Rev. John Milner, the Rector Who Began Building St. Paul's Church

Reverend John Milner played an important but controversial part in the history of St. Paul's Church in Eastchester, New York. Newly installed as rector, he saw construction begin in 1763 on the stone and brick church that still stands. Two years later, amid disputes and accusations, he left for a church in Virginia.

The start of construction of St. Paul's in 1763, when John Milner was rector. NPS.

A parish in decline

Rev. Thomas Standard, the Church of England rector of the Westchester County parish that included St. Paul's, had been in poor health since the mid-1740s and could barely serve it. Anglican observance declined; Deists, Quakers and independents (Presbyterians) drew more people, and many abandoned religious practice altogether. Standard died at 80 in 1760, and church authorities chose a successor for the parish, about 20 miles north of New York City.

A young New Yorker

Milner was born in New York in 1738 and was only 23 when appointed — full of the energy the parish had lacked, and the first Anglican minister of Westchester County raised in the colony rather than Britain. He graduated in 1759 from the College of New Jersey (Princeton), a school founded to train Presbyterian ministers; his turn to the Church of England was probably inspired by Rev. Samuel Johnson, first president of King's College (Columbia) and apparently a family friend.

Like other colonial candidates, he sailed to England at his own expense in 1760 to be ordained. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which staffed the American parishes from London, struggled to fill these distant, poorly paid posts and was glad to find a qualified candidate. It appointed him to the Westchester mission at 50 pounds a year. After "a long and dangerous passage," he arrived in New York in spring 1761.

Revival

Milner reported quick success, preaching "to crowded audiences." He lived at Westchester, about five miles south of St. Paul's, and also served Yonkers, Pelham and New Rochelle — about 100 square miles. A large new church in Yonkers, paid for by the landowner Frederick Philipse, reflected the parish's renewed energy after the hardships of the French and Indian War. Milner reported little trouble from dissenters beyond "a few peaceable Quakers," some of whom, community leaders said, began attending his services, and he recorded healthy numbers of baptisms and communicants.

In 1764 he reported that Eastchester had begun a new church to replace its "mean wooden building erected in the infancy of their settlement" — the 28-by-18-foot shingled meetinghouse about 60 yards west of the new site. In 1765 he wrote proudly that the stone church would be roofed that summer and, all of stone, would outshine most country churches in the province. The Westchester churches were run by the towns as quasi-public bodies, so Milner did not lead the building as a modern pastor might. His reports of growth were perhaps exaggerated — his successor, Rev. Samuel Seabury, also faced declining observance — but he clearly revived interest after Standard's long decline.

What went wrong

Money. At his own expense Milner repaired the Westchester parsonage and built a new barn on church land. The vestry, the congregants' governing council, promised to repay him once finances damaged by the war and trade troubles allowed. He said he would accept 100 pounds, about half his cost — thousands of dollars today. The vestry at first agreed "with great cheerfulness," then withdrew its pledge.

Accusations. In September 1765 Milner wrote that his character had been "traduced," and blamed "a Secret enemy." The accusations were of aggressive sexual advances toward young boys. Rather than face a formal inquiry that could have ended his ministry, he resigned. Through informal church networks he took over an Anglican church at Newport, in Virginia's Isle of Wight County, which, like many colonial parishes, was short of ministers. Through a lawyer he tried and failed to recover his money from the Westchester vestry.

In Virginia similar accusations followed — of sexual advances toward young men, specifically sodomy — and he resigned in May 1770. He returned to his family's home in New York City, stayed there through the Revolution as a Loyalist, went to England after the American victory, and is believed to have died around 1790.

Sources

• National Park Service, St. Paul's Church National Historic Site, "Rev. John Milner: The rector who started the building of St. Paul's Church." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/rev-john-milner-the-rector-who-started-the-building-of-st-paul-s-church.htm
• Corrected: the page places Milner's Virginia church in "the county of Isle of Wright"; the county is Isle of Wight. It also spells Frederick Philipse "Phillipse."