USA > Connecticut > New London County > New London > History of New London, Connecticut, From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1852 > Part 19
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In the mean time an attempt was made, as had been done once be- fore, to dispense with the odious system of minister's rates, and to raise the salary by voluntary subscriptions of an annual sum. A paper was accordingly circulated, a copy of which is extant. The number of subscribers is 105, embracing names that were scattered over the township from Nahantic Bay to Mystic, and from Poquetan- nuck to the Sound. The amount pledged was £57, which being in- sufficient, the project failed, and the rates continued to be levied as formerly.
In 1690, a rate was levied for the purpose of finishing the interior of the meeting-house, which to this time had not been furnished with regular seats. This being completed, the townsmen, with the assist- ance of Ensign Clement Minor and Sergeant Thomas Beeby, assigned seats to the inhabitants. This was always an affair of magnitude, and the town had frequently been obliged to interfere to adjust doubt- ful cases of precedence and compel satisfaction. At this time only one case is reported for their decision.
" Joseph Beckwith having paid 40s. towards finishing the meeting-house, is
1 Mather's Magnalia, vol. 1, p. 216, (Hartford edition.)
2 Perhaps he was unexpectedly recalled to England. This would account for his sudden departure from New London.
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allowed a seat in the 4th seat, and his wife also in the 4th seat, on the woman's side."
These proceedings in regard to the meeting-house were tokens fore- showing that the ordination was at hand. At a town meeting on the 25th of August, 1691-" number of persons present, heads of fami- lies, 65"-the votes of 1688 and 1689 respecting the acceptance of Mr. Saltonstall for the ministry, were read and confirmed, and the townsmen empowered to make arrangements with him for his ordina- tion.
" Voted that the Honle Major General John Winthrop is to appear as the mouth of the Town at Mr. Saltonstall's ordination, to declare the town's accept- ance of him to the ministry."
The solemnity took place November 25th, 1691.
The assisting ministers were Mr. Elliot and Mr. Woodbridge, probable Rev. Joseph Elliot, of Guilford, and Rev. Timothy Wood- bridge, of Hartford. No additions to the church and no baptisms had been recorded since Mr. Bradstreet's death, that is, between August, 1683, and November, 1691. Previous to his ordination (November 19th) Mr. Saltonstall was received as a member of the church. This was then the customary mode of proceeding. It ap- pears to have been regarded as requisite, and a matter of course, that a minister should belong to the church over which he officiated. The number of members enrolled was thirty-five.
To signalize the entrance of Mr. Saltonstall on his official duties, a bell was procured, " a large brass bell," the first in the town and in New London county. It cost £25 in current money,1 and for ringing it, William Chapman, sexton, was to have forty shillings added to his annual salary of £3. It may be inferred from the boisterous reputa- tion of the town, that this bell met with no very gentle usage, and that it poured forth some lively explosions of alarm or triumph, from its elevated post, before it was involved in the destruction of the building to which it was attached.
Mr. Saltonstall, assisted by a gratuity from the town, purchased a lot, and built a house for himself. This lot was in the upper part of the town, on both sides of the street. The house stood high and con- spicuous on the town hill,2 and for his accommodation the Codner
1 The receipt for payment is from "Richard Jones, attorney to George Makeensie, merchant of the Citty of Yorke."
2 On the spot now occupied by the house of Capt. Andrew Mather.
17*
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highway, or " old pathway from the meeting-house to the mill," in the rear of his house, which had been shut up, was re-opened and laid out, twenty-five feet wide. This path was then a mere bed of loose stones, and bristling rocks, and such in a great measure it still re- mains,1 being better known as Stony-Hill Lane, than as Huntington Street, of which it forms the north end. By a gate from the orchard in the rear of his house, Mr. Saltonstall was brought within a few rods of the church, and the worst part of the declivity, in ascending to the house of worship, was avoided.
At a later period, when Mr. Saltonstall had become governor of the colony, it is retained by tradition, that he might be seen on a Sunday morning, issuing from this orchard gate, and moving with a slow, majestic step to the meeting-house, accompanied by his wife, and followed by his children, four sons and four daughters, marshaled in order, and the servants of the family in the rear. The same usage was maintained by his son, General Gurdon Saltonstall, whose family furnished a procession of fourteen sons and daughters, when all were present, which might often have happened between 1758 and 1762, as then all were living, and all of an age to attend meeting.
