USA > Connecticut > Connecticut in transition: 1775-1818 > Part 6
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Episcopalians, while unable to gain legislative sanction for an Epis- copalian college, believed that they were discriminated against by Yale. They might be eligible, but the fact remains that no Episcopalian could be pointed out as a member of the teaching force.32 Episcopalian stu- dents were compelled to attend chapel exercises, though they were given permission under some circumstances to attend their own service. The government of the college even under the new constitution was chiefly in the hands of the ministry. Congregational doctrine was taught. Law, divinity, and medicine were completely under the control of one denomination, though all were forced to support the college.33 Hence Episcopalians were desirous of obtaining an act of incorporation for
29 Courant, June 21, 1815; Rev. Samuel Hart, The Episcopal Bank and the Bishops' Fund, pp. 8-9.
30 Beardsley, Episcopal Church, II, 151.
31 Ibid., pp. 139 ff .; Greene, Religious Liberty, p. 471.
32 John H. Jacocks, Bishop's Bonus, p. 56, declared that in over a hundred years there had been only two Episcopalian tutors, one of whom apostated, though Pres- ident Clap estimated that one in ten graduates was of that persuasion. The defend- ers could cite only Tutor Denison, later Speaker of the House, whom Professor Dexter describes as a "devout but not a bigoted member of the Episcopal Church." Biographical Sketches, V, 192. See article by Theodore Dwight, from Albany Ad- vertiser, in Courant, June 18, 1816.
33 Courant, June 18, 1816; Rev. B. Judd, Sermon, Oct. 7, 1812.
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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818
their academy at Cheshire, which had been founded in 1801, and after some difficulty had been given a lottery privilege, which netted about $12,000.34 This small concession encouraged the Episcopalians to con- tinue their struggle for educational freedom.
Without a college the Episcopalians felt that their ministry must suffer; that their boys would be alienated from the faith of their fathers; and that their parishes must continue without rectors. It was something which their wealth and numbers demanded. They were not complain- ing of being taxed to support Yale, they said, but were merely urging that they be granted equal rights. They maintained that the Cheshire Academy with an enrollment of from fifty to seventy students was worthy of incorporation; but to this the Congregationalists offered a united opposition. The latter, fearing the competition of a rival college, contended that Yale was liberal enough. Nor could they see why each sect should have schools or how tutors in languages or chemistry could hurt Episcopalian susceptibilities. In 1804 an application for a charter was refused, and again in 1810: while the Lower House approved, the Council rejected the proposal, which had been drawn up in the Cheshire convention and fathered by Jonathan Ingersoll, a leading churchman. The refusal was so discouraging that no further steps were taken until 1812, when another petition remained unanswered. Episcopalians as- cribed all to bigotry. Despite the increasing importance of the academy it was never chartered, nor were the Episcopalians to have their own college until Washington, later called Trinity, was founded at Hartford in 1823.35
Their failure emphasized the truth of the Republican assertion that, loyal as Episcopalians and their bishop had been to the Federalist party, neither their interests nor those of their adherents had been advanced. Men like Samuel Johnson, Jonathan Ingersoll, Mr. Beers of New Haven, had been awarded prominent positions, partly because of their native worth and partly as a political bid for the support of their order. Usu- ally an Episcopalian found his way into the Council, generally because his co-religionists concentrated their votes. It was complained that they were over-represented in the Lower House. This may be doubted. It
34 Bernard Steiner, History of Education in Connecticut, pp. 55 ff .; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 115; Davis, Wallingford, pp. 444 ff .; Mercury, Nov. 11, 1805. 35 Davis, Wallingford, pp. 444 ff .; Greene, Religious Liberty, pp. 463-467; Beardsley, Episcopal Church, II, 66 ff .; Steiner, Education in Connecticut, pp. 237 ff. Jacocks, Bishop's Bonus, Judd, Sermon, Oct. 7, 1812, and Mercury, July 19, 1810, afford valuable material.
