USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Cheshire > Exercises commemorative of the two-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the First Congregational Church in Cheshire Connecticut, 1724-1924 > Part 3
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Rev. Von Ogden Vogt was invited to the work of the min- istry among us for one year July 15, 1911. Mr. Vogt was ordained at a special service held February 1, 1912. At a society's meeting held July 8, 1912, he was called to the pastorate of this church for an indefinite period of time. The new parsonage erected in 1914 was ready for occu- pancy December 1, 1914, and Mr. Vogt with his family was the first to occupy this newly built home for the min- ister of the parish. August 20, 1916, Mr. Vogt resigned the pastorate of this church to accept a call to the Wellington Avenue Congregational Church at Chicago, Illinois. In the early part of his ministry he chose for his companion in life one of the young ladies of this church.
Rev. Chalmers Holbrook was called to the pastorate in 1916, his resignation taking place October 1, 1920. Mr. Hol- brook is still a resident of Cheshire and is the acting chap- lain of the State Reformatory here.
Rev. J. H. Bainton was called to the ministry of this church November 1, 1920, and still continues as the acting
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pastor, following a long line of faithful ambassadors of the Great Head of the Church.
This church during these two hundred years of its history has been blessed with an efficient and consecrated ministry and should ever keep in mind, "That to whom much is given of them much will be required."
The following ministers were raised up in the families connected with this church and here received their early edu- cation ; Rev. Joseph Bellamy, D.D., Rev. David Brooks, A.M., Rev. Andrew Law, Rev. Asahel Stevens, Rev. Sher- lock Bristol, Rev. George E. Street, Rev. Roger Hitchcock, Rev. Reuben Hitchcock, Rev. Jesse W. Brooks, Ph.D.
I call to mind those whom in my boyhood and early man- hood days, with their families, I was accustomed to see seated in this church. Among whom were E. A. Cornwall, Bena jah Ives, S. J. Calhoun, Calvin Doolittle, Pliny Hitch- cock, Henry Gaylord, Anson Smith, George F. Pardee, Samuel Hitchcock, Rev. Edward Bull, Hezekiah Rice, Silas Hitchcock, William Law, A. S. Baldwin, Belina Clark, Dea- con Jared Baldwin, Stephen Moss, Warner Benham, Clem- ent Peck, S. J. Fields, Orrin Fields, John Peck, Samuel Williams, Deacon Irad Bronson, Deacon Jesse Brooks, Joseph Andrews, Thomas Moss, Joseph Hough, James Par- dee, Levi Doolittle, Charles Hitchcock, S. H. Brooks, Ed- ward Andrews, Elias Gaylord, Horace Gaylord, Amos Rice, Lemuel Rice, Thomas Hull, Silas Ives, George Hall, Deacon M. L. Hotchkiss, Asahel Talmadge, Joel Hunt, Nathan Booth, Isaac Taylor, William Andrews, E. L. Brooks, Joel Cook, James R. Hall, Samuel A. Tuttle, Alfred Doolittle, Almon Ives, Arch Bishop, Asa Bradley, Levi Bradley, Reu- ben Hitchcock, Harry Tuttle, William A. Brooks, Charles Hall and John L. Foot, the last always in the gallery.
This church has ever been loyal to country, in all times
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when the bugle call to arms for the defense of country was sounded. In the Revolutionary struggle, in the Civil War for the preservation of the Union, and in the late World War it sent forth its sons to the fields of conflict, with the assurance that they would do their duty as soldiers, in camp, on guard and on the battlefield. "Where duty called and danger, they were never wanting there."
