USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Suffield > Celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Suffield, Connecticut, October 12, 13 and 14, 1920, with sketches from its past and some record of its last half century and of its present > Part 13
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
How radically the public state of mind changed after that is plain from the fact that the first sermon preached by a presiding elder (if not by any Methodist minister) in West Suffield was preached in the Congregational church there in 1832, and the Methodist society dated its beginning from that event. The men instrumental in its organization were Gustavus Austin, David Hastings, Horace Tullar, Curtis Warner, Warren Case and John Johnson. The following year, 1833, Charles Chittenden, a revivalist, was placed in charge of the society by the New York East conference and he served two years. He was followed by Cephas Brainard, and with one exception, 1854, the conference supplied the ministers throughout its history. In December 1839 the first church edifice and the one that remained throughout its history was dedicated, with a sermon by Rev. Joseph Law of Hartford. Up to that time the services had been held in school houses, private dwellings and barns.
146
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
In 1856 during the pastorate of Frederick Brown the first parsonage was built. Before that a house built in 1795 had been in use and in that house in 1844 the sculptor Olin Warner was born while his father Levi Warner was pastor. In accordance with Methodist practice pastors succeeded each other in brief ministries, the total number in its history which closed in 1920 with the disbanding of the society and the sale of the church property, being forty-four. The families identified with the society have died off rapidly in the last few years and the dis- banding of the society became necessary.
Calvary Episcopal Church
No Episcopal church was established in town until 1865. After services had been held for about two months there was a legally warned meeting of those wishing to establish a church held at the house of George Williston on the evening of August 4 of that year. Rev Augustus Jackson was chairman and Rob- ert E. Pinney secretary. The parish was duly and legally organ- ized to be known as The Episcopal Society of Calvary Church. Resolutions of organization were adopted and signed by Archi- bald Kinney, Alfred Owen, Robert E. Pinney, Timothy W. Kinney, S. N. Babcock and George Williston. At this meeting were elected as officers Archibald Kinney, Senior Warden; Anson Birge, Junior Warden; George Williston, S. N. Babcock, Alfred Owen, Robert E. Pinney, Timothy Kinney, Burdette Loomis, and Ashbel Easton, Vestrymen. Rev. Augustus Jack- son was chosen Rector.
At the same time it was decided to purchase a lot for the erection of a church and to circulate a paper among the citizens of Suffield for procuring funds. The rector stated that for the present he desired no salary and it was decided to begin regular services in the Town Hall. Until current expenses were assured they were defrayed by the Christian Knowledge society. Mr. Jackson resigned his connection in the first half of the next year, and Rev. George E. Lounsbury, later Governor of Connecticut, continued services in Suffield in connection with St. Andrews Parish in Thompsonville until April 1867. Then followed Rev. Mr. Pratt, Rev. Henry Townsend and Rev. Mr. Walker.
The corner stone of the new church was laid May 1, 1871 when
-
147
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
services were conducted by Rt. Rev. Bishop Williams of Con- necticut assisted by other members of the clergy, and the work in the new church on Bridge Street was then carried to comple- tion. The present Senior Warden, William S. Larkum has been treasurer of the society for about forty years.
Third Baptist Church
The Third Baptist Church society (colored) was organized as a mission by Rev. David H. Drew of Springfield, Mass., in 1903, and meetings were held in the Town Hall. Out of this mis- sion the church was organized two years later by Rev. R. C. Hull, pastor of the Second Baptist church, and Mr. Drew ac- cepted the pastorate. The society secured a lot on Kent Avenue and the present building was erected at a cost of $3000 and dedicated March 31, 1906. At this time $2400 of the total cost had been paid.
Mr. Drew remained pastor until June, 1918 when he resigned leaving the church free from debt and in good condition. In the following August, Daniel W. West of Alexandria, Va., became pastor and remained until January, 1919, when Samuel E. Ellison of Fairfield, Conn., the present pastor was called. Under his pastorate the church has purchased a parsonage, the payment for which has been nearly completed.
