USA > Connecticut > Connecticut as a colony and as a state; or, One of the original thirteen, Volume II > Part 16
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The early efforts of the Episcopalians, have been already chronicled in this work; they numbered in 1750 about twen- ty-five societies, widely scattered throughout the colony; the excitement caused by religious revivals made converts for them, which increased the number of their societies to forty; but during the war their membership decreased; owing to the fact that they were stigmatized as Tories. After the declaration of peace, many withdrew to the British provinces. That they might have a full organization to strengthen Episcopacy in this country, it was deemed necessary that the Church should have resident authoritative head; yielding to the solicitations of friends, and members of the church, Rev. Samuel Seabury was chosen in March 1783, to go to
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England, and ask for consecration as a bishop. He was the son of a Congregationalist minister; was born at Groton, November 30th, 1729; not long after graduating from Yale in 1748, he proceeded to Scotland, and devoted a year to the study of medicine; and when twenty-four years of age, he was ordained in London in 1753, a minister of the Church of England. Returning to his native land, he first settled at New Brunswick in New Jersey, and afterwards at Jamaica, Long Island; early in the commencement of hostilities with the British, we find him at Westchester, New York, where he had resided for ten years.
Mr. Seabury was suspected of toryism, and of being a Tory pamphleteer ; he was seized by a party of patriot horse- men, returning from the destruction of Rivington's Press, and taken prisoner to New Haven; but the charges were not proven, and upon his discharge he went to New York, where he made his residence during the British occupancy of the city. Owing to his inability to take the oath of allegiance to the British government, the English prelates could not legally consecrate him; he then proceeded to Scotland, where at Aberdeen, on November 14th, 1784, he was consecrated the first bishop of the American Episcopal Church. The Scottish bishops were non-jurors, having refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, as they considered the deposition of James II. illegal; and the Scottish Episco- pal church was not established by law. Bishop Seabury on his return to this country, was chosen rector of St. James's church, New London; he assisted Bishop White in revising the Prayer-book, and preparing a constitution for the Ameri- can Episcopal Church, which was adopted in 1789. He died at New London, February 25th, 1798; his body lies beneath the chancel of the new St. James's church in that city.
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Bishop Seabury was succeeded in the episcopate by Rev. Abraham Jarvis, D. D., rector of Christ Church in Middle- town; he held an influential position and did an important work in the early history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Connecticut.
There were, in 1800, sixty-two Episcopal parishes in the State; an increase of thirty-seven during the preceding fifty years ; the clergy numbered seventeen, and the communicants about fifteen hundred.
Connecticut in the eighteenth century had her religious atmosphere disturbed by the formation of several sects, the followers of "inspired" preachers or exhorters; the most obnoxious of these, were the Rogerenes, or as they were some- times called Rogerene Quakers, or Rogerene Baptists. This agitation began in the second half of the seventeenth century ; the leaders were a family by the name of Rogers, residents of New London; the origin of their dissent from the Con- gregationalist church was their free intercourse with the Sab- batarians of Rhode Island. John Rogers, the founder of the sect, maintained that there were three religious ordinances ; baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the imposition of hands; they rejected the Sabbath, and held that all days were sancti- fied; they had no houses of worship, and abhored all minis- terial trappings. Their prayers were mental, excepting on special occasions, when they indulged in vocal demonstra- tions; they were willing to pay county and town taxes, but repudiated the ministerial tax rate. It was charged against them that they violated the Lord's Day in every possible way; insulted magistrates and ministers, and trampled all laws, divine and human, under foot. It is claimed they appeared in a nude state, or nearly so, at public gatherings and assemblies, especially on the Sabbath, and interrupted
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the services in every conceivable manner; when corrected, they reviled the courts, and defied the authorities; they courted arrest and imprisonment, to enable them to pose as religious martyrs.
