USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > A history of Saint John's Church, Hartford, Connecticut, 1841-1941 > Part 2
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
The edifice was in every way worthy of the devotion that inspired it, and represented the best in the revival of Gothic art. Bishop Brownell said that for architectural taste and propriety few churches in the country could surpass it. Its generous dimensions and seating capacity of eight hundred and fifty suggested that the builders expected the rapid growth that soon filled all seats. Including the tower and chancel, the edifice was one hundred and twelve feet long, and its generous breadth included space for three aisles and broad galleries along the sides. The slender spire, rising one hundred and ninety feet from the ground, was one of the highest in Hartford.
Pictures of that old church suggest a deliberate effort to
]27 [
produce an effect of aspiration by adopting the early pointed Gothic style, with many pinnacles rising toward a slender spire. It was constructed of freestone from the famous quarries at Portland, but the recessed chancel was of brick. The tower, projecting its full size, afforded a spacious porch with a double-leaf portal. Above the tower rose a wooden octangular belfry with latticed lancets and eight slender pinnacles, and above that shot the graceful cone of the spire. Buttresses, flaring toward the base, supported the tower and bore large pinnacles intersected by battlements.
The chancel reflected the new liturgical interest springing from the Oxford Revival in 1833. It was situated in a richly wainscotted recess at the east end, lighted by a lofty pointed and mullioned window. Eight windows of the same style, four on each side and rising above the galleries, lighted the interior. The ceiling was one arch, spanning the entire breadth of the building and composed of a series of richly moulded groins with bases sustained by highly ornamented corbels. The angles of the mouldings, at the center of the arch, were covered with deep bosses and sculptured ties. In general effect the interior resembled that of Christ Church today, excepting the heavy pillars. There were side galleries and a choir loft over the porch. The front of the galleries was composed of a series of deep panels divided by mullions, with beds of trefoil tracery. All the interior woodwork was grained in imitation of oak.
The chief pride was the recessed chancel, then rather unusual in American Episcopal churches and generally con- sidered quite "High." It contributed to the marked liturgical emphasis, which is said to have caused a slight rise of the eyebrow here and there. But, as the historian of old Christ Church observed, "It often takes a little time to get things fairly settled in the minds of the best of us." There was a sober richness in that chancel, with its massive rail supported by decorated mullions, its altar and large Gothic chairs for the clergy. The pulpit and desk, both within the chancel,
] 28 [
were trimmed with rich purple velvet, and in front of it stood a beautiful font of the finest white marble.
Rarely has a new parish been more richly endowed by the devout, with gifts for the celebration of the sacraments and the performance of worship. Mrs. Elizabeth and Miss Hetty B. Hart gave the fine altar plate, consisting of three alms basons, a large bread plate, a silver paten, a pair of silver chalices, and a silver flagon "curiously wrought" on the lid with the Agnus Dei and cross. These gifts were first used in the Holy Communion service on the day of con- secration. Miss Hart gave the font, first used for the holy sacrament of baptism at evensong on the fourth Sunday after Easter, April 24, 1842. The first Christian baptized in it was William Wheaton, son of F. J. Huntington of old Lord's Hill. In 1909 the parish gave it to Saint Andrew's Mission, now Saint Andrew's Church on Lenox Street. Mrs. Hart donated also two quarto Prayer Books and a folio Oxford Bible for the lectern, two octavo Prayer Books for the altar and one for the pulpit. She gave fair linen for the altar, and Miss Hetty Hart gave a surplice. Another surplice was the offering of Mrs. Hezekiah Huntington.
The massive oak chairs, used for the first time at the consecration, were made and given by Mr. P. E. Robbins of Robbins & Winship, cabinetmakers. Mr. Lee, the Senior Warden, paid for rich Brussels carpeting in the chancel. Mrs. Hart and Miss Hetty Hart and Mr. Robbins, were members of old Christ Church. Through them the mother parish expressed her undiminished love for her child.
TO THESE, O LORD, WE PRAY THEE GRANT A PLACE OF REFRESHMENT, OF LIGHT, AND OF
PEACE.
The members were justly proud of their organ, which then was one of the finest and cost over two thousand dollars, mostly raised by a subscription started in November, 1841. It was built by E. and G. C. Hook of Boston, and had two
]29 [
banks of keys, with an octave and a half of pedals, and was enclosed in a wooden Gothic casing. With Mr. William J. Babcock, organist of Christ Church at the keyboard it pro- vided music for the service of consecration. Important improvements were made to it at Christmas of 1850.
