Capturing Beauty
by
John Presco
Copyright 2021
My Broderick cousin who lives in Berlin has been helping me compile some of our family history that my natal family knew very little about, especially Christine Rosamond Benton. Therefor, our history could not be sold to outsiders. I am not alone. Others are appalled at what they have read. The Carmel Art Feeding Frenzy resembles the denuding of our forests that concerned Robert Lewis Stevenson, a Carmel Pioneer.
I will be sending out a three page synopsis of my story that will begin with me having my mother call up Sydney Morris to find out what was going on. Morris told Rosemary he and Stacey Pierrot had emptied her daughters home of everything but a large box of family photographs.
“Do you want them?” Morris asked.
“Of course….I want them!” answered the mother of a world famous woman artist, who is demonized and accused of crimes by Pierrot’s book that Robert Buck blessed.
Booth-Kelly Lumber Company In Springfield | Rosamond Press
“While convalescing in mountains overlooking Carmel Valley, he presciently critiqued the region’s logging industry: “It is man in his short-sighted greed that robs the country of the nobler redwood. Yet a little while and perhaps all the hills of seaboard California may be as bald as Tamalpais.”
Under his “hand and seal,” the first British Governor of New York, Richard Nicolls, gave to our forebears in the faith, the early Lutheran settlers and founders of the Congregation of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession of Faith on the island of Manhattan, the right to “freely and publicly exercise divine worship according to their consciences.” This notable event, almost 150 years after the birth of the Lutheran Reformation on October 31, 1517, is a testimony to the truth of the enduring Word of scripture, as is written in the closing verses of Psalm 90: Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!
The members of St. Matthew are the spiritual descendants of those first Lutherans in the Dutch colony on the island of Manhattan and of each succeeding generation, as it is with all the baptized the world over who sing of the faith of our mothers and fathers that has been passed down to us from the apostolic church. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Matthew is the oldest Lutheran congregation in America. Soli Deo Gloria – to God alone be the glory!
(This historic charter is in the custody of the New York Public Library, Schwarzman Building, Fifth Ave, New York.
Click HERE to see an image of the Charter)
About us
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Matthew is the oldest Lutheran Church (congregation) on the North American continent and in all of the Americas. Chartered on December 6, 1664, we are now in the 350th year of faithful service to God’s people through the ministry of Word and Sacrament, not counting almost two decades of existence “en utero”
This ministry is the fruit of the labor of the first Lutheran settlers in the 1640s in the then Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (now New York) on the island of Manhattan in response to the love of God and embracing the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While the exact date of the founding of the congregation is unknown, the earliest records in the archives in the Lutheran Church in Holland indicate that in 1648 the Congregation of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession of Faith on the Island of Manhattan sent a delegation to the mother church in Holland asking for a minister to serve the small band of Lutherans, notwithstanding the fact that they were denied the right to worship openly and freely under Dutch rule. The first minister arrived in 1657, but he was warned not to conduct worship services or to carry out his pastoral duties. He was subsequently jailed and deported back to Holland in 1659. When the British took control of the colony in September 1664 and renamed it New York, the first British governor, Richard Nicolls, at the request of the Lutherans, issued the historic Charter on December 6, 1664, the congregation’s legal start date, thus giving the full rights previously denied them to express their religious beliefs in maintaining their Lutheran identity and practice. This seminal moment took place almost one hundred and fifty years after the Reformation (1517).
St Matthew congregation has been a church on the move, dictated by circumstances. After its first building was destroyed in 1673, two years after it was built on the very spot where Trinity Episcopal Church now stands at the bottom of Manhattan, the congregation was given a deed for land south of Rector Street and Broadway. In 1729, a new building named Trinity Church was erected. The congregation worshipped there until the sanctuary was razed by fire during the Revolutionary War in 1776. And so journey of giving witness to the love of God continued at various other locations on the Island of Manhattan.
In 1750, eight years after his arrival from Germany to serve the church in Pennsylvania, Henry Melchoir Muhlenburg, “patriarch” of Lutheranism in America, was called to serve the Lutheran congregation in New York. This was perhaps the most difficult time in the history of the congregation when there was much wrangling over which language, Dutch or German, was to be used for worship. Consequently, Christ Church, a German congregation was formed, leaving the mother congregation, Trinity Church, were services were conducted in the Dutch language.
