USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Branford > A history of the First church and society of Branford, Connecticut, 1644-1919 > Part 2
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could wish that our forefathers had given us detailed and full accounts of those early days, but after all, were we dependent entirely upon the records of church and of the Society for informa- tion respecting our own times, ours would be a picture not much more complete than we now possess of those years long past.
The laws of the Totokett of those days were drawn from the Old Testament and the interpreta- tion of the code was a literal one. Justice was not often touched with mercy, and punishments for offences were severe and certain. Like other New England communities Branford was equipped with pillory and stock and whipping post. These imple- ments of justice were doubtless located, at first, close to the Meeting House; later being removed to "Whipping Post Hill" an eminence which stood on the present site of the Baptist Church. Judging that the Mosaic law dealt inadequately with certain problems of their time, the settlers supplemented it with much added legislation of their own. Restric- tions as to conduct on the Sabbath, regulations regarding clothing, and careful supervision of the stranger within the gates, received special attention. June 24, 1650, a curfew law was passed providing that "If any man or woman, young or old, shall be taken by the watch abroad in the night after ten of the clock, and cannot give a suffisient reason there- fore to the watch of their being abroad shall for every such fault pay 12 pence or other condine punishment as the court shall require." One won-
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ders how popular such a law would be in the Branford of to-day.
From time to time new settlers were added to the Totokett colony, the most noteworthy of whom was the Reverend Abraham Pierson, who came from Southampton, L. I., in 1645-6. Inasmuch as he was to be pastor of the church for twenty years, he deserves considerable attention.
ABRAHAM PIERSON, PILGRIM AND APOSTLE
Abraham Pierson was born in Yorkshire, Eng- land, in the year 1613. He was a graduate of that mother of Puritans, Trinity College, Cambridge, completing his course in 1632. After receiving Episcopal ordination, he preached for a time in or near Newark, England. Apparently he was mas- tered by Puritan scruples for he came to Massachu- setts, in 1639, and became a member of the Boston church. He soon removed to Lynn, where he was reordained, in accordance with New England custom, and became pastor of the church. In 1640, or it may be in 1641, Pierson and a portion of his church removed to Long Island. In May they endeavored to establish a settlement on the western end of the island but were prevented by the Dutch. They then removed to the eastern end and settled at Southampton. The reason for this removal is to be found in a profound conviction, on the part of Pierson, that active participation in civil govern- ment should be confined entirely to members of the recognized church. He believed that the church and the state should be synonymous. In the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony this strict limitation was not absolutely followed whereas, as we have seen, in the New Haven Colony church members only pos- sessed the suffrage. He believed that a settlement on Long Island would be under the control of New
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Haven. It soon developed, however, that his colony was, in reality, under the jurisdiction of the Connecticut Colony, which Colony held very liberal views as to the separation of church and state. Accordingly he, with a number of his congregation, again became Pilgrims, for the sake of conscience, and removed to Branford.
John Sherman having removed, probably in 1646, Pierson was chosen as minister and became the first regularly settled pastor of the church. Sep- tember 22, 1650, "It was ordered that the ministers pay shall be brought each half year. For every milch cow he shall have two pounds of butter, in part pay each year; for the rest, for the first half year in beef, or pork, or Indian corn, or wampum; for the second half year in wheat and pease, good and marketable." He was also given a large por- tion of land, part of which was near the Totokett Hotel. His house stood near the site of the hotel. On February 24th, 1659, "at a town meeting it was granted by the consent of the town to Mr. Pierson, that he shall have the use of the whole five hundred pound lot that he has formerly used, which is the meadow of a two hundred pound lot that did not belong to his house when he bought it: that was granted to him for as long as he shall live in the town, and if he shall live in the town till his death, then it is given to his wife and his children for their use forever."