Although members and friends subscribed generously to the building fund, the building called for great financial sacrifices from the few original members. During the first two years they paid off nineteen thousand dollars, five thou- sand in notes and two thousand more for the organ. For a parish of only about one hundred and thirty families and less than two hundred communicants, the burden was heavy, as at the consecration the debt was still about twenty-one thousand dollars. Yet it was cheerfully borne, on top of the usual expenses and the noted benevolences of Saint John's. There have not been many parishes whose members knew more fully that their gold and silver were the Lord's. So generous were they to every cause, that their own debts were not entirely cleaned from the slate until the fiftieth anniversary in 1892.
That long burden was due partly to the loving care for the stately church and its embellishment. It has been said of the members of Christ Church that "No young wife was ever more careful of her new house than were these men of the building which they had recently erected." The same might have been said with equal justice of the early mem- bers of Saint John's. One of their first cares was to procure a bell, for which the Wardens were authorized to raise funds by subscription in October, 1847. It cost six hundred dollars and was raised to the belfry on December 22nd-no mean feat, as it weighed slightly more than a ton. Brought from the old church, it still calls the school and the congre- gation to church.
In 1849 Mr. William T. Lee generously offered to bear the expense of lighting the church with gas. The Vestry gladly accepted his kindness and decided that, so long as
] 30 [
the spirit of improvement was moving, they should recon- struct and ornament the chancel. Bishop Brownell came that autumn to dedicate the new chancel with its stained- glass window, and Dr. Coxe was greatly pleased, as it conformed to his love of a stately worship. The cost of all the improvements amounted to twelve hundred and fifty dollars.
Shortly afterward much was done to promote the build- ing's appearance and the congregation's comfort. In the spring of 1850 the Wardens were empowered to erect an iron fence in front of the church, as soon as they could raise the funds. In those days no city church was considered quite dignified without a Gothic iron fence with massive gate- posts, like the one still standing in front of Christ Church. Nor could a congregation feel entirely comfortable, as old- timers critically remarked, unless the church were heated like a parlor. They hoped they had seen the last of days when one could see the minister's breath and hear the frozen Communion bread "rattle sadly" in the paten. So in the spring of 1856 the Wardens and Vestrymen resolved to excavate the basement and "erect" a furnace. The new- fangled heater was duly installed, as we say now, and like all furnaces demanded repairs now and then and sulked- probably at the most inconvenient times.
The galleries, where students from Trinity College sat, also required alterations and repairs, which were ordered in 1858. By 1860 there was considerable dissatisfaction with the church's interior arrangement and appearance. After much discussion, passing and rescinding of votes, the War- dens were finally permitted to paint the interior, alter the seats and transfer the organ to the northeast corner, at an expense of not more than forty-three hundred dollars.
As parish life branched out into new activities, mostly associated with the Sunday School, the building began to seem ill-arranged and inadequate. The problem of enough space for organizations was not fully solved until the
]31 [
removal to Farmington Avenue and the erection of a parish house. A futile effort was made in 1864, by a plan to alter the rooms near the chancel. The vestry would become a library for the Church School, while the organ chamber could be made into two rooms, the upper opening from the north gallery, the lower from the chancel. The former could be given to the Bible Class, the latter used as a vestry room.
Years passed and the smoke and grime of a growing city began to make the old church look dingy. In the summer of 1874 it was closed for cleaning and "refreshing" with paint and modest decoration. Services were resumed late in September. About the same time the spire began to cause grave concern, and in 1875 the Wardens appointed a com- mittee to have the cone taken down. As a concession to safety that was wise, but it would mar the church's appear- ance by leaving the octangular belfry like a stumpy after- thought on the tower. That was not the end of the trouble, for in 1901 the timbers in the steeple were found so decayed that it cost three hundred dollars to repair them.
The ministry of Mr. Bradin stirred the parish to make many improvements. Earnestly desiring the church to retain its location as a mission, he naturally wanted to preserve the venerable fabric which he came to love. He and Mr. Peiler, the organist, resolved to have a vested boy choir, and in 1886 prevailed on the Vestry to alter the fore part of the chancel platform to provide space for stalls. Further changes were made in 1888 to secure a more convenient location for the font. A new pulpit, presented by Mr. H. R. Hayden, was installed at Christmas, 1887, and about that time the Vestry moved to introduce electric lights.
