14

MEMORIAL TO THE MERCHANT PRINCE

In which one thousand people travel to Garden City, Long Island, to take part in the April 1885 dedication ceremony of the Gothic-style Cathedral of the Incarnation—the huge, ornate, and costly memorial Cornelia Stewart has built for her husband. Construction of the cathedral takes nine years and costs approximately three million dollars. On May 22, 1885, Cornelia Stewart signs over the deed of the great cathedral and all of its adjacent buildings and schools to the Episcopal church for one dollar.

In March 1885, a New York Times editorial attempted to calm the nerves of Garden City residents who feared that, with the closing of the A. T. Stewart & Co, business would come an end to the development of their beloved community.

“At last those who put their trust in the ESTATE are to be rewarded,” the Times editorial proclaimed. The much anticipated Cathedral of the Incarnation, nine years in the making, would finally open in an elaborate ceremony, the editorial promised. “The unbelievers who have mocked at the ESTATE and said that it would never open the cathedral will be put to shame.”

Despite the long delay in the construction of the magnificent edifice, the Times scolded Garden City doubters for not understanding the intricacies of building a structure the size, scope, and magnitude of the Cathedral of the Incarnation. The nine years it took to construct the ornate building was nothing compared with European cathedrals that sometimes took “five hundred years to build.” The Times added that “even at the end of that time they leave a tower or something else unfinished.”

Instead of doubting the intention of the governing body of the estate (with Henry Hilton at its head), the people of Garden City should have been “full of admiration and gratitude” that the estate had undertaken to build the cathedral within a mere ten-year span.

The grand opening of the cathedral was set in stone for April 9, 1885, and the residents of Garden City had only Judge Henry Hilton to thank.

AT LAST

For several years thoughtless and wicked persons waited for the completion of the cathedral and professed to believe that ‘in a few weeks’ or ‘next Spring’ the building would be finished or consecrated. When they found that they were wrong they suddenly lost all belief in the ESTATE, and proclaimed that it never meant to finish the cathedral. …

The result is that to-day Judge HILTON … has completed and opened the Garden City Cathedral.

—New York Times
March 20, 1885

It looked as though Cornelia’s face had been painted on a crumbling slab of alabaster calcite, which might have been all right if, whoever had drawn it on, had done it correctly. They didn’t. One eye was larger than the other. The lips were too big and too red. The mouth was lopsided, teetering between a smile and a frown. There were two big rosy cheeks, each perfectly round and red, but also of a unequal size. The eyebrows were drawn on in bold, black strokes careening upward and out, their ends hidden under the jet-black ringlets of her ill-fitting wig. From where one might suspect her ears were located, hidden beneath the thick fake hair, dangled long, shimmering silver earrings whose ends disappeared into the thick red fox fur collar of her otherwise dark coat.

Cornelia Stewart seemed oblivious to her clownish appearance and simply pursed her lips into what might have been construed as a wistfully bemused smile, her blue watery eyes looking out over the elaborate church altar with the perplexed stare of someone who might have been watching a circus roll into town. She blinked constantly as if it was too much to take in all at once, her eyes darting back and forth nervously, her head never moving except for a slight palsy shake.

It was a cold day in April 1885. A slight drizzle was falling outside, and gusts of cloudy breath were visible from the mouths of the hundreds of men, women, and children who had gathered outside one of the church’s three entrances. A cold wind swept across the cathedral lawns, the grass damp and still thin and dark brown with no signs of turning green. The trees were as barren as they had been in the middle of December. Nearly one thousand people had traveled great distances to take part in the dedication ceremony. Ten cars of enthusiastic well-wishers, businessmen, politicians, lawyers, judges, and other professionals and their wives and children, many of them Episcopalians, had made the trip down on a special train from the Long Island City station. By the time they arrived in Garden City for the opening service at 11 o’clock that morning, most were unable to get near the cathedral, never mind get inside and take a seat. The three entrances had been barred by police details, the place already surrounded by hundreds of devout worshippers and curiosity seekers.

