Connecticut in transition: 1775-1818, Part 5

Author: Purcell, Richard J. (Richard Joseph), 1887-1950
Publication date: 1963
Publisher: Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan University Press
Number of Pages: 346


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President Stiles estimated in 1794 that, of the eighty-five nominees for Assistants, one-third were Revelationists, one-third doubtful and the last third deists. Of the eighty-five, only about thirty-six were religious characters, the rest being Gallios, as some maliciously noted. Certainly, he added, too many were of doubtful religion and virtue, while some were of flagitious morals.76 Occasionally one runs across estimates in pastors' sermons of the number of active parishioners and conversions, from which one may arrive at superficial estimates by comparison with the known population of the town. These may or may not be repre- sentative towns or representative years. New Haven in 1787 had three Congregational societies and one Episcopal church, with an enrollment of about thirty-one per cent of the population or about twenty-six per cent for Congregationalists alone.77 Salisbury, a town of 2,266 people in 1800, had no organized churches for Methodists, Baptists or Univer- salists; and from 1812 to 1818 there was no settled Congregationalist minister, so that the religious life must have fallen to a low level. In 1800 its pastor counted twenty-eight males and fifty-two females, giv-


75 Statutes of Conn. (1808), p. 296; Swift, System of the Laws, II, 320.


76 Diary, III, 546.


77 Stiles, Sermon, July 24, 1787.


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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


ing a total church membership of about nine per cent.78 In 1800 only about sixteen per cent of Windham's population of 2,644 were active Congregationalists.79 Rev. Noah Porter of Farmington, in a sermon in 182 I, spoke of the indifference of that society for the past twenty years, with no revival since 1800 and with the lamentably small average of ten persons joining the society each year by profession or letter out of a population of 2,000.80 In this connection one should recall the condi- tion of Congregationalism in Yale which, while to some extent national in scope, was pretty representative of the Connecticut Valley.


These figures are incomplete, but accurate enough to speak volumes. They sketch too dark a picture of Congregationalism as measured by results, but are indicative of the inroads of nothingarianism and of dis- sent. They seem to bear out an estimate, that hardly one-third of Con- necticut was more than Presbyterian-Congregational in name; for, as we shall see, the dissenters were quite one-third of the total population. These ratios explain why the Old Order was doomed to defeat in spite of its splendid political organization, once dissenters joined forces with this large neutral body of nominal Congregationalists. It was this group of independent voters, if one may use present-day nomenclature, which carried the day for broad toleration.


78 Church, Historical Address (1841), p. 29; Rev. Joseph Crossman, Sermon (1803), pp. 17-18.


79 Waterman, Sermon (1800), p. 38.


80 Discourse (1821), p. 6. These records are good compared with the figures Stiles gave in 1769 for Plainfield, Stonington, New London, Norwich, Preston, and Lyman, where only from one-tenth to one-fourth were church members of any kind. F. B. Dexter, Extracts from the Itineraries of Ezra Stiles, pp. 298 ff.


CHAPTER II


1. The Protestant Episcopal Church


HIS period which we have just been considering was also marked by an astonishing growth of dissent. While there may have been an oc- casional Quaker or Church of England man in the commonwealth from the beginning, and while dissent dated from the establishment of the Anglican church in Stratford, dissent did not become widespread until after the Revolution. Connecticut as characterized by one form of church government, that of the Congregationalists alone, was to be no more. State and church were no longer to be composed of the same per- sons, citizens and church members. The Anglican was followed by the schismatic Strict Congregationalist, by the Baptist, and finally by the Methodist. Quakers remained in small numbers; Universalists entered the field; regular Presbyterians were represented; Unitarians existed outside the law; and in fact every English Protestant sect found place within the state. Naturally, their entrance was opposed by the religious body so long possessed of exclusive control of religion within the colony. As Judge Samuel Church wrote: "A history of intermingling sects has gen- erally been little else than a history of unchristian contentions." 1 Con- necticut, as he was well aware, proved no exception to this rule.


On the part of the dissenters it was a fight first for existence, then for toleration, and finally for complete religious liberty.


Equal rights were not granted until the dissenter united with the non-believer and the malcontent Republican to control a working ma- jority of the popular vote. Therefore, it is essential to sketch briefly the various dissenting groups in order to gain an idea of their grievances and numerical strength. The Anglican church may be considered first be- cause of its position of greatest respectability in the eyes of the Standing Order and because of its priority in point of time. I shall then take up in


1 Church, Historical Address, P. 37.


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order the Separatists, Baptists, Methodists, and the smaller religious bodies.


