USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Winchester > Annals and family records of Winchester, Conn.: with exercises of the centennial celebration, on the 16th and 17th days of August, 1871 > Part 50
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
On the 16th of March, 1773, Samuel Wetmore leased to Seth Hills, Wareham Gibbs, Oliver Coe, and the rest of the inhabitants of the society, for nine hundred and ninety-nine years, a piece of ground for a burying place. You know where it is with its enlargements. There are but few of us who have not trodden the paths to it with sorrowing feet. There our dead wait the trump of the archangel and the resurrection morning. Let it be the joy as it is the duty of those who dwell here to keep it as becomes the receptacle of such precious treasures till He whose eye is ever on the sleep of his beloved comes to call his own.
The second church edifice was built in 1786, and was 54 feet by 40. Many of us remember it, as it stood alone in unadorned grandeur on the Green, with its high pulpit and sounding-board, its high pews and narrow singers' sent, and its tything-men. We remember too the preaching we heard in it, even when we were so young our friends supposed it made no impression on us, and.we shall remember it
" While life and thought and being lasts, And immortality endures."
Rev. Publius V. Bogue, the second pastor of this church, was ordained Jan. 26, 1791. He was the son of a minister in Avon, and was born March 30, 1764. His father died when he was two years old, and his early education was limited. For a time he was in the army of the Rev- olution. He was converted at 18 and graduated at Yale College in 1787. He was licensed by the Hamp-hire Association at Feeding Hills, Mass. Mr. Bogue was a man of fine personal appearance and address, and an able and useful preacher. He was dismissed on the 20th of March, 1800, much to the regret of his people, and his wife said that he used to say in after years that he had never been sorry he left Winchester but once, and that was always. He finished the house in which I was born, long occu- pied by Dr. Wetmore, and now by Leonard B. Hurlbut.
After leaving Winchester, Mr. Bogue preached at Vernon, N. Y., at Georgia, Vt., at Paris, N. Y., and his ministry was greatly successful. He
538
ANNALS OF WINCHESTER,
die'l suddenly at his house in Clinton, N. Y., in the 73d year of his age and the forty-fifth of his ministry. "The memory of the just is blessed."
A general revival of religion occurred near the close of Mr. Bogue's ministry. Its fruits were lasting and blessed. He received fifty-one members to the church.
Eliphaz Alvord was chosen Deacon June 19, 1799, and died April 15, 1825, aged 83. He was eminent for many years in the church and in civil affairs. The history of the town cannot be given without an extended notice of him. He began at his house the Thursday evening prayer meet- ing, which was continued, almost without interruption, in the eastern part of the parish for forty years.
Robert McEwen-Macune-descended from the Scotch Covenanters, came from New Stratford at 22 years of age in 1766 or '67, took up four hundred acres of land, cleared the forest with his own hands, and built his house. He married, about the time of the organization of the church, Jerusha Doolittle, of Stratford. He brought his bride, who was seventeen years of age, to their new home on a pillion, making the journey, forty miles, in a single day. She endured the ride bravely till it was dark, and they were coming up through the dense hemlock forest below the hill when she exclaimed, " Where are we going?" " We are almost there," he replied, and soon they came out into the cheerful clearing.
For two or three years, while Mr. MeEwen was hewing down the forest, he often attended public worship in Norfolk. In a leaf of a diary of his which I have seen is this entry. "July ye 17 in yr 1770. Heard ye famous Mr. Whitfield preach at Norfolk from John ye 5: 25, which i hope was a word in season to me." Perhaps this was the day of his con- version.
When the church was organized he was chosen Moderator and Clerk, and the early records show that the meetings were often holden at his house. The house he built, now owned by Deacon Munsill, is, I judge, one of the oldest in the town. He was chosen Deacon July 12, 1799, and died November 16, 1816. Of him and his family you will hear more as these exercises go on. His son was that eminent minister of the gos- pel, Abel MeEwen, for fifty years pastor of the church in New London, a fine scholar, a courtly gentleman, a genial friend, a builder of the wastes in Eastern Connecticut, a leader of his generation, a man of whom it might have been said when he was seventy years of age, that though he had never lived in his native county since his majority, he knew more of its history, more of the life of its men, than any man who had always had his home in it.
