USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > Hartford's First Church > Part 4
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George H. Gould
In the autumn of 1864 the Church called George H. Gould, then Minister in Olivet Church in Springfield. Mr. Gould was a graduate of Amherst College and Union Sem- inary. He came to the service of the Church during the Civil War when the feelings of the people were deeply stirred by many tragic experiences. He was a preacher of remarkable power, and during the five years of his service, one hundred and six members were received into the Church on confession of faith and one hundred and sixty-two by letter, facts which testify that his message and ministry met well the situation in the Church and the community in the period that marked the conclusion of the Civil War and the years immediately following.
It was during his pastorate that a devoted member of the Church, Mrs. Mary A. Warburton, built a chapel on Temple Street, which for nearly seventy years has stood to make her name blessed in this neighborhood. The land upon which the chapel was built was purchased by a fund secured by subscriptions of members of the Church.
In 1869 Dr. Gould offered his resignation to the Church on account of failing health. The Church asked him to with- draw it and he yielded to their request. However, in 1870 he renewed his petition and was relieved of his duties much to the regret of the congregation. He never recovered his health sufficiently to take another regular pastorate.
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George Leon Walker
The Ministers
Elias H. Richardson
After the passage of somewhat more than a year, Elias H. Richardson of Westfield, Massachusetts, was called to the pastorate. He accepted the invitation and undertook his work in the year 1872. Mr. Richardson was a graduate of Dartmouth College and Andover Seminary. He had served churches in New Hampshire, Providence, and Westfield, Massachusetts. He came with fine enthusiasm to the work of the Church and served for six years and eight months. Large accessions to the membership witnessed to the ear- nestness of his preaching and especially to the acceptance of his ministry on the part of the young people. It was during his pastorate that notable evangelistic meetings were held in Hartford under the leadership of Dwight L. Moody and later under that of George H. Pentecost. In these meet- ings Dr. Richardson had much interest, throwing himself with enthusiasm into the work led by these widely known preachers of the Gospel.
Dr. Richardson resigned his parish in 1878 to accept the invitation of the First Church in New Britain, where he continued his ministry until his death in 1883. In his work both in Hartford and New Britain, Dr. Richardson made a deep impression upon the lives of many young people and contributed to the development of these two churches in large measure.
George Leon Walker
In 1879 the Church called George Leon Walker to the pastorate. Mr. Walker's preparation for the work of the ministry was unusual. His father, the Reverend Charles Walker, was pastor in Rutland, Vermont, where Mr. Walker was born in 1830. Later his father served in Brattleboro and there Mr. Walker grew up. His
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early education was in the schools of Brattleboro and he hoped to go on to college for its completion. Illness, however, prevented his accomplishment of his purpose, which his determined spirit pursued in private study. By this means he acquired a thorough acquaintance with the subjects which would have been the substance of a college course if such a privilege had been granted him.
In 1850 he entered upon the study of law and served as clerk in the service of the Massachusetts State Govern- ment. After three years an attack of typhoid fever com- pelled him to relinquish the study of the law and he returned to Vermont, where his family had established their home in Pittsford. By this time Mr. Walker had determined to become a minister and made his purpose known to the ministers of the vicinity of his father's home. Recognizing his remarkable abilities and his determined spirit, the Rut- land Association of Congregational Ministers licensed him to preach in 1857, when he was twenty-seven years of age. He entered Andover Theological Seminary and studied for a year as resident licentiate under the guidance of the able faculty of that institution.
He was called upon to supply the pulpit of the State Street Church in Portland, Maine, for a single Sunday and so impressed the congregation of that influential Church that a call was extended to him to become its Pastor. This call he accepted. Before undertaking his work he was married in the year 1858 to Maria Williston of Brattle- boro. On the 13th of October of that year he was ordained in the State Street Church of Portland. Here he wrought a notable ministry, marked by his power in the pulpit and by his participation in public causes during the years imme- diately preceding the Civil War and during the course of that conflict. Here in 1865 Mrs. Walker died. In 1866 occurred the great Portland fire. As a result of these events
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his health was seriously impaired and in the spring of 1867 he withdrew from active work in the hope that a rest would bring recovery. When autumn came he resigned the Port- land pastorate because of ill health and was most reluctantly released from his duties by the Church.