Sacred Heart Church
The present edifice of Sacred Heart church was dedicated for Catholic worship, November 31, 1886. The preacher on that occasion was the Rev. Bernard O'Reilly Sheridan of Middletown, a brother of Rev. James O'Reilly Sheridan, pastor of St. Mary's, Windsor Locks, who was in charge of the Mission Church, as it was then called. The first lay trustees of the Mission Church were John Barnett and Joseph Roche of West Suffield. The church property was purchased in 1883 from M. J. Sheldon by the Rev. Michael Kelley, and was paid for in a short time. Un- til the Mission Church passed into the hands of a resident pastor, Mass was read each Sunday by one of the priests of Windsor Locks. The Rev. John Creedon was the last pastor of Windsor Locks to exercise jurisdiction over the church. The first resident pastor was Rev. John E. Clark, now of St. Joseph's Church, Willimantic. At the beginning of his pastorate of five years he
148
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
built and furnished the rectory. The first Mass celebrated by the first pastor occurred on the feast of All Saints, November I, 1913. He moved into the rectory October 1, 1914, and worked tirelessly to meet the spiritual and material wants of his people, leaving behind a host of friends. He was followed by the Rev. James O'Meara, an energetic and zealous priest whose stay was shortened by ill-health. The present pastor, Rev. James F. J. Hennessey, took charge June 22, 1919. Educated in the pub- lic and parochial schools of New Haven, graduating from Yale University in the class of 1898, he finished his training for the priesthood at St. Bernard's Theological Seminary, Rochester, New York, and was ordained for the priesthood by Bishop Mc- Quaid in that city June 14, 1902. Before coming to Suffield he taught in the diocesan seminary, St. Thomas', Hartford, for a few years was engaged in pastoral work in Hartford, and for twelve years was assistant pastor in Ansonia, Conn.
The arrival and location of the first Catholic family in the town is unknown. The first Mass in Suffield was celebrated in the home of Patrick Devine of Sheldon Street by the Rev. Michael McAuley in 1876. Mass was also read in the home of John Gilligan of West Suffield. At present Mass is read each Sunday morning at 8.30 and 10.30. Henry Roche and Jeremiah Dineen are the lay trustees of the parish corporation.
St. Joseph's
Polish residents organized the St. Joseph's society in 1905 and in 1912 purchased from New York owners the property on Main Street consisting of a residence built by George W. Loomis and other buildings. Father Wladarz, the first pastor, organized the parish in 1915 and for a brief period held services in Sacred Heart church. In that year St. Joseph's was incorporated and acquired the church property from the society and the first services were held in the present church on Easter Sunday 1915. After three years, Father Wladarz was succeeded by the present pastor, Father Bartkowski. Since 1905 the parish has grown from a small number to about fifteen hundred members. The present church building is of a temporary nature. The parish expects to erect a permanent edifice within a few years, and has ac- cumulated a substantial fund for that purpose.
Calvary Episcopal Church, Built 1872
Third Baptist Church
-
-
Sacred Heart Church and Rectory
St. Joseph's Church and Rectory
149
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
Public Schools
In 1696 Anthony Austin "with great reluctancy and aver- sion in my spirit" became the first schoolmaster in Suffield for the sum of twenty pounds a year. The first school house was built by the town eight years later and "was 20 foot in length, 16 in breadth and 6 foot stud, made warm and comfortable, fitt for to keep school in." It stood near the Meeting House. The second school house was built by the town in 1733. A committee was appointed "to prefix the place it shall be set on, so that it shall not exceed the space of forty rods from nor within ye space of ten rods of ye Meeting House." Its dimensions were twenty- four feet in length, eighteen feet in width and nine feet between joints. Josiah Sheldon built it, receiving therefor one-half or forty pounds in money, and the other half in town pay; he also had the old school house.
When the town was divided into two ecclesiastical societies in 1740, this school house passed from the town to the First Ec- clesiastical Society and in 1763 to the Center School district. It appears to have been enlarged and to have served for the dis- trict school until 1797, when it was removed to the corner of the Crooked Lane and Thompsonville road, where it is still standing as a part of the dwelling house of Mr. James McCarl.
