USA > Connecticut > Windham County > A modern history of Windham county, Connecticut : a Windham county treasure book, Volume I > Part 67
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 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110
The next pastor was one of Eastford's own boys, Rev. John P. Trowbridge, who was the beloved pastor for nearly ten years. He also served the Con- gregational Church at West Woodstock. During his pastorate there was a change in the form of organization. The dual organization had existed prior to this time, but March 1, 1894, as required by state statutes, the society con- veyed the property and invested funds to the church. On March 16, 1894, we find the church and society having their meetings together for the trans- action of business. Rev. Mr. Trowbridge is now pastor of the Congregational Church at Interlaken, Mass.
The church had not owned a parsonage for some years, but through the gift of Mr. Benjamin Green of Brunswick, Me., of $1,800 and with $300 added by the church the present parsonage property was acquired in August, 1902.
In June, 1902, Rev. J. K. Aldrich was called to be the pastor and remained until November, 1904. During his pastorate a manual and directory of mem- bers of the church was printed and circulated. Up to that time, August, 1903, there had been 591 members since the organization of the church.
Rev. William Linaberry served as pastor from April 20, 1905, until May 1, 1908. He is now pastor at West Suffield, Conn.
On September 1, 1908, Rev. J. B. King became pastor and remained until September, 1915. He was and is much beloved by the people of the church and community. During his pastorate the apportionment plan for church benev- olences was adopted. The salary was increased to $750 with some aid from the State Home Missionary Society. One of the oldest and most faithful of the members of the church felt that he must give up office at this time. Henry Trowbridge had served as clerk and treasurer of the church for over twenty- seven years, this office he resigned January 16, 1913. He was also deacon of the church which office he held until January, 1920, when he was made
543
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
Deacon Emeritus. Appropriate resolutions referring to Mr. Trowbridge's long and faithful term of service were passed on February 4, 1913.
In April, 1914, another advance step was taken when an every member canvass for missionary money was held. On January, 1915, it was decided to adopt the card system for church offerings. Another gift was received by the church the summer of 1914, when the Willimantic Congregational Church gave a furnace to the Eastford church.
On September 19, 1915, Rev. J. B. King felt he must sever his connection with the church. His resignation was accepted with reluctance, to take effect November 1st. Mr. King is now living at Hopkington, Mass., and is supplying a Baptist Church.
Rev. Arthur F. Linscott, a student in Hartford Seminary, was called to take Mr. King's place and came to the field at the close of his Seminary course, May, 1916. He soon won the hearts of all the people. But he was not to be long in the service of the church. He died quite suddenly in October of that year. This was a great blow to the church. His name and memory are still revered in the community and he is often spoken of.
We now enter upon a new period in the history of the church. November 9, 1916, it was voted to worship with the Methodists, the services to be held part of the time in one church and part of the time in the other. The present arrangement is six months in each, April to September in the Congregational Church, October to March in the Methodist Church. Reverend Anderson who was preaching for the Methodists at the time supplied for the winter. Since then the ministers have been Congregational, both churches uniting in the sup- port of the salary. The church officers and benevolent offerings and other finances being kept separate. A closer federation is hoped for in the future.
Rev. Stanley Sherman was called as pastor of the Federated Church, if we may use that term, in April, 1917, and served until March, 1919. The · every-member canvas for church expenses and benevolences has now become a fixed method of raising the money for the church. The salary was raised again, at this time being $900. Another forward step was taken when it was voted in January, 1919, that the expenses of the Sunday school should be paid by the church and all money collected should be handled by the church treasurer, in this way the younger children are trained to give to the church.
In July, 1919, Rev. Frank T. Meacham was called as pastor and began his work August 1st. In April, 1920, he received appointment by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions as a missionary to the South Rhodesia. Mission, Southern Rhodesia, Africa. The church voted to keep him as pastor until he sailed in the spring of 1921. New Sunday school equip- ment consisting of chairs and tables for a junior department was added dur- ing this time. During this pastorate came the campaigns for the Pilgrim Me- morial Fund and the Congregational World Movement, in both of these cam- paigns the church exceeded its assigned quota. The benevolences of the church are now $209 but the amount given exceeds that. The pastor's salary was in- creased in 1920 to $1,120. The membership in 1920 was sixty. A Sunday school and preaching service is being maintained at Phoenixville as a branch of the Eastford church.
