USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > Historical sketches of New Haven > Part 2
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TE
TEPONE
JAMES PIERPONT
Born at Roxbury Mass. dany 4th 1659 a graduate of Harvard College in 1681 was ordained pastor of this church July 2nd 1685 and having ministered- faithfully here 30 years died Nov 22nd 1714 and is buried benaath this edifice He was one of the Founders of Yale College
His gracious gifts of fervent piety persuasive eloquence and winning manners were devoutly spent in the service of his Lord ond Master.
He had with good advan- tage more than once stood before kings ; his "princely face and port," his judgment and aston- ishing equanimity, his sincere religion, made such an impres- sion on his generation that only death ended his governorship of eighteen years.
His was one of the houses "better than those of Boston," which astonished visitors by their size and comfort ; his "Turkey carpets, and tapestry carpets and rugs," his servants, and generally opulent style of living are matters of record.
The loss of property, the trials caused by a phenomenally ill-tempered wife, by disappointed hopes, and by the death of his loved ones, were all met with the fortitude ex- pressed in his lofty maxim, " Some count it a great matter to die well, but I am sure it is a greater matter to live well."
The monument which showed the honor in which Eaton was held by his townsmen has been re- moved to the Grove Street Cemetery.
TO THE MEMORY OF
JOSEPH NOYES,
BORN IN STONINGTON OCT. 16, 1688. % DIED JUNE 14,1761. GRADUATE OF AND AN INSTRUCTOR IN YALE COLLEGE PASTOR OF THIS FIRST CHURCH
1716 -1761
His Ministry was marked by ecclesiastical controversies, and by social and political changes. which led to the formation of a second Church, the establishment of a separate worship in Yale College and the organization of an Episcopal Church.
By his sagacity and prudence he retained to old age the confidence and affection of those who remained faithful to this, the Mother Church.
HIS REMAINS REST BENEATH THIS EDIFICE.
In the vestibule of the church may be seen the names of the one hundred and twenty who sleep below. On entering, one is taken to the past by memorial brasses, and the light streams
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A New Haven Church.
through the window which tells in color the story of the first sermon "in the wilderness" of New Haven.
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CHAUNCEY WHITTELSEY
A graduate of ond instructor in Yale College.
a member af the Colonial Assembly and in other Public Trusts from 1738 to 1756. Fifth Pastor of this Church from 1758 la 1787.
His Piety and Eloquence made him dear to his people.and with his Firmness and Decision enabled him to discharge the duties af the pastoral office with fidelity and dignity during the struggle of the Revolution. He died July 24th 1787. in the 70th yeer of his age and the 30th. of his ministry.
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His remains rest in the crypt of this Church
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Nathaniel William Taylor.
1786 - 1858 Pastor of this Church 1812 - 1822 Professor of 'Theology in Yale College 1822-1858
As Pastor faithful to his Master and betourd by his people
As Preacher of the everlasting Gospel bold fervent and surressful
As Student and Trather of Christian Theology
Prominent in his Generation
On the right is tlie record of the life of the leader of the colony, John Davenport, B. D. (Oxon, 1625).
The " colonial " set- ting frames the historic scene. John Davenport, under the cross-vaulting of the noble oak, dressed as befitted the dignity of his position, in velvet, with cloak hanging on his shoulder, seems to point with uplifted hand to that continuing city which his hearers knew they had not yet found. C The white-haired but sturdy Eaton leaning on D his gun while reverently bowing to the preacher's words, the armed men, and the women and children ready to share the peril and the enthusiasm of the new enterprise, give the whole story of the mingled devotion and warfare which characterized the New England settler's life. At the base, the seven-branched candle- stick and the seven columns symbolize the famous "seven pillars " who were chosen in the meeting in Robert Newinan's barn in 1639, thus beginning the church in New Haven. They were Theophilus Eaton, John Davenport, Robert Newman, Matthew Gilbert, Thomas Fugill, John Punderson, and Jeremiah Dixon .*
* This beautiful window is the gift of Mr. E. Hayes Trowbridge, in memory of his father, Ezekiel Hayes Trowbridge, a descendant of one of the founders of the church. The design, so happy in conception and execution, was made by Lauber, and the work was personally superintended by Louis Tiffany. The two thousand three hundred and twenty pieces which compose it melt in the sunlight into a rich picture, and modern art once more unites with filial respect to perpetuate the memory of the past.
