USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Bristol > Bristol, Connecticut : "in the olden time New Cambridge", which includes Forestville > Part 15
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Or, dallying oft in some quiet nook, She would welcome a tribute-bearing brook. And thus she journeyed for many a mile, With a rhythmic flow and a happy smile.
But along her course, again and again. She was made to toil for designing men. Who would seek her lithesome steps to stay, And make her a prisoner day by day.
But the wily river would quiet keep, And gather strength for a final leap, Their barriers clear with defiant roar, Then flow on her winding way once more.
Sometimes when the clouds their burden shed, And the brooks and the rills had been overfed, She would give full vent to her pent-up wrath, And sweep the offending walls from her path.
But she came at last to mourn and grieve, For the tranquil life she used to live; And the East Wind chanced to hear her sigh, And it touched his heart as he hurried by.
So he stopped in his flight, and whispered low: "Wouldst thou escape from thy human foc? Then hasten away to yonder plain, And there thy emancipation gain."
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So she sought the plain and found, at last, Her lot in delightful places cast. And she hastened not but took her ease, 'Mid the fragrant flowers and the stately trees.
And oft she lingered in peaceful rest, With the shadows flickering on her breast,
Meandering hither and yon at will, With a current placid, deep and still.
ALONG THE PEQUABUCK. ( Photographs by Milo Leon Norton.)
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THE UNITING OF THE PEQUABUCK AND TUNXIS RIVERS, NEAR FARMINGTON CONNECTICUT.
And thus she came to an ancient town, Where the Tunxis was pouring his waters down; And he bade the gentle river to come And find in his bosom her future home.
She blushed with the glow of the sunset red, When she heard what her fluvial lover said;
For King of the rivers, grand, was he, And she his beautiful Queen would be
So down where the clerical elm tree stood, His chancel the marge of the shadowy wood, Where the ash and the linden stood side by side, There the sycamore gave away the bride.
Then the blushing bride and the bridegroom gay, Went joyously, lovingly, on their way; While the oaks and maples along the bank, To the health of the bridal waters drank.
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history of First Congregational Church
AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS DELIVERED OCTOBER 12, 1897, BY EPAPHRODITUS PECK.
JUDGE EPAPHRODITUS PECK.
W HEN Rome was imperial mistress of the world, the people used to say, "All roads lead to Rome;" and Thomas Carlyle, in Sartor Resratus, repeats the thought with the sentence, "Any road, this simple Entepfuhl road, will lead you to the end of the world."
It is a like thought that fills with interest the study of the history of an old New England Congregational Church. Not so much the charm of landscape or variety of incident along the way, but that the road leads back to those great, unique, pioneer days of Puritanism, when, here in New England, such a people lived and fought and wor- shipped God as the world has never seen elsewhere. .
Not that like earnest and strenuous strains of character have not appeared in many nations and in all times; but never elsewhere, unless
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CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH-1907.
in Hebrew history, has a country been populated and institutions es- tablished by a community in whom a natural earnestness and an intense desire for the strenuous things in character and life had been intensified by persecution and exile, until the Kingdom of God and His righteousness had become the supreme interest of the state, the foundation of society, and the constantly controlling thought and purpose of all individual life.
The little Independent churches which had been formed in England represented in themselves the advanced left wing of Protestantism, in in which not only papal, but also royal, episcopal, and presbyterian supremacy was denied, and the pure simplicity of apostolic days sought after, with that intensity of purpose which those who sympathize with its aims call godly zeal, and others call fanaticism. Persecution, even to poverty, imprisonment and death, purged away all indifferent adherents and exile sifted out the most stalwart and heroic as seed for the new country.
A pioneer population is always made up of daring and adventurous spirits; but what other land ever saw a pioneer population whose daring was daring to leave all for the service of God, whose radicalism was in earnestness of consecration, whose search was not for gold, nor for the fountain of perpetual youth, but for treasure in heaven, and assurance of eternal life.
ยท The narrow and unlovely sides of the Puritan character were evi- dent enough to inspire hatred and ridicule from their contemporaries, and to make them the object of much satire and criticism in later histor- ical writing; but in spite of an ideal of character which largely omitted the gentler and more amiable qualities, in spite of a sense of duty to others which included little charity for weakness or toleration of dif- ferences of opinion, in spite of a conception of God based on the Hebrew ideal of the Old Testament rather than on the Christian ideal of the New- Testament, the Puritan immigrants laid in New England such granite foundations of individual character and of church and state, that, with
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all the changes of time, we can still feel that our house will not readily fall before the winds and floods, for it was founded upon a rock.