The Church of England in Connecticut was inaugurated by the con- version of Rector Timothy Cutler of Yale College and that of his tutors, Rev. Samuel Johnson and Rev. Daniel Browne, in 1722. They were all excused from further college service, for their "apostacy" stirred the colony to its depths and resulted in intensely bitter criticism.2 In 1724 the first Anglican church was opened at Stratford with Dr. Johnson as its pastor. Insignificant as were these Anglican beginnings, they aroused antagonism and bitter persecution extending over several years. Church- men were compelled to pay a tithe to the Congregational parish in which they dwelt on penalty of imprisonment or distraint of goods.3 Connecticut must indeed have seemed a strange place to the Anglican who found himself the dissenter, the persecuted and the payer of a tithe to an unfriendly establishment. There is pathos as well as humor in the early complaints against a legal system which prevented any religious assembly not conformable to the establishment or the Act of Toleration and which fined persons neglecting public worship and meeting in pri- vate houses twenty shillings, and unlawful ministers twenty pounds.4


The Anglicans were in an excellent position to force the issue by an appeal to the crown if necessary, especially as the home government was then hostile to charter colonies. The Legislature, aware of this, an- swered a petition of the Fairfield County Episcopalians with remedial legislation.5 This act of 1727 gave Anglicans who had an organized society within a reasonable distance, even if in another state, the privi- lege of declaring themselves members and of taxing their membership for the support of their own minister and church. Thus they were freed from further attendance at the services of the established church, and from paying a tithe for the maintenance of its ministry. If, however, there was no Anglican society within a reasonable distance, a church- man was legally rated as a Congregationalist; in other words he was


2 Rev. E. Edwards Beardsley, The History of the Episcopal Church in Con- necticut, I, 32, 42, 63; Sanford H. Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 268; Stokes, Memorials, I, 13-15; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, I.


3 Beardsley, Episcopal Church, I, 52, 59-61.


4 Conn. Col. Records, VI, 248; Swift, System of the Laws, I, 140; Paul E. Laurer, Church and State in New England, pp. 85-87.


5 Conn. Col. Records, VII, 106-108; Swift, System of the Laws, I, 140; Laurer, Church and State, pp. 85-87; Henry Bronson, History of Waterbury, p. 316; Alex- ander Johnston, Connecticut, p. 236.


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THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH


reckoned a tithe payer and church attendant. The illiberal interpreta- tion of a reasonable distance, such as two miles, meant that too few Anglicans were actually benefited. The law defeated the purpose of its framers, for it stimulated Anglican growth. He would be a lukewarm churchman who, taxed for religion, would not prefer to support his own rather than the dissenter's church. This act was the first step toward toleration, even though enacted for the sake of "fear and policy." Judge Swift realized this when he wrote:


This accidental circumstance produced this exemption, at a much earlier period, than it would have happened, if the same religious sect had governed in England and Connecticut.6


The years following 1727 saw a rapid advance,7 preachers like Sam- uel Seabury, Sr., and John Beach going over to Episcopacy. Ezra Stiles was especially uncharitable to the latter whom he described as a "high Churchman and a high Tory" whose sole aim in life was the conversion of "Heathen Presbyterians." The revival of the decade of 1740 and the schism in Congregationalism encouraged Anglican growth and lessened the opposition, much of which was being directed toward the schis- matics. Churches were established in Stamford, in Guilford where later a number of Congregationalists resided, in Litchfield, in Middletown, and finally in Waterbury where at first the Legislature blindly rejected a petition for parish privileges even after the construction of the church building.


This advance was not viewed complacently by the Standing Order, who opposed it with a mean-spirited, petty persecution, social and polit- ical when not legal. The town of Cornwall in 1752 actually sued one of its citizens "for damages for breaking the covenant, and conforming to the Church of England," and was awarded a judgment for fifteen pounds.8 The tithe system administered by the "vestry" of the estab- lished society in the interest of that body was bound to work hardship. When a man severed connections with his society, he was an apostate to the creed of his fathers and a dodger of the support of the Gospel.


6 System of the Laws, I, 140.


7 Stiles, Diary, III, 12; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, I, 239-244; Beardsley, Episcopal Church, I, chs. 7, 8, 9; Bronson, Waterbury, pp. 294-310; Rev. John Avery, History of the Town of Ledyard, pp. 46-48; Rev. J. W. Alvord, Historical Address (1842), p. 24; Ralph D. Smith, The History of Guilford, p. 108.