The third school house at the center, built in 1797 and costing $1333.34, stood upon the Common nearly in front of the Con- gregational Meeting House. There is no picture of Suffield as it was in those days, but from what is known the picture may in a measure be caught by the imagination. The third church edifice was one of rare architectural beauty for the period, and its steeple and graceful spire at the north end, and probably about where the Congregational chapel now stands, was much admired. There was a clock dial on the east side and a clock of which men- tion is made elsewhere. The new school house nearby upon the Common had a stately cupola crowned with a gilded weather- cock, and together they made a notable civic center at a time when Suffield ranked in population higher than most towns in the valley, and not very far below Springfield and Hartford, each of which then had but little over 5000 population. Suffield had about 2500.
150
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
To the north of the church and facing the Common was the new house of Timothy Swan (the Mather place); further north the older mansion of Gideon Granger, where the Middle building of the Suffield school now stands; a little further on was the Joseph Pease house, which many remember as the home of the late Miss Emily Clark; and further north the house now owned by Mr. K. C. Kulle. Across the way from the latter was the new mansion at this time acquired by William Gay. The Gay Manse, though much older, was still in its prime. Luther Loomis had just built the place now owned by the Masonic Lodge and across the highway to Feather Street was the old Archer place, then a noted tavern. Across the Common from that was the Hatheway place. Other substantial houses, if not so new, graced the street which withal was one of the finest of old New England centers as they existed in those days.
This third school house, standing thus prominently on the Common, was a two story building with two rooms above the school room and in these, by the courtesy of the district, the Connecticut Literary Institution was opened in 1833. The period of church building in town that set in between 1835 and 1840 somewhat changed the aspect of the center. The third church building and its beautiful spire gave way to the fourth, larger but less notable architecturally, and soon after, or in 1838, the school building was moved to the site of the present Town Hall, and a basement hall put in, the town and district being joint owners. The following paragraph from the district records closes its history; "Tuesday, October 2, 1860, two o'clock, the school and town house were discovered in flames and was entirely destroyed."
The fourth school house, the present Town Hall building, was built upon the same site and with the same copartnership, the school rooms occupying the lower floor with the hall above. The bricks were made in Suffield by William King. The town ex- pended $7798.48, and the district about one-half as much addi- tional.
The first action in relation to a new school house separate and distinct from the town was taken June 22, 1889. The committee of the district was instructed to make proposals to the selectmen toward selling to the town the district rights in the building and
151
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
site. After various legal steps, the committee, consisting of William L. Loomis, A. Spencer Jr., and W. S. Knox, sold to the town the district interest for $3200, possession to be given when . the district secured suitable accommodations. At the same meeting a district committee, consisting of George Remington, George F. Kendall and Alfred Spencer, Jr., was appointed and instructed to secure a site and plans and erect a new school house. The total cost of the new building on Bridge street with site was about $12,000.
The first school house in West Suffield was built in 1750 and was probably the third in the town. It was near "the southwest corner of Ireland plain where the road comes from the north between that and the Meeting House." In 1764 liberty was given several persons to build three school houses to accommo- date other sections of the precinct and soon after three districts were formed. In 1768 a second school house was built in the West Center district. Mr. Elias Harmon was the first school teacher in this building. Early in the nineteenth century his eldest son Elias removed to Mantua, Ohio as land agent for Martin Sheldon, and his descendants are now in that state. In 1803, the old school house becoming inadequate, a new one was built on the south side of the highway to the mountain. This served until the erection of the present commodious modern building, completed in 1913 at a cost of about $30,000.
From an early date other school houses were built to accom- modate the various centers of settlement, and the present dis- tricts-seven in the first precinct and four in the second, took practically their present form early in the last century. These district schools furnished the primary basis for many well educated men, though education was a more difficult process than now. In 1804 the first district required persons sending scholars "to furnish for each scholar one quarter of a cord of three foot wood or pay in money at the rate of two dollars per cord" and, on failure to do either, their children were de- barred from attending school. Some years later twenty-five cents for each scholar was required to pay for wood.
Until 1898 the schools of the town continued to be managed under this district system. The town, annually made an ap- propriation to the several districts, about $6000, and it was
152
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
divided according to the number of teachers employed. This was about enough to pay the wages of the teachers, and all other expenses were carried in district taxes.