Everything, including the glass used for the windows, was English except the organ and the coat of arms of the late Mr. Stewart. The cathedral was, by all architectural and design standards, built with a “sumptuousness and thoroughness of detail which can only be secured by the lavish use of money.” For Cornelia Stewart, money was no object.

THE STEWART MEMORIAL

THE NEW CATHEDRAL AT GARDEN

CITY

Bishop Littlejohn To Open The Building

To-Day—The Two Schools Established

By Mrs. Stewart

It has remained for the widow of a New York millionaire, who gained his wealth in the most respectable and prosaic of employments, to revive the chantry on American soil. … The chimes that sound from the tall steeple of the “cathedral” at Garden City, Long Island, came to America in the same year that Mrs. A.T. Stewart caused ground to be broken for a great memorial to the greatest merchant in the “dry goods trade.” … Nine years have passed and now the chantry, or mortuary chapel, has become a good sized church with appointments for the Bishop and clergy of Long Island, a famous organ built by Mr. Hilborne L. Roosevelt. … If anybody wants to know what “pure floriated Gothic” is, according to the most approved views of English architects, a visit to Garden City is all that is necessary to his enlightenment.

—New York Times
April 9, 1885

The church chimes began to peal. Outside, people moved closer and closer toward one of the entrances to try to look inside or just to hear Episcopalian Bishop Abram N. Littlejohn deliver the opening service and blessing of the new cathedral. Littlejohn was a stout, balding man, his hair brushed from the back to front, barely covering his ears in feathery white curls. He had a commanding presence with his back straight and the bulk of his body pushing forward from his steadfast spine like a barrel concealed in a white linen smock and purple robe. He had a booming voice and spoke with conviction and precise elocution. He had been the bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Long Island since 1869.

Mrs. Stewart established two other memorials in Garden City in memory of her husband—the cathedral schools of St. Paul and St. Mary. The three-story St. Paul’s was established in 1877, reportedly on the advice of Henry Hilton. It was a school exclusively for boys. St. Paul’s was made of brick and stone, done in English Gothic design, with ornate porches of carved stone, a clock and bell tower, and a copper spire.

It combines all the best features of modern collegiate edifices in this country and Europe. … Every part of the building is fireproof; it is thoroughly ventilated and supplied with gas and water in every room … steam heating apparatus furnish a uniform temperature throughout the edifice. … The different stories are connected by an elevator. … The course of instruction in this school is designed to cover six years and to prepare boys for admission to college, scientific schools or other higher institutions of learning.

—New York Times
April 9, 1885

The St. Mary’s School, which formally opened in 1877 as well, was designed to provide young women and girls, according to the New York Times, a “thorough education in every department, and to develop such qualities of mind and heart as will form accomplished Christian women.”

Cornelia Stewart was the driving force behind them all. Her memorials to her husband were the Cathedral of the Incarnation, with its magnificent spire, the small seminary, the lavish bishop’s residency, and two schools. She was even further instrumental in persuading the Diocese of Long Island to move its formal headquarters to Garden City from Brooklyn, lured there in no small part by the exquisite cathedral and buildings placed at its disposal.

In a 1998 New York Times article, Natalie Naylor, director of the Long Island Studies Institute at Hofstra University, said, “Garden City would be a very different place had it not been for her. Cornelia Clinch Stewart’s role has not been given the credit it should have. She was able to do it with his money and as a monument to him. Bringing the Episcopal Diocese from Brooklyn, which was the third largest city in the country, made a difference in terms of the character of Garden City.”

The two schools, which remained integral parts of the Garden City community for decades, were ultimately closed in 1993 due to financial difficulties. Following Mrs. Stewart’s death in 1886, her heirs formed the Garden City Company to oversee the management of the community. After this move, residents for the first time were able to purchase homes in Garden City rather than simply rent them from the Stewart estate as they had previously done.

