1690 (1707).
ABOUT the year 1690, there were in the town of Stratford "a considerable number of professors of the faith of the Church of England and desirous to worship God in the Liturgy of their forefathers." But there was no clergyman in the State, so no one was found to minister to their spiritual needs. In 1702 an application was made to the Bishop of London for a missionary, but without success. Not meeting with any response, in September, 1705, a request was sent to the Rev. William Vesey of Trinity Church, New York, that he would visit them "to preach and administer the rite of baptism." The distance was so great that he did not personally comply, but the request bore fruit; for one year later, on the second of September, 1706, there came riding into the town two men, whose coming aroused the greatest hostility among the Congregational element. The one was the Rev. George Muirson of Rye, N. Y., a man, we read, having a very happy way of preaching, and considering his years (but 31), wonderfully good in argument, and his conversation without blemish, held by the people in great esteem for his piety and virtue. The other, the Hon. Colonel Caleb Heathcote, a leading man in the Province of New York, a member of the first vestry of Old Trinity, ever active in promoting the interests of the Church at large.
Though threatened with prison and hard usage, Mr. Muirson preached to a considerable assembly, and baptized
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about 35 persons, principally adults. This visit was followed by two or three others in the space of a few months. We read with amazement of the open hostility of those who, while advocates of religious freedom, were unwilling to extend it to those who walked not with them; of how, on the second of Mr. Muirson's visits, a member of the council, on the Lord's day, "stood in the highway and empowered several others, to forbid any person to go to the assembly of the Church of England and threatened them with a fine of five pounds." The parishioners subsequently complained that their members had been seized and imprisoned in the county jail for refusing to pay the sum demanded for the support of the Congregational minister. About the first of April, 1707, the parish was organized by the election of wardens and vestry, and in 1708 the S. P. G. granted their request that the Rev. Mr. Muirson be appointed their missionary, but before the intelligence reached this country the loved priest of God had rested from his labors. In 1712, the Rev. Francis Phillips was sent out by the Society to take charge of the parish, but remained only a few months, "being," wrote Colonel Heathcote, "of a temper very contrary to be pleased with such conversation and way of living as Stratford affords." In 1718, the vestry again wrote the Society, bewailing their sad condition without a shepherd, concluding with these words: "As to our outward estate, it may very well be said we are inconsiderable, but as to our number, we have had at least one hundred baptized into the Church, and have had thirty-six at one time partakers of the holy communion of the Lord's supper, and have several times assembled in our congregation between two and three hundred persons." After four years more of waiting, the long desired minister of God came among them in the person of the Rev. George Pigot, and a brighter period dawned for the struggling parish. The good seed sown
24
by Muirson and the preaching of Pigot awakened a spirit of inquiry among the Congregational ministers of the State, two of whom-the Rev. Timothy Cutler, Rector of Yale College, who for ten years previously had been the minister at Stratford, and the Rev. Samuel Johnson, then a minister at West Haven-gave up their positions (in 1722) and went to England for Holy Orders.
Great was the consternation. "I suppose," wrote President Woolsey, 150 years later, "that greater alarm would scarcely be awakened now, if the Theological Faculty of Yale were to declare for the Church of Rome, avow their belief in transubstantiation and pray to the Virgin Mary." In 1723, the Churchmen petitioned the town for leave to erect a church, which petition the town "found clothed with great difficulty."
Timbers, however, were prepared for raising on Meeting House Hill, and one dark night they were drawn to the foot of the hill-the site of the church burying ground-and there the church was erected with its "Sabba-day House" near by for the midday rest, refreshment, and interchange of ideas, spiritual and temporal. Meantime, Rev. Mr. Johnson had been stationed at Stratford, and under him the first church building in Connecticut was completed and opened for service on Christmas day, 1723. In 1724, wardens and vestry were chosen for Stratford, Fairfield, Newtown, and Ripton (now Huntington)-two wardens for the home parish and one for each of the other towns. Notwithstanding the organization of Fairfield as a distinct parish, "so mightily grew the Church of God and prevailed" that a larger edifice was necessary, and in 1743 measures were taken to erect a more commodious building and a sum representing about $10,000 was subscribed for that purpose. The church was opened July 8, 1744. The weathercock was placed in position at this time and our famous rooster," bearing scars inflicted by British soldiery, has
25
faced the tempest to this day. About this time a clock was placed in the tower. The bell was the gift of the Rector, Dr. Johnson, was cast in Fairfield and cost 300 pounds. For five generations it has summoned the people to worship, added its jubilant tones to those of the general rejoicing over the news of the Declaration of Independence, rung Its benediction over those "whom God had joined together," and tolled a requiem for those "departed hence in the Lord," and to-day is a priceless possession of the old parish.
In 1754, Dr. Johnson, having been chosen the first President of King's (now Columbia) College, N. Y., resigned the parish and was succeeded by Rev. Edward Winslow. The only clergyman for some years in the State, finding but one parish organized and no church building completed, Dr. Johnson left ten or eleven clergy and twenty-five small churches; justly has he been termed "the Father of Episcopacy in Connecticut."
An agreement was made in 1756 with Mr. Gilbert Delbois of Boston, Mass., for the purchase of an organ, costing sixty pounds and "payable in six annual payments without demand of interest." The organ was the first instrument of its kind in a place of public worship in Connecticut. So good was its construction, that it was used till 1879, a period of almost 125 years. In 1766, Dr. Johnson, who had resigned the presidency of King's College and was living at his home at Stratford, again took charge; four years later Mr. Kneeland, a son-in-law, was chosen assistant to the venerable Rector and succeeded him when Dr. Johnson passed to his rest in 1772, just as the clouds of the Revolution were gathering ominously. When the storm broke, came troublous times for the ministers of the Church, who were bound by an oath of allegiance to loyalty to the king. Having prayed so long for our "excellent King George," they found it difficult to leave off the familiar supplication. In Stratford Church, the old prayers were
26
cut short by an arbitrary patriot who had no notion of uttering "Amen" to such heresies. On the Sunday after the battle of Lexington, when the prayer was read for the royal family, Mr. Benjamin rose in his pew and declared no such prayer must be uttered in Stratford - that the name of George III. was the name of the worst enemy of every one in the colony. Mr. Kneeland closed his Prayer Book, rose from his knees, pronounced the benediction, and the church was closed till the end of the war, the Rector dying in 1777. After the consecration of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Seabury, his first Episcopal visitation, and hence the first administration of the rite of confirmation in America, was in the historic church at Stratford.
1723.
27
copacy. The Congregationalists had, by this time, become thoroughly alarmed, and stipulated, that if he, like his predecessor Samuel Johnson, should embrace the Episcopal faith, the money paid him as a settlement should be refunded. Still undaunted in his decision, in 1734 he was dismissed from his pastoral charge among the Congregationalists, and in 1735 went to England for Holy Orders. He returned in 1736 with the appointment as "itinerant missionary for Connecticut" of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and resided in West Haven. He also labored faithfully to sustain the missions in the neighboring towns of Milford, Waterbury, and Derby. It was thus that this little mission at West Haven became the mother Church of New Haven Colony. In 1740 Mr. Arnold left West Haven for Staten Island. His successor was the Rev. Theophilus Morris, an Englishman by birth. The Churchmen welcomed him with much pleasure, fearing they would be without a missionary. He speaks of the Church people as being intelligent, and well read as to the principles of Church government. Like his predecessor, Mr. Arnold, Mr. Morris ministered to the people in surrounding towns and laid the foundations of the churches at North Haven, Wallingford, and Simsbury. He remained in West Haven but two years, but during that time the present church edifice was built and almost completed.
Can we fully appreciate the faithful labors and self-sacrifice of that little band of Churchmen "who builded better than they knew." After Mr. Morris's departure, the Rev. James Lyons had charge of the parish for a time-then the ministries of Dr. Mansfield, Rev. Messrs. Punderson and Palmer bring the history down to 1767. Dr. Mansfield resided at Derby and gave West Haven parish one third of his time. Rev. Mr. Punderson and Mr. Palmer resided in New Haven and sustained the importance of the parish at West Haven. In 1767 the Rev. Bela Hubbard came to
28
New Haven and assumed the charge at West Haven as well as the mission at New Haven. In 1771-2 Mr. Hubbard writes that "he was able to perform his Sunday duty to a decent and sober congregation, which people, even in the opinion of dissenters, were a regular and good sort of people; steady and exemplary in their attendance upon public worship - that he was pleased and happy at the situation and his congregation in five years increased one-third - and numbered 220 souls." But the dawn of the American Revolution is at hand and we must leave the further history of these children of the Mother Church of England to a future time. Suffice it here to add that they remained in he faith, unchanged and unchangeable, through all political change, and kept faithfully to her sublime and beautiful ritual that answers all the spirit's needs; that ritual "that age cannot wither of custom stale," dear from the associations of childhood, and divine from the experiences of life.
1725.
The town of Fairfield in those days covered a much larger area than it does at present, and until 1727 there was no settled Rector of our communion within its confines.
Occasional services were held in private houses by missionaries sent over at different times by the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
Of those who came to Fairfield were the Rev. Messrs. Muirson, Talbot, Sharpe, and Bridge. Among those who
29
were baptized during Mr. Sharpe's visit, in the year 1712, which lasted nearly a month, was an aged man said to have been the first white person born in the colony.
About the year 1722 the Rev. George Pigot who had become Rector of the parish at Stratford began to hold regular services at Fairfield. After Mr. Pigot resigned the charge of the Stratford parish, services were still carried on in Fairfield by a devout layman, Dr. Laborie, a Frenchman, who, previous to his arrival in this country, had conformed to the Church of England.
The Rev. Samuel Johnson, of famous memory, who had left the Congregational Church, and had crossed the ocean to enter Holy Orders, followed Mr. Pigot at Stratford.
Shortly after his return Mr. Johnson described himself "as being alone, and surrounded by enemies."
His house in Stratford had been branded, and for sometime he was obliged to send to Long Island for the actual necessities of life.
While Rector at Stratford, Dr. Johnson did not fail in his ministrations at Fairfield.
As a result the first Church edifice was built on Mill Plain, which was the second Church of our communion in the colony.
This building, the first home of Trinity parish, was set apart for divine worship November 10, 1725, Thanksgiving Day, and was followed in a few years by a much larger edifice, which had become necessary for the increasing congregation.
One of the features of this later edifice was a goodly-sized bell, which was a decided novelty, for up to that time all religious and other meetings were called together by means of a drum.
The Rev. Mr. Caner followed Rev. Dr. Johnson as the first Rector. He settled in Fairfield in 1727, and according to Dr. Trumbull, a noted historian of that period, he was
30
the son of the Mr. Caner who built the first college and Rector's house in New Haven.
By this time the parish had extended until it was fifteen miles in length and six miles in width.
In 1747 the Rev. Joseph Lamson succeeded Rev. Mr. Caner as Rector of the parish, and it is due to his missionary spirit that services at Stratfield were begun which have resulted in the establishment of St. John's Church in what is now styled Bridgeport.
The towns visited by the Rectors of Trinity Church in those early years were Stamford, Norwalk, Greenwich, Redding, Ridgefield, Easton, Wilton, New Canaan, and Stratfield (now Bridgeport).
About twelve years before the Revolutionary War a large number of these towns had their own churches and rectos which greatly reduced the missionary labors of the parent parish.
It was at this time that it was proposed that those of the Church of England in Fairfield should devote a part of their money by will to the perpetual endowment of Trinity Church. Already several small sums had been left by devoted communicants who had departed, which were followed later by several bequests of much larger size.
Rev. John Sayre became Rector upon the death of Mr. Lamson in 1773.
Shortly after his appointment to the parish by the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel the first service of induction ever held therein took place.
According to the custom of the time the Church door was closed and locked with the key outside.
One of the prominent parishioners, very likely the senior warden at that time, after declaring Mr. Sayre to be the Rector duly commissioned and appointed, opened the door for the new incumbent, after which the Rector rang the church bell, and the regular service followed. The Rev. Mr.
