 18052 (advance notice required). Schneider’s congregation remained small, and he devoted most of his time to performing marriages. In 1995 Zion St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church gave NYG&B Rev. Schneider’s marriage records from 1869-1906, said to cover almost 20,000 marriages (most of the records are copies of the certificates sent to the Dept. of Health, and will be found in the city’s vital records). In 1996 Zion St. Mark’s also gave NYG&B Schneider’s baptismal records from 1869-1906, a much smaller collection but particularly valuable because few of the births were reported to the city and the baptismal records usually include the parents’ native place in the old country (see New York Researcher 16 [Fall 2005]:81). Rev. Schneider’s records are still held by NYG&B and can currently be viewed by appointment.
by Harry Macy Jr., FASG, FGBS
Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Spring 1996
Updated May 2011
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