43
THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH
could be demonstrated, however, that Episcopalians were selected only in dissenting strongholds. Scarcely ever were they granted appointive positions.36
Episcopalians were further aroused by the refusal of ordinary jus- tice in the case of the Phoenix Bank bonus.37 In the spring of 1814 the backers of this Episcopalian bank petitioned the Legislature for articles of incorporation, offering a bonus of $60,000, which should be appro- priated for the use of Yale for the newly established Medical School, the Bishop's fund, or for whatever the legislators deemed expedient. After considerable opposition and a liberal distribution of shares, a mil- lion-dollar charter was finally procured and $50,000 was donated as a bonus. The Assembly immediately passed bills granting $20,000 to the Medical School and an equal amount to the Bishop's fund, but in the latter grant the Council failed to concur, only the Episcopalian William Samuel Johnson favoring it. The excuse offered was that the state needed money because of the war. During the following year petitions for their share again failed. While, in accordance with the act of in- corporation, the General Assembly was legally a free agent, yet it was not living up to the spirit of the act. The largess to the Medical School seemed a precedent for the Bishop's fund in which they were so keenly interested.
Believing that the Legislature's action was due to Federalist intoler- ance and Puritan hatred of a bishop, they turned toward the sympa- thetic opposition party, which was actively bidding for their support. Thus it was that "The Phoenix Bank, the child of Intrigue and the mother of Discord," caused, as Theodore Dwight bitterly noted, the Episcopalian to break from his party for the sake of his church.
The number of Episcopalians in 1817 can be only roughly deter- mined, so incomplete were parochial reports to the general convention. One authority estimated seventy-four Episcopal churches as compared to two hundred and thirteen Congregational societies. The Connect- icut Gazetteer gives practically the same figures, save that it enu- merates three Congregational societies less. As there were only thirty-
36 Mercury, Nov. 19, 1801; Feb. 10, 1803; Sept. 26, Dec. 26, 1805; Courant, Aug. 30, 1816; Rev. William J. Bentley, Diary, III, 208.
37 Conn. Public Laws (1808-1819), pp. 43-46, 148 ff .; Jacocks, Bishop's Bonus; defense of Legislature by Theodore Dwight, a member, Courant, June 18, 1816; Columbian Register, June 17, 1820; Hart, Episcopal Bank; Samuel Church, Mss. History of Convention; Beardsley, Episcopal Church, II, 120-124; Greene, Religious Liberty, pp. 443-444.
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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818
five Episcopal clergy, about one-half of the churches were vacancies, and probably were small as compared with the legal Congregational en- rollment.38 In Middlesex County the church figures for 1815 are avail- able and sufficiently accurate for a comparison. Out of 3,688 families, 2,330 were legally classed as Congregationalists and 42 1 as Episcopalian, or about eleven per cent of the total or nineteen per cent of the legal Congregational population.39 It should be remembered too that Fairfield County, not Middlesex, was the stronghold. Miss Greene credits them with from one-eleventh to one-thirteenth of the population of the state in 1816. This is rather low, for in 1817, when it was desired to placate the Episcopalians, the General Assembly allotted one-seventh of the national refund of the state war expenses to the Bishop's fund as the Epis- copalian share. This semi-official estimate of their numbers was probably fairly accurate, though none too liberal.40
At any rate the Episcopalian vote was so important numerically that its loss to the Federalists marked the end of their control. The Episco- palians used their strength to gain concessions which chanced to be liberal in character, rather than to bring about reform for principle's sake, thus differing from the Baptists and Methodists, who had labored through the heat of the whole day with the Republicans, for the over- throw of the state-favored church. Against an establishment as such the Episcopalian could not logically declare, but only against a Congrega- tional establishment.
2. The Strict Congregationalists
The religious re-awakening of 1740 resulted in the first schism in Congregationalism. The revolters from the Saybrook platform were known as Separatists or New Lights, though they preferred the term Strict Congregationalists. As some twenty ministers were affected, the New Lights immediately became a thorn in the side of orthodoxy.
38 Courant, June 17, Sept. 23, 1817; Beardsley, Episcopal Church, II, 76 ff .; Morse and Morse, The Travellers' Guide, p. 91; Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 32. D. B. Warden, Statistical and Historical Account of the U. S., estimates 218 Con- gregational, 64 Episcopal and 67 Baptist societies. The Christian Messenger, quoted in Courant, Aug. 19, 1817.
