MAY NO ONE BE A STRANGER
150 YEARS OF UNITARIAN PRESENCE IN
by
Jean M. Hoefer
and
Irene
Baros-Johnson
Drawings by Robert Coye
Logo Design by Dorothy Ashley
[Reprinted here by
permission]
MAY MEMORIAL UNITARIAN SOCIETY
1838 – 1988
[Web Page Additions by Roger Hiemstra, MMUUS
Archivist]
[Note: See
the Invitation At the End of This Document to
Help Write
the 1988-2006 History]
[page
ii]
Copyright @ 1988
May Memorial Unitarian Society
Typeset and Printed by
The Printers Devil North, Inc.
[page iii]
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Foreward
– Rev. Dr. Nicholas C. Cardell, Jr. 1
A
New Field in the West 1838-1844 3
Rev. John P. B. Storer
The Church of the Messiah
To
Exercise a Larger Liberty 1845-1874 7
Rev. Samuel J. May
Abolition
Woman Suffrage
Education Reforms
Onward
and Upward 1868-1917 18
Rev. Samuel R. Calthrop
May
Rev. John H. Applebee
100 Years and Beyond 1917-1952 26
Rev. Applebee
Rev. W. W. W. Argow
Centennial Celebration
Parish House
Rev. Robert E. Romig
Rev. Glenn O. Canfield
Growth, Form, Movement 1952-1964 35
Rev. Robert L. Zoerheide
Relocation
Rev. John C. Fuller
May
Memorial Unitarian Society 1964-1973 44
New building on
Social Change and Hard Times
Open Channels 1973-1988 51
Rev. Nicholas C Cardell, Jr.
Sanctuary
Conclusion 59
Biographical Briefs 60
Index 62
[page iv]
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The
official minutes of our Unitarian society's board of trustees and
congregational meetings are the primary source of this history, along with the
documents in our archive files. We used material from Elizabeth Walsh's and Helen
Saddington's centennial book A Backward Glance O'er
Traveled Roads. The scrapbooks kept by the society's historians over
the years and the memories of our members furnished many interesting details.
We also found information in the files at the Onondaga Historical Association,
the archives of the Unitarian Universalist Association in Boston, and the
library of the Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago. We are indebted
to the staffs of the OHA and of Meadville Library and to UUA archivist Rev.
Mark Harris for their help, and to Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner who furnished the
quotation from Matilda Joslyn Gage. We also owe a large debt of gratitude to
the many people in the congregation who helped us gather information and who
read and critiqued the manuscript.
[page 1]
FOREWORD
Histories
of congregations are usually organized around the ministers who served them,
and focused on the styles and emphases of their ministries. This history is no
exception. It is probably the most practical approach, but it does not do
justice to the multitude of individuals who were and are the congregation.
One
of my colleagues, the Reverend Jack Mendelsohn, observed many years ago that
"Great churches make great ministers." Looking back over the roster
of ministers who served this society, it is clear that May Memorial has always
been a "great" congregation. The ministry of any religious community
depends for its fruitfulness not only on support for ministry, but also on
participation in it.
For
thoughtful, conscious life, all creation is precariously contained in a mended
cup of meaning. It is the cup from which we drink our lives, the cup with which
we drink to life. It is a cup that is broken and mended, broken and mended,
over and over again. Each time an era passes, a way of life is destroyed, or
someone of significance to us dies, we may cry out that our cup is broken. It
is at such times that we need each other and are needed.
Celebration
and healing are our tasks. Celebrating the wonders and mysteries of life, and
healing – the mending of broken cups and broken lives – these are the ministry
to which all of us are called. Nurturing and comforting each other in May
Memorial, and reaching out in compassion to those in our larger community whose
cups and lives have been broken by the mystery of fate or the cruelty of
injustice, these are the tasks that mark many of the high points in the history
of this congregation's ministry. It is a ministry that will always need a
"great" congregation.
NICK CARDELL, JR.
[page
2]
Rev. John P.
B. Storer, first minister 1838-1844
[page
3]
A NEW FIELD IN THE WEST
A
Unitarian society started in Syracuse during the 1830s, only a few years after the
Erie Canal had opened across New York State. In one generation Syracuse had
grown from a muddy four corners to a village of more than 3,000 people,
comfortable homes, busy offices, and warehouses. There were also taverns and
other nightspots where "canawlers" could roister away the tedium of
long days and nights on the silent waterway. In several churches the pious
listened nightly to tirades about the fires of hell delivered by resident
ministers and traveling evangelists who battled Satan along the frontier.
