USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Branford > A history of the First church and society of Branford, Connecticut, 1644-1919 > Part 5
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PHILEMON ROBBINS-"PERSECUTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE"
Samuel Russell had died in June of 1731. No immediate attempt was made to find a successor to his office. According to the prevalent custom, the pulpit was supplied frequently by the neighboring ministers of the Consociation, and also by Mr. Rus- sell's sons. The filling of the vacant pulpit came about in an accidental way. A Mr. Philemon Rob- bins, who had graduated from Harvard in 1729, thought it would be great fun to attend the com- mencement exercises and "to see the Wooden College," at New Haven. While he was there, it so happened that the church in Branford was with- out a supply for its pulpit. One of the members of the committee went to New Haven to obtain a preacher, chanced to hear Robbins, hunted him up, and invited him to preach in Branford on the fol- lowing Sunday. He accepted the invitation and his services were so universally approved that, Sep- tember 18th, he was invited to fill the pulpit for four Sundays, with a view to settlement. He did . this, and was called to the pastorate on October 9th, I732.
It was voted "to give him for settlement 400 £ and to be paid in two year's time, 200 £ ye first year and 200 £ ye next and for sallary 130 £ per annum and his fire wood ye whole time during his continuing a Dissenting minister among us. And the sallary to be paid by ye first of July yearly, and in case ye currency of bills should alter either-
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ways from what they are now, then to come to some new and reasonable agreement." Capt. Rus- sell, Capt. Saltonstall, John Linsley, Lieut. Stent, Mr. Isaac Foote, Ensign Harrison and Lieut. Har- rison were chosen as a committee to notify Mr. Robbins of the call. The following answer was received from him, and was read at a meeting of the Society, held on December 27, 1732:
"To the Church and people of Christ in Branford: grace, mercy, and peace be multiplied. Brethren and dearly beloved in our Lord Jesus Christ, my heart's desire and prayer to God is that you may be happily settled : and whereas it has pleased Almighty God to unite your hearts to me, inasmuch that you have unanimously given me an invitation to settle with you in the great and impor- tant work of the Gospel ministry, I have thought delib- erately and impartially thereupon; and I know not that I have been wanting to use all proper methods whereby to be determined, viz: in consulting the will of heaven, my own inclinations, as also advising with superior gentle- men of the ministerial order; and upon the whole my determination is, in the fear of God, to accept your call; trusting in your continuous affections and prayers, and relying upon the spirit and grace of God for assistance to so great a work; that I may be enabled to discharge a good conscience by my fidelity towards souls in this place ; earnestly praying, as also desiring an interest in your prayers with me, that the Great Sheperd of the sheep would make me the happy instrument of convincing and converting sinners in this place and building up saints in faith and holiness, that God's blessing may be upon us and his glorious kingdom advanced by us. Amen. From your friend and servant in the Lord,
Philemon Robbins.
Branford, Dec. 27, 1732."
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The new minister was the son of Nathaniel Rob- bins, and the grandson of Rev. Nathaniel Robbins, a Scotchman, who came to this country in 1670 and settled at Charlestown, Massachusetts. After grad- uation from Harvard, Philemon Robbins studied theology with Rev. Nathaniel Appleton, a Cam- bridge minister. While thus engaged, he received a call to settle with the church at Harvard, Mass., but declined to accept. Mr. Robbins was of medium stature and was somewhat corpulent. He had a powerful voice, of pleasing quality; a ready com- mand of language, especially in "ex tempore" preaching ; and was especially noted for his fer- vency and strength in public prayer. He was nat- urally of benevolent disposition, gracious of spirit, and with pleasing manners. Altho by no means a scholar, he was always a popular preacher; was quick to learn, and of retentive memory, but pre- ferred breadth of knowledge rather than complete mastery of more narrow fields. His spirit was that of the present age rather than of the times in which he lived; with the consequence that he was always progressive in thought and message, and often suf- fered for his advanced views. Two of his sermon manuscripts have been preserved, and are now in the custody of the clerk of the church. In form, each is a small booklet, about one half the dimen- sions of an ordinary sheet of note paper in size, neatly sewed together, and filled with writing of almost microscopic size. One wonders how they could have been of any possible use in the pulpit.
