USA > Connecticut > New London County > New London > Annals of St. James's Church, New London : for one hundred and fifty years > Part 3
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John Seabury came from Duxbury, Mass., and settled in Groton, Conn., about the year 1700. His wife was Elizabeth Alden, granddaughter of John Alden, of the "Mayflower," who is reputed to be the first man that set his foot on Ply- mouth Rock. When a Congregational Church was formed in Groton, he was appointed one of its deacons, and is com- monly known as Deacon John Seabury. His fourth son was Samuel, who was born at Groton, July 8, 1706. This son was designed for the ministry, and with that view entered Yale College. During his connection with that institution, the excitement on the subject of Episcopacy arose, which led to the defection of Rector Cutler and Dr. Johnson from the established Congregational order. The College was shaken to its foundation, the course of instruc- tion was deranged, and many of the students withdrew. Among them was young Seabury, who, if he was carried no farther at the time, was at least made aware of the question at issue, and of the existence and force of arguments which had led some of the ablest and most scholarly of the Con- gregational divines to abandon their stations, and encounter in consequence obloquy and reproach. He proceeded to Cambridge, and finished his collegiate course at Harvard, where he graduated in 1724, at the age of 18. After a brief course of preparation for the Congregational ministry, he was licensed to preach, and for several months in 1726, as a licentiate, preached to the Congregationalists of North
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Groton, his native place. About this time he married his first wife, Abigail, daughter of Thomas Mumford, who was one of the most active founders of the Church at New London, as we have seen, and whose wife was a near rela- tive of Mrs. McSparran. His distinguished son, the bishop, the second son of this marriage, was born at North Groton, November 30, 1729. This matrimonial alliance brought Mr. Seabury into intimate and familiar associations with the members of the Church of England, and tended greatly to strengthen his bias in favor of Episcopacy, if he had acquired any in his collegiate course. His first wife soon died, and his second marriage to Elizabeth Powell, of Nar- raganset, is recorded in the old register book of the Narra- ganset Church, as solemnized by Dr. McSparran, May 27, 1733, after his entrance into Holy Orders. She was a granddaughter of Gabriel Bernon, a Huguenot, who was a prominent founder of Trinity Church, Newport, R. I. That Mr. Seabury's predilections and tendencies should have been confirmed and fostered by the associations and inter- course into which his first marriage brought him, was natural and inevitable. Reflection and study, doubtless aided by Dr. McSparran's help, under such influences soon ripened into convictions; and in 1731 he renounced his Congregational ministry and went to England, where he was ordained deacon and priest by the Bishop of London, who was at that time, I believe, Dr. Edmund Gibson. He returned to America with a commission from the Propaga- tion Society, bearing date May, 1732, and was appointed its missionary at New London. Here the parish, as yet in but an inchoate condition, was put in order by the election of wardens and vestrymen, and the adoption of the title St .: James's Church, which it has ever since borne. Here he continued to minister wisely and faithfully for the next ten years, the parish gradually growing in strength and solidity,
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and, we may believe, also in the fruits of the spirit, till, in 1743, he was transferred by the Society to Hempstead, Long Island, where he passed the remainder of his days. It is said that he preached his last sermon, however, in New London, while he was on a visit to his sister Mary, the wife of Jonathan Starr, the first of that name (where the sick- ness of which he died first seized him). He died at Hemp- stead, June 15, 1764.
Mr. Seabury's ministry in New London was quiet and uneventful. The ancient records, and his letters to the Society, show a gradual increase of strength in number of pew-holders and communicants, and in accessions to the parish from the population of the place. He built and resided in a house known in later days as the Brainard House, on the north side of State street, nearly off against the entrance of Green, which has now, in the progress of improvement, made way for the block of brick buildings. He was cordially welcomed by the Churchmen of New London on his arrival, and at once entered upon the dis- charge of his sacred duties. Under his direction the parish proceeded to complete its organization ; and, from that day down to the present time, the record of its transactions remains entire and unbroken. The record of its first action runs thus :
NEW LONDON, April 30, 1732.