The Rogerenes, like some persons in the present day, employed no physicians, and used no drugs; one of their sect wrote and published a book, the title of which was, "Battle Life;" it was suppressed by the authorities. At the death of the founder, the Rogerenes gradually died out; but after having lain dormant for thirty years, an attempt was made by a grandson of the founder, another John Rogers, to revive the sect in 1764. They began to make public demonstrations against practice of what they called "idolatries"; there was a series of provocations on one side, and retaliating punish- ments on the other, which were vehemently carried on for about a year and a half; the Rogerenes were publicly whipped, fined, imprisoned, and tarred and feathered.
The doctrines of the Sandemanians, were promulgated in America, by Robert Sandeman, a Scotchman, who became interested while in his native country, in the Glassites, or fol- lowers of John Glas; the creed of this sect, was an indepen- dent government of the church, without any national super- vision, which they held to be inconsistent with the true nature of the Church of Christ, and salvation by simple faith alone. Sandeman, imbued with these religious beliefs, went to Eng- land, where he founded societies, which became known as Sandemanians, after their projector; he came to America in 1764, and after establishing a society in Boston, the following year went to Danbury, where he organized another. San- deman was a man of learning and superior ability; his favor- ite expression was, "a bare belief of a bare truth"; he died at Danbury, April 2d, 1771. The next year his followers
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removed to New Haven, where the society flourished for a few years; but at the breaking out of the war, the members, being non-combatants, were regarded as Tories and became objects of suspicion; they were brought before the civil authorities, and sentenced to imprisonment; the congregation was dispersed. A new society was formed in 1774, which was afterwards divided; one part became known as Osbor- nites, from their leader Levi Osborn; the other, bore the name of Baptist Sandemanians, from their belief in and practice of baptism by immersion; the former was the larger body, and at one time numbered four hundred followers. Their religious meetings were held on Sunday and Thursday afternoons; their churches were provided with large circular tables, around which they sat, each person being provided with a copy of the Scriptures, which they read, and upon which the men commented, the women remaining silent; they were oblivious to spectators. Singing and prayers com- pleted the exercises; after which they assembled at the house of a brother or sister, and partook of a feast; the sect gradu- ally became extinct.
Connecticut was thrice visited, during the year 1780, by Mother Ann Lee, an exponent of Shakerism; on her first two visits, she was subjected to the indignities of a mob attack; but she succeeded in interesting some of the inhabitants of Enfield, in her peculiar doctrines; a society of Shakers was organized in the following year, and a "family" was located in the northeastern part of that town. Amongst the first adherents of Shakerism, was Elder Joseph Meacham, a Bap- tist preacher; he afterwards became one of the heads of the society. At the close of the eighteenth century, there were a few Quaker families residing in Pomfret; they built a
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house of prayer, but the congregation long since became extinct.
Among the forms of theological doctrines, which had influ- ence at this time, was that taught by Rev. Samuel Hopkins, which from him received the name of Hopkinsianism. It was an extreme form of Calvinism, and was held by many minis- ters and members of Congregational churches. Their funda- mental principles were, that all virtue and true holiness con- sisted in disinterested benevolence, and that all sin, was sel- fishness; that the self love, which men gave to their own external interests, was sinful. The founder was remarkable for his simplicity, earnestness, and presevering industry; his tenets, were a source of controversy, for over a century.
He was born in Waterbury, September 17th, 1721; he was engaged in agricultural pursuits, until his fifteenth year; he graduated from Yale College in 1741, and became so impressed with the preaching of Whitefield and Tennant, that he lived in seclusion for several months, to determine if he was a Christian. Having satisfied himself on this point, he was licensed to preach, but continued his studies, under Rev. Jonathan Edwards; he was an itinerant preacher for a short time, but in the winter of 1743 was settled over a society at what is now Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where he remained for twenty-five years, when he was dis- missed, on account of the diminution in the membership of the church. His next charge was at Newport, Rhode Island; but his flock being dispersed by the British occupation of the city during the Revolution, he preached at different points ; in 1780 he returned to Newport, where he resided until his death, December 20, 1803. In his latter years, he had a pre- carious living, owing to the loss of membership in his congre- gation. Dr. Hopkins was one of the founders of the Ameri-
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can Colonization Society, and was a bitter opponent of slave traffic; he is believed to be the hero of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, "The Minister's Wooing." His complete works were published in 1805.