The settlement of this community does not, of course, date from the very beginning of the Puritan colonial life, We are of the fourth generation. Newtown begat Hartford, Hartford begat Farmington, and Farmington begat New Cambridge.
The first settlement here, in 1728, was a century after the coming of the Mayflower. And, in that century, the intensity of the Puritan spirit had no doubt much moderated. The days of persecution in England had passed by, and settlers had begun to come to New England for many other reasons than to find a refuge for the safe exercise of their religion. A century of quiet prosperity on this side of the water was of itself likely to take the edge from the fierceness of the early Puritan zeal.
But time then moved far more slowly than now. The ox-cart fairly symbolized the intellectual movement of the time, as the loco- motive, the bicycle and the electric fluid do that of today; and I think the new Cambridge settlers of 1728 and 1747 were still closely akin in spirit to their fathers of early Plymouth and Salem.
The idea of a total separation of church and state, so fundamental in our modern system, would have been abhorrent to them To their thought the first concern of every community was to set up and unitedly carry on the worship of God; the minister must be found even before the schoolmaster or the constable; and no evil behavior was more of- fensive to the feelings of the community, or deemed more harmful to its good order, than neglect of the services of the sanctuary. Every- where the Congregational church was the established church in the fullest sense; having its house of worship built by the community, its minister called by vote of the legal voters, paying its expenses by public taxation, and punishing any neglect of its services by processes of criminal law.
I shall not go over the familiar story of the settlement. In 1728, the first house was built, and in 1742, fourteen years later, 'when the first ecclesiastical organization was sought, the petitioners for it were twenty-one, probably almost or quite the entire body of legal voters.
What the road to the old church in Farmington was like, who can tell? Doubtless a mere bridle path, winding among the trees and over the streams. So in 1742 the little body complained to the General Assembly that they were "So Remote from any Meeting House in any ministerial sociaty in sd Town, as Renders it exceeding Difficult for us to attend the publick Worship of God In any place where it is sett up, and especially in the winter season," and with stalwart courage declared "that there is such a Number of persons as that we are Compitently able to hire a Minester, to preach ye Gospel to us In said winter season;" and therefore begged that they might be allowed to hire "an Authordox and suitably Quallifyed person to preach ye Gospel amongst us for ye space of six months in ye year Annually;" that is, to be a winter society, as the phrase was. This permission was granted, and on November 8, 1742, the community met in society meeting, and from that day, by good fortune, we have the full records of the ecclesiastical society, until its dissolution in 1897.
"At the same Meeting we past by Vote that we would meet at John browns for the winter season for the present." This John Brown house was on King Road, north of Pierce's Bridge. Later they met at Stephen Barnes's, west of the Bristol House, at Abner Matthews's, on the South Mountain road, at Joseph Benton's, near the John Moran house, at Ebenezer Barnes's, now the middle of the Julius Pierce house, and at John Hickox's on Chippin's Hill.
The search for the "Authordox and suitably Quallifyed" minister at once began, and Mr. Thomas Canfield was engaged to preach for the first winter. He first preached here on December 6, 1742, and that was undoubtedly the first church service held in this community. The
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INTERIOR OF CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH-SHOWING PULPIT.
little company of some twenty families, gathered at John Brown's house to hear the preaching of God's word, must have had a service meagre and simple enough to satisfy the most extreme advocate of Puritan simplicity; but what a depth of joy there was in the fulfilled desire of their hearts, how clear the divine presence was to them in that crowded dwelling house, who, in these days of increased wealth and lessened faith, can truly appreciate?
Mr. Canfield two years afterward began his life pastorate in Rox- bury. He was but twenty-two years old when here, graduated three years before at Yale College. In a record existing in Roxbury, he men- tions his winter's preaching here, referring to the place as "ye Mountain, now called Cambridge in Farmington."
The next fall the society left it to the committee to hire a minister, and there is no record stating who was hired. But the people were already eager for more gospel privileges, and appointed one committee to apply to the town and another to the General Assembly that they might be a "distinkt sosiaty." The Farmington society had already consented, and the act of ecclesiastical incorporation was promptly passed. Then, being a legal society, they might settle a minister and so become a fully organized church of God, and to this their thoughts at once turned.
