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CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH WARREN, CONNECTICUT
1756-1956
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01762 7362
GENEALOGY 974.601 L 71CU
Jo Ruth G. Herrel grave from Lucy S. Curtii From one yankee To another October, 1956
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019
https://archive.org/details/congregationalch00curt
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, WARREN, CONN.
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THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
WARREN, CONNECTICUT
1756 - 1956
LUCY SACKETT CURTISS
1956
19 56 BREWER-BORG CORP. PRINTED IN U. S. A.
FOREWORD
This is the history, not primarily of a town but of a church; yet town and church grew up together, the same people building both, and the history of the two is closely in- terwoven. Whatever contributes to the understanding of the people-their early settlement, the conditions under which they lived, the hardships they endured, the successes they achieved-this is pertinent to the story.
But the central theme is always the church. Its course has not been smooth; the path has led up to the hilltops and down into the valleys; it has been illuminated by brilliant lights and darkened by heavy shadows. The people who trod that path were very human people, subject often to dis- couragement, sometimes falling into dissension, but capable also of enduring fortitude, unwearying devotion, and noble sacrifice.
With courage and faith they laid the foundations of this church; for two centuries, in times of prosperity and times of difficulty, they have carried on its tradition. To them-the pioneers upon these Warren hills and those who in later years have kept the faith-in gratitude and loyalty this book is dedicated.
iii
"As we pass along on the journey of life, it may be useful and profitable to us, at certain seasons, to take our stand, and reflect upon what is past, and look forward and consider what will be probable future. In doing this, we may see many things amiss in ourselves to regret and call for humiliation, re- pentance, and reformation; and at the same time we may recollect many mercies bestowed upon ourselves and others, which call for our gratitude and praise ; many things which we have heard, and known, and our fathers have told us, which ought not only to be kept in remembrance by us, but transmitted to posterity. We should not hide them from our child- ren, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, his strength, and the wonderful works that he hath done, to the end that we, and the genera- tions to come might be induced to set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God; but keep his commandments."
From Parson Starr's Half-Century Sermon, March 8, 1822
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MINISTERS OF THE WARREN CHURCH
Rev. Sylvanus Osborn, 1757-1771
The First Meeting House, 1767 Rev. Peter Starr, 1772-1829
The Second Meeting House, 1818
Rev. Hart Talcott, 1825-1836
Rev. Harley Goodwin, 1838-1843
Rev. John R. Keep, 1844-1852
Rev. Montgomery R. Wakeman, 1854-1856
Rev. Francis Lobdell, 1859-1863 The Meeting House Modernized, 1859
Rev. William Elliott Bassett, 1864-1875
Rev. Willis S. Colton, 1876-1888
Rev. Austin Gardner, 1889-1897 Rev. Myron A. Munson, 1898-1903
Rev. William E. Brooks, D.D., 1904-1906
Rev. Charles A. Pickett, 1907-1909
Rev. Virgil W. Blackman, 1910-1914
Rev. Finis E. Delzell, 1915-1929
Mr. Harry A. Studwell, 1929-1931
Rev. Lester Linderman, 1932-1937 Rev. Elwyn K. Jordan, 1938-1941 The Meeting House Restored, 1939 Rev. Frank W. Barber, 1942-1944 Rev. Arthur E. Gregg, 1944-1947 Rev. George C. L. Cooley, 1947-
The High Pulpit Restored, 1955
V
DEACONS OF THE CHURCH
Joseph Smalley, 1757
Daniel Lee, 1757 Abel Comstock, (Moved to Vermont) Justus Sackett
Jonathan Hitchcock, (Moved to Vermont)
Ebenezer Tanner
Salmon Sackett, 1808, (Moved to Tallmadge, Ohio) Amos Fowler
John Tallmadge
Jonathan Reynolds, 1820
Joseph A. Tanner, 1820 (Moved to Waverly, Ill.)
