USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > Hartford's First Church > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11
[ 27 ]
Hartford's First Church
more now than under the Old Testament, and that chil- dren are under church discipline, and that some persons adult may be admitted to baptism and yet not to the Lord's Supper." Here in these statements we have described the Halfway-Covenant privilege which was used in many early churches of New England.
Much opposition to the growth of this practice was expressed by a minority of ministers and laymen.
A synod of delegates from the Massachusetts churches held in Boston in 1662 took action approving the use of the so-called "Halfway-Covenant," and with this recogni- tion the Connecticut churches, though not represented in the synod, were led to adopt the practice which it had ap- proved. This was done not without vigorous protest and the conflict between the two opinions was made sharp by the fact that in the Hartford Church the senior minister Mr. Whiting and his colleague Mr. Haynes were divided upon the issue. Mr. Whiting desired to continue in the older and more strict practice of limiting the membership to those who should make a full confession of Christian faith and submit to tests as to character and opinion. Mr. Haynes inclined to the broader practice of the Halfway- Covenant.
The division between the Ministers and in the Church became so marked that in 1669 representatives of the churches of Connecticut towns advised that the Hartford Church be divided and that the minority which followed Mr. Whiting in the older opinion should withdraw to es- tablish a second church in Hartford. Accordingly, on the twenty-second of February, 1670, Mr. Whiting and thirty- one members of the Church withdrew and established the Second Church of Christ in Hartford, declaring as they
[ 28]
The Ministers
did so, as the first principle in their statement of the rea- sons for their action, their adherence to the declaration of Mr. Hooker "that visible saints are the only fit matter and confederation the form of a visible church."
It is, as Dr. Walker observes, a surprising fact that the Second Church of Christ, which was established in devotion to the older Congregational way did not continue in their opinion and that the Second Church almost immediately began to use the Halfway-Covenant, admitting to baptism the children of persons who had not been received into full church membership and welcoming into fellowship those who were willing to own the covenant without a declaration of a personal Christian experience.
Mr. Whiting's service with the First Church concluded with this division. He continued as Minister of the Second Church for nineteen years until his death in 1689. His wit- ness to the truth as he saw it was a valuable contribution to the ecclesiastical history of the Colony. His notable serv- ice as first Pastor of the Second Church of Christ is a testi- mony to the quality of his preaching and life.
John Haynes
John Haynes who was called by the Church to serve as associate with Mr. Whiting came to this service in 1664. His father was John Haynes the governor of the Colony, and his mother was Mabel Harlackenden. Born in Hart- ford in 1641 he, like his senior colleague Mr. Whiting, was a graduate of Harvard. After his graduation in 1658 he spent some time in private study in Cambridge and in Hartford. We know that in 1663 and 1664 he preached in the church in Wethersfield. In the latter year he came to his work in Hartford in the Church of his father and of his own childhood.
[ 29 ]
Hartford's First Church
After the division of the Church in 1670, he continued as its sole Pastor. The Church did not undertake to call an associate. Probably the experience of the preceding years discouraged any movement in that direction. Mr. Haynes served nine years as sole Pastor of the Church.
He had married Sarah Lord in Hartford in 1668. He died in 1679 at the early age of thirty-eight, having served the Church fifteen years. Like his predecessors in the pas- torate, Mr. Hooker, Mr. Stone, and Mr. Whiting, he was buried in the burying ground of the town, where his grave is beside that of his father, the honored governor of the Colony.
Besides the records which have to do with the division in the Church, there is little that remains to inform us of the life of the Church during Mr. Haynes' ministry. We remember him chiefly because in him a dominant influence in the life of the churches generally and of this Church in particular came to vivid expression.
Isaac Foster
After the death of Mr. Haynes came the brief ministry of Isaac Foster. In his "Centennial Discourse" of 1836, in the account of the two hundredth anniversary of the arrival of "Mr. Hooker's company" in Hartford, Dr. Hawes says of Mr. Foster, "The late Dr. Strong remarked of him that he was eminent for piety and died young. This is the only record that remains of him, and though brief, it is honor- able and places him among the just whose memory is blessed."