The church is really endeavoring to minister to the whole community as a rural village church should. The present members may look back on a heroic past and strive to live up to the ideals set for them. For 142 years the church
544
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
has been doing its work and still its light is shining from the white church on the hill.
METHODIST CHURCHES
THE WILLIMANTIC CHURCH Historical Address, Delivered Sunday Morning, February 24, 1901, By Rev. Lyman G. Horton
INTRODUCTORY
A double text suggests itself as a fitting motto for our discourse this morning : "Herein is the saying true, one soweth and another reapeth." "I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon." (John 4:37-38; I Cor. 3:10.)
Here we have clearly stated one of the universal laws of human activity. It is true in the spheres of knowledge and of practical invention. It is true also of all the higher work of mankind.
This morning in lifting a little at the corner the curtain of past years, and · in endeavoring to make real and vivid events and persons long out of mind, we seek to pay a debt we owe to the noble men and women who, by their toils and sacrifices, made possible the present joyous occasion.
Some branches of the Christian church have one day in the calendar dedi- cated to "All-Saints." We will so denominate this day, and gather up the names of those who here "fought a good fight and finished their course, having kept the faith," our All-Saints Day :
"One feast, of holy days the crest, I, tho' no Churchman, love to keep, All-Saints, the unknown good that rest In God's still memory, folded deep."
One well-nigh thwarting difficulty facing the seeker after knowledge is the absence of records. Aside from a few meagre references to the Sunday school and ladies' society, a membership book dating from the pastorate of M. P. Alder- man (1852-53), and a brief, but valuable sketch written by the Rev. Edgar F. Clark, we have not a line to tell of the first fifty years of Methodism in Wil- limantic.
By assuming the role of intolerable interrogator and holding persistent in- terviews with the oldest living members of the church and residents of the town, and by communicating with persons living elsewhere, who were formerly active in the church work, much of the early history has been reproduced with a fair degree of accuracy.
I
"IN THE BEGINNING"-THE DIM DAYS OF THE CIRCUIT RIDER AND LOCAL PREACHER 1792-1827
The first Methodist preaching in Mansfield, then a part of Windham, was from the lips of George Roberts in 1792. Roberts was one of that blessed trio of pioneers who came to New England to garner the successes of Jesse Lee, who had preached the first Methodist sermon in New England at Norwalk, June
545
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
17, 1789. Do not forget that date, for the battle of Bunker Hill which occurred on another 17th of June, 1775 was not more memorable.
The first Methodist church in this vicinity was built in Mansfield (now Gurleyville) in 1797-8. It is highly probable that the Methodists whom Horace Moulton found here in 1828 were all of them converted in that old meeting- house and first united with the church in that place.
Unfortunately the Gurleyville records back of 1837 were destroyed by fire, so we can only wish we knew.
In those days there was no Willimantic. The village was at Windham, where Congregationalism had been established for a full hundred years. In 1800 the population of Windham was 2,644. All this region was woodland and sand- banks, with only an occasional house.
In the early '20s the Village of "Willimantic Falls" began to assume pro- portions. A paper mill was built by P. O. Richmond near the junction of the Willimantic and Natchaug rivers. A village with the suggestive name of Sodom, sprang up about the mill.
The first public building erected was a two-story grog shop called "The Lighthouse," and many a life was wrecked against it, instead of sailing into safe harbor.
The village grew rapidly. A new stone schoolhouse was built and opened "for school and religious purposes." Then came the Deacon Lee Mill, near what is now Bridge Street-a small affair, which still stands as a part of the larger structure of the Willimantic Cotton Mill Corporation. Here, in a stone house, built for mill help, to be seen today, in the mill-yard near the Hosmer Bridge, lived the first Methodist family of the village-Jonathan Fuller, his wife Betsey, and their ten children, five of whom were sons, and five were daughters.
"The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks." (Prov. 30:26.)
Methodism has had a liking for stone houses ever since. The twin house and church. The parsonage on Prospect Street should have been built of this material. Even that is "founded on a rock."