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By vote of the Society, Wednesday, the twenty- fourth day of January, was set apart for the day of ordination. This was later altered to Wednesday, the seventh day of February. Since an Ordination Day was an event of tremendous social importance, in those colonial times, it was felt that the Meeting House would be too small to hold all who desired to attend the service, and so the Society ordered "that no negro servant be admitted to enter ye meeting house on ye ordination Day." At that time about one hundred thirty or the total population of six- teen hundred were black. As a preparation for the day of ordination, Wednesday the twenty-fourth of January, was observed by the whole town as a day of Fasting and Prayer. We are fortunate in hav- ing an account of the ordination itself, in Mr. Rob- bins' own hand, as the first entry on the records of the church. These records, beginning at this time, were kept, as a sort of private journal, by the min- . isters of the church; there being no church clerk appointed until more than a century later. Mr. Robbins' account of his own ordination is as fol- lows: "The Rev. Mr. Samuel Whittlesey of Wal- lingford made the first prayer and preached the sermon from Ezezekiel III. 17, 18, 19. Then the Rev. Mr. Jacob Hemingway of East Haven, made a prayer and gave me the charge. Then the Rev. Mr. Samuel Russell of Cohabit (North Guilford), made a prayer. Then the Rev. Mr. Isaac Stiles of North Haven gave me the right hand of fellow- ship. Then I named the Psalm, 118th Psalm, 4th part, and gave the blessing."
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Soon after his ordination, the Society voted that "there should be a pew made for Mr. Robbins on the west part of ye pulpit stairs"; which vote was later altered "to be most agreeable to Mr. Robbins his mind" and "that it should be made on ye west side of ye fore Door next to it, and that ye two hind Seats on ye mens side, Should be taken off for conveniency thereof, and that there should be another pew made between this and ye Gallery Stairs at ye Societys charge and Seated by ye Comttee appointed in case Mr. Rosewell Saltonstall cant be prevailed with to alter his place for his pew and take this other. So that those Short Seats between the stairs and ye west part of ye house should be released." It would seem that Capt. Saltonstall did not favor this arrangement, for, soon afterwards, he "moved to ye Society yt he might build his pew in ye place first granted to him, and ye Society complied with his motion and granted him ye liberty of ye two hind seats there- for. The Society voted yt ye Seaters last appointed Should Seat ye pew adjoyning to Mr. Robbins pew, and all those persons that shall be unseated by reason of Capt. Saltonstalls pew: voted that ye negros should be moved to ye hind Seat in ye side gallery on ye west side of ye house. It was agreed that ye place where ye negros did set be made up with Seats by ye Societys Comittee unles a certain Sufficient number of persons should appear to build a pew or pews theron at their own cost." A great many negro slaves were owned by Branford people, at that time, Mr. Robbins himself owning one a
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little later. They generally were kindly treated, and were received as members of the church, usually without privilege of voting, tho even this right was sometimes given them, as when (July 28, 1732) it was voted that "Ader the negro Ser't of Dea. Russell" be given liberty to vote.
Mr. Robbins came to Branford a bachelor, but he had not long resided in the town before he was captivated by the attractiveness of a young lady whose name was Hannah, the daughter of Isaac and Rebecca Foote. Hannah, for her part, seemed not invulnerable to the attentions of the youthful minister, so they were married on the twenty- fourth day of the last month of 1735. The young couple went to live in the new house which the people of the town had helped Mr. Robbins build, shortly after his settlement. This house was situ- ated upon a road which ran at right angles to the present Montowese Street, entering the meadows on both the east and west sides of that street, and crossing it near Wilford Avenue. This road rejoiced in the euphonious name of "Pig Lane," and upon it were several houses, among them the first Stent house, built by the original Eleazur Stent. The land upon which the Robbins house was erected had been presented to the minister by Samuel Barker, who owned a beautiful estate on Cherry Hill, where he lived after the manner of an old English squire, and this land was but one of the many gifts which sprang from a great friend- ship between Barker and Robbins. Mrs. Robbins
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was a good wife to her husband and bore him nine children, all born in this one house. Their home became famous for its marked hospitality, and her name comes down to us as embodying the virtues of old New Englandry housewifery. All honor to her memory.