In 1868, having somewhat recovered his strength, Mr. Walker was asked to supply the pulpit of the First Church of Christ in New Haven, Connecticut, from which historic pulpit, Dr. Leonard Bacon had recently retired. He was invited to undertake the pastorate of this Church and was there installed on November 18, 1868. His ministry in New Haven was notable as that in Portland had been for the power of his pulpit work and was recognized by the degree of Doctor of Divinity conferred upon him by Yale University in 1870. On September 15 of that same year, he married Amelia Read Larned of New Haven.
After a little less than five years of service in New Haven, Dr. Walker was again compelled by failing health to give up active work. He resigned his charge on May 19, 1873 and from the following October to November, 1874 he sought health and strength by residence in Europe. Upon his return he established his home in Brattleboro, Vermont, where during a residence of four years he served as acting Pastor of the Center Congregational Church.
From this work in Brattleboro, Dr. Walker came to his ministry in Hartford and was installed on February 27, 1879. At once his pulpit power, which had been in evidence in his former pastorates, was recognized in Hartford and he took his place among the influential ministers of the churches and among the leaders of the higher life of the city.
Inspired by the vigor of his ministry the Church dis- charged an accumulated indebtedness which rested upon it and prepared with eager anticipation for the two hundred
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and fiftieth anniversary of the installation of its first Min- ister. This anniversary was celebrated in October 1883, the most significant event of the celebration being the his- torical address of the Minister himself. Out of this address prepared for the occasion, Dr. Walker developed a careful study of the entire history of the Church which has become its authoritative record. It was published in 1884 and has its place among the historical volumes dealing with the beginnings and history of the churches of New England. A further result of the two hundred and fiftieth anniver- sary of the Church was such a development of interest in the history of the Church and the community as brought about the restoration of the Ancient Burying Ground of the town.
Distinctive as were the more tangible results of Dr. Walker's work, the greatest elements of his ministry were the power of his preaching and the witness of his dauntless spirit. By his studies and his insight he had mastered the greater truths of the Christian faith and these he set forth in incisive terms and with a rare grace and virile and vibrant speech in the sermons he preached from his his- toric pulpit. He commanded the intelligence of his con- gregation and in a most unusual measure he was able to project the noble life of the spirit that was in him into the lives of his hearers.
Dr. Walker's able mind was recognized and called into service by the larger fellowship of the churches. This ser- vice was marked by his contribution as one of a commis- sion of twenty-five that by direction of the National Council of the Congregational Churches set forth in 1883 a state- ment of faith and by his participation in debate and dis- cussions in the meetings of the American Board of Com- missioners for Foreign Missions. In 1887 at the meeting of the Board in Springfield and again in New York in
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1889, his participation was so valuable in its wise counsel and judicious spirit that he was appointed chairman of an important committee which the Board developed on modi- fications in its policy in making missionary appointments. From 1887 to 1899 he served as a member of the corpora- tion of Yale University and from 1888 to 1897, as a mem- ber of the Board of Visitors of Andover Theological Seminary.
After the anniversary of the Church in 1883 and the publication of the history in 1884, Dr. Walker continued his study of New England history. In 1891 he published the life of Thomas Hooker and in 1896 he delivered the Carew Lectures at the Hartford Theological Seminary on "Aspects of the Religious Life of New England." These lectures were published in 1897.
Throughout his Hartford ministry Dr. Walker suffered from physical disability. In 1882 he was invited to preach a sermon in commemoration of Dr. Leonard Bacon in New Haven. Shortly before the occasion of its delivery he broke his leg by a fall upon an icy pavement. In spite of this accident he delivered the sermon, though it was neces- sary for him to be seated in a chair at the pulpit as he preached. The courage with which he met this accident was but a manifestation of the high spirit with which he bore physical suffering and disability throughout his ministerial service. At length in 1892 even his determination could no longer enable him to carry the burden of the pastorate. Therefore he resigned his charge on June 12, and the Church reluctantly accepted the resignation, asking him to assume the title of Pastor Emeritus, which he bore through- out the remainder of his life.