In his home Jonathan Fuller instituted a family class several years before Methodism had an organized existence in the village. It is said that he was instrumental in bringing to Willimantic the first Methodist preacher, a man by the name of Gardner, who preached in the West District Schoolhouse on Coventry Road, and stopped over night at John Browns. This brother is de- scribed as possessing a voice "now high, now low, in preaching."
Fuller also arranged with the Rev. Ella Dunham, a local elder of the Mans- field church, to hold services on alternate Sundays in the stone schoolhouse which stood on the site of the No. 2 Thread mill, and in the schoolhouse near the Windham Manufacturing Co.'s mill, which was located on Main Street, in what was known until recently as "White Row."
Ella Dunham "was very faithful and the prospects brightened." This noble local preacher was for many years a staunch supporter of this church. He was born in Mansfield, March 25, 1794, moved to Willimantic in 1832, went to Illinois in 1857; died in 1879. His strong, expressive face has been rescued from oblivion, and will grace our vestry wall with other worthies.
In 1826, Deacon Lee, although a Congregationalist, made the handful of Methodists a most liberal offer of a lot of land, and $300 toward building a Vol. 1-35
546
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
Methodist meeting-house. At that time there was no church in the village. The Baptists were the first to organize (October 20, 1827), but did not dedicate their church edifice until May 27, 1829.
The Congregationalists formed their society January 28, 1828, and built immediately.
The little band of Methodists hesitated over long, and Deacon Lee's offer was withdrawn in favor of his own sect. The proffered lot was the one on which the first Congregationalist church was erected, afterwards changed into the Melony Block.
The coincidence of three churches starting almost simultaneously is ex- plained by the sudden utilization of the splendid water privilege by enter- prising manufacturers from other places.
In 1835 Willimantic is reported to be "a flourishing village with three houses of worship, six cotton factories, and a paper mill."
What the scattered and feeble Methodist flock needed most sorely was a shepherd who was soon providentially supplied in the person of that vigorous young circuit rider, Horace Moulton.
II
'THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS'
-WHICH MANY DESPISED
1828-1850
Horace Moulton was twenty-nine years old and in the first year of his ministry when he was appointed junior preacher on Manchester circuit in 1828. He lived until September 11, 1873, dying at the age of seventy-four, a member of the New England Conference. We are indebted to reminiscences related in his journal some forty years after the events took place, for a real- istic account of the trials and triumphs of his epochal two years in Willimantic. Most indubitably did God set his seal of approval upon Horace Moulton, as He has upon many another young and consecrated worker enlisting career. As, for example, He did upon Dwight A. Jordan, now sitting upon this platform, who in his first charge witnessed a glorious revival in which strong men bowed themselves in penitence, among the number the speaker's father-in-law. Tra- dition says that when during this same pastorate a new church was begun, the young evangelist labored with his own hands laying the foundation, as his father had done when this edifice was reared. But we will let Moulton present his own story. He says :
"In 1828, I was appointed to Manchester Circuit in connection with Daniel L. Fletcher, including East Hartford, Manchester, Coventry and Mansfield. During the fall of this year I found my way to South Coventry a manufac- turing village, some three miles from our (Mansfield) chapel, and preached, where the Methodists had not previously entered, and the Lord greatly suc- ceeded our feeble efforts, and a goodly number were converted. Being obliged to leave here for other appointments, having suffered persecution, I was greatly surprised on my return to learn that Elder Tilden, a Baptist preacher, had wandered away from his flock in Willimantic to this place and with the greatest profession of love to the young converts visiting and praying with them, re- joicing greatly that the Lord had blessed the efforts made, offering to hold some meetings with them, enjoining upon them the especial duty of first being baptized, intimating that he loved the Methodists, etc. By his strategy he
547
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
persuaded most of the converts to be baptized, they little thinking that their being baptized would affect their standing with us, but it broke up the revival, and created dissensions among us, and I left the place.
