History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 119

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532

USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > History of Litchfield county, Connecticut > Part 119

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The secession weakened the society, leaving half the numher to do double the work,-to build Mr. Todd's house and a meeting-house; there were only a handful of members left, and they were poor, just building their own houses and clearing their farms. But they did not break down under the heavy burden, and established the society on firm foundations. But Mr. Todd's house was built slowly, and his first year he gave in twenty pounds of his salary towards it; but it was finished by December, 1742, for then the society, turned out of the school-house in the hollow, voted to meet there part of the year, he having, mean- while, been living on Town Hill. The disruption of the society hindered it in building a meeting-house, and put a temporary end to society meetings and to its organization. But in May, 1741, in response to the appeal of John Bronson, Moses and Thomas Blakeslee, the Legislature directed Benjamin Hall and Capt. John Riggs, of Derby, to go to Northbury, warn a society meeting, and see that it chose proper officers. They were also to direct them where and how long to meet for Sabbath worship, and to see where and when it was best to build a meeting-house. At the meeting they warned for June 10, 1741, Joseph Clark was chosen clerk, Daniel Curtiss collector of the minister's rate, and Deacon Moses Blakeslee, Lieut. John Bronson, and Sergt. John Warner pru- dential committee to fix a place to build a meeting- house, and, meanwhile, they were directed to meet in the west school-house ten months, and in Joseph Clark's house in January and February, when it was difficult for those this side to cross the river.

The society applied to the Legislature for a con- mittee, as directed, and, notwithstanding the protest of those on the west side, Capts. John Rogers and John Fowler were sent to select the meeting-house site at the society's expense, and set a stake twenty rods west of One l'ine Swamp, and thirty rods south of the road running east from the river. The society voted to build there Dec. 3, 1744, having before this been turned out of the west side school-house, and meeting on the Sabbath in the houses of Joseph Clark, Sr. and Jr., and at Mr. Todd's seven months, including winter, on the east side, and five months on the west. Jan. 9, 1745, it was voted to ask the Legislature for a tax on the land to help build a meeting-house, and at a meeting held the next 24th of September, it was asked to confirm the middle stake, which the court's committee had set as its site; it was then requested that the land tax be not imposed on members of the Church of England, Barnabas Ford, Thomas and David Blakeslee having protested against the taxa- tion of their land. John Warner, the society's agent in this matter, represents in his memorial that about one-third of the society have become Episcopalians, and at his request the middle stake was made the site for the church.

The next December Deacon Moses Blakeslee was appointed to fix the site of the troublesome building ;

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at this time they met this side of the river the whole year, at Caleb Weed's in March and April, and at Joseph Clark's the rest of the time, the latter being voted twelve shillings in winter, and ten shillings in warmer weather. The church was not begun in Octo- ber, 1746, for then it was voted to get and draw tim- bers for it. December of that year it was voted to meet each side of the river half the time, in the houses of Phineas Royce and Caleb Weed. Sept. 22, 1747, it was voted to allow the people to build Sabbath-day houses on the green, outside a line drawn by the so- ciety's committee ; it was also voted to cut and clear the brush from the green. This green was given the society for a place of parade, a burying-ground, and a place to build the church on by the town of Water- bury, which bought eight rods south of the meeting- house stake, cighteen rods north, and sixteen rods west of it, of John Brinsmade, of Milford; he pre- sented an acre besides, and others gave four-tenths of an acre, making four acres in all, which was deeded to the society, through Caleb Humaston, Dec. 3, 1747, and was described as butting west on Brinsmade's land, north on Humaston's, east on Mr. Todd's, and south on the highway, showing that the road ran there where it does now. In 1825 arbitrators decided that the green belonged to the society, and the town's only right, acquired by usage, was to bury in the burying-ground. The green was then an alder swamp, and when the second church was built, it was still so wet that some wanted the church at the head of the street, that proud Madam Ballany and Mrs. Wright might occasionally wet their feet going to meeting, as more common people had had to do.