Mr. Pierson soon became popular in Branford, and under his direction and the impetus given the
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settlement by the addition of new arrivals, the town began to take on a flourishing aspect. A smithy was built and equipped with bellows, and a smith invited to come from Guilford. A tide-mill was erected at the present location of the Branford Point bridge, but the greatest industrial venture was the starting of a smelting furnace, or "Bloomery." This was located at Great Pond, which thereupon became for the time "Furnace Pond" but later Lake Saltonstall. The ore, for the furnace, was obtained from North Haven and was a sort of "bog-iron." An iron works was built up around it; the first in the state. It would appear that the ore was brought from North Haven by water; by way of the Quinnipiac and the Farm, or Stony, rivers. To encourage this infant industry special privileges were allowed it by the town. The owners were permitted to cut all the wood from the public lands which might be needed for fuel, and to flood the lands about by raising the pond. A plant of some sort stood there for a long time after.
In the early sixties an especially large influx of new settlers occurred. Among these were Frances Bradley, Leonard Dix, Mica Fowler, Nathaniel Gunn, Gabriell Linco, George Page, John Potter (a blacksmith), and John Wilford.
In these days there was considerable friction between the men of the New Haven Colony and the Dutch of the New Amsterdam settlement. Some time in the early history of Totokett a party of Dutch traders had landed on the shores of the
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river. Possibly they built a trading post; at any rate they remained long enough to give their name to that locality, and it has been known as Dutch House Wharf to this day. Fifty men from Toto- kett and New Haven were imprisoned by the Dutch, in 1651, for attempting to settle upon lands claimed by the latter in Delaware. When, in 1654, New Haven sent an expedition against the Manhadoes, as the Dutch were called, Totokett contributed eleven men towards the company of one hundred- thirty-three, and Pierson was chosen to accompany the expedition as chaplain. Mr. Pierson was often associated with Davenport, and others of the New Haven Colony, in their plans and activities.
The first marriage noted upon the records was that of George Adams to the Widow Bradfield, occurring in 1651. Sarah Page, a daughter of George Page, who was born May 28, 1666, has the honor of being the first infant whose name enters upon the records; tho her claim to the honor of being the first child of white parents to be born in Totokett would appear capable of being challenged. It is a strange coincidence that the first record of a death appearing on the pages of the town's books is the name of John Plum, who died in 1648, and who was the first to keep those books.
An insight into the nature of the personal posses- sions of those days is afforded by the inventories made of several estates at about that time. Only two of these estates was given a value of as much as one hundred pounds; two more were considered
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to amount to some fifty pounds; three or four others were worth perhaps ten pounds; while the value of all the others listed was even less. In 1659, there was an epidemic of serious proportions in the settlement. We do not know what the sick- ness was, but we do know that, among others, Mr. Pierson and his wife were ill, and that while the former quickly recovered, the latter was ailing for some time.
By far the most interesting aspect of Abraham Pierson's ministry is the story of his missionary efforts with the Indians. A letter, written in Sep- tember 1651 by the Commissioners for the United Colonies, to London, to the Society for Propa- gating the Gospel in New England, speaks of Pier- son as studying the language of the Indians in order that he "might the better treat with them concerning the things of their piece." He spent several years in perfecting himself in the Indian tongue and was often called upon to act as an inter- preter in the courts. In the year 1653, the Com- missioners allowed him twelve pounds "towards his charge and pains in fitting himself to teach the Indians," and the following year, they increased this to fifteen pounds. The same year they wrote to the London Society that "one Catechism (Mr. Elliot's) is already printed, and Mr. Pierson is preparing another to suit these south west parts, where the language differs from theirs who live about the Massachusetts." The record of a meet- ing of the Commissioners, held in Plymouth, in
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September 1656, states that "a letter from Mr. Pierson of Branford, date the 25th of August last was read, and some parts of a catechism by him framed and propounded to convince the Indians, by the light of nature and reason, that there is only one God who hath made and governeth all things, &c., was considered; and the Commissioners advise that it be perfected and turned into the Narragan- sett or Pequot language that it may the better be understood by Indians in all parts of the country- And for that purpose thay spake with and desired Thomas Stanton to advise with mr. Pierson about a fit season to meet and translate the same accord- ingly, without any uncessary delay, that it may be fitted for and sent to the press; and they promise him due satisfaction for his time and pains. It was agreed that Mr. Pierson shall be allowed fifteen pounds for the pains he shall take in this work the year ensuing." Thomas Stanton was an Indian who had been taken to England and educated at the University of Cambridge.