31
Sayre then declared himself to be Rector, and renewed his allegiance to the doctrine and teaching of the Church of England. This was an important epoch in the history of Trinity Church and of the country as well, for the Revolutionary War was already at hand. In conducting divine service during that trying period Mr. Sayre felt himself bound to omit the prayer for the King in the Liturgy.
This begot great opposition from the majority of the people. On the eighth of July, 1779, Gen. Tryon's fleet appeared off the Fairfield coast.
A large force of troops were landed, and during the night many houses and stores were burned, and by the next morning the conflagration had become general.
In a letter of that time it is said that Mr. Sayre had implored Gen. Tryon to spare the town. Especially the two places of worship, the Episcopal and Congregational, but everything was destroyed, including the Church records previous to that time.
After the burning of Fairfield Mr. Sayre departed for New York with his family for a much needed rest; this he shortly afterwards concluded to make final, so far as Fair-field was concerned, by resigning.
He finally settled in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia. Soon after the Rev. Mr. Sayre's departure, a prominent Churchman of Greenfield, Mr. Hull Sherwood, called a meeting at his residence.
A resolution was passed to the effect that having heard that Mr. Philo Shelton was purposing to enter Holy Orders he be appointed "to read and to officiate" for Trinity parish. Mr. Shelton accepted the invitation and after his ordination was Rector from 1785 to 1825, a period covering forty years.
The work of the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in the United States ended upon the Declaration of Independence.
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After the great fire services were held at private houses until a more convenient time when the use of the town house was secured, and used until 1790, when a meeting was held to vote upon the site of another Church.
The result of this was the erection of the third Church edifice on Mill Plain, not very far from the site of the first building, which had been dedicated as was stated above by Dr. Johnson.
1702-1725.
To those brave missionaries of the Cross, those pioneers in the good work of the Catholic Church of Christ in the American colonies, the Rev. George Keith and the Rev. John Talbot, belong the honor of being the first clergymen of the
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Church to visit New London. They had undertaken for the Propagation Society a tour of investigation from New Hampshire to North Carolina. They were men of earnest zeal, great energy and persuasive eloquence. They were able to search out the land and from their reports missions were established and missionaries sent by the Venerable Society. To them the American Church owes a debt of real gratitude, although their work was not always permanent; certainly in Connecticut no result of their ministrations was apparent.
After a delightful visit to the Churchmen of Newport, they had crossed Narragansett Bay, that is still the glory of Rhode Island; they had passed through the "prodigious rocky country" around Stonington, and on Thursday, September 10th, 1702, crossed the ferry to New London. Here they were received with kindness and courtesy by all, and especially those in authority. Their own words can best give the record of that historic service on the following Sunday:
"September 13th, Sunday, Mr. Talbot preached there in the forenoon, and I preached there in the afternoon, we being desired to do so by the minister, Mr. Gurdon Saltonstall, who civilly entertained us at his house, and expressed his good affections to the Church of England. My text was Rom. viii: 9. The auditory was large and well affected. Colonel Winthrop, Governor of the colony, after forenoon services, invited us to dinner at his house, and kindly entertained us, both then and the next day."*
Dr. Hallam in his valuable "Annals" says of this service: "Thus it appears that the text of one of the first two Episcopal sermons ever preached in New London, probably in Connecticut, was this: 'But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you.
* Quoted on p. 10 of Hallam's "Annals of St. James's, New London," from Keith's "Journal."
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Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His'; a not unpleasing preface to that protracted course of Christian teaching which has succeeded it, with a faithful maintenance of the same precious doctrine."
We have another glimpse of Mr. Talbot in the history of the Church in New London, for on October 24th, 1724, he baptized "Lauzerne, son of Richard and Elizabeth Wilson. Had he not found his life-work elsewhere, he might have been able to do for Connecticut what he did for New Jersey. His long rectorship of St. Mary's, Burlington, his pleading for the Episcopate, his visiting and strengthening all the parishes of the Church in that province, his gifts to his parish, which are still doing good, his probable consecration by the non-jurors as a Bishop in the Church of God, make him one of the most attractive as he certainly was one of the most fearless of the Colonial clergy.
In 1723 Mr. Pigot, a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, baptized in New London a little child, and the following year two more little ones were received into Christ's flock. Like the delicate, pure snowdrop that heralds the spring and the time of growth, these young lives gave token of a movement and awakening in things spiritual in a field which had hitherto lain fallow, but which was now to bear abundantly. Dr. Johnson in 1724 writes to the Society that he has preached in New-London to sixty hearers, with promise of increase if they had a minister. Dr. James MacSparran, missionary of the Society in Narragansett, extended his ministrations to the incipient parish in New London, and visited it from time to time, giving encouragement and advice. The early members of the growing parish were many of them Englishmen, who had come hither from England to engage in maritime and commercial business, and who were interested in establishing the mother Church in their new home.
September 27, 1725, was the birthday of the parish, the day that it took practical form in a written agreement signed
35
by seven men. Negotiations were at once begun for building a church. A lot on the lower part of State street, called the Parade, was presented by a friend, and a church edifice was erected thereon of stout oak timber, 32 by 50 feet, with a bell. The original number of pews was twenty-two, and new pews were added as the congregation increased.
Samuel Seabury of Groton, a descendant of John Alden, and a Harvard graduate, ordained in England by the Bishop of London, was commissioned in 1732, by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, to exercise his priestly office at New London on a salary of sixty pounds, with an arrearage "from the feast clay of St. John the Baptist, which was in the year of our Lord 1730."
His ministry was wise and faithful, and there was a gradual and steady increase of strength in the membership. He remained in New London about eleven years, and was then transferred by the Society to Hempstead, Long Island, where he died in 1764.
The parish was first designated as St. James's parish in 1741, having previously on the records been called the Episcopal Church of New London.
Four years elapsed after the departure of Mr. Seabury before the parish had again a settled minister. Occasional services were held in the meantime by Dr. MacSparran and others. The wardens sent earnest appeals to the Society already mentioned, that they might not be left as "sheep without a shepherd," and by the desire of the Society a lot was secured, the gift of one Samuel Edgecomb, and a parsonage built. In 1747, the Rev. Matthew Graves was sent from England by the Society, and he ministered to St. James's parish for about thirty years. He was a man of zeal and devotion, genial by nature, but at times somewhat hasty, and when the whole country was stirred by the War of the Revolution, the problems he had to face were greater than his wisdom in dealing with them. He did not recog-
36
nize the momentous hour of the birth of a republic, but thinking only of himself as an Englishman, and perhaps also of the indebtedness of the parish to English aid, he faltered in patriotism, and incensed his parishioners by his obstinate disregard of their dearest convictions. In a final painful scene he was driven by them from the parish, never again to return. He was ultimately sent, under a flag of truce, to New York, where he died in 1780.
Such a crisis, so far-reaching in its relations, could not be passed over in a month, or in a year. But as time went by, and the independence of the United States became more and more a fixed fact, the parishioners of St. James, longing to renew the Church services, sought for a leader who should be both a pastor and patriot. And such a one they might have found, had peace been restored, but fire and sword were still laying waste the land; and by the treachery of Arnold and the burning of New London, September 6th, 1781, St. James's Church was reduced to a smouldering heap in the general conflagration. The parsonage, situated at a distance, and not in the track of the troops, escaped.
The church had never been formally consecrated, for as yet there had been no Bishop no this side of the Atlantic. But when, a few years later, a new "St. James's Church" was built, on a new site near the parsonage, it was consecrated by Bishop Seabury, who had already become a resident of the town, and had begun to hold services in the court house. He was the second son of the first settled clergyman, Rev. Samuel Seabury. He had gone to England for ordination, and had returned to America as a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. After the Revolution, received Episcopal consecration in Scotland and came home to America as Bishop of Connecticut.
The foundation stone of the new church, on Main street, was laid July 4, 1785, and the church was cones-
37
crated by Bishop Seabury, September 20, 1787. In 1790 his Diocese was enlarged to include Rhode Island, but New London remained his home, and his parochial labors here continued until his death in 1796. He was buried in the old churchyard at New London.
His remains now lie under the chancel of the present "St. James," and on a brass plate above the tomb is a Latin inscription which, translated, is as follows:
"Under the pavement of the altar, as in the final place of rest until the judgment of the great day, now repose the mortal remains of the Right Reverend Prelate, Samuel Sea-bury, D.D. Oxon., who first brought from Scotland, into the Anglo-American Republic of the new World, the Apostolic succession, November 27, 1784. His diocese, never forgetful of the labors and trials of so dear a person, in the new Church of St. James the greater, of New London, formerly his see, now at last, after so long a time, have taken care to place this monument to his honor, in the year of our salvation, 1849."
He was succeeded in 1796 by his son, the Rev. Charles Seabury, who discharged the duties of the parish until May 26, 1814, when he resigned his charge and removed to Setauket, Long Island. The Church services were now for a period conducted by a lay reader until, in 1815, the Rev. Solomon Blakeslee became Rector, and so remained for three years. During his ministry, an organ was for the first time placed in the church. The music before this time had been simply vocal. The people sat during the singing and rose only at the "Gloria Patri."
Two important anniversaries have been observed. One, in 1896, was the centenary of the death of Bishop Seabury, in thanksgiving for the work he did, both in his parish and in the Diocese. There was, on this anniversary, a Diocesan celebration, Bishop Williams being celebrant. Bishop Coleman of Delaware preached in the morning, and
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Rev. Dr. Seabury of New York, a great grandson of Bishop Seabury, in the evening. More than forty of the clergy were present, and the choir was assisted by the choir of Christ Church, Westerly, in recognition of the fact that Bishop Seabury was Bishop of Connecticut and Rhode Island, his Diocese including both states.
In 1900, on St. Barnabas's Day, the fiftieth anniversary of the consecration of St. James's Church was observed. A number of the clergy were present. There was an early celebration, Rev. Dr. Binney, assisted by Rev. Mr. Punnett, a former assistant, being celebrant. There was later a full choral celebration, Rev. Dr. Grint being celebrant. The sermon was preached by the Rev. Dr. Grosvenor.
Thus, St. James's parish looks back over great periods of time-fifty years to the consecration of its present church building, one hundred years to the death of its third Rector, Bishop Seabury, one hundred and seventy-eight years to - that first baptism of a little child by Mr. Pigot, missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and one hundred and ninety-nine years to the preaching of the first missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Connecticut.
39
1732.
Having no church building, the services were held in his own house. In those days Churchmen came from New Milford and other remote places to worship at Newtown, sometimes coming on Saturday with their needful supplies, while their brethren gave them house room.
Down to the end of 1734 there were in Connecticut four missionaries and five houses of worship-one of these at Newtown. The first church building was 28 by 24 feet. It was raised on Saturday, the roof boards put on the same evening, and the next day the faithful few assembled for divine service, sitting on the timbers and kneeling on the ground. The second church building, finished in 1746, was double the capacity of the first. Mr. Beach divided his time between Redding and Newtown, reporting to the Venerable Society at one time an attendance of over three hundred at Redding and over six hundred at Newtown.
At the beginning of the Revolution the communicants numbered three hundred. These were trying times for Churchmen, yet the Church was winning its way in spite
40
of much opposition, sufferings and dangers. Warnings were repeatedly given to cease praying for the King; but the Rector at Newtown, alone of all the clergy in the colony, continued his services without interruption through the entire Revolutionary period. It is related on one occasion that soldiers entered the church and threatened to shoot the Rev. John Beach if he read the prayer for the King and the royal family. Mr. Beach, however, went on as usual with no change, while the soldiers, struck with such quiet courage, stacked their muskets and remained through the service. Mr. Beach died in 1782 and his successor was the Rev. Philo Perry. During his rectorship the third church was erected. It was formally named "Trinity Church," and was consecrated by Bishop Seabury. This Church stood for seventy-seven years, until replaced by the present beautiful stone edifice. Mr. Perry was Rector for twelve years.
