Religion: Little Church

On a cold day just before Christmas in 1870, two actors went to Rev. William Tufnell Sabine, rector of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Atonement at Madison Avenue & 28th Street in Manhattan. One of them (though Mr. Sabine did not recognize him) was the great Joseph Jefferson, who had been playing Rip Van Winkle since 1859 in various versions. He explained that his old friend George Holland had died; this was Mr. Holland’s son Edward; they wished to arrange for the funeral. Then he added that Mr. Holland had been a well-known oldtime actor. Mr. Sabine’s expression changed. Hesitantly he said that he was sorry, he could bury no actor from the Church of the Atonement.

“Well, sir,” said Joe Jefferson, “in this dilemma is there no other church to which you can direct me, from which my friend can be buried?”

“There is a little church around the corner,” said Mr. Sabine.

“Then, if this be so,” said the actor piously, “God bless ‘the little church around the corner!’ ”

Rector and founder of the Church of the Transfiguration near Fifth Avenue on East 29th Street was Rev. Dr. George Hendric Houghton. Kindly, white-bearded, he was a pronounced Anglo-Catholic, a follower of the Oxford Movement. Only once, in his youth, had he attended a theatre (to his death he never saw Actor Jefferson on the stage). But he had performed funerals for actors. He agreed readily to do so for Actor Holland. The Press heard of the incident, amplified it. Out of the welter of discussion which ensued throughout the U. S., there emerged the name & fame of The Little Church Around the Corner. To celebrate it and tell its history there was published last fortnight an elegantly bound and printed volume, Through the Lich-Gate.* Some facts:

¶ Founded in 1848, the church bought property in 1849 which was regarded as too far uptown. But Society moved northward. Theatres were built nearby. Mrs. John Jacob Astor became a communicant of the Church of the Transfiguration, gave a fine pair of gas-brackets. Additions were built on the low. brownstone building; its rambling appearance earned it the name of the Church of the Holy Cucumber Vine.

¶ During the draft riots of 1863, mobs stampeded the streets, hunting Negroes. The Church of the Transfiguration had previously been believed to be an “underground station” for runaway slaves. Dr. Houghton, stanch Abolitionist, hid many Negroes in it during the riots, once stood defiantly at the gate shouting: “You white devils, you! Do you know nothing of the spirit of Christ?” Today in the Church is a memorial to George & Elizabeth Wilson. Negro doorkeepers, representing the baptism of the Ethiopian by St. Philip.

¶ The fame of The Little Church Around the Corner as a marrying place and meeting place for theatrical folk grew up under its second rector, Rev. Dr. George Clarke Houghton, nephew of the founder. From 1897 until his death in 1923 he performed some 30,000 marriages. As his successor he chose Rev. Dr. Jackson Harvelle Randolph Ray. Born in Mississippi 45 years ago, Dr. Ray is the seventh son of a seventh son, studied medicine, law, worked for the Brooklyn Eagle before he was ordained a priest in 1912. He helped found the Episcopal Actors’ Guild, of which George Arliss is president, installed it in a wing of the Church. In its room are old playbills; in the Church, memorials to many an actor. Dr. Ray and his two assistants have performed some 15,000 marriages during his incumbency (total number since the Church was founded; more than 100,000).

¶ Famed brides & bridegrooms: Irene Castle; Actors John E. Hazzard, the late Holbrook Blinn and the late John Drew; Cartoonists Rollin Kirby and James Montgomery Flagg; Grace, daughter of General Cornelius Vanderbilt III; Evangeline Adams; Stephen Butler Leacock; the late Mr. & Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish; Ann Harding. Record year for marriages: 1930 (2.346). Record for one day: 43. Average endurance proportion: 85%.

¶ Famed funerals were those of Actors Edwin Thomas Booth and Maurice Barrymore; Baseball Manager Miller Huggins; Author William Sydney Porter (0. Henry); Thomas Hitchcock, founder of the family’s polo-playing tradition.

*#182;By Ishbel Ross (Payson: $7.50).