Ecclesiastical and other sketches of Southington, Conn, Part 4

Author: Timlow, Heman Rowlee, 1831-1892. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1875
Publisher: Hartford, Press of the Case, Lockwood and Brainard co.
Number of Pages: 916

USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Southington > Ecclesiastical and other sketches of Southington, Conn > Part 4

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History informs us that seven cities of Greece long contended for the honor of having been the birthplace of Homer. To-day, it would seem, the case is reversed ; for there are, at least, seven of us, per- haps seventy times seven, who are ready to lay claim to the honor of having had our birth in Southington. I am glad we are none of us in the sad condition of the young lady, who, when asked, " Where is your native place ?" replied, "I never had any native place, I am the daughter of a Methodist minister." We are all blessed with a native place, one which we always love to revisit, and to which we may point with something of pride. Coleridge tells us of a man who had such a keen and high sense of self-respect that, whenever he made allusion to himself, he always took off his hat. One might well be pardoned, on such an occasion as this, for indulging a little vanity and self-gratula- tion, when one thinks of himself as a native of this old town, and as having a personal share in the history of this ancient church. And others have felt thus before us. I shall never forget the day when, in the Fall of 1860, I went to New York City to make application for ad- mission to Union Theological Seminary. I called upon Dr. Robinson at his residence. I rang the door-bell, was ushered into his parlors, and there was the imposing form of the Doctor. He did not seem to manifest any very great pleasure at the circumstance of my arrival. He received me in a dignified manner, I thought rather coolly. Still standing before him, I told him I had come to apply for admission to the Seminary. He did not appear to be specially delighted with the announcement of that fact. "What part of the country did you come from ?" he asked. "I came," said I, "from Southington, Conn." " South- ington, Southington !" said he. " Draw up here, and sit down, I want to talk with you." So the venerable Professor, sitting on one side of the large, round center-table, resting his elbows on the table, and his chin on his hands, and I on the other, there, for half an hour, he plied me with questions about Southington and Southington people, manifesting the deepest interest in every thing relating to his old native town. He

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had not visited the place for many years, and I was amazed to see how distinctly he remembered family names and places here, and how ac- curately he recalled the older houses of the town, telling who lived in them when he was a boy, and describing their location and surround- ings even to the minutest details of rock and hill and tree. With special fondness, and yet with an evident tinge of sadness on account of the changes that time had wrought, his mind reverted to the old homestead of his father. Well, in that interview, I had found the heart of Dr. Robinson, and, though the boys of the Seminary thought the old man rather brusque, yet, ever after that conversation, my own personal relations with him, both in the Lecture Room and out of it, were uniformly of the pleasantest character, and I always attributed it to the fact that I was a native of the same town of which he also was a son so justly held in highest honor.

But many of us are bound to this hallowed spot by tenderer than any natural ties. This was also the place of our spiritual birth. Here it was that we began, in the highest sense, to live. Here we became fellow-citizens with the Saints and of the household of God. And I well remember the day when I, with nearly forty others, stood before this altar and entered into fellowship with this church. Some of that number we have had the pleasure of meeting to-day. We here re- ceived that first impulse and inspiration from on high, which have fol- lowed us all these by-gone years, impelling us to do for Christ and hu- manity whatever it may have been our privilege to do. The Duke of Wellington, surveying the playing fields of Eton, where he used to go to school as a boy, said, " It was there that the battle of Waterloo was won." We may none of us have gained any Waterloo victories, yet I trust we have all been blessed with some humble measure of success. And we may truthfully say, "It was here that those successes were, in reality, achieved." For here we received our earliest discipline and training, and here, too, were laid the foundations of that character with which we to-day return from our widely scattered homes, and our varied fields of toil.

But while our thoughts are occupied with the scenes of the present hour, and our eyes rest on the living forms before us, we do not forget those who are not with us to-day, and yet who are with us by a sweeter than bodily presence.