Even as the beginning of the pastorate of Samuel Russell was signalized by the outgrowing of the old house of worship and the erection of a new and more commodious one, so was the coming of Phile- mon Robbins marked by the realization that the old building was inadequate and the determination to replace it with a new and more spacious one. The division of the parish, by the setting off by them- selves of the North Farmers, had been more than offset by the rapid growth of the town. Moreover the old house was felt to be not pretentious enough nor sufficiently up to date. Accordingly, February 28, 1738, the Society met and discussed the situa- tion, "considering that ye meeting house is much out of repair and fearing it may be grown too small in ye summer season," and, at an adjourned meeting (March 15), decided to build another house. Nothing more was done, however, until the following October, when it was again voted to build, and the place for the new edifice was fixed upon-a spot "which is on ye westward Side of ye old meeting house and as near thereto as conven- iently maybe." "The Dimentions voted and agreed upon were 60 feet in Length, and 44 feet in breadth, and 24 feet posts between Joynts." It was ordered
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that there should be gathered together, before the first of the following March, "some boards and Shingles for ye house." As the months went on there seemed some question in peoples' minds as to the wisdom of the dimensions chosen and, in Feb- ruary, it was decided to alter them so that they should be, for length, "64 feet, by ye posts 26 feet."
Work seems to have gone on slowly, for it is not until April 1741, that we read that the committee "should proceed in fraiming ye new meeting house, raising & Covering this following summer"; and it is not until February, of 1744, that the work was sufficiently advanced for the committee to be urged to "go forward with ye meeting house for ye finishing all ye inside work thereof this summer if it can be." In August of that year, the committee was given "liberty of taking the timber and boards out of ye old meeting house therefor what should be fitting." The building would seem to have been completed early in September 1744, for, upon the seventeenth day of that month, it was directed "that ye old meeting house should be pulled down." The material from the old house, with the excep- tion of the glass, which was kept for the new building, was sold for about sixty pounds.
An old print of this third home of the Branford Church has come down to us; tho it depicts the building as it appeared more than fifty years later, or at the beginnings of Mr. Gillett's term of office, rather than as it looked at the time of its erection. The original building had no clock nor steeple.
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The steeple was not added until 1803, and the clock was placed therein in the summer of 1804. There is an interesting story concerning the erection of the steeple. It happened that, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the newly reorganized Epis- copal Church purchased some fine lumber to be used for building a steeple for their new church, but their funds proved insufficient for the carrying out of their plans, and so they were compelled to sell the timbers, which they had prepared, to the Congregational Society, and they were used in the erection of the Congregational steeple. Inasmuch as the feeling between the two churches was not very cordial at that time, this was regarded, by the Episcopalians, as a cause for much chagrin, and, by the Congregationalists, as an occasion of con- siderable satisfaction. The money for making these additions was gained from the sale of lumber, from the Society lands, and by the estab- lishment and operation of "salt works" at Indian Neck, for obtaining salt from the sea water, by evaporation.
The new meeting house was situated nearly in front of the present edifice, but faced almost in the opposite direction. It was occupied by the church for practically a century, or until the erection of the present building, in its original form, in 1843. About a month before its completion, "Capt. Jno Russell, Isac Harrison, Deacon Rose, Capt. Nath11 Harrison & Will™ Goodrich, were appointed a comttee to Seat ye new meeting house and in seating
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to have regard to Age, Dignity & ye rates Layed therefor." It was not until February of 1745-6 that it was voted "yt there be a floor Laid on ye Beems in ye meeting house"; and it would seem that the building was first painted, inside, the pre- ceding summer, for it was then voted that the amount remaining due "for coulering ye inside of ye meeting house" be paid. Upon April Fool's Day 1746, a vote was passed "yt ye 2 pews in ye Gal- lery in ye meeting house on ye east side be for ye Women to Set in, & ye 3 west pews be for ye men to set in & yt ye Society Look upon it Disorderly for ye men to Intrude into ye Womens part or go up & down ye womens Stairs or ye women to intrude into ye mens part or go up & down ye mens stairs & also yt ye mens part be seperated from ye womens with a rail." Upon the same day it was agreed "yt Capt. Harrison Tune ye Psalm on ye Sabbath & other Times of Divine worship" and also "yt Jno. Russell Jun" sit in ye 3rd seat in ye Squair Body of ye meeting House to be helpfull in Singing." The church records contain an interest- ing entry, under the date of February 5, 1763, where it is stated that it was decided "to request ye Revd Mr. Robbins to make use of Docr Watts Imitation of ye Psalms of David one half ye Day in Publick Worship instead of ye New England Psalms now in use among us." This meant a dis- tinct improvement in the quality of the church ser- vice, for the "New England Psalm Book," while exceedingly interesting to bibliophiles, as an anti-
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quity, was an atrocious attempt at versification of the Psalms, with such an absolute lack of rhyme or meter that it is nearly inconceivable that the book should ever have been used successfully. At the same time that this change was made Mr. Robbins was also requested "to introduce ye Prac- tice of constantly reading some part of ye Holy Scriptures in ye Publick Worship of God." Pre- viously to this time, the only way in which the Bible had been read in the church service was when it was "expounded" by the minister, i.e .- when the minister would read a chapter, phrase by phrase, commenting upon each phrase as he progressed in the reading, and making, practically, a sort of exegetical sermon of the performance. The unin- terrupted reading of a portion of Scripture was unknown in early New England worship.