"With a determination (with some holy indignation) by the grace of God, I resolved to pay this brother for his labors of love among us, and soon fol- lowed him to Willimantic, a new and thriving village, having two churches, a Congregationalist and Baptist. I found one Methodist family in the village, and three some two or three miles out of the village. Brother Fuller (who had moved into Mansfield in 1827, having purchased a house from his brother Ezra Fuller, July 27 of that year), Brother Luther Jacobs and Brother Apollos Perkins. Brother Fuller, I think, introduced me to Brother Boon of the village. I held a few meetings in private houses, which were attended with the divine blessing, and some thirty or forty were converted to God.
"Having exposed Elder Tilden's proselyting tour in Coventry, he had no more influence over the young converts here; but the Congregationalists, who possessed the greater influence in this place at that time, did all they could to hedge up our way, especially their minister. (We who live in the days of inter- denominational fellowship cannot appreciate the fierceness of sectarian strife in New England seventy-five years ago.) I was invited to hold a meeting one evening in a boarding house of a Congregationalist. The meeting was awfully solemn, many sinners being under deep conviction for sin. I was greatly en- couraged. The Congregational minister was present at the meeting. I asked him to take part in the exercises, and to speak to a number of mourners, to which he consented, and I hoped we were going to have good services together. But this hope proved to be delusive, for from this night I could hold no more meetings in houses where the Congregationalists lived. I had preached in their pulpit, but after this meeting I was excluded from their pulpit, and private houses and a persecution commenced against me, and the doctrines I advanced. Both of the preachers were now arrayed against me and appointed extra meet- ings. The Congregationalist minister sharply reproved me for accepting an invitation to preach in the house of one of his members and gave me to under- stand, that he could manage the affairs of his own church without any inter ference of mine. After this, having called upon him, he being exceedingly mad, refused to hold conversation with me, and intimated that my room would be preferred to my company.
"For a while our prospects looked rather gloomy. The ministers and a large portion of the community thought there was no need of any more churches in the place. They had more now than they could support. Hence they felt it their duty to oppose me. These oppositions aroused Brother Boon, the only Methodist in the village. He and myself conferred together about what we should do, no schoolhouse open for us, and we, being driven to a room, or hall in a factory building, we agreed to make an effort to build a meeting-house. We agreed, the minister and one layman, Horace Moulton and his Boon com- panion. He was to look out for a spot to build on, and I was to canvass the village for subscriptions to aid in building. He succeeded in bargaining for a building lot, where the first house stood (on the site of the present Atwood or Holmes block, opposite Railroad Street) and without waiting to take a deed of the lot (the deed was not recorded until December 17, 1831) he began alone with his iron bar and spade to dig and lay the foundation for a house of wor- ship, the people wondering what that man could be thinking of. On canvass-
-
548
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
ing the place, I had on subscription and pledges some $500. But on the strength of $300 we resolved to build the house in the name of the Lord. Brother Boon continued digging all alone until the stakes were driven, amid all manner of talk by the people, no one expecting we should succeed. During the winter, the heavy timber was drawn, and the work went slowly on, and was not finished (I think) until the next September (1829). (This building served the church until 1850.)
"In consequence of the building of this house Brother Hyde, our presiding elder, interceded to have me returned, so I was appointed on Tolland circuit, including Willimantic and Mansfield, a six-weeks circuit, in connection with Brother H. S. Ransdell and Paul Townsend. They took no special interest in this appointment, therefore the whole burden of building devolved on me. Sometime in the fall of 1828 I appointed Brother Jonathan Fuller, class leader, who lived out of the village, but a more faithful brother to the interest of the class could not be found. We struggled along up to the dedication of our chapel with between thirty and forty members, mostly females and all of them poor. The whole class probably were not worth $4,000. I sent for Dr. Wilbur Fiske, then principal of Wilbraham Academy, of precious memory, to come and preach the dedicatory sermon; who came and preached an excellent sermon from Ps. 95:5. 'Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, forever.' But he was grieved that Brother Ramsdell, who had charge of the circuit, and Brother Townsend could not make it convenient to be present. We making some excuse for their absence, all passed off quietly.
"The opposition was so great that some left us, not being able to stand the fire. One sister, who had been a Methodist for years, came into the place, whom we supposed was one of our best and strongest, but in the midst of the opposi- tions, asked to be dismissed to unite with the Orthodox. But Brother Fiske's sermon greatly raised the standard of Methodism among us, and before I left she came back and knocked for entrance again to our church. But I told her, as she had betrayed us in our trials we would now try to get along without her help, and rejected her. After my departure from the place, I learned that she came back, humble and penitent.