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There comes to the minds' eye the early home in leafy Warwickshire, in the days when Shakespeare was alive, the scholar's haunts at Oxford, the crowds listening to the brilliant young preacher at St. Stephen's, the stress of parting with home and friends, the weary voyage, the high hopes of a model commonwealth, the disappointments, the end of all in In MEMORY OR another home.
REV DAMES DANA DD
Born in Cambridge Ress. May 10™ 1735 Warperd College 1753
Pastor of the Congregational Churchy We Hling ford (lenn 1758-78 Sixth Pestor of the first Oburch Deahaven, 1789-1805 Fellow of Yate College 1789. 1812
Faithful to his convictions of Duty rarnest in their defence in an age of controverse but with Charity to all
He seems to have liked to have his own way ; perhaps his dis- appointments were as deep as his hopes were high ; but he was lofty in nature, high-bred and scholarly. Died in Newhaven August 16?1812 Aged 77 years His unabated love of study won for him from the Indians the name of "big study man." That in those times he left more than a thousand dollars' worth of books shows how large a place they held in his esteem. He was one of the most learned of the seventy English divines who migrated hither; and, more than that, was in advance of his fellow emigrants, for he was ready to cast off alle- giance to the King and Parliament, and so to establish an independent state. His work was not in vain, we can see now, and the impress of his character has not yet faded from the city that he founded.
By the Grate of GOD
On the south side of the church is the tablet to William Hooke, the Leonard Baron. friend and chaplain of Cromwell. a servant of Jesus Christ and of all men for His sant. here preached the Gospel for fifty seven years. Fraring God and having no fear beside, loving righteousness and haling inlautty, friend of Liberty and law. helper of Christian missions, leather of teachers, promoter of every good work. he blessed the City and the Nation by ceaseless labors and a holy life , and de- parted peacefully into rest. December 24. 1881, leaving the world better for his having lived in il. He was in the church in the wilder- ness for twelve years as "teacher," an office for some time co-existent with that of preacher, a token of the thoroughness of the religious training of the colonists. He was a gentle, scholarly man, who must have been also fervid in his pulpit oratory. His sermons may still be read ; they had such ear-catching titles as "New England's Teares for Old England's Feares." Cromwell was his wife's cousin, and Whialley was her brother. The learned Hooke, driven from England on account of religious opinion, was led by his intimate friendship with the Great Protector to return during the Commonwealth to that land which he called " Old England, dear England still in divers respects, left indeed by us in our
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persons, but never yet forsaken in our affections." There he was domestic chaplain to Cromwell in his palace of Whitehall, and was master of the Savoy Hospital, an institution noted for its connection with the "Savoy Confession" of the Congregationalists, and as having been the episcopal palace of London. But the sun of his prosperity sank with the Commonwealth. After a few years the Commonwealth was a thing of the past, and Hooke spent the rest of his life in more or less danger, resting at last in Bunhill Fields, the "Westminster Abbey of the Puritans."
His parting gift to the churchi which he loved was his "home lot," on the southwest corner of College and Chapel streets, "to be a standing maintenance either towards a teaching officer, schoolmaster, or the benefit of the poor in fellowship."
This was one of the inducements which influenced the choice of the abiding place of the struggling, peri- patetic college. The church finally leased it to the college for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. It was the plan of Davenport that the "rector's house " should stand there ; and there lived all the rectors and presidents of Yale, from Cutler to the elder Dwight.
In MEMORY . OF MOSHSIS TUAR
BELOVED . AS A . PASTOR HONORED AS . A . TEACHER EMINENT . AS.A.SCHOLAR
BORN. AT . WILTON . CONN . 1780 GRADUATED . AT . YALE COLLEGE.1700 PASTOR. OF . THIS.CHURCH 1806-1810 O PROFESSOR. OF . SACRED . LITERATURE . IN O THE THEOLOGICAL . SEMINARY. ANDOVER · MASS 1810-1848 DIED IN 1852
Near by is the tablet for Nicholas C Street, the third Oxonian on the list. His early history was for a long time uncertain, but we now know that he was matriculated at Oxford when eighteen (2 Nov., 1621 ?), and that he was the son of " Nicholas Streate of Bridgewater, gent," who owned "the ancient estate in Rowbarton near Taunton," according to a will dated Nov. 1, 1616. This estate had formed part of the manor of Canon Street, which belonged to the Priory of Taunton before the dissolution of the monasteries, and it is now absorbed in the city of Taunton, a name which must have been pleasant in his ears in the New World.