Gustavus Rouse, 1835
John Taylor, 1835 Clark P. Swift, 1851
William Hopkins, 1851
Benjamin E. Carter, 1876
Franklin A. Curtiss, 1876
Austin R. Humphrey, 1896
Robert Swift, 1907
Robert H. Perkins, 1914
John F. Angevine, 1920
George Angevine, 1941
Eldred Tanner, 1941
James Perkins, 1954
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN
1
II. THE GATHERING OF THE CHURCH
II
III. A CRITICAL HALF-CENTURY
24
IV. A DECADE OF DEVELOPMENT 47
V. YEARS OF TENSION
61
VI. THE END OF AN ERA
84
VII. A NEW HALF-CENTURY
95
VIII. A CHAPTER OF RECENT HISTORY
103
IX. THE WESTWARD MIGRATION 116
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ILLUSTRATIONS
The Warren Church
Frontispiece
Rev. George C. L. Cooley 1
Diagram of First Meeting House
18
Rev. Peter Starr 24
Diagram of Second Meeting House
38
Rev. William Elliott Bassett
80
Rev. William S. Colton 81
Rev. Finis E. Delzell
96
Models, Showing Steeple
112
The Pulpit Restored
113
viii
ـظ نها ..
George 6. L. Cooley
CHAPTER I.
SETTLEMENT OF THE TOWN
T HE year is 1738. The curtain rises upon the last act of the drama of occupation in the Colony of Connecticut. For a century pioneers had been trekking down from Massachusetts, seeking new homes and new areas of un- claimed land, and substantial towns had been established in various parts of the Colony : Windsor, Wethersfield and Hart- ford on the Connecticut River (1635) ; Saybrook (1635), New Haven (1637), Stratford (1639) and Norwalk (1649) on Long Island Sound; New London (1646), Norwich (1659), and Lebanon (1700) in the East. From Stratford and Milford in- trepid individuals or small groups of hardy settlers had been pushing slowly northward to Derby (1642), Woodbury (1672), Danbury (1684), and Newtown (1705). Only the northern part of Litchfield County still remained, a region largely un- explored, with few white settlers.
This section, however, except for small areas of cleared land or patches of forest burned by Indian fires, was still, as one early traveler described it, "a hideous, prowling wilder- ness", a wilderness extending west to the Dutch settlements on the Hudson and north to the French and Indian villages of Canada. A more picturesque name was "The Greenwoods", a name suggested by the great forests of majestic pines. Presi- dent Stiles of Yale, riding between Norfolk and Canaan, made note of one pine that measured fifteen feet in girth, and of a fallen giant which he judged by the number of annual rings to have been at least four hundred years old. But through these Greenwoods there were no paths save now and then an Indian trail, and they held uncounted dangers-dangers from
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wolves, bears, and wildcats that roamed at will, and dangers from lurking Indians who might at any time prove treacher- ous.
But not even a "hideous, prowling wilderness" could hold back settlement indefinitely. In 1703 a group of proprietors, or "adventurers", from Milford purchased Weautenaug (New Milford) from "the heathen" for about four dollars a right, or approximately a cent an acre, and four years later the first settler arrived. Leaving most of his rather numerous family behind him, John Noble walked from Westfield, Massachu- setts, following Indian trails, and bringing his eight-year-old daughter along "to cook his victuals" for him. His house faced a great swamp, now the village green. On one occasion he left his small daughter with an Indian squaw for several weeks while he guided a party to Albany, finding on his return that she had been well cared for.
In 1715 the town of Hartford sent out one John Marsh on an exploring expedition for the purpose of "Viewing the Land of the New Plantation". For the five-day trip he was paid two pounds besides a liberal supply of rum and expenses for "a Pilot and Protection", "fastening horse shoes at Water- bury", "perambulating the North Line", drawing deeds, and other incidentals.
Four years later a group of men headed by Deacon John Buell of Lebanon received from the General Court permission "to settle a town at Bantam to be called Litchfield", and the next year (1720) the first white settlement in that town was made.
Difficulties and dangers abounded in the new settlement, which consisted of a little cluster of log cabins, four or five of them protected by palisades, at least fifteen miles from the nearest white neighbors. The very existence of palisades and armed guards was evidence of the ever present fear of attack from roving Indians who, normally peaceful, had been stirred to occasional action by the long-drawn-out French and Indian
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wars. The discouragement of the pioneers is revealed by "A memorial of the distressed state of the town of Litchfield which we humbly lay before the Honorable General Assembly now sitting in New Haven," which reads: "By reason of the late war our lands are become of little value, so that they who are desirous of selling, to subsist their families & defray pub- lic charges which necessarily arise in a new place, are unable to do it." Similar memorials were submitted from time to time by other towns in the region, but the answer of the "Honorable General Assembly", sitting in peace and safety in New Haven, was always the same, namely that any timid person who deserted his post or failed to do his share in pro- tecting the settlement would thereby forfeit all title to his land. Such conditions naturally deterred other settlers from pushing into these isolated regions.