Saint John's still lacked a parish room and no doubt the members observed the new impulse given to Christ Church by its parish house erected in 1879. City parishes were beginning their slow growth toward the "institutional church" and a parish house was coming to be regarded as almost essential. The Vestry began considering the matter
] 32 [
early in 1890, and at the annual meeting proposed to remove the organ to the southeast corner and turn the loft into a parish room. Although the idea was welcomed, there was pronounced difference of opinion regarding location, the spring and summer slipped away in discussion and nothing was done. The annual meeting in 1891 took up the matter again and turned it over to the Vestrymen, who decided upon a plan for refitting the old organ loft. Early in 1892 work was completed at a cost of about eleven hundred dollars.
The closing years witnessed repeated efforts to make the church more attractive inside. Being surrounded by build- ings, it had always been somewhat dusky, and time had dimmed the fresh beauty of windows, walls and roof. Repairs were made while services were suspended in August, 1889, and in 1895 the church was closed again for the same purpose from July 14th until the first Sunday in October. The last extensive discussion of repairing and painting was in the spring and summer of 1899, when it was decided to raise one thousand dollars for the purpose. Only eight years later the venerable old pile, loved by many of the "Old Guard" despite its somewhat run-down appear- ance, was abandoned to the pick and crowbar of the wrecker.
The last services were celebrated on Easter Day, March 31, 1907, and every effort was made to have them worthy of a great past. Choir, altar guild, decoration committee and Sunday School, all strove to make the parting impressive, and the result was a truly beautiful Sunday. Everyone said, "the dear old church looked her best." At half past six in the morning a full choir sang the resurrection service, and all knew Saint John's would live on in Christ. Mr. Bradin delivered his last Easter address in the old building, then administered the Communion to eighty-seven people, assisted by the Reverend Dr. Samuel Hart, an old friend of the parish.
]33 [
At the second service Bishop Chauncey B. Brewster officiated with the Rector and the Reverend Francis Good- win, who at one time had been acting Rector. He read the Litany, followed by the Ante-Communion office read by the Bishop and the two priests. After Bishop Brewster's appro- priate and sympathetic sermon, Mr. Bradin proclaimed the hope and promise of a new life. The sacrament of confirma- tion was administered for the last time within those walls, to eighteen candidates, and for the last time a great number of parishioners knelt at the altar rail to receive Communion. At three o'clock in the afternoon came the Church School Easter festival. How fitting that the last service should have been for the children, for whose Christian nurture Saint John's always had been so careful!
Then their voices ceased and the old church was left with empty arms.
] 34 [
CHAPTER THREE
Keepers of the Old Sanctuary
F EW PARISHES HAVE BEEN HONORED AND BLESSED BY SUCH a line of rectors as served old Saint John's. It began with the truly great Arthur Cleveland Coxe-pastor, preacher, missionary, scholar, poet and bishop. It would be hard to say what calling of a priest he did not touch, and he shed lustre on them all. Late in the winter of 1842, when the church was nearing completion, the parishioners called him to be their pastor, and on March 17th he accepted, with a salary of one thousand dollars. At the time he was only twenty-four years old, not old enough to be ordained a priest until next autumn, when Bishop Brownell raised him to that rank on September 25th, and later instituted him as rector.
Although so young, Dr. Coxe came to Saint John's with an already distinguished record. His father, the Reverend Samuel Hanson Coxe, was a celebrated minister in the Presbyterian Church and was pastor at Mendham, New Jersey, when the future rector of Saint John's was born. The son grew up in a Presbyterian manse-a scholarly atmosphere -and graduated from the University of the City of New York. At the age of only twenty-three, he graduated from the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He had been strongly attracted towards the Episcopal Church, which then was experiencing a notable revival and drawing into its ministry many young men brought up in other faiths.
While in the seminary he became noted as a poet, through the publication of his "Christian Ballads" in 1840. It became popular instantly, and went through many editions in America and England, as it came out while the tide of
]35 [
revival was flowing strongly throughout the Anglican Church and many remembered the thrill of John Keble's famous volume of religious poetry, the "Christian Year." Several other volumes of religious verse came from his pen. All through his life he was a prolific author-devout, learned and intense in feeling. His strongly conservative churchman- ship combined with his dignity and handsome presence to make him a powerful force.