Shocked
and dismayed by the excesses of the fire and brimstone preachers, Christians as
well as free thinkers came out to listen when Unitarian heretics came through
from New England to speak about a free religion of reason and brotherhood.
Syracuse historian W. Freeman Galpin wrote that Unitarian Rev. Henry Ware spoke
in Syracuse. "For one runner employed by the Unitarians to give notice of
the gathering," Ware reported, "ten were put in pay by the orthodox
to tell people not to go." These efforts resulted in an audience of more
than 100 people when he spoke the next day.
In
the intervals between missionary visits, Unitarians and Universalists gathered
for informal religious discussions in their homes. With the help of visiting
ministers they wrote a covenant that was signed by 14 people in the parlor of
Lydia and Elisha F. Wallace on 13 September 1838 forming the Unitarian
Congregational Society of Syracuse. On 4 October 1838 Dr. Hiram Hoyt and
Stephen Abbott presided at a meeting in Dr. Mayo's schoolhouse on Church (now
Willow) Street where Elihu Walter, Joel Owen, and Stephen Abbott were elected
the first trustees. The new congregation began a subscription to collect funds
for a church building and invited the Unitarians in Boston to help them find a
minister. A wooden chapel that cost $607 was completed at 317 East Genesee
Street in January 1839.
Several
visiting ministers came for a few weeks at a time to hold services and minister
to the people. One of the new church officers wrote the General Secretary in
[page 4]
but so
rapidly increased, that he soon had the satisfaction of addressing a numerous
and respectable audience. The Unitarian society at Syracuse by a unanimous vote
invited Mr. Storer to become their Pastor." On 30 March 1839 John Storer
wrote to his congregation in Walpole that he was very happy there and felt
strongly attached to them, but he had made the painful decision that
"...it is my duty to go to the West...to tend a new field in the Vineyard
of the Lord."
John Storer moved
to Syracuse in the spring of 1839 to minister to the congregation of the
"little tabernacle," as he called the new chapel. His installation
service on 20 June was held in the Methodist Church, because the little
tabernacle was too small to hold all the congregation and out-of-town visitors
who attended. A bachelor, Storer lived at the Syracuse House, a thriving hotel
not far from the canal docks, where distinguished travelers stayed and many
important meetings were held. Storer was described by those who knew him as a
noble Christian, both charming and scholarly. He had an intuitive sympathy for
the joys -and sorrows of all people from childhood through old age. Under his
leadership the church prospered and grew in spite of orthodox intolerance. A
group of young men dared to brave the storm and sneers of Orthodoxy by joining
the society, although social ostracism was so strong that few young women could
face it. In 1877 C. F. Williston, once mayor of Syracuse, reminisced in a
letter to Rev. Samuel Calthrop, "The notorious Elder Knapp used the
Baptist Pulpit almost nightly for weeks denouncing the Unitarian Devils as he
called us, at the same time asked pardon of 'Old Satan' for slandering him in
that manner."
The
Unitarian congregation soon outgrew the little chapel described in Christian
Register as "a small and lowly tenement, which looked more like a
wood- house than a place of worship." After the Unitarians moved out, the
small wooden chapel continued to shelter new congregations, including the
Second Presbyterian, the Second Baptists, the Reformed Dutch, and the Wesleyan
Methodists.
Our
archives contain two letters written by members of the society in March 1840 to
John Townsend, one of the largest landowners and developers in the village.
They wrote to apply to the land company for a lot on which to build a Unitarian
church, because the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal "houses"
were all built on lots donated by Townsend's company. There is no further record
of the application, but it must have been turned down, because in August 1840
the society appointed Hiram Putnam, John Wilkinson, William Malcolm, Parley
Bassett, and Thomas Spencer to a committee to select and buy a lot for a larger
building. The women of the society financed the purchase with "avails from
fairs" and two lots on
[page 5]
The
corner of
Burnet, were bought for $1,000. In the
In
the summer of 1842 Mr. Storer traveled through
Between
the signing of contracts on
[page 6]
denominations. The cornerstone was laid 27 June, the building completed that fall,
and dedication of the Church of the Messiah was celebrated on
Shortly
after moving to
The
Unitarian
ministers and friends from Storer's former congregations traveled to
[page 7]
TO EXERCISE A LARGER
Rev.
