The Rev. Richard Denton, c. 1635

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Denton was a crucial element in the early development of religious pluralism in colonial America and in American Presbyterianism, specifically. I thought some of you might benefit from his story.

Richard Denton was born in Warley, West Yorkshire, England to a father of the same name and an unknown mother. He was baptized April 10, 1603 at the parish church in nearby Halifax.

Denton matriculated from St. Catherine's College, Cambridge. He was ordained a Deacon in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire on March 9, 1623 and a Priest on June 8, 1623. He first became pastor in Turton, Lancashire and later Curate of Coley Chapel in Halifax, West Yorkshire.

It is not known exactly when or why Denton split from the Church of England to profess and preach Reformed theology, but it was at a time of much religious upheaval. It may have had something to do with the "Book of Sports" controversy. The "Great Migration" of the Puritans to New England had been underway for several years when Richard Denton and his young sons led a large group of Presbyterians to Massachusetts circa 1635, possibly on the ship "James."

He first preached at Watertown, Mass., later removing to Weathersfield, Connecticut and even later to Stamford in 1641, probably due to friction with local Puritans. This friction may have been political, rather than religious, in nature.

As early as 1644, Denton relocated his congregation to Hempstead, Long Island, situating themselves under Dutch rule and law. All inhabitants were allowed to vote in New Netherland, and the Denton congregation made it a requirement to do so; they were likely barred from voting in Puritan territory. However, this was not the end of Denton's interactions with his own people, for he is said to have preached to English soldiers at the military fort in New Amsterdam during the Indian wars.

Denton was well received in New Netherland, as evidenced by two letters sent to Holland by Johannes Megapolensis and Samuel Drisius, the former being the leader of the Dutch Reformed Church in New Netherland and the latter being a pastor who could minister in French as well as Dutch.

These letters also inform us that the Puritan Independents in Hempstead attended Denton's services, but left his church when he baptized children of parents who were not members. Nonetheless, he was respected by prominent Congregationalists - notably, Cotton Mather - for his theological treatise "Soliloquia Sacra."

Despite flourishing in Hempstead, Rev. Denton became dissatisfied with his salary and departed Long Island for Virginia in 1657 "seeking remedy." Gov. Stuyvesant himself had appealed to Denton to stay in New Netherland, to no avail. Apparently no remedy was found in Virginia, for in 1658 he was again contracted to minister at Hempstead, the same place he had left one year earlier. This return to normalcy, however, would be short lived for Richard and his wife returned to England in 1659 to settle a deceased friend's estate and collect a legacy of 400 Pounds Sterling.

Richard Denton died in Hempstead, Essex in 1663. The church he founded and pastored in Long Island - Christ's First Presbyterian - still exists at 353 Fulton Ave.

Cotton Mather wrote of him in his Magnalia Christi Americana:

The Life of Mr. Richard Denton.

The apostle describing the false ministers of those primitive times, he calls them, "clouds without water, carried about of winds." As for the trite ministers of our primitive times, they were indeed "carried about of winds;" though not the winds of strange doctrines; yet the winds of hard sufferings did carry them as far as from Europe into America; the hurricano's of persecution, whereon doubtless the "prince of the power of the air" had his influence, drove the heavenly clouds from one part of that heaven, the church, unto another. But they were not clouds without water, where they came; they came with showers of blessing, and rained very gracious impressions upon the vineyard of the Lord.

Among these clouds was our pious and learned Mr. Richard Denton, a Yorkshire man, who, having watered Halifax in England with his fruitful ministry, was by a tempest then hurried into New-England, where, first at Weathersfield and then at Stamford, "his doctrine dropt as the rain, his speech distilled as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass."

Though he were a little man, yet he had a great soul; his well-accomplished mind, in his lesser body, was an Iliad in a nut-shell.

I think he was blind of one eye; nevertheless, he was not the least among the seers of our Israel; he saw a very considerable proportion of those things which "eye hath not seen."

He was far from cloudy in his conceptions and principles of divinity: whereof he wrote a system, entituled, "Soliloquia Sacra" so accurately, considering the fourfold state of man, in his - I. Created Purity; II. Contracted Deformity; III. Restored Beauty; IV. Celestial Glory - that judicious persons, who have seen it, very much lament the churches being so much deprived of it.

At length he got into heaven beyond clouds, and so beyond storms; waiting the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the clouds of heaven, "when he will have his reward among the saints."

Epitaphium.

Hie Jacet, et fruitur Tranquilla sede Richardus
Dentonus, eujus Fama perennis erit.
Incola jam ceali velut Astra micantia fulget,
Qui multis Fidei Lumina clara dedit.

Narratives of New Netherland, Vol. 6:

Letter to the Classis of Amsterdam from Johannes Megapolensis and Samuel Drisius, dated August 5, 1657: At Heemstede, about seven leagues from here, there live some Independents. There are also many of our own church, and some Presbyterians. They have a Presbyterian preacher, Richard Denton, a pious, godly and learned man, who is in agreement with our church in everything. The Independents of the place listen attentively to his sermons; but when he began to baptize the children of parents who are not members of the church, they rushed out of the church.

Another letter dated Oct. 22, 1657 (the same writers): Mr. Richard Denton, who is sound in faith, of a friendly disposition, and beloved by all, cannot be induced by us to remain, although we have earnestly tried to do this in various ways. He first went to Virginia to seek a situation, complaining of lack of salary, and that he was getting in debt, but he has returned thence. He is now fully resolved to go to old England, because his wife, who is sickly, will not go without him, and there is need of their going there, on account of a legacy of four hundred pounds sterling, lately left by a deceased friend, and which they cannot obtain except by their personal presence.