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The HF Group Indiana Plant 045187 2 9 00
5/2/2006
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01811 8130
GENEALOGY 974.6 H756B
Diocese of Connecticut
FORMATIVE PERIOD
1784-1791
SAMUEL PETERS
Biorese of Connecticut
FORMATIVE PERIOD
1784-1791
Edited for THE COMMISSION ON PAROCHIAL ARCHIVES
BY JOSEPH HOOPER
PRINTED FOR THE DIOCESE
1913
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THE TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR COMPANY, NEW HAVEN, CONN.
INTRODUCTION.
The Commission on Parochial Archives has the honor to present to the Diocese and to all interested in the history of the Church in Connecticut its third publication.
The period to which these letters belong was in the Church as in the State, one of experiment, when the independence of the Church, as of the former Colonies, was being tested. Hardship and suffering were the lot of many.
The Clergy of Connecticut were ready to endure all things for the sake of the establishment of the Church upon the best and surest foundations. They had chosen, or rather designated a choice, of a fit person to be their Bishop. The manner in which they met the difficulties of the situation was admirable.
Letters in this series throw new light upon the meeting at Woodbury on the feast of the Annunciation, 1783, and show true loyalty to the ancient and catholic polity of the Christian Church, without regard to the expe- diency of the hour or following the suggestions in a notable pamphlet by a prominent clergyman to the southward, Dr. White, afterward Bishop of Pennsylvania.
Jeremiah Leaming, Bela Hubbard, Samuel Andrews, John Tyler, and Ebenezer Dibblee, were true confessors of the faith whom we still delight to honor.
William Samuel Johnson stands as a type of the well-instructed, devout layman, serving ably both the Church and the State.
The friend to whom these letters were sent has been greatly misunder- stood and misjudged by many of his contemporaries, but his brethren of the clergy were near his heart and they repaid him with affection and respect.
The preservation of the papers of Dr. Samuel Peters through many vicissitudes until they found a permanent place among the archives of the General Convention has made possible a revision and correction of our history.
The editor has prepared the absolutely necessary notes covering the essential facts in the lives of the writers of the letters and a few of the persons mentioned in them. While fuller annotation was desirable it was impossible within the limit set for the appearance of this volume. The notes upon Dr. Bliss and Mr. Mann were courteously furnished by the secretary of the Commission, Mr. F. Clarence Bissell, Deputy Comptroller of the State of Connecticut. He is a recognized authority upon the genealogy of the Peters family and the history of the Town of Hebron.
The half-tone illustrations of Dr. Peters and Dr. Hubbard are taken from the best known likenesses of these worthies.
June 5, 1913.
J. H.
JOHN BREYNTON.
The town of Halifax was laid out in 1748 under the auspices of the Honorable Edward Cornwallis, Captain General and Governor of Nova Scotia. It is situated on the western side of a deep inlet of the sea known as Halifax Harbor. It was named in honor of George Montague, Earl of Halifax, the President of the Board of Trade.
An ample plot opposite the Grand Parade was reserved for a church, and a parish by the name of St. Paul's Church was organized. The frame of a church building was ordered from New England, and it was estimated that it would cost one thousand pounds to set it up. It was said by Governor Cornwallis to have been a copy of Marylebone Chapel, London. Those who know both buildings have declared that it was identical with St. Peter's Church, Vere Street, London. The Rev. William Tutty was sent by the Venerable Propagation Society early in 1750 to be its minister. On September 2 of that year he formally opened the building although it was not finished.
In 1752 the Venerable Society sent the Rev. John Breynton to be his assistant. Mr. Breynton had been a chaplain in the British Navy and was at the siege and capture of the fortress of Louisburg in the summer of 1745. He at once gained a high place in the affection of the people of Halifax. He was earnest, active, sympathetic, and efficient. Mr. Tutty soon after went to England on private business leaving his curate in charge. He never returned and died in 1754. Mr. Breynton was then made Rector of St. Paul's. Few men seem to have left a deeper impression on a community than he did.
He was pastor to all sorts and conditions of men. He went into the forests to show the squalid Micmac Indians the power and beauty of Christian faith and life; he made himself familiar with the German language that he might minister to the poor Germans settled at Lauenburg. He was the friend and adviser of the Loyalists when they came from the former American Colonies to find life in the British Province less ideal than the glowing fancy of British under-secretaries had pictured it, and to be sufferers in purse and person from the unfulfilled promises of the government for which they had left their native land and made many sacrifices.