Before Mr. Robbins had been pastor many years, a granddaughter was born to the Branford Church. The extreme northern portion of the town was becoming thickly settled, and soon there was a growing desire among the people of that region for services of their own. They were joined in this wish by certain outlying families from Guilford and Wallingford. Meetings were held at the home of Isaac Ingraham as early as 1744. A meeting house, fifty feet long and forty feet wide, was built in 1746; and on June 13, 1750, the Northford Church was organized, with nineteen charter mem- bers. All of these original members were men, but the next month twenty-two women were added, and
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one man, the women being mostly the wives of the first members. The first pastor of the new church was Rev. Wareham Williams, grandson of Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, who had been carried to Canada by the Indians as a captive in 1704, and the son of Rev. Stephen Williams, the pastor at Long Meadow. He was ordained on the same day that the church was organized, and he served as pastor of the church for thirty-eight years. He was also secretary of Yale College and a member of the Yale Corporation. Of more than usual interest is the fact that his daughter, Anna, was the wife of three ministers in turn, two of them, Rev. Jason Atwater and Rev. Lynde Huntington, being suc- cessors of Mr. Robbins in the pastorate of the Branford Church. The later history of the North- ford Church is an interesting one, and has been ably set forth in a sermon, preached on the occasion of one of its anniversaries, and privately printed. The church at Northford has exerted an influence far out of proportion to its size upon the life of the state, and has furnished a notable number of men of large calibre and unusual talent to New England life.
Returning, now, to the history of the Branford Church, we come upon events of epochal impor- tance; the story of the outlawing of Philemon Robbins, for heresy, for rebellion and for crimes against the state, and of how minister and church alike, for many years defied the power and sentence of the Consociation and lived a separate life,
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debarred from the fellowship of the sister churches. It is a long narrative, but it is well worth the retell- ing because the story of the struggle is the story of a battle waged, for the real Congregational prin- ciple of liberty of speech and conscience, against the false doctrine of a bygone day. Philemon Robbins has been vindicated by Time and his lonely struggle with long odds has been crowned with victory.
We are to be congratulated in having for our sources two pamphlets, both very rare, presenting the opposite sides of the controversy. In the first of these pamphlets we have Mr. Robbins' statement of his own case. It is entitled :
"A Plain Narration of the Proceedings of the Reverend Association and Consociation of New Haven County Against the Rev. Mr. Robbins of Branford, since the Year 1741; and the Doings of his Church and People, with some Remarks by Another Hand, in a Letter to a Friend. By Philemon Robbins, A.M., and Pastor of the First Church in Branford. Acts 4:23 'And reported all that the Chief Priests and Elders had said unto them.' Boston : Printed and Sold by S. Kneeland and T. Green in Queen Street 1747."
The other pamphlet was an answer to this state- ment by Robbins, and was prepared by order of the Consociation, and was probably written, in large part, by Rev. Nathaniel Chauncy, of Derby. Its title-page reads as follows :
"Defence and Doings of the Reverend Consociation and Association of New Haven County respecting Mr. Philemon Robbins, of Branford; or An Answer to Mr.
