Henry Barclay D.D. (1712 - 1764)

Born 1712 in Albany, New York Colony

Ancestors

Husband of Mary (Rutgers) Barclay — married 15 Dec 1749 in New York, New York

Descendants

Died 20 Aug 1764 at about age 52 in New York Colony

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Biography

Henry was born in 1712. He was the oldest of the four sons of St. Peters Church, Albany founder Thomas Barclay and Anna Dorothea Drauyer. Henry grew up following his father on a ministry that included missions to the Mohawk Indians as well as service to the settler populations of Albany and its hinterland. As his father's health deteriorated during Henry's adolescence, Henry began to feel a call to the ministry himself. Following the death of Thomas Barclay in 1726, Henry was sent to Yale University. He graduated in 1734 but continued his studies at the graduate level. (Degrees: Yale, BA, 1734; MA 1740; Oxford, D. D., 1760.) By the mid-1730s he was serving as a catechist among the Mohawks at Fort Hunter. He was ordained in England in January 1738 and returned home to become rector of St. Peters that same year.

Like his father, Henry Barclay's tenure at St. Peters cast him in the dual roles of missionary and rector. The diversity of his flock required him to preach in English, Dutch, and Mohawk. He was particularly interested in converting and catechizing Native peoples and was instrumental in having the book of common prayer translated into the Mohawk language.^[1] He was most zealous in campaigning against drunkenness among the Indians and was recognized for his efforts in that area. In 1740, he was able to purchase land from the Mohawks at Canajoharie to be used as a glebe. After Barclay removed to New York, the Mohawks wanted it back creating a controversy that tested the diplomatic skills of Sir William Johnson.

After a decade of service in Albany and on the frontier, in 1746, Henry Barclay became rector of Trinity Church in New York City. He was inducted as rector October 22, 1746 by Governor George Clinton. With that appointment, he had reached the pinnacle of Anglican success in America. In 1749, he married Mary Rutgers and settled in New York. Ever the student, in 1760, Oxford University granted him the doctor of divinity degree.

As Rector of Trinity Church, the Reverend Barclay saw to the erection of a building for the Charity School on the South Side of Rector Street between Broadway and Church Street. In addition, he had the first Chapel of Ease, St. George’s Chapel, built on Cliff and Beekman Streets in 1752 and by 1755 was making plans for the Chapel that would become St. Paul’s. Trinity Church contributed to the founding of King’s College, now Columbia University, endowing it with a portion of land from the Church Farm in 1754. Barclay made his will in June 1764 - leaving his estate to his wife and children. He died August 20, 1764 and and was buried in the family vault at Trinity Church.

Trinity Church archives contain records of Barclay's sermons.

A record of Rev. Henry Barclay's baptisms performed between 1734 & 1745 at Queen Anne's Chapel, Fort Hunter. Indians and white settlers figure prominently in the record. It appears Barclay was absent in London during much of the period 1735-38:

• https://sites.rootsweb.com/~nytryon/hunter.html
• New-York Historical Society, American Manuscripts, Register of baptisms, marriages, communicants & funerals begun by Henry Barclay at Fort Hunter, January 26th 1734/5. https://cdm16694.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16124coll1/id/45298/rec/3 , accessed 03 Aug 2021.

Mentor of Rev. John Ogilvie:

• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ogilvie-1160

His obituary was published in the New York Mercury, August 27 1764.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ For more information, see profile of Barclay's protégé Rev. John Ogilvie in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography,' submitted by Thomas Millman, archivist of the Anglican Church of Canada: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ogilvie_john_4E.html
2. ↑ Collections of the New-York Historical Society, Vol. 3 (1870) feat. Old New York and Trinity Church Newspaper Extracts 1730-1790, pg. 187-189, https://archive.org/details/collectionsofnew03newy/page/187/mode/1up?view=theater

• Our American Barclays by Cornelia C. Barclay
• The Barclays of New York: who They are and who They are Not,-and Some Other ... By R. Burnham Moffat, Robert Grier Cooke, Publisher, New York 1904
• Heraldry of St. Paul's Chapel, N.Y. Genealogical and Biographical Record Vol. 3
• Trinity Church, Wall Street, N.Y., Archive, Rector's Office accessed online
• https://findagrave.com/memorial/11746959/henry-barclay
• New York State Museum at Albany accessed online at: http://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov//albany/bios/b/hebarclay.html
• Dexter, Franklin Bowditch. Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College (Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1885) Vol. 1, Page 503-6.
• Indian deed to Rev. Henry Barclay, of a tract of land on the south side of the Maquase river, adjoining the land of John Wemp, and containing 300 acres. https://digitalcollections.archives.nysed.gov/index.php/Detail/objects/36073 .

• See also, Alexander Brown, The Cabells and Their Kin: A Memorial Volume of History, Biography, and Genealogy (Houghton, Mifflin & Company, 1 January 1895), Parent, child page 416; Google Books .
• Digital project discussion. “All One People: Social Network Analysis of Ethnic Separation in a Mixed-Race Congregation, 1734-1746.” Digital Research in Early America, William and Mary Quarterly University of California-Irvine Workshop, October 11-12, 2018. Maeve Kane, https://maevekane.net/wmq-uc/ .