“That move was one of a series of circumstances that kept Stewart’s project from failing. … The project could have faltered after they both died. … Those formative years, from 1893 to 1919, were solely credited to the Garden City Company’s incredible talent to doing the right thing.”

—John Ellis Kordes, local historian, New York Times, November 15, 1998

It was cold and damp inside the cathedral. Most of those with reserved seating in the front rows of the long wooden pews facing the bronze lectern kept their coats, furs, jackets, and long, dark capes on. Cornelia Stewart stood with the congregation as the organist, George W. Morgan, played the “Hallelujah Chorus,” on the cathedral’s magnificent organ, rapidly blinking her eyes and staring straight ahead with a bemused look on her face. Except for being seated in a place of honor at the very front of the church, she looked like any old woman of means: thin and gaunt, stoop-shouldered, her face badly painted on, her head weighted down by the ill-fitting curly black wig, and a large, wide-brimmed black hat with a sheer black mourning veil pulled up to reveal her face. Her frame was cloaked in a long, black wool coat with a red fox fur collar, her pale hands hidden within a black fur muffler from which hung a string of dark rosary beads.

Life alone had been mostly good for eighty-three-year-old Cornelia Stewart. She could be thankful for many things, most of all the vast fortune her husband had left her. Since his death nine years earlier, she had lived alone in one of the most elegant mansions on Fifth Avenue in New York City, where her every need was tended to by a battery of servants. Even the vast fortune bequeathed to her was taken care of by Judge Henry Hilton, a trusted friend. Her children had passed away, so the entire fortune had come to her.

Cornelia had no mind for business. She was glad Hilton oversaw her husband’s vast dealings. Her only concerns had become her vast collection of wigs and cosmetics. The cosmetics, hundreds of exotic ointments, potions, creams, elixirs, and lotions, all promised endless youth and beauty, and all of them, no matter how unusual or expensive, had failed miserably for her as her tired, wrinkled, pinched face attested. No amount of cosmetics could turn back the clock, a fact she still refused to believe as she spent more and more on acquiring the most elaborate creams and ointments in the hope of uncovering the youth she so desired.

Seats in the cathedral had been reserved for family and close friends. In the front pew to the right of the center aisle sat Judge Henry Hilton and his wife; the former New York governor R. E. Fenton and his wife; Brooklyn Mayor Seth Low and his wife; Prescott Hall Butler and his wife; the Rev. J. B. Wetherill and his wife, a grand-niece; John Hughes, a son-in-law of Judge Hilton’s; and Mrs. Stewart’s three maiden sisters, Emma, Anna, and Julia Clinch.

The service was conducted by the Rev. G. R. Vandewater of St. Luke’s Church, Dr. J. Carpenter Smith of Flushing, New York, and the Rev. Dr. Snively of Brooklyn. Following the service, Bishop Littlejohn took his place at the lectern and opened his manuscript, beginning with a text of Isaiah from the Bible. Littlejohn looked over the gathering from his perch atop the ornate brass lectern and turned his gaze to Cornelia Stewart.

Before proceeding to any other thought I stop here on the threshold of my subject to give utterance to what, next the reverent worship of Almighty God, is the strongest impulse in all hearts at this moment,” Littlejohn said.