His friend, Jonathan Belcher, the first Chief Justice of Nova Scotia, calls him "a man of indefatigable labors, experienced assiduity, modera- tion and perfect good acceptance."
Dr. George W. Hill, the fourth Rector and historian of St. Paul's, says: "He was the personal friend and counsellor of the successive Governor and Lieutenant Governor, the associate and adviser of all others in authority, the friend and helper of the poor, the sick, and afflicted, and the promoter and supervisor of education. He doubtless deserved the high enconium passed upon him during his absence by a brother
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missionary, the Rev. William Bennett, that he never knew a man so universally regretted by every individual of every denomination."
After his hard and successful work of thirty-three years Dr. Breynton went to England upon a leave of absence in the fall of 1785, leaving the parish in charge of his curate, the Rev. Joshua Wingate Weeks, formerly missionary at St. Michael's Church, Marblehead, Massachusetts.
He fully expected to return but for some unknown reason did not, to the great disappointment of the whole parish.
EXTRACT.
I have your favor of 5 & 17 feb. & MT. Weeks informs me I am to expect a thundering Episcopate by Dr. Byles. I found Col. Fanning has a Letter from you of a much later Date by which we are informed of your Successful efforts for the worthy Houseal. That measure will be attended with more salutary Consequences than are to be expected from the heaven born preacher & military Confessor-D'. Seabury or Bishop Sea- bury stay'd ten Days with us, was treated with great civility by all that I & Col. Hannory could influence. He preached here in my Church & performed very well.
Halifax Nova Scotia 3 May 1785.
John Breynton.
JOSHUA WINGATE WEEKS.
Joshua Wingate, a son of Colonel John and Martha Weeks, was born at Hampton, New Hampshire. He was well prepared for College and graduated from Harvard in 1758. He studied for the holy ministry, and went to England late in 1762. He was made deacon and ordained priest in the spring of 1763, and on April 17 of that year licensed by the Bishop of London to officiate in the Plantations.
He was appointed by the Venerable Propagation Society as Missionary of St. Michael's Church, Marblehead, Massachusetts. He served faithfully and acceptably until the approach of the Revolution. The old seaport was intensely patriotic, with the exception of a few wealthy merchants, and the fishermen and sailors who made up the greater part of its population tolerated no one who adhered to King and Church. In 1775 he took refuge with his brother-in-law, the Rev. Jacob Bailey of Pownal- borough in the District of Maine. He returned with his family in June, 1776. It is understood that he did not open the Church but ministered
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in private houses and to the sick and afflicted. In the summer of 1778 he was again compelled to flee from the violence of the patriots to Rhode Island, leaving his family in the parsonage. Mrs. Weeks and her eight children were provided with passage to Nova Scotia in the fall of that year. They were courteously received at Halifax and through the generous kindness of Dr. Breynton provision made for their support. Mr. Weeks went from Newport to New York City in September and soon after sailed for England. He was given by the Venerable Society the mission of Annapolis Royal with a salary of one hundred and forty pounds, vacant by the death of the Rev. Thomas Wood in December, 1778. While in England he accused his former friend and neighbor, the Rev. Edward Bass of Newburyport, afterwards the first Bishop of Massachusetts, of disloyalty. As a consequence, after a blameless ministry of twenty-six years, he was deprived of his stipend and dismissed from the Society's service upon the verge of old age. The most impartial testimony shows that he was a friend to the British government although in some particu- lars Dr. Bass yielded to the request of his parishioners in the conduct of the service; many of them being strong patriots. Mr. Weeks arrived at Halifax July 16, 1779, and found his succession at Annapolis resisted by a strong party having the support of many provincial officials who desired the appointment of the Rev. Nathaniel Fisher who had for two years been Mr. Wood's assistant. A friend, Colonel Rogers, made him Chaplain of his battalion, known as the Orange Rangers. While the con- troversy over the charge of Annapolis was in progress Mr. Weeks, after paying one or two visits to the town, remained in Halifax, assisting in St. Paul's Church and serving in turn with Dr. Mather Byles as Chaplain to the garrison. In 1781, displeased at his neglect, the Venerable Society dismissed him from their service and offered Annapolis to Dr. Byles or, if he rejected it, to Mr. Bailey. As Dr. Byles refused, Mr. Bailey took up his residence in August, 1782. An unpleasant controversy then took place with his brother-in-law over the Chaplaincy to the garrison which Mr. Weeks contended was his by right. It appears that for some time Mr. Weeks received the salary and Mr. Bailey performed the duties.