8 Wainwright, Historical Discourse, p. 12; Beardsley, Ecclesiastical History of Connecticut, I, 200.


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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


Obstinate refusal to pay a tithe meant distraint of property or even hard labor enforced by corporal punishment or imprisonment.9 Such treatment gave rise to charges of persecution, more often no doubt than circumstances warranted.


The Church of England grew steadily until the days of the Revolu- tion, aided as it was by the active support of the Society for the Propa- gation of the Gospel and the London Missionary Society. The Missionary Society, employing "Intrigue and vigorous exertion to get a Foot- ing," supported missionaries and an occasional schoolmaster. It made donations to the small churches scattered throughout Connecticut, the greater part of them being unable to support a ministry if left unaided, especially those of Litchfield County. In 1773 Stiles noted that there were fifteen ministers and thirty-one churches, whereas in 1752 there had been but eight clergymen and sixteen churches.10 He considered this only a natural increase which augured no prospect of "Episcopiz- ing" Connecticut. Outside support was naturally frowned upon, for it was felt that there might be a political motive hidden behind the re- ligious.


New Haven became the seat of an Episcopal society about 1755. Although a clergyman was early established, there were only ninety- one members some seven years later. New Haven proved as barren soil for Anglican growth as for the Baptist and Methodist propaganda of later years, refusing to donate or sell a church site to Dr. Samuel John- son.11 Aside from the erection of a church in Bristol about 1760, the establishment of a small society in Middle Haddam and another at Pom- fret, there was no advance until after the Revolution.12


Of the beginning of the Pomfret congregation, Stiles has left an interesting account which is valuable in illustrating the method of proselytizing. Colonel Godfrey Marlbone, an Oxford graduate, owned five thousand acres of land in the town of Brooklyn and, as his father before him had done, paid a heavy tithe to the settled society. At length he refused to pay his fourth of an assessment for a new church and, supported by the Bishop of London, he determined to build an Anglican


9 Joseph P. Beach, History of Cheshire, p. 120; Albert C. Bates, Records of Rev. Roger Viets, p. 5; Beecher, Autobiography, I, 342; George Barstow, The History of New Hampshire, p. 425.


10 Goodenough, Clergy of Litchfield, p. 154; Stiles, Diary, I, 359-393.


11 Dwight, Statistical Account, p. 43; Duncan, Travels, I, 113; Beardsley, Epis- copal Church, I, 65, 172, 198.


12 Field, Statistical Account, p. 62; Rev. Noah Porter, Discourse (1821), p. 70.


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chapel. Among his tenants and neighbors some ninety families (of whom a third had been Congregationalists) were glad to enroll in a society so well endowed. One cannot but query if such conversions were not due to economic rather than to religious discontent.13


In 1760 there were sixteen churches with established clergymen and ten vacancies, while in 1773 there were only fifteen ministers and thirty- one societies. In Fairfield County, where the Episcopalians were strong- est, it was estimated that in 1773 they made up a third of the population. In Newtown, for instance, the Episcopalians equaled the Congregation- alists in number. Rev. Elizur Goodrich, the Congregational minister at Durham, after a careful survey estimated the Anglicans in 1774 at one- thirteenth of the state's population.14


The position of the Anglican church during the war could not be more precarious.15 Its desire for a bishop and its connection with the Missionary Society were pretexts rather than valid reasons for a re- newed attack by those who still lived in fear of a Laud. As British sup- port was withdrawn, missionary endeavors ceased. The missionaries were quite English in sympathy; the interests of the permanent clergy, if not of their parishioners, were more closely related to the crown than to the colony. It is hard to conceive of a true churchman other than a loyalist. The Declaration of Independence found him again at Notting- ham.


Ezra Stiles was certain that all Anglicans shared the royalist views of the Rev. Mr. Peters, "The infamous Chh. Parson of Hebron," only dif- fering in degree.16 Some of the clergy emigrated by way of New York, while others obeyed the wiser counsel of men like William Samuel Johnson, patriot and churchman, and remained quiet while their people followed a course of unoffending neutrality.17 Rev. Samuel Seabury, an


13 Diary, I, 30-31, 93-94. Cf. Charles F. Sedgwick, History of ... Sharon, p. 98, and Rev. Herman R. Timlow, Ecclesiastical and other sketches of Southington, PP. 190-191.