In 1752, St Matthew started its parish school which served its members well. At its Broome Street building, in 1881, Concordia College, Bronxville, NY, formerly Concordia Collegiate Institute of the Missouri Synod, was housed at its founding. St Matthew covered most of the expenses of the Collegiate Institute’s operation until it moved in 1893 to Hawthorne, NY. At this time St. Matthew was making plans to move again – to the Harlem neighborhood.
St. Matthew was one of the founding member congregations of the New York Ministerium in 1786, under the pastorate of the Rev. Dr. John Christopher Kunze (son-in-law of H.M. Muhlenberg), who also was the first president of the Ministerium. Pastor Kunze, with the help of his assistant, George Strebeck issued a Prayer Book and the first Lutheran Hymnal to be compiled in America in 1795.
Being the most conservative of Lutheran churches in the east, St Matthew left the New York Ministerium in 1885 and joined the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and other States, now the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS).
From its Broome Street location, in 1906, St. Matthew started an “uptown” mission at 145th Street and Convent Avenue, where a new chapel was erected. This became the permanent place of worship for the congregation in 1913, following the closure of the Broome Street location.
In 1945, St. Matthew again moved. After two years of talks, the congregation merged with the Messiah Mission Church in the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Inwood. A decade later, on Thanksgiving Day, 1956, excited parishioners and their pastor, the Reverend Alfred Trinklein laid the cornerstone for a new sanctuary at 202 Sherman Avenue. This beautiful sanctuary served God’s people of 50 years as the house of bread in its ministry to the people of God and the wider community. There in Inwood, more than 250 low-income and needy households received groceries monthly; Alcoholic Anonymous groups gathered for more than 25 years in carrying out their programs to the addicted and their families; and the School ministry, the first Christian School in Manhattan provided a safe environment for quality education. At the end of June, 2006 another chapter in the long history of St. Matthew came to an end. It became necessary for the congregation to move yet one more time. Unfortunately, the school ministry ended one year earlier, at the close of the 2004-2005 school year.
But the faith journey continues. The dedicated members and friends of America’s oldest existing Lutheran congregation began worshiping on the first Sunday in July, 2006 at The Cornerstone Center, a building belonging to the ELCA congregation of Our Saviour’s Atonement (OSA), 178 Bennett Ave, one mile south of the Sherman Avenue location.
St. Matthew’s move from place to place on the island of Manhattan since it beginnings in the mid-1600s is a reminder to us that the Church of Christ “is not a building…the church is the people,” and that we, the people of God are the temple of the Holy Spirit, where he dwells in temples not made with hands. But at the same time we surely would like to once again have a sanctuary that we can call our own in continuing the sacred ministry of Word and Sacrament that was commissioned by Christ Jesus to the apostles and the Church, which was brought to the new world by the first settlers and kept alive by the many generations of faithful people of God, both clergy and laity, whose faith in Jesus Christ never wavered in the midst of uncertainty and adversity, through the power of the Holy Spirit. St. Matthew’s pastor is the Rev. Peter Deebrah.
A Might Fortress is Our God; a bulwark never failing. Soli Deo Gloria!
St. Matthew worships on Sundays at 1:30 p.m. For more information, please call our office at 212-567-5948.
Freedom On Liberty Street
Posted on September 20, 2017 by Royal Rosamond Press
My Stuttmeister ancestors came to New York and lived on Liberty Street where the Trade Towers once stood. I now suspect they were Ministers. They came to Chili, also. Thirteen year old Victor Rudolph Stuttmeister applied for a passport when he was thirteen years of age. He had a high forehead, an aquiline nose, a large mouth, a sharp chin, brown hair, and blue eyes. Rudolph had six children and was a New York City Physician. Phillip, Mary, and Lizzie are born in New York City. Bertha is the first child to be married in California. This family were pioneers in San Francisco, Belmont, and Lagunitas in Marine County where Beryl and Leonard Buck moved after living in Oakland for many years.
