First Presbyterian Church


Wall Street, near Broadway. 
New York (N.Y.)

Published Date:1897 

Digital ID: 801053 
NYPL Call Number: PC NEW YC-Chu-(A-Z)



First Presbyterian Church

"The First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York traces its birth to controversy 
and a prison cell in the days long before the First Amendment - a time when religion 
was politics. Its proud history has continued in this tradition, as First Church as 
often appeared in the forefront of controversial issues, leading the way in its community, 
city, and country.

On a January Sunday in 1706, Francis Makemie led worship for a group of immigrant Scots 
and Irish in a private home in New York. Makemie was a missionary - organizer from the 
Church of Scotland and was not welcomed by Anglican authorities in New York. His 
punishable crime here, however, was the performance of an infant baptism, an 'unlicensed' 
act that infuriated Anglicans and provided grounds to jail him. His defense 
(and ultimate acquittal) became the rallying point for a 'band of eighty' who organized 
a congregation in his support in 1716.

In spite of opposition from the Anglicans, the rebels eventually purchased a plot on 
the north side of Wall Street near Nassau Street. In 1719, thirteen years after Makemie's 
first service in New York, a church opened for worship.......


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