39 Field, Statistical Account.
40 Greene, Religious Liberty, p. 444.
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THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH
The Legislature enacted a measure, excepting Separatists from the privileges of the Toleration Act. In 1742 a grand council of ministers at Killingworth condemned itinerant preaching in no uncertain terms. In answer to their petition the Legislature passed a statute directed against irregular ministers and exhorters, which fully met the approval of the general association. New Light preachers were subject to the law as unsettled exhorters, for they could not establish legal societies. Neither legislation nor persecution prevented the growth of the sect.41 Finally it was necessary to exempt the "commonly styled Separates" from paying taxes for the support of the regular ministry under the rules holding for Episcopalians.42
Fines and imprisonment for conscience sake only increased Separa- tist zeal. Social persecution on the part of those who believed that the Separates' conscience was mirrored in avarice and factiousness had no more effect. Large societies were founded before 1790 in Mansfield, Middletown, Ledyard, Norwich, New Milford, Cheshire and Cornwall, in addition to which there were nearly thirty small organizations. Seces- sions were often due to differences over the minister's election or salary or over meeting-house repairs, though at times to the more important though minute questions of church government and of doctrinal varia- tions.43
This revolt within the church clearly demonstrated widespread dis- content. Today it is interesting not so much for the counter movement in Congregationalism, but because it pried open the door of toleration just a bit wider. Incidentally the Separates were to increase the number of Baptists, with whose doctrines and ideas of government they were closely in accord, for they found the support of a separate organization burdensome. Nevertheless about seven societies 44 lived to reap the benefits of the full religious freedom. At all events, while few in num- ber, their members were early supporters of the reform party.
41 Conn. Col. Records, VIII, 569; Caulkins, New London, p. 451; Rev. Albert H. Newman, History of the Baptist Churches in the United States, p. 244.
42 Conn. State Records, I, 232; Swift, System of the Laws, I, 146.
43 Newman, Baptist Churches, pp. 244-252; Larned, Windham County, II, 233- 234; Avery, Ledyard, pp. 50-52; Field, Centennial Address, p. 168; Timlow, South- ington, pp. 297 ff .; Beach, Cheshire, p. 265; Greene, Religious Liberty, p. 236; Stiles, Diary, III, 380.
44 Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, p. 32.
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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818
3. The Baptist Church
The Baptist denomination was represented in Connecticut by a society established at Groton as early as 1705, thus really antedating the Anglican church, although generally regarded as occupying second place among dissenting sects. Alarmed by its growth, the Legislature passed a statute in 1723 forbidding private meetings and baptisms save by a regular minister of an approved congregation. As early as 1729, however, the Baptists together with Quakers were guaranteed the same legal privileges as the Anglicans. The agitation of 1742 against the ex- horters and unlicensed preachers of the Great Revival resulted in the temporary repeal of the toleration acts. This greatly injured the four societies then in existence.45
When toleration was again granted in 1760, Ezra Stiles enumerated three societies, one in the county of New Haven and the other two in New London.46 He probably referred only to settled societies because of his dislike of itinerant preachers and their evanescent congregations. While it must be remembered that Baptists on the border worshipped in Rhode Island meeting-houses, still their number was small throughout the colonial period.
Their early history was one of contention,47 but, as in the case of the other dissenting sects, this seemed merely to advance their cause. The chief difficulty centered around the obtaining of certificates, which freed those professing themselves Baptists from all tithes and obviously cut down the fund of the standing minister and raised the per capita tithes of the remaining parishioners. Thus one can easily explain this persecution as often due only to the local administration of the law. At times exhorters found it difficult to obtain a hearing, Stiles noting that an itinerant Baptist was met with such a disturbance in New Haven that the meeting was broken up. Here again it was not the law, but the spirit of its enforcement.
The characterization of Stiles is suggestive: "The Baptists are a re- ligious people and do not cover Scandal." He criticized them, and some-
45 Conn. Col. Records, VII, 237; Swift, System of the Laws, I, 140-141; Loomis and Calhoun, Judicial History, pp. 54-55; Newman, Baptist Churches, p. 271; Field, Statistical Account, p. 99; Porter, Historical Address, p. 68.
46 Discourse (1761), pp. 135-138.
47 Larned, Windham County, II, 246, 373; Newman, Baptist Churches, p. 364; Henry R. Stiles, History of Ancient Windsor, p. 439.
