Follow the Money
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Among Dutch Neck’s early papers stored in the archives at the Princeton Theological Seminary are the earliest bound volume of Session minutes (1816 – 1865) and the Original Congregational Minutes (1815 – 1827), which is largely a financial record. The latter, a slim booklet, was bought in a stationery store in Trenton, with a printed 37½ cent price, 3 bits!*
The title written on the cover is “Dutch Neck Meeting House.” When the new Presbyterian Church was established the next year, the parsimonious congregation continued to record its finances in the booklet. Let’s follow the money to find a few early stories:
On July 2, 1815, 59 people subscribed between $0.50 and $5.00 to pay for supply preachers in the Dutch Neck Meeting House for a year. They made arrangements with George S. Woodhull, Isaac Brown, Mr. Comfort, and William Schenk, to preach every other week in rotation. When Mr. Woodhull didn’t attend his first Sabbath, Mr. Alexander and one of his young men supplied his place, and Peter Bergen paid the young man $2.00. The scheduled preachers were paid four times a year. Who were these men? Maybe a search at the West Windsor Historical Society could tell us. The next year 56 people agreed to pay between $0.50 and $5.00 “for the support of the gospel at duct-neck[sic]” every 6 months “until we shall withdraw our support.” Money was collected (or at least recorded) four times a year on sacrament days.
When the Dutch Neck congregation became the First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck, The Rev. David Comfort agreed to preach on the afternoon every third Sunday. And his salary? On July 31, 1820, Mr. Comfort was paid $26.03¾ for the quarter. How did the congregation do that?
On November 1, 1816, 12 men agreed to pay $2.50 or $3.00 to purchase a $34.50 stove for the meeting house. The subscription was led by the four men who were to be ordained as Elders on November 10 – William Post, Peter Hooper, Levi Updike, and John R. Covenhoven (later Conover). In 1818 a Bible and Psalm book were purchased for $6.00, the largest expense of the year after the pastor’s salary. The Session’s minutes tell of the growth of the church as men and women “appeared before the Session and were examined; and the Session being well satisfied of their good moral character, their motives in desiring to become members of the church, and their experiential acquaintance with religion, did agree to admit them to full communion.” This formulaic language is used after each examination. The church grew, with more women than men admitted to full communion. On February 22, 1827, Abraham Meslor was perhaps on his deathbed, too ill to travel to the church, but he regretted not having become a member of the church. The Session went to his house to examine him and decided to admit him to full communion. He and ten other members were administered the Lord’s Supper in the presence of an equal number of spectators, with singing and rejoicing. On March 1, 1827, the congregation’s minutes record the modest cost of the materials for communion at Mr. Meslor’s house.
The Session minutes continue, but we lose track of the congregation’s finances at the end of this slim Congregational Minutes booklet. The gospel continues to be supported at Dutch Neck, and the church grows as 1827 sees Daniel Deruelle called to be the stated supply, and nine months later he is ordained and installed at Dutch Neck.
Dutch Neck’s heart is focused on its growing community.
*If you are too young to remember bits, they are 1/8ths of a dollar, as in the cheer, “2 bits, 4 bits, 6 bits,
a dollar; all for Dutch Neck, stand up and holler!”