PREAKNESS AND THE PREAKNESS REFORMED CHURCH, PASSAIC COUNTY, NEW JERSEY. A HISTORY. 1695-1902. With Genealogical Notes, the Records of the Church BY GEORGE WARNE LABAW, PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. NEW YORK: BOARD OF PUBLICATION OF THE REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA, 25 EAST TWENTY-SECONd Street. 1902. PUBLI PREFACE. The author gives this work to the public for what it is worth. It could not but be incomplete, for all written history is incomplete. There are inaccuracies and imperfections in it, of course, but we have done as well as we could. Leading a busy life, in this busy and exacting age, we have been greatly hampered amid all our varied pulpit, pastoral and other duties, both in gathering our data as well as in afterwards arranging them. The idea of the book herewith presented originated in connection with our preparation for the Historical address, delivered Oct. 29, 1901, on the occasion of the celebration of the Preakness Reformed Church Centennial Anniversary, and which address was published in full in the Paterson Call, November 2, following. Occasions like these in these days are common, and we believe they cannot be made too much of, notwithstanding the extra work and expense they entail; for they bring up the past, establish the present, and in a way, open the future. It would be well, likewise, if, as a rule along with these celebrations, some more permanent record were made of facts, frequently most important, then brought to the public attention, but which otherwise inevitably soon pass beyond the ordinary human recollection. More time, labor and patience have been required in the compilation of this volume than at the beginning we supposed would be necessary; but it is at last, with great relief to us, in the shape you have it. Anyhow, it is something which will give much light on the early and later conditions prevailing in this locality and neighborhood. Few churches or congregations have any memorial of the kind, works surely which, when furnished, should be somewhat appreciated, as we trust this will be more or less. We have in a cursory way gone over as we were able all the early history, both secular and religious, of Preakness and vicinity, and gradually led up to the building of the church here, and the organization of the congregation. Then we traced the progress and growth of the community, and of the ecclesiastical body as well, bringing in the Lord's laborers in the ministry with the manifold conditions by which, from time to time, they were surrounded; while later we have taken up the several pastorates, and brought the history down to date. 6 The Genealogical Notes," which are a prominent feature of the book, were mainly an after-thought. These are not genealogies, but simply "notes" as they profess to be. One name or family traced at first only a little way led to another and another, and, as we became interested, the "Notes" were expanded, and in some cases carried farther back. The older families, but not all of them, have received more notice than the later ones; and those we took up later are in some instances more fully treated than those we gave attention to at first. We have not taken up any family a second time to any extent, considering when our first work was done that that should suffice. Necessarily there has had to be a great deal of curtailment, and a leaving out of many names altogether, particularly of BUDKE 8 MAY'33 later generations. Nevertheless, much information concerning nearly all these can be supplemented from the Church Records given in the appendix. However, we could ourselves have done comparatively little with our genealogical work, nor would we have done it, had we not had the very efficient help of Mr. John Neafie, of New York, who is a born genealogist. We have been days with Mr. Neafie, besides being in correspondence with him for years. The Hon. William Nelson, of Paterson, also both personally and through his printed works, has greatly helped us, not only in the genealogical, but in other departments of our production. Likewise the Rev. E. T. Corwin, D. D., of New Brunswick, especially through "The Corwin Genealogy," and his "Manual of the Reformed Church" (third edition; the fourth was not out until our work was about finished); the Rev. T. W. Welles, D. D., of Paterson, principally through "The Pastor and the Church;" the Rev. J. F. Folsom, of Kearny, N. J., through newspaper articles; Mr. William Roome, of Butler, in different ways, as well as in his "Early Days and Early Surveys;" Mr. Samuel R. Demarest, of Hackensack; and many others have been of great service to us. And, yet, with all our help and pains, we could get little, if any, information in some directions. Naturally, we have culled from various original sources; most of these, together with the printed authorities referred to, having been indicated in the progress of our writing. In the body of the history we have been as particular in the giving of facts as we thought proper-perhaps in places a little too much so, while in other places it may be we have not been particular enough. But as we have said, we have done as well as we could, or as our judgment prompted. In the Appendix of this work will be found much information that is better in printed form than if left confined solely between the covers of old dusty and more or less worn church books, or on marble slabs and other monuments, which are liable to suffer, not only from the ravages of time, but from all sorts of accidents. Because of these conditions, already in our researches and endeavors, we have been much hindered and baffled, and how much more will this be the case with others in the future, unless such information is put in more permanent form? The cut of the church, the same as we had on the Centennial programme, was made from a picture taken by Rev. J. F. Folsom, of Kearny, and the cuts of the Dey and Van Saen houses, the parsonage and the interior of the church, from pictures taken by S. R. Merrill Bensen, son of C. D. Bensen, of Preakness. GEO. W. LABAW. November, 1902. |