On August 5, 1799, the Rev. Daniel Burhans, D.D., was chosen Rector, remaining with the parish more than thirty years, when the infirmities of age obliged him to resign. Thus a period of one century was covered by these first three rectorships, marking three different periods in the history of the Church in this country. The first takes us down to the Revolution, through the times when Holy Orders could be obtained only by incurring the dangers of three thousand miles of ocean travel, when the baptized went unconfirmed for want of a bishop.
The influence of Trinity Church, Newtown, upon the Church in other places cannot be measured. While in recent years, it has lost many in numbers it looks back with pride upon its noble history, and less than fifty years ago a Rector of Christ Church, Hartford, declined a call to New-town because it was a "larger and more arduous work than he was then -engaged in!"
41
1734.
It is very difficult - almost impossible - in this age of broad and liberal thought, to realize the position of the followers of the Church of England in the colonies. The Puritans came here for "freedom to worship God," - as the poet hath it, but it was freedom for themselves, - not for those who differed from them. Presbyterianism was, in fact, the State religion, and all the people were compelled to pay taxes for its maintenance. And no other ministry or Church could be entertained or attended by the inhabitants of any town or plantation, under penalty of a fine of five pounds for every offense.
This was previous to 1727, when a "Relief" law was passed by the General Assembly, exempting the members of the Church of England from such a fine, provided there was a regularly ordained minister established and performing the duties of his office. But little difficulty, however, was found in evading this exemption where public opinion was against the Church. One of our former rectors (Rev. Mr. Welton) compiled a fragmentary history of the parish from Church documents and letters, costing him much time and labor, and which form the basis of this sketch.
Mr. Punderson's letters to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel tell of his trials and perplexities bravely
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met and endured. One to the Bishop of London describes the strange excitement and actions of the people who came under the influence of the "vagrant preacher," Davenport of Long Island, and the anxiety of some of them for his conversion, -as "he was leading his people down to hell," as they expressed it. After this period of wild fanaticism had passed away, and people came to their senses, it resulted in many of them conforming to the spiritual and sober ways of the Church. In a long letter to the Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel he relates one of his missionary journeys in Connecticut, and sums up by saying that, "in the space of nine days I traveled near two hundred miles (a long and tedious journey at that time), baptized twelve children, preached nine sermons (probably of the goodly length of old times), and had near one thousand persons attend divine service in the several places." This is only one of many similar journeys.
It may not be amiss to mention here, that, during the absence of Mr. Punderson to obtain ordination in England, the Rev. Mr. Seabury, afterwards our first Bishop, had the care of Mr. Punderson's new converts: no parish having been organized at that time.
How interesting it would be if we could have some knowledge of the personal appearance of our first missionary, but no likeness of him has descended to us.
Probably he had the staid and solemn appearance of the ministers of that time; possibly he was awkward in his ways, and too frank in his manner of speech, for although a brother minister speaks of him as "an honest and laborious man, " he laments his "want of politeness," which detracted from his work in New Haven.
It matters not if his manners were not those of a Chesterfield; like St. Paul, he endured hardships as a soldier of Christ, and has entered into his reward.
The following sketch of his life was written by the Rev. Mr. Welton, one of his successors at Poquetanuck.
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New England ecclesiastical writers have sometimes complained that missionaries of the Church of England "invaded," when these colonies were under charter governments, the home which the Puritans had made for themselves as the asylum of religious freedom. Yet this charge of "invasion" of privilege is a tacit confession that what they call religious liberty was real religious tyranny to all others than those of the dominant sect: for if all were to have liberty of the same kind and degree, there could be no invasion of privilege, or trespassing upon others' rights. Civil war is never called invasion in any true sense. A late apologist for the New England Puritans, says: "This is a point concerning which there has been a great deal of popular misapprehension and there has been a great deal of nonsense talked about it. It has been customary first to assume that the Puritan migration was undertaken in the interest of religious liberty, and then to upbraid the Puritans for forgetting all about religious liberty as soon as people came among them who disagreed with their opinions. But this view is not supported by history. It is quite true that the Puritans were, to a certain extent, chargeable with intolerance : but it is not true that in this they were guilty of any inconsistency. The notion that they came to New England for the purpose of establishing religious liberty, in any sense in which we should understand such a phrase, is entirely incorrect. It is neither more nor less than a bit of popular legend. If we mean by the phrase religious liberty, a state of things in which opposite or contradictory opinions on questions of religion shall exist side by side in the same community, and in which everybody shall decide for himself how far he will conform to the customary religious observances, nothing could have been further from their thoughts. There is nothing they would have regarded with more genuine abhorrence. If they could have been warned by a prophetic voice of the general freedom-or, as they would have termed it, license-of thought and behavior which pre-
44
vails in this country to-day, it is not unlikely that they would have abandoned their enterprise in despair, and would have remained in England. . . . In such a scheme of theoretical government as theirs, there was no room for religious liberty"-Harper's Monthly, December, 1882, p. 116.
But if it could be conceded-as it certainly cannot-that the country belonged exclusively to them, and that therefore no Churchman, Quaker, or Anabaptist, had a right to settle here; the coming of the missionaries of the English Church was only the administration of the ordinances of Christ, by natives of the country, most of whom had been ministers of the established order, or candidates for that ministry, educated in Puritan colleges, and if it were right, for conscience's sake to separate from the Church of England, who will say it was wrong to return to that Church-for conscience's sake?
It is a matter of interest in the history of the mission at North Groton, that the first two dissenting ministers who, in eastern Connecticut conformed to the Church, viz: Samuel Seabury, Sen., and Ebenezer Punderson, had both preached as Congregationalists in that parish; the former as a temporary supply, the latter as the first settled pastor. Mr. Punderson began his work as missionary of the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts"-a voluntary society dispensing only voluntary contributions-- in the latter part of the year 1734. It is but fair to state that those who went from America for ordination, had been led to believe through the reading of the scriptures, and ancient authors, that "from the Apostles' days there had been" and therefore there ought always to be, "these three orders of ministers in Christ's Church," commonly called "bishops, priests, and deacons"; and that themselves had no right to administer the sacraments of Christ without having been Episcopally ordained.
Mr. Punderson was a native of New Haven, and a graduate of Yale College in the class of 1726. He was (Pres-
45
byterially) ordained at North Groton, at the age of twenty-one. On the first of January previous to his dismission, (after less than five years' service) he made a communication to the Society, avowing himself a conformist to the Episcopal Church of England. This communication was received, it is said, with amazement and sorrow; and a committee chosen, "consisting of Robert Geer, Christopher Avery, and Benjamin Gallup, to reason with him, and see if he might not be persuaded that his ordination was good and that he might return to his people again." They also sent a petition to the General Assembly in May [1734], asking them "to do something for their relief"-though what they could have done is beyond the comprehension of this generation. In this petition "they mention their happiness under Mr. Punderson for about two years and a half; when it pleased God in his providence to leave him to believe and hold some things which they thought erroneous; and notwithstanding many private conferences, associations and counsels of Rev'd ministers in the neighborhood, 'together with fasting and prayer for his recovery,' Mr. Punderson still persisted in his views, and ten or twelve of the people of the parish and heads of families had signed his papers and contributed money to bear his expenses to England." It seems to have been a surprise to his old parishioners generally, that, he, an educated and trained theologian, who had examined carefully the question of ministerial authority, was not convinced by a committee of layman who had not. One of the committee of three, Robert Geer, followed his pastor into the English Church.
The Rev. Mr. Seabury, who was then stationed at New London, officiated statedly in North Groton, for Mr. Punderson's new converts, while he was absent in England. He returned in orders in the autumn of the same year [1734], and immediately entered upon his mission. It is said that a church was built there "soon after"; but there is no certain date of its building. We only know from his report
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dated June, 1739, that a church had been built, for it was used on the preceding Christmas day [1738] when, he says, he had a congregation of four hundred persons, but does not state what proportion of them were his stated hearers. It is not probable that his people waited four years for a house of worship. The building stood on what is still called "Church Hill," a mile and a half northeast of the meeting house at the centre, and some three miles from the head of Poquetanuck cove, where it was re-erected in 1785, on "Shingle Point."
Mr. Punderson's house stood at the foot of "Church Hill," nearly opposite the present "Bill Parsonage," where the cellar walls, and some fragments of the building are still to be seen. This was the first Church parsonage in eastern Connecticut. In it Bishop Seabury was born, November 30, 1729.
Among the State papers at Hartford, there is a nearly full list of all the male members of the Church of England in Connecticut, over sixteen years of age,-six hundred and thirty-six in all,-one hundred and four of whom were under Mr. Punderson's pastoral care in North Groton and Norwich. There are five each of the names of Williams and Rode [Rood?], three each of the names of Ames, Geer, Hide, Minor, Park, Rose, Pelton, Spicer, Starkweather, Stoddard, and Waterman; two each of Capron, Crouch, Forsec [Forsyth?], Killam, Lee, Turner, Wilkinson, and Willoughby. The single names are: Allyn, Ashcraft, Barker, Bassett, Barnard, Bennett, Bordish, Button, Cleveland, Cramer, Davis, Dean, Dickinson, Dood, Downing, Doyle, Fanning, Fountain, Frink, Gray, Grist, Hancock, Holdridge, Holly, Houghton, Hutchinson, Larkin, Lancaster, Leeds, Malason, McCloughton, Meach, Norton, Nuton [Newton], Parish, Randal, Ranger, Raynolds, Rouse, Samson, Thiton, Utley, Welsh, Wickwire, and Weeks.
These names are signed to a petition to the General Assembly, asking for the Church of England and her
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schools, their rightful proportion of certain public moneys accruing from the sale of three townships in the western part of the colony; and which, it had been proposed, should be appropriated for the benefit of the Congregational [or Presbyterian] Churches and schools. The petition was not granted: but the vigorous protest of the Connecticut Churchmen resulted in the setting apart of the whole sum as a fund for common schools.
Mr. Punderson, in the first of his reports that have been published in this country, dated June 18, 1739, says that there has been a great increase in the number of his parishioners, and a corresponding change in the temper of dissenting brethren; many of whom, he says, from being haters and revilers of the Church and her clergy, have been brought to occasionally attend her services. On the preceding Christmas, and on a Lord's Day afterwards "more than four hundred persons of sober and devout behavior, were present in Church, many of whom had been bitter enemies." No description of the first church edifice can be found. It was probably nearly square, perhaps forty by sixty feet-with galleries, and without a steeple. Probably also it had arched windows, as it certainly had after it was removed to Poquetanuck.
In 1741, the missionary says his labors were greatly increased in consequence of the surprising disturbing results of the preaching of Whitefield and his followers; the parish of North Groton [or that part of the town of Groton now Ledyard] being for the time, the centre of the excitement. Soon after Whitefield's visit, says Mr. Punderson, a number of wandering [itinerant] preachers-the chief of whom was one Davenport, of Long Island-went about the country, boisterous in manner, uncharitably denouncing the Church and her clergy. Those who were "struck" were first seized with horror and distress. There were screamings, faintings, convulsions, visions-apparent death for twenty or thirty hours; and, as some afterwards confessed,-actual
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possession by evil spirits. The spirit of all was remarkably bitter against the Church of England. The New-Light preacher and his followers declared that Mr. Punderson and all those under his pastoral care, were unconverted, and going straight down to hell. There were from twenty to thirty of these preachers or exhorters within ten miles of his residence. Incredible pains, he says were taken to seduce the members of his congregations, but with little success. Some were lost, but more were added. His labors for a while became so incessant, in consequence of the popular frenzy, that he was scarcely allowed a whole day with his family. Mr. Punderson seems not to have doubted that some persons were actually "possessed"; and, in another letter he says that one such, while thus possessed, actually burned about £1,200, probably in paper currency. On one occasion he says, "the dissenting teacher, Mr. Croswell, came, with a number of attendants, singing to my house- pronounced me unconverted-yet confessed that he did not know me guilty of any crime. I assured him, that in my opinion, it was a greater crime for him thus to murder my soul, usefulness, and reputation, than for me to attempt his natural life."