Dr. Walker purchased from the Church the house on Prospect Street in which as the parsonage of the Church he had lived during the greater part of his pastorate and
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continued to live there, pursuing his studies and enjoying his opportunities of meeting with his friends and grateful and loyal parishioners. In 1896 he suffered a further illness which by a strange fatality resulted in an inability to express himself in speech and in the paralysis of his right side. In 1898 his life was shadowed by the death of his wife whose inspiring companionship had been to him a constant com- fort and help. Through all these infirmities, shocks and sorrows his life bore witness to the greatness and vitality of his faith and character. In his physical weakness he mani- fested spiritual strength. His life in the city he honored and loved and which in turn loved and honored him, and among the people of the Church that he served, was an abiding testimony to the truths he had preached from the pulpit which he had made a throne of power as well as a post of service. When it was possible for him to be brought to the Meeting House in his wheel chair and to share in the worship of his people, his presence was accounted a bene- diction and his memory is precious to all those who after the years are privileged so to remember him.
Dr. Walker died on March 14, 1900. His funeral was attended on March 16, in the Meeting House. Professor M. W. Jacobus, Dr. Edwin Pond Parker of the Second Church of Christ and the Reverend Joseph H. Twichell of the Asylum Hill Church conducted the service. The Church and the city alike sorrowed that they should see his face no more and rejoiced that he had won the final vic- tory over the weakness of the flesh by the strength of his brave spirit.
Charles M. Lamson
Dr. Lamson was a son of the Connecticut Valley. He was born in North Hadley, Massachusetts, May 16, 1843. His father was a farmer and his early life was spent upon
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Charles Marion Lamson
The Ministers
the farm where he engaged in work with his father and re- ceived the education of the public school. Later on he studied at the Hopkins Academy at Hadley and the Williston Sem- inary at Easthampton, Massachusetts, where he was pre- pared for his college course.
He was graduated with honors at Amherst College in the class of 1864. After his graduation he returned to Willis- ton Seminary as a teacher. In this work he spent one year. He served as instructor in Latin at Amherst for two years. During this period he took a course of private study in the- ology and in English literature under the guidance of Pres- ident Seelye.
This work as a teacher was interrupted in 1867 by a year's study in Germany, devoted to the subject of the- ology at the University of Halle. Returning to Amherst he served as a teacher in the department of English for an- other year, continuing his study of theology. In 1869 Dr. Lamson married Miss Helena F. Bridgman of Amherst, Massachusetts, whose ancestors were settled in Hartford as early as 1640. Mrs. Lamson at once entered with sympa- thetic enthusiasm into the work of her husband who in that same year had been called from his work as a pro- fessor of English at Amherst to the service of the Porter Congregational Church at Brockton, Massachusetts, as Pas- tor. Having served two years in Brockton, he accepted the call of the Salem Street Congregational Church at Worces- ter, Massachusetts. In this parish he served for four- teen years and his pulpit ministry and pastoral service found fruitage both in the marked growth of the congregation and in his increasing influence and responsibility in the life of the city.
The North Congregational Church at St. Johnsbury, Vermont, called Dr. Lamson to its pastorate in 1885. With
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much regret at leaving the happy and useful relationships he had formed in Worcester, Dr. Lamson undertook the work thus offered him and served in St. Johnsbury for eight years. Here again both in the life of the Church of which he was the Minister and in the life of the commu- nity his influence was markedly felt and the inspiration of his life was given without reserve in the service of the Gospel. Especially notable was his influence upon the stu- dents of the St. Johnsbury Academy, which was one of the most influential of the preparatory schools in northern New England during this period.
