USA > Connecticut > New London County > A modern history of New London County, Connecticut, Volume I > Part 38
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The Brotherhood of St. Andrews and men's clubs of various names have been established in many of the churches, and have added marked strength to the work of the churches. Perhaps the most active of all these men's organizations is "The Layman's League." This is an interdenominational organization. It has been especially efficient in New London and through- out the southern townships of the county. Mention should be made of the Baraea classes that have gathered large groups of men for continuous study of the Bible in various parts of the county, and especially in Norwich and New London.
Never has the modern force of free, voluntary, cooperative, religious organization shown itself more powerful and fundamental in New London county than in the services rendered by the churches of the county in the Great War (1917-18). The note of patriotism rang true and convincingly from every pulpit. Honor rolls and flags arose in every place 'of worship. No organization within these churches failed to do its part. Proclamations from Governor and President were read so frequently at the services that it became evident that, whatever the pressing need, the churches were a chief avenue to the intelligence, the hearts, the conscience and the pockets of the several communities of the county.
The close relation of the churches to education in New London county has been marked from the first. The common school at once followed the church in every community. Academies and, later, high schools, sprang up in all the centers, fostered at first in pastors' studies until separate buildings were inevitable. Norwich Free Academy in the northern section still retains the old name. It also does the high school work for Norwich and its environs. Indeed, the remains of most of the old academies are seen in the form of endowed high schools, like those in New London, North Stonington and Mystic. The Norwich Free Academy furnishes us with a typical New Eng- land scene. The camera brings into view the monument to Uncas, the Mohegan Indian chieftain who sold the nine-mile tract to the original settlers of Norwich Town, then the ancient colonial mansion, once a tavern that har- bored George Washington and is now the parsonage of the Park Congrega- tional Church, and in the background to the right the fine lines of the Gothic Park Church, and the Free Academy to the left.
The famous Plainfield and Lebanon (Moor's Indian Charity School) schools were in territory once a part of the county. Eleazer Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College, was a strong leader in the churches of the county.
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The Collegiate School of Connecticut (later Yale College) began its work in the parsonage of Rev. Abraham Pierson, at Killingworth (now Clinton), then an important part of New London county. In 1707 we find its three lower classes established at Saybrook Point, and practically in charge of Rev. Thomas Buckingham, the pastor. The minister of the First Church of Christ in New London, the Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, was prominent in all those early days in the institution, and later as Governor of the Colony had the influence that finally located the College at New Haven.
The Connecticut College for Women, located in New London, was not so directly the outcome of the churches as was Yale University, but in all the initial steps leading to the starting of the College and the choice of its location and in the raising of nine-tenths of its funds for its first half dozen crucial years, the pastors and the churches of Greater New London were most active and influential. It is recognized that no other single agency ever established in the county has promised so large and pervasive and unlimited a spiritual power for this section of the State. Already it has become the center of activities in close cooperation with the churches of all denominations, as well as with the schools.
Before closing this brief general introductory review of the religious development in New London county through the churches, just a word must be said as to the marked reaction of the various denominations on one another within these two hundred and seventy-five and more years. The original churches in the Colony of the Congregational type have had a steady develop- ment from the first. While keeping to the autonomous principle, they have cooperated more and more closely in associational forms and have been largely influenced by the free and warm-hearted spirit of Methodism and the worship- ful and orderly ideals of Episcopacy. In turn, the principle of autonomy, fostered by the Congregational as well as the Baptist communions, has had a marked influence on Methodism and Episcopacy, bringing in each of these denominations a strong laic representation to the front and making it so that each individual self-supporting church has practical control of its ministry and its local work. At the same time the centralizing tendency in the Episcopal and Methodist churches has powerfully affected the plans for efficiency in the more loosely ordered communions. Of late this decided harmonization of interdenominational methods and spirit has brought to the front the Federation ideal which resulted in the Federation of the Churches in New London and Vicinity. The cooperative spirit has promise in it of large things in the future work of the churches of the county.
