History of Westchester County, New York, Vol. I
After several years of teaching in New York City he entered the Theological Seminary at New Brunswick, N, J., in 1826, and having been licensed to the missionary in 1829, at once became pastor of the Reformed Church at Tappan, in wliich his ancestors had worshipped from its beginning, more than a century and a quarter before, and continued in his pastorate, with an interval of one year, till his retirement from the active duties of the ministry in 1864, at sixty-five years of age. Subsequently and until his death, on the 80th of August, 1878, he lived at Spring Valley upon the family home-ground of more than a hundred years, which he had inherited from his father. His sterling character, his remarkable gifts as an instructor, his special life-work in the ministry, the valuable influence of his precept and example and the preciousness of his memory are so fully put on record in the hi.story mentioned above that they need no reproducing here. The children of Rev. Isaac D. Cole and Anna Maria Shatzel were eight, viz. : David, Caroline, Elizabeth, Juliana (1st), Juliana (2d,) Catharine Amelia, Margaret Ann, Benjaiiiiii Wood and Isaac D., Jr. Of these children, Juliana (1st), Caroline Elizabeth (Mrs. Dr. James J. Stephens), Catharine Amelia (Mrs. Benjamin L. Disbrow) and Isaac D., Jr., late president of the Knickerbocker Fire Insurance Company, of New York City, have passed away.
What has thus been given shows that Rev. Dr. Cole belongs to one of the oldest New York families. It is not believed that there are any older, though there may be a very few others as old. The family is of the Reformed Church of Holland from its very start in that country. It was identified with the organization of the first Reformed Church in New Amsterdam (the " Church in the Fort ") and subsequently with the organization of the Reformed Churches of Kingston, Tappan, Clarkstown and West Hempstead (or Kakiat), and it also, before 1800, founded a Reformed Church in Fondabush, Fulton County, which, however, was changed to a Presbyterian Church in 1825.