The Rev. Mr. Tuttle in his "History of the Ledyard Church and Society," says, "Mr. Croswell was a man of ardent temperament, coinciding readily with the 'New Light' movement, in sentiment and action; upholding and defending by his writings, the enthusiastic wanderings of Davenport."
In 1750, Mr. Punderson's labors as an itinerant were greatly extended. The members of the Church of England in Middletown, North Guilford [then called Cohabit], Guilford, Wallingford, and other places, submitted themselves to his pastoral care; and whatever ministerial taxes they had been assessed to pay, he ordered to be applied towards the building of churches and maintaining lay-
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readers, . . . without appropriating any part thereof to himself. In October of the same year, he sent a letter to the Secretary of the Society, which contains the following summary of his ministrations on one of these journeys, which may be presumed also to represent many others: "The 5th of September, rode to Middletown [forty miles] and preached there next day: the day following at East Haddam, on Sunday at Middletown (whose church was unfinished), in the townhouse, it being quite full, and administered the two sacraments; . . . the next day in a small church in Wallingford: the day following gave private baptism to a poor weak child, as I went to my native place, New Haven; the Sunday after the Commencement, preached in the State House in that town, to a numerous assembly. . . . The day following, at Branford; upon Tuesday, in the church at Guilford to abundance; the next day at Cohabit; upon Friday at Millington (a part of East Haddam), added there two more to our communion:-the next day, christened three children. I travelled in this journey about one hundred and sixty miles, preached eleven sermons, christened seventeen children. The Sunday before last, was at Charles-town (in Rhode Island), and the last, at Norwich. The Church greatly increases at both these places." (Beardsley, I, 166-7.)
His stipend from the S. P. G. in England, as Missionary at North Groton and Norwich, was seventy pounds sterling. Ten more were added on account of his labors as an itinerant-in all about three hundred and forty dollars. What he received from the people is not stated. The currency of the colony being in paper, varied considerably in relative value at different periods. In 1761, £40 of it was equal to £30 sterling.
Once, in 1746, Mr. Punderson went as far as Litchfield, to preach. In September, 1747, he says, "they are building a church in Norwalk, the largest and most flourishing
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town in this Colony. There are about thirty families of conformists. This town has always had the character of the most rigid Congregationalists in the government. 'Tis really surprising how much their dispositions are softened toward the Church; and indeed 'tis so almost everywhere." (B.I, 232.)
In 1750, after sixteen years of missionary work, he first speaks of the oppression of his people, who were compelled to pay taxes for the maintenance of the Congregational or Presbyterian ministers, and for the building of meetinghouses. The original law, which established the Presbyterian order, enacted that in opposition to this order, there should be "no ministry or church administration entertained or attended by the inhabitants of any town or plantation, upon penalty of the forfeiture of five pounds for every breach of this act." (Bronsoris Hist. Waterbury, p. 315.)
In 1727, in response to the earnest petition of Churchmen, backed by the danger of losing their charter, the General Assembly enacted the following relief law:
"All persons who are of the Church of England and those who are of the Churches established by ye laws of the this government, yt live in the bounds of any parish allowed by this Assembly, shall be taxed by ye parishioners of ye said parish, by ye same rule and in ye same proportion, for ye support of ye ministry in such parish: but if it so happens that there be a Society of the Church of England, where there is a person in orders according to ye Canons of ye Church of England, settled and abiding among them, and performing divine service so near to any person yt had declared himself of the Church of England, that he can and doth attend ye public worship there, then the collectors, having first indifferently levied the tax, as aforesaid, shall deliver ye taxes collected of such persons; which minister shall have full power to receive and recover ye same, in order to his support in the place assigned to him, . . .
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and the parishioners of ye Church of England, attending as aforesaid, are hereby excused from paying any taxes for ye building meeting-houses for ye present established Churchs of this government." (Ch. Documents, Ct., /, 282-3.)
This law seems sufficiently plain; but in practice, after the fear of losing their charter had measurably passed away, the acting magistrates found little difficulty in evading it where public opinion was to sustain them. Mr. Punderson undertook to have it enforced in favor of some of his parishioners, by suing the collectors for his rates; but was "cast" and compelled to pay costs. He gave as a reason for undertaking these suits, that he looked upon his parishioners as his children; and that, if it be the duty of the true pastor to give his life for his flock, it must be his duty to give his money freely for their defense. At some of his stations, his rates were paid, as he had ordered, to his lay-readers and others, but in some other places, he says, "they have been in the most vile manner distressing and, imprisoning the members of the Church of England: while the Quakers and Baptists fare better, being universally exempted from paying taxes to their establishment."
After the removal of Mr. Seabury from New London, which station was for some years thereafter vacant, Mr. Punderson was the only missionary in the county, having charge also of Charlestown in Rhode Island.
It cannot be precisely determined when he removed to New Haven; but, in a letter written not long before his death, he alludes to the fact that he had been in the Society's service upwards of nine years at New Haven, Guilford, and Branford; which would bring him to his charge in that vicinity before the close of 1752. The proceedings of the Society in 1753 contain the following record: "The Rev. Mr. Punderson, the Society's itinerant missionary in Connecticut, having petitioned the Society to be settled mission-
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ary, with only part of his present salary (which was seventy pounds sterling), to the members of the Church in New Haven, the place of his nativity (where a new church is built, to which Mr. Punderson gave the greatest part of the timber) and to those of Guilford and Branford, the Society have granted his request." (B. I, 172.)
It is quite possible he was made to feel, at New Haven, the truth of our Lord's saying that "a prophet is without honor in his own country;" for his congregation increased but slowly, while at other points there was encouraging growth. Dr. Johnson of Stratford, writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1760, says, 'Mr. Punderson seems a very honest and laborious man; yet the Church at New Haven appears uneasy under his ministry, occasioned, I believe, partly by his want of politeness, and partly by his being absent so much, having five or six places under his care. I wish he was again at Groton, and some politer person in his place." (B. I, 198.) So his friendly critic himself confesses that he was sufficiently "polite" for Groton. He was transferred to Rye, New York, where, notwithstanding his "want of politeness," his ministry was "eminently successful." There he died in 1771, aged sixty-three. After his death, his widow returned, to spend the remainder of her days amid the scenes of his earliest ministry. A table-monument erected to her memory stands in the yard of Christ Church, Norwich. The grave of her son Ebenezer is in Poquetanuck cemetery. But of the devoted and laborious missionary, who, in troublous times, laid the foundation of this spiritual edifice and labored upon it almost a score of years, there is in the parish,-neither sepulchral monument, window, or mural-tablet. To him it matters not, for his record is on high; but might it not be good for us of the present generation,-if we cannot build a Memorial Church,-at least to remember him in a chancel window? A new church was built in 1896, in this old parish, but its first missionary was not thought of.
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1734.
THE present town of Redding is one of the few places in the old colony of Connecticut where the Episcopal ministry is entitled to the distinction of having been first of the ground, laying foundations and not building upon those already laid.
In 1723 Rev. Samuel Johnson of Stratford took charge of all the missionary work of Connecticut and in 1727 sent the Rev. Henry Caner to Redding, who became (1733) the first minister of the parish. After a pastorate of five years he was succeeded by Rev. John Beach, who served as a faithful missionary for a full half century, his pastorate being the longest of all the ante-Revolutionary clergy. Through his instrumentality the first church on Redding ridge was built in 1734, the year following his taking charge of the parish. The structure was quite small and in 1750 was replaced by a larger one, surmounted by a turret which in 1777 was replaced by a steeple in which was placed the first bell. In 1873 this steeple was repaired and a handsome gilded cross substituted the old weather cock imported from England, whose legs had been shot off by one of Tryon's soldiers in 1777. This venerable bird is one of the carefully preserved relics of the parish.
On the interior the church, according to the style of the period, was furnished with square high backed pews, with seats on their four sides, obliging some o the occupants to sit with their backs to the minister.
It was in this year that the bullet (still preserved) was fired by "rebel" soldiers, at the Rev. John Beach while he was preaching, lodging in the sounding board just over his head. The venerable preacher's composure is shown by
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the way he addressed his congregation as they were about to rush from the church in consternation. "Don't be alarmed, brethren," he said. "Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
During the next eighty-three years nothing of great importance happened.
1735.
TO understand the local situation at the time this parish of the Church of England was formed, it is necessary to go back still earlier in the history of the town, and if I mistake not, we shall find reasons leading to this almost revolutionary action of our ancestors, which date years before its actual occurrence.
The town was first settled in 1704, and as usual in New England communities, among the first things was making provision for a church and school. The progress of the settlement of the town was remarkably slow, owing to difficulties arising from rival claimants to the land and the consequent difficulty in getting titles that were unquestionably sound. A petition to the General Court in 1708 recites that there were but nine families in town, and another in 1712 complains that then the families were few and scattering.
Nevertheless the town, in 1712, appointed a committee to procure a regular minister, and occasional preaching had been enjoyed earlier than this, though the General Court did not authorize them "to gather a church and ordain an orthodox minister amongst them" till October, 1716. But when the location of the meeting-house for the town came
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up for decision, then arose the beginning of the factional war which continued for thirty years or more and resulted in a division of the town into four religious societies of the standing order, and the organization of a parish of the Church of England whose early history is the subject of this sketch.
The Rev. John Bliss, Yale 1710, was ordained minister of the town on Hebron, November 19th, 1717, and evidently sympathized with those who wished the location of the town's meeting-house changed, known as the "Northern Party." Says an early historian, despairing of being able to reconcile the differences, he resigned his charge and was dismissed by council in 1734. He had been accused by his enemies of sundry immoralities, chiefly intemperance, but was acquitted of the charges by the Hartford County South Consociation which met in Hebron, November 16th, 1731. How far this cause contributed towards his final dismissal it is of the Northern Party, adhered to him and met at his house for religious services, claiming that the action of the council in dismissing him was illegal and that he was consequently the only regularly ordained minister in town, in fact his successor was not ordained until December 16th, 1735. This holding of schismatic services was not to be tolerated by the town authorities, and Mr. Bliss and five of his most prominent supporters were presented before Hartford County court, June 17th, 1735, charged with having "carried on divine worship contrary to the statutes of this Colony." They were found not guilty, but the costs of court were taxed against them, amounting to about five pounds to each person. They appeared before the General Court, 1735, for redress, and one-half the costs were remitted.
I have been somewhat lengthy, perhaps, in relating these occurrences, but it seems necessary in order to understand the causes that lead up to the organization of this ancient
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parish of the Church of England, the sixth one in the colony according to Dr. Beardsley.
There was now but one thing for Mr. Bliss and his friends to do, to put themselves under the protection of the Church of England, and tradition says they did this in 1734, but it is hardly probable that it was done until 1735, for had it been done in 1734 they would not have been prosecuted for holding schismatic meetings then. It cannot be supposed that all were influenced by the desire to have their own way, contrary to the wishes of a majority of their neighbors; but as many of them were born in England it is very likely that such were influenced by genuine love for the Church in which they were educated.
Here then, was the beginning of St. Peter's parish, how formally organized at that time we know not, but tradition says they put themselves under the care of the Rev. Samuel Seabury, missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at New London. He writes home to the Society August 11th, 1736, that his success was "something remarkable at Hebron," where he visited June 20th, of that year, and that there were twenty families who professed adherence to the Church of England.
The church building was begun in 1735 upon land deeded to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel by Mr. Bliss himself, but it was many years before it was thoroughly finished, in fact it was in 1766 that the missionary reported it finally completed.
In 1738 a petition was preferred to the General Court in behalf of the members of the Church of England throughout the colony, and thirty-two names from Hebron are found among the signers, representing themselves as "under the pastoral care of the Reverend Mr. Samuel Seabury of New London." Mr. Bliss continued to read services as a lay reader under Seabury's supervision for several years and died on the eve of his departure for England to receive Episcopal ordination, February 1st, 1741-42.
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In 1743 Mr. Seabury reports to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel that "the prospect at Hebron was not so good as formrly, because the followers of Mr. Whitefield do extremely abound there."