A few days after the act of incorporation was passed, they met, chose society officers, and "Voted that we would apply ourselves to the next association for advice in order to the bringing in a minister amongst us as soon as Convenontly may be." Three days later they called Mr. Joseph Adams "as a probationer or candidate in order for a setelment amongst us in the gospel minestry."
The Adams candidacy came to nothing, and in September a com- mittee was appointed to procure preaching till December, and it was "Voted that mr Newel should be invited first to preach with us." Prob- ably he was hired for the two following months, and the varying opinions which people formed of him led to the long contest over his settlement. and finally to the division of the church; for this church's history began with a schism instead of ending with one
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On December 3, 1744, it was "Voted that we would hire mr samll Newel for our minester in Case it should be the advice of the assosion and theire was seven on the negitive." This negative vote of seven is the first appearance of the breach in the society. In January, 1745, the vote to hire Mr. Newell was again passed. and negotiation about the amount of his settlement and salary was begun. In October, 1745, a third vote was passed "that we would have mr samll Newel seteled amongst us in the gospel minestry-there was 28 in the afarmitive and 2 in the negetive." Whether the vote was taken on this resolution before the opposition had arrived, or whether the arguments against Mr. Newell were not given a fair hearing we do not know; but this at least appears on record, that "Moses lyman John hikox Abel Royce Abner mathews Stephen Brooks and Caleb Palmer have hear entered a protest against the management of sd sosiaty meeting." In the difficulty, recourse was had to the peculiar Congregational tribunal, a "counsel of Minesters to hear and determine any deferences that are amongst us with Respect to our seteling mr samll Newil as our gospel minester." That council met on November 13 and the same day, doubtless after it had advised them to agree on some other man. and adjourned, the majority sub- missively voted to "pay and satisfi unto mr samll newil the ful and just sum of three pounds mony of the old tener per sabbath he hath preachd" and to square up all his board bills.
Then follows for two years a trial of other candidates, but the hearts of the majority evidently remained steadfast to their first choice, and no one but Mr. Newell gave satisfaction. At length they would no longer be deprived of the minister of their choice by a refractory minority, and in March, 1747, he was again called to settle among them, if the association advised. The vote was thirty-six to ten.
In the next resolution there is a tone of despair and exhausted patience; "if the above assosiation dont advise us to mr samll newel as
RESIDENCE WILFRED H. NETTLETON AND WILLIAM E. WIGHTMAN, MAPLE STREET.
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abovesd our committee shall ask there advice Who we shall apply our- selves next to preach the gospel to us."
But manifestly the council felt that if the little society could agree on no one in three years they could never agree, and that the majority were entitled to have their so long deferred wish; they approved the society's action, and in July, 1747, the society voted to proceed with settlement of Mr. Newell.
And then the long growing opposition culminated and eight men made their formal revolt. "And here it must be noted that at the same meeting Caleb mathews Stephen Brooks John hikox Caleb Aber- nathy Abner mathews Abel Royce danell Roe & simon tuttel publikly declard themselvs of the Church of England and under the bishop of london." Nehimiah Royce followed in a few weeks.
This revolt must have been no trifling matter to the little society. Caleb Matthews was chairman of the society's committee and also of the building committee, which was then making plans for a meeting- house. Abner Matthews was also on the building committee. John Hickox had been the first society treasurer, and the others were men of prominence in the community.
The real ground of difference between the two parties was un- doubtedly theological; with the passage of time a feeling of dissent to the rigid Calvinism of the Puritan church had spread in the New England colonies. This more liberal element, Arminian in theological tendency, found a refuge in the Episcopal church, then having a precarious foot- hold in Connecticut and the only rival religious body to the dominant Congregationalism. Parson Newell was certainly a stalwart exponent of old-fashioned, thoroughbred, Calvinistic doctrine; and it is a curious fact that two ministers who had been preaching as candidates for the Congregational pastorate, apparently the choice of the minority, were very soon after serving the Episcopal church as its rectors, Messrs. Ichabod Camp and Christopher Newton.
The people now had a pastor, to whom their fidelity had been con- firmed by opposition and intensified by the long delay, and with the preparations for his ordination were united preparations for "gathering the church." The society, which had thus far been acting, was the legal, municipal corporation, but now the spiritual body of Christ's covenanted followers was to be formed.