Settlement was further obstructed by a knotty legal prob- lem. When Sir Edmund Andros-he of the Connecticut Char- ter episode-was appointed royal governor of New England, (1686) the General Court, sensing the danger of royal usurpa- tion of the unoccupied "Western Lands", hastily assigned those lands for safe keeping to the towns of Hartford and Windsor. The Colony regarded this grant as merely a tem- porary expedient, but the two towns considered the areas thus acquired permanent additions to their territory and evinced no intention of surrendering them when the danger was past. The General Court eventually settled the dispute (1729) by ceding the eastern part, including Litchfield, to Hartford and Windsor and retaining the western part for the Colony of Connecticut. Hartford and Windsor divided their portion amicably between themselves and proceeded with the sale of the land.
The Colony likewise applied itself to the business of settlement, its portion comprising the towns of Goshen, Nor- folk, Canaan, Cornwall, Salisbury, Sharon, and Kent. These towns were auctioned off to proprietors and laid out into indi- vidual holdings which were then sold "to His Majesty's sub-
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jects of Connecticut and to them only" for immediate settle- ment. Each of the towns was divided into fifty-three rights except Salisbury, which was divided into only twenty-five. Of these rights three were reserved-one to become the property of the first minister, one for the support of the minister, and one for the maintenance of a school; the remaining fifty were distributed by lot among the purchasers.
In each of the towns except Sharon the 'Court decreed that the income from three hundred acres should be devoted for a period of 999 years to the support of Yale College, these lands to be known as "The College Farm". By a provision of 1751 the rent was fixed at five per cent of the value of the land at that time, though the Court clearly recognized that this valuation, then higher than that of other sections of the town, might "in future times - - - - seem low". (In later years special arrangements with the College have superseded the annual payment of rent.) The College Farm in Kent was to be laid out in the eastern part of the town "near what is called the Tamerisk Swamp-on a brook running out of said swamp and emptying into the West pond-The South East corner being a white oak stake marked Y. C. with stones about it-To a rock marked Y. C .- to a white oak Stake marked Y. C. with a heap of stones about it-to a red oak tree marked Y. C. with a heap of stones about it."
Finally, in March, 1938, at the courthouse in Windham an auction was held for the sale, at fifty pounds per right, of the town which was "hereby named and shall forever here- after be called and named Kent". Many of the first purchasers came from the towns of Colchester, Lebanon, and Hebron, where young men had been urged to "Go West and grow up with the country". Among the pioneers who during the first decade took up land in the section now known as Warren, were some of the town's most influential men-men whose names or the names of their descendants will be readily recog- nized. For example, Thomas Beeman; Dr. Cyrus Berry ; John Brownson; Joseph, Benoni, Solomon, and Barzallia Carter;
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Eleazer, Silas, Milton, and Lysander Curtiss ; Ward and Judah Eldred; Sylvester and John Finney; Nathan Hopkins; Justus and Homer Sackett; William Stone; Platt Starr; Philo Strong; Nathaniel and Jabez Swift, and Ephraim Tanner.
Other settlers-Barnums, Bateses, Comstocks, Fullers, Skiffs-most of whom had come from Colchester, Fairfield, or Norwalk, took up land in the western part of the town, that part which still bears the original name of Kent. The town covered a large area, reaching from Litchfield on the east to the New York State line on the west, and with the conditions of travel and communications then existing it is not strange that the inhabitants of the eastern and the western sections constituted from the first two quite distinct groups.
Each settler guaranteed within three years to clear at least six acres, to build a house not less than eighteen feet square and seven feet from floor to ceiling, and to live on that site for at least three years. For a generation that had grown up in a relatively settled community like Lebanon or Norwalk, this migration into the unknown wilderness was a venture- some undertaking - just how venturesome it is difficult for us to realize. Prayers were offered in the churches for those who were setting forth and tearful farewells were exchanged between families and friends who expected never to meet again.
The first settler, Stephen Paine, came from Canterbury and located on "Potash Hill" near the "Great Pond", in the present town of Warren. He was a man of practical interests, being listed as farmer, surveyor, and drover. His daughter Rhoda had the distinction of being the first white child born in the town (September, 1738). She was also renowned for her strength, and whether of some affinity for the name or other- wise, she married Philip Strong, who had come with his parents from Lebanon. It is recorded that as her betrothed approached her one day, she playfully lifted a large tub of water to her lips and drank his health, inviting him to return the compliment in the same manner. At another time, seeing
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two young men struggling to lift a barrel full of cider, she offered, if they would stand aside, to do it for them, and she lifted the barrel into the wagon with the greatest of ease. Philip and Rhoda made their home on the College Farm. They had four daughters and eleven sons. The Paines were buried in an old cemetery near the lake, on ground that was later owned by the Hopkins family.
