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The first motion looking to
the removal of the church was the permit from the Crown for the proposed
building, obtained in 1727. In 1728, on some unknown charge against Mr.
Morgan, Synod finds his accusers have “no just ground for separation.” In
1730, on July 20th,the elders, Walter Ker and John Hutton, with their
“helps” who are “to represent the congregation,” Charles Gordon, Timothy
Lloyde, Jonithan Forman, Robert Cumming, and John Henderson, met and “agreed
to build a meeting-House between Wm, Ker’s Barrs and Rockey Hill Bridge.”
Three reasons for this new building may be deduced from the records. First,
there was clearly an apprehension of a division in the congregation, and the
consistent, Scotch element in the church, led by Walter Ker, who had always
been out of sympathy with Mr. Morgan, wished to prepare for the possible
separation, by providing a place for the accomodation of the large portion
who were disaffected at the close of Mr. Morgan’s ministry. Second, there
appears to have been a change in the location of many of the Presbyterian
settlers in the early years of the century. The strongest supporters of the
church were on plantations several miles west of
The Tennent Church. Built 1730, Enlarged 1753.
the "Old Church;” the newer Scotch element,
coming over in the time of the Jacobite troubles of 1715, found the eastern
portion of the county already pre-empted, and went where Proprietor’s land
could be obtained; the Dutch had also entrenched themselves gregariously
about the former site. Thirdly, the earlier building had evidently been of
such a rude and temporary character, that there was need of a new church, on
the old site or elsewhere. A fortnight after the above-mentioned meeting of
the representatives of the church, they agreed “that the Old or lower
meeting-House To be repaired with all Haste that can be.”
Managers, or “undertakers,” in building the new church were appointed in
August, 1730, between the call and the ordination of John Tennent. The new
church "is to be made Forty feet long and Thirty feet wide, and each of the
Elders is to have one seat in it above their common Due.”
The work which was to be pushed “with all the speed possible after this
sowing time was over,” was successfully advanced in the winter, and on
“April 18th, 1731, was The first Time that there was servise in the new
meeting-House on White Hill.” On the same day Margaret, daughter of William
Ker was baptized, “the first Baptized in the new Meeting House.”
A tradition has been handed down that it was planned by the “undertakers” to
locate the church upon a site lower than its present situation, and that old
Janet Rhea, one of the Scotch Covenanters, seized the small corner-stone in
her apron, and toiling to the top of the hill, set it upon the summit,
saying to the astonished builders, “Wha ever heard o’ ganging doon to the
Hoose o’ the Lord, an no o’ ganging oop to the Hoose o’ the Lord?” A fine
mixture of aspiration and scripture literalness, characteristic of
Covenanter stock. The agreement was made in 1730, "That the services be one
Sabbath at the upper Meeting House, and so to continue successively,” which
apparentW meant alternate services at the “Scots” church and the “Tennent”
church. About the year 1733, under the ministry of Rev. William Tennent, jr.,
services were held for two Sabbaths in the new church, and one in the old
church. In course of time, from the decay of the slight structure reared in
the first days of the new settlement, and from the superior accommodations
and more convenient situation of the newer church, the “Old Scots
Meeting-House,” on Free Hill, crumbled, fell and passed into oblivion so
utterly, that no tradition remains of its size, appearance, or
appurtenances.
Concerning the famed ministry of Rev. William Tennent, jr., in the church
and community that bears his name and cherishes his memory, little may
properly be said within the limits of the present subject. His energy and
apostolic zeal, his shrewdness, wit, and consecrated sense, his prodigious
labors, and the accounts, well-nigh miraculous, of supernatural acts and
scenes, are treasured thoughts and household tales in the broad region where
he toiled with such success.
His body was buried in the central aisle of the church whose walls rang so
often with the ardor of his eloquence. Before his year-old grave, Washington
rallied the retreating Continental troops, upon that heated Sabbath day, in
June, 1778, when brazen cannon lips thundered from Tennent heights the stern
message of Liberty; and the dark menace of invasion rolled back from the
little church front, where Strength and Conscience, Valor and Religion
joined to repel the foe from Monmouth field.
Rev. John Woodhull, D. D., followed with an illustrious ministry of
forty-five years, exerting a wide and benignant influence. Boyd, the
Tennents, and Woodhull, four of the first five ministers, died while in
their service with the church of Freehold.
Some half a mile eastward of the Tennent church, upon a thickly wooded hill,
o’ergrown with tangled briars, that clamber over fallen trunks, on a point
that looks out toward the white church he loved and toiled for through long
years, lies the body of that man of God, Walter Ker. His tombstone is of
firm-grained sandstone, with clear-cut inscription that reads as follows:
Here lies what’s Mortal of Walter Ker
Deceased June 10th 1748 in y 92 year of his age Who long with Patience Bore
life’s heavy load Willing to spend and be spent for God the noble Portrait
in a line to paint he Breath’d, a Father liv’d,' & Dy’d a saint
Here sleeps in peace the aged sire’s dust
Till the glad Trump arouse the sleeping just.
Beside him lies his wife, who had died fourteen years before. Above the
little plot stands a massive oak with wide, strong branches which have
resisted many a wintry shock, whose iron strength, deep rooted in the soil
beneath, and lofty in its grand, uplifted limbs, seems as a type of that
noble Covenanter's soul, who, after suffering imprisonment for conscience
sake, banished across the sea, prayed and toiled and sacrificed, through
three score years, for the Church of the Eternal Covenant of God. Beside the
oak stands a strong and graceful chestnut tree, and the two, with branches
intertwined, are symbols of those true and upright lives, rooted in the
certainty’ of the promises of God, and sublime in the aspirations for the
heavenly life. Down below the eminence where the trees are shading the
ancient graves, rolls a fertile field and on its grassy sward, under
fruitladen branches, graze flocks of sheep and herds of placid cattle.
From the rugged grandeur of those stern, strong, God-fearing lives of the
troublous past, descend to our more peaceful days the inspiration of noble
inheritance, and the treasured memories of the lineage of God’s elect.
“Peace to the Church, her peace no foes invade;
Peace to each noble martyr’s noble shade,
They with undaunted courage, truth, and zeal,
Contended for the Church and Country’s weal.
We share the fruits, we drop the grateful tear,
And peaceful altars o’er their ashes rear.”
FINIS. |