What a story these three houses of worship could tell of the early life of the parish, church and town during these many intervening years ; of the faithful and noble men and women who have thronged their courts; of the happy voices of children as they sang hosannas to the Son of David in these earthly temples ; of the lives that were kindled here by the ideals of the gospel and consecrated to heroic service; of doubt that was turned to faith, fear changed to hope and sorrow that was transformed to joy and glad expectation, by the messages from these pulpits. Could all the people that have sat in these pews and shared in the worship of the Triune God in these sanctuaries march in procession before us today, what an array of witnesses would there be to testify to the potent influences for good that went forth from the altar fires of these houses of worship to bless and make bet- ter the condition of the world. Many have gone forth from the communion of this church to other fields of Christian service-some as heralds of the Cross, some as teachers in universities of learning, some as physicians, Christian law- yers, United States Senators and many others who have oc- cupied positions of prominence and usefulness in the places of their adoption. That the church of today, as a spiritual force in our country, does not occupy the position that it did one hundred years ago is plainly evident, although largely increasing numerically, the attendance at church services is not what it formerly was and many faithful souls are
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mourning the decline of Zion. We need to awake to a re- newed consciousness of what Christianity and the church stand for in the world. Yet we are assured the light of this church is still brightly shining; that for two hundred years the Cheshire Congregational Church has gathered for divine worship in these three houses of worship, which have been, and still are, places of hallowed memories and precious asso- ciations to many who have loved this Zion, to whom her walls have been salvation and her gates praise. In some in- stances seven generations have been more or less identified with this church, and in their earnest longings for its pros- perity could say,-"For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace and for Jerusalem's sake will not rest until the righteousness thereof goes forth with brightness and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth."
We have abundant reason to believe that the God of Abra- ham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of the Covenant, the same God who guided by His providence and spirit our Pilgrim fathers over the trackless deep and led them to settle on these New England shores, will be the God of this church throughout all generations. The touch of Pilgrim and Puri- tan character is felt today, beyond the Pacific slope, yea, is felt all the way across the continent. The mission of the Puritan New England churches, which include this church, will not cease, we can be assured, until the whole world is re- deemed for Christ.
Just a closing word to my fellow church members: "See- ing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and fin- isher of our faith."
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MEMORIES OF CHESHIRE GEORGE C. F. WILLIAMS, M.D.
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT
Y OUR Committee could not have pleased me better than they have done by asking me to talk here today about my personal recollections of Cheshire. Nothing could afford me greater satisfaction than does this opportunity to tell the people of Cheshire what I have been thinking about them since I took up my abode in another place. The thoughts have been pleasant thoughts. My memories of this fine old town and its friendly people are happy memories. It has always been a cheer and an inspiration to live over in spirit the years spent in Cheshire during the time which your chairman, in his letter of invitation to me, called my "boy- hood and young manhood." That does not seem to me so very long ago. Still, in contemplating a bicentennial anni- versary, I have a sensation of being rather more than a cen- tenarian ; for I remember, when I was living in Cheshire, saying things in a loud voice to a great many people from a platform in a large tent on this church green, and that occa- sion was a Cheshire Centennial celebration. I know that it was a centennial anniversary because I wrote to many per- sons at the time telling them so, and this I must believe to be a bicentennial because I have received a letter telling me so, and it came from my old Sunday School teacher.
To confine this recital to memories which are well within the period of one hundred years, I may say that Cheshire, as I remember it, was, like other New England villages, a cheerful and favorable place to grow up in, but with unusual educational opportunities, and even more than the common
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scenic beauty. There are pleasing memories of neighborly customs, habitually practiced with sympathy and tact, which were doubtless a survival, much more than rudimentary, from the helpful ways bred by the isolation and mutual de- pendence inevitable for all frontier dwellers like the founders of the Parish of New-Cheshire whose work we commemorate today.
In the earlier part of this strictly personal cycle, the Puritan influence was clearly still dominant in public and in family life, and there are some memories, not wholly blissful, of lingering traces of its stern, but usually wholesome, re- straints upon the enterprises of youth. It was rumored that card-playing and dancing had only recently been considered devices of evil association. Strolling in the fields on the Sab- bath day still had somewhat the savor of forbidden fruit. Sports and games and even the gently romantic buggy-ride were entirely denied the children of the elect on a day which was mostly occupied by attendance in the morning at a meeting (where there was a substantial sermon), Sunday School at noon, meeting (with another weighty sermon) in the afternoon, and prayer meeting in the evening.