Relations between the white settlers and their Indian neighbors proved, fortunately, to be peaceable and even friend- ly. The colony had, on the whole, dealt honorably with the Indians of this region; it had made payments for land ac- quired-payments which apparently satisfied the Indians though from a modern viewpoint they seem ridiculously small -and it prohibited any purchase by individual settlers with- out approval by the General Assembly. A few tales of kid- napping or murder that had occurred in Litchfield a decade before may have caused some qualms among the fearful; and of course a household was never surprised to have one or more Indians appear unannounced, partake of the family meal, and sleep in the barn or in winter before the kitchen fire, but in the morning they usually went peaceably about their business. Doubtless thrifty housewives grumbled a bit over the neces- sity of entertaining these uninvited and unwashed guests in their already overcrowded cabins, but they accepted them as part of the price of their new abodes and were thankful to be left unharmed.
Along the valley of the Housatonic were the Scatacooks, numbering perhaps a hundred families. Some ten years be- fore the arrival of the whites, a wandering Pequot chief, Mau- wehu, had stood on the mountain top one day and looked down over the valley. Impressed both by the beauty of the location and by the abundance of fish and game available, he at once decided to make it his permanent home. There he built his hunting lodge and gathered about him members of various tribes who had been driven from their homes, either by the Pequot wars or by the ever. advancing white man.
[ 6]
Three years after the arrival of the first white settlers a group of Moravian missionaries established an Indian church near the river. Some one hundred twenty Indians were bap- tized, including Chief Mauwehu, who took the Christian name of Gideon and became a powerful preacher. His grand- daughter, Eunice Mauwehu, the last pure-blooded member of the tribe, died in 1864 at the age of one hundred. The Mora- vians were regarded, however, with suspician by their white neighbors, as is clearly shown by a note in the Colonial Records (1743) : "The Assembly is informed that there are several strangers, which it is supposed are not the subjects of our Sovereign Lord the King, but are foreigners, straggling about the Colony upon evil and dangerous designs, endeavor- ing to sow and plant false and dangerous doctrines of religion among us-to alienate and estrange the minds of the Indians from us, or to spy out the country." The missionaries refused to take the required oath of allegiance and in 1763 the mission was abandoned.
Farther down the Housatonic River were other villages of Indians, who were ruled by the great chief Waramaug. Waramaug was a remarkable sachem and he held sway over a large territory; his tribesmen included the Bantams about Mount Tom, the Wyantucks of New Milford, and scattered groups along Long Island Sound, many of them refugees from the Pequot wars. He held his great council fire at Paugasset- Potatuck (Derby-Shelton), but he had built strong forts on each side of the river about a mile below the present village of New Milford, mainly for protection against Mohawk raids. He is supposed to have commanded from a hundred fifty to two hundred warriors. After Waramaug's death, many of these Indians joined the Scatacooks of Kent.
Chief Waramaug had from the beginning been a friend of the white men, readily selling them tracts of land but reserv- ing ownership of the forts upon the river and the territory around Bantam Lake, besides certain hunting and fishing rights Each spring when the ice broke up and the "suckers"
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went upstream to spawn, the Indians followed, camping by the stream and carrying away great quantities of fish. Spearing suckers in "Sucker Brook" continued for many years to be a spring-time diversion of Warren boys, an art originally learned, perhaps, from the Indians.
Indians and Whites shared a common fear of the warlike Mohawks who periodically crossed the New York border on fishing excursions or for reasons less peaceable. Mount Tom was a link in the chain of lookouts along which, by warwhoop and signal fire, warning of a Mohawk raid could be sent in two hours from Stockbridge, or from the "Great Wigwam" at Great Barrington, to Long Island Sound. In fact, the very name "Mount Tom" is reminiscent of Indian days, it being derived, at least according to one theory, from the common nickname of "Tommy Indian" (possibly short for tommy- hawk), as we speak of "Tommy Atkins" or "G. I. Joe". Dur- ing the Revolution Indian scouts did valuable service in relay- ing warnings of attack by drumbeat or signal fire along the entire length of the valley.