In 1746 the care of the parish appears to be in the hands of Rev. Mr. Punderson of North Groton, who visited them twice a year and reports forty communicants, and six baptisms during the year, also that the parish had "purchased thirty acres of exceedingly good land for a glebe."
In 1748 Rev. Mathew Graves reports having spent a fortnight at Hebron, preaching nine sermons, etc., and in 1751 he writes that "Mr. Thompson, a man of great estate, will give a glebe of twelve acres of good land and build a house for a minister."
These offers of land for the support of the ministry indicated their strong desire for a settled clergyman, but still more significant was the fact that they sent four candidates to England to receive Holy Orders, before they succeeded. Barzillai Dean, Yale 1737, was ordained in 1745, but the ship was lost at sea on the return voyage. Jonathan Colton, ordained 1752, and died of smallpox on shipboard. James Usher, sailed for England in 1757, the ship was captured by the French and he died in captivity. A Mr. Fairweather, of Boston, went to England soon after and was ordained, but returning by way of the West Indies, died there.
But the church still persisted in their efforts, though regarded as no better than madmen by their neighbors, who looked at these repeated failures as demonstrations of divine interposition to prevent the growth of prelacy in this western land. At last, hearing that their townsman, Samuel A. Peters, Yale 1757, then a tutor in a New York College, had decided to take Holy Orders, they elected him as their Rector. He sailed to England in 1758, was ordained Deacon March 11th, 1759, and advanced to the priesthood August 5th, of the same year. After a serious illness in
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England he returned and took charge of the parish in 1760. Financial aid was given them by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and a church library sent them, remnants of which remain to this day.
Peters write to England, April 13th, 1761, returning thanks from his people for the care of the Society, and for the books, and reports that the church building, 58 by 30, is repaired in part. December 27th, 1764, he writes that ninety pounds are subscribed to finish the inside of the building, which now only needs plastering and is to be done in the spring. May 12th, 1766, he writes that the church is finally completed by help received from a legacy given by will of Mrs. Cursell, of Boston some years before, the existence of which had been lately discovered, and notes that eight of his flock have been lately prosecuted and fined for working upon the fast day appointed by the civil authority during Easter week.
As events occurred foreshadowing the War of the Revolution, we can easily imagine that the situation of this old parish became less pleasant, for Peters, their Rector, was a pronounced loyalist, and doubtless many of his flock sympathized with him. In those troublous times all our ancestors were men of stern convictions who never allowed comfort or convenience to interfere with their principles. At last, after several visits from the "Sons of Liberty," who threatened vengeance on him for his loyalty, Rev. Mr. Peters left the colony in the early fall of 1774 and fled to England, leaving the church without a rector.
The history of their struggle for existence during the War of the Revolution is a sealed book, no records remain, tradition even is silent, but that they did exist is only known by their existence to-day - the old parish of St. Peter's, Hebron, a sketch of whose colonial history I have the honor to present.
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1737.
In 1737 services were regularly held under the direction of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which sent over from England books for "ye use of ye Missionary in Norwalk" that are still preserved.
For over forty years the sturdy little parish steadily grew and prospered, but, like all else in these old New England states, it then fell under the shadow of the mighty struggle for liberty. Then it came to pass, that on a fatal day in the year 1779, the British General Tryon sat in his chair on Grummon's hill and complacently watched his troops burn Norwalk, watched the flames as they greedily lapped up dwelling after dwelling, until finally they reached that sanctuary which had so often echoed with the voice of loyal worshippers, and laid it in ashes. The Rev. Dr. Leaming, who was then the missionary in charge, suffered grievously at the hands of both English and Americans, and, beside being left destitute and homeless, he was lamed for life and driven to flee to New York.
In 1780 the people, although "impoverished and scattered by this disaster, and the removal of their pastor, with a rare but characteristic devotion to the cause of religion, while their own dwellings may be said to have been smoking in ruins, constructed a temporary place of worship, and in 1785, rebuilt upon the former foundation." This church
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was the first one consecrated by Bishop Seabury, and therefore the first one consecrated not only in our Diocese but in all the United States.
Dr. Smith, one of Dr. Leaming's successors, wrote the Institution Office, the only one in the Book of Common Prayer that can be denominated an office of the American Church.
One of the most illustrious of the Rectors of this historical old parish was the distinguished Jackson Kemper, D.D., the first missionary Bishop of America, and who resigned his charge in Norwalk to become the pioneer of church work in the northwest (1835). He now sleeps beneath a granite shaft in the shadow of the old church he loved so well.
From what was originally St. Paul's parish there have been set off five distinct parishes: St. Matthew's, Wilton; St. Mark's, New Canaan; Church of the Holy Trinity and Christ Church, Westport; and Trinity Church, South Norwalk.
In 1840 the corner-stone of the present building was laid on the ancient site, and, to-day, the venerable church still stands in the midst of the graves of its beloved departed, hallowed by the memory of many noble souls and self-sacrificing deeds which are not forgotten on earth and are surely remembered in Heaven.
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1737.
The Rev. Dr. Richard Mansfield was the next clergyman in Derby, and the parish was then called Christ's Church, it being the custom to so call all churches at that time, that had not been consecrated by any other name. Dr. Mansfield was born in New Haven, 1724. His parents were Congregationalists, and he, therefore, was educated in the faith of his parents. He graduated from Yale College in 1741, but remained there two years after his graduation. It was during these two years that he became an Episcopalian. Dr. Mansfield was the Dean's Scholar at Yale, and this university conferred on him the honorary title of D.D., he being the first Episcopal clergyman to receive this title from Yale University. In 1748 Dr. Mansfield went to England and was ordained on August 7th of that year, in London. His first charge was Derby, with which several other towns were connected. His life was not an easy one, in fact so many dangers beset a clergyman in those days that when he went to England to receive Holy Orders, his sister prayed that he might be lost at sea.
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Dr. Mansfield had as his assistants the Rev. Edward Blakeslee and the Rev. Calvin White, the latter of whom was one of the first converts to the Roman Catholic Church when it was established in Derby.
Dr. Mansfield had charge of this parish for seventy-two consecutive years, from 1748 to 1820. He died in Derby, April 12, 1820, aged ninety-six years. There is a tablet in St. James's Church to his memory, bearing this inscription:
The first church edifice in Derby was commenced in 1738, and complete in 1746, taking nine years to build.
On September 21, 1746, a Convocation of the Clergy of Connecticut was held, at which time Bishop Seabury admitted four candidates to the Dioconate, and also delivered his second and last charge to the Clergy of Connecticut, and set forth his Communion Office, which is substantially the office which we now have in our Book of Common Prayer.
On June 7th, 1797, the annual convention of the Clergy of Connecticut was held, at which time the Rev. Abraham Jarvis was elected Bishop.
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The second church edifice was consecrated as St. James's Church by Bishop Jarvis, November 20, 1799. At this time a Convocation of the Clergy was held, at which the Office of Institution was set forth, and it was presently used for the first time in this church.
The present church edifice was consecrated on April 11, 1843, as St. James's Church, by the Rt. Rev. T. C. Brownell. At Derby (now in Ansonia), Conn., the house is still standing which was bought for the use of a Rector in 1747, and was the home of the Rev. Dr. Mansfield during his long life in Derby.
1739.
THIS parish was founded as a mission in 1725, by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson of Stratford, Conn., who often officiated until 1727. With the blessing of God, he was instrumental in bringing many families into the Church. His successors were two brothers, the Rev. Henry Caner of Fairfield, and the Rev. Richard Caner of Norwalk. Their ministry continued till 1735, when the Rev. John Beach of Newtown became missionary in charge. This clergyman reported to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel at London, England, that he often officiated and administered the sacraments in Ridgefield where, in 1735, there were twenty families of very serious and religious people, who had a just esteem of the Church of England and desired to have the opportunity of worshipping God in that way. Between 1740 and 1776 the parish was in charge of five consecutive priests, of whom the Rev. Epenetus Townsend was the last. He began his ministry
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in 1768, and in connection with the missions at Ridgebury in town of Ridgefield, and Salem, N. Y. After the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Townsend was appointed Chaplain to one of the loyal battalions then stationed in New York City, which in 1799 was ordered to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Soon after leaving New York a severe storm arose and the vessel in which he, his wife, and five children had embarked was foundered in Boston Bay and every soul on board perished.
From 1725 till 1776 eight different priests of the Church of England officiated and they were sent by the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Each of these clergymen received an annuity of at least twenty pounds sterling, in addition to the tax levied for his support. This tax, as received by the Rev. Joseph Lamson in 1744, was £40. 11s. 11d. This sum seems to have been the annual ministerial rate. During the colonial period the Rev. Jeremiah Leaming of Norwalk often served the church. This is the priest, who, at Stratford, Conn., in 1772, delivered a sermon in commemoration of the acquirements and Christian character of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, the founder of St. Stephen's parish.
The first church building was erected in 1740 upon a site which was granted by the proprietors of the town, January 4th, 1739. During the Revolutionary War it was taken by a commissary of the American Army, as a building in which to deposit the public stores. In April, 1777, it was set on fire by the British forces in their retreat from Danbury. Though not consumed, it was rendered unfit for divine service. In 1785, it was voted to erect another edifice; but so impoverished were the people generally, because of the war, that, it was not completed and furnished until 1791. In 1820 the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut was petitioned to indemnify the parish for the loss it sustained, because of the burning of its former church by the
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British. This petition was based mainly on the fact that the building was destroyed because of the use to which it was put during the British occupancy of Ridgefield. The application, however, proved unsuccessful.
The new church was not consecrated until 1831 and then by the name of St. Stephen's Church. The consecrator was the Rt. Rev. Dr. Brownell, Bishop of the Diocese. The third and present edifice was built on the old site and consecrated in 1842. At the organization of the parish in 1739, the Rev. James Wetmore was minister in charge, having been appointed by the Venerable Society.
1740.
THE principal recorded events of the early history of St. Peter's Church, Plymouth, are told in one of the Junior Auxiliary Round Robins, The Story of a Hill-top Parish, that being part of a sermon preached by Dr. Hart on the one hundredth anniversary of the consecration of the present church building, and to that I am chiefly indebted for the brief history contained in this sketch.
Dr. Hart says that he thinks "there is no other town in Connecticut in which the organization of 'the professors of the Church of England,' as they were called, followed so closely upon the settlement of the place and its organization as a separate community."
The present town of Plymouth was originally a part of Waterbury. In 1737 the people of that section were "granted winter privileges" and released from parish taxes for three months of the year, that they might "maintain the dispensing of the word in a place accessable." Soon
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they petitioned the General Assembly of the colony to make them a separate ecclesiastical society, representing that "to reach the only meeting-house in the town, they had to drive seven miles or more, cross the river nine times and take down bars or open gates at ten different places."
In consequence of this, in 1739 the Society called North-bury (now Plymouth), was set off. Very soon a controversy arose as to the location of the meeting-house to be built.
There is not time to go into the details of this dispute now, but the result was the organization in 1740 of an "Episcopal Society" consisting of eleven families under the care of the Rev. Theophilus Morris, a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Although this disagreement might seem an unfortunate reason for the beginning of church life, it is said other causes were at work which made this "a readily accepted occasion for the breach."
Some of the settlers of Northbury were from North Haven, where there was already a church, and, in one family in the community was a Prayer Book, which we are told had considerable influence, the members of two other families being in the habit of meeting with the owners of the Prayer Book for the use of its services. Tradition says the same Prayer Book was afterwards taken to Pennsylvania and was the occasion of starting a parish there.
The year 1740 was a time of great religious excitement, during the preaching of Whitefield, when the teaching of the Church was all the more welcome to sober-minded people, and that this had influence with those who became Churchmen in Plymouth, we know from a letter which they addressed to the "Honorable Society" in England, in which they say: "We were prejudiced strongly against the Church of England from our cradles until we had the advantage of books from your reverend missionaries and others; and
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Mr. Whitefield passing through this land, and his followers and imitators brought in a flood of confusion amongst us, whereupon we fled to the Church of England for safety." Before the Revolution, three men of Connecticut birth, who are still remembered and honored served the parish as missionaries; the Rev, Richard Mansfield, for seventy-two years Rector of Derby, Rev. James Scovill, whose home was in Waterbury, and the Rev. James Nichols, the last Connecticut man to be ordained in England.
