USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Southport > Annals of an old parish : historical sketches of Trinity Church, Southport, Connecticut, 1725 to 1848 > Part 2
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The Town of Fairfield extends from the Bridgeport line on the east, to the Sasco river on the west-a distance of about six miles; and from Long Island Sound to the boundary of the town of Easton on the north. The ground is delightfully varied, consisting of plains and lofty hills, from which en- trancing views of the blue water are obtained. The popula- tion in 1890 was 3,868.
*Child : An Old New England Town, p. 37.
CHAPTER II.
SKETCH OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL SITUATION IN CONNECTICUT FROM 1638, A. D., TO 1818, A. D.
To understand clearly and fully the difficulties with which those in the Town of Fairfield who favored the Church of England had to contend, it is necessary that the ecclesiasti- cal situation in Connecticut from its colonization in the first half of the seventeenth century, to the adoption of the new Constitution in the early part of the nineteenth, be set forth.
When Roger Ludlow and his companions settled in Fairfield, the only religious organization that was per- mitted to exist, was of the Congregational Faith and Order. As far as possible it was intended to be a stern, unyielding protest, against everything churchly with which the colonists had been familiar in their life beyond the sea .* One of its marked features was the close alliance it created between civil and ecclesiastical affairs .; The township and the church were one .; At the public meetings, matters
*It is not unfair to assume that Roger Ludlow himself at last tired of the situa- tion he had helped to create. In 1654, incensed ostensibly at the interference of New Haven to prevent his town, Fairfield, from waging an independent warfare against the Dutch, he went to Virginia, (a Colony wholly settled by members of the Church of England,) taking the records of the town with him. It is not known when or where he died. Johnston : History of Connecticut, p. 20.
¡Manifestly the aim of the pilgrims was the construction of a theocratic state which should be to them, all that the theocracy of Moses, and Joshua, and Samuel had been to the Jews in Old Testament days. In such a scheme there was no room for religious liberty as we understand it. The state they were to found was to consist of a united body of believers, and in it there was apparently no more room for heretics than there was in Rome or Madrid." Fiske: The Beginnings of New England, p. 146,
#For nearly a century, the same persons in each town considered and decided ecclesiastical affairs indifferently, acting as a town or a church meeting. The same body laid the taxes, called the minister, and provided for his salary. Johnston : History of Connecticut, p. 60.
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pertaining to both, were discussed and passed upon. Thus the different town charges, the church, and the school went hand in hand, and every inhabitant was compelled by the law to contribute towards the maintenance of each. The result, in a brief space of time, was open revolt on the part of those who, where their religious preferences were concerned, re- solved to act independently. As far back as 1664, William Pitkin, and others, signing themselves, "Professors of the Protestant Christian Religion, members of the Church of England, and subjects to our Sovereign Lord, Charles the Second, by God's grace, King of England," addressed the General Assembly at the October session "declaring their aggrievances," and "petitioning for a redress of the same." Their grievances were that they were not under the care of those who "administered in a due manner " the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper ; that they "were as sheep scattered, having no shepherd;" and they asked for the establishment of "some wholesome law " by virtue of which they might both claim and receive their privileges; and furthermore, they humbly requested, " that for the future no law might be of any force to make them pay or contribute to the maintenance of any minister, or officer, in the church that will neglect or refuse to baptize their children and take care of them " as church members. In 1690, a considerable num- ber of the freeholders of Stratford, "professors of the Faith of the Church of England, asked permission to worship God in the way of their forefathers."* The ranks of such dissi- dents, no doubt by this time had largely increased, for com- munication between this and the mother-country had become so frequent, that additions to the population were constantly being made, and of these the Church of England must have
*As the number of colonists increased, dissatisfaction increased with them. It often took the shape of complaints that the children of such persons were refused baptism; but it may be suspected fairly that the natural wish to share in the con- trol of the church whose expenses they helped to pay, had a great deal to do with it. Johnston : History of Connecticut, p. 226.