Upon the coming of Rev. Mr. Samuel Seabury to this Mission from the honorable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, at New London, in Connecticut Colony, in New England, the congrega- tion of the Church at New London met on Easter Monday morning, April 10th, 1732, and, according to the Ecclesiastical Canons and Consti- tutions of the Church of England, elected and unanimously chose Mr. Thomas Mumford and Mr. John Braddick Church Wardens, and Mr. John Shackmaple, Mr. Matthew Stewart, Mr. James Packer, Mr. Giles Goddard, and Mr. Thomas Manwarring, Vestrymen, who accepted of the offices.
SAMUEL SEABURY, Missionary.
2 *
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I can nowhere find the title of St. James's applied to the parish until 1743, nor any vote adopting it. Probably it came into use, gradually and simply, by a tacit understand- ing. Previously, it had been called simply the Episcopal Church of the Congregation of the Church of England in New London. In the early records we find frequent men- tion of "the General Vestry," as distinct from the vestry proper, and persons are said to be admitted into it by vote. It is believed that this general vestry consisted of those per- sons who were allowed to vote in the affairs of the parish, and is equivalent to members of the society in the legal phraseology of Connecticut. If I mistake not, the term is so used in England. Webster defines vestry, "In England a parochial assembly." So, too, Dean Hook says: " Cer- tain assemblies of the parishioners, for the despatch of the official business of the parish, are called vestries." The name was given them because they were, or were supposed to be, held in the vestry-room of the church. Our modern use of the term, as, indeed, the thing itself which it denotes, seems to be an Americanism.
The subscription to recast and enlarge the bell, clearly indicating that the church had been previously furnished with a bell, has appended to it the names, not only of Churchmen, but of other citizens; and not only of New Londoners, but of friends in New York and elsewhere. Des Brosses and Livingston are evidently New York names, and two of the subscribers are marked as Jews. The date is May 18, 1741, and the amount obtained was £182 IOS. 4d. In this subscription the church is called " the Church of St. James " for the first time in the extant records. As the church stood right in the centre of population and busi- ness, the bell was a matter of general interest. It would appear, however, that the design was not carried into effect at once; for, in 1755, we find it connected with a work of
f
0
f
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ST. JAMES'S, NEW LONDON.
general repairs, for which new subscriptions were obtained, and a tax levied upon the pews; and then a clock was added. But, before this, Mr. Seabury's ministry had ended, and his successor had come in his place. . 1235096
In a letter to the Society, under date of May 3, 1742, Mr. Seabury writes : "New London is a small town, stand- ing by a pleasant river, about two miles from the sea, the principal port of Connecticut Colony. The first members of the Church of England who founded St. James's Church were either Europeans not long settled here, or persons brought up in other colonies." And that it looked upon itself, at least, as a place of some importance, is evident from a letter of Matthew Stewart to the secretary of the Society, dated January 14, 1743, in which he speaks of New London as "the seat of his Majesty's custom-house, and so the port of greatest note in the colony, and, in many other respects, as a city set upon a hill which cannot be hid ; " so that "a man of mean and ordinary abilities " there "would bring the Church into contempt," and the more so as the Independent minister-the writer's ancestor-"has a well established character, and is, in every respect, the most superior person in the colony." This Matthew Stewart was the Irish gentleman heretofore mentioned, who resided in New London more than half a century, and, in the early days of St. James's, was among its most conspicuous and influential members. As an outspoken Royalist in the Revolution, he was obliged to keep himself close, and was at last buried at night under the old church, two years before its destruction.