Samuel Joseph May preached his first sermon in
Samuel
Joseph May was born in
When
Sam May came back to Syracuse as a candidate for the pulpit opened by the death
of John Storer, he made sure that the congregation understood his commitments
to peace, temperance, and especially abolition. He had left two previous
ministries after conflicts with parishioners who objected to holding abolition
meetings and who wanted Negroes to sit in separate pews. During the past two
years in his position as head of a teacher's training school he had been
criticized for being a model of radical activism among his students. He wrote
about his candidating in
[page 8]
Rev. Samuel
J. May, second minister 1845-1868
After accepting
the congregation's unanimous invitation to be minister of the Church of the
Messiah in late 1844, Sam May lingered in Massachusetts to help resolve a
property dispute between two factions of a divided church in Lexington, and to
give Lucretia time to recover from a premature delivery. The May family moved
to
The
raw canal town troubled the
[page 9]
worked
together for state legislation to provide education and housing for canal boys.
The boys were rowdy, ignorant canal workers, usually homeless or runaway youths
who were shamefully exploited and often in trouble with the law. May also
helped start a school for children at the Onondaga Indian Reservation. A
planning group met at the Congregational Church in February 1846 and by
November of the same year a school building with seats and desks for 70 pupils
was dedicated at the Reservation. May and others acted within the cultural bias
of their time by setting a curriculum that taught farming and housekeeping
skills and emphasized steady work habits. More than a century passed before educators
considered including the language and traditions of the Onondaga Nation in the
school curriculum.
With
some of his church members and other philanthropic friends, May started the
first hospital in
Sam
May's lifelong concern was to prevent unnecessary misery. Like his father, a
May
held community discussion meetings at City Hall. One of his parishioners,
Harriet Smith Mills (mother of suffragist Harriet May Mills), described the
openness of these Sunday afternoon meetings that were attended by ministers and
people from all different churches. She wrote, "...it seemed to me the
ideal way of seeking truth...as no one has the whole truth, and from none is it
fully hidden." She sensed a real communion at the meetings, a fellowship
and fraternity beyond the sectarian bonds that divide people.
May
had a less formal style than many ministers. He wore a suit, not a robe in the
pulpit. He invited to the communion table all who wished to commemorate the
life and teachings of Jesus as a divinely inspired model. The Christianity that
May preached and professed stressed freedom of thought. When he addressed the
[page 10]
free
will, but also for developing citizens capable of self-government. For Sam May,
the core of Unitarian theology lay in the human mind and heart, "...it can
do a man no good to assert to that as a truth, which he does not perceive to be
true; it can do his heart no good to obey a precept, which he does not from his
heart believe to be right." May advised the graduates to be open to
learning even from the poor and illiterate, who, he assured them, would put to
shame their privileged education.
Pacifism
and nonviolence were natural outgrowths of May's religion. He preached against
capital punishment, and the whole
May's
activism undoubtedly alienated some of his flock, but his loving attitude
toward all people regardless of their opinions made his church popular. His
congregation soon outgrew its building. In the autumn of 1850 they rebuilt one
end of the church to make it 20 feet longer, allowing the addition of 28 more
pews. They also added a spire on top of the bell tower, which was the cause of
a remarkable catastrophe little more than one year later. Early Sunday morning
29 February 1852 the church was destroyed "by a hurricane which struck the
spire; threw it directly upon the ridge pole, crushed down the whole roof,
burst out the side and end walls, and in one movement demolished the entire
building excepting the front and the foundation." When the Unitarians
arrived for Sunday services they found their church was a pile of rubble. Near
the
[page 11]
east end
of the building the roof of the Northrup family home was crushed by the falling
bricks, trapping two women in the ruins. The church had collapsed about
The
stunned Unitarians gathering around the fallen building were mocked by some
more orthodox observers who "exulted over the penalty" that the
Almighty had exacted from the "unbelievers." The congregation
arranged to hold emergency services in City Hall, and after pledging to
reimburse the owner of the damaged house, Sam May reassured his congregation
with "a very feeling sermon" based on the gospel according to Luke,
xiii, 4, 5: "Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and
slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in
Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye
shall all likewise perish."