His sou, Rev. Robert McEwen, is now living at New London. Of him I may say, after a long and thorough acquaintance, he is one of the most complete Christian men I have ever known. Though laid aside from a very useful ministry, his life is a blessing wherever it is. .
539
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
The second daughter of Dea. McEwen was married to James Beebe, who came from Litchfield, succeeded to the farm, and was in my boyhood a leading man in the church, and in the town. "Squire Beebe " he was always called. If the pastor was sick or away, he read the sermons in the sabbath service. He was moderator of parish and town meetings, a Christian magistrate, a representative and a senator in our general assem- bly. He had a large and intelligent family, none of whom remain in the town. He died at a very advanced age only a few years since in Ohio. When he was very aged, Dr. McEwen made him a visit, and he said it was worth a journey to Ohio to see the look of joy that came in Bro. Beebe's face when he recognized him.
It belongs to another to sketch the families prominent here in the last generation. I may be allowed, on the score of filial piety, a brief notice of two men who came here before 1800.
Adna Beach came from Goshen. He was a grandson of John Beach, one of the first settlers of Goshen, whose descendants are almost number- less and found in all d-partments of life. He first settled a mile west of the meeting-house, but removed north into the forest, which he cleared and there he built his house. His wife was Mary Stanley. One of the earliest things I remember is the funeral of my grandfather, which oc- curred in April, 1820, before I was three years old. He had nine child- ren, and they all lived till the eldest was seventy years of age. Twenty of his grand-ons and nearly as many of his granddaughters are now in active life. Three of his grandsons are in service in the ministry, and others are successful and useful in other pursuits. He and his wife and several of his children and grandchildren were members of the church.
Elijah Blake came here in 1798 from Torringford, where his sons. in their boyhood were the playmates of Samuel J. Mills. He was a de- seendant of one of the early settlers of Dorchester, Mass. He was not a member of the church but always maintained family prayer and a con- sistent life. He died in 1833. His wife was Sarah Hamlin. She died in 1811. Father Mills attended her funeral and said in testimony of her worth, that his mind went back to Joppa when the widows stood weeping around the dead body of Dorcas, showing the coats and garments she had made. You may find a large number of the names of the children and grandchildren of this family on the rolls of the church. One son and one grandson have held the office of Deacon. One great-grandson fills a popular Unitarian pulpit in Boston, and another has a large law practice in New York.
The third minister of this people was Rev. Archibald Bassett. He was a native of Derby, and graduated at Yale College in 1796. He was or- dained here May 20, 1801. He was a fine scholar and an able writer and preacher, bat his ministry here was short. He was dismissed Aug.
540
ANNALS OF WINCHESTER,
27, 1806. He afterwards settled at Walton, N. Y., where he died at an advanced age. Thirteen were received to the church during the ministry of Mr. Bassett, and eleven before his settlement after the dismission of Mr. Bogue.
And what shall I say of the fourth pastor of this church ? We thank God that, after a life of more than sixty years among his people, and past the age of ninety, he is with us, to-day, linking us to the earlier life we commemorate. The companion of those ancient men, as we look into his face, some of us after the lapse of years, the tide of time rolls back, our fathers and mothers, the venerable men and women of our early years, gather around him and we stand in the midst of our departed ones.
Of the man who married my father and mother, and baptized all these children, and gathered almost every one of us into the church, and buried those who died early, who was with us when we gathered at the golden wedding around the old altar, and who when the time of their departure in peace and triumph came, was with us, as we laid our dead away to rest till the coming of Christ, from whom I received gratuitous instruction by which I gained admission to college, whose constant friendship has been a joy in our family for sixty years, whose life has been a benediction in this community, I must speak though he is with us.