The summer of 1689 was noted for extreme heat ; this was fol- lowed by a virulent epidemic, which visited almost every family, either in a qualified or mortal form, and proved fatal in more than twenty cases. Most of these occurred in July and August. Mr. Wetherell, then the recorder, inserted in the town book a list of the dead, under the following caption :
" An account of several persons deceased by the present distemper of sore throat and fever, which distemper hath passed through most families, and proved very mortal with many, especially to those who now have it in this more than ordinary extremity of hot weather, the like having not been known in the memory of man."
Those who perished by this epidemic, above the age of childhood, were Philip Bill, senior; Walter Bodington ; Edward Smith and his wife, and their son, John, fifteen years of age; Widow Nicholls, and the wives of Ensign Morgan, Samuel Fox, John Picket, and Mr. Holmes. About the same period, Christopher Jeffers, a ferryman, was drowned, and Abel Moore, the constable, died on the road, as he was returning from a journey to Boston, and was buried at Dedham. A disease so malignant would naturally cast a pall of gloom over a
1 Its condition has been greatly ameliorated the present year, 1852.
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population so sparse and intimately connected. At the same time the whole country was full of anxiety and apprehension in regard to their liberties. No direct allusion is made in the records of the town to the baneful transit of Sir Edmund Andros, athwart the prosperity of New England. His administration caused a general interruption of the laws of the colony for eighteen months. He assumed the gov- ernment and abrogated the charter at Hartford, October 31st, 1687. One of his regulations was that no town meetings should be held ex- cept once a year, in the month of May, for the choice of town officers. Agreeably to this law, the annual town meeting was held in New London, May 21st, and no other is recorded until after the fall of the royal delegate. On the 18th of April, 1689, the inhabitants of Bos- ton rose in arms, seized and imprisoned Andros, and persuaded the old governor and council to resume the government. This example was followed by Connecticut. The General Court was speedily as- sembled, and an order restoring the former laws was published on the 9th of May. The charter now came out from its thick-ribbed hiding- place in the renowned oak, and re-assumed its former supremacy. The court order was enrolled and published at New London, and the annual meeting for the choice of town officers called on the 7th of June. In point of fact it was convened by officers whose authority had expired on the 21st of May, and the minutes of the meeting say :
" Upon some dispute that happened whether this town meeting was Legally warned, it was put to voate, and by a Generall Voate passed to be Legall, and then proceeded to Choice of Towne officers."
This was a summary mode of deciding a question of law, but it sat- isfied the majority, and the decision was not afterward disturbed.
" 11. July 1694.
" Voted that a new meeting-house shall be forthwith built, and that a rate of 12 pence on the pound be made for it. Capt. Wetherell, Mr. Pygan, Capt. James Morgan, Lt. James Avery, Mr. John Davie, Sergt Nehemiah Smith, Ensign John Hough, and Richard Christophers, are chosen a committee to agree with workmen for building the house, and managing the whole conern about it."
The regular registry of the town leaves us wholly in the dark as to the cause of this sudden movement in respect to a meeting-house ; but from incidental testimony it is ascertained that the Bradstreet meeting-house was destroyed by fire, probably in June of this year. It was supposed to be an act of incendiarism, and public fame attrib- uted it to the followers of John Rogers, a new sect that had lately
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arisen in the town, of which an account will be given in a future chapter. Several of these people were arrested and tried for the crime, but it could not be proved against them, and they may now without hesitation be pronounced innocent. For they were at that time obnoxious to the community ; public sentiment was enlisted on the other side, and had they committed a deed which was then es- teemed a high degree of sacrilege, it is difficult to believe that they could have escaped exposure and penalty.
Unwonted energy was displayed in replacing the lost edifice. In four years' time, the third, which we may call the Saltonstall meeting- house, was so far completed as to be used for divine service. It stood on the same height of ground that had been hallowed by its predecessors.
" July 18, 1698.
" Voted that the town accepts the gift of the Bell given by Governor Win- throp for the meeting house with great thankfulness and desire that their thanks may be given to his Honor for the same.
" Voted that the bell be forthwith hanged and placed on the top of the meeting house at charge of the town, the townsmen to procure it to be done.
" Voted whether the town will finish the meeting house this summer.
" Voted-that it shall be done."
