USA > Connecticut > New London County > Lebanon > A historical sermon : delivered on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the First Congregational Church, Lebanon, Conn. > Part 1
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1800
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LANG
X
A HISTORICAL SERMON
DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF TIIE
One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary
OF THE
First Congregational Church,
LEBANON, CONN.,
By REV. JOHN C. NICHOLS, Pastor.
ORGANIZED NOV. 27, 1700.
C. C. MORSE & SON, STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS,' HAVERHILL, MASS. 1895.
SHARY OF CONGRESS
r WASH N
F104 . LANG
HISTORICAL SERMON.
The land now embraced in this town, was, as you all know, a part of the territory claimed by the Pequots, a tribe inferior to no other New England tribe in ferocity, enterprise and passion for war; a tribe whose history constitutes the saddest page in the history of Connecticut, and the saddest in the sad history of the Indians. In- justice and negleet have been their portion, from the day that Endicot, in 1636, broke in pieces their canoes and burnt their wigwams.
It is supposed they came from the banks of the Hudson river not long before 1600, as their brethren, long after this, occupied that region undisturbed ; and, it is believed, that they left and eame to this region because that country was unable to sustain so numer- ous a population of hunters.
The Mohicans were a clan of the Pequots, of which clan, Uneas was the first Sachem. Uneas was closely related to the royal fam- ily by birth and marriage. Prompted by ambition, he seized upon what he deemed a favorable moment to secure the throne, and ap- peared, with a few followers in arms, against the Pequot Sachem. After varying fortunes, he at length, through the aid of the Eng- lish, came into possession of all the northern part of New London
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County, and the southern portions of Tolland and Windham Counties.
This elan assumed the name [Mohegan or Mohican] by which their brethren were known on the banks of the Hudson. I am sorry to be obliged to add that the Uncas whom we find in history is a very different man from the Uncas whom tradition has taught us to respect. He was in disposition, faithless, selfish and tyranni- cal, while his ambition is not relieved by one trait of magnanimity.
The Rev. Mr. Fitch speaks of him, when some seventy summers must have passed over his head, as a liar and murderer, a great op- poser of godliness among his own people.
The Indian name of this town was Poquechaneed. We can easily suppose that these hills, brooks and plains would attract the attention of the Indians as promising abundant game ; and here we know they kindled their fires. Beneath the deep forests that shaded these hills, they pursued, undisturbed, the deer, the bear and the beaver. Along these brooks, and over these plains, they hunted the pigeon, the partridge and the wild turkey.
It consisted originally, as is known to us, of four proprietors, as they were termed, and was obtained from Owaneco, son of the crafty and faithless Uncas.
The first deed was given to Capt. Samuel Mason and Capt. John Stanton of Stonington, and to Capt. Benjamin Brewster and Mr. John Birchard of Norwich, and bears date 1692. It was confirmed by the General Assembly 1705. It was called "the five mile pur- chase," being 5 miles square, and reached from what was at that time, the northern line of Norwich, to the northern boundary of what is now the North Society.
Samuel Mason, who seems to have taken the lead in the 5 mile
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purchase, was son of the Capt. John Mason, who was chosen Dep- uty Governor of the colony in 1660, and who, on many occasions of those days of trial to the colonies of New England, proved himself a true and useful friend. Trained up in the camp, under Sir John Fairfax, he was qualified to be leader of the little companies sent against the Indians. If we weep over the fate of the Pequots, be- fore we condemn Mason and his little company, we must place our- selves back in those days, and look upon the scene from the scattered huts of our Puritan fathers. Samuel Mason left no son. Ile was, like his father, a warm friend of the Mohicans.
The second grant from the Mohican chief, was to James Fitch and Capt. John Mason, and was deeded to them in 1702. This, at the time it was deeded, lay north of the limits of Norwich, and south of the 5 mile grant.
