For two hundred years the same, an intimate and revealing account of the beginning and growth of the town of Chester, Connecticut, and the Protestant churches therein, Part 1

Author: Clark, Thelma W., 1908-
Publication date: 1948
Publisher: [Chester?]
Number of Pages: 94


USA > Connecticut > Middlesex County > Chester > For two hundred years the same, an intimate and revealing account of the beginning and growth of the town of Chester, Connecticut, and the Protestant churches therein > Part 1


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ـطوس


الساح طهيون


ـاحة بحينجاح الحملة رص


مريمرير


ـرية


Gc 974.602 C426c 1759256


REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION


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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01148 6666


Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019


https://archive.org/details/fortwohundredyea00clar


YTE 5


For Omp Hundred years The Same


An intimate and revealing account of the beginning and growth of the town of Chester, Connecticut and the Protestant Churches therein


by THELMA W. CLARK


Gc 974.602 C 426 C


Illustrations by Shirley McKernan


Copyright, 1948, Thelma W. Clark


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1759256


20


Drawing by Sellew and Ryder, Architects


The United Church of Chester


Preface


This little booklet is not intended strictly, as a history. It is rather an intimate and revealing account of the beginning and growth of the town of Chester and the Protestant churches therein.


In February, 1948, Rev. E. Ray Burchell suggested that a paper dealing with the growth of the churches might be written for use at the dedication of the remodeled building in the Fall. Several days of research brought to light so many interesting sidelights on the personalities and temper of the people who formed our town that the proposed paper has become a booklet. It seemed that the facts discovered were too humorous, too appealing, too fascinating to be disregarded in the writing of the usual rather statistical paper.


Search has been made into church records of both the Baptist and Congregational societies in town and of the mother churches in Centerbrook and Winthrop. Old scrapbooks, diaries, family papers of some of the original settlers, town records, society records, and personal remembrances of some of the older townspeople have been used as a basis for this story of Chester. Undoubtedly there are other records or papers hidden away which would throw still more light on various matters mentioned herein. This history, however, is as complete as it has been possible to make it in the limited time available.


Unfortunately all of the early records of the Baptist Church and its societies are missing. As a result the greater part of the material concerning that group has been taken from a paper written by the author for the Centennial Celebration of that church in 1932, and later enlarged for publication in The New Era in 1936 at the Centennial of the town. At that time the early records were available. It is unfortunate that so few interesting details about the Baptist Church are known, but it is hoped that this unavoidable slighting of that portion of our church history will be overlooked.


There may be some readers of this booklet who will find omis- sions and errors. An attempt has been made to be impartial and chary in the use of names of individuals. There were dozens who might have been named. There were others whom it is well not to name. The chief purpose of this booklet is to show the human, detailed side of the history of the churches in Chester ; therefore it is hoped that those who read may chuckle and not frown.


Miss Kate Silliman has been of special help in providing infor- mation on several phases of church and town history, as well as data


on members of the Silliman family. Mrs. Ida Abbey loaned her mother's scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. Mrs. Mamie Gorham Spratt gave personal recollections of the first Baptist church building, and furnished details concerning her father and mother who were most influential in that society. Mrs. Theodore Foster and Mrs. Bessie Crook at the Library, Mrs. Augustus Williams, Mrs. C. J. Bates, Mrs. Ralph Monroe, Mr. and Mrs. Perley Webb, Miss Eliza- beth H. Smith, Mrs. Elizabeth Goodwin, and Mr. Sumner Smith supplied interesting details which often clarified items only men- tioned in the other sources. Mr. Erving Wright, church clerk, checked some of the facts. Mr. Wesley G. Dannen and Miss Case, of the State Library, went to great pains to look up references. Reverend and Mrs. Burchell have been willing listeners and have made many helpful suggestions. Mr. Edward Hastings gave freely of his comment, criticism, and suggestions in editing the first rough draft. Thanks are due all who have helped in the preparation of this account of our church heritage. We are all especially indebted to those who sponsored the project so that it might be presented in printed form.


T. W. C.


Chester, Connecticut, July 14, 1948.