To avoid the expense of laying two taxes, and to gain the ad- vantage of a more economical and uniform system for both the schools and the buildings the town system was inaugurated in 1898. The number of school children enumerated fifty years ago was about 600 and it is now about 950; the number of teachers has increased from fourteen to nineteen. Under the old system there were no grades; now there are eight. All the grades above the fifth are now at the First Center and Second Center district buildings, and the pupils of the higher grades in the other districts are daily transported to the two centers.
Until 1897 there was no free high school. Scholars seeking a secondary education usually went to the Connecticut Literary Institution paying a tuition of about $30 a year. A state law re- quired towns to establish high schools or pay tuition for such as attended high schools in other places, and Suffield voted in 1897 to pay the tuition of all Suffield pupils at the Connecticut Lit- erary Institution. Under the old system the town supervision of schools was in the hands of a Board of School Visitors who elected committees to examine teachers, grant them certificates to teach, visit the several schools during the year, and criticize the teachers' work. The present system is managed by a School
Committee of nine members, serving without pay, and annually electing a chairman, secretary, treasurer and a superintendent of schools. When first organized under this system in 1898 the Committee chose one of its number to act as superintendent and the late Clinton Spencer was so chosen from 1898 to 1904. Then a joint district was formed with Windsor Locks, and Daniel Howard was appointed superintendent, each town paying one- third of the salary, and the State one-third. This plan continued till 1910 when this union was dissolved and a state supervisor was employed as superintendent, as by law, towns with less than twenty teachers were entitled to a supervisor paid by the State. In this capacity N. Searle Light served from 1910 to 1915, when he was succeeded by the present supervisor, Harold B. Chapman. In 1905 the town began to furnish free text books and supplies to all pupils in the public schools.
153
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
Suffield School
In 1821, or three years after religious freedom was constitu- tionally established in Connecticut, the Baptist Education Soci- ety was organized to meet the necessity of training young men for the ministry in that denomination. It was proposed to found an academy, and it was offered to that locality that would sub- scribe the largest amount of money. For a long time interest was only general, but later a rivalry developed between Bristol and Suffield and under the active leadership of Martin Sheldon, nearly $5000 was subscribed by the people of Suffield. The list of original contributors is now in the Sheldon historical collec- tion in the Kent Memorial Library.
The Connecticut Baptist Literary Institution was opened in 1833 in the upper room of the district school building, which stood on the park in front of the Congregational church, and steps were soon taken to secure a site for school buildings. The place chosen was the home lot of Sergeant Samuel Kent, a set- tler in 1676. It had later passed to Joseph Pease, whose daughter married Gideon Granger, who was postmaster-general in Jeffer- son's administration and who had moved to New York. The Granger Mansion, palatial in its day, stood on the site when it passed to the Baptist Education society, and for a long period the house was occupied by the principals of the school. The Old South building was erected in 1834, the first story of Con- necticut stone and the three upper stories of brick. It had two entrances running through from front to rear, with class rooms on the north and south ends of this first story and a large room in the center, at first used for chapel and later for a classroom. It contained twenty-four stove-heated rooms for teachers and students, and back of the building was a long frame woodshed, where the students worked up their fuel with bucksaws. Under such requirements no gymnasium was needed or thought of. In the cupola of the Old South was placed a bell which rang regularly for over sixty years for classes as they came and went. It is now preserved in the tower of the North building but is seldom rung, having yielded long since to automatic electric bells.
The second period of the school's history began in 1843 when
154
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
the trustees decided to add a ladies' department. The word Baptist had meantime been dropped from the name which be- came familiar throughout the State as the Connecticut Literary Institution. A new structure seventy-five feet long and thirty- seven wide, with three stories above the basement, and including a kitchen and dining room, was built north of the old Granger House and completed in 1845. It was a period of rapid growth and the number of pupils ranged between two hundred and three hundred. In 1851 the prosperity of the co-educational school called for more room and the Middle building was erected. The old Granger mansion was moved back to the place it now occupies and has served various purposes in the seventy years that have elapsed. Recently it has been converted into a barn to house the dairy herd with which the school is now equipped for its own milk supply.