The Northbury society grew through much tribu- lation. First it petitioned the town four times,-in October, 1734, September 29, and October 26, 1736, and .April 18, 1737, and the Legislature five times,- in May and October, 1737, May and October, 1738, and October, 1739. Then it was seven years after the society was organized before it began to build, and twenty-two years after that before its meeting-house was done. It was dignified Dec. 7, 1753, at which time David Potter gave the society a funeral cloth, which was kept at Mr. Todd's. In December, 1761, it was voted to floor the gallery, and the next Decem- ber to glaze the house, liberty being then given to dig a well on the southwest corner of the green. In December, 1763, a committee was chosen to carry on work ou the meeting-house, and to set a "horse house" partly on the green and partly on the high- way. The final vote to complete the meeting-house was on Dec. 5, 1768, in the third year of Mr. Storrs' ministry. Mr. Todd never preached in it as finished, and all through his ministry the burden of it was on him and his people. This was a struggle on which the destiny of the society turned, and it made effort and sacrifice till the work was done. Mr. Todd's ministry was full of perplexity and trial, a divided people, an overwhelmed society, disturbance in church

and State, a depreciated currency, and an increasing family. First, he could not get into his house, nor then into his meeting-house; the people were too poor to pay his salary, which was often changed, and thrice he changed his home. He bore it nobly and unselfishly, surrendering twenty pounds of his salary the first year, and in 1745 he offered to give up all rates and contracts and live on what might be volun- tarily contributed.

Finally, Feb. 12, 1756, he addresses the people, re- ferring to the difficulties between them, which he traces to the trouble of his support, to meet which he offers to live on what the deacons may gather from a public contribution taken once in two months at the close of evening service on the Lord's day, besides a grant of the ministry money to him if they please. The society accepted the offer, and they struggled on a few years longer. But the case was hopeless, and, on application, a committee of the Association of New Haven County,-Daniel Humphrey, John Trumbull, of Westbury, Benj. Woodbridge, of Woodbridge, and Mark Leavenworth, of Waterbury, lamented the diffi- culties and alienations between them and their pastor, which there was no hope of accommodating, and which they left with the judge of all the earth for decision. They recommended that a council be called to settle the matter or dismiss the pastor, and the lat- ter was done in August, 1764. Mr. Todd was the apostle of Plymouth, and did pioneer work and es- tablished the society by wisdom, patience, endurance, humility, and self-sacrifice. He lived in advance of his time, believing in revivals, the voluntary support of the gospel, and the free fellowship of the churches, and much of the free, advanced character of the later town is due to the influence of his ministry. He was expelled from the New Haven Association for assist- ing at the ordination of Rev. Jonathan Lee, of Salis- bury, in 1744, on the principles of the Cambridge platform, but his people did not reject him on that account. Like Moses he led his people to the border of the land of promise, but did not enter in himself, Mr. Storrs coming to find the people united and the church built. His last communication to the society was Dec. 24, 1764, where he acknowledged that his salary was settled to his full satisfaction. Like other pastors then, he kept the records of his own ministry and doubtless carried them away with him, so that but little is known of the details of his labors.

Research has brought to light in B. B. Satterlec's possession the original constitution of the church in Mr. Todd's handwriting, the four following rules for church discipline, creeds, and articles of faith being then unknown :

" That in order to a person'e admission into the church, there shall be a major vote of the church then present.

" That a complaint against an offender shall not he esteemed valid be- fore the person offended hath attended the gospel rule.

" That a minister shall not be obliged to prosecute an offender, before the person offended brings in the complaint in writing and signed by his own hand, with subetautial evidence.

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"That a Christian who prosecutes his brother in the civil law for an injury done him, before he hath attended the gospel rule with hin, shall be esteemed an offender and shall be dealt with as such an one."

After a pastorate of twelve years in Adams, Mass., and serving as chaplain in the Revolution, Mr. Todd died in Oxford, N. H., June 10, 1789, aged seventy years.