When the First Church in Hartford was constrained by Dr. Walker's limitations of health and strength to accept his resignation, it turned to Dr. Lamson and invited him to become its Pastor. Again with regret at severing the ties which bound him to the Church where he was render- ing so great a service he accepted the invitation of the Church in Hartford and took up the work in February in 1894. In the fullness of his strength he gave himself un- reservedly to the work of his pastorate. His preaching was notable for its sympathetic insight into the lives of his people. His pastoral work was devoted, faithful and char- acterized by a deep understanding of the needs of those to whom he ministered.
On coming to the Church, Dr. Lamson took an especial interest in the Vesper Service which had been established in 1891. He had a rare gift for the preparation of liturgical orders of worship and was familiar with the finest liturgical usages of the Christian Church throughout its history. This gift he used in the preparation of an order of worship for the Vesper Service, which in its simplicity conformed to the historic Puritan character of the Church and in its beauty made profound appeal to the people of the commu-
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nity. In cooperation with the director of music, Mr. Nathan H. Allen, he gave himself to the conduct of the Vesper Service with a fine and high enthusiasm. Mr. Allen wrote in a personal letter in 1915, "The Church went on to its crowning period in the pastorate of Dr. Lamson, when its music was ennobled by this great genius for effective service, whose like, as I believe, has never been seen in New Eng- land. What more fortunate accident could have happened to me than to be thrown into the company and cooperation with such a fertile inventor of worshipful means." During the years of his brief pastorate, while he served the con- gregation of the Church itself with a notable ministry from its pulpit in the morning service, he served richly a much wider constituency of the people of the city who thronged the Meeting House at the hour of the Vesper Service to receive at once the inspiration of the beauty of the music and of the brief, powerful and always beautiful messages of the vesper sermons.
Dr. Lamson was a man of broad sympathies and of the most earnest and practical type of Christian experience. This led him to a profound interest in the wider activities of the Church and of its denomination. He rendered faith- ful service to the Congregational Home Missionary Society as a member of its executive committee and to the Ameri- can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions which in October, 1897, elected him as its president in succession to Dr. Richard Salter Storrs of Brooklyn, New York.
His wide interests are further shown by the honor that was given him when he was chosen in 1892 to preach the sermon at the National Council of Congregational Churches at its meeting in Minneapolis and by the fact that he was a trustee of Amherst College at the time of his death. While he was Pastor in Worcester in 1885, the college had rec-
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ognized his work by granting him the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Mrs. Lamson's service to the Church was a notable contribution to its life. In personal relationships and in leadership of a large Bible class for the women of the Church she became greatly endeared to many members of the congregation who gratefully have remembered the in- spiration of her teaching and the grace of her Christian spirit.
Dr. Lamson's ministry nobly supplemented that of Dr. Walker. Dr. Walker had developed the historic interest of the Church and made it conscious anew of its position in the history of the city and the state. Dr. Lamson met the changing conditions of the rapidly growing community dur- ing the years of his pastorate and by the genius which was his as a leader of worship, by the power which was his as a preacher of the Gospel and by the Christian sympathy that was ever characteristic of his great heart, he made the Church known and loved through a wide constituency be- yond the bounds of the parish and enriched the life of the city by the contagion of his sympathy and the inspiration of his character.
Rockwell Harmon Potter
(At the request of the Council of the Church, this sketch was written by Professor Henry A. Perkins, chair- man of the Tercentenary Committee of the Church.)
Rockwell Harmon Potter, the sixteenth Minister of the First Church, was born October 1, 1874, so that he was only in his twenty-sixth year when he was called to occupy this pulpit. His ancestry was partly of New England stock. The Potters came from Rhode Island, while his mother's family, the Harmons, were from Connecticut. But his father,
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Rockwell Harmon Potter
The Ministers
Spencer S. Potter, was descended, on the maternal side, from the Dutch family of Romeyn, probably of Huguenot derivation. Dr. Potter's great-grandfather Romeyn was a minister of the Reformed Church, as his father had been before him. The latter graduated from Princeton in 1750, and the son was for a time a member of the first class in Union College, though he received his degree from Wil- liams. Catherine S. Harmon, Dr. Potter's mother, was graduated from the Emma Willard School in Troy, in 1867. This implies a mental training somewhat rare among the women of her time, and must have been a decided factor in the unusually early development of her son.