Dr. Walker's careful reading of all the available his- torical records discovered various other facts concerning
[ 30 ]
The Ministers
Isaac Foster, which we may note in brief. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1652 and graduated from Harvard at the age of nineteen in 1671. He adventured with his father, a sea captain, on a distant voyage soon after his graduation and was captured by pirates in the fall of that same year. After a distressing experience he was rescued and returned to his home in Charlestown. Later he became a fellow at Harvard and during the use of his fellowship exercised his gifts as a preacher. He appears to have made a favorable impression and was invited to serve the Church at Barnstable. This appointment, however, was not consummated and later on Mr. Foster was in negotia- tion with the Church in Windsor, Connecticut. He did not undertake the pastorate at Windsor, evidently being well satisfied with his work and opportunities as a fellow at the college. A little later, in 1679, the Church in Hartford invited him to serve in place of Mr. Haynes. He came to his work here with the enthusiasm of youth, well seasoned by the various experiences through which he had passed. His wife was Mabel Wyllys, a niece of his predecessor in the pastorate and a granddaughter of Governor George Wyllys. He evidently made a strong impression upon the community by his labors in the pastorate, and his sudden death in 1682 led Simon Bradstreet to say of him in his journal, "His death has made such a breach yt it will not easily be made up." And Mr. Whiting of the Second Church wrote of his death that it was "a surprising and very awful stroake to us."
The Church is fortunate to have a tangible memorial of Mr. Foster in his Hebrew Bible which came into its possession through the hands of Professor Williston Walker some years ago.
[ 31 ]
Hartford's First Church
Timothy Woodbridge
Timothy Woodbridge succeeded Isaac Foster in 1685. His father, John Woodbridge, had come to New England in 1634 and had served as Minister of the Church in An- dover, Massachusetts. Later he returned to England and there his son Timothy was born in 1653. In 1663 his father came again to this country and served in Newbury, Massa- chusetts.
Mr. Woodbridge graduated from Harvard in 1675 and presumably spent the time until his call to Hartford in study under the direction of his father. His ministry here was an extended one, reaching from 1685 to 1732. His sermons that remain to us indicate that he was a man of keen practical interest in the application of Christianity to life. We have certain of his election sermons and in them we find that he gave cordial endorsement to the project of a school for Indian children. It is interesting to find in the Church records that in 1711 he baptized an Indian boy whom he called "my Indian servant" and adds, "I pub- lickly engaged that I would take care he should be brought up in the Christian Religion."
Mr. Woodbridge's interest in education was to have far greater issue in his sharing in 1698 in the efforts of a group of Connecticut ministers to establish a college in Con- necticut. With other Harvard men he took up the project for a college in the Colony with enthusiasm. He was one of those who, when the plan was well considered, met at Branford in 1700 and laid each a quota of books upon a table saying, "I give these books for the founding of a College in this Colony."
In the following years Mr. Woodbridge had part in the discussion and even disputes which arose concerning the permanent location of the new institution. Along with
[ 32 ]
The Ministers
Mr. Buckingham of the Second Church, he contended for the location of the college within the bounds of the so-called Connecticut Colony, and held that it might well find its permanent place for service in Wethersfield. In time, it is recorded, both Mr. Woodbridge and Mr. Buckingham be- came very friendly to the college at New Haven, and as an original trustee the former was made presiding officer at Commencement in the year 1723.
Mr. Woodbridge was active in the development of the organization of the churches and ministers of the Colony. In 1709 two such organizations, known as Consociations, were formed in Hartford County, in one of which he served as Moderator almost continuously until his death. He was also Moderator of the General Association of the Colony at a meeting held in Fairfield in 1712.
Mr. Woodbridge was greatly concerned with the devel- opment of the spiritual life and moral influence of the churches in the Colony. He had share in declarations made by the associations of ministers, calling upon the people to recognize and conform to higher standards of public and private morality and in setting up committees of inquiry to consider the state of religion. Such a committee reported a lack of Bibles, a neglect of public worship, failure in Christian instruction and family government, and preva- lent intemperance. This was in 1715.
Mr. Woodbridge continued his diligent labors through nearly forty-nine years, and died in 1732 at the age of seventy-nine. In his eulogy the Reverend Timothy Edwards said, "He was one of the principal men of his order in the land."