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CHAPTER I


"In the Beginning . . . "


In front of the huge fireplace in the common room of Jonathan Hough's house set high on a hill-its nearest neighbor some two miles away-clustered a group of earnest men clad in rough home- spun. Their weathered faces were serious and their tones grave. Their discussion was as grave as their mien, for they were met to appoint two of their number to take a petition to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth, a petition that the few inhabitants of the Pataquonk section of Saybrook might be allowed to have their own worship services during the winter, or "winter privilege".


Two of the men were members of the three man Prudential Committee directing the activities of the North Parish or the Second Ecclesiastical Society of Saybrook (Centerbrook). All were members of that parish, and several of the older ones were remembering, as they, sat before the fire, how when they first moved into the Pata- quonk Quarter they had had to trek the fourteen long weary miles afoot or on horseback to attend divine services and society meetings at Saybrook, down on the Sound. They had trudged those long miles often, over roads little more than Indian trails, because failure to attend the Sabbath services meant being hailed before the meeting, charged with improper conduct, and fined. So when, eight years before, in 1722, all those living in the northern part of Saybrook parish had been permitted to establish their own parish, and had built a meeting house at what is now Centerbrook, they had been much relieved. Even traveling to Centerbrook (or Pettipaug, as it was then called) was difficult especially in the winter when it was necessary, to attend the society meetings as well as the Sabbath day services.


The two members of the Second Parish committee realized that what they were about to do would not be pleasing to the rest of the Pettipaug residents. They went ahead, nevertheless, and appointed two representatives from their number to meet with the committee from Pettipaug to go to the Assembly, then meeting at New Haven, to discuss the petition of the Pataquonk inhabitants. So, in the brown leaved, worn edged old book of the Pettipaug Society records appears this entry dated January 24, 1722/3:


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Patequonk Being Exempted acording to ye last Asemblys Act . Att ye Same meating it was voted yt Some man Shall be improued in ye behalf of this Society hombly to represent to ye General Cort in may next ye diffically of ye Sd Society, by reason of ye discharging ye People of Pataquonk from their ministerial .... for five monts and pray ye Assambly in their Grate wisdom to revok thire act by which the discharge is made.


The arguments of the Pataquonk inhabitants proved strong, how- ever, and the General Assembly allowed them to have "winter privi- lege"-that is, permission to conduct their own worship services during the four winter months. They must, nevertheless, continue to pay their taxes for the support of the parish in Pettipaug, "where they belong".


So much gained, the good fathers next worked to get their taxes revoked for that same period. Nearly three years later they were successful, insofar as the members of the Pettipaug Parish voted that Pataquonk should have a month allowed it free from paying its portion of the minister's salary, and should be permitted to hire a gospel minister from December to April.


Winter services having proved feasible and so much more con- venient than having to go clear to Pettipaug, the growing number of inhabitants of Pataquonk Quarter toyed with the idea of becoming a parish on their right. In 1739 they petitioned the General Assem- bly, and also requested Pettipaug Parish to set up a boundary line, at the same time suggesting one of their own. This proposed bound- ary did not exactly suit the good men of Pettipaug, for it was con- tested by a committee appointed "to Remonstrate against ye Report as being unreasonable and very injurious". Apparently the committee managed to settle the matter amiably, because as of September 25, 1740, this entry appears in the old record of Pettipaug Parish :


Upon motion of ye Inhabitence of Patequnk Concerning a Dividing Line between them and Putapogue if the Generall Assembly Shuld See Case to Comply their motion that thay Should be a Distink Society the Inhabetence of Patequnk and the Inhabetence of ye Southern part of Society Colled Puta- pogue mutually aGreed and voted yt ye Dividing Line between Sd Societyes Should as folows vig: a Direct West Line from the Bridge over Deep River att the Country Roude untell it Intersect in Killingworth Line and from Sd Bridge that the Sd River Colled Deep River be Ye Dividing Line from Sd Bridge to the Grat River.


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Being thus in a lenient frame of mind, the meeting went on to vote "that thay willing if the Generall Assembly Should See Cause in their Great wisdom to Comply with the motion of their friends att Patiqunk to Set them of from them to be a Diffinet Society that thay Should be Set off from them accordingly".