The parish possesses a Bible and Prayer Book bound in one volume printed at Oxford in 1738. Also another Prayer Book, in beautiful, large type, printed in London, 1742. Both volumes bear the seal of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel with the words underneath, "The Gift of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts."
The books will remain a valued reminder of the debt the parish owes to the Venerable Society through its missionaries.
In later years no less than five parishes were formed by people who went out from this one, two being in Ohio, and it may be said that, "St. Peter's, Plymouth, became in a sense of which it can be said of few other country parishes, 'a Mother of Churches.' "
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1740.
ROXBURY is one of, if not indeed quite the oldest parish within the limits of Litchfield County, dating its organization as far back as the year 1740, a period earlier than that of any other parish in the county of which we have any written records extant. It was organized by the Rev. John Beach of Newtown, and for a considerable time was the only Episcopal parish within the limits of Woodbury, to which Roxbury at that time belonged. The account of the organization of the church is specific and interesting. Thus recorded: Captain Jehiah Hawley and Mr. Joseph Benedict of Milford; Messrs. Zenas Ward and David Squires of Southbury; James Masters of Woodbury; Messrs. Ebenezer Thomas, Joseph Weller, David and Isaac Castle, Nathan Squires and Titus Beach, agreed to form themselves and their families into an Episcopal congregation and to meet in a private house at Roxbury, as being the most central place. Fully persuaded in their own minds that God would bless this undertaking, the Church being an establishment of His own instituting, and having no prospect of soon obtaining a person in holy orders to minister among them, they made choice of Captain Hawley to be their Reader for the ensuing year. Zenas Ward and Daniel Squires were nominated to act as Wardens. Captain Hawley was an excellent reader, a man of unblemished character, and of clear understanding and of exemplary purity. His Christian conversation and persuasive manner of gaining the doubting and of winning men to the Church who had ignorantly opposed themselves, brought in fresh accessions to this newly begun worshipping assembly; and it was not long before they found themselves in a situation for building a house for public worship. This edifice was erected contiguous to the then Congregational
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house of worship, on the hill about a mile east from the present centre, which site is soon to be marked by a suitably inscribed stone. The Rev. Thomas Davies, speaking of this church in a letter to the Society in England for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, says: "In Roxbury there is a pretty church neatly finished."
The first clergyman regularly connected with the parish as its stated minister was the Rev. Solomon Palmer in 1754. He was one of the first converts to Episcopacy. He was settled at Cornwall, as a Congregational minister, some time about the year 1742. After the lapse of some ten years from the time of his settlement, and before his people were at all aware of his intentions as to the course he was designing to pursue, he made to them a communication on a Sunday, informing them that by investigation and reading he had become convinced, and felt it his duty to conform to the Episcopal Church. Obtaining a dismission from them he went to England and was ordained by the Bishop of Bangor, at the request of the Bishop of London, who was then disabled by sickness from attending to the duties of his office. Some time in the year 1754 he was received into the service of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and became the Society's missionary, making his place of residence in New Milford. His mission included New Milford, where he resided, and several of the neighboring parishes in Litchfield County. About 1760 he resigned his mission and removed to Litchfield. Under his ministrations the parish of Roxbury increased somewhat in numbers. The Rev. Thomas Davies succeeded Mr. Palmer by appointment of the same Society, which appointment was communicated to him, and in the following words: Agreed the 18th day of September, 1761, that Mr. Davies be appointed to the churches of New Mil-ford, Sharon, New Preston, New Fairfield, in Litchfield County. Litchfield parish was soon included in his charge, the Rev. Mr. Palmer having resigned and moved away
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in 1762. The first recorded service in Roxbury by Mr. Davies was on the 25th of November, 1763. On that occasion he lectured from Matthew ix, 13, and as appears from extant records of his acts, kept by himself. By these records also it appears that he officiated in this parish one Sunday in five until his health gave out tinder arduous and accumulated labors. His last recorded notice in the parish was January 12th, 1766. He died suddenly, in the bloom of life's usefulness, at New Milford, where he resided, on the 12th of May, 1766, where he was buried, and a tablet marks his resting-place. He died in the 30th year of his age and the fifth of his zealous ministry. Under his ministrations the church increased considerably. His records show 32 baptisms, 36 communicants, 34 families. A few Episcopal families resided at the centre of Woodbury, whom he occasionally visited and preached to in the Town House, they having at that time no house of worship. In the year in which Mr. Davies died the Rev. Richard Clark took the parish in charge, in connection with New Milford and several other neighboring parishes. He continued to officiate in the parish until about the year 1770, when Rev. John Rutgers Marshall was appointed missionary to the churches of Roxbury and New Milford. During his ministry-the period of the American Revolutionary War-the parish experienced sundry vicissitudes of trial, but being a man full of patience and steadfast in the Gospel, for the space of ten years he faithfully watched over the spiritual interests of his mission field, from 1771 to 1780. After Mr. Marshall's death the parish was vacant for a number of years.
The foregoing was written by the late Rev. Mr. Cooley for the Archdeaconry Record. The matter was taken from records then extant. These have unfortunately disappeared, but there are persons still living in the parish who have seen them. Particular attention is called to the founding of the parish, 1740. It was incorrectly given in some accounts of its bicentenary.
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1740.
AT the extreme southern part of Litchfield County, stretching out over the beautiful valley of the Pomperaug to the hills beyond, lies one of the oldest parishes in Connecticut, St. Paul's, Woodbury.
It is supposed that services were held in the town as early as 1722 or 1723, by Rev. Mr. Pigot of Stratford, and Rev. Dr. Johnson, missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. This early date does not seem strange when we remember that ancient Woodbury was settled by people from Stratford and it is not at all improbable that there should have been among the early settlers, members of the Church of England, or that they should have desired church services held in the town where they were living.
In the year 1732, a Congregational minister in the south part of Woodbury, now Southbury, engaged in a controversy with the Rev. Dr. Johnson; that was carried on for some time. It excited much inquiry among those who investigated the question, and several families were convinced by Dr. Johnson's arguments, and were led to connect themselves with the Episcopal Church. These scattered families were organized into a parish by the Rev. Mr. Beach of Newtown, about the year 1740.
The church was built about that time. Most of the church families living in the south and west part of the town, the church was built on the hills west of the village, in what is now Roxbury, then Woodbury; the people of the valley going up to the hill to worship-there being no place to hold service in the center of the town until the year 1747. The Congregational Society having then (to quote the words of the clerk, informing the General Assembly at
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New Haven) "set up a meeting-house, that for its bigness, strength and architecture Does Appear Transcendantly Magnificent," had no use for the old meeting-house and from that time on it was used as the town hall and by the church people as a place of worship until the church was erected in 1785.
From 1740 to 1771, occasional services were held by the clergymen of surrounding parishes. These were notably the Rev. Thomas Davies, that noble young missionary who did a great work for the Church in Litchfield County; and the Rev Mr. Clark of New Milford, with others. In the autumn of 1771, the Rev. John Rutgers Marshall became the first Rector of St. Paul's, Woodbury. Rev. Mr. Marshall was born in New York in 1743, reared in the Dutch Reformed denomination, but came into the Church and prepared for the ministry under Dr. Johnson. The Rev. Mr. Marshall was the last but one of those candidates from Connecticut who went across the ocean for Holy Orders, being ordained Deacon by the Bishop of London, July 25, 1771, and ordained Priest on the 28th day of the same month. He received from the Bishop a testimonial that he had obtained "License and Authority to perform the office of a Minister or Priest at Woodbury, or elsewhere within the province of Connecticut in North America." On his return from England he went to Woodbury in the autumn of 1771, as a missionary of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and commenced his ministry in St. Paul's parish. The church in the western part of the town was united with it, both churches together constituting one parochial cure.
We know very little of the first few years of Mr. Marshall's ministry - no records of that time existing at the present day. From a scarp of a letter, found long ago, we learn that a convention was held in Woodbury in 1774. For Mr. Marshall in a letter to his aunts in New York, dated April 12, 1774, writes:
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"The Convention is to be held at my house this spring, Aunts promised me some wine, if Aunts intend sending any, there can be no better opportunity than this."
Soon after Mr. Marshall came to Woodbury a glebe was purchased and occupied by the Rector, but afterwards he bought a home for himself and the glebe was sold, the proceeds being used for building the church. The eighteen years of Mr. Marshall's rectorship were trying years to the country and the Church. He was a staunch American as well as a staunch Churchman, as events afterward proved. At the time, however, he was regarded with such animosity by many townsmen, because of his connection with the Church of England, that twice he was left in the road beaten-so his assailants supposed-to death. Tradition says that the man most instrumental in this affair, repented and united himself with the Church. At last Mr. Marshall became so suspected he could not leave his house in the day time, except on Sunday; the old Puritan law forbidding arrest on the Sabbath being his protection. He would hold service on Sunday, and on Monday the Committee of Patriots would go to the glebe to arrest him, search the house, but could never find him. Where he could be hidden was a great mystery to the people who so carefully searched for him. Years afterwards it became known that the old glebe contained a secret hiding place; a sliding panel in a closet, moving so as to afford direct entrance to the cellar. There Mr. Marshall was obliged to spend many days, leaving his hiding place only at night. This entrance may be seen now at the glebe house in Woodbury.
When the war cloud broke and the colonies were severed from England, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel withdrew its aid from the parish; notwithstanding this, Mr. Marshall labored on, holding services in many parishes, from Milford on the south to Great Barrington on the north.
In 1785 the present church was built, Mr. Marshall furnishing the glass and nails.
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On March 25, 1783, a most important meeting was held at the old glebe house, by ten of the fourteen clergymen of Connecticut. "The meeting was kept a profound secret even from their most intimate friends of the laity."
No records even of that meeting were kept, for Mr. Marshall well knew that in holding that meeting he took the life of himself and even of his family in his hands. In consequence of this there is no mention of it even among the family letters. The only account we have of it is in a letter of the Rev. Mr. Fogg, Rector at that time of Trinity Church, Brooklyn, who was one of the ten clergymen present.
The church has not an official record, but it has the result of the meeting; for there was elected the first Bishop of Connecticut, and the first Bishop of the Church in America, Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury.
The church in Woodbury still treasures the first communion set, the semicircular table that was used for the altar, and at the Marshall home in Woodbury may be seen the first communion linen spun and woven by Mrs. Marshall. There also, may be seen a chair in which probably the presiding officer of the secret convention of March, 25th, 1783, sat, and in which tradition says all of the Bishops of Connecticut from Seabury down, have since sat; and most interesting of all, the Prayer Book, used in the church in which, before the Prayer Book was revised and the revision adopted, Mr. Marshall made all the alterations in use. These alterations are in his own handwriting and correspond with the accepted Prayer Book, which would go to show he had something to do with the alterations, even if he did not originate them. He died before the convention which revised the Prayer Book was held.
Hard work and cruel treatment had undermined Mr. Marshall's health, and in January, 1789, he "laid down his armor and went to his rest."
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With the death of Rev. John Rutgers Marshall ends the colonial history of St. Paul's, Woodbury, and the work of a faithful missionary for the Society of Propagation of the Gospel.
1740.
AS, when we look for the beginning of the Christian year, we must find on what day of the week falls the Feast of St. Andrew; so, when we would know of the Colonial Churches in the inland regions of Connecticut, we must turn, first, to old St. Andrew's earliest of them all.
Details as to the formation of the parish are meagre, but it is believed that the organization was effected in 1740 with six members. In 1741 the Rev. Mr. Morris of Derby, who visited it, reported about thirty families, and added that they had prepared some timber for a church.
In 1742 members of the Church of England in other places helped them to raise funds for the purchase of a glebe of fifty acres, and the land was deeded to the infant parish with the stipulation that it should never be alienated.