As we look about us on this rare scene of architectural beauty, these lines of grace, these rich traceries in wood and stone, yonder uplifted arches, floating in air like ascending hymns arrested in their flight to the skies; these windows glowing with a light that is religious but not dim … the story of the incarnation of the Son of God, from the world’s morning to its evening; that organ of exquisite modulation and mighty compass, combing the sublime diapason of the sea with the softest note of a bird warbling in the air; yonder monumental spire, whose chaste, serene beauty charms in sympathetic fellowship the rays of rising and setting suns, and the nightly gleam of the far-away stars—as we look upon all this our hearts with spontaneous unanimity unite in a loving and grateful tribute of admiration to her who, moved by tender remembrances of the departed, by a desire to do the most enduring good in her generation, has consecrated her wealth to make here the place of God’s feet glorious. That she may live to gather some of the fruit to grow upon this tree of her planting, that peace and happiness may be the portion of her declining years, and that, at the last, when her face shall be turned to the rest that remained for the people of God in the temple not made with hands, the recollection of this pious work for the living, this enduring memorial of her beloved dead, may bring with it the benediction of Almighty God, the redeeming presence of His everlasting Son, the sure comfort of the Holy Ghost—this is the prayer trembling on all lips at this moment and struggling for utterance with the impatient fervor of a long pent-up emotion.

Littlejohn thanked Henry Hilton, but not by name.

And then only second to this feeling toward our venerated benefactress is that which we cherish toward him who is so generally known as her chosen friend and advisor. The informing, directing mind in this work from the beginning he has put upon everything that we see in the impress of his ripe judgment, his cultured sense of the beautiful, and, where it may be had, the congenial vesture of the useful, his vigilant, painstaking care extending to all details. Gladly do we avail ourselves of this first appropriate occasion thus publicly to record our estimate of his elevated and comprehensive views from the start and our gratitude for his invaluable services in bringing thus far on the way to its consummation this magnificent scheme of affiliated Christian institutions. It is our earnest wish that he may find some part of his reward for these years of watchful, responsible labor in the success of what he has done so much to establish. Nor must we fail to suitably remember the architect of this structure, him whose mind conceived, whose pencil drew, and whose eye watched over the slow elaboration of these forms of living peace.

Hilton was seated next to Mrs. Stewart in the front row at her right hand, a position he had occupied for the past nine years. Conspicuous by its absence was any mention of the late A. T. Stewart’s remains or the crypt far below the cathedral, where his body was reportedly interred.

GARDEN CITY’S CATHEDRAL

A GREAT CROWD AT THE OPENING SERVICES

Bishop Littlejohn Pays A Warm Tribute

To Mrs. Stewart’s Generosity And

Mr. Hilton’s Judgment

The Cathedral of the Incarnation, in Garden City, Mrs. A. T. Stewart’s costly memorial to her millionaire husband, was opened for public worship yesterday. Enough people waited around its elaborately carved doors for admittance to have filled the Roman Catholic cathedral in this city. Ten car loads of enthusiastic Episcopalians, many of them business and professional men, with their wives and children made an early breakfast and took a special train from the Long Island City station. Eleven more cars, filled with devout worshipers from Brooklyn, joined them. … The appointed hour of public service passed and still nearly 1,000 people, who had traveled miles to participate in it, had not been able to get near either of the three entrances.

—New York Times
April 10, 1885

A two-hundred-foot spire was built on the Gothic brownstone cathedral, making it, at the time, the tallest building on Long Island. An enormous stone tower hovered over the entranceway to the cathedral, and atop it was a brilliant brass cross. Dozens of stone buttresses were built off the main tower, and the angular roof line and variety of conical spires piercing the sky were adorned with a wide assortment of stone gargoyles, copper- and brass-covered towers, and elaborately carved stone pinnacles.

The massive front doors of the cathedral were carved with depictions of the saints, and a series of enormous, meticulously designed stained-glass windows began in the cathedral’s vestibule and continued down the length of the vast building. All of the windows contained full figures of saints and apostles, each telling a particular biblical story and each perfectly and precisely drawn down to the most minute detail. Overhead hung a series of elaborate brass chandeliers that lit the way down the aisles of the cathedral. On either side of the aisles were rows upon rows of carved wooden pews lined with purple velvet cushions with gold braid. Huge octagonal mahogany bays were built along the length of the building to house the organ and choir sections that overlooked the congregation seating.