The Colony had recognized its responsibility for education and religious instruction to the Indian, at least in some measure, as evidenced by an appropriation of twenty pounds to the Rev. Daniel Boardman and Mr. Samuel Canfield for "the support of Indians when at school or attending on the ministry of the word in the town of New Milford". Whether Chief Waramaug formally embraced Christianity or not is uncer- tain, but on his death bed hei summoned Mr. Boardman, pastor of the New Milford Church and a staunch friend, to pray for his soul. Waramaug's wife, skeptical of the efficacy of the white minister's prayers, sent for the medicine man of the tribe and a notable contest ensued to prove which could pray longest and loudest. At the end of three hours, according to the record, during which the voices of both had increased steadily in volume and intensity, the medicine man gave up and, letting out one final unearthly yell, fled from the scene and "never stopped till he was cooling himself up to his neck in the Housatonic."
[8]
Waramaug's death had occurred about three years before Stephen Paine built his cabin on the shore of the lake which later bore the great sachem's name, but many of the early settlers doubtless saw and marveled over the palace on the crest of "Steep Rock" which was considered one of the wan- ders of the time .* Twenty feet wide by a hundred feet long, it stood on the bluff overlooking the rapids and falls of Metich- awan. Its inner walls were covered with slabs of bark, care- fully selected and brought often long distances on the backs of runners. These slabs, turned smooth side out, were decor- ated with paintings by the most famous artists of the tribe- in the council room, portraits of Waramaug, his family and chief men, and in the smaller rooms pictures of the beasts, birds, reptiles, and even insects familiar to the region.
According to the legend of "Lover's Leap", a legend, by the way, that has numerous counterparts in other regions, Lillinonah, Waramaug's beautiful daughter, loved a pale-face youth; but when he appeared to have deserted her, she was betrothed by her father, to an Indian brave. With true devo- tion to her first love, Lillinonah, on her wedding morning, at- tired in her bridal garments, launched her bark canoe and paddled swiftly toward the falls of the Metichawan. At pre- cisely the critical moment the wandering youth appeared, took in the situation at a glance, and plunged heroically from the rock to be united in death with his faithful princess. Accord- ing to another version, the lovers, their marriage having been barred by parental or tribal decree, took the fatal plunge to- gether.
The great chieftain was buried near his palace, the site marked by a shaft of rock eight or ten feet high and sur- rounded by objects of Indian craft and lore. This monument stood until the 1880's when it was removed by the desecrating hands of modern builders.
*See The Housatonic, by Chard Powers Smith, Rinehard and Company, 1946.
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Such was the picture of the western section of Litchfield County in the mid-eighteenth century. Into this largely un- explored region of hills and valleys, of lake, river, and wilder- ness, a region inhabited by alien and uncivilized, but fortu- nately in the main friendly natives, came, one after another, little groups of white men. What had led these men to leave already established communities and face the hardships and dangers that they knew awaited them here? . What were their feelings-and the feelings of their womenfolk, as they viewed for the first time the isolated and forbidding plots of land that they had bought? They were by no means mere adventurers, led by the lure of the unknown, the challenge of the un- familiar. They were men with families and family responsi- bilities; they were young men, mostly, who wanted to estab- lish their own homes as their fathers had done before them and who could see no future on farms too small to be divided among several sons in an increasing population. They were likewise men who had the vision to see new communities growing out of this wilderness and who possessed the courage and hardihood to make the vision come true. Litchfield Coun- ty was merely another mile-stone on the march which, when the occupation of the Colony of Connecticut was completed, would go on to open up the as yet unexplored territory of Ver- mont and the undreamed of possibilities of Ohio, Illinois, and the far West. And with the settlers came, as always among these freedom-loving, God-fearing people, the school and the church, the foundation stones of American democracy.
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CHAPTER II.
THE GATHERING OF THE CHURCH
REV. SYLVANUS OSBORN, 1757-1771
T HE first responsibility of the settlers in the town of Kent was simple survival. Trees must be chopped or girdled for later burning, log cabins must be built, the ground must be prepared for the first crops. When the Sabbath came, bringing at least some respite from the labors of the week, the thoughts of the people turned longingly to the churches that they had left behind. In one or another of the rude cabins small groups gathered for a simple service, led perhaps by a deacon from the old church in Fairfield or Lebanon. For three years this continued. Then, in 1741, a church of eleven mem- bers was gathered in Flanders, somewhat north of the present location of the Kent church. The churches of Sharon and New Milford acted as sponsors, and the Rev. Cyrus Marsh was called to be the minister.
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