WARDENS AND VESTRYMEN Murray Hoffman, Christopher S. Bourne, John Davenport, Opposite Page William C. Dayton 256 Samuel Sparks, Floyd W. Tomkins, J. B. Vandervoort, George John Jay, Samuel M. Valentine, Henry Eyre, William B. 260 Edgar M. Crawford, George W. Smith, John L. Riker, Wood bury G. Langdon Carlisle Norwood, Abraham C. Pulling, Herbert Valentine, James M. Constable. 262 264 Francis L. Stetson, Montgomery H. Clarkson, Waldron P. Charles Lanier, John A. McKim, George F. Butterworth, John 268 Samuel Riker, Jr., Gherardi Davis, Frederick E. Hyde, Edwin 270 ASSISTANT MINISTERS Tapping R. Chipman. Elliott Dunham Tomkins, William 272 Nathaniel L. Briggs, Haslett McKim, Jr., Robert W. B. 274 E. Soliday Widdemer, J. Newton Perkins, Thomas Frederick 276 Horace C. Hooker, George Biller, Jr., Philip Cook, Edward M. H. Knapp . 278 THE CHAPTER I THE BEGINNING OF THE WORK HE parish of the Incarnation, New York, owes its inception to the missionary zeal of the congregation of Grace Church, under the rectorship of the Rev. Dr. Thomas House Taylor. In order to understand the relation between mother and daughter, it will be necessary to briefly relate an incident connected with Grace Church. Early in the year 1804 a few members of Trinity Par ish purchased from a German congregation a small frame church building situated on the corner of Broadway and Rector Street, south of Trinity Church, opposite the graveyard. In 1808 a separate parish was organized called "Grace," under the rectorship of the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Bowen, who was consecrated bishop of South Carolina in 1818. Dr. Taylor became rector in 1834, and died in 1867. Having occupied this building for nearly forty years and realizing that the population of the city was steadily moving northward, Grace corporation sold it for $65,000 in 1845, and purchased ground as a site for its new church at the northeast corner of Broadway and Tenth Street at the point where Broadway takes a turn to the northwest. A Gothic church of stone was built on this new site, and opened for divine service in 1846. At that period Grace Church was one of the most beautiful of all build ings in the city, and was a conspicuous object at the head of the great thoroughfare of the metropolis. The solid brown-stone spire of Trinity Church at the southern end of Broadway and the graceful open-work, white wooden spire of Grace at its northern end stood in marked contrast. The congregation of Grace Church had no sooner occupied its new building than the rector encouraged his people to make provision for the rapidly increasing population farther north, east of Union Square. This attractive pleasure ground had but recently been opened to the public. It was enclosed by an ornamental railing on a stone coping, and beautified by shade trees and flowers, making it an attractive play-ground for children, and a much frequented resting place during the summer months for dwellers in the vicinity. On the day of consecration of the new Grace Church, March 7th, 1846, the Rev. Dr. Taylor preached; and, having spoken of the work of the parish during forty years past, said: "You have indeed provided for yourselves, and for the deathless spirits of your little ones, this place of prayer in all of its soothing and subduing associations of solemnity and beauty; and now I have come to persuade you to go on and provide for the spiritual and eternal wants of the poor, whom God has commanded to be always with you. My object is to ask you―(and I am made bold by the consideration that I have never yet asked anything and have been refused by you), my object is to ask of you to give me the means of building, and preparing for the most efficient and the most immediate operation, Grace Church Chapel, a church in which the Word and sacraments shall be administered according to our forms, and |