trinity Sunday

In Memory of the Rev. Peter Williams Cassey and Annie Besent Cassey

Given by the Rev. Jerry Drino, June 7, 2009

Photos accompanying this sermon

The readings from Paul’s letter to the Romans (8:12-17) are filled with images of families:  Father, Abba, Children.  He reminds us not to fall back into slavery, to be victims, but to remember that we are heirs, “joint heirs with Christ.”    Families have histories, patterns of reoccurring themes that for better or worse have shaped us.  Each one of us if we could imagine turning around and looking back at our parents, grandparents we would see the lines of ancestors that form our inheritance.  We would be amazed at certain similarities even though we are each unique.

This Sunday we celebrate the servanthood of one particular family who left a deep imprint on this parish and on San José.  It was a stunningly remarkable family.   Their accomplishments are astounding when we realize the conditions under which they lived.    If the Gospel means “good news” then we have much to give thanks for in the life of this family.

Today we honor the memory of the Rev. Peter Williams Cassey and his wife, Annie Besent who came to San Jose in the first decade after California became a state.  They were both free African Americans, and this before the Civil War in San José.  Annie came with her family and Peter moved from San Francisco where he had first arrived in 1853.  Their granddaughter wrote in a family history that Peter “met a young lady named Annie Besent (Besant?), fell in love with her, married her and had one daughter named Amy Henrietta Cassey.[1]”  Amy was one of the first baptized children in this building in 1863. 

Peter and Amy did not come as blank slates.  We know little of Annie’s life.  But Peter’s great grandfather, Peter Williams, Sr. bought his freedom1785  and founded the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in New York City in 1800.  His son, Peter, Jr. was the first ordained Episcopal priest in New York and founded St. Philip’s, its first African American Church. 

His mother, Amy, married a prominent Philadelphia businessman, Joseph Cassey, a free West Indian.  They went on to be leading abolitionist with deep friendships with Fredrick Douglas and William Lloyd Garrison.   The California Gold Rush called their son, Peter to the West, arriving in San Francisco in 1853.

Let us remember what San José was like in the mid-1800s.   It was not have been easy for African Americans trying to make their way through this frontier culture saturated with racism.  William Kip, the first Bishop of California arrived in San Francisco the same year as Peter.  The Bishop kept extensive diaries and he describes the first couple of decades visiting San Jose to guide the founding of this parish.   He notes that from the 1850s well into the 1870s Spanish was most commonly heard on the streets, not English.   In the process of becoming a state California almost was admitted as a slave state because of the number of southern families who had brought their slaves from the South and the long and horrid practice of the Spanish and Mexican enslavement of  the indigenous people.   There were many slaves in San José when this building was first constructed.  All during the 1850s there was constant agitation attempting to align the State with the South.  Had it not been for Thomas Star King, the minister of the First Unitarian Church in San Francisco, California could have joined the Confederacy.  (Note, his statue, that has been in the Capitol Rotunda since 1931, was bumped this week for a statue of Ronald Reagan).   Therefore, the remarkable realization of two free African Americans meeting, falling in love, marrying and working to make a better world is amazing.

The contributions of Peter and Annie to this parish and San José are many.  The two of them were founding members of Trinity.[2]   They lived on the edge of town in a home on a property they leased.  The “edge of town” in 1860 was between 4th and 5th Streets bordered by Williams and San Salvador[3].   The “boonies” or the Reed Reservation stared where 5th street ended at William St.   In the late 1850s Peter and Annie had started an informal school or tutoring program in their home for African American, as well as some Mexican, Native American and Chinese children who were denied by law access to attending public school.[4]  African American colleagues of Peter from his San Francisco days joined him in 1861 to found the Phoenixonian Institute, a residential secondary school, the first such school for African American students west of the Mississippi River.[5]   Thirty-two boarding students were admitted annually and some came from as far away at Panama and Oregon.

In later year Peter wrote:  “I cannot enumerate to you the many ways in which, in the name of Christ, we have striven to make this mission a blessing. It has been emphatically a Children’s Home.  None have been denied its limited benefits because they were unable to pay; and the prices are so low as to be within the reach of those who would be unable to send their children to a boarding school, conducted as the majority of such institutions are in our State.  We are one family,  we have no servants, live in a plan way, with as little expense as possible.  This has enabled us with the blessing of  God, to continue our work when it seemed impossible for us to go on without help.”

The Institute was also called St. Philip’s Mission School for Colored Children and was recognized as a mission of the Diocese of California.  Over the years many children from the school were presented by the Cassey’s for baptism in that font.   The founding Rector of Trinity Parish, the Rev. Sylvester Smith Etheridge, had a deep devotion to the education of his people and supported Peter and Annie in their efforts. This led to the founding of St. Philip’s Mission for Colored People (1862) eighteen months after Trinity Parish was organized. (22 February 1861).

