In 1857, the California gold rush was in decline. The railroad bubble peaked in July. Business failures began in August. The fashionable churches were moving north, but Jeremiah Lanphier lived in the nonreligious lower part of the city. Lanphier never married, and had no formal schooling to prepare him for ministry, but he was commissioned as a lay missionary of North Dutch Church (torn Read more...

From Daytonian in Manhattan: Three blocks to the north, on Ninth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Street, the New York Asylum for the Blind had stood since 1831.  In 1839 it had taken in a 19-year old student, Franny J. Crosby, who quickly was recognized for her talent in writing poetry and hymns.  Fanny had been blinded by an incompetent physician at Read more...

Frederick Muhlenberg, son of the “father of the Lutheran Church in North America,” Rev. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, was the pastor of Christs Church, also known as the Old Swamp Church.   On July 2nd, 1776, Muhlenberg left the city. Following the Battle of Brooklyn Heights, sources say the church burned, likely during the Great Fire of New York City.   Read more...