BIOGRAPHY: Amasa S. Freeman; Haverstraw, Rockland co., New York

transcribed by W. David Samuelsen for USGenWeb Archives

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Portrait and Biographical Record of Rockland and Orange Counties New York
Containing Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative
Citizens of the Counties.
Together with Biographies and Portraits of all the Presidents of the United
States.
New York and Chicago; Chapman Publishing Co., 1895


REV. AMASA S. FREEMAN, D. D. On a June evening, nearly fifty years ago, at a
dinner given in New York City, a young gentleman who had just graduated from
Union Theological Seminary was casually asked by a classmate if he would not
go to Haverstraw the following Sunday and preach to a little congregation
recently organized the friend stating that he had been invited there but
preferred to go elsewhere. The invitation was accepted, and the next Sunday, a
beautiful summer day, the young preacher preached for the first time in
Haver-straw. At once he received a call to the pastor-ate, which he accepted,
becoming the first pastor of the little flock, as it was his first charge.
Al-most a half-century has passed away, and the minister, no longer young,
still serves as pastor of this people. As he himself says, "I came here to
spend one Sabbath and little anticipated that one Sabbath would be so long
drawn out."

Glancing at the ancestral history of this well known minister of the Gospel,
who for so long has officiated as pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church,
we find that he is a representative of an old New England family. His
great-grandfather Prentice was pastor of the First Congregational Church of
Charlestown, Mass., from 1739 until his death in 1782, at the age of eighty.
His church was burned when Charlestown was destroyed by the British at Bunker
Hill, June 17, 1775, but he continued to minister to the congregation
afterward until his death, which occurred on the anniversary of the burning of
the church. His portrait, painted by Badger, of Boston, in 1755, now adorns
the study of Dr.Freeman. It shows a man dressed in the old style of clerical
garb, with rugged, but firm and expressive, features.

The parents of Dr. Freeman were Nathaniel and Charlotte (Kettell) Freeman, for
some years residents of Boston, where the father was engaged in mercantile
pursuits. The mother attained an advanced age, dying in 1892 at the age of
ninety-three. Amasa S. was born in Boston October 6, 1823, and at the age of
five years was taken by his parents to New York City, where his father engaged
in merchandising until his death in 1863. He was the second of three sons, of
whom Fran-cis P. is a banker in New York City, and Nathaniel Prentice was for
years cashier in the postoffice of New York City. In boyhood he was
consecrated by his mother to the ministry, and her hopes were gratified when
he entered that profession. He prepared for college in Cornelius Institute,
under the late Rev. J. J. Owen, D. D., and in 1839 entered the University of
New York, of which Hon. Theodore Frelinghuysen was then Chancellor, remaining
there until his graduation in 1843. Among his classmates were William Allen
Butler, LL. D., of New York City; William A. Wheelock, President of the
Central National Bank of New York City; Hon. Aaron J. Vanderpoel, an attorney,
late of New York City; Rev. John Mason Ferris, D. D., of the Board of Missions
of the Reformed Church; Rev. William P. Breed, D. D., deceased, formerly a
prominent Presbyterian minister of Philadelphia; Rev. S. P. Leeds, D. D., of
Dartmouth College, New Hampshire; and Dr. William H. Willcox, LL. D.,
President of the Board of Trustees of Wellesley College. The three last-named
were also classmates of the Doctor's in the Class of '46 from Union
Theological Seminary.

The beginning of Dr. Freeman's long connection with the Central Presbyterian
Church of Haverstraw has already been noted. On the last Sunday of June, 1895,
he observed the forty-ninth anniversary of his service with this congregation.
He was ordained in New York in April, 1847, Rev. E. Mason, D. D., preaching
the discourse, and was installed April 25, 1849, Rev. William Adams, of New
York, officiating. During his pastorate he has received more than nine hundred
persons into membership, largely on profession of faith; has married four
hundred and ninety couples, attended over one thousand funerals, and preached
in his own pulpit five thousand, five hundred and seventy-eight discourses,
besides occasionally filling other pulpits. For forty-nine years he has kept
the church records, which are all in his own handwriting. The sermons he
delivered on his twenty-fifth and forty-fifth anniversaries were published,
and if his life is spared he will soon deliver his fiftieth anniversary
discourse.

In June, 1878, the degree of D. D. was conferred upon our subject by the
University of New York. In his denomination he has served as Moderator of the
New York Synod and of the Presbytery. In the work of the Rockland County Bible
Society and Sunday-school Association he has taken an active part. His
marriage, which was solemnized in the Reformed Dutch Church of Lafayette
Place, New York City, April 10, 1850, united him with Miss Mary D., daughter
of J. S. Conger, M. D., of that city, and gave to him as a helpmate a noble,
devoted and talented woman.

But one pastor, Rev. Nicholas Lansing, has exceeded Dr. Freeman in the length
of his pastor-ate in Rockland County, and he was at Tappan for fifty-one
years. Another, Rev. Joseph W. Griffith, served one church for thirty-eight
years, and labored among the Baptists of the county for forty-five years. In
all matters pertaining to the public welfare Dr. Freeman has been deeply
interested. On the question of the liquor traffic he has taken no uncertain
stand. During the Civil War he was a friend of the boys in blue and loyally
devoted to the Union. In his church the first company of volunteers from
Haverstraw met to bid their friends farewell, and from his hands the Captain
of the company, Edward Pye, received the flag presented by the loyal women of
the place.

Personally Dr. Freeman has a happy faculty of making and retaining- friends.
With old and young he is popular. Nor is he sectarian and bigoted, but has
numerous warm friends amongall the denominations. The late Father Baxter, of
the Catholic Church, was one of his warm personal friends, and at her death
Father Baxter sent his venerable mother a beautiful and elaborate floral
decoration. He has kept in touch and close sympathy with the young people of
his congregation, who feel that in him they have a friend. Though sorrows have
come to him and he has had troubles, cares and hardships, yet he has met them
with an earnest, consecrated Christian spirit, that has enabled him to conquer
them in the end. His has been a quiet, useful and honorable life, devoted to
the advancement of the cause of Christ and the welfare of his fellow-men.