Obviously, the mission needed an ordained pastor.  Peter had been trained in some of the best schools available to him in Philadelphia where he was born.  He read fluent Greek and Latin and had been formed in a classical education.   The second Rector of Trinity, the Rev. Ebenezar Steel Peake  and Bishop Kip prepared him for ordination to the deaconate.  He had been confirmed by the Bishop in 1863.  The Vestry Minutes of the 30th of June 1866 asks the Bishop to set a date for his ordination at Trinity.  This first ordination in the parish was accomplished on the 13th  of September 1866.  He was the first ordained Episcopal African American clergy in the State of California and possibly the West.

In 1871, Bishop Kip assigned him to establish Christ Episcopal Church for Colored People in San Francisco which eventually split into St. Cyprians and Christ Church Japanese Parish in the early 1900s.[6]   He was forced to divide his time between the two cities.  Travel required three days by buggy along the El Camino Real.   Annie continued to administer and teach at St. Philip’s until her death on the 3rd of September 1875.  She is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery.

From the beginning financing St. Philip’s mission and school was a tremendous challenge.  Bishop Kip wrote in 1867 to all the Episcopal Church in the West:  We would most heartily commend to all interested in the education of the Colored People of the Pacific States, the excellent school of the Rev. P. W. Cassey at San Jose.  The school has been carried on by him for the past five years at great personal sacrifice and he has won a reputation of which its principal may well be proud.  The polite behavior and intelligence of the pupils shows the most faithful and judicious training…we believe that no greater good can be conferred upon the Colored People of this coast, than to establish it upon a permanent basis. [7]

This was not to happen for three reasons.  First, what had been an affordable property at the edge of town in the 1850’s was now moving towards prime real estate as San Jose expanded.  The block consisted of six lots where the title could have been secured in 1867 for $1,000.  In 1873 it was valued at $10,000.  Peter appealed time and again for funds, but there was never enough.  Second, because of the discrimination against African Americans even after the Civil War it was difficult to maintain a stable congregation and student body because families had to move from town to town to find work.  Third, starting in the 1870s laws began to be passed to ensure universal public education.  The first step was to establish segregated schools for African American students.  By 1890 the State Supreme Court ruled that all schools be integrated.

In 1881 Peter was called to be the Rector of St. Cyprians Episcopal Church in New Bern, North Carolina.  In 1894 he was called to Florida where he serve Good Shepherd, Fernandina, St. Philip’s, Jacksonville and eventually to St. Cyprian’s, St. Augustine until his death in 1917 at the age of 86.  Because of the racism in the Church in California, North Carolina and Florida he was never allowed to be ordained a priest, unlike his grandfather and namesake.

Bishop Weed of Florida said in his memorial address that “the Rev. Mr. Cassey was a remarkable teacher…He was broad-minded, an omnivorous reader, clear thinker.  His devotion to the Church and his untiring pastoral work brought many into the Church…a devout servant of the Lord, a broad-minded Christian, a true and faithful pastor, the poor and the sick will miss him, but the example of his life will live to lead many to the Cross.” [8]

For over a quarter of a century Peter Williams Cassey and Annie Besent Cassey embodied the Good News for African American, Mexican, Native American and Chinese in San Jose and stirred the hearts of the white clergy and members of this parish family who supported his efforts.  It is to their honor that this day is dedicated.

AMEN

________________________________________________________________________________

[1] From “An Informal Family History of the Cassey Family” (c. 1974) by Amy Johnson, daughter of Amy Cassey Thomas

[2] Although only men’s names are affixed to the original documents.

[3] San Salvador is the last Spanish named street to the south of Santa Clara indicating the end of the boundaries of the old Pueblo of San José.  William follows and then Reed and then the names of the Reed daughters, Margaret St., Virginia St., and Martha St. that were the eventual extensions of San José in the 1870s into the “Reed Reservation.”   Reed was the partner of the Donor-Reed Party caught in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846-1847

[4] “Colored” students were not allowed to attend public schools until the 1880s when the State legislature enacted laws for universal education.

[5]Peter’s grandfather and name sake, the Rev. Peter Williams had helped start ·  Phoenix Society, New York City, 1833. The newly formed Phoenix Society also published its goals in a newspaper, in this case the African American Liberator. Education was its primary object, and it outlined achievable steps to enroll black children and adults in reading and writing classes, trade apprenticeships, lending libraries, lecture series, and self-improvement groups—even providing clothing to children who could not otherwise participate. Although the society soon folded for lack of funds, other societies continued similar programs in New York City. 

[6] Christ Church Mission for Colored People was organized in December 1872.  Mr. Cassey’s “held services prior to this date at the Hall on Pacific Street above Powell every Sunday at 11:00 together with Sunday School

[7]1 July 1867:  Bishop Kip was dean of the First Convention of District 10 which would become Province VII

[8] Obituary in the St. Augustine Record April, 1917

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