It has been the fashion to speak of "the good old days" in the church and family life of New England. While the latter seems to be passing through a critical phase and, as yet, has not reached the turning of the road, it is not a too optimistic judgment to say that church life as a whole was never in better condition in New London county than it is today. In all outward ways the outlook is reassuring. The growth in membership, in benevolences, in brotherhood, in cooperative efforts and in missionary zeal, since the Great War, has been unprecedented.
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II.
THE COLONIAL STATE CHURCH IN NEW LONDON COUNTY
It is now established that organized religion came first to New London county in 1651, when the Rev. Richard Blinman arrived at the five-year-old settlement near the mouth of the Pequot (Thames) river, bringing with him a substantial majority of his church, which he had previously organized on Congregational principles (1642) at Gloucester (Cape Ann) Massachusetts. The total absence of all records of any other formal organization of a church in the new colonial venture, and the definite statements later as to the fact of a church already being in existence and in full career there, with Mr. Blinman as its pastor, have led inevitably to the above conclusion. The Nor- wich Town church came there full-fledged from Saybrook (organized there 1646) under the lead of its pastor, Rev. James Fitch; just as Rev. Thomas Hooker brought his Newtown (Massachusetts) church to Hartford, and the Plymouth (Massachusetts) church had come from Leyden, Holland.
The Rev. Thomas Peters had been associated from the first (1646) with Governor John Winthrop, Jr., in the beginnings of New London, and doubt- less had conducted occasional services in the rude log huts in the clearing on the west bank of the river before the arrival of Mr. Blinman and his fol- lowers. The accomplished Governor was not unmindful of religion, and all labor ceased in the little settlement as the sun went down of a Saturday eve- ning, except as emergencies of war arose. The smoke curled up from the chimneys of a score or more of crude log huts, as a Sabbath of rest had come. The guard kept watch without the stockade, and the goodman of each home had his weapons close at hand. As the shades of night fell and the owl hooted from the primeval forest trees that hemmed them round, and mothers quieted the restless children to sleep, the voice of Psalm and prayer might be heard from the hearts that appreciated the Divine protection amid the haunts of wild beasts and the skulking Pequot. We can see the little company, in 1647 increased by a number of families, among them the Governor's own, gathered reverently of a Sunday morning in the most convenient audience room avail- able to listen to Scripture exposition and Puritan sermon ; and for them, too,
"The sounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthem of the. free."
The advent in 1651 of the church-colony from Gloucester, Massachusetts, under the lead of Mr. Blinman, at once brought together all the forces of religion. The Governor and his family and all the older settlers took their places with the new-comers in the regular parish life now fully established, it being the thirty-fifth church to be planted in New England under colonial
3 The story is told of a couple (Jonathan Rudd being the man) that desired to be married by the Governor. This prerogative belonged for nearly a generation to the civil magistrate. About 1685 clergymen were legalized to perform the ceremony as well as the magistrates. John Winthrop could not legally overstep the boundary into the Connecticut colony to render such a service, even though he had been formerly at the head of the Saybrook colonial enterprise. So he made his way through the snow that winter's day to the stream separating the two colonies. Beside its frozen waters on his own territory he pronounced the eager couple to be man and wife. Hence Bride Brook and Bride Pond or Lake, near the modern Connecticut Farm for Women in Niantic.
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jurisdiction. Their first minister was of Welsh extraction and brought with him from Gloucester the ancestors of the Calkins, Coits, Averys, Lesters and others, in all over twenty families, with a total of one hundred souls.
The earliest place for worship was a transformed barn owned by Robert Park, situated on "Meeting House Hill," near which in 1653 a place for burial was set apart. A drum called the assembly for worship in the crude structure. Plans were at once laid for the erection of a regular church build- ing on the south side of the old burial ground. This first church was com- pleted and first used in 1655. It seems to have been a modest place of worship, but with a tower commanding wide views down the river and harbor, being a point of civic and military importance as well as the religious center. It had galleries and a high pulpit, being probably quite the best building in the settlement.
