CHAPTER VI.
THE MINISTRY TO THE WILDERNESS.
Pages 48-55
Claverack did not suffer to the same extent that New England did through the enmity of the Indians. No great massacres occurred in this region, but there were occasional forays, and the carrying off of women and children in the vicinity of Kinderhook as late as 1755. These hostile incursions left for many a month a feeling of uneasiness and fear behind them, but as a whole the Indians were disposed to be friendly with the Dutch, who had treated them with great fairness. Still there were large numbers of them roving through the primeval forests which covered a considerable part of the State, and their lawless raids in other sections, and their use by the Tories in acts of arson and pillage, made their presence a source of dread and alarm.
The obligation of a pastorate which included Schoharie on the north, and reached to Dutchess county [page 49] on the south, was bounded east by Massachusetts, and west by the Hudson river, required long and lonely rides over portions of country infested by both Indians and Tories. Such a field of labor would have discouraged a man of less fidelity and courage than Dominie Gebhard. Over a wide section of his extended charge the land was still in virgin wood, with here and there a small farm house. The roads were wretched, often little more than Indian trails. The Dominie's liberty, and eve life, were sometimes in danger while passing the secret haunts of the enemy, especially in the rocky wildness of the country in the vicinity of Taghkanic. Yet it is the church of Taghkanic, of which were have the record, that at one of his quarterly visits the Dominie baptized thirty-six children at one service. These, with their parents and god-parents made a company of over one hundred.
So while danger lurked in the dense woods and in the rocky fastnesses, the courageous minister placed his trust in the Defender of the Faithful, and took his way to these far off lonely outposts, that the infants in these mountain homes might be sealed to Christ, and the Sacrament might be administered to their par- [page 50] ents, and here, too, he oftimes found couples waiting for the marriage ceremony.
The sense of pleasant stir in the farm houses under the hills can easily be imagined as the Dominie's quarterly visit approached. From the home of the leading man in the little settlement, where the prophet's chamber was being prepared for the visiting minister, and the housewife's store of good things was being hospitality brought forth, to the various homes where a little stranger had entered since his last visit, the Dominie's coming was eagerly anticipated. In some homes the tiny visitor had been the first child of the house, in others the twelfth or fifteenth, but in all the christening robe was brought forth and bleached, and the tiny embroidered cap, which had probably already served its day with several children, was examined and tried on the new baby's head. Then the nearer family friends were invited to stand as sponsors, and before long every house in the vicinity had some part in the approaching great day.
Plain and rude though the little church may have been, it became a holy place to these country folk, when they partook of the bread and [page 51] wine of the Sacrament around the Communion table, and remembered the Upper Room at Jerusalem. And often before the day was done, the beginning of one or more new homes was formed, when a sturdy young farmer brought a blushing country girl, that the Dominie might make them man and wife. When the Dominie left on Monday morning, having added many good counsels to his other labors, life had taken a fresh start in the farm houses under the mountains.
The fear of man was not the only danger lurking in the path of the good man on these long clerical trips. Wolves still roved the forest, and vast pitfalls were dug near farmhouses on the edge of the woods, to entrap the wild beasts.
Yet in spite of all and every danger, we find this intrepid servant of God supplying the church of Squampawmuck (Ghent) twelve miles distant, every two months for five years. From 1777 to 1797 he traveled four times a year to Taghkanic. From 1795 to 1814 once every seven weeks he preached at the Krum church, twelve miles distant at Hillsdale; and upon the death of Rev. Mr. Clough he assisted in supplying the German church at the Camp (Germantown), and [page 52] at the request of their consistory was instrumental in obtaining from them a minister from Germany.
Of these various churches on the outposts, which were preaching stations of Dominie Gebhard, there is only one, beside the well-known church in the old fort at Schoharie, of which we have a full description. This is the Ghent church built in 1775. This primitive edifice was clapboarded in the early days and unpainted. Like the Claverack church, it had the old-fashioned, high-backed pews and also possessed a "lofty gallery on three sides, and a wine-glass pulpit reached by a winding flight of stairs. Over the pulpit and the preacher hung the inevitable sounding board, in this case suspended from the rafters by ropes attached to its four corners. The first records of the church were kept in Dutch, though the leaves of the old book, which was bound in vellum, and anti-dated the Revolution, bear a crown, and underneath in water marks upon its pages, the initials G. R, beside a seal, in which the lion rampant of England is a chief feature."
The first entry is March 28th, 1775, and records the articles of agreement between the consistories of Claverack and Squampamock. The next is a call [page 53] made upon the Rev. Dom. Johannes Gabriel Gebhard, in which it is stipulated that he shall preach once every two months, and administer the Sacrament in the church of Squampamock, in return for which the consistory promise, yearly and every year to pay him the sum of twenty pounds New York money." This call was signed by "Lawrence Hogeboom" elder, and "Johannes Hogeboom" deacon.
The longest journey in this ministry to the wilderness took the Dominie sixty miles over rough and almost impassable roads, to administer the ordinances and preach in the old stone church of Schoharie previously mentioned. In this church "Gersina," a daughter of the celebrated Indian chief Joseph Brant, was christened while the chief and his squaw were on a visit to the valley.
During the war small block houses were built in the south-east and north-east corners of the church and the whole enclosed by pickets, turning the sanctuary into a fortress. Here many anxious nights were spent by those seeking safety for their families from Indians and Tories.
The faithfulness of the men who upheld these [page 54] churches on the outposts was portrayed by the devoted service of one of the members of the old Schoharie church. Judge Brown was for years the "fore-singer, clerk and chorister" of this congregation. To perform his three-fold Sabbath duty, he walked weekly from his home in Carlisle, fourteen miles, to the place of worship, and the same number of miles back again. It was not only the ministers to the wilderness who were courageous and faithful, but also the members of their flocks, who vied with them in upholding the worship of God in this new country.
Courage was the watchword of the homes of the day. It was required in every walk of life, from the wife or maiden who bade husband or lover a brave farewell, as he fared forth to fight for his country, to the young wife in the parsonage door, watching these repeated trips into danger in the Lord's service. Each pictured the way in the night watches, one of the bloody battlefield, and possible victory and honor, or death; the other of lonely winding roads or bridle paths, with a painted face or a Tory enemy behind some tree, and a slight form on horseback winding his way alone through the wilderness, to come at last tired and travel-stained to some farmer's home, and a little log church, in which the light of the Gospel was ever kept trimmed and burning, by these ministers of God in settlement and wilderness, who like Paul "counted not their lives dear unto themselves," but only for the service and glory of God.
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