This John Mason was a grandson of the Deputy Governor. Ilis father died of a wound received in King Phillip's war; and this James Fitch was the son of the first minister of Norwich, the Rev. James Fitch, who labored as a missionary among the Mohegans and gathered a little congregation, some of whom he believed truly con- verted. Phillip's war seems to have scattered this little circle of praying Indians. He died in 1702 at the house of his son, who lived in Lebanon, and was buried in the old burying ground. He married a daughter of the Deputy Governor, John Mason. He was a large-hearted and good man, and glad should I be if his descen- dants will re-build his weather and time-worn monument.
The Mason family of Lebanon, are the descendants of Daniel, the third son of the Deputy Governor, whose son Daniel, jr., born in Roxbury, and baptized by the Indian apostle, Elliot, lived and died in Lebanon. His widow afterwards married a man by the
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name of Brainard of Haddam, and became the mother of the de- voted David Brainard.
The deed conveying land to Dewey and Clark is dated 1700, and embraced, as I suppose, what is now Columbia, and probably a small adjoining strip of Lebanon. Wm. Clark was from Norwich. I know of but one family of his descendants, and that one resides in Columbia. Josiah Dewey was from Northampton ; the late Esquire Dewey was a descendant, and the present occupant of the house and farm is the fifth in descent from him.
The fourth property consisted of a small strip of land called "the Gore " lying between the five mile purchase and the bounds of Windham.
Lebanon, was so called by the General Court in 1697. In 1700, these several purchases were united and the town was incorporated by act of the General Court. In 1705, it sent to the General Court its first representative, viz., William Clark, to the spring session, and Samuel Huntington to the fall session.
Wm. Clark was associated with Josiah Dewey in one of the purchases of land from Owaneco. Samuel Huntington is the first of the name I have met with on record. The land which he first occupied, lay part in the five mile and part in the one mile purchase. As individuals held land by purchase of the Mohican chief, I infer that there were some inhabitants here before the five mile purchase was made, in 1692. In 1695 there were thirty-two heads of families who had taken homelots on the five mile purchase, most, if not all of which lay, as I suppose on this street.
New England had, at this time, passed through its darkest days, its severest struggle with the natives of the country; for King Phillip had lain among the dead twenty-five years. But yet all fear
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of these first enemies of the English had not subsided. Tradition states that a log fort stood near where the house of Judge Pettis now stands, into which the people retired at night. I suspect that the danger arose from the war between a rebel clan and the Mohi- eans, as about this time we learn upon the same authority, that a company [of Indians] finding a Mohegan child in the Brewster family, living where the Misses Brewster now live, dashed its brains out against the garden wall, while they offered no injury to the other inmates of the family.
Another log fort stood where Rev. Mr. Miner now lives, and the well used by the fort is the one still in use.
I find this part of the town called, as early as 1703, sometimes the South Society and sometimes the First Society; and what is now called " the village," is so called as early as 1703. It received this name of village from the fact that its first settlers intended to build there a house of worship for themselves.
The first settlers of the southern part of the five mile grant, early established the public worship of God. For the convenience of at- tending publie worship, and sustaining schools, the land on the street was divided into homelots, as the called them, of forty-two aeres each. If a man wanted more land, it was to be back from these. This division brought the houses within a convenient dis- tanee of the place of worship. As early as 1697 a lot was reserved for the minister who should settle in Lebanon, which in 1702, was given and granted to the first minister of the town and to his heirs, by Capt. Samuel Mason and Capt. Brewster, two of the original proprietors of the five mile purchase. This lot was the one on which the houses of Mr. Lyman and Deacon Asher L. Smith now stand ; for I find an arrangement between the town and the first
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minister, Rev. Mr. Parsons, in reference to a road to the mill, opened through his homelot. This mill was built, not by the first minister, as I stated last year, but by his father, Joseph Parsons of Norwich, [Northampton] ; and, as an encouragement to build it, the town gave him one hundred and twenty acres of land, provided he maintained it ten years. In 1700, a committee was appointed to take a view of the front part of the ministers' lot and see what was needed to advance the front of the lot, for convenience of the set- ting up of the ministers' house. This was the first parsonage, and it stood in the lower end of [now ] Deacon Smith's garden.
One Richard Lyman had liberty this year to improve the minis- ters' lot, and to have, for his labor, what he might obtain from it.