For
weeks the town was "rife with opinions on the matter of the
punishment..." But Mr. Northrup, a Methodist, took a moderate view saying,
"If the storm was God's punishment for unbelief, why was the steeple
allowed to fall on our house? We are orthodox. Don't make out God to be meaner
than man. If your house falls down, don't change your religion but change your
carpenter."
The
Unitarian church trustees requested permission to hold services in the First
Presbyterian Church each Sabbath at
Once
again, H. N. White was designated by the trustees to oversee construction of
the church building. Most of the $10,000 cost of rebuilding came from a public
auction of pews, although $2,000 was contributed by friends in
The building was
rededicated on 14 April 1853. One local newspaper reported that the service
emphasized God's work: "Remember those in
[page 12]
bonds...those
in adversity...(and) to prevent men from putting the bottle in their neighbor's
mouth making him drunken also." Another paper printed Mr. May's entire
dedication sermon that "summoned ourselves and
others to exercise a larger liberty...to make religious doctrine and religious
duty the subjects of their own personal investigation."
The
anti- Unitarian sentiment in
[page 13]
cooperated
on abolition and temperance work. May accepted, and treated the citizens of
May
was a founding member of the American Antislavery Society. He frequently
arranged for the group to meet in
In
October 1851 May played a
leading role in the famous Jerry Rescue in which a large number of men, including
some leading citizens, stormed the jail and freed a former slave named Jerry
who had been arrested under the Fugitive Slave Act. An escape attempt earlier
in the day had failed and Jerry had been injured. May visited him in jail and
promised him that he would be freed. The successful rescue was planned in the
office of Dr. Hiram Hoyt, one of the founders of the Unitarian society. The
rescuers organized their operation carefully so that no one was killed or
seriously injured in the struggle, although the jail building suffered a lot of
damage. Other Syracusans considered the rescue an outrage against law and
order. They held a protest meeting and 677 citizens signed a petition
denouncing the "Jerry Riot" But there were strong antislavery sympathizers
like former Mayor Alfred H. Hovey who had chaired a meeting of protest against
the Fugitive Slave Act when it was passed in 1850. Several of the principal
rescuers (rioters) were arrested and Unitarians George Barnes, Oliver T. Burt,
Dr. Lyman Clary, and Captain Hiram Putnam put up most of their bail, while
Charles B. Sedgwick provided legal counsel. None of the antislavery people who
[page 14]
participated
in Jerry's rescue were sent to jail. For years afterward, whenever Sam May
faced a controversy, he would remark with a twinkle that he was getting ready
for another Jerry Rescue.
Illness
kept May out of the fray during part of 1858 and most of 1859. He rested in
At
an antislavery convention in
Sam
May viewed the destruction and bloodshed of the Civil War as a judgment on both
the North and the South for participating in the sin of slavery. Young men from
his church enlisted in the army and many other members of the society
volunteered to aid the war effort. The women sewed, knitted, and prepared
bandages, the men worked with the Sanitary Commission to organize shipments of
supplies for the wounded. May traveled to
When
he spoke of the rights of citizens, May also included the rights of women.
Before he met antislavery activists Lucretia Mott and the Grimke sisters in the
early 1830s May had never questioned the common assumption that women were not
to engage in public affairs. Troubled at first by women speaking in public
places, he had listened with an open mind and soon adopted their cause as his
own. He invited women such as the Quaker leader Lucretia Mott and
Congregationalist Rev. Antoinette Brown to speak from his pulpit in
Some
Syracusans were shocked and outraged when May stood on the platform with women
who were wearing the controversial bloomer
[page 15]
costume.
He was reluctant to discuss women's clothing but was eventually persuaded to come
out against tight corsets and other disabling fashions when the conservative
clergy and press ridiculed the reformers. Soon afterward a group of village
ladies called on him to complain about this public discussion of women's dress,
announcing that they had a message for him from the Lord. May received them
cordially and remarked he did not doubt they had a message, but he did doubt
its authorship.
After
the Civil War, Sam May helped organize the Onondaga County Suffrage Association
and held a series of meetings at City Hall. He invited Elizabeth Cady Stanton
and Lucy Stone to speak, promising "two or three able, gentlemanly
opponents who are sincere in thinking our doctrines erroneous – and who will
give them an opportunity fully to vindicate those doctrines in every
particular." When the first National Conference of Unitarian Churches was
held in 1865, May stirred controversy by suggesting that Universalists should
also be invited, and that churches should send both men and women as delegates.
