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SECOND CHURCH OF CHRIST
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SOUTH CHURCH JULY 7, 1884
1670
1892
HISTORY
OF THE
SECOND CHURCH OF CHRIST
IN HARTFORD
BY EDWIN POND PARKER
HARTFORD, CONN. BELKNAP & WARFIELD 1892
THIS VOLUME DOES NOT CIRCULATE -
PRESS OF THE CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD COMPANY
Dedication
TO THE MEMBERS OF Che Second Church of Christ in hartford; TO THE MEMBERS. OF
The Ecclesiastical Society Connected Cherewitb ; TO ALL WHO ARE ACCUSTOMED TO WORSHIP WITH THE SAME ; TO ALL WHO, ONCE HAVING HAD HERE THEIR FELLOWSHIP IN WORSHIP, HAVE GONE AFAR, BUT STILL REMEMBER THIS CHURCH WITH AFFECTION ; TO THE MEMORY, ALSO, OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN TRANSLATED HENCE TO MT. ZION ABOVE, THIS HISTORY IS HUMBLY DEDICATED JBy the Author
HARTFORD, Nov. 1, 1892
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
The Struggle for Existence
I3
The people of Hartford and their condition at the time of Thomas Hooker's death. No adequate leader in the church. Discussions and disagreements in the church. The causes of contention ob- scure. The old Congregational way departed from. Common ex- planations of the difficulty shown to be unsatisfactory by compara- tively new documentary evidence. Personal elements in the conten- tion. Rev. Mr. Stone and Elder Goodwin. The minority party in the church vainly strive for satisfaction or release. They attempt to withdraw. This attempt resisted. Michael Wigglesworth. Cor- respondence between the parties. Councils called to little purpose. Letters from Davenport and Higginson. The withdrawers endeavor to unite with Wethersfield church, but are not permitted to do so. The General Court interferes without doing any good. Council of 1659 and its findings. A breathing spell. Some elements that in course of time complicated the original difficulty. Controversy breaks out anew after Rev. Mr. Stone's death. Rev. Messrs. Haynes and Whiting. Action of General Court. Withdrawal allowed, Second Church founded.
CHAPTER II. 1670-1689
Pastorate of Rev. John Whiting
46
Organization of Second Church. Congregational principles stated in its platform. The covenant of the church. New way of baptism practiced. John Whiting. The Whiting family. Original mem- bers. Witchcraft and Anne Cole. John White. Some acts of Second Church. Baptismal names. Deacons Grave and Hosmer. Location of meeting-house. Death of Mr. Whiting. Letters from Rev. Messrs. Woodbridge and Whiting.
CHAPTER III
Hartford People two Centuries ago
66
Relation to events in the Old World. The " wilderness condition" here. Houses and furniture. Food and clothing. Labor and com- merce. Scarcity of books. Superstitions. Encouragement of learn- ing. Social life, amusements, legislation, dress. Religious usages. Character of the people.
S
Contents
CHAPTER IV. 1694-1731
Ministry of Rev. Thomas Buckingham
Account of him. State of things at his settlement. Joseph Buck- ingham, Esq. Wars and rumors of wars. Revivals of religion. The hard year of 1697. District settlement of those on east side of the Great River, and at West Hartford. Mr. Buckingham serves as chaplain at Port Royal, etc. The founding of a college. New ec- clesiastical constitution. Saybrook Synod. Congregational Church established by law. Great earthquake. Episcopacy. Efforts to reunite the two Hartford churches. Church music. Literature. The newspaper. Creation of Superior Court. Erection of State House. Roads and bridges. Changes in dress. Money. Madame Knight's Journal.
CHAPTER V. 1733-1777
Ministry of Rev. Elnathan Whitman, D.D. .
Account of him. Abigail Stanley. Eliza Wharton. Troublous times. Various expeditions. Religious movements. Great awaken- ing of 1735. Edwards and Whitefield. Opposition to revivalistic work. Old lights and new. Mr. Whitman's attitude. Interposi- tion of General Assembly. Harsh legislation. Separate churches. Action of General Association towards Whitefield. Whitman's elec- tion sermon. New meeting-houses in Hartford. The South meet- ing-house. Bequests of Joseph Buckingham, Esq. Decay of relig- ion. Political excitements. Society records. Colleague pastor. Ordination of Mr. Patten. Seymour family. Various local matters. Retirement of Mr. Patten. His family. Church music. The mur- murs of the coming Revolutionary War. Deacons Bull and Hos- mer. Death of Mr. Whitman.