In 1784 Mr. Weeks went to England, submitted an apology to the Society and was once more admitted to their favour on condition that he would resign any claim to the Chaplaincy at Annapolis Royal. Mr. Weeks was in charge of St. Paul's Church, Halifax, after the departure of Dr. Breynton for England in September, 1785, until the arrival of Dr. Stanser in 1791.
In 1793 he took charge of the mission of Preston where he remained until 1795 when he was transferred to Guysborough where he died in 1804. Mr. Weeks married in 1763 Mary Treadwell of Ipswich, Massachu- setts. They had eight children. One of his sons, Charles William Weeks, became a clergyman and served in 1799 Weymouth, Guysborough, in succession to his father; Manchester from 1834 to 1836, and was visit- ing missionary from 1837 to 1842. A grandson, Joshua Wingate, a son of the Rev. Charles William Weeks, was ordained priest in 1829 and
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served Cornwallis and New Dublin. A daughter married October 5, 1789, the Rev. William Twining, the missionary at Rawdon. She was the mother of the Rev. John Thomas Twining, the friend of that Christian soldier, Captain Hedley Vican.
MATHER BYLES.
Mather, a son of the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles of Boston, Massachusetts, was born in that town January 12, 1735. His father was one of the best known Congregational ministers of his day and noted for his pungent wit and an intense dislike to prelacy and the Church of England. He was well prepared under his father's direction for College and graduated from Harvard in 1751. He studied theology and in November, 1757, became the successor of Dr. Eliphalet Adams in the First Church of Christ, New London, Connecticut. It had been formed in 1650 and had for its first minister Richard Blinman. Mr. Byles was a man of great intellect, a vigorous thinker and a clear and convincing speaker. The people were charmed with him and admired his sermons which were profound, attrac- tive and eloquent. Tradition says that he was "grand and lordly in his ways," but the people were proud of him and fascinated by his brilliant and powerful personality.
There was both incredulity and indignation when he announced in April, 1768, that he had become a convert "to the ritual of the Church of England." There was much denunciation of him by his congregational brethren, and scurrilous songs and lampoons written about him.
He sailed for England in May, 1768, was made deacon and ordained priest by Dr. Richard Terrick, Bishop of London. He was licensed to officiate in the Plantations June 29, 1768. He soon after received from the University of Oxford the degree of Doctor in Divinity. Upon his return he became the Rector of Christ Church, Boston, in succession to the Rev. James Greaton. He was much admired and did an excellent work. In 1775 he was appointed by the Venerable Society to St. John's Church, Portsmouth, but never assumed that position owing to the dis- turbances of the Revolution. He sailed with his family from Boston for Halifax with the British fleet in the summer of 1776. He became Chaplain to the garrison at Halifax and also assisted Dr. Breynton in St. Paul's Church .. Here he gained new friends and a high reputation for his learning and adaptability to new conditions of life. In 1778 he was among a large number of Loyalists proscribed and banished by the State of Massachusetts.
The parish of St. John, New Brunswick, where a church had been erected about 1783, of which the Rev. George Bissett in that year became Rector, was vacant by the sudden death of its first incumbent, March 3, 1788. A new church had been commenced to bear the name of Trinity Church, the cornerstone of which was laid by Bishop Inglis August 20, 1788. Dr. Byles accepted the rectorship in the spring of 1789 and took charge on May 4 of that year.
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He remained loving and beloved until his death, March 12, 1814, in the eightieth year of his age.
BERNARD MICHAEL HOWSEAL.
Mr. Howseal had been for many years senior pastor of the Lutheran Church in New York City. In 1776 he was among the signers of an address of welcome to Lord Howe.
He went to Halifax with the British fleet in 1783 and took charge of the German Congregation at Lunenburgh near Halifax. In 1786 he went to England, was made deacon and ordained priest. He was then made Rector of the German Congregation and served with rare devotion and patience until his death, March 9, 1799.
He is described as a worthy man who suffered severely by the Revolution. He was humble, devout and did great good.
EDMUND FANNING.
Edmund, a son of Captain James and Hannah (Smith) Fanning, was born at Riverhead, Long Island, in 1737. His grandfather, Thomas Fanning, had been a prominent resident of Groton, Connecticut.