But these years, like all others, in public or in private history, were years of transition. The exceptional feature of these later years has been, perhaps, the rapidity of the transition. If it be true that the speed has been rather be- wildering to the elders of these last few generations, it should nevertheless be comforting to reflect that the changes have not been more disquieting to them, of late, than they have been to all preceding generations, so far back, at least, as the days of the prophet Jeremiah.
Among all the instances of progress, or simply change, in a period which begins with faint memories of a war springing from the question of human slavery, the outstand-
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ing social characteristic appears to me to have been progres- sive consideration for the weaker sort of all species. That is probably one of the reasons why these years witnessed such conspicuous progress on the part of Young America-fol- lowing the example of their ancestors of the other century- in establishing their independence. This swift success of the male vanguard of the advancing army of victorious youth was undoubtedly favored by the influence of the Civil War, which had been fought chiefly by boys and which had quick- ened the sympathies of the whole people. In this conflict many of Cheshire's sons had borne a gallant part. Their fortune or their fate had affected the lives of many of the children of my time and had put a lasting handicap on some. An impress was felt by all. The shadow of tragedy had hung over most homes. It had fallen darkly on many. While men were at the front, women and children were scraping lint, rolling bandages, sending supplies to the army, or packing clothes for the Freedmen. All were practiced in ready re- sponse to the touch of sympathy. Cheshire was never a lag- gard in peace or in war. It is therefore one of the happy memories of childhood here that in the emotional aftermath of war, a sympathetic consideration for the foibles of chil- dren, and common kindness to them, were manifest charac- teristics. The spirit shown here by the elders toward the boys in their ardor for self-expression, as it is kindly called, was one of cheerful tolerance, even of indulgence. Discipline at home and at school, we were told, was less rigorous than that which had been administered to our hardy forebears. Many needless don'ts had been eliminated.
I do not recall that there was any protest against the in- vasion by boys, from the town and from the Academy, of the sweet fields about Honey Pot Brook, or of the pastures where the boneset grew around the old swimming hole in the
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ancient canal. There were no restrictions surrounding the greater adventure of Hotchkiss Pond. There were none but the physical obstacles of the rock-strewn cartpath to discour- age approach to the fern-grown gorges and tumultuous falls of Roaring Brook. The devious and rugged ways to the Hanging Hills were freely open to trampers and to the coveys of young people who came in buggies in quest of ro- mance and a befitting picnic ground. The cider mills invited, and the phalanx of casks frothing in the autumn sun beck- oned without price to the inquisitive lad with his accessory straw. The dark mysteries of the barites mines were will- ingly shown by the good-natured Cornish miners, on the company's time and without its objecting. In the old Epis- copal Academy, which most of the Cheshire boys attended, the enforcement of discipline and insistence upon industry were carried out with an air of cheerfulness and even of pleasantry. No pupil of the school in the seventies will ever forget the merry geniality of Professor Phillips and his hearty commendation for work well done. All would testify to the humanness of the principal, Doctor Horton, who was never looking for trouble, but was ever looking for a joke. And there were none who did not take away a lasting influ- ence from the firm discipline exercised with a fine sense of justice and a kindly humanity by a teacher who wore rare honors won as an intrepid captain of cavalry, but was af- fectionately known to the boys just as "'Fessor," though formally addressed as Professor Woodbury.
Everyone seemed to have a sympathetic interest in the manifest purpose of the children to have a good time, and it was coming to be the practice to seek some excuse for leni- ency rather than a reason for punishment. So, often, we were forgiven our trespasses. All of which goes to show that
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Cheshire was as near the millennium as was any other place, and that here surely, "To be young was very heaven."
I would not go so far, however, as to say that the time and the place and all the people were given over wholly to the practice of the Beatitudes. There were juvenile trans- gressions which merited serious attention and received it. There were painful episodes, attended by classic but un- pleasant indignities to the person, which can be regarded more lightly now than, at the moment, seemed ever possible. But even in this respect, there was then evident a tendency to substitute methods milder, if not more efficacious, for the adjudication, between age and youth, of differences of opin- ion concerning respect for certain minor property rights and reverence for ancient conventions, of which many have since become neglected or forgotten.