How we miss to-day our old pastor, in the case of some of us our only pastor, Mr. Jones. No man could enter more heartily, more de- lightedly, more appreciatively into the spirit and proceedings of such an occasion as this than Mr. Jones, and could he but have lived two years more, to witness and take part in these ceremonies, it seems to me he could have devoutly said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant

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depart in peace." But who can doubt that he is here ? And Mr. Og- den too, a man whose memory my mother cherishes with tenderest af- fection, and whose name, to this day, she can scarcely mention with- out a tear. It was during his ministry that she united with the church. We are glad to have his face and figure recalled to us here to-day by the presence of his son, my old College classmate.

[My father, at present, the oldest male member of the church (88 years of age), is one of five* only, now surviving, who joined the church previous to Mr. Ogden's pastorate.]

We also affectionately remember Deacon Twichell, whom I naturally associate, in my thought, with Mr. Jones-whom Mr. Jones used to call his "right hand man," and in whom he always found a most devo- ted friend, and a discreet and trusted counselor. Yes, and many more there are whom we call dead, but who really are far more alive than we. Their bodies, indeed, repose in yonder "silent city of the dead," but they are yet living here amongst us. They live in our memories. They live in our gratitude, and onr affection. They live, how beauti- fully, in the answers to their prayers, even now descending in blessings on our heads. They live, too, in their undying influence, still power- fully felt by us all, and, above all, in the precious results of their labors. One man soweth, another reapeth. We are to-day joyfully reaping that which they sowed, perchance in tears.

There is a certain painting which represents a great battle of the olden time, in which, over the heads of the living warriors, appear the spirits of the slain, contending still upon the side for which they were marshaled in life. Methinks the near air above us here to-day is peopled with some such spirits,-the spirits of the sainted dead,-nor merely as interested spectators of these solemnities, but still actually doing battle with us on the side of Truth,-on the side of Christ.

" And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them."

Let us prove ourselves worthy to be called the successors of such noble men. Let us not only cherish their memories. Let us also emulate their virtues, be true to their principles, and copy their example of faithfulness. Let it be our life-long endeavor to preserve and transmit unimpaired to the generations that shall follow us, the priceless heritage we have received.

And thon, Mr. Chairman and friends, after another half century shall have elapsed, and our places shall for the most part have been vacated, and another congregation shall be here assembled to celebrate

* Two of these have died since. H. R. T.

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the bi-centennial anniversary of this ancient church, our children, and our children's children shall, in their turn, rise up and call us blessed. So once more, as eminently on this memorable occasion, will that Scripture be fulfilled,-"The glory of children are their fathers."

MR. TIMLOW. We have just listened to one who has gone out from us ecclesiastically, and has made a clever defence of himself. There is another here who once worshiped in this sanctuary, and who not only has gone out from us, but who has entered the Episcopal church. But with great largeness of heart he comes here to-day, and we welcome him. Permit me to introduce the Rev. Alonzo N. Lewis of New Haven.

REV. MR. LEWIS' ADDRESS.

Mr. LEWIS .- What right has an Episcopal clergyman to speak at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of a Congregational church ?

The very best right in the world, in my case, as I will endeavor to show.

After I had accepted your worthy pastor's kind invitation to attend this memorial occasion, I began to cast about me to see what right I had to be present. I overhauled my genealogy. " I have it," said I. " I am a Lewis: Lewis is a Southington name: the Southingtonians will think me to the manor born: to the centennial, as a Lewis I will go !" And then I happened to remember that I had heard an old family tradition, that of the "three brothers who came over from England "-(why always three, "is" one of the things no fellow can find out) one settled in Southington. To make assurance doubly sure, I took down the history of my native town, and there I found this item: "Adonijah Lewis, son of Capt. Jonathan Lewis, and his wife Elizabeth; born July 12, 1722; married July 31, 1760, at Southington.

So you see that I am a great-grandson of Southington, and as such have a right to be present, with or without an invitation.

But this is not my only claim. Though an Episcopalian, I was born and bred a Congregationalist; and until my 27th year, after the straitest sect of the New Englanders, I lived a Puritan. And further- more, I received a part of my early religious training in this ancient parish, under the ministrations of that Godly man of blessed memory, the Rev. Elisha C. Jones.