14 Stiles, Discourse (1761), pp. 135-138; Beardsley, Episcopal Church, pp. 286- 288; Ezra Stiles, Itineraries, pp. 110 ff.


15 Beardsley, Episcopal Church, I, 301 ff .; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, III, 264; Conn. Historical Society, Collections, I, 213; Major Christopher French, Journal, July, 1776; Charles H. Davis, History of Wallingford, pp. 301 ff .; Church, Historical Address, p. 32; Charles B. Todd, History of Redding, p. 105; Bronson, Waterbury, pp. 301, 330; Rev. Joseph Anderson, The Town of Waterbury, I, 654- 656; Stiles, Diary, II, 5-6.


16 Peters of Blue-Law fame. Diary, II, 128.


17 Beardsley, Episcopal Church, I, 301, 311.


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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


avowed loyalist and at one time chaplain of the loyalist regiment under Colonel Edward Fanning, was seized at Westchester, New York, by Connecticut raiders and imprisoned for a time in New Haven.18 Mis- sionaries were subjected to scrupulous surveillance and hard treatment. Some churches were closed by parsons who could not reconcile the forced omission of the prayer for royalty with their canonical oath. Rector Abraham Jarvis was compelled by threats to suspend services, while other ministers, not daring to read the service nor to appear in their sacerdotal vestments, contented themselves with reading from the Bible on Sundays. In Salisbury all teaching was silenced and the church was turned into a military prison, while the Sharon church was con- verted into a barracks, even as the Roundheads had once converted "Paul's Church," London. The royal prerogative removed, Anglicans learned that legal toleration meant little unless enforced by public senti- ment and the police power. Later Episcopalian writers have been in- clined to minimize the Tory sympathies of their church during the crisis, and accuse the Puritans of allowing sectarianism and pent-up hatred free play under the guise of patriotism. In a word the Church of England barely lived through these days.19


At the close of the Revolution the Church of England was quite dis- credited. The Congregationalist patriot saw in it only Toryism of the deepest hue as his fear of Episcopacy seemed to grow with his jealousy for America's newly won liberties. If a man of the breadth of Stiles regarded Episcopacy with abhorrence and its ritual as a system of wor- ship which deists and immoral men might conscientiously follow, what were the views of the ordinary layman?20


The reorganization of the Anglican church as the Protestant Epis- copal church of America did much to lessen popular hostility. This severance of institutional dependence upon England was manifest be- cause of the difficulty which the first American bishop, Samuel Seabury, found in obtaining consecration. He was finally forced to seek orders from a non-juring Scottish bishop.21 Then the divorce from the London Missionary Society, which cared only for the conversion of His Ma- jesty's subjects, removed another popular grievance. However, enough


18 Stokes, Memorials, I, 46-47; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, II, 179 ff.


19 Bates, Rev. Roger Viets, p. 6; Todd, Redding, p. 105; Stiles, Diary, II, 45-46; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, II, 701 ff .; Sedgwick, Sharon, pp. 61-63; Wainwright, Historical Discourse, pp. 18-20; Beardsley, Episcopal Church, I, 317 ff.


20 Diary, II, 113, III, 235; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, IV, 375.


21 Beardsley, Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Rev. Samuel Seabury; Bron- son, Waterbury, p. 301.


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THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH


annoyance was kept up to encourage the church's growth and inspire its members.


In 1791 the Legislature passed a supplementary "Act to enforce the observance of days of public fasting and Thanksgiving." Labor of a servile character and all forms of recreation were forbidden on such days designated by the governor, under the penalty of a fine of from one to two dollars. Considering this statute in the light of the habit of naming feasts on Episcopal fast days and vice versa, the cry of persecu- tion does not seem a fancy. This grievance was of short duration; for Governor Huntington, a personal friend of the bishop, named Good Friday as the annual fast day in 1795. This tactful precedent was fol- lowed again in 1797, giving the custom permanent establishment.22 Bishop Seabury himself was at fault inasmuch as his affected signature of "Samuel, Bishop of Connecticut" seemed to give point to the old imputation of episcopal aggressive and autocratic manners.23 Then his church in New London aroused suspicions of its good Americanism by refusing to celebrate Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1795 because it fell in the Lenten season. To men of Puritan traditions this refusal appeared to be a quibbling pretext.


