Rev. William Staunton, D. D.
With this author, the fifth rector of old St. Peter's Church, in Morristown, we go back in association to the ancient city of Chester, England, where he was born and where his grandfather on his mother's side was a leading dissenting minister and the founder of Queen's Street Chapel, Chester. His father, an intellectual man and well read in Calvinistic theology, also affiliated with the Independents, but was often led by his fine musical taste to attend with his son the services of the Cathedral. It was in this Cathedral of Chester, which is noted for the beauty and majesty with which the Church's ritual is rendered,—that the boy acquired that love of music which placed him in after life in the front rank of church musicians. One who knew him well has said of him in this respect: "This knowledge of music was profound and comprehensive. He was not simply a musical critic or a composer of hymn tunes and chants, but he had followed out through all its intricacies the science of music. So well known was he for his learning and taste in this department that it was a common thing for professional musicians of distinction to go to him for advice and to submit their compositions to him, before publication. Much of his own music has been published. But his musical accomplishments are best attested by the work which he did as associate editor of Johnson's Encyclopedia." He was in particular, the musical editor of this work and wrote nearly all of the articles relating to music in it. He was also a prolific writer for church reviews and other periodicals. Among his publications in book form are: "A Dictionary of the Church", (1839); "An Ecclesiastical Dictionary", (1861); "The Catechist's Manual", a series of Sunday School instruction books; "Songs and Prayers"; "Book of Common Prayer"; "A Church Chant Book", and "Episodes of Clerical and Parochial Life".
Dr. Staunton came with his father and the family, when fifteen years of age, to Pittsburg, Pa. He was closely associated with the Rev. Mr. Hopkins, afterward the Bishop of Vermont. His first ministerial charge was that of Zion Church, Palmyra, N. Y., and it was in 1840 he accepted the rectorship of St. Peter's Church, Morristown, which position he held for seven years. He then organized in Brooklyn, N. Y., a much needed parish, which he named St. Peter's after the parish he had just relinquished.
"Dr. Staunton," says the present rector of St. Peter's, the Rev. Robert N. Merritt, D. D., who took up the work of the parish in 1853, and to whose untiring exertions, the parish and the people of Morristown are largely indebted for the erection of the massive and beautiful stone structure that stands on the site of the church of Dr. Staunton's time,—"Dr. Staunton was no ordinary man, though he never obtained the position in the church to which his abilities entitled him. Besides being above the average clergyman in theological attainments, he was a scientific musician, a good mechanic, well read in general literature, and so close an observer of the events of his time that much information was always to be gained from him. His retiring nature and great modesty kept him in the back ground."
The following interesting reminiscence comes to us, in a letter, from one of the boys who was under his ministration when rector for seven years of old St. Peter's. "I remember", says this parishioner, "Dr. Staunton very distinctly and with much affection as well as regard and gratitude, for the training I had from him in the doctrines and ordinances of the church. He was for those days a very advanced churchman, being among the first to yield to the influence the Oxford movement was exercising and to adopt the advance it inaugurated in the ritual and service of the liturgy informing strictly however himself and teaching his people to recognize the authority of the rubrics. He maintained this, I think, till his death, and was ranked then as a conservative rather than a high churchman, though when he was here, the same attitude made him to be thought by some as almost dangerously ultra.
"He was not eloquent nor what might be called an attractive preacher, but wrote well and accomplished a great deal as a careful and impressive teacher of sound doctrine and Christian morality.
"Dr. Staunton was an accomplished scholar in scientific as well as ecclesiastical learning, was skilled as a draughtsman and designed, I remember, the screen of old St. Peter's when the chancel stood at the South street end; and it was wonderfully good and effective of its kind. He was also a trained musician, and at one time instructed a class of young ladies in thorough-bass, among them being the two Misses Wetmore, my eldest sister, and others, and, in addition to this, he made the choir while he was here, both in the music used and its efficiency, a vast improvement upon what it had been. He was a tall man, fully six feet, of a severe countenance and rather austere manner, leading him to be thought sometimes cold and unsympathetic, though really he was most kind and considerate, and in all respects a devoted and watchful pastor. He published, I think, a church dictionary later in life which is still a standard book and authority.
"These are my impressions of Dr. Staunton received principally as a very young boy, though confirmed by an acquaintance continued till his death, and I retain the most sincere gratitude for the abiding faith in the sound doctrine of the Episcopal Church which he, after my mother, so trained me in that I have accepted them ever since as impregnable; and for this I am sure there are many others of his pupils and parishioners besides myself to 'call him blessed.'"