The last thing I remember reading about this place was when they made the conversion to a synagogue, which was ages ago.
Let me see if there is anything online..OOH...a really long piece from a website called " A Daytonian in Manhattan that is like a historical treatise..let me give you a good chunk of it, I don't think you would really want anything more.
The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers, fled to America in the 17th century seeking relief from religious persecution. They were gravely disappointed.
New Amsterdam’s Governor Peter Stuyvestant unabashedly despised
both Jews and Quakers. In 1656 he
forbade the citizens of the Village of Flushing to “admit, lodge or entertain…any
one of the heretical and abominable sect called the Quakers.” Quaker worship was outlawed and the sect was
forced to meet in secret.
Tolerance slowly surfaced. By 1681 Quakers were openly
worshiping and in 1734 they were granted the same civil rights as other British
subjects. The Militia Act of 1755
exempted the pacifist group from serving in the military.
Ironically it would be dissention from within their ranks,
rather than outside influences, that caused the worst problems in the first
decades of the 19th century.
A religious fashion swept the nation’s cities that focused on intense
study of the Bible. Traditionally, the
Quakers were more concerned with direct inspiration from God than academic
Bible teachings.
A difference of religious opinion among the Religious
Society of Friends rapidly grew from a crack into a gaping chasm.
One group, led by Elias Hicks of Long Island, stood fast with the
traditional Quaker traditions. Another
was open to the new movement. In 1828
the Society of Friends underwent a quiet and peaceful split, known as the
Hicksite Schism. There were now the
Hicksite and Orthodox branches.
Quaker worship, both in liturgy and architecture, was
notable for its simplicity and lack of show.
So the Orthodox branch's choice of location for a building lot in 1855 was, perhaps, a bit surprising. The group purchased
the plot at 28 Gramercy Square as the site of its new meeting
house.
The Square was two decades old. Ringing the landscaped
park were the brick and brownstone mansions of some of New York’s wealthiest
and most influential citizens. The wide
lot at the southeastern edge of the square would place the unassuming Quakers
squarely amid the city’s most assuming population.
The land was purchased for $24,000—nearly half a million
dollars today. On it the Friends would
erect a chaste two-story meeting house.
The congregation hired the architectural firm of King & Kellum to design the
structure with the admonishment that the house have no “useless ornament so as not
to wound the feelings of the most sensitive among us.”
John Kellum and Gamaliel King carefully followed that
direction. Construction began in 1857
and was completed two years later. What
resulted was an unsullied Italianate design clad in warm, yellow Ohio
sandstone. Often mistaken for Greek
Revival, the meeting house rose to a dramatic peaked pediment, the end returns
of which defined the slightly-projecting end bays.
photo by Alice Lum |
Here in the years just before the Civil War, slaves escaping to Canada were reportedly given shelter.
To the mostly Episcopalian population around Gramercy Park,
the quiet gatherings in the meeting house—which had no formal ceremony nor designated
minister—must have been alien. Quaker services were marked by “expectant
waiting.” Friends entered in silence and
sat wordlessly to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit. Only when one was moved to speak or sing
was the silence interrupted. Intervals
between were often lengthy, and it was possible that no one would speak at all.
Such was the case when The Sun described the funeral of
attorney Richard H. Bowne here on May 6, 1881.
“The funeral was plain.
The hearse, followed by about a dozen carriages, arrived at the meeting
house door at 4:30 P.M. The coffin was
of solid oak covered with black cloth.
On each side were three silver-bar handles. On the lid was a floral sickle, crossing a
golden sheaf of wheat. There were no
other flowers…After the coffin had been carried into the church there was an
interval of silence. Then the Rev. Mr.
Donaldson of the Fort Washington Episcopal Church, where Mr. Bowne usually
attended in the summer, read from one of St. Paul’s Epistles, and made some
remarks in which he said that Mr. Bowne was one of the men who leave the world
better for their having lived in it.
There was another prolonged interval during which no one spoke, after
which Henry Dickenson, the minister of the Friends’ Society, offered
prayer. There was a pause, and Mr.
Dickenson made an address.”
Thirty-five years before Bowne’s funeral another rift had occurred
among the Quakers. An annual meeting was
held in the larger cities, drawing Quakers from far away. At the time of the meetings it was customary
for each city to send friendly letters to the other groups.
In 1846 the annual meeting in Philadelphia was “divided over
the question of heresy,” according to The New York Times, and “through motives
of policy failed to send to New York and other yearly meetings the usual
epistles of brotherly love, exhortation, and admonition.”
The New York Orthodox branch felt
snubbed and communication between the New York Friends and those of
Philadelphia ceased.
Then during the annual meeting in May 1897, after half a
century of simmering bitterness, the first letter from Philadelphia
arrived. The Gramercy Park congregation
reacted with expected Quaker decorum and politeness.
Clerk James Woods explained to the assembly about the letter
and “asked if the epistle should be read.”
“I feel that God will that we should hear it,” said Sister
Ruth S. Murray.
Her pronouncement was met with “It is right to do so,” “I
also,” and “It is well we should,” from throughout the hall. The clerk passed the letter to Assistant
Clerk David S. Tabor to read. “It was
filled with sound doctrine and exhortations to all to stand firm in the faith,
and for the great cause of universal peace and good will,” reported The Times.
Now the problem was how to respond; or if to respond. The letter had not been addressed
specifically to the New York meeting, but to “all bodies and individuals known
as of the Society of Friends.”
Some felt that the epistle, being general, needed no
response. Others felt it was time to
heal old wounds. “Then came a reaction,”
said the newspaper. “Pride came to the
fore. It was displayed chiefly among the
older men, some of whom could remember the bitterness of fifty years ago.
“Again the apostles of peace gave voice to the spirit, but
in all there was a delicate choice of words, an almost painful care not to hurt
the feelings of another or even to seem antagonistic. It was like a flutter in a dove cote, and yet
at the last one elder characterized it as a ‘heated debate.’”
In a decision worthy of Solomon, the congregation agreed to
note in the minutes “with what pleasure and benefit the epistle had been
received,” and to send a copy to the clerk of the Philadelphia yearly
meetings. And with that small act half a
century of bitterness was healed.
It would be another half century before the initial great rift
among the Friends would be addressed.
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