Closely related to these casualties of correction was the practice of giving to the young of the human species certain small inexorable tasks and definite responsibilities, with the monotonous iteration of the proverb "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well." It was an unpopular prac- tice with the children. But it must be granted that tasks and lessons, which seemed at the time merely a wanton cruelty, have contributed more to the fruitfulness of later years than seemed at all possible in those sad and bitter hours when the hoe or the garden rake competed successfully, by force of circumstances, with the ball-bat or the fish-rod for the com- panionship of a holiday afternoon; though, of course, no other thrill ever could equal that of being captain of the winning home nine. However, children acquired the habit of working, and they learned to do their work thoroughly, in some cases conscientiously.
Lessons, in those simpler days, were not so much taught as "set" to be learned. The "discipline of learning" was an
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effect if not the intent. But there were evidences, during the years of which I speak, of a purpose to seek less thorny paths to the springs of knowledge, with the aid of expert guides, although teaching was still generally a casual pur- suit. It was so casual that the education of any young man was hardly complete without some experience in teaching school. I followed the fashion. It happened that one day when I was trying to learn the elements of human anatomy in my father's office here, news came in that the principal of the Centre Public School could not complete the year and that the last term was open. Now studying anatomy alone with a skeleton, although it had served in this way three generations and had come to seem like an old family friend, was not after all a sociable occupation. It lacked freshness and the lively interest calculated to deter any youth from yielding to the call of adventure which tempts all to the borderland "where angels fear to tread." So I applied for the place. The indulgent examiner was Mr. Joseph P. Beach. He is well remembered as a serious student of Cheshire's his- tory. But he never lacked a sense of humor, and, after ask- ing me to spell Cincinnati and Nebuchadnezzar and inquir- ing the direction of Greenland from the North Pole and the years when Benjamin Franklin was president of the United States, what my theory was concerning school government, or other jocular questions, he said I might have the school. The sins committed there against the familiar forms of mod- ern pedagogy must have been many and grievous. If it was not possible even to carry out the theories which seemed practicable-at the hopeful age of seventeen-for conduct- ing a school as a companionable affair between teacher and pupils, it may have been because there was some laxity in the observance of reciprocal obligations by the party of the second part. It was an interesting episode. The adventures of
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"The Hoosier Schoolmaster" are not more diverting to the reader of his story than are my recollections, to me, of inci- dents in the course of that young experiment with methods partly old and partly new; and the usually willing co- operation of the pupils, many of whom had been school- mates a few years before, as well as the friendly backing of the parents, has always been among my pleasantest and most comforting memories of life in Cheshire. The experience, al- though one term seemed to me fully adequate for the pur- pose, was one of the most useful in my life-whatever may have been the effect upon other children involved in the ex- periment.
Amid all the lively experiences of the time spent here, there were inevitably somber events, which cast their shadow over all the after years, for the darker hues and the bright are bound to make up the gossamer fabric of memory which partly hides and partly reveals the scenes of former days, and softens all their asperities. Of all these early associa- tions, most of them and many of my warmest friendships, I find, as I review the years spent here, cluster about this old meeting-house.
All my family were identified with this church through- out their lives in Cheshire. My father, who, I discover from a little pamphlet which was shown me the other day, of con- stitution and by-laws published in 1858 (it mentions as vice-presidents James Lanyon and Julius Moss), was then president of the "Union Christian Association," organized on May 10 of that year; my mother, who was a superin- tendent in this Sunday School; my brother, who, after com- pleting his studies in this country and abroad, died here at the very beginning of a medical career of unusually brilliant promise; my sister and I-all of us were members of this church. So the larger part of the family who lived many
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years in the old home which now accommodates your public library, have found "the grateful earnest of eternal peace" in the "solemn stillness" of yonder churchyard, with many others who, like them, lived their lives governed by the New England conscience, doing without stint their plain duty as they saw it, just as their Puritan forebears had done for generations before them. Duty was a part of their religion. What we call service was a habit of daily practice. Service they gave to their families, service to their neighbors, and service, consciously-often to the last full measure-for pos- terity unborn, satisfied that in this way they fulfilled their mortal destiny. As with their kin overseas,
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray. Along the cool, sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
In broader fields of more ardent endeavor, of more ruthless striving, they might have been as efficient, as highly re- spected, as greatly admired, as deeply loved. So their con- temporaries have said of some.
