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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 03271 4898
Go 974.602 H25bur Burr, Nelson Rollin, 1904- Christ church parish and cathedral, 1762-1942
THE CHURCH in STORY and PAGEANT
Christ Church Harish and Cathedral HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT 1762-1942
by
NELSON R. BURR, PH.D.
No. 76
Quarterly Price 50 Cents
Sept .- Nov., 1942
THE CHURCH MISSIONS PUBLISHING COMPANY 31-45 CHURCH STREET, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT
Allen County Public Library 900 Webster Street PO Box 2270 Fort Wayne, IN 46801-2270
Acceptance for mailing at a special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of Oct. 3, 1917. Authorized January 12, 1924. Entered as second class matter at Hartford, Conn.
CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT
THE CHURCH IN STORY AND PAGEANT
CHRIST CHURCH PARISH AND CATHEDRAL 1762 - 1942 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH by NELSON R. BURR, PH.D. Written for the commemoration of The 180th anniversary October 4, 1942
THE CHURCH MISSIONS PUBLISHING COMPANY 31-45 CHURCH STREET, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT
1942
Copyright, 1942, by the CHURCH MISSIONS PUBLISHING COMPANY Hartford, Connecticut
Printed in the United States of America at The Country Press, Old Saybrook, Connecticut
THE CATHEDRAL CHANCEL
A HISTORY OF CHRIST CHURCH PARISH AND CATHEDRAL HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT 1762-1942 BY NELSON R. BURR, PH. D.
I. INTRODUCTION: ORIGINS
The story of Christ Church began in Great Britain, in the year 1701. It was not the beleaguered island in the news of 1942, crowded by over forty million people, living mostly in bleak industrial towns over coal mines, or by dirty harbors smudgy with tramp steamers. It was a greener Britain, still largely a country of small merchants, landlords, rural laborers and village parsons. London dominated the land and nearly monopolized the brilliant world of society, culture and politics. But it was only a moderately large town, not a vast sprawling jungle of tene- ments held together by the underground tentacles of the subway. It was the Great Britain of Addison's "Spectator Papers," and Pope's "Rape of the Lock," with its coffee houses, stage coaches, country manors, and cottages with spinning wheels and hand-looms.
The Episcopal Church, established by law, dominated religious life to an extent which we can but slightly imagine. Members of other communions were merely tolerated dissenters, worshipping not in churches but in specially licensed "chapels." Between "Church" and "Chapel" there was a wide gulf. The Church was a great political and social institution: bishops sat in the House of Lords, in Parliament, and lived on the income of large endowments. They were appointed by royal authority and were among the chief supporters of the British throne. The thousands of rectors, vicars, deans, archdeacons, canons and curates also were supported by endowments and were appointed largely by land- owners and other patrons, upon whom they depended. The parson often was a close relation of the 'squire, sometimes his son or nephew. The Church was freely accused of being a privileged corporation of idlers and tithe-eaters. Charges of corruption flew thick and fast, as they always must when church and state are closely allied. Some of the taunts were
(3)
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THE CHURCH IN STORY AND PAGEANT
only too true. But underneath the pride of place and the office-broking ran a small, clear stream of devotion. Some day it would become the voice of many waters - of the Wesleys and Keble, of the Methodist and Anglo-Catholic revivals.
The Church of England was beginning to hear the call that came, ages before, to Saint Paul among the marble cities of Asia Minor: Come over here and help us! It came from America, where the Church gen- erally bore little outward resemblance to the venerable and awesome pile in England. Thinly scattered along fifteen hundred miles of coast lived about two hundred and fifty thousand colonists, including many children of the British Church. To Her they were more remote than is now the most distant mission station in Africa or on Hudson's Bay. Three thou- sand miles across the dangerous ocean, at least eight weeks away by the best sailers!