If they had thought of him in such terms-and they certainly didn't-the earnest business men who founded the parish would have considered him worth far more than his keep. He was currently regarded as "High Church," an opinion borne out by his love of the Church's ritual and devout care for the chancel. The trait shone most brilliantly in his firmness for a full observance of doctrine and discipline, his insistence upon thorough preparation for confirmation, and above all in many services and lectures and a strict keeping of Lent. Perhaps he proved somewhat too strenuous for a few who after a time returned to the mother church.
Dr. Coxe brought to Hartford a type of mind somewhat rare in the Church-a delightful and memorable blending of deep scholarship and poetic fancy. The quality of that finely cultivated intellect glows through the delicately written pages of the parish journal which he kept throughout his ministry. It is a treasure of old-fashioned church life, such as very few parishes possess. To spend afternoons and evenings alone, turning those crowded pages, was to see the curtain lifted from a vanished age-
A doorway had been folded back an hour And silver lights fell with a secret grace.
The poet and artist appear in little pen sketches among entries of lectures and festivals. There is a sketch of the old altar and altar plate, and for one Easter an angel trumpeting from a cloud to waken a skeleton in the tomb. Pressed flowers from the altar and font have left their fragile
]36 [
marks on the pages. He used to notice little things out of doors that too often escape the parson and the scholar. On January 6, 1847 the midwinter thaw drew him out and he wrote that it was mild and fair like April, and that "Violets bloomed yesterday, in the open air."
The Rector had also a sense of the amusing twists in people. He couldn't resist making an entry for a rare baptism. On a July day in 1850, at five o'clock in the morning, he immersed Mary Ann Adams in the church porch, at her urgent desire, obtaining for the occasion "a new & decent bathing-tub." Why the Connecticut River would not have done just as well, must remain a mystery.
As a poet and hymn-writer his mark on the Church is indelible. His hymns were sometimes struck off on a sudden inspiration, like the famous one "Saviour, sprinkle many nations," written in the vestry room of the old church in 1851. Two others from his pen are still in the hymnal: "O where are kings and empires now," composed in 1839, and "How beauteous were the marks divine," written in the following year. He was like the great Charles Wesley, who used to jump from his horse after a tour, crying "Pen and ink," and retire to write a stirring hymn to rouse England from spiritual sloth. Two stanzas, from one of Coxe's more famous hymns, seemed a fitting preface to this book. Seven of his "Christian Ballads" have been republished," including that precious gem called "The Calendar" with its beautiful tribute to the Prayer Book-
My Prayer Book is a casket bright, With gold and incense stored, Which, every day, and every night, I open to the Lord.
Yet when I first unclasp its lids, I find a bunch of myrrh, Embalming all our mortal life; The Church's Calendar.
*By the Church Missions Publishing Company of Hartford.
] 37 [
The parish deeply loved its great and holy pastor and missed him when he devoted some months to European travel in 1851. When he returned on the day before Christmas, the Hallelujah Chorus was sung at evensong, in gratitude for God's goodness to him and to the parish. With deep sorrow the people accepted his resignation, which took effect on Easter Day in 1854. Recording the meeting that decided to part with him, he wrote a great little prayer "Floreat parochia"-may the parish prosper. He went to Baltimore, an Episcopal stronghold, to become Rector of Grace Church. His life closed in a service of more than thirty years (1865-1896) as the second Bishop of Western New York. He remembered his first parish with an unusual affection and loved to return for a visit.
Numbers are a sadly inadequate measure of his ministry, yet it is worth noting that he found about one hundred families and left two hundred, while the one hundred and six communicants at his coming became nearly three hundred to bid him farewell. His zeal started Saint John's on its long record of planting new parishes. His pastorate witnessed the founding of missions that grew into Saint Gabriel's (now Grace Church) in Windsor; Grace Church at Burnside, now Saint John's, East Hartford; Saint James's, Hartford; and Saint James's in West Hartford. With his earnest support, the parish joined with Christ Church in serving the missions, and in establishing the Church City Mission Society in 1850 to support a free chapel on the East Side. To him Saint John's owes its tradition of generosity to the cause of spreading the faith he stood for throughout a wonderful life.