Pastor Timlow, in his kind invitation, suggested that besides saying " some pleasant things," I should also give some account of the history of the Episcopal church in this town. I regret to say, however, that after considerable research, I have been unable to find any satisfactory record of the fact that there was established here some eighty-five

HISTORY OF SOUTHINGTON.

years ago, an Episcopal parish by the name of "Trinity church, Southington."

I had intended to say several "pleasant things," but I find that the eloquence of the speakers who preceded me have driven them out of my head. I feel, moreover, sadly embarrassed at my position, standing in front of the president of Yale College (where I did not always conduct myself with due circumspection): and having on my left, my old school-master, Mr. Joseph Gridley, who gave me the only square flogging I ever received in my life! and which I here acknowledge to have been as richly merited as it was thoroughly laid on !

I have already alluded to the fact that I received a part of my re- ligious training, (however little I may have profited by it,) in this ancient parish. In 1846-7 I was a pupil at the Lewis Academy, then under the superintendence of Mr. Henry D. Smith. The saintly man who broke to you the bread of life, was then in the meridian of his long and successful pastorate. He seemed to me to have stamped the image of his own fervent piety upon the minds and hearts of his flock. It has been my lot, until within a few years, to be a wanderer. I have sojourned in several states, and many towns-but never have I known a parish where the attendance upon divine service was so general and so regular, as in this First Congregational Society of Southington. I can see, now, in my mind's eye, the long procession of wagons from " Queen street," from "West street," from "Flanders," and from the "Corner," as I watched them then from the windows of the widow Lee. And never, till my dying day, can I forget the deep solemnity and fervor of the sermons, and above all, the impressive, patriarchal dignity of the godly pastor at Communion seasons. I have never known a minister, of any denomination, whom I so thoroughly re- spected and revered. Only a few weeks before his death, I had a con- versation with him, in a New Haven bookstore, upon the subject of infant baptism, and it made my faith stronger to learn from him that his own views upon these subjects, and upon conversion, were sub- stantially the same as those held by the great body of the church to which I belong.

He was an excellent specimen of the old-fashioned New England clergyman, whose pattern, most unfortunately, seems to have been lost, in these latter days. Though a Puritan, Goldsmith's beautiful de- scription of a Church of England clergyman might well have been written of him.

" Remote from towns he ran his godly race,

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change his place ;

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Unskillful he to favor or seek for power, By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour ; For other views his heart had learned to prize, More bent to raise the wretched than to rise.

* *

But in his duty prompt at every call, He watched and wept, he felt and prayed for all. And as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, His looks adorned the venerable place ; Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, And fools who came to scoff, remained to pray.

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Though round its head the rolling clouds be spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

MR. TIMLOW. The remarks of Brother Lewis as to his embarrass- ment in the presence of President Porter because of certain College infelicities, reminds me of what I have heard of another on this plat- form, that while in the same College his ways were so "lively " that it took several deacons and ministers and perhaps Dr. Porter himself, to keep him quiet. It is a tradition in New Haven connected with his class during the sojourn there, that " the chickens of the neighborhood were led by instinct to roost very high," of this I know nothing per- sonally, but I am glad to call before you Rev. Joseph H. Twichell of Hartford.

(Mr. Twichell came reluctantly forward, and adroitly turned the al- lusion in the introduction upon a college-mate who was sitting near, and who was proverbially the most quiet man in his class, saying, "Oh, I was thinking you meant Elmer Hart"-[Rev. H. E. Hart of Durham].)

REV. MR. TWICHELL'S ADDRESS.

MR. TWICHELL. Very naturally, and, indeed irresistibly, the spirit that rules this occasion is the spirit of reminiscence, and while one and another has been speaking of the former pastors of this dear old church, there has occurred to me an experience of my own in connection with one of them, which I may be pardoned for mentioning.

When I was in Yale College it happened (of course through no fault of mine) that the faculty had a controversy with me. While the result of it was still pending, I heard that some of my friends were called

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upon by a venerable gentleman who said that he had once been minis- ter of the church in the town I came from, that my father was a friend of his, and that he would be very glad, if possible, to be of some service to me in my trouble. He had come to see if there was anything that he could do to help me out. On being asked his name, he said that it was Ogden ; and though I never knew him myself, I have loved him for that kindness ever since.