The efforts of the Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, in the educa- tion of the aborigines, and their conversion to Christianity, resulted in a number of the sons of Connecticut becoming engaged in missionary work amongst the Indians; of these, there was one whose reputation as an acute metaphysician, and sound theologian became world-wide.
Jonathan Edwards, the son of Reverend Timothy Edwards, was born in what is now East Windsor, October 5, 1703. He was a member of Yale's class of 1720, and after his graduation spent two years at that institution, studying theology. His first charge was a small congregation of Eng- lish Presbyterians in New York; but he remained in that city only a few months, returning to his Alma Mater, and serving as tutor for two years. His pastorate over a society in North- ampton, Massachusetts, was terminated in 1750, on account of his persistent efforts, to reprove the younger members of his flock; they were of the wealthiest and most influential families in his congregation, and became incensed at their pas- tor's endeavors; the result was his dismissal. For the next six years, he was missionary amongst the Stockbridge Indians, where he produced his most famous theological work, "The Freedom of the Will," which was published in 1758, and circulated throughout Europe. Dr. Edwards reluctantly accepted the presidency of the college of New Jersey in 1758; on March 22d of that year, he died at Princeton of small pox, which was prevailing at the college. His published theolog- ical writings are numerous, and rank among the most valu- able contributions to religious literature.
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One who early sacrificed his life in the conversion of his Indian brethren, was David Brainard. He was descended from a servitor in the Wyllys family at Hartford, and became one of the first settlers of Haddam. He was born in East Haddam, April 20, 1718; entered Yale College in 1739; from which he was expelled in 1743, for disobeying orders in attending the meetings of Whitefield and Tennant, and for doubting the Christianity of one of his tutors. The same year he began his duties as a missionary, laboring among the Indians in the vicinity of Kinderhook, New York; he extended his work among the Delawares, and a tribe near Crosswicks, New Jersey. Overcome by his ardu- ous labors, he traveled in New England, to regain his health, but died at the Rev. Jonathan Edwards's home, in North- ampton, Massachusetts, October 9th, 1747.
Among the pupils of Dr. Wheelock's Indian school, who prepared themselves for missionary work, was Samuel Kirk- land; he was born at Norwich, December Ist, 1741, of Scottish ancestry; he spent two years at the college of New Jersey, and before completing his education dwelt with the Seneca Indians. He received his collegiate degree in 1765, and the following year was made an Indian missionary; his work was amongst the Oneidas; it was through his instru- mentality, that this tribe (the only one of the Six Nations) remained loyal to the American cause. He died at Clinton, New York, February 28, 1808; Hamilton College is an out- growth of an institution of learning established by him in 1793.
James Deane was a youthful missionary, who at the age of twelve mastered the language of the Oneidas, and made many converts; he was born at Groton August 20, 1748, and was a graduate of Dartmouth College. Congress employed
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him to conciliate the Indians on the northern frontier; he was made Indian agent, and stationed at Fort Stanwix, with the rank of major; after the Revolutionary war he became a judge in Oneida county and a member of the New York assembly. Major Deane was the author of an Indian mytho- logy; he died at Westmoreland, New York, September 10, 1823.
The successor of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, as mission- ary to the Stockbridge Indians, was Stephen Westcott, born in Tolland, November 13, 1735 ; he was the author of many religious works, and died at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, May 15, 1819.
The patriarch of the New England Clergy, was Samuel Nott, born in Saybrook in 1754; he graduated from Yale College, and was ordained pastor of the Congregational church at Franklin March 13, 1782; he had pastoral charge of this congregation until his death (occasioned by a fall), January 23, 1854.
Connecticut's sons have furnished history with two other notable cases of longevity, in continuous service, as Congrega- tional pastors. Benjamin Trumbull was born at Hebron in 1735, and after graduating from Yale in 1757, he accepted the charge of a congregation in that part of New Haven now known as North Haven, in 1760; where he continued until his death, February 2, 1820. Doctor Trumbull resided in one house over half a century; he wrote over four thou- sand sermons, and published religious essays, a History of Connecticut, and a History of the United States, besides other works.