Only in Virginia and Maryland was the Church able to minister with anything like the intimacy of the old country. In those colonies there was a legal establishment, with tithes to support the clergy. There were vast tracts without a single Episcopal church. New England had but two -at Boston and Newport - and in all the provinces save Rhode Island the Congregational Church was the one established by law. Epis- copalians were the merely tolerated people, paying taxes to support a ministry they disliked. Until a Baptist meeting sprang up at Groton in 1705, there was no organized church in Connecticut outside the Congre- gational fold. When Governor Leete described the religious situation in 1676, he noted a few Seventh-Day Baptists and Quakers, and did not even mention the Episcopal Church.
But in the east there came a herald brightness, as a few devoted souls in the Mother Church heard a faint call beyond the stormy waters. At their head stood the noble Doctor Bray, and Bishop Compton of London, whose diocese included the British colonies. In 1698 that re- nowned company founded the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (the "S. P. C. K."), which is still sending the Church's mes- sage to all the corners of the earth. Three years later the same kind of group established the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (popularly called the "S. P. G." or the Venerable Society) to send missionaries and teachers to far-away colonies. The society received its charter from King William III, just before his death in the midst of preparations to defend England against his old enemy, the rich and haughty Louis XIV of France. The Church of England could not have been as dead as was once supposed, when able to found the first great missionary society outside the Roman Communion - one that still carries on its work throughout the British Empire.
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The news must have thrilled the few scattered members of the Church in Connecticut, who had lived for years without hearing a service of the Prayer Book. We find traces of them as early as 1664. At that time a group of seven Episcopalians in Hartford and Windsor petitioned the General Assembly for permission to have their children baptized and to worship in their own way. They were William Pitkin,* John Stedman and Robert Reeve of Hartford; William Humphrey, James Eno and two others of Windsor. The Assembly merely referred their business to the Congregational churches, as though it were inconceivable to settle it in any other way. Nearly a century passed before Hartford began to hear the Prayer Book services.
But in the meantime they were becoming familiar in other parts of the colony, as scattered Churchmen heard of the new missionary society, and its generosity in sending pastors and religious books. In 1702 the first missionary, George Keith, passed through Connecticut and preached at New London, where the Congregational minister greeted him. About the same time, the slow mail brought to the Society in London an earnest letter from Churchmen at Stratford, begging for a missionary. With moral support from the missionary at Rye in New York, who visited them occasionally, they plucked up courage in 1707 and founded a parish - the first of the Episcopal Church in this state. Patiently they hoped, waited and prayed for fifteen years, for a worthy settled pastor. The man they welcomed in 1724 was worth a long wait. He was the justly cele- brated Doctor Samuel Johnson, one of the bold and thoughtful group of young Congregational ministers, who in 1722 startled Connecticut by announcing their allegiance to the Episcopal Church. On Christmas Day in 1724 he dedicated the first edifice for Episcopal worship ever erected in Connecticut.
From Stratford his influence flowed out in all directions, and in the next few years town after town heard the long-forgotten collects in the Prayer Book, and saw a modest little church rise beside the meeting-house of the established Congregational order. Fairfield, Norwalk, Stamford, West Haven, Branford, Guilford, New London: soon there was a chain of missions along the Sound. Neither threats nor imprisonment could stop the surge of long dormant sentiment for the Church. By 1727 it was already strong enough to compel the General Assembly to grant Episcopalians the right to pay the church "rate" to their own clergy. That victory really was won by a determined band of Churchmen in Fair- field, who chose to linger in jail rather than pay taxes to the established Congregational parish.
*One of William Pitkin's descendants, in the.deanship of Walter Henry. Gray, generously provided the means for extensive improvements to the church fabric.
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For some years the inland towns remained rather indifferent to the Church, but even there a great religious awakening was preparing the way. Scions of old families moved inland and spread knowledge of the Prayer Book, which many people sought as a haven of peace from the intense excitement and bitter arguments of revivals about 1740. To the Venerable Society across the long waters went letter after letter, begging missionaries for Redding, Newtown, Ripton, Derby, Plymouth, Hebron, Norwich. Bravely the few overworked missionaries struggled on horse- back over wretched roads, trying to keep up with the demands for ser- vices. In an amazingly short time the Church spread far and wide, even into the remotest hill towns of Litchfield County. Rude little churches, without steeples or bells, were filled for the occasional visits of great mis- sionaries like Ebenezer Punderson, Samuel Seabury the elder, Samuel Davies and William Gibbs. The Prayer Book became known equally well in the elegant mansions of mercantile towns, and in the saltbox farm- houses, overflowing with children, on back roads.