Daniel Wadsworth
In succession to Mr. Woodbridge there came very promptly to the service of the Church a young minister
[ 33 ]
Hartford's First Church
whose pastorate, while not long continued, was significant in the story. Daniel Wadsworth was called on the twenty- eighth of June in 1732 by action of the Society, following upon the recommendation made to the Church by a special committee and upon the advice of "Reverend Elders of the Association." He was installed as Minister of the Church on September 28, 1732.
Having been born in Farmington and educated at Yale, where he graduated in 1726, he must have been well known in the congregation which thus entrusted him with the charge of its life and work at the early age of twenty-eight. It is probable that his special training for the work of the ministry was under the charge of Mr. Whitman, then Min- ister of the Church in Farmington, with whose son Mr. Wadsworth was a classmate at Yale.
Mr. Wadsworth's service met with immediate response on the part of the Church and the community and less than a year from the time of his installation the project of a new Meeting House was taken up and seemed likely to be carried through promptly. The proposed site, however, was not acceptable to some of the congregation and it was not until eleven years later that the dispute over the loca- tion was settled and the work actually begun. In 1739 the new Meeting House was completed on the southeast corner of the Burying Ground on the west side of Main Street.
In 1740 George Whitefield appeared in Connecticut and preached in many churches, including the new Meeting House of the First Church. On October 22, 1740, Mr. Wadsworth records in his diary, "This day Mr. Whitefield preached in ye forenoon to a vast Concourse of people here from rom. 14:17 verse. Wt to think of ye man and his Itiner- ant preachings I scarcely know." This visit of Whitefield must have absorbed much of Mr. Wadsworth's attention in
[ 34 ]
The Ministers
the years following and he must have had considerable part in the discussions as to the value of Whitefield's ministry. He probably shared in the general feeling that the preach- ing of the English evangelist was not helpful to the devel- opment of the Christian life of the Connecticut commu- nities. At the time of Whitefield's second preaching visit to New England in 1745, the Hartford North Association warned its ministers to refuse him opportunity to use their pulpits. As Mr. Wadsworth records, "This day went to ye association at Windsor. ye association agreed upon a Testi- mony agt. Mr. Whitefield."
Mr. Wadsworth died in 1747, after several years of ill health, leaving his wife, who was the daughter of Gov- ernor Joseph Talcott, and six children. His diary, which was discovered among old papers at the Connecticut His- torical Society in 1892, is a prosaic record, but reveals his diligence in pastoral duties and in attendance upon the va- rious ministerial meetings of the vicinity and also his friendly intercourse with the other ministers of the Colony. For the last four years of his life he served as a trustee of Yale College.
1895574
Edward Dorr
Edward Dorr was born in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1722. He was graduated from Yale College in the class of 1742 and received his license to preach from the New Haven Association in 1744. His first pastorate was in the Church in Kensington where he served from 1744 to 1747 under disturbed conditions because of factions in the parish. In 1747 he was asked to supply the pulpit of the First Church in Hartford during the disability of Mr. Wadsworth.
After the latter's death the Church and Society, with the advice of the Association, invited Mr. Dorr to become the
[ 35 ]
Hartford's First Church
Pastor, and after considerable negotiation he accepted the call and was installed April 27, 1748. He married, shortly after his settlement in Hartford, Helena, the daughter of the former Governor Joseph Talcott.
The stress and strain of the controversies which grew out of the Great Awakening characterized the life of the Church during Mr. Dorr's pastorate. Dr. Walker has called these years from 1748 through the first part of Nathan Strong's pastorate the "Years of the Great Decline." But this was not due to any lack of ability or devotion on the part of these two ministers. There was a reaction from the intensity of the period of the Great Awakening. The General Association of Connecticut passed resolution after resolution calling upon the ministers to take definite steps against the prevalent immoralities and the spread of vice. In the Church at Hartford Mr. Dorr sought as best he could, but without marked success, to turn the tide of life toward a more adequate appreciation of the Gospel and a greater loyalty to its ideals.