The period of the first remarkable growth of the school, 1843-70, was practically coincident with the long and successful pastorate of Dr. Dwight Ives in the Second Baptist church. The principals of the period were Charles C. Burnett, William W. Woodbury, Hiram A. Pratt, Franklin B. Gamwell, E. P. Bond and E. Benjamin Andrews. As a co-educational school it was at the height of its influence and prestige in the decade after the Civil War, and in the late sixties and early seventies had a gal- axy of able teachers well remembered by the older surviving graduates; besides Dr. Andrews, there were Dr. J. M. English, Dr. M. M. Johnson and Edward F. Vose.
Soon after the bi-centennial celebration of the town, the trustees considered plans for additional buildings, but March 6, 1872 the ladies' building was burned. In six days the trustees voted to rebuild and the present North Building was erected at a cost of $75,000, and was first occupied in 1873.
In the following years the institution suffered more and more from the competition of the growing high schools of the cities, and from other causes similarly affecting all such academies. But the educational standards at Suffield were fairly well main- tained under the principals of the period-J. A. Shores, Judge Martin H. Smith, Rev. Walter Scott and H. L. Thompson. In 1899, toward the end of a period of accumulating financial dis- couragement, the Old South building and its site were sold to
155
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
the town for the location of the Kent Memorial Library. Under the principalship of H. L. Thompson also, the use of the Old Middle was discontinued, and the change was made to a boys' school, housed entirely in the North building.
At this critical period Mr. Ralph K. Bearce became principal, the late Charles C. Bissell of Suffield, chairman of the executive committee, and Rev. Raymond Maplesden was employed as field secretary to secure boys and promote the financial support of the institution. It was a period of transition, doubts and difficulties, but also of the beginning of a larger growth. The restoration of the Old Middle building for class rooms and dor- mitories became a necessity to provide enough boarding pupils to make a good school self-supporting, and a fund of $50,000 was raised, of which the people of Suffield contributed about two-thirds. At about the same time the school became inter- denominational, the control wholly passing to the chartered and self-perpetuating board of trustees. The Old Middle was refin- ished to be rededicated in 1908 at the time of the celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of the institution.
This occasion, coincident with the annual Commencement, was largely attended by old graduates and friends of the C. L. I. The Commencement sermon was preached by Dr. Rockwell Harmon Potter of the First Congregational church of Hartford, then a member and later a president of the board of trustees. On Tuesday, June 16th, Dr. William G. Fennell, pastor of the Asylum Avenue Baptist church of Hartford, of the class of 1880, delivered the historical address. A poem by Prof. William G. Hastings of Brown University and the class of 1899 was read. Henry B. Russell, president of the Alumni Association, class of 1877, presided at the alumni dinner, which was followed by the exercises of the dedication of the Middle Building, Dr. M. M. Johnson, president of the board of trustees, presiding. Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews, chancelor of the University of Nebraska and the former principal, delivered the commencement address at the Second Baptist church the following day. The proceedings were printed by the Alumni Association and copies are preserved in the Kent Memorial Library.
About two years later Principal Bearce went to the Powder Point School as headmaster and Dr. Hobart G. Truesdell, who
.
156
SUFFIELD OLD AND NEW
had come to the faculty from Mercersburg academy, became headmaster at Suffield. Under his management the school rap- idly advanced to its present high prestige among the secondary schools of the country. The equipment has been steadily in- creased, the educational standards raised, and the attendance of boarding students increased to the present capacity of about one hundred and ten boys, with about an equal number of town pupils, for whom the town pays tuition. The curriculum has been extended, the faculty increased in number and strengthened in quality, some military features have been added, a new gym- nasium built and equipped, an extensive farm plant developed for the special supply of the school and many improvements of various kinds have been made in the buildings, equipment and grounds. During the period another fund of $50,000 was raised, the Suffield people and friends elsewhere contribut- ing generously. In 1912 it appeared that the old name, Con- necticut Literary Institution, was creating some misappre- hension where its actual character as a secondary school was not well known, and the name was changed to Suffield School, the old familiar monogram, C.L.I., being preserved as a school emblem.
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.