A worthy successor, the Reverend Edward A. Washburn from the Diocese of Massachusetts, took up his ministry at Easter, April 16, 1854. The departing rector and his successor, very dissimilar in most ways, shared the experience of coming into the Episcopal Church from another faith. The new pastor, only thirty-five years old, was a brilliant product
]38 [
of Boston culture in the golden age of that city. He attended the famous Boston Latin School and in 1838 graduated from Harvard College with high honors. His Congregational family hoped he would be an ornament to the ministry, and in an unexpected way he was. After studying at Andover Theological Seminary and the Yale Divinity School, he was licensed as a Congregational minister by the Worcester Association in 1842. Already he was feeling drawn to the Episcopal Church, his friends encouraged the tendency, and in 1844 he became a deacon, in the following year a priest. He served as rector of old Saint Paul's Church, Newburyport, until 1851, then traveled for two years in Europe, India and China, an experience that enriched his mind and gave him a rare insight into the thought of other countries. It inclined his thought towards liberalism and helped to make him second only to Bishop Phillips Brooks as a leader of the "Broad" party in the Episcopal Church. He had an analytical mind and welcomed the modern, critical attitude towards the Bible and theology; he was a preacher for the intellectual. He wrote extensively and served as a member of the American New Testament Company of revisers of the Bible.
The two men, so dissimilar, the departing and the coming pastor met in the crowded devotions of that day and together signed a touching prayer in the parish journal, for the future of Saint John's:
"Merciful Lord, we beseech Thee to cast Thy bright beams of light upon Thy Church, that it being instructed by the doctrine of Thy blessed apostle & Evangelist St. John, may so walk in the light of Thy truth that it may at length attain to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen."
Then the poet departed and the great preacher began a ministry of over eight years that left a different but equally memorable impression. Rector Washburn was a preacher rather than a poet. The hymn-book today bears no trace of
] 39 [
him, and after a few entries he evidently lost interest in the parish journal-to the great sorrow of the historian. The tradition of his powerful sermons lived long in the church and city. At his death in 1881 the parishioners remembered his "wonderful intellectual gifts and indomitable moral force." Those qualities raised him high in the diocese, which made him a member of its Standing Committee and a delegate to the General Convention. He lectured at Berkeley Divinity School and received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. A Churchman of Brooklyn, who knew him well, wrote after his death: "It is not possible to think of him as anywhere in God's universe inactive, timid, or not intent on noble ends, by worthy means."
He strengthened the parish's intellectual quality, begun by Dr. Coxe. In his first year he began a course of lecture sermons for Advent, on the adaptation of Christianity to the nature and need of men. The incident reveals the whole character of his ministry. He was a defender of the faith- first, last and always-in a period when scientific doubt was sapping the confidence of many. When he left Hartford it was only to carry on the battle with the Church's foes, at Saint Mark's in Philadelphia and later at Calvary Church, New York. When he passed on, an admirer paid him the respect of the Church he defended without compromise and with honor-
Thine the crusader's temperament, to fight The Paynim, Error, where his tents were found. Did there come need for help of Christian knight, Thy white cloak swept the ground.
Strong were the notes thy clarion voice rang out, Fierce was the onslaught from thy vigorous arm, And idle ease and comfortable doubt
Took sensible alarm.
] 40 [
Great dreams, great sorrows, were thy bread and wine; God o'er hot deserts led the suffering feet: The sepulchre is won, the victory thine,
Go! thy old comrades greet!
The parish throve under his ministry, but like the true knight, he was the flower of courtesy in recognizing how much was due to "twelve years of noble toil in the spirit and methods of the Church." Saint John's gathered in families so that by 1863 there was only one pew for rent. Money flowed in-and out, to many missions and charities. A hint of that amazing generosity appears in special collec- tions listed in the parish journal for May, 1854 to January, 1857. There were gifts to missions and churches in and outside of Connecticut, domestic and foreign missions, the Infirm Clergy Fund, Nashotah House in Wisconsin, mis- sionary work in Minnesota, the Christian Knowledge Society, Sunday School Union, Seaman's Mission, Hartford poor fund, Church Scholarship Society and Trinity College Missionary Society. All these in addition to the parish expenses of about four thousand dollars a year, and fifty-five hundred in 1859 to help establish Trinity Parish on Sigourney Street!
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.