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had a fair share. Petitions and strivings for liberty to worship God " according to the dictates of one's conscience," were though, of no avail. Church and State were, at this period, as closely connected as they ever were in England. The ecclesiastical and civil powers were blended together, and liberty of conscience, and the theory of human rights existed more in name than in reality. The people were required to support the Congregational Order, which was the Order of Faith established by the civil government. Nor was this all. None had liberty to worship publicly in any other way, nor could men vote or hold any civil office, unless they were members of some Congregational church .* This unwise as well as unnatural policy, was persisted in until 1708. In that year the General Assembly of Connecticut passed what was termed the "Act of Toleration," by which all persons who " soberly dissented" from the worship and ministry by law established, that is, the Congregational Faith and Order, were permitted to enjoy the same liberty of conscience with the dissenters in England, under the act of William and Mary.
That act exempted dissenters from punishment for non- conformity to the Established Church, but did not exempt them from taxation for its maintenance. And so, by appear- ing before the County Court, and there in legal forms declar- ing their "sober dissent," any persons in the Colony of Con- necticut could obtain permission to have public worship their own way; but they were still obliged to pay for the support of the Congregational churches in the place of their respective residences. It was this latter provision that practically negatived the Act of Toleration. How could Churchmen of limited means, no matter how ardent their love for their own Church, contribute at the same time for the upholding of a form of religion, for which, under the circum-
*Beardsley : History of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, vol. i, p. 8.
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stances, they felt no sympathy ? Add to this, the innate feel- ing that ever impels us to resist being driven against our wills, especially in the sphere of religion, and we have at once an explanation of the stalwartness of those who because of their resistance to the law, were haled to prison. In the Town of Fairfield there were many who were subjected to this penalty. Rev. Samuel Johnson, Rector of Stratford, in February, 1727, writes to the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, at London : "I have just come from Fairfield, where I have been to visit a considerable number of our people in prison for their taxes to the dissenting ministers, to comfort and encourage them under their sufferings. But, verily, unless we can have relief and be delivered from this unreason- able treatment, I fear I must give up the cause, and our Church must sink and come to nothing. There are thirty-five heads of families in Fairfield, who, all of them, expect what these have suffered : and though I have endeavored to gain the compassion and favor of the government, yet can I avail nothing ; and both I and my people grow weary of our lives under our poverty and oppression." Nor was this an isolated case. Letters sent to the Venerable Society by the mission- aries, frequently contained complaints of persecutions because of their Religion. We adduce only one instance of what took place at Stratford: "On the 12th day of December, 1709, some of their officers, about midnight, did apprehend and seize the bodies of Timothy Titharton, one of our Church Wardens, and John Marcy, one of the Vestrymen, and forced them to travel, under very bad circumstances, in the winter season, and at that unseasonable hour of night, to the com- mon gaol, where felons are confined, being eight miles dis- tant, not allowing them so much as fire or candle-light for their comfort, and there continued them until they paid such sums as by the gaoler was demanded, which was on the 15th day of the same month."
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On May 15, 1727, a petition was presented to the Assembly, signed by Moses Ward and Samuel Lyon, Church Wardens, and Dougal Mackenzie, John Lockwood, Nathan Adams, Ben- jamin Sturges, and others, in the name and behalf of all the rest of their brethren," stating that ten of them had been lately imprisoned for taxes, at Fairfield, praying that the sums of money so taken from them might be restored ; and declar- ing that if their grievances might be redressed, they should " aim at nothing but to live peaceably and as becometh Christians among their dissenting brethren." And in re- sponse to this petition, an act was passed, providing that the taxes collected from Episcopalians for the support of religion, might, under certain circumstances, be paid to the Episcopal missionaries instead of the Congregational ministers. This movement of the early Churchmen of Fairfield, was the first effective step ever taken towards the establishment of religious liberty in Connecticut; a result which it required nearly another century to bring to pass. Nor did their efforts to gain their end stop at this point. The above petition was followed up by another acknowledging the "great wisdom and Christian compassion " of the Assembly, and requesting liberty to manage their own affairs as a Society, according to the canons and rubrics of the Church of England, and ex- pressing their adherence to that Church, "let the difficulties be never so great." But this petition was rejected.