He it was who said, in time of perplexing negotiations, "The answer should be of faith, and not of fear." His son was for nearly forty-five years pastor in Wallingford, and the Augustus Street who gave the building to the Yale Art School was a lineal descendant, another instance of the momentum given by the desire of the founders to make New Haven a collegiate town.
Around Mr. Pierpont's name associations cluster thickly. He was the first American-born pastor, he passed nearly all his public life here, and harmony and success attended him. To be sure, he was early and often a widower, but he was fortunate in selecting all three wives from the highest families of the little land, as became one who is said to have been nearly connected with the Earls of Kingston.
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A New Haven Church.
That is a pathetic little story about his bride, the granddaughter of John Davenport, going to church on a chill November day, arrayed according to the custom for the first Sunday after marriage, in her wedding-gown, catching cold, and dying in three months.
We can see the pretty girl entering the little, bare meeting-house, flushed with pleasure and pride in the new position of wife of the handsome young minister, a position that she might almost feel she had inherited ; and then, pale with cold, trying to make her neighbors' furtive and admiring glances at her finery take the place of the good log-fire she had left at home, and unflinchingly disdaining to outrage propriety by leaving before the service was finished. Poor thing ! She did not foresee that that winter's snows would enwrap her in the adjoining burying-ground.
But Mr. Pierpont recovered from the blow, and married, two years later, Sarah Haynes, of Hartford, a granddaughter of Governor Haynes ; but she died a little more than two years after, and again he married a Hartford girl, granddaughter of
BAPTISMAL BOWL AND COMMUNION CUPS.
the renowned Rev. Thomas Hooker, the pastor and leader of the Connecticut col- ony. She survived Mr. Pierpont many years. For him was built, by the contribu- tions of the people, that spacious house which stood for a hundred years on the corner of Temple and Elm streets, and it was as a gift to the young pastor that the " Pierpont Elms," long the oldest in the city, were brought from Hamnden.
Mr. Pierpont's surest title to remembrance is that he was "one of the founders of Yale College." He was one of the famous ten ministers who made the memorable contribution of volumes from their own scanty stock to found a college library. He was indefatigable in building up that which he had begun, and it was on account of his persuasions, exercised through Mr. Dummer, Con- necticut agent in London, that Elihu Vale sent the gift which made his name a household word.
But his influence on the college world did not stop there. The alliance of the Hooker and the Pierpont families was notable in itself, but was made still more illustrious in their descendants. The daughter of James Pierpont and
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Mary Hooker, the beautiful and saintly Sarah, married the great Jonathan Edwards. Thus Mr. Pierpont was the ancestor of the second President Jonathan Edwards, of the elder President Dwight, of President Woolsey, of the present honored President Dwight, of Theodore Winthrop, and of a brilliant array of distinguished members of the families bearing those names.
The name of Mr. Noyes brings up the religious disputes in which party feeling ran high and divisions, literal and figurative, were the result. Of him it has been wittily said that his force seemed to be chiefly centrifugal ; but who could have been a determining center for so erratic an outburst of "new lights" and "old " as disturbed the theological-political firmament in his time ?
Mr. Noyes was the son and grandson of ministers in New England, and he
The ground covered by this edifice is a portion of the original Burying place of New Haven used from 1638 till 1821.
The earliest date of a burial inscribed on these old stones is 1687 the latest 1512.
To the Minary of the reverend CHAUNCEY WHIT TEL SEY AM With peltor of de bilir hunch
In 1921 the grave, outside of these walk were levelled, the monuments and headstones removed to the Grove Sirper Cemetery.
Des of civil and migr aliteity He pauloand de daires. (eram as nonvar to Ruhielt coritant y taught
the mon curie way we have Hicharged with cht y wri dir !,
The dường the :en:
This Crypt was restored in 1879.
Dan . 5
The first Meeting House of this Society was erected in 1639. The Second in 1668. The Third in 1757 and the present Church was dedicated. DECEMBER 27-1814.
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AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE CRYPT.
had officiated with great success as instructor in the young college for five years before becoming pastor.
All these men were scholars, easily and frequently reading the Bible in its original languages for greater clearness in explanation. Their salaries were delivered to them in such fruits of the earth, or houses and lands, as their parishioners could muster in that age of barter.