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Robbins Plain Narrative and the remarks annexed thereto. Wherein many of the false representations of that narra- tive are corrected, and the plain truth is faithfully declared; and the insufficiency of the Remarkers Essay to vindicate Mr. Robbins is discovered. By a member of the Consociation and Association of New Haven County. iii John 9, 10 ver: I wrote unto the Church; but Dio- trephes who loved to have the preeminence among them, received us not. Wherefore if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with mali- cious words.
Job 23, 3: Now hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is.
Job 15, 3: Thou choosest the tongue of the crafty.
Prov. 18, 17: He that is first in his own cause seemeth just, but his neighbor cometh and searcheth him. Ver. 13: He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.
Printed for the Consociation and Association of New Haven County, 1748."
One is unfavorably impressed, at the start, by the seemingly malicious tone of this latter leaflet, but it is needful to remember that common courtesy and restrained speech were notable for their absence in the literary style of the polemical pamphlets of that period, and that the moderation of Mr. Robbins' language was the exception, and the bitterness of the other was the rule. So much for the sources, which we shall follow, in as unprejudiced a manner as we may; let us now turn to the narrative itself.
When our first forefathers began the settlement of New England they brought with them a stern but virile faith and an earnest piety. The impress of this vital and consecrated Godliness was felt for
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decades, and laid its impress upon the new formed state. Their forsaking of home and country, for sake of conscience; their fearful struggles with cold and famine and hardship, in the subduing of the wilderness; the isolation and the perils of their colonial life, with the corresponding erasure of the ordinary props and aids of living, and the throwing of every man upon his own resource and initiative; above all the uncertainty of each new day and month, and the critical danger of future impending disaster ; all of these made it easy for the fathers to appreciate their utter dependence upon Almighty God, and to believe that the only hope for their future, in the new land, lay in the protecting provi- dence of His Divine Sovereignty. Thus it is not strange that man and God walked often together, in these days when man knew so well the weak inabilities of man, nor that the early common- wealths were strongholds of Godly faith. Men realized their utter dependence upon God, and with that realization there came blessing. But this happy condition did not endure for long. As the perils of the wilderness were faced and conquered, and as the hand of man was placed upon the face of nature and her unkind obstacles to his plans were one by one removed, life became less dangerous, less uncertain, and less difficult. Men became more confident of their own self sufficiency and of their own ability to cope with their lessened daily prob- lems. After a while came comfort, then luxury, and luxury is ever the enemy of religion. God's V V
There are no otherate an fox holes
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house began to be neglected, his ordinances for- saken, the stern oldtime piety softened. Faith became weak, and conscience hardened, and char- acters flabby. It is the old story of ungrateful humanity. When men face desperate need they grasp God's hand, and when He has succored them they forget Him.
So it came to pass that the early years of the eighteenth century witnessed a decadence in the spiritual life of the New England Colonies. Church and state were more and more separated ; the Calvinistic theology, which had been a tower of strength to the Pilgrims, became devitalized; and the ordinances of the church were no longer indis- pensable, as of old. Church membership ceased to be synonymous with deep personal experience, and the erstwhile fires of zealous piety died to mere smouldering coals. The contrast was marked, and it was deeply felt by the leaders of the churches.
It was in this Laodicean time that Jonathan Edwards began his great revival, at Northampton, which soon spread thruout the colonies. Coinci- dently with this revival of religion, George White- field, the noted English evangelist, began a series of five tours thruout the New England settlements. Upon his first tour, in 1740, he was everywhere received with the utmost enthusiasm and by great multitudes. But he was a man of fierce emotions, and was often censorious, to the point of harsh invective. Especially bitter was he against the
Cold Lighto vs. New Lights
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ministers of the day, whom he felt were uncon- verted and spiritually blind; and he did not hesi- tate to express that bitterness, often in immoderate and unjust language. So it is scarcely astonishing that he made many determined enemies, or that some, of colder temperament than himself, con- sidered him mentally unbalanced. Upon his later tours he found many towns and churches closed against him, among these most of those of the New Haven colony. Branford church, however, wel- comed him, to the displeasure of the clergy of the neighborhood.
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