At the second national conference in 1866 two women from
Early
in his ministry May had seen the devastating effects of alcohol abuse on
individuals and their families, which led him to enlist in the temperance
movement. He taught temperance songs in his Sunday schools, urged the school
children to "sign the pledge" promising never to use alcohol, and
supported community temperance rallies wherever he lived. During his
All of
May's deepest convictions seemed to coalesce in his educational work, and
this may have been his most important and lasting contribution to
[page 16]
Council
was not interested, so May led a campaign to raise part of the money and
persuade the city to build the school. He recruited Andrew D. White, a
prominent educator who later became first president of Cornell, to collect
funds. He enlisted public enthusiasm at a meeting in the fall of 1866 and in
December the citizens voted $75,000 for the new high school, which was built at
After
May's term on the Board was over, a new elementary school on
In
1868 May resigned his pulpit because of ill health and the society called Rev.
Samuel Calthrop to be their minister. Lucretia May had died in 1865 and Sam
went to live at the home of his daughter, Charlotte May Wilkinson. He continued
to work as a missionary, preaching in nearby towns and villages and traveling
as far as
In
the summer of 1871 his friend Andrew White, president of
During the night following White's. visit Sam May died, ending 26 years of loving service
to a community that had known him as pastor,
[page 17]
teacher,
and friend. They all
came to his funeral, people from rich homes and humble ones, from his own
religious society and many others, colleagues in his struggle for human and
civil rights, individuals he had helped and befriended. Black people in
In memory of Samuel Joseph May, born in Boston
September 12, 1797, died
in
The
tablet was installed below a large
stained glass window when the
The
Unitarian Society purchased a marble bust of May made by a young artist from
[page 18]
ONWARD AND UPWARD
A
man of great presence and enthusiasm, with a superb education and eight years
pastoral experience, a vigorous 39-year-old Samuel Calthrop
accepted the call of the Church of the Messiah to fill the pulpit so long
occupied by Samuel May. No one could ever take May's place, but the people had
great hopes for this big, handsome Englishman who had left the Church of
England because it worshipped “a bad god." He had been an honor
student preparing for the ministry at Cambridge University, but was refused his
diploma when he declined to subscribe to the articles of faith of the
To
prepare himself for the American ministry, Calthrop lectured at Harvard and
then started a school for boys at
Financially
embarrassed by his move to
In
the spring of 1871 Calthrop moved his family from a house on
Changes
in the church followed Samuel Calthrop's arrival. The board of trustees was
enlarged from six to nine men, and the names of women
[page 19]
began to
appear in the official minutes, which always before had been exclusively
masculine. A committee was appointed to welcome and seat newcomers at Sunday
services. Pews were free and revenues to support the church came from an
"envelope system” of voluntary pledges. The church was mortgaged to pay
for renovations, including finishing the basement rooms for meetings and Sunday
school classes. Members argued hotly over allowing the “children" to dance
at church socials in the new basement. Among the many volunteer Sunday school
superintendents who served over the years, Mary Redfield Bagg stands out for
the graded course of study that she introduced at May Memorial. It was adopted
by other churches in the denomination for their Sunday schools.
During
the 1870s the congregation could not meet expenses and Mr. Calthrop took
several cuts in salary. In the face of continuing deficits, the church decided
to reinstate the sale of pews in 1878, and gave up the "envelope
system" of subscriptions completely several years later. The ladies of the
congregation received a special resolution of thanks in 1878 "for the very
efficient manner in which they had extinguished the church debt." As a
group, the church women were now pledging several hundred dollars a year in
fund-raising events. At this time they were not formally organized, but several
years later the women of May Memorial formed the Women's Auxiliary to the
Unitarian Association. This organization eventually became the Women's
The
new church meeting rooms were used by groups outside the congregation. For
several years Calthrop held classes there, inviting the public to study
subjects like astronomy, botany, geology, chemistry, Roman history, and the
Hebrew prophets. The Syracuse Botany Club was formed by his students and is
still active today. It was organized by members of a fern class taught by Lily
Barnes. Mrs. L. L. Goodrich was president for 30 years.
Calthrop
read omnivorously and kept his congregation informed about intellectual trends
and controversies. From his pulpit he dared to advocate that latest scientific
heresy, evolution. In 1871 he mentioned the subject in the graduation address
he gave at