Among the most promising new fields was the vast ancient town of Simsbury, which covered the present Simsbury, Granby, East Granby, Canton and western Bloomfield. There, by 1774, lived about nine hun- dred Churchmen, and among them were miners brought to work in the damp and dark of the copper veins at Newgate. Occasional visits by missionaries originated a parish which survives as Saint Andrew's, on the mountain road in North Bloomfield .* As a mission, it was served by the long-suffering William Gibbs and the lion-hearted Roger Viets. For many years it was the only Episcopal church within miles of Hartford, for the whole region was a stronghold of Puritanism. From it grew Saint Ann's (later called Saint Peter's) at Salmon Brook in Granby, and a mission in New Cambridge, which after many changes of fortune became the present Trinity Church in Bristol. A few Episcopalians in Glastonbury welcomed the infrequent visits of the doughty Samuel Peters, missionary at Hebron. Their descendants eventually established Saint Luke's parish at Glas- tonbury, in 1806. Some Church families were scattered in Windsor, East Windsor and Suffield.
About 1760 the surrounding missions began to send ripples into Hartford, where there must have been a few Churchmen throughout that silent century since the petition of 1664. The missionaries realized the importance of planting the Church in Hartford, which already was a thriving mercantile center, the county seat, and a meeting-place of the General Assembly. It covered a far greater area than now, as it included the present towns of West Hartford, East Hartford and Manchester,
*See the author's history of Saint Andrew's, published at the 200th anniversary, Sept., 1940.
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known respectively as the West Division, the Third Society and the Five Miles. A few years later the latter place became a separate parish, called Orford. The thick settlement in Hartford closely hugged the river, but even so, the houses mostly were set in lawns, gardens and orchards. As late as 1775, farmers lived on Main Street and Front Street was lined with residences. Several of the present crowded business thoroughfares, in- cluding Church Street, did not exist.
The population, almost exclusively of British origin and Puritan training, was only some four thousand, of which about fifteen hundred dwelt east of the river. The faithful drove or rode to Sunday "meeting" over roads which were very dusty in summer and became quagmires in winter. The people in the Five Miles bitterly complained to the General Assembly that some of them had to go eleven miles to the meeting-house on old East Hartford Green. Even in the "city" the streets were in such bad condition that a lottery was held to repair them. The sole way of crossing the Connecticut River was by ferry, and until about 1760 there was no bridge over the Park River at Main Street. The only churches in 1760 were the four Congregational ones, maintained by the church tax or "rate" - the North and South in Hartford proper, one for the West Division, and one east of the river. There were a few Baptists, who later went to church in Suffield or Wintonbury (now Bloomfield); a few Quakers, and a larger number of Episcopalians.
For years they had been dreaming of a parish in Hartford. As early as 1746 William Gibbs, missionary at Simsbury "and parts adjacent", reported that near his parish there were several large towns, "Hartford being the chief and a county town, and about ten miles from Simsbury." We can easily read his thoughts. But he was unable to plant a church, as his own mission comprised the whole valley beyond Avon Mountain and required all his efforts. The few Episcopalians in Hartford therefore had to take the initiative. The parish of Christ Church was founded not by a missionary who came on purpose to start it, but by devoted laymen who asked for a priest to take charge of what was already an organized effort.
They received ardent encouragement from Thomas Davies, mission- ary in Litchfield County. Although already overburdened with several churches, early in 1762 he accepted an invitation to Hartford and con- ducted the first recorded services according to the liturgy of the Prayer Book. Christ Church owes a deep respect to him, one of the Church's bravest and ablest missionaries. He doubtless inspired a few communi- cants and other members to form a parish association or "society" in 1762, and watched over them so carefully that by autumn they felt confident enough to take the first step towards building a church.