The altar at the front of the cathedral included eight sculptured white marble panels, each separated by columns with huge black stone columns at the corners. Two statues in white marble, one depicting Hope leaning on an anchor and the other of Religion carrying a replica of the cathedral, adorned the front of the church. Toward the front of the altar were two bronze lecterns, the right-hand lectern adorned with an intricately designed eagle, the base of it showing Christ surrounded by a group of children. The lectern on the left included a winding shaft of leafs with a group of men and women gathered at the base of it. The stone floor leading up to the lecterns had a colored, inlaid marble coat of arms of the Episcopalian Diocese of Long Island, and the vestibule was adorned with an elaborate marble depiction of the Stewart coat of arms.

Beneath the main chapel in the basement was the mortuary chapel, and connected to it was a prayer room featuring finely carved wooden pews. The mortuary chapel and prayer room were separated from the rest of the cathedral by two pillars of white carved marble closed with a massive and gleaming brass gate.

Thirteen narrow stained-glass windows ran the length of the basement. The windows included a series of coats of arms, crests, and the likenesses of several bishops of the Episcopal Church. In the center of the basement was a huge marble urn inscribed with the words: “In Memoriam.” Across from the urn were dressing rooms for the bishop and other clergy. An elaborate iron and brass circular staircase led from the upstairs chapel down to the basement and dressing rooms. Most of the basement was devoted to classrooms for Sunday school.

On April 17, 1885, nearly a week after the grand opening of the cathedral, Bishop Littlejohn presided over a special Episcopal convention at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Brooklyn to consider accepting the new cathedral in Garden City. Close to one hundred clergy and laypeople took part in the convention. The convention not only had the task of accepting the new structure but also of coming to some agreement on the conditions Mrs. Stewart had placed on the magnificent and generous gift she had offered. Along with giving the new cathedral to the Episcopal Church, Cornelia had stipulated that the church would have to agree to make Garden City the seat of the diocese and that the bishop would have to establish his residency in the home built for him in Garden City. The delegates quickly adopted resolutions to accept the cathedral and all the conditions Mrs. Stewart had attached. The headquarters of the diocese would be in Garden City henceforth.

On May 22, 1885, Cornelia Stewart signed over the deed of the great cathedral and all of its adjacent buildings and schools to the church for one dollar. The deed was immediately placed on record. The deed forbid the church incorporators to convey, lease, or mortgage any of the property. Consecration services for the cathedral were scheduled for June, and it was Stewart’s wish to have the recorded deed placed on the altar during the consecration ceremony.

SERVICES OF CONSECRATION

Ceremonies To Take Place At The

Cathedral Of The Incarnation

The Cathedral of the Incarnation at Garden City, Long Island, which was built by Mrs. A.T. Stewart as a memorial to her husband, will be solemnly consecrated on Tuesday morning next, in the presence of the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Long Island, the clergy and laity of the Episcopal churches in other dioceses, and such of the general public as see fit to attend. … Bishop Littlejohn, of the Diocese of Long Island, will officiate. … The ceremonies will include the formal presentation of the cathedral to the Bishop … and the placing on the cathedral altar of the deeds of conveyance of the church property with documents assuring to the diocese a perpetual endowment of the cathedral.

—New York Times
May 27, 1885

On June 2, 1885, the official service of consecration was held. The seating capacity of the cathedral was estimated at 1,500, and more than two hundred more chairs were located along the aisles and the back and sides of the church to accommodate the multitude of guests, including clergy, dignitaries, and invited guests. Hundreds more gathered outside the cathedral trying to catch a glimpse of the services inside and listen to the music and choir. Unlike the April grand opening, which was cold and rainy, June 2 was a warm summer day. The flowers were blooming and the trees and finely manicured lawns were green and vibrant.