Pierson's translation was completed some time before September 1657. It was decided to have fifteen hundred copies printed, and Jonathan Ince and Thomas Mayhew, the Nantucket missionary to the Indians, started for England with the manu- script. They were never again heard from, and it is believed that the ship was lost, with all on board. By the following September, 1658, Pierson had prepared another copy and it was decided that this should be printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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The first sheet was completed, at Cambridge, before December 28th. It consisted of sixteen pages, and one copy was sent to England, where it was reprinted, and bound up in a pamphlet with letters from Endicott and John Elliot. The complete work came from the Cambridge press in some seven months. The volume was entitled, "Some Helps for the Indians, Shewing them how to Improve their Natural Reason, to Know the True God, and the Christian Religon." It was the first work of any resident of the Connecticut or New Haven Colonies which was ever printed. Only two copies of it are now in existence; one being in the British Museum, and the other belonging to the James Lenox Collection of New York. An excellent reproduction of it has been prepared by the Connecticut Historical Society and will be found, together with a full and detailed account of the history of its publication, in Volume III of the "Collections" of that society. The advice of the Commissioners that it be turned into Narragansett or Pequot was never followed, and it was printed in the language of the Quiripi Indians, who lived on the shores of Long Island Sound; the first and only work ever printed in their language.
The Catechism itself is extremely interesting, and will well repay the efforts of any who care to examine it. The text is of the interlinear sort, the Indian translation being in bold type, with the English equivalent, printed in smaller type, above every Indian word. We have no means of ascer-
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taining how effectual it was in converting the Indians to the true Faith. Certainly its language is far from simple, and its arguments are so uni- versally couched in the philosophical jargon of the schools that one suspects that the poor Indians must have been completely puzzled and convinced, if of anything, that the religion of the settlers must be one of aweful and perplexing mysteries. Assuredly no man of this generation who does not possess a doctor's degree, from the department of philosophy of some learned university, can expect to follow the arguments from "nature and reason" which are set forth in this book. It is hardly any wonder that the Commissioners seem to have found it necessary to order that "6 yards of cloth should be distributed out of the mission funds to the principle men of the Wethersfield Indians as an encourage- ment to those who attend on Mr. Pierson and refrained from pow-wow-ing, and from laboring on the Sabbath," if his oral expositions were of the same order as his Catechism. But one suspects that they were not, or at least that the spirit of the man and the earnestness of his desire to win con- verts to his faith may have shone thru his obscure phrasing and have compensated for the lack of lucidity in his language. Certainly Branford church may well cherish with pride the history of his missionary labors. He takes his place by the side of Elliot and Mayhew, men in whose souls burned that apostolic fire which has sent forth Christians, from the first century on, burning with
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fervent zeal to evangelize the world, and to pro- claim the good tidings of the Christ to those who know Him not. We can never know how large a share the endeavors of Elliot and Pierson have had in making the Congregational Church in America a missionary body. And we more than suspect that Mr. Pierson's endeavors may have not lacked for immediate fruitfulness; that the personality of the man may have been far greater than the short- comings of his catechism. One can only rev- erence the steadfastness of that great purpose which inspired him to aspire to prepare a book in an absolutely unknown tongue. Of a surety no pastor of Branford church has been more loyal to his Christian convictions, or has more painstakingly served his Master than Abraham Pierson, her second minister.