So, in October of 1740, Pataquonk Quarter was made a society. and named Chester. Those families that had first journeyed to Say- brook, then for the past eighteen years to Pettipaug (Centerbrook) now could call themselves a parish with all the privileges and duties that such entailed. They were allowed to tax all unimproved land for three years to defray parish charges, and thereupon set about seeking a minister.


A year and a half later the first resident minister took up his duties. As was common in those days, a "settlement" for the minister was called for. Ministers were scarce. Since they were expected to settle in a place for life they were invariably, given, as an added inducement, a "settlement", or a sum equal to two years' salary. This amount was raised by additional taxation, and was expected to cover the purchase of land and the building of a home and barn. Whether or not the infant parish found it difficult to get a minister, it seems to have been overly generous in its "settlement" terms, for the first pastor was voted a salary of &150 annually, with a settlement pay- ment of £300 to be paid £75 a year for four years. It was also agreed to "erect him a house of fourty feet long and thirty feet wide, cover the same, he finding nails and window frames, build the Chimneys and Cellar, all to be accomplished within Eighteen months from this date [Sept. 16, 1741], and further we agree that if we can procure the Lot Commonly Called Ministers Lot, he shall have it if . he See cause . . . "


It was not, however, as simple as it sounded. The minister, after thinking it over, decided that the proposed house was too large, and he suggested one 39 feet long and 29 feet wide "and of proportion- able height", and the Society agreed. Even the date of his ordination was changed. Originally set for November 20, 1741, it was postponed to December 9th of that year "notwithstanding there hath been some demur by, the groundless objections of some few particular persons put to our proceedings as voted and agreed upon". By this time the good man was wondering if the new parish really wanted him, since before the December ordination date had rolled round there had been another Society meeting wherein it was voted "the


9


Prudential Committee shall have power to procure the preaching the gospel by a New Orthodox Minister". Finally, however, the minister was ordained, but not until September 15th of 1742, a good year after he had first been approached on the matter of coming to Chester, or the Fourth Parish of Saybrook as the Society was legally called.


Still the minister had no house. He and his horse were cared for by, various members of the parish. Also the infant church had no house of worship. Those must have been difficult and perplexing times, but they were weathered and the work of the parish slowly but surely began to take shape.


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CHAPTER II


"In My Father's House . . "


Since the "setting off" of the parish, the question of a meeting house had occupied the minds of the Society members. They must have had plenty to talk about on those long winter evenings when the members of the family gathered before evening prayers around the fireplace. Meeting after meeting was called, most of them at the home of Jonathan Hough where the first gathering to talk over their request for "winter privilege" was held. Committees were appointed to see to the building of both the minister's dwelling and the meeting house. Meanwhile worship was held at Jonathan Hough's. He seems to have been a prime mover in this venture, and apparently had a house large enough to accommodate the meetings and Sabbath worship.


What votes were passed and rescinded, what meetings called and adjourned, what arguments and discussions there were before the minister's home and the first rough meeting house were finished. The minister moved into his dwelling before the worshipers moved into their meeting house, which for seven years was little more than a barn, probably not as good as some of the barns of the farmers who worshiped there. This first building soon came to be called "The Lord's Barn", since it had only a very rough floor, no per- manent seats, windows, or pulpit. The walls were never plastered, a ceiling never installed, the joists and beams of the structure fur- nishing a very rustic ornamentation. Ten years after the organization of the Society, parish matters had prospered to such an extent that it was voted :


first [we] will build a good pulpit, and Likewise that we will Lay a good duble flore, and glase all the Low windows (to be glased with good sash glas.) and Make the doors, and put twelve apise in the garlires in the uper part of the meeting house, and raise the Lower side of the meeting hous."


This last was a reference to the fact that the foundation had never been finished, so that legend has it that sheep congregated beneath the building. Their bleating vied with the good minister to such an extent that services had to be interrupted until the animals could be driven out.