CHAPTER VI. 1784-1825 Ministry of Rev. Benjamin Boardman and of Rev. Dr. Abel Flint
Changes in dress and manners. The church without pastor till 1784 Joseph Buckminster and other ministers called. Benjamin Boardman's settlement. Some account of him. The good cheer of an ordination dinner. Mr. Boardman as chaplain. His diary. His sermons. His retirement. Encouragement of singing. William Stanley's bequests. Mr. Flint becomes pastor. Another merry or- dination dinner. Some account of Dr. Flint. Religious revivals. "Owning the covenant." Amos Bull and other music teachers. Hartford Selection of Hymns. Missionary Society of Connecticut. Connecticut Evangelical Magazine. Rate-Bill of 1791. Second State House. First Baptist Church. Episcopal Church. Dramatic ex- hibitions and amusements. Women attempt to secure greater plainness of dress. Dress and customs. Rationalism. Modifica- tions and abrogation of the ecclesiastical constitution. Revivals. Thomas Tileston. A new chapel. The Sunday-School comes in. Political meetings in the sanctuary. Election day. Anecdotes of Drs. Strong and Flint. Dr. Hawes. The Universalists attempt to get control of Second Church, but do not succeed. Dr. Flint's let- ters. Dr. Flint's Death. Dr. Bacon's description of him. Political agitations and revolutions. Downfall of the standing order. New manners, customs, dress, etc. Literary revival. Culture of music. A new era.
90
III
149
9
Contents
CHAPTER VII. IS24-1860
Dr. Joel Harvey Linsley, Rev. Cornelius C. Vanars- dalen, Rev. Drs. Oliver Ellsworth Daggett, and Walter Clarke
196
Some account of each of these men, in their order, and of their settlement. The North Church. "Petticoat " influence in the South Society, and things in a bad way there. Church discipline. Dr. Bacon's ordination at New Haven. A new meeting-house erected. Begun in 1825 and completed in 1827. Its dedication. Trouble in the Parish. Dissatisfaction with the Pastor. Financial embarrass- ment Dr. Linsley retires. Revision of articles of Faith and Covenant. Thos. Seymour objects. Some account of this venera- ble man. Letter of Dr. Linsley. Mr. Vanarsdalen settled, but soon retires, and Dr. Daggett is ordained. Dr. Bushnell. Free Church. Talcott Street Church. First Roman Catholic Church. Denomina- tional comity. Washington College. The great revival of 1838. Communion plate. Dr. Daggett withdraws. Financial difficulties. Chairman Loomis's exhortations to the Society. Dcacon Tileston again. Dr. Daggett's character, services, death. Various move- ments in Hartford. Dr. Walter Clarke settled as Pastor. Revival + of interest, and increase of members. Progress. Sanctuary en- larged. Pearl Street Church formed. D. F. Robinson and Albert Butler. Seth Terry. A "female singer " hired. Discourteous at- titude of South Church for many years towards Dr. Bushnell. Dr. Clarke retires and settles in New York. His character, services, and departure. Rev. C. D. Helmer declines a call.
CHAPTER VIII. 1860-
Supplementary
230
Rev. Edwin Pond Parker accepts a call to become Pastor and is ordained. Some account of the ordination and its sequences. Con- tinued probation. A fair chance. Newspaper controversies. Con- dition of things. Improvements. Enrichment of worship. The War of Rebellion. Restoration of church edifice. Asylum Hill Church. Dr. Hawes's death. Celebration of the bi-centennial of the Second Church. Church edifice again repaired. Change of creed. Restoration and re-dedication. Fiftieth anniversary of dedi- cation of House of Worship. Mr. Moody's work in Hartford. Gift of Communion Service. Memorial font. Fire in the Sanctuary. Restoration. New organ. The dear old Church! God bless her.
APPENDICES
I. Some of the Original Papers Relating to the Controversy in the Church in Hartford, 1656-59.
II. Pastors and Deacons of the Church, Officers of the Society, etc.
III. Catalogue of the early Members of the Church, and the Record of Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths.