The last years of Mr. Seabury's ministry in New Lon- don were disturbed and embarrassed by the extraordinary flood of religious extravagance and fanaticism that swept over the land after Whitfield's career in America, called frequently the Great Awakening and the New Light, and
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which was a reaction from that terrible deadness and immorality in which the earnestness and severity of the Puritan settlers had issued within a century from their coming. The same reaction had given birth to Methodism in the mother country. In this wild deluge of religious zeal, New London largely shared. Whitfield himself came here, and here Davenport, one of the most extravagant of his disciples and imitators, enacted some of the wildest of his fanatical performances. The position of the minister of the Church, under these circumstances, became difficult and embarrassing. Mr. Seabury writes, June 5, 1743 : "These people have their meetings in New London almost every night or day, and it is not uncommon (as I am apprised by persons of good sense and integrity) to see ten or more seized at once with violent agitations, many incapable of any decency, crying out for their damned estate, so past speaking at all, or so much as being unable to stand, fall down, as they pretend, with the weight of their guilt; and the most of those continuing thus violently exercised (as they say with conviction) but a few hours, do they receive 1 comfort? The Spirit of God, they say, witnesses with their spirits that they are converted and born again. Then fol- low, immediately, raptures and transports of joy as are more surprising than their distresses. New London has been, for a week together, in such a tumult that I was afraid the people would have been beside themselves. I have had my house full of people, some under these distresses, and others surprised at the conduct of their neighbors, though I thank God I have never seen any person in this way but, by cool reasoning, and by plain exposition of the terms of reconciliation, they have been brought off from their amaz- ing apprehensions to a just notion of the doctrines of repentance and remission of sins."
Davenport, after working the people up to frenzy by his
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violent preaching, induced them, as he called it, to burn their idols, in imitation of those men at Ephesus who " brought their books together, and burned them before all men." This shocking exhibition occurred Sunday evening, March 6, 1743. " This," says Miss Caulkins, " has been regarded as the most conspicuous instance of fanaticism which occurred in New England." Rich apparel, books, whatever were esteemed most valuable, was to be sacrificed, -Davenport himself, tradition says, setting the example by throwing in a pair of velvet breeches. The wretched scene was exhibited in front of Mr. Christopher's, at the head of what is now Hallam street. Davenport himself, when he came to a better mind, in his recantation, speaks of it as " that awful affair of books and clothes, at New London," and confesses himself the "ringleader in that horrid action."
It was in the midst of this commotion that Mr. Seabury was transferred to Hempstead, and his congregation, sur- rounded by the religious uproar, were left as sheep not hav- ing a shepherd. This consideration is strongly urged by the parish in their application to the Society for a successor to Mr. Seabury :
REV. SIR,
The Rev. Mr. Seabury, our present worthy pastor, having acquainted us that he has consented to and joined the solicitations of the people at Hempstead, on Long Island, for his removal to that parish, administers to us an apprehension of a vacancy in our church, and to you the trouble of this letter. The very great convulsions occasioned here, and in divers other places in this colony, by the breaking out of what is called the New Light, makes this a melancholy juncture to have our Church empty and unsupplied, and the more so in the regard that the present discord . having set sundry of the most cool and considerate people to thinking and reading, there is a promising prospect of those inquirers into religion end- ing in thorough and well-weighed conformity to our Church. And this again makes it the more necessary that this Church should be made happy
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in the appointment of a missionary, who, for morals, learning, and experi- mental knowledge in the present state of things, might be equal to the difficulties of the present times. The congregation, therefore, being anxious for an experienced person to succeed Mr. Seabury, and being met after divine service on the afternoon of St. Matthias' Day, did agree that we, the subscribers, the present Church Wardens, should signify to the honorable Board that the congregation are now applying themselves to some gentlemen already in the Mission, whose activities and abilities they are in some measure acquainted with, in order to obtain, if possible, the removal of some one of them to New London; and if they are so happy as to succeed in such application, they humbly hope the honorable Society will concur with and facilitate such remove. But, failing these endeavors, that they would, in their great wisdom and piety, make such provision for them as may preserve them from the too common fate of sheep left without a shepherd.
With our unfeigned thanks to Almighty God for raising up and hitherto enabling the honorable Society to be patrons to our poor infant Church, encircled with enemies, we add our earnest prayers for God's blessing upon their endeavors, and are the honorable Society's,
and, Sir, your obedient servants,
NATHANIEL GREEN, Church EDWARD PALMES, S Wardens.
By order of the congregation.
NEW LONDON, Feb. 26, 1742-3.