The benign Mr. Whittelsey came with tranquilizing effect on the distraught people ; but instead of church controversies, he had to guide his flock through the momentous conflict with the mother state, and "old lights" and "new lights" burned together in one steady flame of patriotism. It was to the "brick meeting-house" that Wooster marched his men for a final ministerial
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benediction ; and there, after waiting outside until informed of the absence of Mr. Whittelsey, he led them into the church, ascended the pulpit, and himself expounded to his soldiers those holy words which he deemed would fortify them best ; then, in unbroken order, they marched out across the Green, and so away to war.
Mr. Whittelsey belonged to the " Brahmin caste," being the son of an able minister and the great-grandson of the noted President Chauncey of Harvard. He was "well acquainted with Latin, Greek and Hebrew -- and with the general cyclopædia of literature, -- and amassed, by laborious reading, a great treasure of wisdom." " For literature he was in his day oracular at col- lege, for he taught with facility and success in every branch of knowledge."
1687
ONE OF THE ALLEYS. (Showing the oldest stone, the one marked 1687).
Through all the troubles of the Revolution, the Sabbath service failed not liere.
Dr. Dana's ministry looked backward to the eighteenth century, forward to the nineteenth ; and struggles were in view on either side. To quote Dr. Smyth, "Mr. Dana was a recognized champion of the old divinity, and behold ! a new divinity was already on the threshold of the century upon which he had entered."
The newcomer was Moses Stuart, whose brilliant talents made him a power, whether in New Haven or Andover.
Dr. Taylor, so remarkable an expounder of theology that the church had to surrender him to the college, was one more of the long list of learned and
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A New Haven Church.
profoundly moving divines whose memorials are here. In his pastorate, these present walls were reared.
And of Dr. Bacon, born for leadership, what words can be more descriptive than the concise and beautiful lines that keep his memory fresh ?
He explored the perishing records of the past and brought to our view those ancient divines, his predecessors, who live and move again in liis pages. His energetic, enthusiastic nature communicated itself to all around him. From that pulpit he delivered his message to his people, and from it, after he had ceased to preside in it, he looked forth on the congregation, tlie fire not dimmed in his eye, wrapped in his fur-lined mantle, reminding one of the prophets of old. 1
The communion silver belonging to this Church, and in present use, is itself worthy of a place in a collection of all- tiques, and it would be hard to find its equal in this country. All of the cups are the gifts of individuals, and eight of them are of historic interest and have been in use for many years.
Probably the first gift of this kind to TOMBSTONE OF MARGARET ARNOLD. this church was the cup marked, "Given by Mr. Jno. Potter to N. haven chh." Records were not very complete then, but we know that John Potter, was at the famous meeting in Mr. Newman's barn, in 1639, and that he died in 1646, leaving an estate valued at {25. Of this amount, nearly a sixtli, £4, was directed to the purchase of this cup.
A pair of cups was probably given in a similar way by Henry Glover and his wife, Ellen. He died in 1689. The inscription is "The Gift of H. & E. Glover to ye chh. in N. lav."
Another was given a little later by "Mrs. Ab. Mansfield," daughter of Thomas Yale. She bequeathed "four pounds in cash to be laid out by the deacons of said church to buy a cup for the use of the Lord's Table."
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Again we see, "The Gift of Jnº Hodson to N. Hav'n chh. 1690." John Hodshon, or Hudson, or Hodson, was a rich Barbadoes trader, who bequeathed to the church £5 in silver to buy this cup. He is buried in the crypt below the church.
One is "The Gift of Mrs. Abigail Davenport to the first chh. in New Haven. 1718." Mrs. Davenport was the daughter of the Rev. Abraham Pier- son, of Branford, sister of Abraham Pierson, the first rector of Yale, and wife of John Davenport, the only son of the Rev. John Davenport. She died in 1717, and bequeathed " unto the church of new haven, my silver caudle cup, desiring a cup to be made thereof for the service of the church." Very for- tunately, the last wish was not carried out, and the cup remains as it was in the days of the first rector of Vale.
One inscription is decidedly abridged : " Abr. - & Han. Broadley."
Abraham and Hannah Bradley were the givers. He was a deacon, and he died in 1718, bequeathing, with consideration for both church and wife, his silver cup to the former after the latter should have ceased to need it.
About 1670, Captain John Prout came to New Haven from Devonshire, and there married Mrs. Mary Hall, daughter of Henry and Sarah Rutherford. In her will. in 1723, she left to the church "my two-handled silver cup marked "R.,, That mark indicates that the cup once belonged to her father and mother.