"In consequence of the financial panic of 1828, a heavy debt was left on the house in the fall of 1829, for which I felt deeply afflicted, and was some- times almost sorry that I was made instrumental in incurring the debt, but can now rejoice, believing the Lord was in the work, for within these forty years, God has greatly prospered that church, in converting hundreds to love Him, and in bringing many saints from that society, through the faithful min- istrations 'of their many pastors, to the 'promised land.' I received for my labors in Willimantic, some $10 salary, charging them nothing, having my horse kept in Mansfield a portion of the time, as there were none to keep him in the village in 1828. In 1829, Willimantic was made a Sabbath appointment, on Tolland Circuit. We all (i. e., three preachers) received about $50 for our services in 1829." (Here end Moulton's notes.)
The land in which the church was built was purchased of Daniel Sessions for $125. The building cost between $600 and $700-a plain, squatty, school- house-like structure, thirty-five by fifty-three feet, very cheaply put together, as was demonstrated when the old house was torn down in 1891, for it was found that the clapboards were nailed directly to the studding, without sheath- ing of any kind. But it was a shelter, a rallying point, a Bethel, for many years.
549
HISTORY OF WINDHAM COUNTY
Judge Ralph Hurlburt of Groton, loaned the money to pay the debts. In 1834, the appointment had become sufficiently strong to be made a station, with a pastor. Mosely Dwight was the first stationed preacher. He was then thirty years of age. He died in 1882, aged seventy-eight.
In 1838 the church was so pinched financially that it seemed impossible to retain the property longer, when a friend in need was found in Albert Banks Brown, brother of Elias P. Brown, who purchased the church for $800, July 11, 1838. The church agreed to pay him $75 yearly for interest and repairs and all over 6 per cent and cost of repairs was to be given to the church and deducted from the principal yearly, provided the building was redeemed within five or six years. The house was redeemed in six years (mortgage discharged April 8, 1845). The repairs for that time were less than $40, so the annual $75 minus repairs and interest diminished the original debt about $120. When the house was redeemed Brother Brown gave $100 and also took several subscrip- tions which he never collected. Albert Banks Brown, the man who once in the most literal sense, owned the church-let his memory be sacredly cherished. His face will hereafter adorn our walls.
The eldest living former pastor, Dr. A. H. Robinson is authority for the statement that, at an unascertained date, the church was raised up and a high cobble stone basement put under the wooden frame. In Doctor Robinson's day the lower part, divided into small stores, was rented for business purposes to assist in meeting the expenses. Doctor Robinson tells how the Rev. Mr. Borden, pastor of the then flourishing Universalist Church, took occasion to speak of the Methodists. He said: "The Methodists have a shoemaker's shop, a dressmaker's shop, a harness shop, and a tailor shop downstairs, and a gospel shop up stairs!" This witticism caused general merriment, but the appellative deserves serious attention. The Methodist Church has been a "gospel shop" from the first day until now and may it continue to be such "world without end, Amen." Andrew H. Robinson was a mere stripling-a light-haired lad -when he came here. Today his hair is light, but with the whiteness of age, "a crown of glory." We had hoped his benign presence would grace our jubilee, but severe sickness detains him in his southern home. His two years were years of spiritual power and of good feeling between the different congregations. Union services for religious and reformatory purposes were frequently held.
Let him depict one touching scene :
"We had a very flourishing Sunday school. Thomas Turner was superin- tendent. He was intensely interested as also was Mrs. Brewster and others in the school. There was a great turning to the Lord among the young people of the school. Mrs. Brewster's class numbered about sixteen young ladies, ranging from twelve to sixteen years of age. Mrs. Brewster had labored faith- fully with all of them. They were all converted but one young lady. So one Sunday when our usual prayer-meeting was held, Mrs. Brewster and all the class prayed for this one lost sheep, and when she was converted that day there was rejoicing indeed. We all sat down and wept for joy, that the lost and last sheep of that class fold was brought back on the Lord's shoulder."
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.