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THE BAPTIST CHURCH
what justly, as caring more about re-baptizing Christians than for anything else.48 Rev. Thomas Robbins, regarding them fairly dispassion- ately, felt that: "The disorganizing principles of the Baptists do con- siderable damage." 49
The Baptists early opposed clerical taxation without representation. While the Massachusetts and Connecticut colonials were raising this constitutional question, it is of moment to remember that a similar strug- gle was going on within their own ranks. The dissenter who did not live in the vicinity of his own chapel or society was legally a member of the Congregational parish of his residence and constrained to pay a tithe in support of its maintenance. These rates being voted upon only by enrolled members of the society, the dissenter was taxed by a local body in which he conscientiously could not be represented. As early as 1770 the comparatively few Baptists were threatening an appeal to the crown. The patriots in 1774 charged that Rev. Isaac Backus was sent to England with imaginary grievances, in order to prevent united action by the colonies. Backus pointed out in a letter to the Massachusetts Assembly how much more grievous were the Baptist burdens than the three- penny tax on tea, the payment of which could be evaded by simply abstaining from tea-drinking. This attitude and their dubious stand on the ethics of war gave the Baptists a set-back during the Revolution.50
This was but temporary, for the law of 1784, removing all disabili- ties save that of the certificate, resulted in an astonishing Baptist revival. Old societies becoming stronger were building meeting-houses. New societies were instituted before the century's close in Chatham, Burling- ton, Middle and East Haddam, Hampton, Woodstock, Southington, Middletown, East Hartford, Bristol, Cornwall, and Norwich; and be- fore 1815 others were established in Cromwell, Waterbury, New Lon- don, Killingworth, Guilford, New Haven, Pomfret, Stonington and elsewhere. Between 1760 and 1790 the number of churches increased from three to fifty-five with at least 3,200 communicants. In 1800 it was estimated that there were fifty-nine societies with 4,663 members. Windham County alone had thirteen Baptist societies in 1806 as com- pared with only twenty Congregational churches, though the latter were larger and more stable. Rev. John Leland testified that at this time there
48 Diary, I, 18, II, 114. 49 Diary, I, 90.
50 Newman, Baptist Churches, pp. 349 ff .; quoting Backus's letter of Nov. 22, 1774, P. 358; Stiles, Diary, I, 491, 581, II, 29; Alvord, Stamford, p. 22.
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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818
were forty-two registered preachers in the state and 4,200 communi- cants, not counting the numerous visitors. By 1812 the number of so- cieties was estimated at from sixty-one to sixty-five with about 5,500 members, aside from a few Six-Principle and Seventh-Day Baptists.51
This was indeed a remarkable record. Yet it was a slow growth as compared to the rapid strides made in the frontier sections of New England, where it was readily admitted that the Baptists made even greater headway than the Methodists.52 To explain their success was not difficult.
In the first place the Baptist tenets appealed with particular force to men inclined toward strict Congregationalism. Both sects preached against an unregenerate membership and had similar rules of church government. No doubt many individual Separatists joined the Baptist societies. At all events the practical difficulty of supporting a preacher and a church compelled a number of weak societies to fuse with infant Baptist bodies. This was true of the Separatist organizations of Haddam, East Haddam, Westfield, Southington, West Haven, and New Milford. This not only augmented the number of Baptists, but gave them a more respectable standing than was granted to the Methodists.53
The illiteracy of the Baptist preachers afforded an opportunity for severe criticism by the clergy of the Standing Order. In the eyes of the educated minister such a preacher seemed dangerously unprofessional, whereas the ordinary Baptist exhorter despised an educated, trained ministry as ungodly in being too far removed from primitive times. Here we have one reason why the Baptists were rated lower than the Anglicans, whose clergy were educated. The itinerant evangelist was a man of the street, the shop or the field who "got" religion and a call to
51 This paragraph is based on the following sources: Newman, Baptist Churches, pp. 64, 271; Henry S. Burrage, A History of the Baptists in New Eng- land, p. 235; Leland, Broadside (1806), p. 4; Larned, Windham County, II, 246, 373, 391; Porter, Historical Address, pp. 72 ff .; Field, Statistical Account, pp. 47, 62, 80, 113; Field, Centennial Address, p. 178; Timlow, Southington, p. 297; Joseph Good- win, East Hartford, p. 145; Theodore Gold, Historical Records of Cornwall, p. 176; Caulkins, Norwich, p. 321; Rev. M. S. Dudley, History of Cromwell, p. 20; Caulkins, New London, p. 598; Anderson, Waterbury, III, 670; Ralph D. Smith, History of Guilford, p. 110; Richard A. Wheeler, History of Stonington, p. 90.
52 Tudor, Letters, p. 68; Bentley, Diary, III, 192.
53 Larned, Windham County, II, 391; Field, Haddam, p. 39; Field, Centennial Address, p. 194; Sheldon Thorpe, North Haven Annals, p. 326; Minot S. Giddings, Two Centuries of New Milford, p. 12; Timlow, Southington, pp. 297 ff .; Dwight, Travels, IV, 444 ff .; Laurer, Church and State, p. 88; Greene, Religious Liberty, p. 236.