Inside, Cornelia Stewart, dressed in a modest black silk dress with hat and veil sat in the front pew with Henry Hilton once again at her side. Immediate family members and friends sat in the pews behind and beside her. Bishop Littlejohn sat in a chair along the altar. A cadre of Episcopal bishops from Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Illinois occupied places of honor in seating along the front altar. With them were representatives of St. Stephen’s, Trinity, Hobart, and Columbia Colleges, and Lehigh University.

Following the recital of the Twenty-fourth Psalm (“The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein”), a frail Cornelia Stewart, leaning on Henry Hilton’s arm for support and using a cane, made her way slowly up to the altar, where she presented Bishop Littlejohn the deed to the property. Stewart’s voice was too weak to address the bishop, so, in her stead, Hilton read the formal presentation of the conveyance of the property. With the deed, Hilton told the congregation, was a bond providing for an annual endowment to the estate of fifteen thousand dollars to be applied to the maintenance of the cathedral, building, and grounds. Quite literally, the deed was done. Had it taken place anywhere other than within the solemn, foreboding cathedral, the audience might have cheered and clapped. As it was, there were audible sighs and murmurs, many in the vast audience nodding their heads in silent approval.

Following the presentation and acceptance of the deed, Assistant Bishop Potter delivered a sermon based on the Bible’s “First Chronicles”—“The palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.” Potter defended the construction of the massive and costly cathedral in the face of complaints that the money could have been better spent on hospitals, colleges, and libraries rather than such an ornate palace of worship. According to Potter, “Only active Christianity could bring home to men the great fact of the brotherhood of humanity.”

It was the duty of Christians to worship in the finest places they could build, Potter proclaimed, celebrating the idea that “here was a church home to which the common people might freely come on an equality with the grandest in the land.”

THE GIFT OF MRS. STEWART

FORMAL PRESENTATION OF THE

GARDEN CITY CATHEDRAL

Great Throng Witness The Transfer

To The Church Of Property Which

Cost Over $2,000,000

From all the paths men and women walked past the lines and within the guarded doors of the cathedral, which was to pass by legal gift from Mrs. A.T. Stewart to Bishop Littlejohn for the Diocese of Long Island. The gathering had assembled to witness the gift and service of consecration by the Bishop. … Judge Hilton … presented him with the deed to the property, which, for $1, to be paid, conveyed to the church through him, the edifice and grounds on which $2,000,000 had been spent.

—New York Times
June 3, 1885

In December 1885, Henry Harrison, the much heralded architect of the Cathedral of the Incarnation, sued Cornelia Stewart for more than ninety-five thousand dollars he claimed was due him for his professional services. Harrison, a resident of Connecticut, brought suit against Mrs. Stewart in the United States Circuit Court. According to Harrison, he was employed by Mrs. Stewart in 1876 to design and prepare plans and drawings for the cathedral, and he claimed he was also hired as the superintendent to oversee the construction of Mrs. Stewart’s memorial.

The services he rendered to her in the design and construction of the cathedral, according to Harrison, were valued at approximately $111,000. According to Harrison’s suit, he had spent nearly $3,000 of his own money on the project that was never reimbursed, bringing the total amount owed to him to $114,000. Harrison claimed that Mrs. Stewart had only paid him about $18,000 of that amount. According to Harrison, when he demanded the remaining amount due, his request was refused.

According to lawyers for Mrs. Stewart, Harrison had not been Mrs. Stewart’s architect for several years, and he had been paid for his architectural designs and plans. Stewart’s attorney, Horace Russell, maintained that Mrs. Stewart had only employed Harrison for his architectural work and not as superintendent of the construction.

The case was later settled out of court.

At the end of the service of consecration, Henry Hilton escorted the ailing Cornelia Stewart to her waiting carriage. He then made his way through the vast crowd to his own carriage. Hilton always appeared to walk as if someone or something was chasing him, periodically looking over one shoulder or the other, imagining the sound of footsteps behind him as if someone was following close at his heels. Someone was. It was Time, and it was catching up to him.