The early social growth of the city naturally centred about its churches.  Even in Colonial days conservative English society in New York assembled on Sunday with a devotion directed not less to fashion than to religion.  We must not forget that America was really not America then, but Colonial England.  A graceful militarism was the order of the day, and in the fashionable congregations were redcoats in plenty.  The Church of England, as represented and upheld by Trinity Parish, was the church where everyone went.  If one were stubborn in dissenting—­which meant, briefly, if one were Dutch—­one attended such of those sturdy outposts of Presbyterianism as one could find outside the social pale.  But one was looked down upon accordingly.

It is not hard to make for oneself a colourful picture of a typical Sunday congregation in these dead and gone days.  Trinity was the Spiritual Headquarters, one understands; St. Paul’s came later, and was immensely fashionable.  Though it was rather far out from Greenwich the Greenwich denizens patronised it at the expense of time and trouble.  A writer, whose name I cannot fix at the moment, has described the Sabbath attendance:—­ladies in powder and patches alighting from their chaises; servants, black of skin and radiant of garment; officers in scarlet and white uniforms (Colonel “Ol” de Lancey lost his patrimony a bit later because he clung to his!)—­a soft, fluttering, mincing crowd—­most representative of the Colonies, and loathed by the stiff-necked Dutch.

Trinity got its foothold in 1697, and the rest of the English churches had holdings under the Trinity shadow.  St. Paul’s (where Sir.  Peter Warren paid handsomely for a pew, and which is today perhaps the oldest ecclesiastic edifice in the city, and certainly the oldest of the Trinity structures) was built in 1764, on the street called Vesey because of the Rev. Mr. Vesey, its spiritual director.  The “God’s Acre” around it held many a noted man and woman.  Yet, as it is so far from the ground in which we are now concerning ourselves, it seems a bit out of place perhaps.  But one must perforce show the English church’s beginnings, soon to find a more solid basis in St. John’s Chapel, dear to all New Yorkers even nowadays when we behold it menaced by that unholy juggernaut, the subway.

St. John’s was begun in 1803 and completed in 1807.  It was Part of the old King’s Farm, originally granted to Trinity by Queen Anne, who appears to have done quite a lot for New York, take it all in all.  It was modelled after St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, in London, and always stood for English traditions and ideals.  This did not prevent the British from capturing the organ designed for it and holding it up for ransom in the War of 1812.  The organ was made in Philadelphia, but was captured en route by the British ship Plantagenet, a cruiser with seventy-four guns, which was in the habit of picking up little boats and holding them at $100 to $200 each.  Luckily the church bell had been obtained before the war!