In 1823 on July 4th, Jonathan Weeden published his pioneering census of NYC churches, “Summary view of the Houses of Public Worship in the City and County of New York, A.D. 1823.” It was a celebration of the new nation’s vitality.
Although the economy and building was disrupted by the War of 1812 and its recession, the churches kept on expanding making New York City, as the Stranger’s Guide to the City of New York told it, a sacred center. “If the piety of a nation is estimated according to the number of its religious institutions, then, indeed, may the citizens of New-York be considered a pious and religious people.”
Weeden said that his detailed tracking of the churches of the city showed “that the places for public worship have kept full pace with the population of this great metropolis.” He infers that this means that the city was favorable to “the religious character” and “a reformation of morals” that partly owed its success to Sabbath schools, missionary, Bible and tract societies and other “humane and benevolent institutions with which our city abounds.”
The Roman Catholics built St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mott Street in 1815, and the evangelicals used the new 1811 grid plan to make sure all parts of the city were covered, though the Baptists tended to scatter here and there in clusters as a result of missions and church splits. Most Protestant churches had an evangelical faith, according to Kyle B. Roberts’s essential guide Evangelical Gotham. Religion and the making of New York City, 1783-1860.
Seeing how the city was beginning to rapidly exapnd, Christians made up blueprints on how to keep up the pace of planting churches and faith-based social services.
In his six-month search, Weeden found 82 houses of worship and noted that six more were under construction. The presence of 18 denominations was uncovered by this “nonsectarian” census. Weeden also mentioned some of the smaller groups like the Swedenborgians, Universalists, Unitarians, and Jews. Revivals were common, particularly at St. George’s Episcopal Church. He noted ten “Coloured ministers,” though he missed a few according to our count.
He mentions by name the African American pastors: Abraham Thompson, James Varick, Lebben (Leven) Smith, Henry Arden, Thomas Miller, Benjamin Rush, Abraham Marks, George White, Edmond Crosby, and P. Williams. Several of the pastors were associated with the Zion African American Methodist Episcopal Church.
Though not mentioned in the census, Chinese Christians were beginning to come through the city. In 1818 five Chinese students arrived to study at the Foreign Missions School in Cornwall, Connecticut. More people from many countries would soon be arriving.
In July 1847, one of the first public notices of Asian American religion was of a floating exhibit about China on a ship in New York harbor. The 160’ vessel called the Keying sailed into NY harbor with 30-40 Chinese crewmen. The New York Herald gave daily coverage to the going-ons of the ship which was designed to be a floating exhibit about China.
The New York Herald reported that a Chinese worship service on the boat may well have been the first such publicized Chinese religious event in the United States.
The Herald announced on July 14, 1847, “the city of New York will have an opportunity to day of witnessing Chinese idol worship with all its concomitants of kneeling, sacrificing, and offering of gifts.” According to the paper, the public attended in great numbers.
After a labor dispute on the ship, the Chinese sailors took shelter in a Christian mission called Sailor’s Home on Cherry Street, according to a report by the American Magazine. There, a lay Chinese American preacher Lin-King-Chen counseled the sailors, provided Bible studies, and delivered a “divine” farewell service just before the sailors returned to China.