Rev. Andrew Storrs was ordained and installed Nov. 27, 1765, and died while in office, March 2, 1785, after a pastorate of nearly twenty years. He was born in Mansfield, in this State, Dec. 20, 1735, to Samuel and Mary (Warner) Storrs, and was great- grandson of the Storrs who came from Nottingham- shire to Barnstable, Mass., in 1683. The family was strongly imbned with Puritan principles, and his parents were eminently godly persons. Rev. Dr. Richard Storrs, of Brooklyn, and Judge Storrs, of the State Supreme Court, are of the same stock. After a little more than a year of preparatory study, doubtless under Dr. Richard Salter, second pastor at Mansfield (who fitted young men for college, and at one time took twenty barrels of cider to pay for tuition), Andrew entered Yale, Oct. 24, 1757, and graduated with the class of 1760, so that he must have entered in advance or gained a class in the course; but little more was then required to graduate than is necessary now to enter college. From a diary of his found this spring in Milton, it transpires that he had poor health, which interrupted his studies and made him pay repeated visits to Oblong, west of Sharon, in New York, and his trips there made him acquainted with this region, and he probably passed through Northbury. The year after his graduation Mr. Storrs united with the Mansfield Church, and was licensed to preach by Windham Association, May 18, 1762. A year after he married the widow of Rev. Freegrace Leavitt, of Somers, who married Dr. Bellamy, of Bethlehem, after his death.

Mr. Storrs' diary shows that he preached here first May 26, 1765. In July of that year he made a trip to Eastern Massachusetts, and received the degree of A.M. at Harvard, a proof of his superior scholarship. Dur- ing the summer of 1765, Mr. Storrs continued preach- ing here, and on the first Monday in July the society decided unanimously that they wished him to preach for them. The first Monday in August they voted to give him a call to preach the gospel among them as a prohationer, in order for settlement in the work of the ministry. On the 30th of September the society gave Mr. Storrs a call to settle, which he accepted. He brought Mrs. Storrs here on the 20th of Novem- ber, and the next day was observed as one of public fasting preparatory to the ordination, which took place on the 27th ; Rev. Messrs. Leavenworth, of Waterbury, Bartholomew, first pastor at Harwinton, Newell, of Goshen, Champion, of Litehfield, and Pit- kin, of Farmington, were present. In personal ap- pearance Mr. Storrs was large, of commanding pres- ence and grave and dignified demcanor; though

never in robust health, he had a look of strength, and made a fine appearance in his new leathern breeches, with buckles at the knees and on his shoes. His voiee was full and powerful, and one remembers that his grandmother told him he could be heard in the Sabbath-day houses. A fine marksman, he could bring down a squirrel from the top of the tallest tree, and his gun and elaborately marked powder-horn are still in the possession of the Stoughtons. He was of a calm and even temperament, and moved serenely through the Revolution, which his ministry covered. He built the house where Mr. Kelsy has lately lived, on land bought of Caleb Humaston, putting it up in 1766. He set out the buttonballs and elms now standing there.

The only entry on the society records indicative of the Revolutionary struggle was a vote, Dec. 7, 1778, in consideration of provision running to au extrava- gant price, to furnish Mr. Storrs certain articles at specified prices. In 1774, when Congress resolved on non-intercourse with Great Britain, Phineas Royce was moderator of a special town-meeting in Water- bury, a mark of his prominence. At that meeting Nathaniel Barnes, Dr. Roger Conant, and Jesse Cur- tis, of Northbury, were on the committee to see that no tea, molasses, sugar, coffee, spices, etc., were brought into town and sold. At another meeting held January 12th, Stephen Seymour, Randal Evans, and David Smith, of Northbury, were on a committee to receive donations contributed for the relief of the poor in Boston, whose port was then closed by the British fleet. Northbury sent Deacon Camp, father of Deacon Camp, lately of Plainville, through the wilderness of Maine with Arnokl, to besiege Quebec in the winter of 1775. Daniel Rowe, grandfather of A. Markham on his mother's side, was at the battle of Saratoga, and was the first to reach Arnold after he was wounded. David Smith, who lived where the Quiet House now is, attained the rank of major, and when the several Waterbury companies were formed into a regiment in 1778, Jesse Curtiss, of Northbury, was major. In the successful campaign in the French war, too, when Ticonderoga and Crown Point were taken, Waterbury furnished a company, in which John Sutliff was lieutenant; in that war Daniel Potter was ensign, and Asher Blakeslee, Enos Ford, and others were engaged.