Frederick Marsh was born in New Hartford, September 18, 1780. His youth was under the ministry of Dr. Griffin, in the midst of those re- markable revivals of religion whose influence he has felt and extended in all his life. He fitted for college with the Rev. Mr. Robbins, of Norfolk, graduated at Yale College in 1805, studied Theology with the Rev. Mr. Hooker, of Goshen, was licensed at Salisbury in 1806, and ordained here February Ist, 1809. He relinquished his salary and asked for a colleague Feb. 1, 1846, and was dismissed Oct. 2, 1851. Of the ability and faith- fulness, the earnestness and zeal of this ministry, and the simplicity, purity and benevolence of this life, I shall not speak at length. The record is in our hearts and on high. Early in the ministry of Mr. Marsh there came to the parsonage, one September evening about nine o'clock, a young lady who was teaching the school in Danbury Quarter. She had ridden on horseback, with Sarah Benedict, over the hills to Deacon Alvord's to attend the conference meeting, and had come from that meeting to tell the young pastor that she was in great anxiety about her soul. After the interview, which added to her distress, they mounted their horse and rode up through the dark woods to Danbury Quarter. In the morning she resumed her school and soon became a happy Christian. I need not tell what Polly Grant has done in her generation. She was the first convert, so far as he knows, under the ministry of Mr. Marsh.
I cannot speak at length of the revivals that occurred during this pe- riod. Their history is a part of the history of our New England. How
541
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
pungent their convictions of guilt were, how keen was the anguish of those experiences, some of you know. What sources of heroic life and glorious death they were, the world knows. How they peopled the mansions of the Father's house, how they swelled the songs of heaven, will be known in the day of the manifestation of the sons of God. No other such scenes of solemnity and joy does this earth witness. They were in 1813, 1815 and '16, 1820 and '21, 1826, 1831, and 1842. Two hundred and three persons were added to the church in this ministry. Since his dismission Mr. Marsh has done a good deal of pastoral work among his people, and received many tokens of their kindness. On the 11th of March, 1860, Mrs. Marsh left her family and this world, and entered into rest. A na- tive of the same town, the fitting companion of such a man, Parnal Mer- rill was married to Mr. Marsh on the 22d of May, 1809. The patient, untiring, and efficient helper of her husband in all his work, the faithful and loving mother of her children, the courteous, hospitable mistress of her home, the kind friend of all who came within the sphere of her life, she deserves an honored and loving remembrance, now that we are trying to gather up the treasures of our past, and put them for safe-keeping into the casket of the future.
Their children were eight, of whom five still live. The same house has been the home of the family, and largely the home of the whole people, for more than sixty years.
If it please God may this life be continued a little longer, for it seems to us the sunlight and shadow will fall more lovingly on these hill-sides, and we know that the affections of many a wanderer will cluster more sweetly around the old spot, while it lasts ; and when it passes it will be to hear sweeter welcomes and to greet a goodlier company than surround our venerated Father to-day, and that heavenly voice, "Servant of God, well done."
Deacon Lorrain Loomis was chosen to his office Feb. 28, 1812. He was born in Torrington Jan. 9, 1764. He became a Christian, as he sup- posed, when he was a little more than 18 years of age. I have often thought that if I were asked to make a list of the most eminent Christians I have ever known, nearly first, if not first, would be the name of Deacon Loomis. He is said to have said early to a young friend, "Jesse, the world are living on the failings of Christians ; let us starve them to death." That was the key-note of his life. For thirty years he was an instructor of youth, and my friend, the historian of the town, says he was the only district school-master he ever loved. He once taught a school in Albany and had occasion to punish a boy, the son of a Dutchman. The father came to him in great wrath and threatened to spit in his face. " You can if you wish," was the reply, "I can wipe it off." He was so near his Master that when he was reviled, he reviled not again. His heart was
69
542
ANNALS OF WINCHESTER,
full of love to all men. He furnished, at his own expense, the first stove ever put in the old meeting house. Those of us who remember the in- tense suffering from cold in that house must bless his memory. It was just like him. The only accusation ever brought against him was, he gives too much. Blessed is the man of whom a carping world can say noth- ing worse.
The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. Deacon Loomis sometimes said to his intimate friends that he was just as sure of the com- ing of a revival of religion before there were any outward signs of it, as in the midst of its glories. It has passed into our current literature how Lorrain Loomis, Micajah Hoyt, and Stephen Wade, in a coal cabin on our northwestern hills, entered into a solemn covenant to pray for the con- version of Lemuel Hurlbut till he should be converted, or he or they should pass away from earth. They desired the conversion of Mr. Hurl- but because of their high regard for him, and his great influence in the community. I do not know that it ever has been told how, when his associates had long been dead, and he was more than ninety years of age, Deacon Loomis and Mr. IIurlbut met to rejoice together over that for which the three had prayed so long.