PREFACE
In the year 1870, on the occasion of the two-hundredth an- niversary of the founding of the Second Church in Hartford, it fell to me, as Pastor of the Church, to prepare and deliver an Historical Discourse. In that Discourse, I attempted to give an account of the long and memorable contention in the First Church of Hartford, which finally resulted in the establishment of the Second Church.
Important papers relating to that controversy and written by various parties concerned therein, but chiefly represent- ing the minority side of it, discovered by Dr. Palfrey among the Lansdowne manuscripts in the British Museum, were then in press as a part of the second volume of the Connec- ticut Historical Society's collections. Of these twenty-two autograph manuscripts, among which are exceedingly im- portant letters by Davenport of New Haven and Higginson of Guilford, Dr. Palfrey seems to have made no account or use in writing of the Hartford controversy, in his excellent History of New England, although a study of them would have saved him from falling into several serious errors. Previous writers on this subject were in ignorance of these papers. It was my privilege to examine the reprint of these documents by the Connecticut Historical Society, and to publish them in an appendix to my Discourse. About that time, a manuscript was discovered in Hartford, containing a list of persons admitted to the Second Church, and also a list of children baptized in said church, from the beginning of its history (1670) until the year 1731. This document revealed facts utterly irreconcilable with certain statements made in Trumbull's History of Connecticut, with respect to the practice of the Half-way Covenant in Hartford, and also discrediting sundry representations of Palfrey and others concerning the questions at issue in the original controversy
I2
Preface
there. But, although the new facts supplied by these several documents enabled me to give a correcter account of the old contention than had yet appeared, several errors marred my Discourse. Too much importance was attributed to the questions concerning " baptismal rights," in the earlier stages of the controversy, and other mistakes were made. In writing this history of the Second Church I desire to correct such errors, and to make a completer narrative of that struggle for existence. The seventh chapter of Dr. Geo. L. Walker's History of the First Church in Hartford dis- cusses the old controversy in an impartial way, and, as I shall frequently refer to his work, I hereby acknowledge my indebtedness to his able and candid narrative.
In an appendix may be found copies of some of the more important papers relating to the controversy in the Hartford Church (1656-59), transcribed from the second volume of the Connecticut Historical Society's collections.
The valuable catalogues of early members of the church and of persons baptized, together with such records of marriages and deaths as are contained in the registers, printed in an appendix, were prepared for this work by Mr. John E. Morris, clerk of the Second Ecclesiastical Society of Hartford.
EDWIN P. PARKER.
CHAPTER I THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE
THE HISTORIAN of the First Church in Hartford, in search- ing out the antecedents of its founders and tracing their movements hitherward, finds himself transported among scenes and events of much more than local importance. He explores ancient cities and towns, both of England and Hol- land. He visits venerable churches and universities. He mingles with scholars and divines whose conscientious parts in the Puritan contest marked them for persecution, and stamped their voluntary exile with the seal of heroism. He witnesses the gathering of the church at Newtown, follows its pilgrimage to the valley of the Connecticut, and watches its wise endeavors to lay the foundations of a free common- wealth in this wilderness. The materials for a fascinating introduction to his work are abundant. The Second Church in Hartford rejoices with grateful pride that the almost romantic story of her mother's early fortunes has been so diligently composed and graphically related as to render all further efforts in that direction superfluous.1
The history of the Second Church begins in far different scenes and conditions, and the materials for it are compara- tively meagre and poor. Our starting point is a straggling hamlet in the Connecticut wilderness, where the grave has already closed over the great man who had led his flock hither and founded here a church and commonwealth. No men survived him who were strong and wise enough to carry on his work in peace. The survivors of Thomas Hooker were good, plain people, whose struggle for exist- ence amid hard conditions was severe and incessant. Their
1 History of the First Church in Hartford, by Dr. George Leon Walker.
14
History of the Church
manifold privations and discomforts were not wholly favor- able to either social or spiritual culture. In the absence of a wise and dominant leader in the church, their narrow limitations and considerable isolation tended to awaken and foster among them the same spirit of discord, the same personal and partisan prejudices and jealousies which flourished in too many of the colonial towns of that period, dominated, as they all were, by strong but narrow ecclesi- astical authorities. The origin of this church is traceable, moreover, to an obscure and protracted contention among brethren who could neither dwell together in unity nor come to any terms of amicable separation. Our chronicle, therefore, can have nothing romantic about it, but must be, at best, a simple attempt to thread the labyrinth of con- troversies until, daylight reached, the peaceable course of the church's life may be quietly surveyed.