But this parish was a stronghold of Toryism in the Revolution, a majority of the leading men west of the river holding fast to their British allegiance. Bitter enmities were engendered and violent aets committed, but we are to judge leniently ; the Tories were con- nected by ties of religious association and support with the mother-country, and their pastors, sincere men, taught them that the colonial eause was treason against government and God. While all the action against Tories was not justifiable, it was not to be wondered at as human nature is constituted. A Tory was hung up till almost dead on the green, and at hook

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was shown in an old tavern, which stood where An- drew Buel lives, where others were so hung. Devil's Lane was near that tavern, and County Sheriff Lord, of Litchfield, afterwards made arrests there, so that they said " the Lord came down from Litchfield and took the devil out of Plymouth," though he soon re- turned. One man from this parish was arrested for high treason, and executed at Hartford, March 19, 1777, though he was honest in his convictions and offered to voluntarily confine himself to his farm. This is the only one learned to have been executed in the colony, and the death penalty against treason was afterwards repealed. When this man was arrested, his father offered to furnish hemp for a halter to hang him with. This was about the middle of Mr. Storrs' ministry.

March 2, 1785, Mr. Storrs died (and now lies in this yard), two years after peace had been declared with Great Britain. Five years before, in 1780, Westbury and Northbury had been incorporated as a new town, named Watertown, and transferred to Litchfield County. These parishes were then the richest part of Waterbury, the grand lists of the several societies standing in 1749, Waterbury first, £12,181; West- bury, £13,427; Northbury, £10,070. One of the richest men in this society in the early times was Jeremiah Peck, first deacon, whose property inven- toried at £3702 when he died in 1752. Earlier than that Barnabas Ford, the great land-holder, was one of the wealthy men. He owned all Thomaston when it was Fordton, his rule seeming to have been to buy all land joining his; he bought all Mr. Todd's land iu the hollow before 1746, as appears by his will.

The only church record of the first five years of Mr. Storrs' ministry are threc votes,-admitting mem- bers of the Church of England, in good standing, to occasional communion, forbidding the pastor to re- ceive complaints against members, unless presented in writing and signed by two witnesses, and appoint- ing Sergt. Jesse Curtis to tune the psalm. The church had seventy-seven members when Mr. Storrs began his ministry, and one hundred and seventy-eight united with it while he was pastor. When Mr. Hart had been here twenty years, he said of him that the aged people remembered him with affectionate rever- ence as a wise man and faithful pastor. Mr. Hart him- self had formed a high opinion of his understanding and heart, and said that he was distinguished by good sense, wisdom, and prudence. Rev. Mr. Champion, of Litchfield, preached his funeral discourse, and said of him that, having lived greatly beloved, he died equally lamented, and quitted this benighted world to the inexpressible sorrow of his disconsolate surviving partner, and to the universal grief of his church and congregation. He says that he was endowed with a good natural genius, improved by a liberal educa- tion, and refined by divine grace. Descended from a reputable family, his personal appearance was august and venerable; his eye betokened sensibility, uncom-

mon composure, and mildness of temper. Blessed with a commanding voice, his delivery was graceful, solemn, and affecting. Sound judgment, singular prudence, great stability, and Christian candor en- tered deep into his character.

Besides his pastoral labors, Mr. Storrs fitted many students for college, and instructed young men for the ministry, after the custom of the times. Mr. Storrs had no children, and Oliver Stoughton, a nephew of his wife, lived with him, doing chores and going to school. He came into possession of the place on Mr. Storrs' death, lived in it during Mr. Waterman's min- istry, and sold it to Mr. Hart on his marriage, moving himself to Town Hill; his son, Andrew Stoughton, thirteenth deacon of this church, was fatber of the late and present deacon of that name.

Some time before Mr. Storrs died he was taken with a pain in his left side, which extended down to the foot, as well as to the shoulder and neck and across the body, contracting the whole left side; so that his body bent to the left. . He was also troubled with a cough and fever, and could get no relief from phy- sicians. The course of his disease was so serious that he desired to have a post-mortem examination of his body, which was had. The left lung was found con- tracted to the size of a goose-egg, full of knotty hard parts, lying in the upper part of the breast, to which it was fast at the back. The left side of the breast below it was filled with five pints of watery matter. The ribs on that side were very brittle and the flesh hard, and full of horny kernels from the size of a pea to that of a nutmeg, not connected with one another or with the bones of the body. One bone of the size of a chestnut was found in the cavity of the breast, and the bowels adhered fast to the left side, but no corrupted matter was found, nor were any of the other organs of the body apparently affected.