In their apprehension of the evils likely to result from the approaching vacancy, they also addressed themselves to the Rev. Mr. Price, Commissary of the Bishop of London, at a meeting of the clergy at Newport, to obtain his sym- pathy and aid, as follows :
REV. SIR,
We have, for some time past, been under the apprehension of being destitute of a minister this summer, and we rejoice at so favorable an opportunity of addressing the body of the Clergy for their charitable assistance. We, therefore, in the behalf of the Congregation, presume to beg that some scheme may be formed and communicated to us for our occasional supply. We have no reason to think that we shall be under
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the necessity of troubling them for such a favor before the middle of July next, and, if we might obtain encouragement for assistance from that time, we should esteem it a special favor, and ourselves at all times to make the most sincere acknowledgments. We are, Rev. Sir, your and the Clergy's
most humble servants,
EDWARD PALMES, Ch. Wardens. MERRITT SMITH,
NEW LONDON, 30th May, 1742.
Overtures were, at the same time, made to the Rev. Mr. Brown, of Brook Haven, L. I., inviting him to succeed Mr. Seabury; and a letter was written to Dr. Cutler, of Boston, " to know if he will advise his son to remove from England to this church." Neither effort produced any effect, and the parish was left, under circumstances calculated to produce anxiety and alarm, to await the removal of its first minister. The want they so earnestly deplore does not seem to have been supplied till nearly, or quite, 1748. Whether they had any other than occasional services in the interval does not appear. From the records of Narraganset, it appears that Dr. McSparran officiated at New London the 3d and Ioth of March, 1744. Mr. Punderson speaks of officiating there one Sunday. It is probable that he, and perhaps Dr. McSparran also, officiated here at other times, and perhaps other clergymen ; but it does not appear that the mischief anticipated from the vacancy was, to any great extent, real- ized.
In 1745, the Society determined to send them a mission- ary, on condition that they should furnish him with a house. The parish voted to comply with the condition, and to pur- chase a house immediately ; but subsequently rescinded the vote to buy, and determined instead to build a house. The records of the transaction are not very full or complete, but it might seem that they were influenced to make the change
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ST. JAMES'S, NEW LONDON.
by the proffer of a lot on which to build, by Mr. Samuel Edgecomb, who was then the owner of a considerable tract of land on the west side of Main street, extending north and south on either side of what is now called Church street. This lot, four rods front and nine rods deep, was conveyed to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in order that a house might be built thereon for the accommodation of their missionary. The house was built, and continued to be the parsonage of the parish, and the house of its minister, till 1856, when it was sold, as a preparatory measure for the erection of the present rectory. It still remains, and, after some repairs and improvements, is a comfortable and re- spectable dwelling-house. It was "two stories high, with a gambrel roof," and originally of the thickness of only a single room, and consisted of a parlor and kitchen, with bed- rooms over them, and a chamber in the attic. The work, however, seems to have lingered, and advanced to its com- pletion very slowly; for, in 1747, Mr. Punderson, who was then the missionary at North Groton (now Poquetannock) and Norwich, writes the Society : "I have the satisfaction to inform your venerable Board that the ministry house in New London is nearly completed." That the Church should have suffered from the delay of providing it with a minister, might naturally be expected, and, accordingly, the new missionary, when he came, wrote the Society : " As for the people in New London, I am afraid they will never be reconciled to a regular minister. I despair, though I shall continue to act in the best manner I can for the glory of God and their edification. I cannot, from their behavior at church, conclude that ever they had an orthodox minister among them, as my manner of performing seems strange to them." He expresses a doubt whether they wanted him. This is, certainly, not a very complimentary account of his flock. Their neighbor, Mr. Punderson, seems, however, to
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have thought better of them, and accounted them rather exemplary for patience and perseverance. He says of them : " They are a generous, good sort of people, and they continue firm and unshaken."