Having thus provided a parsonage, and cleared the land around, they began to inquire for a minister.
In July, 1699, they invited Mr. Joseph Parsons, of Northampton, to settle with them. Nov. 27, 1700, a church was organized and Mr. Parsons ordained its pastor. The first year the society gave him forty pounds ; the seventh year they gave him ninety pounds, increasing it the intervening years. The following are the names of the nine persons embodied in church order, viz., Josiah Dewey, William Holton, Jedediah Strong, John Hutchinson, Micah Mudge, Thomas Hunt, John Baldwin, William Clark and John Calkins, all of whom occupied, at that time, homelots, or lived on this street, though some of them afterwards removed to a great distance.
It will be pleasant to know more of these men, who, amid all the embarrasments of a new country, and so early in the settlement of the town, assumed the obligations of church membership, and went forward in the settlement of a pastor. They could have been no ordinary men in perseverance, zeal and faith.
HISTORICAL SERMON.
Strong, Holton, Dewey, Hutchinson, (and perhaps others) were from Nor hampton, Mass. Strong was killed in a skirmish with the Indians near Albany about 1722 [Oct. 12, 1709].
Baldwin, Clark and Calkins were from Norwich. Dewey and Clark were proprietors of the northwestern part of the town. Dewey and Baldwin seem to have been chosen deacons. William Clark was associated with Samuel Huntington, in the first represen- tation of the town at the General Court. The first members of the church seem for many years to have been prominent, publie spirited men, to whom the town committed much of its business. To the Holton family we are indebted for the " Holton Sweeting " apple.
The Rev. Joseph Parsons was the son of Joseph Parsons and Elizabeth Strong of Northampton. He was born in 1671, and graduated at Harvard University in 1697. Ile remained the pastor of this church till 1708, when he was dismissed, and he was again settled in Salisbury, Mass., where he died in 1739, aged 68. Ile had four sons and one daughter, of whom, John, died while a mem- ber of Harvard College. Joseph, who was born in Lebanon, was ordained in Bradford, Mass., in 1726. He was the father of the Rev. Joseph Parsons, pastor of the church in West Brookfield in 1759. Samuel and William settled over churches in New Hamp- shire. Elizabeth, who was born in this town, married a clergyman. To this Joseph Parsons, who married Elizabeth Strong, the Parsons family, now so widely scattered, and so well known, look, as their common ancestor. Mr. Parsons left no record of his ministry, ex- cept the names of those who united with the church, and of the children who were baptized. It was left to those who were in full communion in other churches, among the first settlers, to call Mr. Parsons.
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Where the people first met for worship, before 1700, it is impos- sible to learn ; probably at some private house. In the next month after the settlement of a pastor, they fixed upon a spot on which to place a meeting-house, which was a little sonth of the house in which we are now assembled ; probably in a line with the old brick schoolhouse. Here it was to stand for fifty years. It was to be thirty-six feet in length, twenty-six in width, and sixteen be- tween joints. It had a gallery, and was finished in 1706.
In 1712, it was enlarged twenty-six feet in width, and the next year was plastered and whitewashed, and a new pulpit was put into it. In 1718, a bell was procured.
In 1701, Mr. Parsons, the pastor, proposed to the town, that in- stead of the meeting house which they had voted to build, they should build a barn, 28 feet in length and 24 in width, upon his homelot ; the society to have the use of it for six years, as a place of worship, when he would give the town the worth of it, and would likewise give ten pounds out of his salary towards building it ; provided that they would build a fashionable meeting house. The town voted to accept the offer, and doubtless worshipped in that till the fashionable house was completed.
In 1714, the meeting house was seated by a committee, who were directed to do it, according to the estates of the people.
The first pew next the pulpit was to be the highest seat, the see- ond pew and fore seat were to be equal, and the third pew and second seat equal. We thus see the reason why the first seat on the right of the pulpit is, still in New England, given to the minis- ters family.
The settlers on the one mile district, [purchase] wished, for con- venience of worship, to be joined to the five mile purchase. They
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were united on this condition, that the meeting house should be placed in the center of the two tracts, running north and south ; and at this center it was built.