I have a perfect confidence that I may in this presence speak as freely as I choose of my honored father,* for I can but be aware that he was a man whom all of you who knew him loved with an uncommon meas- ure of affection, even as he loved you.

One of the most beautiful things to me in life, as I look back, was the friendship that existed between him and Mr. Jones. They were in some respects, at times, dissimilar in their views, and came privately (never openly) into sharp disagreements ; for neither shrank from the candid expression of his sentiments. I need not state what the nature of these differences was, save that they concerned questions of public interest. But I can testify out of my certain knowledge, that from first to last they occasioned no unhappiness or break in their personal relations. Each had the profoundest respect for the other, each be- lieved in the other, each delighted in the other, cach recognized in the other a true man, and their souls were knit together in an indissoluble and ever precious bond, that neither life nor death could part. In their mutual confidence and affection, there was presented to me in my early years, (and the impression of it strengthens as I grow older,) the exam- ple of a genuine christian friendship, which, established and cemented in the highest and most sacred sympathies, could endure without im- pairment a divided opinion even upon important subjects.

I would that I had language to fitly describe the feelings I personally cherish toward Mr. Jones. More and more as I go on in life do I find myself magnifying the greatness of my debt to him, though I always knew that it was great. It is through his influence more than that of any man,-more than that of my father even,-that I am in the Chris- tian ministry. That influence did not proceed from what he said, for I do not remember that he ever spoke to me on the subject but once, and then I asked him to speak, but it came from what he was.

He was not what would be called in any particular sense a minister for the young; very much of his preaching was not such as would nat- urally interest them. As I look up into the gallery, and recall other days, I seem to see a boy sitting there sleeping and perspiring through the sermon warm Sunday afternoons in summer, and that boy was my- self. But as I and other boys grew out of boyhood and approached

* Deacon Edward Twichell of blessed memory. H. R. T.

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man's estate, and began to shape our thoughts toward the future and to mark out our career, we discovered that we somehow wanted to be ministers 'like Mr. Jones, to hold, if we might, such a place in some community, as he occupied in this, to do his work and win his reward. So in the long run were we affected by him, so did God, through him, call us ; and that is how some of us, and a small army of us, as you know, came to be preachers.

My friends, as I have sat to-day listening, the thought has come upon me with great power that the strong, indestructible elements of the his- tory of any people are included and contained in their religious history. And it is in such a retrospect as we are now engaged upon, that what- ever is noblest, whatever is best worth preserving, whatever is in its own nature permanent, is seen to survive and emerge into honor.

We have our earthly standards of greatness as respects both persons and events. But God seeth not as man seeth, and to-day, we are, it seems to me, nearer to exercising the divine vision, than we usually are.

The only great thing in the world is the salvation of our glorious and blessed God, and that is what we are now celebrating.

The true great ones in God's eyes are the children of his grace, and the events of grace are the true great events. We are calling up to recollection, perhaps for the last time on earth, the memories of men and women long, long since gone to dust, but who served God in their generation. They were, for the most part, humble people; their lives were lowly ; but as the veil of oblivion is for the hour lifted, and we tell and hear how they lived and how they died, how they loved the Lord and believed in Him, and praised Him in their simple ways, and rested in His word and did and suffered His will, it is like the opening of phials of sweet odors ; celestial airs seem to flood in and fill the place, and the thought arises of how sweet a savor must those lives have been to God.

The influence of the occasion extends the same thought down to more recent times, and to the present. Lo! how glorious the things of the kingdom appear, how sweet the christian hope, how unspeak- ably sublime the christian victory, and how insignificant all else in the comparison !

During the intermission, I spoke in the vestibule with one whom I formerly knew, but whom I had not before met for years, and she said to me : " Two of my girls are gone, but, thank God, I know where they are gone. Mary was sick a long time and endured much suffering, but her hope grew brighter to the end. The last morning of her life, as she lay panting for breath, she whispered to me again and again, ' Mother, the pearly gates are almost in sight ;' and once more when we thought her past speaking, she opened her eyes and smiled and said,

HISTORY OF SOUTHINGTON.