The burden of the war between the English and the French lay heavily upon the Colony. From three to six thousand men of Connecticut were in the service of the army through a period of seven years, and the burdens of taxa- tion were exceedingly great. Following the conclusion of the war came the unrest which led up to the war of the Revolution. One can imagine the distractions which such a development must have caused in the congregations of the Colony and certainly the Church at Hartford was not insulated from the effects of the social and political thought of the time.
Through all these difficulties Mr. Dorr exercised his ministry with devotion and fidelity. He was of an evangel- istic spirit and urged strongly the duty that he felt should
[ 36 ]
---
Nathan Strong
The Ministers
be recognized by the Church to spread the Gospel among the Indians. He felt that there was no likelihood of secur- ity for the Colony until this Christian duty should be per- formed. He commended the work of Eleazar Wheelock for the establishment of a school for Indians at Lebanon and his support of this project was of very considerable help to Mr. Wheelock in the development of the school which ultimately became Dartmouth College.
In 1769 Mr. Dorr suffered an illness which hindered him from carrying on the full work of the Church. Ar- rangements were made from time to time to aid him, but he did not recover his strength and after a long illness died in 1772, having served the Church twenty-four years.
Nathan Strong
After a brief interval of something more than a year Mr. Dorr was succeeded in the pastorate by Nathan Strong. Mr. Strong came to his work with the Church when but twenty-five years of age. He was the son of the Reverend Nathan Strong of Coventry, Connecticut, a classmate at Yale of Edward Dorr. His mother was the granddaughter of the Reverend John Williams of Deerfield. His home in Coventry was one of devoted piety and both of his parents encouraged him toward the work of the ministry as he made his preparations for college. He graduated with the class of 1769 at Yale, where he was a classmate of Timothy Dwight, later the president of the college, and where he shared with Mr. Dwight in the honors conferred for scholar- ship. Mr. Strong evidently expected to devote himself to the work of the law even though his parents had earnestly hoped that he would enter the ministry. Within a short time, however, his purpose was changed and he gave himself to the study of theology. He became a tutor at Yale in 1772
[ 37 ]
Hartford's First Church
and was licensed to preach and occasionally served various churches of the vicinity. It was from this work as tutor that he was called to the service of the Hartford Church.
Entering upon his work with his ordination, June 1774, the young minister found himself faced with great ecclesi- astical and political problems. He threw himself ener- getically into the movement for the Revolution and became a chaplain of the army. We are not informed as to how far his duties took him from home. Presumably he did not serve continuously with the forces in the field.
The Church and the Pastor together had to face the difficulties into which the country was thrown by the Revolu- tionary War. The currency was depreciated, the tides of popular feeling were controlled by other than religious matters and the Minister had great difficulty in continuing the activities of the Church during so troubled a period.
Personal sorrows heavily shadowed his life. His wife, Ann Smith, to whom he was married in 1777, died in 1784. His second wife, Anna McCurdy of Lyme, whom he married in 1787, died in 1789. Two children survived the first marriage and one the second.
Mr. Strong became involved in business affairs which caused him considerable trouble, one of which, it is curious now to note, was a distilling business, into which he entered in partnership with his brother-in-law, Reuben Smith. These affairs were not prosperous and were manifestly a cause of very considerable embarrassment and distress to Mr. Strong.
The latter half of his pastorate, from about 1794, was relieved of those troubles and worries, and his work was rewarded with response on the part of the people and with generous recognition in the ecclesiastical and academic
[38 ]
The Ministers
world. The token of this recognition was a degree of Doctor of Divinity, which was conferred on Mr. Strong by the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University.
In 1799 he joined with Dr. Flint of the Second Church and Joseph Steward, a member and deacon of the First Church in the publication of the "Hartford Selection of Hymns." This hymn book had wide usage, though it was succeeded in Dr. Strong's own congregation in 1812 by the compilation of hymns made by his Yale classmate, Presi- dent Dwight.
Dr. Strong was foremost among the ministers who in 1797 formed a missionary society and united, in the fol- lowing year, in merging their somewhat tentative efforts with the Missionary Society of Connecticut, formed by the General Association in 1798. This oldest of the missionary societies of our churches bears witness to the evangelical fervor and the missionary zeal of the ministers associated with Dr. Strong in this early effort.