The people living in the northern part of the town also wished to associate with the south society in public worship, and were allowed to on this express condition, that they would make no attempt to remove the already established place of worship.
In 1708, Mr. Parsons was dismissed, and for three years the church remained destitute. The same year they called Mr. Samuel Whittlesey of Saybrook, and in 1709 they also called the Rev. Oxenbridge Thatcher, both of whom declined the call. In 1710, they invited Mr. Samuel Welles, (a native of Glastonbury, and grandson of Governor Welles,) who was ordained in 1711. They gave one hundred pounds settlement, and ninety pounds as his yearly salary.
Mr. Welles remained the pastor of this church until 1722, when, at his own request, he was dismissed. The reasons assigned by him, to the church and society, for this request, were his own ill health, and the absence of his family in Boston, the native place of his wife.
Of Mr. Welles, we can know but little; his ministry was a brief one, and the record left by him is almost nothing. Among the church notes recorded, is this, that John Bull be on probation for the office of deacon.
By Mr. Welles, the half-way covenant was, in 1715, introduced into this church-a practice which seems almost as strange to us, as it was disastrous to the churches of New England.
Mr. Welles built and occupied the house now occupied by Mr. David Woodworth, the frame of which must have been standing
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about one hundred and thirty years. An anecdote handed down by tradition would lead us to fear, that with him, as with certain whom the apostle James mentions, gold rings and good apparel had far too much influence. The father of Gov. Trumbull sometimes visited Boston, as a drover. On one occasion, Mr. Welles seemed shy of his former parishioner, as if ashamed of his homespun dress and plain appearance. When Mr. Welles next visited Lebanon he called on Mr. Trumbull, who declined shaking hands with him, remarking "if you don't know me in Boston, I don't know you in Lebanon."
By the [same] council which dismissed Mr. Welles, Mr. Soloman Williams, a native of Hatfield, Mass, was ordained. The society voted to give him, as a salary, one hundred and twenty pounds yearly for ten years, in public bills of credit, or in provisions ; and at the end of ten years, to give him one hundred pounds in bills of credit, or in provisions, according to the value of bills of credit at the time of his settlement.
It was soon seen that their present house of worship was too small to accomodate the growing population, and the very next year after the settlement of Mr. Williams, they began to agitate the question of a new meeting house. The building of a house of worship is even now felt to be a great undertaking ; what then must it have been one hundred and twenty-five years ago, by a society recently formed composed of members brought together from various places, and surrounded by all the embarassments of a new settlement.
In prosecuting the work, our fathers met with many obstructions. " The Crank," as it was then called, now Columbia, had become a society by itself in 1716, and had its own minister, so that no aid could be expected from them. The families living in the western and southwestern part of the town expected sometime before long
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to become a distinct parish. It was natural that they should oppose the building of a new meeting house; or at least decline being taxed for a house so remote from them, and the accomodations of which they hoped not long to need. They therefore took this oc- casion to request to be set off by themselves.
In the first society there was a difference of opinion in regard to this division. Some felt that the request was a proper one, and should be at once granted ; others felt, that as these families had aided in the settlement of Mr. Williams, they should, for a while longer, at least, aid supporting him. To go now, they feared would be ruinous, interrupting the efforts to build a new house, and leav- ing themselves too feeble to sustain the institutions of religion.
The question was at length referred to the General Court, and though the committee appointed by the Court to examine the cir- cumstances of the society decided against a division, they were set off, as a new society in 1727, two years after the vote to build a new house in this society, and to have a minister of their own.
From the first settlement of the town, it seems to have been sup- posed that another parish would be formed north of this, and a place of worship built in "the village." It was because of this ex- pectation that the families there living named that street "the vil- lage." It was to be supposed that they would object to being taxed for a house so remote from them, and which they hoped soon to have no occasion to use. To quiet their feelings and preserve peace, the first society, in the spirit of justice, voted at a society meeting, that as soon as the list of the society should amount to a certain sum, a society should be set off in the north part of the town, provided the General Court allowed thereof, and that what- ever the families living there should give towards the new meeting
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house, then building, should be paid back again. A committee was appointed to lay this vote before the General Court, at its next ses- sion, and request them to enact in such form as to oblige the money to be paid back to them. The General Court directed the list, on which this new meeting house was made, to be kept among the records of the society, to enable the society to carry out their vote.