The parish extended from the Pawcatuck river to Bride brook, which was considered the western edge of the Massachusetts jurisdiction under which, at the first, John Winthrop, Jr., was operating. It also extended northward somewhat indefinitely through Montville to the Norwich line and included the modern Ledyard and North Stonington. One of the earliest records speaks of Thomas Miner, who had moved to Pawcatuck in 1652, and Captain Denison as having serious differences of opinion with their minister, Mr. Blinman, over the proposed erection of a town of Mystic and Pawcatuck, which conflict was healed two years later. Minister's rates were levied by the voters over this wide-extended parish. Mr. Blinman undertook to hold occasional services in the more remote sections, especially to the east across the Thames river. He was deeply interested in preaching to the Indians.
The short pastorate of Mr. Blinman came to an unexpected end in 1658 for no special reason that can be ascertained." He was accounted a man of learn- ing and high ability, and a natural leader. On occasion he was sent to the General Court of Massachusetts to represent Pequot on business of impor- tance. He was a non-conformist and Puritan of the straightest sect, a sturdy, frugal pioneer, who well set the pace for the religious development of the settlement and the county.
For three years the parish of Pequot (changed to New London in 1658 by order of the General Court of Massachusetts) sought a successor for Mr. Blinman. In the meanwhile they were supplied by preachers when available. Sometimes a Mr. John Tinker, rate-maker, collector and commissioner, as
" It is surmised that he was not in harmony with the more and more prevalent plan of the "Half-way Covenant." a modification of church membership not anticipated by the found- ers of New England, who expected that those who should become members of the church would give reasonable proof of "regeneration," and that children of only such should be baptized. But a large number of the children of the first colonists did not scek admission to the church and so the grandchildren were left without baptism, with terrible consequences in case these died before they themselves were baptized at their own instance. The pressure became so great that during the last half of the 17th century the churches gave temporarily a new plan to such, whereby parents of good standing in the community, whose parents in turn had been members of the church, could bring their children for baptism, even though they themselves were not full members. They had to make certain acknowledgements of a purpose to give themselves to God in Christ, to endeavor to walk according to the rules of that holy religion all their days and bring up their children to fear God. Under these con- ditions of a "Half-way Covenant" their children could be baptized.
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well as an assistant in the affairs in the Colony and licensed to distill and retail liquors, often "exercised in public at religious meetings until the arrival of the new minister." The open town meeting at this time and for several generations following passed upon all business affairs of the church, including the calling of the minister. The Colonial legislature also had spiritual over- sight of creed and discipline.
It was during this interval that matters most important for the church life of the county (to be) were occurring elsewhere. The crushing of the Pequots by Captain John Mason in 1637 in the famous Mystic battle, had left Uncas, friend of the English, the leading Indian chieftain of the Mohegan- Pequot remnants, with his residence at the head of the Pequot estuary (Nor- wich). The southern section of what was to be the county was taken as spoil of war by the English, leaving all the northern watershed of the Thames more or less under the political control of Uncas and his tribe. In August, 1659, he signed the famous deed of transfer of the "nine-mile" tract to Captain John Mason and his compatriots, following permission from the General Court of the Colony to plant a settlement on the Yantic; and so "Norredge" became a legal township in 1662.
In 1646 the Rev. James Fitch had organized a church at Saybrook as we have seen. In 1660 he, with a majority of his churchmen, moved to the fertile banks of the Yantic and founded the Norwich Town Congregational Church. The first crude structure for religious purposes in this new settlement was erected on the southwest corner of the "Green" or "Plain," with a sun dial and a horse block at the door, and served its purpose for twelve years.
Mr. Fitch, in this old First Church, gathered about him a remarkable group of men and women, who, with their descendants, were destined to render the world as fine a human result as any company of the same number has ever done on this continent. The parish extended throughout the nine- mile tract, which was made a legal township in 1662, as has been noted. It faced somewhat different problems as a church and community than those found in the adjacent seaport settlement of New London. The center of Indian life was near at hand. Mr. Fitch learned the Mohegan language and sought to christianize the accessible tribes. On a Sunday morning the settlers near and far rode in for the church services, their wives on pillions behind them. Every available hitching post on the Green was preempted, as the serious-minded men and women, and children, too, filled the crude meeting house under the lead of the much beloved pastor. While it was the social event of the week, it also had to do with eternity, as they listened attentively to the elaborate exposition of Scripture, and the prayers, and sang out of the Old Bay Psalm Book the hymns lined out by the leader.