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The Lord's Barn-First Congregational Meeting House


This first meeting house stood to the southeast of the present town hall, near the crest of Story's Hill. It was the focal point of the parish. Custom and expediency decreed that the tavern should stand near it. Sentences imposed by the court held in the meeting house were speedily carried out at the whipping-post conveniently located nearby. Also close at hand was the first school building and the burying ground. On the wide green at the foot of the hill the militia drilled in later years. To meeting on the Sabbath came all those who were able to be about. Down from the hills of the infant parish came whole families, perhaps with the mother and older daughter riding, the rest of the children and the father afoot. In the winter those fortunate enough to possess small foot-stoves brought them in a vain endeavor to keep from being almost unbearably cold. The unheated building, lacking both plaster and ceiling, was a cold spot on those long winter days when the minister mounted up into the high pulpit and the deacons took their places beneath and before it, facing the assembly. The people were seated with respect to age, office, and estate, and the meeting began with a prayer usually lasting a quarter of an hour. A chapter was read and explained and a psalm announced which the deacon "lined out". This done, the minister arose, turned his hourglass beside him, announced his text, and thundered his interpretations, denunciations, and orthodoxy. After


12


the hour-long sermon there was another prayer and the blessing. Then the people went out to eat their luncheon, replenish their foot- stoves with glowing coals from a neighbor's house, and prepare for the afternoon service. This was much like the morning's, except that at times after the sermon there would be baptism of the infants, even though zero weather froze both the minister's breath and the bread on the communion table. It was at this service that contribu- tions were made, the people going forward with their gifts.


This first meeting house, crude as it was, was used for all worship and parish business for over fifty years. As buildings will, however, it began to show the strain of constant use, and many times funds were voted for repairs. Sometimes money was voted that was not available. Thus a committee was once allowed the money it spent "out of ye money, that is now in ye arrears (when collected)." A few years later the committee was voted a sum to repair the meeting house as much as "needful for the present winter." Three years later additional funds, not to exceed £3, were author- ized. In spite of these repairs, however, the building became so dilapidated that a major problem confronted the parish. Various means of raising money were tried. A subscription was started to raise £40, and later a tax was laid of 2 pence on the pound on the previous year's tax list, this money to be spent for "Joyce and braces, also Glass and Sashes and what sills are necessary and to put them into Sd House."


Some of the sounder minds, however, believed that instead of repairs, a new building was needed. They, swayed the parish to such an extent that in 1791 it was voted to "build a Meeting house pro- vided we have Suitable encouragement by Subscriptions, and can agree upon place to Set it." That was the hitch this time. At the same meeting it was voted a committee should "Set a Stake where to Set a Meeting house provided we agree to build, and make their report to this meeting." Apparently the committee went outside the school house where the meeting was being held, drove a stake, and came back, for the next line reads "The Committee made their report that they Set the Stake on the middle of the green near the School house."


Less than a month later, and after countless fireside-and-street- corner-consultations, another meeting voted not to set the meeting house where the stake was driven, and appointed a new committee to set a new stake for a new location. This too was unsuccessful, for


13


later in the meeting it was reported the Committee "can't agree". The meeting thereupon took matters into its own hands and voted that the meeting house should be west of the school house, on the green, the same green that fronts the present town hall. The school house where these meetings were held was apparently somewhere east of the present town hall.


Nevertheless the old "Lord's Barn" was still on the minds of the good fathers of the town. They were loath to discard it, and when it was found that the subscription list for a new building was not filled, they decided to ask outside aid and advice on repairing the old building. From surrounding towns opposing factions brought in various authorities. Some advocated repairs, some rebuilding, and the parish continued to seethe during the week and wonder if the Sabbath worshipers would find themselves suddenly falling through the floor of the old building.


At last things came to a head, and three years after the first meeting to suggest a new building, another stake was driven and it was voted to put the new meeting house "at the North end of the Green against the road leading from the Main road to Cedar Swamp." Still with the "Lord's Barn" in mind, they voted also "to Set up a frame of a Meeting house about the bigness of the old Meeting house." Eleven days later all this was reconsidered, a new committee appointed, and there followed four meetings within two months-meetings of which the only thing we know is they met and adjourned. All at once, however, work was underway and the frame up. It was voted to use the window frames and sash that were made to repair the old meeting house for the new one, also to make use of whatever "stuff in the old meeting house that will answer for to put into the New Meeting House, as far as Shall be thought Profitable."