John Lanthrop was born in Norwich, October 20, 1731; he graduated from Yale College in 1754; was ordained in 1756, and made pastor of a Congregationalist church at
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West Springfield, Massachusetts, where he remained sixty- four years; he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from his Alma Mater in 1791 and from Harvard College in 1811. He was also elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; his sermons accompanied by an autobiography were published in seven volumes. He died at West Springfield, December 31, 1820. With these should be mentioned Rev. Richard Mansfield, D.D., an Episcopal clergyman, who was rector of St. James's church, Derby, for seventy-two years, from 1748 to 1820.
Prominent among the early educators, was Joseph Bel- lamy, a native of Cheshire; as a theological instructor, his style was plain, and his manner impressive; he held high rank as a preacher among his contemporaries, and inaugurated the first Sunday-school in the world. He died at Bethlehem, March 6, 1790.
Elizur Goodrich was born in that part of Wethersfield now known as Rocky Hill, October 26, 1734; he served as a tutor for two years after graduating from Yale college; he was ordained as a Congregationalist minister in 1756, and settled over a church at Durham, where he remained for more than forty years, and was instrumental in educating three hundred young men. He was an intense patriot, and advised his people to lay down their lives and property in the American conflict. He died at Norfolk, November 22, 179.7.
The authorship of Joseph Smith's book on Mormonism, is attributed to the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, a native of Ash- ford, where he was born in 1761; he was a soldier of the Revolution. He began the study of law, and in 1785 grad- uated from Dartmouth college; he afterwards studied for the ministry, and preached ten years in New England; but
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finally emigrated to the West, and engaged in mercantile busi- ness. While a resident of New Salem, now Conneaut, Ohio, he wrote a romance, entitled "Manuscript Found"; it pretended to be a transcript of a manuscript found in an ancient mound, giving an account of the customs, manners, and warlike conflicts of the original people of this continent; the author vainly attempted to get the work published. After his death, at Amity, Pennsylvania, October 20, 1816, it has been alleged that a follower of Joseph Smith stole the man- uscript from a printing establishment in Pittsburg, where he was employed.
Rev. John Buckley, a casuist and sage, son of the author of "Will and Doom," published a treatise in 1724, which attracted universal attention; in it the theory was advanced, that aborigines had no right or claim to any lands but those they subdued by their own hands; and that the English had perfect right to occupy any lands without compensating the natives.
Manasseh Cutler was born at Killingly May 3, 1742; after his graduation from Yale in 1765, he studied theology, and was ordained in 1771, and placed in charge of a society at Hamilton, Massachusetts. He became identified with the settlement of the Northwestern territory, and was one of the founders of Marietta, Ohio. On his return to New England, he continued his pastoral duties at Hamilton until his death, July 28, 1823. The first scientific description of the plants of New England was the result of his botanical researches.
The first colored preacher of any prominence in Connec- ticut was Lemuel Haynes; he was born in what is now West Hartford, July 18th, 1753; and abandoned by his white mother. He volunteered in the American Army, and was with the expedition against Ticonderoga; returning from
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the war he became engaged in farming; he made himself proficient in Latin and Greek, having no light by which to study, except that of the fire. He was ordained minister in 1785, and settled at Rutland, Vermont, where he preached thirty years. He died September 28, 1833.
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CHAPTER XX
ARTS AND LITERATURE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
T HE art of printing was first introduced into Connecticut by Thomas Short, at New Lon- don, in the year 1709; he published the Say- brook Platform in 1710. This was the only printing press in the country for forty-five years; Mr. Short died about two years after its establishment.
The colonial laws were in manuscript; the Assembly decided to revise and print them, and the Governor and Council were requested to procure a printer, to settle within the limits of the colony. Negotiations were entered into with Timothy Green, a descendant of Samuel Green, who was the first printer in North America; the Assembly agreed with Mr. Green that he should be the colony's printer, and receive fifty pounds annually for printing the election sermons, proc- lamations for Fast and Thanksgiving days, and the laws enacted at each session. Mr. Green located at New London in 1714, and he and his descendants were printers for the col- ony and the State until after the Revolutionary War.