In 1743 the church was built. It is said that it was never finished; but, for the remainder of the century, it served the congregation, gathered from all the region round as a place of worship.
The chosen site was under the hills of the Talcott range and near the Tunxis or Farmington river, which made its way over a rocky course with a dull roar.
One wonders what the worthies engaged in hewing the massive beams for the building would have said to any man
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who had foretold that, in this present year of grace, steam-driven trains would pass the spot, and that the neighboring river would be made to furnish for Hartford, ten miles away, power to propel its cars and light its streets, to say nothing of offering to heat its houses, cook its food, and freeze its ices?
Giant oaks and chestnuts, left from the primeval forest, guarded the rustic temple and threw their broad shadows over the green churchyard which still serves as a "God's Acre." For more than a century they waved their branches over the sacred spot, and then yielded to a blast of the north wind that might not longer be withstood.
Application had been made to the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts for assistance and promises had been made, on condition of their acquiring a glebe.
In 1744 an arrangement was made with Mr. William Gibbs of Boston, a graduate of Harvard, to take charge of the struggling parish and he crossed the ocean to obtain Holy Orders.
Among some letters to his home friends, found last year in Simsbury, where they had probably lain since the settlement of his estate, is one describing his voyage and telling of his ordination, in which he mentions that the Society had made a formal appropriation for his support and had kindly added a goodly sum for his expensive journey.
He was sent as Missionary to "Simsbury and Parts Adjacent." Each of the ponderous folios-standard theological works-sent over by the Society, as a gift to the Mission, bears to-day that inscription with the book plate of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.
Now in 1744, Simsbury, which had been quaintly described as "an appendix to the town of Windsor," whence its first settlers migrated, embraced the towns of Bloomfield, Canton, Avon, Granby, and East Granby; and the "parts adjacent"
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easily included Hartford, Windsor, and Farmington, not to mention portions of Fairfield County as well as of Berkshire and Hampden counties in Massachusetts.
The territorial extent of the field was indeed wide, though the number of his people could not have been large.
The change from Boston to a region where fields were more numerous than aught else must have been a marked one for the young clergyman.
His sister, Miss Elizabeth Gibbs, came to share his home and staid with him to the end.
For ten years he ministered to his scattered flock and then, because of his refusal to pay a tax laid for the support of the Congregational minister in Simsbury, he was arrested and taken to Hartford jail, thrown across a horse with his hands and feet so bound together as to make a human girth for the animal.
His wardens paid the tax and procured his release, but he never recovered from the nervous shock, and for the well-nigh twenty-three remaining years of his life, he was mildly insane and unable to officiate. A portion of his stipend was continued by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and till death gave him release he remained at his post.
He died amid the stormy days of the Revolution and was buried under the chancel of the church at whose altar he had ministered.
The insanity of Mr. Gibbs made it necessary to have an assistant and Mr. Roger Viets, a Simsbury man and a graduate of Yale, after officiating as lay reader for four years, went in 1763 to England and was ordained. Returning, he took up the work of the parish and for twenty-four years went in and out among its people.
He, too, saw the inside of Hartford jail, being arrested on suspicion of aiding in the escape of some Tories who were confined in the dungeons of Newgate. By way of emphasizing the suspicions he was put in irons. He was
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doubtless made of sterner stuff than Mr. Gibbs, for he eventually came out without permanent injury.
Of Mr. Gibbs's official acts no written record remains, but a portion of the one kept by Mr. Viets is in existence, and a perusal of it shows that he made many visits to the "parts adjacent," officiating frequently in Granby, occasionally in Hartford, where in the Court House he administered the communion to six or to nine communicants, sometimes in Westfield, Springfield, and Great Barrington, sometimes in Litchfield, New Milford, and Danbury. In all these places he evidently found children of the church who gladly availed themselves of the opportunity to have their children baptized.
In 1787 Mr. Viets removed to Digby, Nova Scotia, and I was intended that his nephew, Alexander Viets Griswold, should accompany him. Something prevented and the young man remained to become the first and only Bishop of the "Eastern Diocese."
At the time of his departure, Mr. Viets issued a "Serious Address and Farewell Charge to the Members of the Church of England in Simsbury and Parts Adjacent," copies of which are still in existence, from which may be gathered a summary of his work. He gives the number of Church families in the mission in 1759 as 75. In 1787 there were 280 "exclusive of the many that had emigrated and the few that had apostatized." He had baptized 122 adults and 1,749 infants, a total of 1871, giving an annual average of nearly 67.
During the ministry of Mr. Viets a church was built in the northern art of his field, now North Granby, called St. Ann's. This was, later, given up, and in its stead St. Peter's was built at Salmon Brook, somewhat nearer the mother church. Still later, this became a separate parish, though they were unable to support two incumbents, and it was generally under the care of the Rector of St. Andrew's, until 1845 or thereabouts.
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The second St. Andrew's was built soon after the beginning of the nineteenth century, and was located nearly two miles south of the old site; but after a score or more of years it was moved to its present position only a few yards from the spot hallowed by the first one, and where, like that, it guards the last resting place of the generations of Churchmen "laid away in holy trust."
The earliest inscription in the churchyard was placed on a tiny stone to mark the resting-place of "Robin, son of John," a little Indian boy; and one wonders whether John was the earliest red child of the Church.
1741.
THE early history of St. Paul's parish, Wallingford, is closely connected with that of St. John's, North Haven. Lay services were held in the latter place as early as 1723, and some kind of an ecclesiastical organization was formed in which "Professors of the Church of England, inhabiting in Wallingford," which then included Cheshire and a part of the present town of Meriden, had a part.
In 1740 a closer organization was brought about under the direction of the Rev. Theophilus Morris, missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, as witness the following minutes:
"March ye 21st, 1740. At a meeting of the members of the Church of England inhabitating in Wallingford and North Haven, Rev. T. Morris made choice of Thomas Ives, and the parishioners of North Ingham, as Church Wardens" and six vestry men were selected.
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"March ye 21st, 1740. At a Vestry held at the house of Mr. Thomas Ives, Voted, That the parishioners of Wallingford and North Haven be united into one church, by the name of Union Church."
They soon built a suitable church-house in the southwestern portion of the town, convenient to the members scattered over so wide an area. Probably one reason for the choice of this location was to place the church on a tract of glebe land of about twelve acres that a board of trustees, of which the Rev. Mr. Mansfield of Derby was a member, held in trust for the use of the church in Wallingford from the S. P. G.
The number of communicants is not known, but in a report sent from Wallingford to England in 1744, four years after retirement of Mr. Morris, the following statement is made: "There are twenty-five masters of families, members of the church, who in the absence of a clergyman, meet together every Lord's day and edify themselves as well as they can by reading."
The Rev. James Lyon followed the Rev. Mr. Morris, and the Rev. Ebenezer Punderson succeeded him.
In 1752 the Rev. Ichabod Camp, a native of Middletown, and a graduate of Yale College, who had gone to England for Holy Orders, returned to Middletown and the Union Church was added to his charge. Under his ministrations the church so increased in numbers and strength, that it was thought best to make different arrangements. So the Union Society was dissolved in 1757, and the Wallingford parishioners took steps towards the formation of an independent organization and the erection of a church building in the village. This was finished in 1762, and is said to have been handsome in appearance and quite churchly in style of architecture and in its appointments.
At first the title by which the Wallingford parish was designated was "The Old Society," the name St. Paul's not appearing on record till 1765.
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The funds for the erection of the church came in part from subscriptions of the parishioners and possibly in part from the proceeds of the sale of the glebe land in 1765. It was used until 1832, and we have three mementoes of it in our possession: one, a mahogany table, which served as an altar: another a Prayer Book of the Church of England, and the third a silver chalice dated 1767, which was presented by Capt. Titus Brockett, then senior warden, and which has been in continuous use ever since.
There is also in existence a Royal Coat of Arms, but it was taken to St. Andrew's, New Brunswick, after the Revolutionary War, where it still remains.
The following record is found:
"Jan. 29, 1761. Voted, That there shall be preaching a proportionable part of the time, according to what they pay, at the old society in Wallingford, Cheshire, and North Haven." This action probably had in view the return of the Rev. Samuel Andrews of blessed memory, who had acted as lay reader here, and who at the time was in England to receive Holy Orders at the hands of Dr. Sherlock, Bishop of London, under whom were all the colonial parishes.
He was a native of the town, brother of the Junior Warden and a graduate of Yale. He returned the following year as missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to Wallingford, North Haven, and Cheshire, where he remained for about twenty-five years, an able, faithful, and successful clergyman, winning the warmest affections of his people and the honor and esteem of all who knew him.
Being while here a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, he received a stipend from that source of £30 sterling per annum. In addition to this the three parishes jointly stipulated to give him £50 sterling per annum, a house, and a glebe of fourteen acres for his better accommodation.
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Under his ministrations the Church in all these places grew exceedingly and received from his strong character, his staunch churchmanship and his wise and abundant labors an impetus and impress that long governed them.
We have no means of knowing the strength of the parish at his return, but eight years afterwards we find in the century discourse delivered before the people of Walling-ford in 1770, by Rev. Mr. Dana, pastor of the Congregational Church and his own warm personal friend these words:
"There are sixty-three families of Episcopalians within the original limits of the Historical Society: 86 communicants, and baptized (by Mr. Andrews), 165. In New Cheshire, the families are 47, communicants 64, baptisms 86. In Meriden 6 families, 14 communicants, 20 baptisms."
Mr. Andrews remained in charge until after the close of the Revolutionary War, when he transferred his labors to St. Andrew's, New Brunswick, where he died, honored and lamented, in 1820.
1742.
THE first notice of the Church of England services in Stamford was in 1705, when the Rev. George Muir-son, being inducted Rector of Rye, made excursions eastward into the towns within the Connecticut colony, being licensed to minister to the Church of England people in the towns of Greenwich and Stamford by Lord Cornbury, Governor of the New York Colony, which had been founded three years before by the efforts of Col. Caleb Heathcote to extend the Church in the colonies of Great Britain.
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Owing to the condition of the country at that time, it was necessary for Mr. Muirson to be escorted on these ecclesiastical incursions of Col, Heathcote, "fully armed." They seem to have had occasional ministrations from other clergymen, but no settled minister. They felt a desire for liberty of conscience, which the government sometimes hindered and sometimes helped. The Puritans regarded this to be an unwelcome intrusion, but they were received by many, especially by the more recent emigrants.
In 1742, the Episcopalians made an appeal to the town for a grant of land on which to build a church. As the result of this appeal, the town agreed to give the professors of the Church of England "a piece of land to set a church upon." The lot was to be forty-five feet long and thirty-five feet wide. The lot granted as above was the southwest corner of the present lot held by St. John's parish, about where the transept of the new church stands. "It was at that time a rude ledge of loose rock, bounded on the north and east by an almost impassable swamp," from which it would appear that the town did not much favor the Church of England. The Episcopalians, however, thanked the town for the omen, that they were founded upon a rock. The corner-stone was laid in 1743, and the church was so far finished in 1747 that it could be used. The wardens then wrote to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in London, asking it to help them in their effort to get a clergyman of the Church of England to minister to them; hoping it would look favorably on their desire that Mr. Ebenezer Dibblee, a Congregational minister from Dan-bury, who had been lay reader one and one-half years, should receive Holy Orders in England and be sent by the Society to the Church. To go to England in those days was considered extremely perilous, as the voyage was necessarily long, besides the many dangers that might suddenly arise. One man sent out from Stamford was captured by the
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French, imprisoned by them and finally died of fever in England, while another had smallpox and also died. Mr. Dibblee was the third to be sent out. He returned in 1748, and became Rector of the church, holding that position fifty-one years. His immediate charge included Greenwich, Bedford, New Canaan, Darien, and Stamford. He was a genuine missionary, however, and made excursions to Rye, White Plains, Peekskill, Northcastle, Salem, Ridge-field, Danbury, Norwalk, Redding, Newtown, Huntington, and as far north as Litchfield, Sharon, and Salisbury. Much of his ministry was through the troublous times of the Revolutionary War, troublous especially to members of the Church of England, for many of the clergy were loyal to the King. One incident is told of a fearless Rector, who read the prayer for the King's Majesty with the muskets of American soldiers leveled at his head, having been forbidden to do so under peril of his life. During these days came General Tryon's raid and there was some fear of the British attacking the town of Stamford; the story has come down to me of my great-great-grandmother, sitting on the beach with her baby asleep on her lap, watching the British ships and waiting anxiously to see if they would pass a certain rock, knowing if they did so they could not land and the town would be safe. We know they did "pass that rock," going on to Norwalk, which they burned.