By 1793 the second meeting house was finished, at least on the inside. Now when the good folk of Chester climbed or descended a hill, depending on the direction of their homes, and crossed the green for Sabbath Worship, they found themselevs in a hall about the same size as the old "Lord's Barn", two stories in height, white plastered and ceiled. The pews were square compartments of white- paneled, dark-rimmed wood, with a door in the back of each and walls five feet high. The children could scarcely see over the tops of these walls to where the minister stood in his new pulpit with the sounding board over it. Some of them wondered whether it would


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not be better to be out on the long bench-like seats which filled the front portion of the room, yet within these boxed enclosures the vague heat from the foot stoves did give a semblance of warmth, and the stern eye of the deacon could not so easily watch each furtive wiggle when the sermon became monotonous.


In back of the pulpit was a window through which could be seen one of the buttonwood trees from the square encircling the meeting house. Whether or not this window attracted more attention than the minister, within a few years the ladies provided a shade for it which could be pulled down and eliminate one distraction.


2255 -10


Second Congregational Meeting House


The building finished, a committee was appointed "to set a square of Buttonwood trees around the New Meeting house" and to paint it "as far as Capt. Warner has agreed with Mr. Wells and no farther at Present." No farther seems to have resulted in only one side and part of another being painted at that time. The next year one of the members was appointed an agent "to Procure Step Stones for the New Meeting house at the expense of the Society", and bids were received for sweeping the meeting house and taking


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care of it, the lowest bidder being the head of the committee on painting the building, with a bid of 18 shillings for the year.


When the meeting house was finally completely painted it was red, with one casement door on the side we would now call the back, but which then fronted on the Cedar Swamp Road. For thirty- four years there was no means of heating, it being considered too sinful to warm the Lord's house. In 1827 the more advanced mem- bers of the parish prevailed, however, and a stove was put in, where- upon various members of the Sabbath congregation fainted away with the heat! No musical instrument was used for some time, until finally, a melodeon was installed near the pulpit, and later a bass viol joined in with its deep harmony. How the shades of the old choir- isters must have writhed at this desecration !


Reluctantly it was voted "to make Sale of the old Meeting House at Some future Day." That is the last mention we have of the first meeting house of the parish of Chester.


Unfortunately the records of the period between the building of the second and third meeting houses are very scanty. We assume that the usual parish meetings were held, and the two services on the Sabbath, with the Preparatory Lecture on the Friday evening preceding the Sabbath on which there was communion. We do know that the ineeting house on the green was the center of the parish affairs. There the militia trained, with the minister sitting on the meeting house steps beside the keg of rum for the boys drilling out on the grass.


The parish was growing, however, and the affairs with which it was concerned were growing too. The Prudential Committee was finding it increasingly, difficult to keep a finger on every concern of the parish. The tax collectors were hard put to collect funds for paying the minister, keeping up the meeting house, running the schools and the jail, as well as all the other activities made necessary by the constant growth of the population. Since taxes were levied independently for each function, the collection must have been a headache for the tax collectors as well as for the tax payers. No wonder we find frequent reference to delinquents for this or that tax. Thus in 1836, ninety-six years after the people of the North Quarter of Pettipaug broke away from that parish and formed one of their own, their great-grandchildren broke the bonds that held church and state, and formed a separate and independent town


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government. Now there were two sets of officers, one to run the affairs of the town, the other to run the affairs of the church.


After the town became a separate unit, the Society members began to think and talk about a new church. First proposed in March of 1845, it was dedicated a year and two-thirds later. We do not know whether the plans for this building came into being with less commotion and discussion than those for the two preceding ones, for the records for those several years are missing. But when they got down to business, things happened quickly. The corner-stone was laid with appropriate exercises on a Tuesday in May, 1846, and the frame raised the following Saturday. The pastor delivered prayer at 8:30 A. M. "and although the day was showery, it [the work] was completed before night, and that without loss of life or injury, of limb to anyone." Dinner and supper were served by the ladies from Elizur Ware's kitchen across the way.




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