The advent of the printing press turned the attention of the literary minds of the colony towards journalism. Con- necticut was late in entering the newspaper field; in six of the colonies weekly papers were already in circulation, when on Jan. 1, 1755, James Parker & Co. began the publication of the "Connecticut Gazette" at New Haven. This pioneer of Connecticut journalism was a four-page, two-column weekly sheet, ten and a quarter inches in length and fifteen and a half in breadth. The subscription price was two and a half shill- ings a quarter, postage prepaid. Three years afterwards a second paper was established in the colony; Timothy Green, on Aug. 8, 1758, issued the "New London Summary" or "Weekly Advertiser," a two-column folio sheet, twelve by eight inches, printed on paper manufactured at Norwich.
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Editor Green, in connection with his printing plant, carried on the business of bookbinding, and copperplate printing. These two early journalistic ventures were short-lived. The "Summary" was the first to suspend, in 1763, in consequence of the death of its editor; the "Connecticut Gazette" sur- vived until the next year. The latter was revived on July 5, 1765, by Benjamin Mecum; its final demise occurred Feb. 19, 1768, on the issue of the 596th number. The "Summary" was resuscitated and enlarged by a nephew of the original editor, and given the name of the "New London Gazette;" this was changed in 1773 to the "Connecticut Gazette," and as such continued to be issued for more than eighty years.
Journalism was first introduced into Hartford by Thomas Green. The first number of the "Connecticut Courant" was printed on Oct. 28, 1764; the present existence of this paper makes it a national landmark, there being only two newspa- pers published to-day in the United States that antedate its nativity even nominally, and it is the oldest of all with a con- tinuous name and publication. The year preceding the sus- pension of the "Connecticut Gazette" at New Haven, the first number of the "Connecticut Journal and New Haven Post Boy" appeared, under the combined editorship of Thomas and Samuel Green. Though there were many changes in the proprietorship, its last issue was on April 7, 1835. Connec- ticut as a newspaper field attracted the attention of Alexander and James Robertson, who were engaged in journalistic enterprises in New York city; they formed a partnership with John Trumbull at Norwich in 1773, and began the pub- lication of a weekly newspaper under the far-reaching and ambitious title of the "Norwich Packet and the Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island Adver- tiser."
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At the breaking out of hostilities with the British there were fourteen weekly newspapers published in New Eng- land. Of these, Hartford, New Haven, New London, and Norwich had one each; the latter town became the publish- ing center for the colony. Timothy Green, the New London printer, in company with Judah Paddock Spooner, had opened a rival printing establishment; this firm published in 1773 an edition of Watts' Psalms, also a "Manual Exercise." The Robertsons in 1776 sold their interests to John Trum- bull, who changed the name of the paper to the "Connecticut Centinel." He published editions of special sermons, alma- nacs, and orations; his imprint appears in 1778 on the title- page of Hubbard's "Indian Wars," and later on a work entitled "The Captivity of Colonel Ethan Allen;" also on school and hymn books. The New Haven enterprise requir- ing the personal attention of Mr. Green, his partner Ebene- zeer Watson had charge of the "Connecticut Courant" until his death, which occurred in 1777; he was succeeded in the management of the paper by his widow, who was the first woman in America to edit a paper.
Peace was hardly declared between Great Britain and the United States, when new journalistic enterprises began to make their appearance in Connecticut, the population being of an enlightened and educated class of citizens; in 1785 there were as many newspapers published weekly in the State as in all the territory south of Pennsylvania. In the decade between 1780 and 1790, the most important undertaking in the journalism of Connecticut was made at Hartford, where in 1784 the first issue of the "American Mercury" appeared, under the editorship of Joel Barlow; Elisha Babcock was associated with him in the management of this publication, and the paper continued to be issued, under different owner-
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ships for over half a century, but was finally merged with the "Independent Press."
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