The Second Church in Hartford was organized on the 12th of February (O. S.), 1669, or (N. S.), on the 22d of February, 1670. Its founders were very respectable men and women who, with their children, had withdrawn from the First Church in Hartford. The reasons for their with- drawal and establishment in a distinct estate are to be found, as has been said, in certain dissensions that for many years had profoundly agitated the First Church. For eleven years the Hartford Church flourished in harmony and peace under the able and judicious ministry of Thomas Hooker. In the year 1647, Mr. Hooker died, universally lamented, and Mr. Samuel Stone, a native of Hertford, England, was left alone in the ministry of the church.
Within the decade after Mr. Hooker's death, a contro- versy occurred in the church which soon became a conten- tion. This contention, as it continued, became greatly com- plicated and exceedingly virulent, and drew in its train councils and synods and courts. For many years Mr. Stone and a majority of the church formed one party in the con- tention, while the other party comprised a strong and
15
The Struggle for Existence
respectable minority striving in vain for a peaceable dismis- sion from the church in which they conceived themselves to be unjustly treated and subjected to certain novelties of church order and discipline which seemed to them subver- sive of the good old Congregational polity in which the church was founded. The contention grew to such dimen- sions and continued with such vehemence that it excited the alarm of all the churches of the neighboring colonies. Councils, synods, and courts ineffectually (and often un- wisely) strove to extinguish this "fire of the altar " from which "there issued thunderings and lightnings and earth- quakes through the colony."1 The controversy was all the more deplorable as springing up in a church of "such emi- nence for light and love." The difficulty of penetrating to the original causes of the controversy has been acknowl- edged by all who have written about it from the outset. Cotton Mather said that "the true original of the misunder- standing . has been rendered almost as obscure as the rise of the Connecticut River," and he likened its sad consequences to the annual inundation of the same river, "for it overspread the whole colony of Connecticut."? A letter from eminent ministers in Massachusetts to Captain John Cullick and Elder Goodwin of Hartford, written in 1656, speaks of it as a fire, "the source of whose flames per- plexeth us day and night." 3
It has been generally assumed that the trouble began in differences of opinion concerning baptism and the rights of those who had been baptized but were not communicants, or "the new qualifications for baptism and church member- ship." That these questions, involving the right of baptized persons who were not members of the church in full com- munion, on "owning the covenant," to have their children baptized, and, perhaps, to share in the election of church officers, were already in discussion at that time, is unques- tionable. It is beyond question, also, that, at a later date, 1 Magnalia, vol. 1: 436. " Magnalia, 1: 394. 3 Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. 2: 59-63.
16
History of the Church
these questions came into the Hartford controversy. But it is doubtful if such questions had much to do, directly, with the earlier stages of the contention. "Not one of the twenty-one contemporaneous documents, of various author- ship, in the newly-discovered papers published in the Historical Society's collection, speaks of this matter as in anyway an issue in debate." 1
Dr. Trumbull attributes the origin of the controversy to " a difference between the Rev. Mr. Stone and Mr. Good win, the Ruling Elder in the church, upon some nice points of Congregationalism."? Elsewhere he speaks of it as a differ- ence as to "the rights of the brotherhood," for which Elder Goodwin stoutly stood as against Mr. Stone who stood as stoutly for his clerical prerogatives. Dr. Leonard Bacon says that the controversy involved "a conflict between opposite principles of ecclesiastical order."3 The personal element in the controversy may be acknowledged as poten- tial and perplexing. Rev. Mr. Stone, the Teaching Elder, and Mr. Goodwin, the Ruling Elder in the church, with whose antagonism, according to all accounts, the troubles began, were men of positive convictions and of inflexible firmness in maintaining them.
" In the first breaking out of the difference between Mr. Stone and Mr. Goodwin, I did what lay in me to dissuade them from a council in this case, and rather persuaded to a more private and brotherly way of healing, before the church there was engaged unto parties." 4
Rev. Mr. Stone was said to have more of the "flint- stone " than of the "load-stone" in his "management of principles." He magnified his office and had exalted notions of its prerogatives. He had already, as early as 1650, written in favor of the rights of children of church members to church membership " by virtue of their Father's Covenant," and may have become, on that account, distasteful to many
1 Walker's Hist. of First Church, p. 153. The papers here referred to are those described in our preface and called the Landsdowne Manuscripts.
