Authors and Writers Associated with Morristown / With a Chapter on Historic Morristown

by Julia Keese Colles

Rt. Rev. Wm. Ingraham Kip, D.D., LL.D.

Bishop Kip, since 1853, Bishop of California, was called to old St. Peter's Church, Morristown, immediately after his taking orders in 1835. "The first time the service of the Protestant Episcopal Church was used in Morristown, so far as known," says our historian, "was in the Summer of 1812. At that time Bishop Hobart of New York was visiting Mr. Rogers at Morristown, and by invitation of the officers of the First Presbyterian Church, he officiated one Sunday in their church, preaching and using the Episcopal service."

For two years, 1820 and '21, the service was held on Sundays, at the house of George P. McCulloch, and finally on Dec. 4th, 1828, the church building was consecrated which has stood until quite recently. Now a superb stone edifice covers the ground of the old church.

In the ancestry of Bishop Kip we have a link with the far off story of France, for he is descended from Ruloff de Kype of the 16th Century, who was a native of Brittany and warmly espoused the part of the Guises in the French civil war between Protestants and Papists. After the downfall of his party, this Ruloff fled to the Low Countries; his son Ruloff became a Protestant and settled in Amsterdam and his son Henry made one of the Company which organized in 1588 to explore a northeast passage to the Indies. He came with his family, to America in 1635, but returned to Holland leaving here his two sons Henry and Isaac. Henry was a member of the first popular assembly in New Netherlands and Isaac owned the property upon which now stands the City Hall Park of New York.

In 1831, the young William Ingraham, was graduated at Yale College and after first studying law and then divinity was admitted to orders and at once became the third rector of St. Peter's, at Morristown, remaining from July 13th, 1835, until November of the following year. Columbia bestowed upon him in 1847, the degree of S. T. D. Between the rectorship of St. Peter's and the bishopric of California, he served as assistant at Grace Church, New York, and was rector of St. Paul's, at Albany.

Bishop Kip has published a large number of books, many of which have gone through several editions. In addition he has written largely for the Church Review and the Churchman and several periodicals. Among his books are "The Unnoticed Things of Scripture", (1868); "The Early Jesuit Missions" (2 Vols., 6 editions, 1846); "Catacombs of Rome", (8 editions, 1853); "Double Witness of the Church", (27 editions, 1845); Lenten "Fast", (15 editions, 1845); the last two were published in both England and America as was also "Christmas Holydays in Rome", (1846). Besides these are "Early Conflicts of Christianity", (6 editions); "Church of the Apostles"; "Olden Times in New York"; "Early Days of My Episcopate", (1892).

EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE OF THE "EARLY JESUIT MISSIONS."

There is no page of our country's history more touching and romantic than that which records the labors and sufferings of the Jesuit Missionaries. In these western wilds they were the earliest pioneers of civilization and faith. The wild hunter or the adventurous traveler, who, penetrating the forests, came to new and strange tribes, often found that years before, the disciples of Loyola had preceded him in that wilderness. Traditions of the "Black-robes" still lingered among the Indians. On some moss-grown tree, they pointed out the traces of their work, and in wonder he deciphered, carved side by side on its trunk, the emblem of our salvation and the lilies of the Bourbons. Amid the snows of Hudson's Bay—among the woody islands and beautiful inlets of the St. Lawrence—by the council fires of the Hurons and the Algonquins—at the sources of the Mississippi, where first of the white men, their eyes looked upon the Falls of St. Anthony, and then traced down the course of the bounding river, as it rushed onward to earn its title of "Father of Waters"—on the vast prairies of Illinois and Missouri—among the blue hills which hem in the salubrious dwellings of the Cherokees—and in the thick canebrakes of Louisiana—everywhere were found the members of the Society of Jesus. Marquette, Joliet, Brebeuf, Jogues, Lallemand, Rasles and Marest,—are the names which the West should ever hold in remembrance. But it was only by suffering and trial that these early labours won their triumphs. Many of them too were men who had stood high in camps and courts, and could contrast their desolate state in the solitary wigwam with the refinement and affluence which had waited on their early years. But now, all these were gone. Home—the love of kindred—the golden ties of relationship—all were to be forgotten by these stern and high-wrought men, and they were often to go forth into the wilderness, without an adviser on their way, save their God. Through long and sorrowful years, they were obliged to "sow in tears" before they could "reap in joy."