In 1731 the southern line of the North Society was run, and the South Society again promised to pay back whatever the families living north of this line should pay toward the new house; pro- vided they were made a society by the General Court within eighteen years.
These votes seem to have satisfied the families of that part of the town, as well they might, and the new meeting house was soon com- pleted. I will add here, that in 1741, the South Society voted to al- low the people living in the North Society their ministerial rates, the four or five months of cold weather and bad travelling, to sup- port preaching among themselves. The next year also, they allowed the village people thirty pounds to procure lay preaching among themselves during the winter. How often this was done I do not know ; in looking through the old records my eye fell upon these two votes.
I cannot help remarking, how different, doubtless, would have been all that part of the town, had the wise and good purpose of its first settlers been fulfilled, and a meeting house had been placed in the village, so that the families who lived there could have enjoyed, from the beginning of the town, the pastoral care and society of an educated and pious minister.
Nor can I refrain from remarking that the quarrel which arose near the close of the century, about the location of the meeting-
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house, would have been prevented, with all its afflictive consequences to individual families, and to the town, had the men who took the lead in it informed themselves of the facts which I have just stated. It was in this quarrel, as in many others ; they were too much ex- cited to stop to inquire into the facts, or to admit that they could be wrong.
In 1733, a committee was appointed to seat the people in the new meeting house according to their age and estate. At the same so- ciety meeting it was voted that they would separate and set apart the new meeting house, wholly, only and entirely for the divine ser- vices and the public worship of God, from time to time forever, and for no other use. This new meeting house, opened for worship in 1733, stood where the brick one now stands. It was sixty feet in length, forty-six feet in width, and twenty-six feet between joints.
Large as it was, it was filled every Sabbath. To obtain a good seat in the gallery it is said to have been necessary to be early in the house.
It had a steeple, and was furnished with a bell weighing five hun- dred and thirty-five pounds. In September, 1761, a larger bell weighing nine hundred and fifty-nine pounds was procured. It re. mained the place of worship seventy-one years.
In 1736, the society appointed a committee to fix the places in the highway where particular persons might build them horse sheds or stables and small Sabbath-day houses. It would be well if more of this shed building spirit, for the comfort of our horses, had survived to our day. There would then have been fewer appeals to the com- passion of the merciful man, from animals, exposed during the Sab- bath to the wind and storm.
Dr. Williams, the pastor of this church from 1722 to 1776, was a
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man much esteemed in his day as a writer, a theologian and a christian. He published some occasional sermons, and two or more pamphlets in support and explanation of the half-way covenant, in reply to President Edwards. Ile was a graduate of Harvard, and received his doctorate from that institution.
Among his parishioners were men of great worth and high politi- cal standing, whose patriotism he encouraged, and in whose political sympathies he warmly shared.
The last thing recorded in the society's books of this venerable and good man is a request that five pounds out of his last year's salary be given toward the public expense in defence of our rights and properties, though, he adds, "there is no tax now collecting on account of expense."
How far Dr. Williams sympathized with the Armenians of his day, I am not able to decide. That he did so, to some extent, I in- fer from his views of the ordinances regarding baptism and the Lord's supper, as means of regeneration, to be used by the impen- itent. He administered baptism to adults, without requiring faith in them, and received all to the communion who offered themselves, without a relation of their experience, provided,-to use the lan- guage of the recorded vote-" they be of sound knowledge in re- ligion, and a conversation free from scandal." Views so unscriptural would now be tolerated in no evangelical church of our order. A church filled up in this way would have little sympathy with spiritual religion. In such a church, discipline would be impossible. With this practice before us we need not wonder at some of the scenes through which this church has passed. The creed of the church shows that the doctrine of the new birth has always been received by it as an important truth. But the practice of which I have just
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