2 Hist. of Conn., I: 308. 3 Contributions to Ecc. Hist., p. 15.
4 Hist. Coll., vol. 2: 93. Letter of John Higginson of Guilford.
17
The Struggle for Existence
in the church who clung to the stricter views of Mr. Hooker. Elder Goodwin also magnified his office of Ruling Elder. He was, by virtue of that office, the natural Moderator at church meetings. It was his duty to prepare business for the action of the church, to exercise a general superintend- ence over the conduct of members, to call and dismiss meet- ings, and, in the absence of Pastor and Teacher, to preach. Although, as Winthrop says, "a very reverend and godly man," yet he was one who, in "heat of argument," could so far forget himself as "to use some unreverend speech," for which he was ready "gravely and humbly to acknowledge his fault."' Two such men, representing conflicting princi- ples of church order and discipline, occupying, in the same church, offices whose functions might easily overlap each the other, were not likely to escape antagonism. But the trouble had a deeper ground than mere local or personal disagreements. On several nice and important questions of Congregationalism these men and their respective adherents were fundamentally divided. It has been noticed that in 1650 Mr. Stone publicly approved the new and larger theory of baptismal rights. It is a significant fact that in that same year he predicted that the "churches would come to be broken by schism and sudden censures and angry removes prayers against prayers, hearts against hearts, tears against tears, tongues against tongues."2 He was too sagacious a man, not to discern the signs of the times, and whither the new Congregationalism of his day was tending. He defined Congregationalism as "a speaking aristocracy in the face of a silent democracy." His ideas of church government, says Trumbull, bordered more on Presbyterian- ism and less on independence than those of the first minis- ters of the country in general.3 Elder Goodwin, and a strong minority in the church, resisted these innovations and the attempts made to enforce them, as dangerous alike to the purity, peace, and welfare of the churches. Against
1 Winthrop's Journal, 1: 142. 2
2 Magnalia, 1: 436. 9 Hist., I: 322.
18
History of the Church
what they believed to be Mr. Stone's un-congregational ideas and latitudinarian tendencies, they stood for the "rights of the brotherhood," and for the maintenance of the principles of their former and venerated Pastor.
It is fairly questionable whether the old Congregational- ism, with its severe conceptions and rigorous tests of con- version, was not becoming intolerable to many good men and women in all the colonial communities. They could neither submit to the hard terms of church membership, nor endure to be, with their children, entirely outside the pale of the religious societies which exercised a powerful domina- tion over social life, and for whose support they were obliged to give of their substance. But whatever readjust- ments and enlargements may have been necessary, it is now certain that neither the innovations of Mr. Stone, nor the new measures that followed in after years were such as the changing conditions of society required, or such as ex- perience justified. That which was really needed to remedy the inadequacies of the too narrow and restrictive ecclesi- astical system, namely,-a reformation or reconstruction of dogmatic and experimental theology, on the broad lines of Gospel doctrine, seems not to have been in the least con- sidered by any of the parties at that time.
But, all such considerations aside, the fact to be regard- ed here is that the minority in the Hartford church, finding themselves unable to sanction or endure the administration of its affairs by Mr. Stone, and failing in all their many efforts to give or receive satisfaction, earnestly sought for a dismission to other churches, or for permission to form themselves into a distinct church. And when they were denied this, and were prohibited by the technicalities of church discipline and by the meddlesome authority of the General Court from any way of peaceable settlement con- sistent with their conscientious convictions, they stood aloof, in formal withdrawal from communion, and suffered much in that state of suspense. It is to their credit that they
19
The Struggle for Existence
patiently strove for peaccable separation when unity and harmony were no longer possible. It is to the discredit of their opponents that every possible obstacle was put in the way of their removal, and that all expedients were exhaust- ed by which they might be reduced to a subjection that was unendurable to their spirits.
And yet it should be said, in mitigation of the action of the majority, that public sentiment in all the colonial churches at that time was distinctly averse to the formation of new religious societies in the towns and plantations. Boston was the only town in which there was then more than one church. It was doubtless true that the Hartford church would have been sorely weakened by the withdrawal of so many members from its support. In the "Complaint of Nathaniel Barding and others of the church against Mr. Webster and others of the Dissenting Brethren, presented to the General Court," the following argument is made : -
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