Afterwards, in 1738, when the Legislature was about to sell the land of several townships, which had been set apart for the maintenance of the Gospel, six hundred and thirty- six Episcopalians, heads of families, in nine parishes or mis- sions, supplied by seven ministers, requested, by a petition* duly presented, that a small share of the avails of the land
*A most manly memorial "to the Honorable the Governor, Council and Representa- tives in his Majesty's English Colony of Connecticut," very modestly and courte- ously entitled by its authors, " the humble address of the members and professor of that part of Christ's Church called the Church of England, living in and under the government of the said Colony." Eccl. Affairs, vol. x, 324,
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to be sold, and of the funds from other sources for the same purpose, might be appropriated to them. But this, like every other attempt of Churchmen to secure to themselves equal rights in ecclesiastical affairs, met with an unfavorable recep- tion at the hands of the Assembly.
Finally, in the year 1746, the Episcopalians, who had been allowed under former laws of the Colony, to vote with their Congregational neighbors in the meetings of the towns and societies by which the taxes for the maintenance of religion were laid, lost that privilege by an act of the Legislature, which required that none but Congregationalists should vote in such meetings. Against such partial legislation, those in sympathy with the Church of England, again entered their protest .*
All of these acts of the Colonial Legislature are interesting and important, as indications of the state and progress of Episcopal Parishes in Connecticut, from the year 1725 to the year 1750. The last instance, that of 1747, which is very singular, may probably be best accounted for by the fact, that the Episcopalians had become so numerous in some places as to be quite formidable in the position of a third party, holding the balance of power, whenever divisions arose, as they often did in those days, among the Congregation- alists themselves t
Harsh treatment of Churchmen, though, did not cease even in the latter half of the century. In the proceedings of the Venerable Society some years before the American Revolution, in connection with the statement : "There is at this present time, a number of ministers of the Church of England in prison on account of their persecution from the dissenters,"
"Thus did the Churchmen of Connecticut occupy, thirty years before the Revo- lution, a position strikingly illustrative of the grand fundamental principle of that great movement ; namely, resistance to " taxation without representation."
t Rev. N. E. Cornwall : Historical Discourse. p. 26.
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this remark is added, "these sort of complaints come now by almost every ship."*
While the successful issue of the war of the Revolution bettered somewhat the status of Churchmen, pains were taken to keep the control of the government in the hands of the ruling Order, and to shape things with reference to the per- petuity of its influence. The Congregational body was as yet the State Church. Every individual was still subject to personal liability for its maintenance. This continued until 1818, when the spirit of toleration that was abroad, led to the
*In proof of the intolerance and persecution to which the early Churchmen of Connecticut were subjected, we cite as follows. The history of the Church in Con- necticut, cannot be understood without such retrospect. We give our authorities:
In the early settlement of the New Haven Colony, after enacting that " none shall be admitted to the free Burgesses in any of the Plantations within this juris- diction, for the future, but such planters as are members of some or other of the ap- proved Churches in New England," and that "the Court shall, with all care and dilligence, provide for the maintenance of the purity of Religion and suppress the contrary" ; it was enacted in April, 1644, " that the Judicial Laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses, * * * shall be a rule to all the Courts in this juris- diction."
The following are specimens of their laws :
"It is ordered and decreed by this Court *
* * if any person within this juris- tion shall, without just and necessary cause, withdraw himself from hearing the public ministry of the Word, after due means of conviction used, he shall forfeit for his absence from every such public meeting, five shillings." " And if any man refuse to pay meet proportion, that then he be rated by authority in some just and equal way : and if, after this, any man withhold or delay due payment, the Civil Power to be exercised as in other just debts."
For behaving contemptuously toward the Word preached, or the Messengers thereof, it was ordered, "'And if a second time they break forth into the like con- temptuous carriages, they shall either pay five pounds to the public treasury, or stand two hours openly upon a block or stool, four feet high, upon a lecture day, with a paper fixed on his breast, written with capital letters, AN OPEN AND OB- STINATE CONTEMNER OF GOD'S HOLY ORDINANCES." "Trumbull's Colonial Records of Connecticut," pp. 524, 545, 524.
These laws were not a dead letter. The Rev. Samuel Seabury, afterwards Bishop of Connecticut, was seized in another Colony, at Westchester, N. Y., " dragged like a felon seventy miles from home" to New Haven by an armed band ; and there " after firing two cannon and hurraing," he was placed in close confinement, and treated with extreme severity. MSS. State Papers of Conn. vol. i, doc. 436.
