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Eilardus
Westerlo
The last European-born dominie, Eilardus Westerlo was Albany's patriot minister during the American Revolution.
Born
in Groningen, Holland in 1737, Eilardus was the son
of Reverend Isaac Westerlo - dominie of the Groningen
church. Trained for the ministry, young Westerlo
graduated from the University of Groningen in 1760
and applied for service overseas.
He
came to America in that year to become pastor of
the Albany Dutch Reformed Church. His long tenure
in Albany mirrored his own transition from the formality
of a European education and ecclesastical background
to that of a more spirited and practical leader of
a large and diffused congregation of "plain and experienced Christians." From the beginning, his commitment to the task made Westerlo a respected member of the Albany community. During the early 1770s, he became an active supporter of the "Plan of Union" adopted in America to heal a doctrinal rift in the Dutch Reformed Church. From his Albany base, he reached out to budding Reformed congregations across Albany County.
In
July 1775, he married the Catherine Livingston -
the young widow of patroon Stephen Van Rensselaer
II. Already well-connected in the Albany community,
that marriage carried the thirty-eight-year old cleric
to the top of the community's social ladder. For
the next decade, the Van Rensselaer Manor House served
as Westerlo's parsonage as well. By 1783, the marriage
had produced three children.
Westerlo
was considered a warm supporter of the American cause.
During the war, he offered daily prayers for safety
and victory and often ministered directly to the
troops. He conducted a church school and trained
a number of future clerics. Interested in secular
as well as theological education, in 1779 he was
named one of the trustees of Clinton College.Westerlo
preached primarily in Dutch. But, after 1780, he
held an English-language service as well.
With
the end of the war and the coming of age of Catherine's
son, Stephen, the Westerlos moved back to Albany
to the Market Street parsonage the dominie occupied
for the rest of his life. By that time, his health
began to fail. In 1787, Brooklyn-born John Bassett
was made associate pastor and preached in English.
Housebound, Westerlo still maintained an active correspondence
with some of the leading clerics of his day.
Dominie
Westerlo died in December 1790. He was but fifty-three-years-old
and the last of the Dutch-speaking dominies. His
thirty-one-year tenure stands as the longest in
church history. The Albany County "hilltown" of "Westerlo" was named for him in 1815. Westerlo Street in Albany's South End also commemorates his career.
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Notes: The
life of Eilardus Westerlo is CAP biography number
6867. This profile is derived chiefly from community-based
resources. The most comprehensive work on his life
is Howard G. Hageman, "Albany's Dutch Pope," De
Halve Maen 58:4 (1095). He is the subject of a
number of brief Internet biographies. See also,
Robert S. Alexander, Albany's
First Church and Its Role in the Growth of the
City (Albany, 1988),
131-51.
Plan
of Union: For more on this, see the memorial of Westerlo's
friend, Reverend John H. Livingston.
His
obituary appeared in the Albany
Gazette on December
26, 1790: "Rev. Eilardus
Westerlo, senior pastor of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, died
aged 53, in the thirty-first year of his ministry. He was greatly respected for
his piety and learning, and his funeral was attended by a large concourse of
the people of the city and neighboring towns, who followed his remains to the
vault of the Van Rensselaer family, where he was interred."
By Stefan Bielinski, Colonial Albany Social History Project [http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/albany]
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