In June, 1667, Mr. Pierson and a large portion of the Branford community left Connecticut and founded a new colony in New Jersey. In order to understand the reasons for this removal it will be necessary to devote a little time to a consideration of certain developments in New England colonial history. It will be remembered that the qualifica- tions for the suffrage in the Connecticut and in the New Haven colonies differed; the New Haven Colony requiring church membership as an absolute prerequisite, while, in the Connecticut Colony, any man "of good character, orderly walk, and with an estate of Thirty Pounds" could vote. All went well for awhile, for men could choose the colony
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whose practice coincided with their convictions in which to settle. As we have seen, this is just what Mr. Pierson did, removing from Southampton, that he might escape the practices of the Connecticut Colony, and locating at Totokett, where only church members could vote, since Totokett was under the laws of New Haven. But, in 1662, a grave crisis arose. Up to this time no colony in New England had possessed a royal charter save that of Massa- chusetts Bay. But, in 1662, Charles II., then newly come to the English throne, granted a charter to the Connecticut Colony, and included the New Haven Colony within its limits and under its jurisdic- tion. Here was trouble indeed. New Haven con- tested the union with all her strength, and succeeded in postponing the inevitable until 1665, but, in that year, her efforts proved of no further avail and the union of the two colonies became actual. In this protest of the New Haven Colony Abraham Pier- son took a very active part, for he was convinced that the admission of unregenerate persons to par- ticipation in state affairs could result only in disaster and in a return to those evils which the Puritan had forsaken England to escape; in the true church becoming subservient to a corrupt state. History has not sustained his theory, but we can admire that strong conviction, even tho it were fallacious, which led him forth, yet once more a pilgrim, to aid in the establishment of a third colony.
The other development in the history of New
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England, which underlay the Newark removal, was that strange episode in the story of our churches known as the "Half Way Covenant." According to the theory of church membership held by the Church of England, everybody, born of Christian parents, was a member of the church. The New England churches held to a different theory. It was their contention that only such persons as had had a vital religious experience of their own or, as we might say, had been converted, were properly eligible to church membership, and that even these persons were not members in any actual sense unless they had united with the church by a public profession of their faith. Now, thus far, their posi- tion is very clear, and involves no difficulty. But, along with this theory of church membership, our fathers also cherished a belief in Infant Baptism. They taught that any child, either of whose parents was a member of the church, was eligible for the sacrament of Baptism, and by that rite became, in a sense, a member of the church; tho the member- ship was not really regarded as complete until the child had reached maturity and had made a public profession of his faith. Now certain of these children, whose parents were church members but who had never themselves made a profession of faith, came in due season to have children of their own, and presented these for Baptism. The Church was now confronted with a grave problem. The parents of these children were, in a sense, members of the church, for they had been baptized. But,
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in another sense, they were not full church mem- bers for they had not publicly professed their faith, or become regenerate, or laid claim to any vital Christian experience of their own. Accordingly they had never partaken of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and so were not in full communion with the church. The problem was, then, as to whether these parents, who had a partial but not full church membership, had the right to expect that the church should baptize their children.
After considerable debate and heated controversy, the New England churches arrived at that strange answer which is known to historians as "The Half- Way Covenant." The answer contained in that covenant was substantially as follows: That since, according to the creed of their stern Calvinism, all children who were not baptized were doomed to eternal punishment, and since, in a sense at least, these parents were partial members of the church, therefore the churches would recognize a "half- way" membership, and would admit the children of such as had been themselves baptized, but had never come into full communion, to receive Bap- tism, but that they should not receive the Sacra- ment of the Lord's Supper until they had become regenerate. The result of this concession was that great numbers of the people were contented with this partial membership, that the Lord's Supper was neglected, and that church membership in New England, tho in theory confined to the regenerate,
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was actually, of this loose, "half-way" sort, almost as universal as in the Church of England.
It is easy to understand that this innovation, which was then beginning to become prevalent in New Haven, was an extremely repugnant one to Abraham Pierson. In its own way, it let down the bars to participation in state affairs quite as effec- tually as the lax laws of the Connecticut Colony. It made church membership easy and devoid of serious meaning. Pierson foresaw from it only dire
calamity. When taken in connection with the impending union of the two colonies it left, to his mind, only one possible course open, namely that he should go again into the wilderness and begin a new settlement, whose laws should be the law of God.