Their progress attracted the kindly attention of that venerable
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father of the Church in Connecticut, the Reverend Doctor Samuel Johnson of Stratford. On December 1, 1762, he joyfully reported to the S. P. G. the increase of the Church in Hartford, which he said had sprung not from party strife but from "the still voice of reason and benevolence." He foresaw a prosperous future for the parish, which already included many converts and a number of good families. It must have thrilled him, to follow with undiminishing zeal the founding of the thirty-sixth Episcopal parish in the colony since he had settled as pastor of the only one, thirty-eight years before!
The young parish acted with a vigor and dispatch that must have pleased its friends, and acquired the site for a church. On October 6, 1762 a lot was purchased from Charles Caldwell, for £80, by a committee consisting of John Keith, William Tiley, William Jepson, Hezekiah Marsh and Thomas Burr. It was about ninety-nine feet wide on Main Street (then called Queen Street), and extended westward to include half an acre. It comprised the eventual site of the first edifice, on the north- west corner of Church Street, which was not opened until 1794; also the head of that street and the northern part of the present lot.
Stone was gathered for a foundation, but work proceeded slowly and received a disheartening setback from the financial depression after the end of the French and Indian War in 1763. A few years later (1765-69) the land and foundation were illegally sold to a bitter opponent of the Church, Samuel Talcott, who tore down the masonry in 1770 to make a foundation of his own. The Churchmen, thoroughly incensed, brought suit against the trespasser, and finally recovered the lot by court decisions in December, 1772 and January, 1785. Some of the tract was leased or sold later, to raise funds for completing the first church.
In early years there was no resident minister, and the congregation depended upon the somewhat irregular and infrequent services of distant missionaries. The Venerable Society planned to unite Hartford with Simsbury and Granby under Roger Viets, but the Churchmen here evidently wanted their own pastor. Another plan contemplated the removal to Hartford of Mr. Winslow, missionary at Stratford. He was eager to come, as his income was not enough for his ten children, and he wanted to be about sixty miles nearer to his friends in Boston. He broadly hinted his desire to move, but the Society thought otherwise, and the people believed they would be happy in union with the mission at Middletown, where they had many commercial interests. Winslow was eager to forward the cause in Hartford and wrote, "It cannot but much engage all our wishes to see a church established in a place of so much consequence as Hartford." The tedious discussion ended when Mr. Viets, who already had his hands full, agreed to assist the Hartford parish
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on weekdays, as often as the people wished, even though they were not really in his mission. And Mr. Winslow got nearer to Boston than he expected, for he was transferred to Braintree, Massachusetts.
Where the services were regularly held from 1762 to 1776, is open to conjecture. Some may have taken place in the homes of members, but there is a record of at least one service of Holy Communion held in the old court-house. There must have been fairly good congregations, for a religious census of the colony, taken in 1774, showed one hundred and eleven Episcopalians in Hartford, out of a white population of forty-eight hundred and eighty-one. Probably some of them lived east of the river or in the West Division.
In the meantime clouds of Revolution poured further trials upon the struggling parish, which already had lost its lot and stones. The missions were disturbed by incursions of war, and by Tory-hunting, as some Churchmen were ardent Loyalists. Some of the clergy left the state or suspended their services; while others, who would not stop praying for the King, spent a good part of their time in hiding. Like John Rutgers Marshall of Woodbury, who used to disappear through a little secret door by the fireplace! There is no evidence of any services in Hartford, and only a faithful remnant was left to strengthen the things that remained. The parish organization practically died.
II. THE FABRIC
Occasional services by Viets and other missionaries made the Church in Hartford strong enough to survive the disapproval of the Puritan com- munity, the spite of "Sam" Talcott, and the tempest of war. Through deaths and removals, the association of 1762 became extinct, but after the war the losses were more than made up by settlement of other Church people. A renewed effort was encouraged by the organization of a Diocese of Connecticut - the Church's first in America - and the consecration of Bishop Samuel Seabury in 1784. His return in 1785 at once poured fresh energy into the languishing Church and inspired the formation of new parishes all over the state. On November 13, 1786 fifteen Church- men in Hartford associated to form a new organization. Their choice of a clerk, two wardens and four vestrymen is the earliest act in the first book of parish records.