The house was soon after finished, and the people seated : liberty was however given to certain individuals to build their own pews, under regulations in respect to "place and bigness," and they paying no less in the rates for finishing the house. Lastly, the sexton was appointed.
" Voted that William Hallsy is chosen sexton to sweep and cleane the meeting house every weeke and to open the dores upon all publique meetings and to ring the bell upon the Sabbath day and all other publique days of meeting and allso to ring the bell every night at nine of the clock winter and sumer,' for which service the towne hath voated to give him five pounds in money and ten shillings yearly."
How small these arrangements ; how simple such accommodations appear by the side of the costly structures for worship that are now spread over the land. Yet if the glory of the temple depends on the divine presence, upon humble service and fervent aspirations, who will say that the stupendous piles of latter days are more honored than their lowly predecessors !
1 This curfew-bell, with the slight alteration of ringing it at eight o'clock instead of nine, on Saturday night, has been regularly continued down to 1851.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ROGERS FAMILY, AND THE SECT OF ROGERENES.
THE unity of religious worship in New London, was first inter- rupted by James Rogers and his sons. A brief account of the family will lead to the history of their religious doctrines.
James Rogers is supposed to be the James Roger, who came to America, in the Increase, 1635, aged 20.1 As James Rogers, he is first known to us at Stratford, where he married Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Rowland,2 and is afterward found at Milford, where his wife united with Mr. Prudden's church in 1645, and himself in 1652. Their children were, Samuel, whose birth has not been found on rec- ord, but his will, dated Feb. 12th, 1712-13, states his age to be "72 and upwards," which will place it in 1640; Joseph, baptized in Mil- ford, 1646; John, in 1648 ; Bathsheba, in 1650; James, not record- ed, but next in order : Jonathan, born Dec. 31st, 1655 ; Elizabeth, · 1658.
Mr. Rogers had dealings in New London in 1656, and between that time and 1660, fixed himself permanently in the plantation. Here he soon acquired property and influence, and was much em- ployed both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. He was six times rep- resentative to the General Court. Mr. Winthrop had encouraged his settlement in the place, and had accommodated him with a portion of his own house lot, next the mill, on which Rogers built a dwelling- house of stone.3 He was a baker on a large scale, often furnishing biscuit for seamen, and for colonial troops, and between 1660 and
1 Gleanings. Mass. Hist. Coll., 2d series, vol. 8, p. 161.
2 Samuel Rowland left his farm to Samuel Rogers, his grandson, which leads to the supposition that Elizabeth was his only child.
3 This spot was afterward re-purchased by the Winthrop family, and was the site of the house built by John Still Winthrop, and now owned by C. A. Lewis, Esq.
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1670 had a greater interest in the trade of the port than any other person in the place. His landed possessions were very extensive, consisting of several hundred acres on the Great Neck, the fine tract of land at Mohegan called the Pamechaug farm, several house-lots in town, and twenty-four hundred acres east of the river, which he held in partnership with Col. Pyncheon, of Springfield.
Perhaps no one of the early settlers of New London, numbers at the present day so great a throng of descendants as James Rogers. His five sons are the progenitors of as many distinct lines, each trac- ing to its immediate founder, and seldom cognizant of their common ancestor. His daughters were women of great energy of character. Elizabeth married Samuel Beeby ; Bathsheba married first Richard Smith, and second Samuel Fox. She was an early seceder from the church, courting persecution and much persecuted.
Samuel Rogers married, Nov. 17th, 1664, Mary, daughter of Thomas Stanton; the parents of the two parties, entering into a formal con- tract, and each pledging £200 as a marriage portion to the couple. Mr. Rogers, in fulfillment of his bond, conveyed to his son his stone house and bakery, at the head of Winthrop's (or Mill) Cove, where the latter commenced his housekeeping and dwelt for fifteen or twenty years. He then removed to the out-lands of the town, near the Mohegan tribe, and became the first English settler within the limits of the present town of Montville.
Joseph, James and Jonathan Rogers, though living at first in the town plot, removed to farms upon the Great Neck, given them by their father. Like most active men of that time, they had a variety of occupations, each and all operating as tradesmen, mechanics, . boatmen, seamen and farmers.