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THE BAPTIST CHURCH
preach.54 A scholar of the type of Stiles had very little charity for such a teacher of the Gospel. He jotted down in his diary the fact that a New-Light Baptist minister ordained an immoral man "in a boisterous if not blasphemous manner," and that "he preached or raved from 'feed my Lambs.'" In various passages Stiles wrote censoriously of the coarse- ness, of the noisy, turbulent manners and of the doubtful morality of the itinerant preachers.55 To a man of Dwight's aristocratic bent, their gross ignorance, lack of a stipulated salary and their status as farmers and mechanics of volubility made them an abomination.56
The Baptists themselves began to see the need of a learned ministry, at least in long-settled communities. This explains their eagerness to found a college in Rhode Island. Stiles, then a Newport minister, denied any connection with the college although his name had been use in petitioning the Legislature for its charter, but declared that he wished the venture well, "as it is the only means of introducing Learning among our protestant Brethren, the Baptists, I mean among the Ministers." 57
Yet this very lack of academic culture and aristocratic bearing en- deared the itinerant preacher to the ignorant and lowly of the town and to the frontier-like farmers in the confines of the state. In contrast to the average Yale graduate in the Congregational pulpit he was democratic and boasted of the fact. He associated on equal terms with the discon- tented underlings of society, whereas the settled minister fraternized, condescended, or ruled his flock as occasion demanded. They belonged to two different social classes as well as to two opposing political parties. The exhorter became a stanch Republican, an agitator for reform, while the Congregational minister was settling into a Bourbon-like conserva- tism.
The democracy of the Baptist and, for that matter, all dissenting churches as opposed to the recognition of caste in the Congregational churches was illustrated by the method of church seating.58 In most Congregational societies it was customary to dignify seats, assigning them according to the age, family, or wealth of the occupant. At times this was carried down to the seating of boys and girls. In some societies
54 Cf. Rev. David Benedict, Fifty Years among the Baptists, p. 211.
55 Diary, I, 18, 163. III, 388.
56 Travels, I, 147.
57 Diary, I, 22.
58 Beach, Cheshire, pp. 111-112; Camp, New Britain, p. 95; Timlow, Southing- ton, pp. 181 ff .; Rev. Charles S. Sherman, Memorial Discourse, July 9, 1876; Dexter, Biographical Sketches, III, 168, 233.
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CONNECTICUT IN TRANSITION: 1775-1818
men were seated according to age, with the modification that a defined amount of property should count as a year. According to this rule a wealthy young man would be seated among the hoary-haired fathers of the church. A loss of property meant a change of seat. Such an aristo- cratic custom was out of tune with the times. Yale realized this when, about 1765, her students were for the first time catalogued alphabeti- cally instead of according to their social standing. The question of seat- ing was in itself unimportant save in so far as it was typical of a system which drove men into the ranks of infidelity or sectarianism. Attacked on all sides by religious men and politicians, this sensitive barometer of social ranking was declared to be unchristian as well as undemocratic.
Democracy within the Baptist organization was another reason for rapid growth. To the Connecticut mind long trained in hatred of Epis- copacy, both the Methodist-Episcopal and Episcopal churches with their bishops appeared undemocratic, whereas the Baptist church was decidedly opposed to the episcopal office. Their exhorters, unlike the leading Congregational divines, could not be described as bishops in power and wealth, without the onus of the name. Aside from the sim- plicity of the ministry there was a sense of equality among the congre- gation. Business matters in the Congregational society such as the levy- ing of church rates were determined in a meeting of the covenanted members, a much smaller group than the legally recognized nominal members, or even by a still smaller number known as pillars of the church.59 In the Baptist societies, although only the "certified" people would desire the vote, the suffrage seems to have been wider. Stiles was surprised that it included even the sisters of the church, a thing unheard of in a Congregational church, in which women might remain only as silent auditors.60 These democratic characteristics appealed to the men of that day, who like to "feel sovereignty flowing through their veins."
The Baptists were a discontented element from the beginning. Other dissenters might oppose the establishment for practical reasons and be mollified by concessions, but not so the Baptist. To him the separation of church and state had the force of dogma. Only its root and branch destruction and a Gospel supported by voluntary contributions alone would satisfy him. An act of toleration, granted by a beneficent legisla- ture, conveyed to his troubled conscience the idea of tyranny and perse-
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