When the structure became inadequate, they built a new church on the top of the steep hill to the northwest of the Green. Rumors of war with the Indians kept the Norwich settlers restive, and so they made their church a fortress and a watch tower. In 1673 they began to hold services on this almost inaccessible height, helping the young and the old and the feeble up the winding path. The guards kept watch beside the stacked rifles of the men during the service.
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Mr. Fitch was incapacitated by a stroke of palsy in 1674, and Jabez Fitch, his son, just out of Harvard, was asked to succeed. He helped them out a year or so and then went off to complete his studies. In the meanwhile King Philip's War (1675-78) threw the whole settlement into confusion. Uncas with his Mohegans stood faithfully by his English friends. Fugitives from every point of the compass poured in upon them, and a special settlement was arranged for these on the Shetucket river near Norwich.
At last (1699) Rev. John Woodward was inducted into the pastorate, his parish covering, besides the nine-mile tract, Canterbury and Windham. In 1708 Captain Rene Grignon, a Huguenot from France, presented the town with a bell, which was hung in a separate tower on the summit of Meeting House Hill, ringing every night at nine o'clock and for Sunday services.
But to return to the settlement at the mouth of the Thames. The year 1661 saw Rev. Gershom Bulkeley (Harvard 1655) preaching in the old First Church of Christ in New London. He came of fine family connections in both New England and old England, and brought to the settlement his young wife, Sarah Chauncey, only daughter of President Chauncey of Harvard. With them came also his cultured, widowed mother, a daughter of Sir Richard Chitwood of England. This second spiritual leader of New London was a man of marked strength of character and of decidedly anti-democratic lean- ings. His ideals of a more centralized form of church government led to differences of opinion with his parishioners; so, rather than foment strife, he wisely relinquished the pastorate in 1665. He took this measure under the kindly protest of his people, who had voted to give him "liberty of conscience and utterance." He was a learned man, skilled in languages and medicine. After a decade as pastor at Wethersfield, Connecticut, he retired to the prac- tice of medicine. His gracious mother remained in New London to the end of her life. His descendant, Leonard Bulkeley, was the founder of the Bulkeley school in the same place. Another descendant was the Hon. Morgan G. Bulkeley, Governor of the State.
We now come to a more settled condition of church affairs in New London. The new Colonial charter, which John Winthrop, Jr., secured from the government of Charles II in 1662, allayed some of the disputes in South- eastern Connecticut by defining Pawcatuck river as the eastern boundary of the newly constituted Colony. Massachusetts had claimed a large section of territory hereabouts, but gracefully yielded the township of Southertown, which now became a part of Connecticut. The New London parish by that arrangement extended to the Mystic river.
Rev. William Thompson had come as a missionary to the Indians in 1667, when the Massachusetts General Court had granted 8,500 acres to a tribe of Pequot Indians under the chieftainship of Harmon Garrett. Beside preaching to the natives, Mr. Thompson held services in the homes of the planters (Cheesebrough, Miner, Wheeler, Palmer, Stanton, Denison, Gallup, etc.), who were restive at having to go so far to church as New London. Considerable controversy thus arose in the attempt to erect a separate church in Mystic and Pawcatuck. The Commissioners of the United Colonies had rendered a decision in 1658 that all land east of the Mystic river should belong
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to Massachusetts, and a township of Southertown had been constituted, embracing also territory afterwards ceded to Rhode Island. A humble meet- ing house seems to have been erected in 1661, where occasional preaching was had. Southertown was renamed Mystic (1665) and later (1666) Ston- ington.