From the time of the reorganization of the Protestant Episcopal church to the War of 1812, numbers increased; churches were built; new societies were organized; and the Churchman's Monthly Magazine was founded.24 The Standing Order was brought to the point of recog- nizing the Episcopal as the second church in the state. Its ministers were men of education. Yale recognized this for the first time when, in 1793, a Doctor of Divinity degree was conferred upon an Episcopal clergy- man. Their second bishop, Rev. Abraham Jarvis, like the first, was a Yale man and sent his son to Yale. Episcopalians were becoming influ- ential in the business life of the state.25


By 1791 the number of clergymen had increased from ten to twenty. Ten years later the number of ministers was thought to be about twenty, with sixteen pluralities and seventeen vacancies as a record of churches. In 1810 Dwight estimated the number of churches or societies at sixty-one. This is the more remarkable when we remember that this


22 Statutes (1808), p. 285; Greene, Religious Liberty, p. 378; William De Loss Love, Fasts and Thanksgivings of New England, pp. 346-361.


23 Address of Episcopal Clergy to Bishop Seabury and his answer, in Yale Miscellaneous Sermons, IV, Nos. 11, 12.


24 Beardsley, Episcopal Church, II.


25 New Haven Historical Society, Papers, III, 423; Mercury, Dec. 26, 1805; Beardsley, Episcopal Church, II, 27; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, II, 701-706.


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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818


strength was centered in six of the eight counties. Litchfield early heard Anglican preaching, but not until 1784 was there a legally organized society in its midst, and then the growth was slow enough. Windham County, in 1807, could count only one Episcopal church among its forty-one societies though the Baptists had thirteen and the Methodists four.26


Brookfield established an Episcopal society in 1785, fifty-five men having seceded from the established church. Three years later came the first rupture in the East Haven church when a number certified them- selves Episcopalians rather than share the burden of a twenty pounds' increase in the minister's salary. By 1811 a church and school were built. In 1790 churches were organized in Hamden, Burlington, and Southington; and a score of Congregationalists of Haddam were "con- verted" because of a momentous dispute over the location of a new church building. After 1800 strong parishes were formed at Killing- worth, Kent, and Norwich. New Haven, though far from a favorable center, offers a good example of this growth. With only ninety-five Episcopalians to four hundred and fifty-nine Congregationalists on the official tax lists in 1787, it was estimated by the minister of Center Church in 1800 that there were two hundred and twenty-six Episcopal as compared with four hundred and seventy-one Congregationalist fam- ilies. This was a decidedly favorable advance.27


The Episcopal church suffered again in the War of 1812 because of its alleged English sympathy, strange as this may seem in view of the dubious patriotism of the state. This bigotry in the guise of patriotism was particularly odious.


With 1815 a new period of progress began. The building of Trinity Church, New Haven, marked an epoch, for it was regarded as the most imposing church edifice in New England, and as such won the applause of all but the most orthodox.28 Churches were erected here and there,


26 Stiles, Diary, III, 151; Leland, Dissenters' Strong Box, p. 14; Trumbull, Ser- mon (1801), p. 16; Dwight, Travels, IV, 444 ff .; George C. Woodruff, History of the Town of Litchfield, p. 27; Larned, Windham County, II, 391.


27 Sarah E. Hughes, History of East Haven, under 1788; Pierce, History of Brookfield, p. 20; William P. Blake, History of . . . Hamden, p. 192; Porter, His- torical Address, pp. 68 ff .; Field, Haddam and East Haddam, p. 39; Field, Statistical Account, p. 113; Francis Atwater, History of Kent, p. 68; Frances M. Caulkins, History of Norwich, p. 322; Stiles, Sermon, July 24, 1787; Dana, Two Discourses, pp. 65 ff.


28 Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 103; Beardsley, Episcopal Church, II, 110, 124.


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where previously struggling societies had to be content with a tempo- rary meeting-house or some private dwelling. Yet John Crewse, chosen as bishop by the convention of 1815, apparently refused the honor be- cause of the uncertainty of an adequate "living"; and not until 1819 was Bishop Brownell consecrated.29 In 1817 an older society was reorgan- ized as the Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.30


The Congregational revival of 1816 caused an anti-Episcopal out- burst. An illustration is to be found in the fact that Center Church, New Haven, tried to put the odium of expulsion on a member who joined the Episcopal fold.31 Episcopacy was attacked for the sake of re- awakening Congregational enthusiasm. Ultimately the net result was in increase in the number of churchmen. These attacks are accounted for by the more aggressive stand which the churchmen were taking, and because of their leaning toward the Republican party. Here again the church-state adherents were short-sighted, for they were only driv- ing the discontented Episcopalians to ally themselves definitely with that party.




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