Simon Waterman, the third pastor here, was born in Norwich, Jan. 17, 1737, to a family that originally came from Norwich, in England. He was brought up in Bozrah, where he doubtless joined the church, though there are no church records of that time. He graduated at Yale in the class of 1759, the year before Mr. Storrs, whose friend he was in college, and who probably mentioned him to his people as his successor before he died. The first church in Wallingford called Mr. Dana, of Harvard, without applying to the Association for advice or to the Consociation for ordi- nation. A minority applied to the New Haven Asso- ciation, which had excommunicated Rev. Messrs. Todd, Leavenworth, of Waterbury, and Humphreys, of Derby, and which now excommunicated the Wal- lingford Church, recognizing the minority as the church, which called Mr. Waterman as its first and only pastor. Being unable longer to support him, he was dismissed May 3, 1787, by his church, which threw up its organization and returned to its old fel- lowship, a result which Dr. Bacon regards as to his credit, as some men would have exasperated the quar-

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rel and made it incurable. While at Wallingford, in 1774, Mr. Waterman was the first missionary sent out by the Congregational Association to the back settle- ments in Vermont and Northern New York, largely settled from this State. This was the first missionary movement in the colony, and Mr. Waterman was one of the first three home missionaries. During his pas- torate here, in 1797, he went on a similar mission, and made a third trip to Central New York; thus this church had an early part in the work of home mis- sions.

Mr. Waterman was settled here Aug. 29, 1787, the year the adoption of the federal constitution opened a new era of consolidated national life. He brought Eunice, his wife, to whom her father, Benjamin Hall, a magistrate, had married him July 26, 1764, and six children, two having died in Wallingford: Eunice, who married Dr. Wells, of Berlin, was nineteen ; Amanda, who married Aaron, son of Gen. David Smith, fourteen ; Philomela, who married Maj. Wright's nephew Benjamin, and went to Rome, N. Y., then an Indian wilderness, eleven ; Mary, who married Gen. David Smith's nephew Walter. eight; Simon, six ; and Joshua, three. It was a pretty family, welcome in a parish where the minister's family had been childless twenty years. Mr. Waterman lived in the Warner house on South Street, next to Mrs. Smith's, and set out the great elms now towering before it. His home life was pleasant, with happy gatherings of young folks, with courting in the parlor as the years went on. Not one of that family is now alive. Mr. Waterman stood well with the ministers in the State ; he was considered an able support of orthodoxy, and the Litchfield County Association regarded it a favor to receive him as a member. He preached the funeral sermon of Rev. John Trumbull, of Watertown, and at Dr. Bellamy's funeral was assigned the distinction of walking with his widow. He was dismissed in 1809, and resided here till his death in 1813, three years after Mr. Hart came here.

Mr. Hart says that Mr. Waterman came here to do good, and the first Sunday after his installation, the state of piety being low, the covenant and confession of faith being read, he prevailed on the members to stand before the congregation and testify their assent to it. Mr. Ilart says, also, he was a man of active habits, a good preacher, and truly devoted to the spir- itual interests of his people, being ready, even at his advanced age, to discharge parochial duty in fair weather and foul, by night and day. One powerful revival occurred during Mr. Waterman's ministry, and one or two seasons of less interest. He received two hundred and twenty members, one hundred and seventy-one by profession. Of medium height, he was thin, very straight, of active motions, nervons temperament, and an excellent horseman ; graceful in bearing, elegant and courtly in manner, a master of ceremony, he was one of the most stylish of the pastors of this church. He used to walk up the broad

aisle bowing and smiling on either side, the people rising and bowing to him as he passed. Reaching the pulpit, he first turned and bowed to the bass on his right, who filled the front gallery seat on the south side, and rose to bow in return. This parade was repeated with the treble in front, and with the counter and tenor on the left. The dignity and cour- tesy of this old-time style told with benefit on char- acter and life. This was carried to excess by the president of Yale, small in stature but great in dignity, who, in passing into the chapel between two files of seniors, ranged outside the door according to custom, slipped and fell flat on his back in the mud. The students were overcome with laughter. Rising and casting a withering glance upon them, the prex burst out, "Young gentlemen, do you not know how awful a thing it is to laugh in the presence of God, and much more in my presence ?"

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History of Litchfield county, Connecticut, Part 119

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.) Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1532

Author: J.W. Lewis & Company (Philadelphia, Pa.)
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1532