In the meanwhile the planters of this section had called Rev. James Noyes to take charge of the religious life and development in the region east of the Mystic river. Thus began a long and very important ministry of over fifty years (1719). For ten of these years the young minister was content to preach as a licentiate and delayed his ordination until 1674, when a new church building was erected near the present "Road Church," and the ecclesiastical organization was fully established (June 3, 1674). The ministry of Mr. Noyes was of far-reaching importance. He and his brother, Rev. Moses Noyes, of Old Lyme, were important factors in the founding of Yale College. The Stonington pastor entered into all the life of his extensive parish and shared with his people to the full the hardships of the Indian wars. He seems to have been skilled as a physician as well as a minister, and received public recognition for his services in the Narragansett war.
This venerable church furnished the Colony and the State with a long line of able ministers who entered into all the developments of spiritual, educational and social life in Southeastern Connecticut. During the long pastorate of Rev. Ebenezer Rosseter (1722-62) there was controversy as to the location of a new church edifice. This resulted in the erection of two buildings, the "West," near the old site on Agreement Hill (1729) ; the other the "East." or the "Centre" church, at Putnam Corner. This latter society called as pastor Rev. Nathaniel Eells in 1733. In 1762, at the death of Mr. Rosseter, the two churches were brought together under the ministry of Mr. Eells.
In the meanwhile the North Society in Stonington (now North Ston- ington) was incorporated by an act of the General Assembly in 1720 and was organized in 1721. After the customary controversy as to the location of the church building and the pressing problem of the "Half-Way Covenant," occasional preachers were succeeded by Rev. Ebenezer Russell, who was ordained (1727) at the time the church itself was fully organized. After the death of the first pastor (1731) came the remarkable pastorate of Rev. Joseph Fish (1732-81). In spite of a large "Separatist" defection in 1742, the min- istry of Mr. Fish was notable, especially all through the Revolutionary War.
For thirty-six years after his death the church had no settled pastor, showing the sad case of spiritual decline everywhere manifested in the country at large and in New London county in particular. In 1817 the "Separatist" and "Regular" churches at last came together and reunited under the ministry of Rev. Joseph Ayer.B
At the conclusion of the Narragansett War the territory north of North
" The following installed pastors have since served this church: Rev. P-ter H. Shaw, 1837-39; Rev. Myron N. Morris, 1846-52; Rev. Stephen Hubble, 1853-69; Rev. James R. Bourne, 1873-79; Rev. John W. Savage, 1881-84; Rev. W'm. B. Cary, 1884-1900; Rev. Edwin Judson Klock, 19co-1908; Rev. F. M. Hollister, 1909-1914; Rev. O. D. Fisher, 1915 -.
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Stonington was set aside for a new township, which was named in honor of the volunteers of that war, Voluntown. All well accredited soldiers of that fierce struggle were granted land in the new township. But it was a long time before its rather remote fastnesses were made accessible. Pioneers finally flocked in in numbers enough to warrant the "gathering" of a church, and in 1720 the Onconk or "Line" church was built, one-half the structure in Voluntown and the other half in Sterling.
But we must not forget that the western part of what was New London county, as constituted in 1666 and for something over a century and a quarter (1785), embraced the huge township of Old Saybrook, stretching east and west of the Connecticut river from Bride brook (Niantic) to the Hammonasset river (Clinton). In this territory there was an earlier develop- ment of organized Christianity than in that now within the county limits. Governor John Winthrop, Jr., had first essayed to establish a colony at Saybrook Point (1635) in opposition to the Dutch claims. High ambitions seemed to have centered about this strategic spot. During the contem- poraneous civil disturbances in England it was dreamed that here, at the mouth of the Connecticut river, a mighty commonwealth might be planted and fostered with the great Cromwell at its head and John Milton to be its chief literary ornament. Two Puritan noblemen, Lord Say and Lord Brook, were the leaders. The lingering glory of this dream may have had something to do with the location later at Saybrook of the Collegiate Institute of Con- necticut in 1701. But the early dream faded, and John Winthrop, Jr., gave over the enterprise to George Fenwick, who in turn sold out his rights to the Connecticut Colony in 1644. Two years later (1646), on the very year of the founding of the New London settlement, the Old Saybrook (Congre- gational) church was organized under the pastorate of Rev. James Fitch, as we have seen. He left in 1660 with a large portion of his flock to found Norwich and to establish a church there.
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