I remember well a prayer meeting on a cold winter's night at Squire Beebe's. I suppose it must have been in January, 1834. Deacon Loomis was present, though not living in town. He had just reached the end of his seventieth year. I think it was his birthday. How tenderly he spoke of his great unworthiness, of the shortness of his life, and his expectation of dying soon. How modestly he spoke of his hopes of Heaven ! How meltingly he exhorted us to holy living and prepara- tion for death. Yet, he lived after that almost twenty-five years. For several years he was steward and accountant at the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall, a position of great usefulness. He lost his property in middle life, and he worked many months after he was seventy years of age, at twelve dollars a month, to get money to pay obligations assumed for others long before. I thank God that this earth has been consecrated by the lives of such men. Their feet have trodden it; their tears have baptized it. Its air is holy with the perfume of their saintly lives. God made good to him his promise to the liberal soul, in abundant provision for his old age. He died July 7, 1857, aged ninety-three and a half years. "'They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firma- ment, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever."
Benjamin Benedict was chosen deacon in 1812, July 9. He is spoken of as an excellent man. He emigrated early to Coventry, Chenango County, N. Y., where he died July 22, 1850, aged 83.
Levi Platt was chosen deacon in 1819, April 30. No two men could
543
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
well be more unlike in form and temperament than Deacon Loomis and Deacon Platt. Deacon Platt was gigantic in form, of stern stuff, a patriarch, a puritan. Deacon Loomis was slender and loving as a child, a very lamb for gentleness. Yet these men wrought together in most loving partnership all the long years of their connection with the church, and I do not believe any pastor ever trusted more implicitly in any two men than Mr. Marsh, who was the junior of both, trusted these two men. They were the Aaron and Hur that stayed the hands of our leader to the promised land.
My most vivid recollections of Deacon Platt, as a church officer, are in the prayer meetings holden in the old school-house south of Hurlbut's store, in tlie Sabbath intermissions of the summer of 1831. In these meetings he prayed, and talked, and wept, as though he believed that men must speedily submit to God or be lost in eternal perdition. He did believe it.
Deacon Platt died August 14, 1856, aged 90 years, eight months, having been a member of the church more than seventy years-a vene- rable and holy man. "The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance." He was a son-in-law of Deacon Alvord.
Stephen Wheadon was chosen deacon, May 30, 1823. He was a man of strong character, and gave promise of eminent usefulness, but he died suddenly December 2, 1824, aged 40, "And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him."
Micajah Hoyt was chosen deacon, December 2, 1825. He was emi- nently a man of prayer. He emigrated to Barton, N. Y., where he died April 14, 1848, aged 77.
David Bird was chosen in 1835, and served the church faithfully till his removal in 1857. He died in 1863, aged 59 years.
Allen Blake was chosen in 1835, and served faithfully till his death in 1850, at the age of 58.
Of the eleven deacons of this church who have died, three were more than ninety years of age, three more were more than eighty-three, two more averaged seventy-five, and the whole average is more than seventy- five. "Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor."
The living men who have held the office of deacon are Abel S. Wetmore, chosen in 1835, Marcus Munsill, chosen in 1858, Elijah F. Blake, chosen in 1858, and Isaac A. Bronson, chosen in 1865. The church has had fifteen deacons.
Mr. James H. Dill was ordained colleague with Mr. Marsh, August 26, 1846. Mr. Dill, like all his predecessors, was a graduate of Yale. He came here in his youth, and labored earnestly a few years, and was dismissed October 2, 1851. He afterward had a successful ministry in
.
544
ANNALS OF WINCHESTER,
Spencerport, N. Y., and in Chicago. Ilis name is on that long roll of honor which the nation saved, will ever keep bright. He was a chaplain in the army, and died in his work.
After the dismission of Mr. Dill, Rev. John Cunningham preached several months, and accepted a call, but the consociation refused to settle him.