Lovers of the antique regret that several other cups presented in a similar manner were "made over" in 1833. Three of those now in use appear to have been made from two tankards given by Mr. Francis Brown and Mrs. Sarah Diodati, in 1762. Another old cup thus subjected to the refining influences of the melting-pot was given earlier by Mrs. Lydia Rosewell, a daughter of Thomas Trowbridge.
They are all two-handled cups, of graceful design and varying size, and many of them are delicately ornamented. Some of them have adorned the corner cupboards and have been used on the tables of the first " colonial dames." There is an enticing story that one of them was brought hither in the Hector as part of the household furniture of John Davenport himself ; but the spirit of research is relentless, and the mark tells a different tale. But that very mark, while it takes away, adds historic interest; for that aud five other pieces were made by John Dixwell, the regicide's son, who was a silversmith in Boston, and they bear his initials, "I. D.," in an oval or heart-shaped die.
A curious tale hangs by the christening basin, of solid beaten silver. In the last century, Jeremiah Atwater, a worshipper in the old church, wished to repair his house, and for that purpose bought a keg of nails of a Boston dealer. On opening it, something more than iron nails was found, even a large quantity of silver dollars. Jeremiah Atwater was honest, and tried to return the dollars to the seller, but he in his turn disclaimed any right to that which he had neither bought nor sold, and so the treasure-trove was unclaimed and unused until 1735, when Mr. Atwater felt his end approaching and bequeathed the coin
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to the church. From it was made this capacious basin, twelve inches in diameter, three inches deep, and more than two pounds in weight.
Imagination revels in the mystery which wraps the former state of those silver dollars. Were they the hoard of a miser, the birthright of an orphan, or the booty of a robber? Surely, if there were any original stain of guilt con- nected with this baptismal bowl, it has long ago been purified by the presence of innocent little ones and the prayers of holy men.
And yet one inore bit of romantic history clings to this ancient communion service.
A certain Deacon Ball was its custodian at the time of the British raid on the town, in 1779. Everyone was trying to secure his most valued goods from destruction, and Deacon Ball, loyal to his trust, racked his brain to find a hiding- place for the church silver. At last, the chimney was thought of, and his little girl was lifted up to secrete the precious charge in the sooty recesses. The house was searched, Mrs. Ball's gold beads were taken, but the silver was not discovered-and was brought forth afterwards for its continued sacred use.
And thus, enriched by the hallowed use of many generations, those tokens of the devotion of the forefathers and the foremothers towards the worship they struggled to establish and to maintain, are still here, and help us to people the past with living figures.
In one respect, the Center Church is unique among American churches ; it has a crypt. It is not like the vault of the Stuyvesant family under St. Mark's, in New York, which is so remote in the ground that a long and com- plicated process of removing flagstones is necessary before one of the Stuyve- sants can rest with his ancestors. This simply means that when the present building was planned to stand on the site of its predecessor, its greater size made it necessary to extend it over some of the graves of the old, adjacent church-yard, or to obliterate such tokens of the early days. Fortunately, the former course was adopted, and consequently, when we have descended to this strange place, we find ourselves transported to colonial times. The light of a nineteenth century sun streams through the low windows over grave-stones which were wept over before the Anglo-Saxon race had achieved its supremacy on this continent ; before the struggle for life had abated sufficiently to allow thoughts of a struggle for independence ; over dust which had been animated by the doctrinal quarrels, the political ambitions, the religious hesitation and daring which make the men and women of that time so interesting to us.
The stones are thickly set, as if all had desired to sleep close under the protection of the church they had loved in life. Slabs and tablets of native stone, and in many cases of the finer foreign stones, stand in close array, but in a strange, diagonal fashion, at variance with all the lines of the building. There is a " method in the madness," and one is almost tempted to feel that those sturdy souls disdained to lay their bodies in conformity to any supersti- tious ideas as to the points of compass.
Owing to the generosity and zeal of Mr. Thomas R. Trowbridge, who has also promoted the placing of the tablets on the walls above, and who is a lineal
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A New Haven Church.
descendant of many buried here, all has been put in order ; the roughened ground has been smoothed and covered with cement, and the inscriptions have been made legible where time has taken off their first sharpness. One wanders among these stone memorials with the feeling that they are secure now from wind and storm for many a year.
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