I recall that when I was organizing an Alumni Associa- tion of the old boys of the Episcopal Academy of Connecti- cut, and incidentally collecting data for a later historian, I talked and corresponded with many persons born in the eighteenth century or in the early part of the nineteenth, and from them learned a great deal about the intimate his- tory of ancient Cheshire, as well as much of the unwritten chronicles of the old school. The Hon. John A. Foote and Horace G. Hitchcock of Cleveland, Isaac Bronson-son of an old-time principal of the Academy-then living in Ma- rietta, Ohio, and Horatio Nelson Slater of Rhode Island, were among those who came to see me and poured out a
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wealth of reminiscence from phenomenally retentive memo- ries. Mr. Slater, for instance, said that he had not forgotten the date of any event in his life, and I believe he proved it. Edward A. Cornwall, Alfred Baldwin, Bena jah Beadle, and Ambrose Doolittle of Cheshire were a fountain of informa- tion about the early part of the last century. Another of the old Cheshire boys, a native of the town who had migrated from the family rooftree and was then passing his last years in the afterglow of fortune's smiles, George A. Jarvis, among his memories of his boyhood in Cheshire and at the school, dwelt with particular emphasis and at much length upon his recollections of the unusual ability and the bright promise of one of his schoolmates, and lamented much that the natural talents of this youth did not have wider scope for their exercise and display, predicting that, anywhere, he would have stood out strongly among his fellows. This lad whom Mr. Jarvis talked about was known in this church when I was a small boy as Deacon Brown, the father of the chairman of this historical programme committee. Perhaps the gift of spontaneous eloquence which has been the envy of all who have heard our Deacon Brown speak is among his in- heritances from the father who was so admired by this con- temporary of his youth. Much as Mr. Jarvis felt about the elder Deacon Brown, I do about your late Judge of Probate Howard Moss, who was at once the most loyal, unselfish, truthful, and transparently honest person whom I have ever known; and so I feel concerning others, some of whom are still among the quick.
My individual relations with this church go back beyond my personal recollection. The first ceremony in which I par- ticipated was conducted, I have been told, by the Rev. David Root, an Abolitionist of note and power in his time, whose antislavery addresses are sought by collectors today. He
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was a strong man, a minister of a school of clerics older than that date. It has been related to me that when I was car- ried up beside the communion table to meet the minister with his basin, my father handed to the parson a written memo- randum of first and middle names, which he had carefully prepared to avoid any error in bestowing so many appella- tions. The old man glowered darkly from beneath his bushy brows, upon the scrap of paper and then spoke frankly his earnest disapproval. "George Clinton Fairchild," said he; "huh! one name's enough. My name is plain David Root." And then I was promptly baptized, briefly and firmly and finally, plain George, as "plain David" put it.
It was but a very few years after that event when here I suffered the excruciating experience of my earliest forensic efforts. The setting was one of the Sunday School concerts which the Congregational and Methodist Sunday Schools used to join in holding, first in one church and then in the other. Whoever has undergone the torture that a small per- son endures in standing up alone amidst an audience vastly larger and more hostile than any future aggregation of people could ever seem to be, must retain a vivid memory of the incident through a lifetime, no matter how long. So I have now a sympathetic comprehension of the emotions of another small boy who, probably for the good of his soul, was condemned to recite a verse in a similar Sunday School concert. His parents had considerately picked out for him the short verse, "I am that bread of life." Of course he could not fail to learn those few words, and he had them at his tongue's end. But when he stood up with pounding heart and clammy hands and looked upon that swirling sea of faces, he collapsed terrified into his seat, and, as he sank, he shouted valiantly, "I am a loaf of bread."
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