Rev. Ira Pettibone was installed here in October, 1857, and left his pastorate in 1866. Mr. Pettibone is now pastor of the church in West Hartford. In his life he has given a good deal of time to the cause of education. While here he founded and conducted the Winchester Institute. That beautiful building is one of the marks he made here. Members of the church gave their money to assist in its erection, and others have since given their money to put it into the hands of trustees as a perpetual gift to the community. Of these last, Mrs. Jonathan Blake and her daughter, Mrs. Mitchell, are worthy of special mention, they having given $4,500 for this purpose, which is the largest sum any one family has placed in this enterprise. It is now in the care of Colonel Ira W. Pettibone, and if the people of Winchester are wise they will cherish it, for besides its incalculable advantages to your children, nothing draws a good population like a good school, and there is a grow- ing demand for places of education away from the vicious influences of our large towns. Seventy-two persons were added to the church here during the ministry of Mr. Pettibone. Mrs. Pettibone, whose death occurred here April, 1865, was Louisa Welch, of Norfolk. She was an early teacher of mine. I have always felt the stimulus of her instruc- tions, and had pleasant memories of her. I believe she was universally beloved.
Rev. Wm. M. Gay supplied the place of a pastor for two or three years.
Rev. Arthur Goodenough, the present pastor of the church, was installed Dec. 28, 1870. He is a native of Jefferson, N. Y., and a graduate of Yale College.
The church has had five hundred and twenty-three members. If it has not grown larger the population has not increased around it. It has given largely to other churches, as to the church in Vernon, N. Y., a majority of her first members. We rejoice that the town has steadily increased and that other churches strong in numbers and influence, occupy the ground where the population is largest. May the Divine life grow in them all.
The present church edifice was raised Aug. 26, 1841, and dedicated June 30, 1842. It has recently been thoroughly repaired and speaks for itself.
Honorable mention should be made of those who supported with a lib- eral hand the institutions of religion even while they were not members
545
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION.
of the eliureh. Messrs. S. & L. Hurlbut, for a long course of years, paid one-quarter of the salary of Mr. Marsh, and supplemented the salary with large gifts which they eontinned as long as they lived. They also paid at least one-third of the cost of the present house of worship. The late Isaac Bronson and his brothers were liberal supporters of the society in the early years, as his children have been in the more recent, and there have been many others.
It is hardly possible to touch anything in the history of the last hundred years without dwelling on the changes in the life of the world. Our presence here and the journeys we have come are significant of these changes. The steamboat, the railway, and the telegraph have made pos- sible the wide dispersion of this family, and this pleasant re-union. In this hundred years these agencies have come into use, and are the instru- ments by which freedom, knowledge, and Christianity are doing the mighty work of regenerating the world.
When the fathers began here they were a part of some feeble colonies of Great Britain planted along the Atlantic coast of this wilderness con- tinent. We are a part of the mightiest nation on the face of the earth. I speak advisedly when I say the mightiest nation. I do not estimate the might of a nation simply by the number of her people, her wealth, or her armies. I take in the character of her people and the power of her prin- ciples, and I say that a nation that has a domain from ocean to ocean, and from tropie seas to polar ice, capable of sustaining a thousand millions of people ; that has spanned a continent with a great highway of the nations, bringing London within forty days of Canton; that established a system of popular education that has become a necessity and an inevitable destiny for the civilized world ; that has made chattel slavery henceforth impossi- ble anywhere; that has shaken by the simple power of her principles every throne in Europe ; that has made a republie certain in Great Britain at no distant day ; that is giving a home under her free institutions to the natives of every land, and gathering under her tutelage representatives of every nation and sending them forth with her stamp on them to give her life to the world-may claim without arrogance to be the mightiest nation on the face of the earth. I say that no other nation has so much power in the life of this world to-day as these United States of America.
A hundred years ago and there was but little general education in the world, save in these N. E. colonies. Within this eentury the boundaries of knowledge have had a marvelous enlargement. The stars have been measured and the mighty movements of the firmament have been discov- ered. Matter and life have given up their secrets till sometimes it seems as though the gates of the mysterious were to swing wide open and reveal all their treasures to the vision of man.
Now, the mightiest states enforec the education of all their people, the
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.