Mr. Dibblee was the first member of the College of Doctors or Council of Advice to the Bishop, and almost to the end he was often in the adjoining towns, preaching and baptizing.
From the Mother Church of St. John's have grown the parishes of Christ Church, Greenwich, with the churches at Round Hill, Glenville, Byram, and Riverside in that town; the parish of St. Mark's, New Canaan; St. Luke's, Darien; St. Andrew's, Stamford, and Emmanuel and St. Luke's chapels in Stamford.
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Mr. St. George Talbot, a parishioner and intimate friend of Dr. Dibblee, came to the colonies from England in the early part of the century, and employed his time and ample fortune in laboring to promote the growth of the Episcopal Church. He made a number of trips to the neighboring parishes with Dr. Dibblee when he was one hundred years old. He gave the glebe lands to St. John's, also a "silver tankard and salver for the use of the Holy Communion, to be kept for that use and no other forever," and they have been so kept and used for a period of one hundred and thirty years. He contributed largely towards the completion of the first church, also the old chapel in Greenwich which stood at the top of "Put's Hill," down the steps of which was the famous ride of Gen. Putnam, when the British troopers were balked in their pursuits.
The Lloyd library, composed of two hundred and fifty volumes, was presented about this time to St. John's by Henry Lloyd, another benefactor in the last century.
Dr. Dibblee died in 1709 and was buried in the old churchyard near St. Andrew's Church.
Three facts stand out in the history of St. John's parish: First, That it is the mother of many parishes, six daughters and five grand-daughters; second, the harmony of its life has been only once broken by parochial discord; and third, it has been a parish of long rectorship, having had only five Rectors in a period of one hundred and fifty years.
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1742.
WHEN the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Trumbull of North Haven was collecting material for his History of Connecticut he wrote letters to various persons throughout the state inquiring after certain historical facts which he wished to incorporate in his history. Joseph Hopkins, Esq., was then the leading citizen of Waterbury. He was Judge of the County Court and represented the town for many years in the General Assembly. To him Dr. Trumbull wrote, inquiring after the history of the Episcopal Society. Judge Hopkins was not an Episcopalian and he turned the inquiry over to Capt. John Welton. Captain Welton was one of the leading men of the town. For years he and Judge Hopkins together had represented the town in the General Assembly. He was one of the leading men in the Episcopal Society. The letter which he wrote in reply to this inquiry shows him to have been a man of excellent judgment as to what was essential in a letter of this sort: of remarkable memory as to facts and of much skill in their arrangement. This letter has been the basis of the history of St. John's parish ever since. The parish was first called St. James's and did not receive the name of St. John until 1797, about two years before this letter was written. Two years after the writing of this letter Judge Hopkins died. Perhaps in any event Capt. Welton would have been called upon for these data, but we cannot help feeling that it was fortunate that Judge Hopkins was called upon to select the man and that he selected Capt. Welton to reply to Dr. Trumbull's inquiries.
The letter is as follows:
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WATERBURY, March 15, A.D. 1799.
Dear Sir:-The following is the best answer I can give to your questions:
In the year of Our Lord 1732, I was then about ten years old, I believe there was not more than three or four Churchmen in town. About that time or before there was one Arnold, I suppose an itinerant preacher, preached to them a few times. What became of Arnold I know not. Afterwards Dr. Johnson of Stratford and Mr. Beach of Newtown officiated occasionally a few times in Waterbury. The state of Episcopacy was much the same with the addition of a few names until about A.D. 1742 or 3 when a considerable number of families came over to the Church and a house for worship soon after began to be built.
In the meantime one Morris from Europe was sent over by the Society for the Propogation of the Gospel and etc. to St. James of Waterbury and several other Churches, but he soon returned to Europe. Morris was succeeded by one Lyon, another of the Society's missionaries. He was over Derby and Waterbury, did not reside in Waterbury, but officiated there about one-third of the time, but I believe in one or two years was removed to Long Island.
After Lyon was the Rev. Dr. Mansfield. He came into the mission about A.D. 1749, resided at Derby and officiated at Waterbury one third of the time, until about the year 1758, when the Rev. Mr. Scovil came into the mission of Waterbury and New Cambridge. He resided in Waterbury, officiated there one half of the time until about 1771 when the mission was divided and Mr. Nichols took New Cambridge and Northbury, now Plymouth, and left Waterbury and Woodbury, now Watertown, to Mr. Scovil, where he officiated until about 1785, when he removed to Nova Scotia.
All the above clergymen received their ordination in London. In the year 1792 we settled Mr. Hart. He continued in the mission until 1795, then removed to Wallingford. In the year 1797 the Rev. Mr. Bronson came into our service: he has since been settled and is now rector of the Episcopal Church in Waterbury. Thus sir, I have done the best I could to answer your questions not having many memorandums or records to direct me, but I believe the above facts are stated nearly right.
I am Sir yours to serve and etc.,
JOHN WELTON.
Joseph Hopkins, Esq.
There is a library in the first Society in Waterbury composed of about 116 volumes, consisting of books on Divinity, History,
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Geography, and Novels, and the proprietors have laid a tax which is also proposed to enlarge considerably. Also one in Salem and one in Middlebury.
JOSEPH HOPKINS.
Rev. B. Trumbull.
As this brings the history of the parish down to the beginning of the nineteenth century, perhaps nothing further is necessary at this time. In the History of the Town and City of Waterbury, published in 1896, Mr. Welton's letter is expanded and some account is given of the clergymen whose names he mentions; the history of the Church is also brought down to the date of the book.
1742.
Written by Rev. Joseph Hooper, by request.
NEW MILFORD was one of the earliest towns to be settled within the present county of Litchfield. In the person of John Noble of Westfield, Massachusetts, it received in 1707 its first actual settler. In 1712 it was organized as a town by twelve men of sterling character and abundant energy. In religion they were strict conformists to the polity and order of the Congregational societies of the colony. Daniel Boardman, who was a young man of great promise, became its pastor soon after its incorporation. He was faithful and beloved, and under him the church and society were prospered. He received, as was the custom of the day, a large tract of land as "a settlement."
There seems to have been no attempt by members of the Church of England who may have been in the little community to separate themselves, as was allowed to "sober dis-
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senters" by enabling acts of the Colonial legislature. The well-informed Congregational minister of the town, the Rev. Stanley Griswold, in his "Century Sermon," declares there were Churchmen in the settlement in its first period. It is well known that after the conformity of John Beach to the Church and his settlement at Redding and Newtown, his missionary zeal caused him to extend his labors into all the surrounding country. It is known that he officiated at a marriage in New Milford in 1739.
It is probable that his visits to individuals and families brought about an informal organization, and the appointment of one of the small company of Churchmen to read prayer and a sermon to his associates on Sundays.
It is in 1742 that we first find any special notice of the Churchmen of New Milford as a distinct and separate congregation.
A letter of the Rev. John Beach to the Venerable Society from "Reading in New England, October 20th, 1743," mentions his perplexity concerning the persecution and prosecution of members of the "twenty families professing the Church at New Milford and New Fairfield, which are about fifteen miles."* He speaks of preaching to them several times a year, but seldom on the Lord's Day. He says that "they frequently come to church at Newtown, but by reason of the distance they cannot attend constantly." On other Sundays "they meet together in their own town and one of their number reads some part of the Common Prayer and a sermon."
The Congregational Society were unwilling to release them from payment of the rate levied for the minister's salary, and as they had not been formally certified to be under the pastoral care of Mr. Beach, resolved in town meeting on February 6, 1743-4 "that the Churchmen shall be
* Hawks and Perry's Connecticut Church Documents, I, p. 199. New York, James Pott & Co., 1863.
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brought into the list to make up the minister's rate according to the directions of the law." Mr. Beach asked the Society that he might be accredited to New Milford and New Fairfield, thus relieving the Churchmen from fine and imprisonment for non-payment of ministerial rates. This was, after inevitable delay, granted by the Society.
In the spring of 1743 the town change its attitude and granted the petition of these twelve men of honest and good report among their townsmen:
HENRY GARLICK, DANIEL PRINDLE, THOMAS NOBLE, GEORGE MECUEN, JOHN WELLER, CHARES DUNCOMB, OBADIAH WHEELER, DANIEL PICKETT, JOHN PRINDLE, WILLIAM HUTCHINS, SAMUEL PRINDLE, PARTRIDGE THACHER,
"to grant them a piece of land in the street, east of Mr. Samuel Prindle's house upon the hill near where the old pound used to stand, sixty feet in length and forty feet in breadth, in order to build a Church of England upon and for no other purpose." The town appointed as a committee to lay out the land, Nathaniel Bostwick, David Noble, and Daniel Bostwick. A small church was built upon this plot and was well filled by the fifteen, or twenty families composing the congregation.
Mr. Beach speaks in 1750 of visiting three small congregations under his care at New Milford and New Fairfield. The work, however, was too much for him, and he sought to be relieved from the burden of all the churches in the upper part of Fairfield and all the towns of Litchfield County. The Rev. Solomon Palmer, who had been a Congregational minister at Cornwall and conformed to the Church, took charge of the mission in 1754. He was most earnest and persistent and went everywhere in the neighborhood. He was the first resident clergyman and secured the
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good will of his former co-religionists. After five years of constant effort he reported in August, 1760, that "the Church here was greatly increased. It is now in a good state and is continually increasing, for besides the three congregations to which I was at first particularly appointed I have three, viz., at Roxbury, Cornwall, Judea."
Mr. Palmer's health did not allow him to continue in this extensive missionary circuit. In the fall of 1760 he resigned the charge of New Milford and its vicinity to a "young gentleman who designed the next spring to come home for orders with a view to become a teacher in these parts, if the Society shall think fit to divide this mission." Thomas Davies was then a candidate under Dr. Samuel Johnson, He was remarkable for the depth and fervor of his religious convictions, his rare and persuasive eloquence in the pulpit, his ceaseless and well-directed energy, and his tact and skill in laying foundations. He went, as Mr. Palmer had done, beyond the limits of the colony into southern Berkshire and at Great Barrington brought into order as a mission the persecuted Churchmen of that town. After his ordination, in 1761, he continued to grow in favor with all who knew him and by his exertions the Church both in New Milford and other places was strengthened. The church building became too small, and in 1765 the frame of a larger one was erected, which was within a year finished and dedicated, not consecrated, for bishops had been denied, largely on political grounds, to the Colonies. Mr. Davies' life was brief and brilliant. He died at his home at New Milford on May 12, 1766. His memory should be kept green, for he was a skillful and wise master-builder upon the foundation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The course of Church life ran smoothly under his successor, the Rev. Richard Clarke, whose incumbency of twenty years included the period when the political horizon was dark and lowering, patriots asserting their independ-
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ence, and Churchmen who were inclined to sympathize with the mother country were harshly treated. His work here as parish priest ended in 1787. He was followed by the Rev. Truman Marsh, whose work was acceptable, and continued until the opening of the nineteenth century.
The parish of St. John's, New Milford, has shown in its whole history a commendable degree of activity and liberality. It has realized its duty to the Diocese and the whole Church, both at home and abroad, besides providing for its own necessities. From it went forth under the inspiration of Mr. Palmer and Mr. Davies a remarkable missionary, the Rev. Gideon Bostwick, a native of the town, who became lay reader and afterw