"The church was gathered at the lecture preparatory to the ordi- nation of and consisted of about twenty male members:" exactly twenty of each sex, if our present roll is correct. The ordination was on Tuesday, August 12, 1747, and the formation of the church on the lecture day (probably Friday, August 8,) previous. Three neighboring ministers, Messrs. Whitman of Farmington, Colton of Hartford, and Curtiss of Southington, were invited to assist at the solemn fast by which the membership of the new church consecrated themselves to God's service in this new relation, and the same ministers, with two others, and rep- 'resentatives of their churches, assisted at the ordination.
I do not know what was the ceremonial of formation of the church; doubtless it was simple in the extreme, with only a pioneer dwelling house for sanctuary, and little to exalt the imagination except the con- secrated joy of the people and their sense of the divine presence and benediction, as with fasting and prayer they set up in this community, for all time to come, the altar of the living God.
The long uncertainty about a minister had not prevented the little community from making early plans for a meeting-house. In March, 1745, the society had asked the General Assembly to fix the site for a meeting-house, and, in May, had voted by a large majority that they would build a meeting-house "as soon as with Conveniancy may be," and in December, that it should be forty feet by thirty in size.
They bought of Joseph Benton the ground whereon we now stand, for four pounds, and by the united efforts of the people, who got out
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RESIDENCE WILLIAM J. TRACY, BELLEVUE AVENUE.
--
RESIDENCE JOSEPH B. SESSIONS, BELLEVUE AVENUE.
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the timber and together raised the building, paying for the finishing by taxation, the little house was built. It seems to have been occupied in 1748 or early in 1749, but was not completed until 1753.
Nor did the church's exertions cease with having assumed the sup- port of a minister and the erection of a meeting-house; at the same meeting at which the ordination was arranged for, they appointed a committee to build Mr. Newell's house; and it was no mean one, either. Thirty-eight feet by twenty-three on the ground, lathed and plastered in the parlor and bedroom, and ceiled int he dwelling-room, it was in- tended to be fit for the occupancy of the man whose superiority inl consideration over any other man in the community would be unques- tioned.
And a year later it was resolved "that we would have a lawful school in this sosiaty."
No wonder that the taxes were appalling in their size; an eight penny rate was laid in October, 1748, to finish the meeting-house, in December a two shilling rate for the same purpose, and in the same month one of four shillings "besides what we have already laid." Six shillings and eight pence on the pound is thirty-three and one third per cent! What do degenerate later days think of a tax like that? No wonder that "at the same meeting Benjamin Brooks declared himself to be of the Church of England," and that Stephen Brooks, Jr., and Joseph Gaylord followed soon after, and no wonder that the residents the next month petitioned the General Assembly for a tax on the land in the society "only on the unresidents."
Of this first meeting-house we have no picture or full description. It was undoubtedly a plain, unadorned, rectangular building, with steep roof; it had galleries, though they were not finished for several years. The floor was divided into twelve pews; not narrow, low affairs like our present pews, but large high-walled divisions, almost rooms, in each of which the adults of several families might sit. There were also two "seats," probably benches, filling spaces left vacant by the pews.
It stood some sixty feet northeast of this building, and stood north and south, the front end to the north.
On the west side was the high pulpit with its approaching stairs. No sounding board is mentioned, and it would hardly seem that it could have been necessary in so small a building; but in Puritan church archi- tecture the sounding board served to give dignity and solemnity to the pulpit, rather than to supply an acoustic necessity. There certainly was one in the second church, and I have little doubt that it was also in the first.
One important function of the old church that has been entirely dropped in our modern democratic days was the dignification of the meeting-house, and the seating based on that dignification. The com- mittee to dignify the meeting-house was appointed as soon as the building was complete and annually reappointed. They determined the rela- tive dignity of each pew; and then the seating committee had the in- finitely more delicate task of determining the dignity of each family, or rather of each adult person, for the entire family did not sit together, and of assigning the most worthy person to the most worthy pew, and so on in regular order down to the pews under the stairs, which were the lowest in rank. What a strain on Christian fellowship and on social friendships that must have been! Think of having it officially deter- mined who was superior to you and who inferior, in regular order of the entire community; and of the ignominy of being formally decided to be the least worthy family in the entire congregation! Fortunately for the peace of the committee, the rules for fixing the dignity of cach man or unmarried woman (I think the wives went according to the rank of their husbands and sat with them) were definitely fixed. The grand list was taken as the starting point, (let no one say that reverence for wealth is a modern invention,) and it was the adopted rule "to alow every person fifty shillings per year for his age, all so a Captain twenty pound,
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MAIN STREET, 1907, NORTH FROM R. R. BRIDGE.