He graduated from Yale College in 1757, as a Berkeley scholar. He studied law and in 1760 settled at Hillsborough, then Childsburgh, North Carolina. In 1763 he was Register of Deeds and Colonel of the Militia of Orange County. He was highly esteemed and entered largely into the political and social life of the Province. He was appointed by Governor William Tryon in March, 1766, Judge of the Superior Court for the District of Salisbury. He was also elected in that year to the Assembly and sat in that body for five successive terms where he was useful and active. A body known as the Regulators attacked in 1768 his house, claiming that he exacted illegal fees as Register. Consequently he was defeated at the next election as representative of the County. Governor Tryon, however, allowed Hillsborough representation and Colonel Fanning was returned from that town. In September, 1770, the Regulators took Judge Fanning from the bench and after beating him destroyed his house and household possessions.
Upon the removal in June, 1774, of Governor Tryon to New York, Colonel Fanning accompanied him as private secretary. In 1774 the Gov- ernor made him Surveyor General of the Province of New York which he held in connection with that of Surrogate of New York City to which he was appointed in 1771.
In 1776 and 1777 he raised a regiment made up of Loyalists, which was named the Associated Refugees or King's American Regiment of Foot. Dr. Samuel Seabury was the Chaplain. It is said by many writers that members of the Regiment were rude, cruel and grasping. He
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remained in the British service until near the close of the Revolution when he went to Halifax.
He was made Colonel in the British Army in December, 1782, and in September, 1783, was appointed counsellor and Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Nova Scotia. In 1787 he was made Lieutenant Governor of the Island of St. John's, now Prince Edward Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He was here charged with tyranny. The complaint was brought before the Privy Council and dismissed in August, 1792. In October, 1793, he was promoted to be Major General and in June, 1799, advanced to the rank of Lieutenant General. In May, 1806, he resigned as Governor. In April, 1808, he was made General. His closing years were spent in London. He died February 28, 1818, in his eighty-first year. A widow and three daughters survived him. His only son, who was a captain in the Twenty-Second Foot, died in 1812, leaving his father grief-stricken.
While he is bitterly denounced by writers on North Carolina history and the Revolution, others who knew him at a later period give him a most exalted character. He was honored in 1774 with the degree of Doctor of Civil Law by the University of Oxford and with that of Doctor of Law by Yale and Dartmouth in 1803. In writing to his classmate, the Rev. Eden Burroughs, asking for the honors, he claimed to have saved Yale College when General Tryon in the summer of 1779 made his famous raid along Long Island Sound, burning and pillaging several towns.
JOHN PETERS.
John, a son of Colonel John and Lydia (Phelps) Peters, was born at Hebron, Connecticut, June 30, 1740. He was a nephew of Dr. Peters. He graduated from Yale College in 1759. He settled at Hebron where he opened a law office. In 1766 he removed to the new town of Bradford, now in Orange County, Vermont. This was supposed to be in the Province of New York. He held a very high position in the community and was much respected by all the people. Governor Tryon made him, in 1770, clerk of the new County of Gloucester and Associate Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. In 1772 he was made Colonel of Militia and in October, 1774, Lieutenant Governor Colden made him Chief Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He suffered much insult from the Green Mountain boys because he was loyal to his King and in 1776 he fled to Canada leaving his family and home. In 1777 he was made Lieutenant Colonel of the Queen's Loyal Rangers. He took part in the battle of Bennington in October, 1777, after which he escaped to Canada making a perilous journey through the woods. He returned for his family and established them comfortably on Cape Breton Island and then went to London to prosecute before the Claims Commissioners his claim for losses and back pay as Lieutenant Colonel. He spent three years without accom- plishing his purpose. He died of gout in the head and stomach, January 11, 1788, in the forty-eighth year of his age. He left a wife, six sons and one daughter.
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JOSEPH PETERS.
Joseph, a son of William and Hannah (Cheney) Peters, was born at Dedham, Massachusetts, in that part of the town now Walpole, December 11, 1729. He settled in Mendon and removed to Watertown, Massachusetts. As he was a staunch loyalist he went after the Revolution to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Here he received much consideration and served for many years as postmaster-general of Halifax and afterward Judge of the Supreme Court. He died February 13, 1800, in the seventy-first year of his age. He married Abigail Thompson. Their children were: Abigail, who died in Medfield, Massachusetts, December 30, 1829, at the age of seventy-nine years. She was unmarried. Moses, born at Waterford, Massachusetts, April 26, 1752, died at Mendon, Massachusetts, December 29, 1810. He married Eleanor Penniman.