The education of our future Minister began in the country school of his native town, Glenville, New York, and was supplemented by the local Pastor who coached him in his Latin. This was followed by a three years course in Union Classical Institute (later the High School) in Sche- nectady. He entered Union College at the age of sixteen and was graduated there in 1895. A year at the Yale Divin- ity School followed, but the year after, attracted by the teaching of Professor Arthur C. McGiffert, he transferred to Union Theological Seminary. During the summer vaca- tions of 1896 and 1897 the young theological student sup- plied the pulpit in a little church in Nebraska. This experi- ence made a deep impression on him and he felt destined to throw in his lot with the Middle West, so the next winter was spent in the Chicago Theological Seminary where many future ministers of western parishes were being trained. Here he came under the influence of one former and one future Hartford clergyman, the Reverend Graham Taylor, and Dr. Mackenzie, later head of the Hartford Theological Seminary. In fact, it was partly their reputa- tion which influenced him in his decision to finish his theo- logical studies in Chicago. After receiving the degree of
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B.D. there in 1898, he was married to Jean Gilchrist of Marshalltown, Iowa, a union which brought them five chil- dren.
Dr. Potter's life-long consecration to the Christian min- istry was a natural and steady growth from the time of his joining the village church as a boy, and through the various stages of his education, which was steadily leading him toward that goal. But it was not until he was in college that his mind was fully made up as to his calling. In 1897, he was invited to preach on two successive Sundays during the Christmas vacation in the Reformed Dutch Church of Flushing, Long Island. This led to a call to its pastorate, and he was ordained there shortly after his marriage and graduation from Chicago, in the spring of 1898.
The call to the First Church of Hartford came only two years later, when the death of Dr. Lamson had cre- ated a vacancy. After the congregation had had the oppor- tunity of hearing Dr. Potter in their own pulpit, he was given a cordial welcome to Hartford.
The installation took place on October 3, 1900. Dr. George A. Gordon of Old South Church in Boston preached the sermon. The "charge to the pastor" was given by Pro- fessor M. W. Jacobus. The Reverend Joseph H. Twichell gave him the "right hand of fellowship," and Dr. Edwin Pond Parker delivered the "charge to the people." From that day until his retirement, the end of September, 1928, Dr. Potter served Center Church with all his might. Al- though his activities reached far beyond its immediate scope, covering as they did the whole field of Congregational activities in the United States and its work in foreign lands, his devotion to his duties as pastor and preacher could hardly have been more complete if he had never served a larger community. This was only possible because of a whole-hearted consecration to his calling, indomitable en-
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ergy and great capacity for work. Few men have the power of such continued and intense concentration, and even Dr. Potter's robust physique has twice suffered from the strain of this life of entire sacrifice to a single cause.
So intensely energetic an existence was bound to bear fruit, and it did so in a variety of ways. In 1900 the Church had only 638 members, in 1928 there were 1169. During this period the endowment greatly increased and numerous organizations of young people and old came into being as a result of the Minister's zeal.
But there were also difficulties to be met. In spite of increased membership, church attendance did not keep pace with growth. With the opening of the century certain pro- found changes began to take place both in Hartford and all over the country. These were felt with peculiar force in a "down-town" church, and it was no easy task to hold the Church to its historic position of influence in the spir- itual life of the city. Among these changes were the move- ment of many substantial families away from the neigh- borhood, the passing of many stalwart supporters of the Church, and more than all the beginning of an age when a sense of obligation to maintain established practices was waning. Then came the automobile, the Sunday movies, Sunday golf, and the "week-end" visit, a title which the Minister deplored as significant of the changed attitude toward the first day of the week. The Sunday morning ser- vice of God was no longer regarded as a serious duty, and only an occasional "popular preacher" was able to stem the tide and fill his pews. Dr. Potter has never been "popular" in this sense. His preaching has always been on a plane of pure spirituality. He has preached the gospel of Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, and the brother- hood of man. The writer remembers many really great ser- mons both inspiring and of that searching quality which
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