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MAIN STREET, 1907 SOUTH FROM HIGH STREET.
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OR "NEW CAMBRIDGE."
to a leut ten and to an ensign five." Still further deference was paid to age by providing that all over fifty years of age should be seated at the discretion of the seaters, and within this discretionary class I should think that the duties must have been delicate indeed. Even children were. seated by the committee, "men kind at sixteen years old, and females at fourteen."
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DighiAnd By ce Committee.
2 ........ 28 02. 1829.
PLAN OF CHURCH DIGNIFICATION-FROM ORIGINAL NOW IN POSSESSION OF JUDGE EPAPHRODITUS PECK.
The following is the detail of the Congregational Church Dignification of about the year 1830 (exact date not known). The spelling of the original has been followed. In the case of many of the women's names, it is impossible to tell whether the title is Wid. (widow) or Mrs. Each group of names represents the occupants of one pew or seat as indicated:
No. 1, N. OF THE PULPIT, Wid. Munson, Wid. Muzzy, Wid. Hulda Churchill, Wid. Sarah Newell.
No. 1, S. OF THE PULPIT, Rev. Jona. Cone, Dea. Ira Hooker. Dea. Bryan Hooker.
No. 1, N. OF THE ALLEY, James Lee, Eli Lewis, Reuben Ives, Thomas Barns, Hubbell Stephens, Mrs. Rachel Gaylord.
No. 1. S. OF THE ALLEY, Wife of Abel Lewis, Wm. Lee, Asa Upson, Isaac Norton, Lament Peck.
No. 2, NORTH, Aron Norton, Wid. Mary Pierce, Elezer Norton, Enos Ives, Esq.
No. 2, SOUTH, James Steele, Joel Norton, Abel Allen, James Holt, Mrs. Martha Lewis, Mrs. Philene Wilcox, Mary Beckwith.
No. 3, NORTH, Oliver Gridley, Roger Lewis, Wm. Jerrome, Wid. Adams, Wid. Lomis. No. 3, SOUTH, Luke Adams, James Frances, Bezaliel Bowin, Jesse Gaylord, Mrs. Root.
No. 4, NORTH, Abel Frisbi, Benj. Hart, Ithural Hart, Lydia Churchill, Stephen Rowe. No. 4, SOUTH, Thos. Barns Jr., Elijah Manross, Ebenczer Darrow, Jabez Roberts, Wid. of I. Yale.
No. 5, NORTH, Noah Byington, Dr. Titus Merriman, Lazarus Hard, Solomon Payne, Mrs. Sarah Lee.
No. 5, SOUTH, Ira Churchill, Betsey Gridley, George Upson, Seth Hart, Wid. Jemima Peck. No. 6, NORTH, Asahel Cowles, Wid. Tuttle, Selah Richards, James Hadsell, Wid. Eunice Beckwith, James Lee Jun.
No. 6, SOUTH, Seth Richards, Sam'l Gaylord, Wid. Woodard, Martin Byington, Bradley, Wid. Rhoda Russell.
* * Illegible.
No. 7, NORTH, Asahel Clarke, Wid. Sarah Gaylord, Sam'l Brooks, Noah Lewis, Wid. Boardman.
y No. 7, SOUTH, Samuel Peck, Elisha Gridley, Calvin Hart, Elizabeth Johnson, Naomi Royce, Joel Baldwin, Wid. Hanna Mix.
No. 8, NORTH, Asa Bartholomew, Nath'nl W. Bishop, Seth Barnes, Abel Yale, Azariah Johnson. No. 8, SOUTH, This is evidently omitted. Probably stairs, a stove, or something took its place. It may have been a "free seat."
No. 9, NORTH, Eli Lewis Jr., Luman Carrington, Jonathan Pond, Roxana Lewis Mrs. Mary Newell.
No. 9, SOUTH, Thomas Botsford, Eli Parsons, Renben Ives, Jun., Dodd Hungerford.
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No. 10, NORTH, Ira Ives, Philo Pierce, David Norton Hannah Bradley, Chauncy Hooker.
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