Agents were sent to examine and buy lands in New Jersey, on the Passaic River. In October 1666, they returned and, on the thirtieth day of that month, a large meeting was held at Branford and the following agreement was made:
"Deut. 1:13; Ex. 18:21; Deut. 17:15; Jer. 36:21. I. That none shall be admitted free men or free bur- gesses, within our town upon Passaic river, in the province of New Jersey, but such planters as are members of some or other of the Congregational churches; nor shall any but such be chosen to magistracy, or to carry on civil judicature, or as deputies or assistants to have power to vote in establishing laws, and making or repeal- ing them, or to any chief military trust or office, nor shall any but such church members have any vote in such elections : though all others admitted to be planters have
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right to their proper inheritances and do and shall enjoy all other civil liberties and privileges according to all laws, orders, grants, which are, or shall hereafter be, made for this town. 2. We shall, with care and dili- gence, provide for maintenance of the purity of religion as professed in Congregational churches. Where unto subscribed the inhabitants from Branford:
Jasper Crane, Abra. Pierson, Samuel Swaine, Lawrence Ward, Thomas Blatchley, Samuel Plum, Josiah Ward, Samuel Rose, Thomas Pierson, John Ward, John Catlin, Richard Harrison, Ebenezer Canfield, John Ward, Sen., Ed. Ball, John Harrison, John Crane, Thomas Hunting- ton, Delivered Crane, Aaron Blatchley, Richard Law- rence, John Johnson, Thomas Lyon (his mark)."
Mr. Pierson, and a few of the leaders, left Bran- ford for Newark in the spring of 1667, and were followed, in June, by the remainder of the party. They went by way of Long Island Sound. Tradi- tion says that the first to land on the Newark shore was Elizabeth Swaine, nineteen years of age, being helped ashore by her lover Josiah Ward. Each Newark settler was given six acres for his new home. Mr. Pierson was granted eighty pounds a year, to continue as pastor, and served until his death, eleven years later. During the last years of his life his son Abraham, later the first rector of Yale, assisted him in the pastorate.
Abraham Pierson died August 9th, 1678. He left an estate valued at eight hundred twenty-two pounds, including a library of four hundred forty volumes, valued at one hundred pounds. His wife was Abigail Wheelright the daughter of Rev. John Wheelright of Lincolnshire, England, who came to
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America and settled in Exeter, New Hampshire. They had eleven children : Abraham, born at Lynn; Thomas, John, Abigail and Grace, born at South- ampton; and Edward, Susanna, Rebecca, Theoph- ilus, Isaac and Mary, born at Branford.
Mr. Pierson was a man of note in early New England, and appears to have made many friends in high places, and to have achieved an enviable reputation. Governor Hutchinson, a personal friend, declared him to be, "A man of high character and commanding influence-a godly and learned man"; while Cotton Mather goes even further, in this eulogy : "It is reported by Pliny, and perhaps 'tis but a Plinyism, that there is a fish called Lucerna, whose tongue doth shine like a torch, if it be but a fable, yet let the tongue of a minister be the moral of that fable; now such an illuminating tongue, was that of our Pierson. Wherever he came, he shone. He left behind him the character of a pious and prudent man; and a true child of Abra- ham, now safely lodged in Sinu-Abraha."
It was his unusual fortune to have had a large influence in the formation of four new settlements, and upon each of them he left the strong impress of his remarkable personality. Conscientious to an extreme, strict and conservative in theology, zeal- ously guarding the church and its prerogatives from stain of worldliness, he was a Puritan of the Puri- tans; forsaking his home, and journeying thru the wilderness, a Pilgrim of conscience, not once but four times, he oft forsook the habitations of his
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neighbors in search "for a better city, whose builder and maker is God." These qualities cause him to stand out preeminent in the history of the Branford Church, the typical representative of those stern but virile virtues of the early fathers. When we add to these his burning apostolic zeal, he becomes at once one of the outstanding men of his time. We may close this review of his ministry by quoting three stanzas of a poem which he wrote himself. In their outward form they are scarcely beautiful, and belong very evidently to those days of execrable verse whose products were such as are found in "The Bay Psalm Book," which was used in church service by the fathers. Yet this very quality may but add to their aptness as a eulogy. The poem was a long one, of thirty-two stanzas, and was written after the death of his friend Gov- ernor Eaton, but its words may very fittingly be used of the author himself.
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