The Dutch Reformed clergy were sounding the alarm back in Holland that religious competitors were flooding their market. One report gives us their view on “The State of Religion” in New Amsterdam. Johannes Megapolensis and Samuel Drissius, who identified themselves as clergy of the Reformed Church in “Amsterdam, in New Netherlands,” sent the report, dated August 5, 1657, to their ecclesiastical superiors (called the Amsterdam classis).
They noted the dilemma of the Presbyterian teacher “who conformed to our Church” faced in Flushing. The people avoided every opportunity to hear him preach and refused to pay his expenses. Instead, they had fallen into “divers opinion.” The situation was ripe for religious disaster in their view.
Then, a “fomenter of evil” showed up, a “cobbler” who claimed his ordination was directly from Christ. This man, evidently Wickenden, preached and took “people to the river and dipped them.”
The two informants linked the Flushing imbroglio to religious malcontents found in Newtown (today’s Elmhurst), and Hempstead, Long Island. The most difficult continuous religious challenge came from a woman, Lady Deborah Moody, in Gravesend, Brooklyn.
The Lady Deborah Moody and her husband Sir Henry Moody, Bar. of Garsden of Wiltshire, England, were Nonconformists, Protestants who favored democracy, freedom of conscience, and congregational churches. After her husband’s death, and to secure greater religious and political freedom, she emigrated to Salem, Massachusetts, and then to Gravesend in the New Netherlands. She along with Ensign George Baxter and Sergeant James Hubbard were given a “patent” (grant of control) of land in Gravesend. she became a favorite of the Governor Generals of the colony and was considered a wise advisor.
The Governor General issued her, and her family. and some associates on December 19, 1645 a unique patent on the land of Gravesend, giving her religious freedom. It was the only patent given to a woman. (Evidently, a previous patent was given around 1643 but was lost.)
The patent guaranteed she and her companions “to have and injoye the free libertie of conscience according to the costome and manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any Madgistrate or Madgistrates or any other Ecclesiasticall Minister that may p’tend jurisdiction over them, with libertie likewise for them, the sd pattentees, theyr associates heyres &c to erect a bodye pollitique and civill combination amongst themselves, as free men of this Province & of the Towne of Gravesend…”
So, the religious authorities found it difficult to move against the woman. To their immense frustration, she was able to shield a growing body of religious malcontents, which the report called “Mennonites,” though the pastors’ specific complaints seem to be about Baptists and their type of baptism.
Megapolensis doesn’t seem to be a particularly intolerant man. He helped to rescue a Catholic priest from the Mohawks, who objected to his association with the rival Hurons. He was a missionary himself to the Indians, fluent in the Mohawk language, and his letters were published in 1645 A Short Account of the Mohawk Indians, their Country, Language, Figure, Costume, Religion, and Government. Interestingly, the West India Company blamed the pastor, his son (also a pastor), and others for making a backdoor deal for the English takeover of the New Netherland colony. It was claimed that Megapolensis sent his daughter to the English in Long Island to obtain the outline of a deal.