In accordance with state law, the new organization was called "The Episcopal Society of the City of Hartford." Its original members were: William Adams, John Morgan, John Thomas, Jacob Ogden, Samuel Cutler, Thomas Hildrup, John Jeffery, George Burr, Stacey Stackhouse, Cotton Murray, Isaac Tucker, William Burr, Elisha Wads-
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THE CHURCH IN STORY AND PAGEANT
worth, John Avery and Aaron Bradley.
Some of the founders were prominent citizens. William Imlay, the first Senior Warden, came from New York City at the time of its evacu- ation by the American troops in 1776. He took an eminent part in the business, public and church life of the city until his death in 1807. John Morgan, the first Junior Warden from 1786 to 1820, was a graduate of Yale College and a leading merchant. He projected the first bridge over the Connecticut River at the foot of the street which bears his name. He took part in all church affairs and was a generous contributor to the parish. He finally removed from Hartford, and spent his last days in New York City. William Adams, the first parish clerk, was also the first clerk of the city, and died in 1795, about the time when the congregation began to occupy the first building.
All these men were members of the first vestry. The other vestry- men were Samuel Cutler, a physician; John Thomas, the comptroller of public accounts; John Jeffery, who kept a private school; and Jacob Ogden. Aaron Bradley was a blacksmith, at a time when that art was an absolute necessity in every town. He subscribed to the erection of the first church, and from 1796 was a member of the vestry and a faithful attendant at its meetings. He is said to have been the only worker in iron at Hartford, so that his services were indispensable and he became one of the leading citizens.
Elisha Wadsworth, from one of the oldest and most honored families in the city, was the ancestor of Daniel Wadsworth, who founded the Wadsworth Atheneum. John Avery was an active and well-known business man, one of whose descendants gave his name to the Avery Memorial. Samuel Cutler was a prominent physician and a graduate of Harvard College. Cotton Murray kept a tavern, and his house is said to have been the usual place for the early parish meetings.
Although they all led busy lives, these men found ample time to devote to parochial affairs, and set a most worthy example to many who came after them - like Charles Sigourney, George Beach, James M. Goodwin and Doctor Gurdon W. Russell. Christ Church never has been without such characters, men of whom it may be said:
So didst thou travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay .*
Men who were willing to give their time and energy to the Sunday School for several hours every week, from April to October. Their Sundays were just as precious to them, as to any modern business man, who pleads the strain and stress of the week for not even attending church.
*Wordsworth, Sonnet on Milton.
THE RIGHT REVEREND CHAUNCEY BUNCE BREWSTER, D.D. FIFTH BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT
3 1833 032/1 4898
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In those days business was more laborious than now, for all correspond- ence was handwritten (often by the "boss" himself) and labor-saving devices did not exist. It was anxious too, for mails and shipments were slow, and the dangers of sea and land were very real. The ancient records give one a deep respect for the devoted, old-time layman, whose faith in the Church was more than an inheritance and a means to social ad- vantage.
They were not slothful in the Lord's business. No time was lost in making plans for a church building, when the practically stolen property again was securely in the parish's hands. Only seven days after organiza- tion, the parish meeting appointed a committee to raise a subscription. The list, opened on November 28, 1786, included the names of some who were not Episcopalians, and the sum finally amounted to a little over £300. The popular attitude had changed since 1762, perhaps because independence had removed the old dread of the Church as a royalist institution.
There was still further delay to strain the patience of the more ardent, but the contract was let in March, 1792, and the massive wooden frame was raised in June. Probably it was much like other "raisings" in those days, with plenty of solid and liquid refreshment. On such occasions huge crowds used to gather to encourage the straining men - and par- take of the feast. The cup of strength was tossed off, the foreman bellowed "HEAVE!" - or something like that - and up went the timbers, joined by wooden pegs that lasted longer than nails. Apparently there was no formal laying of a cornerstone. A tradition, too precious not to repeat, says that Mr. Prince Brewster, the master mason, tapped the stone with a trowel and pronounced his benediction: "I lay this stone for the foundation of an Episcopal Church, and Sam Talcott and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it." Which was much more to the point than the run of sermons on such occasions.
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