The missionary whom the Society sent was the Rev. Matthew Graves, an Englishman; tradition says, a native of the Isle of Man. He was the only minister in Connecti- cut that was not a son of the soil, and, for this reason, seems never to have exactly understood his ground, or united very cordially with his brethren. He was always one by himself, and always had views and projects of his own. Mr. Graves' ministry in New London was long, extending from the time of his appointment till it ended abruptly amidst the turmoil of the Revolution. He was brother to the Rev. John Graves, of Providence, a man of superior force and distinc- tion, of whom Mr. Hempstead, a Congregationalist, in an ancient diary which has been preserved, speaks, where he says : "I went to the Church to hear Mr. Graves' brother, a famous man." Mr. Graves never married. A maiden sis- ter, Joanna, lived with him and kept his house, and, during his whole ministry at New London, they inhabited the house built on the ground given by Mr. Edgecomb to the Propa- gation Society. His income was very limited, for the stipend allowed him by the Society was small, and the addi- tion to it by the parish made it, at the most, a bare suffici- ency. They were at times, tradition informs us, reduced to straits. On one occasion, the story goes, when Miss Graves informed her brother in the morning that there was not provision for the day, and no means to procure any, and was silenced by her brother with the words, "The Lord will provide," the want was supplied by a fish-hawk, that, in flying over with a fish in his talons, lost hold of his prey, and dropped it directly at the back door of the parsonage. On a pane of glass in the north window of the guest-chamber,
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was written with a diamond, in a fair, round hand, with remarkable distinctness and precision, the text, "Thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful," the last word written in larger characters, with a line drawn below the words "one thing." This is said to have been written by the Rev. John Graves, who, probably, on some visit to New London, found his sister Joanna, not unlikely something of a Martha, anxious and disturbed by the scantiness of her means of housekeeping, and adminis- tered to her, in this way, a gentle rebuke. The glass was removed when the house passed out of the possession of the parish, and is still preserved.
The brothers were of the Methodistical school, which, under the labors of the Wesleys and Whitfield, had a little before sprung up in the Church of England, and revived the enfeebled piety of the Established Church, but had not yet resulted in a schism; and Matthew is famed as a friend of the saintly Fletcher of Madeley. Of the man it is some- what difficult to form a very satisfactory estimate. He appears very differently as seen from different points of view. His numerous extant letters to the Society, in which he seems to have uttered his thoughts and feelings with remarkable freedom, might seem to reveal him to us satisfactorily; and yet they do not very well agree with the reminiscences of him which lingered among aged people long after his depart- ure, and down to a comparatively recent day. His letters set him before us as a choleric, petulant, irritable, hot- headed, hasty, and captious man, prone to speak his opinions of men and things without reserve, and without due care and caution ; speaking of his people, and even of individu- als by name, with harshness, and in terms closely bordering upon abuse, charging his brethren with gross offences and "dark intrigues, a sort of clerical Ishmaelite." But the traditions of the parish represent him as an honest and
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earnest man, kind, friendly, and social, of genial ways, familiar and simple-hearted, a little gossipy perhaps, run- ning about among his parishioners after a very unceremo- nious fashion, always active and ready for service, and sin- cerely liked if not profoundly respected. No doubt both portraits are true, and justly represent the same man in his different phases. If he was a Manx man, his incongruities are fairly traceable to his Celtic extraction. He was pious, devoted, and zealous, having a good deal of missionary feeling, not confining his labors to New London, but spread- ing them over a wide extent of territory, and going to distant places to preach the Gospel. But the truth is, the Englishman was never entirely at home among the Yankees, lay or clerical. He annoyed them, and they him. He felt the want of adaptation, and in one of his letters asks to be transferred to South Carolina. He says, "I hope they will in mercy remove me to South Carolina, where I hope to give more satisfaction than it is possible that any European can in New England." Yet, at times, he speaks of his suc- cess, and, in 1761, writes : “ Blessed be God, my parishioners increase, so that I am amazed to think whence they come ; several have lately been added, not only externally, but practically : they are doers as well as hearers, and those of the better sort; to whom, I trust in God, others now under preparation will soon be joined." But the poor man was then drawing near to the "troublous times," in which his ministry in New London disastrously ended, and, soon after, his life. He was not a very strenuous Churchman. Mr. Updike, in his History of the Narraganset Church, says, quoting a letter : " He has lately given great offence to his brethren and us, by being officious in the settling a Dissenting teacher in New London, and injudicious.enough to be present at his ordination." "He frequently united in worship with Christians of other names," says Miss Caulkins.
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