The "Connecticut Evangelical Magazine" was another effort of Dr. Strong to extend his ministry beyond his own parish. Later on he shared with other ministers and with laymen in the establishment of The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1810.
During Dr. Strong's ministry two important steps were taken in the history of the Church. One was the establish- ment of a parochial fund, which was the beginning of the permanent endowment of the Church and the other, the building of the new Meeting House, which has continued as a legacy of the parish of Dr. Strong's time to our own generation. He died on Dec. 25, 1816, having served the Church nearly forty-three years. Notable was this ministry and significant for the future of the First Church.
[ 39]
Hartford's First Church
Joel Hawes
Joel Hawes became a characteristic figure of Hartford during the first half of the nineteenth century. He came to the Church as its Pastor in 1817. He was born in Medway, Massachusetts and educated at Brown University.
His coming to the Church was the result of consider- able negotiations and after a period of some months, during which the Church had been supplied by occasional preachers, he entered upon his ministry with the feeling that the Church was in a very deplorable condition. And it is cer- tainly true that the records and probably the organization were considerably disordered, but the ministry of Nathan Strong had developed a strong constituency which was ready to welcome Mr. Hawes and give willing support to the young minister's many plans for effectively organizing and diligently promoting the life of the Church.
Mr. Hawes stimulated remarkably successful revivals, the first of which appears to have been experienced two years after he entered his pastorate. Dr. Lyman Beecher came to his assistance in such a revival in 1820 and in 1826 still another was experienced. In 1827 he preached a series of discourses for young men, which were later published as "Lectures to Young Men," a volume that had a large circulation. Shortly after their publication, he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Brown University. In 1834, 1841, 1852, and 1858 groups of people in considerable numbers, from fifty to one hundred, were brought into the Church in these revival movements.
In 1831 Dr. Hawes took a journey to Europe and in 1843 he received a leave of absence from the Church and made a journey to the Near East, accompanying his daughter, Mary, and her husband, the Reverend Henry Van Lennep, to the field of her missionary service in Smyrna.
[ 40 ]
Joel Hawes
The Ministers
Upon this journey Dr. Hawes carried a special commis- sion from the American Board to visit the missions in Turkey. Mrs. Van Lennep had very brief service as a mis- sionary. She died in 1844 within a few months from the time her father left her in her home on the field. Dr. Hawes suffered the loss of all his six children before his own death. The only other to reach maturity was Erskine Joel, a graduate of Yale in 1851 and of Andover Seminary in 1855. He was ordained a minister in Plymouth, Connect- icut, in 1858 and was killed by the kick of his horse in 1860.
The evangelical spirit of Dr. Hawes was expressed not only by activity in promoting the parish and in the exten- sion of church organization in the town but also in his missionary interest. He gave wise counsel to the Missionary Society of Connecticut, became a member of the American Board in 1838 and continued his activity in that organiza- tion throughout his life. He gave earnest and diligent atten- tion to the development of missionary zeal in the congrega- tion and doubtless his influence is still felt in the characteris- tic missionary outlook of the Church.
Dr. Hawes served the Church during the difficult period of the Civil War, and the burden it threw upon him was such that it seemed wise to secure a colleague to assist him in the labor. In 1862 Mr. Wolcott Calkins was installed as associate pastor of the Church. He was a graduate of Yale in 1856 and of Union Seminary in 1859. He had studied in Europe during the two years preceding his location in Hartford.
After a brief experience as associate pastor, Dr. Calkins resigned in 1864, having won a host of friends in the con- gregation and the community, where his further service in Philadelphia, in Buffalo, and in Newton, Massachusetts, was followed with sympathetic and affectionate interest.
[ 41 ]
Hartford's First Church
Dr. Hawes continued as Emeritus Pastor of the Church after Dr. Calkins resigned and preached occasionally in its pulpit and more often in other pulpits in the vicinity. He died in 1867 in the seventy-eighth year of his age and cer- tainly deserved the epitaph that we read upon his tablet in the Meeting House, "A vigorous, devoted, and successful minister of Christ."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.