EXTRACT.
I received your highly esteemed favor of the 19th February, by his Grace the Right Reverend &c Bishop Seabury-whom I have heard Preach, but I fail'd in obtaining what I thought a reasonable Share of his Company, he being perpetually dragged about while he was here-his Preaching is highly esteemed here, and I my self am much pleased with his person as a man, a Gentleman and Divine-God send him success-but I am afraid he will not meet the treatment he hath a right to expect from the blue Connecticutites. I wish I may be found in a mistake.
Our Printers are the most dastardly Sycophants I ever saw- I did not chuse to be seen in the affair for some reasons, but I Wrote the matter out and sent it first to one and then (upon) his omitting it) to the other, one being a New England Saint and a disciple of the Holy Sandiman, and the other a Ger- who professes to be a Saint of Luther ;
man, neither of which had Courage to show to the World so innocent a piece of Intelligence-His Grace is gone by Water, to Annapolis and New Brunswick.
Joseph Peters
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SAMUEL ANDREWS.
Samuel, a son of Samuel and Abigail (Tyler) Andrews, was born in Wallingford, Connecticut, April 27, 1737. His father's farm occupied a tract of land "about a mile west of the present railroad station in Meriden" near the famous Hanging Hills.
Through the influence of a son, Laban, who had been apprenticed to Captain Macock Ward, the family had conformed to the Church of Eng- land. Captain Ward was a prominent man in the town, a staunch sup- porter of Union Church, as it was then called, built near the North Haven line so as to accommodate the Churchmen of North Haven, Cheshire and Wallingford.
The family early determined that the youngest son, Samuel, should become a clergyman. He was given as good an education as was then possible in the common schools and graduated from Yale College in 1759. He acted while in College and for two years after as lay reader. He went to England in April, 1761, and was made deacon August 23 and priest August 24 of that year by Dr. Thomas Hayter, Bishop of London, and in October licensed by that Bishop to officiate in the Plantations.
After his arrival home in March, 1762, he took charge of St. Paul's Church, Wallingford, with Cheshire and North Haven. He was already known and respected and under his care the Church in each of the three towns grew.
Mr. Andrews was a Loyalist but when the proclamation was made of a Fast Day in July, 1775, he opened the church and preached a sermon from the text: "I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not dwell in your solemn assemblies." Amos 5:21. In the course of the sermon he urged his hearers to consider the power and resources of Eng- land and beware how they aroused the ministry and people of the mother- land. The granting of liberty and equality, he said, is absurd when so many are held in slavery in various parts of the colonies.
The sermon aroused much resentment, although there is in it no violent denunciation but a calm and plain setting forth of political principles which he thought right and just. Only his positive goodness and high Christian character and the regard in which he was held saved him from violence. As it was, he was placed under heavy bonds and confined within limits. No services were held in the Church until 1778, when the Bishop of Lon- don allowed churches to be opened and the prayers for the King and Royal Family omitted.
When the Revolution ended, Mr. Andrews with others who had remained true to their convictions found the greater part of their congregation not only in poverty but also enthusiastic adherents of the new Republic. The offers of parishes with ample salaries and glebes in the British pos- sessions were attractive. Mr. Andrews although he loved his home and birthplace thought the needs of his family required him to accept one of them. He removed in the spring of 1788 to the town of St. Andrews on the St. Croix River. From his house he could look across to the shores of Maine. In 1791 he purchased the island of Chamcook in the St. Croix
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River, where he built for himself a pleasant home. It is now known as Minster's Island and has been greatly improved by Sir William VanHorn, who has a summer home on it.
The parish of St. Andrew's, Charlotte County, New Brunswick, was organ- ized August 2, 1786. A church was built in 1788, fifty-two feet in length and forty in width. After recovery from a severe paralytic stroke which unfitted him for duty for some months he was the busy and venerated pastor of a devoted flock until his death September 26, 1818, in the eighty- second year of his age.
Mr. Andrews married September 13, 1764, Hannah, a daughter of James and Anna ( Wheeler) Shelton of that part of Stratford now Huntington. She died in her seventy-sixth year, January 1, 1816. His eldest son, Samuel James, was a graduate of Yale College in 1785, a shipping merchant in Derby, Connecticut, and subsequently a pioneer in the present city of Rochester, where he attained large wealth and great prominence. A staunch churchman he was a founder of St. Luke's Church and carried the sound Connecticut churchmanship into western New York.
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