Jon Presco
6 1006 __21 Stuttmeister Rudolph 57 M W Physician 12,000 6,000 Germany X X
7 1006 __21 Stuttmeister Matilda 42 F W Keeping House New York X X
8 1006 __21 Stuttmeister Victor 24 M W New York X X
9 1006 __21 Stuttmeister Bertha 10 F W California X X
10 1006 __21 Stuttmeister Willie 8 M W California X X
11 1006 __21 Stuttmeister Alice 3 F W California X
12 1006 __21 Stuttmeister Mary 16 F W New York X
13 1006 __21 Stuttmeister Lizzie 14 F W New York X
14 1006 __21 Stuttmeister Phillip 18 M W New York
Name:Rudolph Stuttmeister Arrival Date:12 Jul 1843 Age:27Gender:M (Male)Port of Arrival: New York Port of Departure: Hamburg, Germany Place of Origin: Deutschland Ship: Stephani
Rudolph or Rudolf (French: Rodolphe, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish: Rodolfo) or Rodolphe is a male first name, and, less commonly, a surname. It is a Germanic name deriving from two stems: Rod or Hrōð, meaning “fame”, and olf meaning “wolf” (see also Hroðulf; cf. Adolf).
1888: From the Daily Alta, an article on the marriage of Dr. William O.
Stuttmeister and Augusta D. Janke.
Daily Alta California, Volume 42, Number 14175, 24 June 1888
STUTTMEISTER-JANKE.
One of the most enjoyable weddings of the past week took place at
Belmont, Wednesday morning last, the contracting parties being Miss
Augusta Janke, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. August Janke of Belmont,
and Dr. Wm. Stuttmeister of San Francisco. The house was
handsomely decorated with a rich profusion of ferns and flowers, and
at the appointed hour was filled with the relatives and intimate friends
of the contracting parties. At 11 o’clock the wedding march was played
and the bridal party entered the parlor. The bride was attended by Miss
Alice Stuttmeister, a sister of the groom, and Miss Minnie Janke, a
sister of the bride, as bridesmaids, and Dr. Muldownado and Wm.
Janke, a cousin of the bride, were groomsmen. The Rev. A. L. Brewer
of San Mateo performed the beautiful and impressive ceremony under
an arch composed of flowers and greens very prettily arranged, after
which the guests pressed forward and offered their congratulations.
The bride was attired in a very pretty and becoming costume of the
crushed strawberry shade, and wore a corsage bouquet of orange
blossoms. She carried a handsome bouquet of white flowers. After the
guests had paid their compliments the bride and groom led the way to
the dining-room, where the wedding dinner was served and the health
of the newly married pair was pledged. The feast over, the guests
joined in the dance, and the hours sped right merrily, interspersed with
music singing and recitations, until the bride and groom took their
departure amid a shower of rice and good wishes. Many beautiful
presents were received. Dr. and Mrs. Stuttmeister left Thursday
morning for Santa Cruz and Monterey, where they will spend the
honeymoon. On their return they will make their home in Belmont.
1911: Dr. Willian O. Stuttmeister was practicing dentistry in Redwood
City, CA. (Reference: University of California, Directory of Graduates,
1864-1910, page 133).
Records from Tombstones in Laurel Hill Cemetery, 1853-1927 – Janke
– Stuttmeister
Mina Maria Janke, daughter of William A, & Cornelia Janke, born
February 2, 1869, died March 1902.
William August Janke, native of Hamburg, Germany, born Dec. 25,
1642, died Nov. 22, 1902, son of Carl August & Dorette Catherine
Janke.
Frederick William R. Stuttmeister, native of Berlin, Germany, born
1612, died January 29, 1877.
Mrs. Matilda Stuttmeister, wife of Frederick W.R. Stuttmeister, born
1829, died March 17, 1875, native of New York.
Victor Rudolph Stuttmeister, son of Frederick W.R. & Matilda
Stuttmeister, born May 29, 1846, died Jan. 19, 1893, native of New
York.
Rosamond Press 
Reblogged this on Rosamond Press and commented:
Here is the marriage certificate of Rudolph Stuttmeister who lost his mother at birth.