The laws of the Massachussetts Colony were still more intolerant. The penalty affixed to those laws was " banishment on pain of death; " and the laws them- selves were executed with the most studied and horrible cruelty. See Mass. Bay Col. Laws, Ch. 1, Sec. ii ; Ch. li, Sec. ix and x.
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inception of a movement, which abolished forever in the Commonwealth, those laws which gave to the majority un- equal civil and religious privileges. The Old Charter, granted by Charles the Second, under which Connecticut had been governed for one hundred and fifty years, but which time had shown to be honeycombed with defects, was supplanted by vote of the people, on the 4th day of July, with a broad and liberal Constitution, which abolished utterly the connection of the existing ecclesiastical system with the State. Religious pro- fession and worship henceforth, were to be free to all, and no sect was to be preferred by law. No person was to be com- pelled to join, associate with, support, or remain a member of, any religious body; and all religious bodies were to be en- tirely equal before the law. The last restriction upon the consciences of the people of Connecticut was now removed, and religion in whatever form it presented itself was left, for all time, to their free acceptance or deliberate rejection.
The hardships which Churchmen were subjected to, which we have thus considered, form a startling pic- ture for us to contemplate, who live at the close of the nineteenth century; yet it has an explanation that readily occurs to every impartial student of history. Such persecution for religious feeling was the outcome of a state of things, that had slowly, but surely, grown upon the Christian world. In the early ages the Church had to endure persecution ; then was the age of the martyrs. In the later centuries the Church had to struggle against heresies ; then was the age of the controversialists. Now, the danger of controversy, necessary as it often is for the defense of the Truth, is that it is apt to arouse a persecuting, vindictive temper. The man invested with power, the over-man, flushed with zeal, naturally endeavors to make the under-man think as he thinks; and if he rebels, is tempted to use force to accomplish his end. This is where Churchmen erred in the past.
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Heresy and Schism came to be treated as crimes for which the prison and the stake were adjudged to be the rightful penalties.
But " curses come home to roost." Those who were perse- cuted learned the same lesson ; and, in turn, became perse- cutors. When their time came, the Calvinists at Geneva, and the Independents in the Colonies, proved they could be even more ruthless than their opponents.
Neal, in his " History of New England," says: "It must be allowed that, when the Puritans were in power, they carried their resentments too far." Bishop Burnet testifies : "It were as easy, as it would be invidious, to show that both Presby- terians and Independents have carried the principle of rigor in the point of conscience much higher, and have acted more implacably upon it, than ever the Church of England has done, even in her angriest fits."
Let us, with one accord, thank God that those old days of ecclesiastical tyranny have passed away, we trust never to re- turn in any part of our land ! In this age the spirit and language of conciliation are known and appreciated. Uphold ing the Faith and Order of any particular religious body, by the secular arm, is not accounted to-day, a wise or seemly method by which to bring about unity of belief or action. We have learned that there can be no way to accomplish that desired end, except God's way, and that includes always sympa- thy and comprehension. The Truth of God must be carried to hearts and consciences by the teachings of those who are filled with it, ; and the love and faith which it begets and fosters. As Churchmen, looking out upon the broad page of human experience, let us be just, and utter no harsh or bitter word about the narrowness peculiar to the days of old .* We our- selves, as well as those who differed from us, in the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries, when opportunity served,
*When in 1691, King William sent out Sir Lionel Copley to be royal governor of Maryland, taxes were straightway laid for the support of the Church of England.
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were alike intolerant. When we had the upper hand, we- sought by every available means to enforce conformity ; when it came to be the turn of those who had opposed us, they sought . by equally violent processes, to maintain the position they had adopted. As has been forcibly said, "We cannot complain of Dissenters, as if mere Schisms accounted for their existence, when, in fact, it was to an extent it is difficult to exaggerate, the sin of our Church which caused separation to seem right to purer consciences in the past ; when, in fact, it is to non-con- formists that we owe, in times when darkness had almost settled down upon us, the revival and maintenance of the very ideas of Religion ; when, once more, God has so manifestly blessed their spiritual life. Let us never forget that a belief in a valid Church and Ministry is not in any logical connection with the quite unjustifiable denial that God can act, and has acted in irregular channels. God is not tied to his Sacra- ments, even though as men, if we know the Truth, we are bound to seek this fellowship in accordance with His cove- nant, and only so."*
and the further immigration of Romanists was prohibited under heavy penalties. This measure involving legislation for the support of a Church of which only a small part of the population were members, was as unpopular with Puritans as with Papists. Those of the former who had worked zealously to undermine the Roman Church, had not bargained for such a result as this. John Fiske : Old .... Virginia, vol. ii, p. 162.