O, the grace of God ! the grace of God !' and so she passed away. And it was so with the other, she had, at times, some fear of death, but when while she still lingered with us, the news came that your dear father whom she had tenderly loved was gone, she lay and thought awhile, and cried, and then called me to her to say that now she felt that it would be easy to die since it would be going after him ; and so it proved. She followed him in a few days, and never had another fear."

A sorrowing woman she was who told me this, yet not unblessed. for she added, "I live in the thought that by and by and before long, I shall have my daughters again and have them for ever, and that makes me cheerful under my heavy load, and happier, at times, than I can ex- press."

Now, I tell you, dear friends, that such things are the great events, and they are precious in the sight of God. They are what the Bible so beau- tifully calls his riches in the Saints. Such witnesses of faith in Him, such triumphs of His love, and all these praiseful acknowledgments of his power to bless and comfort and save which our united hearts are rendering him to-day, are like the ointment Mary poured on Jesus' feet. Their fragrance ascends into the courts above.

My friends, our years are swiftly passing, and hastening to their close. For myself, I perceive that I am ceasing to be young, if I had no other evidence of it, I should discover it in the fact that coming back here to my native place, and looking in the face of this assembly, I see so many who are strangers to me. It is said that in Egypt there arose a new king " that knew not Joseph." Whether or not the gen- eration that has been growing up here the last twenty years knows this Joseph, this is certain, it is a generation that Joseph does not know. 1 continually meet in the streets of Hartford people who look at me as if they half-recognized me, but whom I cannot identify at all ; and then I say "It must be somebody from Southington who was a child when I went away from home," and I presume that is often the case, for it is a good many years since then.

We are all hurrying on, I repeat, through this mortal stage. Soon the tale will be ended, and the curtains of forgetfulness will begin to be drawn over our names and memories. God grant that by the solemn and holy inspirations of the occasion that has brought us together, sur- rounded as we are by so great a cloud of witnesses, we may all be quickened in heart and girded in purpose to run with patience the race set before us and lay hold of the prize of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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It was expected that the last hour would be allotted to brief im- promptu speeches from many others who were present, but the after- noon had passed so quickly, and the services already having been ex- tended to nearly five o'clock, it was deemed expedient to close. After the benediction by Rev. A. Hall of Plainville, the large congregation separated, although many lingered to exchange greetings with old friends they had not seen for long years, and whom they would not probably meet again this side the grave.

Thus ended the anniversary that will ever be a prominent element of the future history of Southington. Its effect upon the churches and community, cannot well be over-estimated. Each passing day is dis- closing fresh results of the occasion. Even if nothing else resulted, it awakened the town to a sense of the fact that it has a history worthy of recall and record, and this of itself compensates for the time, labor, and expense incurred. Portions of this history appear in the subse- quent part of this volume.

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

ORIGIN OF THE FIRST ECCLESIASTICAL SOCIETY.

Families Attend Church at Farmington ; Distance and Inconvenience ; Pillion; Courting by the Way; Unpleasant Experiences; Apply in 1722 for "Winter Privileges "; Mr. Buck; Winter Privileges Granted; "Poor as Panthorn "; In 1722 apply to become a Distinct Society ; Votes upon the Question ; Committee Appointed ; Report; Opposition at Farmington; A Supposed Fatal Condition ; Condition Accepted ; Application to General Court; Separation Completed; Tax laid for New "Meeting-house"; Site; "Homestead for ye Minister"; Slow Progress in Building ; Non-Residents Taxed; Mr. Curtiss Called ; Land Conveyed to him; Society bounds Enlarged; Farmingbury Society.

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Ecclesiastical and other sketches of Southington, Conn, Part 4

Author: Timlow, Heman Rowlee, 1831-1892. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1875 Publisher: Hartford, Press of the Case, Lockwood and Brainard co. Number of Pages: 916

Author: Timlow, Heman Rowlee, 1831-1892. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1875
Publisher: Hartford, Press of the Case, Lockwood and Brainard co.
Number of Pages: 916