*Canon Gore : The Church and Dissent.
CHAPTER III.
ORGANIZATION OF THE VENERABLE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL, 1701, A. D. : VISIT OF ITS FIRST MIS . SIONARIES, KEITH AND TALBOT, TO THE COLONIES, 1702, A. D.
REV. GEORGE KEITH, M. A.
In England, as far back as the reign of William and Mary, deep interest was felt in the spiritual needs of the American
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Colonies, which were then beginning to loom into prominence. New England, especially, was thought to be in great danger from various sectaries, who branching off from the new form of religion by law established, felt themselves free to teach and hold grievous forms of error. A writer of the time, declares that that region already " swarmed " with Antinomians, Familists, Conformatists, Seekers, Gortonists, and others of equally startling nomenclature. The aborigines, as well as the negroes who had been introduced in large numbers, also came in for a share of the general attention and sympathy. In 1701, this widespread interest culminated in the formation of the Venerable Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; an institution, which still flourishes with even more vigor than that which characterized its in- fancy. Its charter ran :
"William the Third, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, greeting :
"Whereas we are informed that in many of our Plantations and Colonies beyond the sea, belonging to our Kingdom of England, the provision for ministers is very mean, whereby there is a great lack of the administration of the Word and Sacraments, causing atheism to abound for the want of learned and orthodox ministers, and Romish priests and Jesuits are encouraged to proselyte ... We therefore em- power these, our right trusty subjects ; "-then follow a hundred of the noblest names in England, with the Arch- bishop of Canterbury at the head, constituting the Society. Its popularity was great from the outset. One member gave a thousand pounds for the work ; another nine hundred for teaching the negroes. One gave to it his estate in the Bar- badoes to found a college ; and another a present of books and maps. Archbishop Tennison left it one thousand pounds towards founding two American Bishoprics. The proprietors of Vermont set apart townships for its use. Evelyn enters
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upon the pages of his diary that he had promised twenty pounds a year towards it .*
The object of the Society, set forth in the beginning, and
The Content of ibu BOOK
THE SEAL OF THE VENERABLE SOCIETY.
from which, so far, it has never yet deviated, was declared to be the spread of the Worship of God according to the man- *McConnell : History American Episcopal Church, p. 99.
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ner of the Church of England. On entering upon this work, it shortly divided it into three branches ; the spiritual oversight of those English emigrants who had settled in the Colonies ; the conversion of the Indians; and also of the African slaves. Of these three, the first asserted itself as the most important, not only because the settlers being brethren and country- men, had the first claim upon its consideration, but because as soon as the formation of the Society became known, this element began to be clamorous for assistance. From South and North Carolina, from Virginia, from Maryland, from Pennsylvania, from New Jersey, from New York, from New England, the Macedonian cry was heard, "Come over and help us." It thus became so evident that a wide-spread dissatisfaction with the existing religious situation prevailed, that the Society determined to send an experienced mission- ary to travel over and preach to the people in the several Colonies, who should desire to listen to him ; and if possible aid them in establishing permanent organizations. A large number of those in the Colonies, at this period, had been bap- tized and confirmed in the Church, before they left England. Tempted by the prospect of great material advantages they had left their homes, without calculating the loss they were to sustain in being separated from the Ministry, Worship and Sacraments with which they were familiar. Had they been of the opinion that religious differences were of little importance, the situation in which they found themselves would not have troubled them greatly. But they regarded the matter from another standpoint. Nothing less than the ministra- tions of a clergyman of the Church of England would satisfy their desires. Assenting to what seemed an imperative de- mand the Venerable Society proceeded to act ; the Rev. George Keith was the missionary selected to visit the Col- onies on a "mission of observation," to discover and study the state of religion therein, and to report where mission- aries could be sent and congregations established.
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