James, the fourth son, married, November 5th, 1674, Mary, daugh- ter of Jeffrey Jordan, of Ireland. According to tradition, he com- manded a vessel which brought over from Ireland, a number of re- demptioners, and among them a family of the name of Jordan. On their arrival he became the purchaser of the oldest daughter, Mary, and married her. In after life he was accustomed to say, sportively, that it was the richest cargo he ever shipped, and the best bargain he ever made. Several of his descendants of the same name in a right line, were sea-captains.
John Rogers, the third son of James, having become conspicuous as the founder of a sect, which, though small in point of numbers, has been of considerably local notoriety, requires a more extended notice. No man in New London county was at one time more no-
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ted than he ; no one suffered so heavily from the arm of the law, the tongue of rumor, and the pen of contemporary writers. His follow- ers still exist, a handful indeed, but yet a distinct people, venerating the name of their founder, and esteeming him a man eminent for piety and filled with the love of God and his neighbor. His oppo- nents, on the other hand, have left us an image of the man that ex- cites not only indignation and pity, but profound disgust. Ample materials exist on both sides for his history, but the two faces of Janus could not be more unlike. Rogers himself produced tracts and treatises in abundance, which often refer to his own experience ; and his followers have been, to a considerable degree, a print-loving peo- ple. His son, John Rogers the second, was a ready writer. John Bolles, a noted disciple, was fluent with the pen, and adroit in argu- ment ; and the family of Watrous, the more recent leaders of the sect, have issued various pamphlets, to vindicate their course and record their sufferings. This is not therefore a one-sided case, in which the arraigned have had no one to speak for them. It may be said, how- ever, with truth, that the accounts on one side have been but little consulted, and that the statements which have had the widest circu- lation, come from the opponents of the Rogerenes. This may be re- garded as a sufficient reason for entering more at large upon their origin and history.
John Rogers was married, Oct. 17th, 1670, at Black Hall, in Lyme, to Elizabeth, daughter of Matthew Griswold. The rite was per- formed by the father of the bride, and accompanied with the formal- ity of a written contract and dowry ; the husband settling his farm at Upper Mamacock, on the wife, in case of his death, or separation from her, during her life. On this farm, two miles north of New London, after their marriage, they dwelt, and had two children :
Elizabeth, born Nov. 8th, 1671. John, born March 20th, 1674.
James Rogers and his wife and children, and those connected with the latter as partners in marriage, with the exception of Samuel Rogers and wife, all became dissenters in some sort from the estab- lished Congregational church, which was then the only one recog- nized by the laws of the land. The origin of this dissent may be traced to an intercourse which began in the way of trade, with the Sabbatarians, or Seventh-day Baptists of Rhode Island. John and James Rogers, Jun., first embraced the Sabbatarian principles, and were baptized in 1674; Jonathan, in 1675 ; James Rogers, Sen.,
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with his wife and daughter Bathsheba, in 1676, and these were re- ceived as members of the Seventh-day church at Newport. Jona- than Rogers still further cemented his union with the Seventh-day community, by marriage with Naomi Burdick, a daughter of one of the elders of the church. Of the baptism of Joseph Rogers we have no account. His wife went down into the water on Sunday, Nov. 24th, 1677, near the house of Samuel Rogers, at the head of Win- throp's Cove. Elders Hubbard and Hiscox, from Rhode Island, were present, and it was expected that one of them would perform the rite; but the town authorities having interfered and requested them to do it elsewhere, on account of the noise and tumult that might ensue, they acquiesced in the reasonableness of the proposal, and declined acting on the occasion. But John Rogers would assent to no compromise, and assuming on the spot the authority of an elder, and the responsibility of the act, he led the candidate into the water, and performed the baptism.1
From this time forth, John Rogers began to draw off from the Sabbatarians, and to broach certain peculiar notions of his own. He assumed the ministerial offices of baptizing and preaching, and hav- ing gained a few disciples, originated a new sect, forming a church or society, which were called Rogerenes, or Rogerene Quakers, and sometimes Rogerene Baptists.
A great and predominant trait of the founder of the sect, and of his immediate followers, was their determination to be persecuted. They were aggressive, and never better pleased than when by shak- ing the pillars, they had brought down the edifice upon their own heads. They esteemed it a matter of duty, not only to suffer fines, distrainment, degradation, imprisonment and felonious penalties with patience, but to obtrude themselves upon the law, and challenge its power, and in fact to persecute others, by interrupting their worship, and vehemently denouncing what they esteemed sacred. This point the followers of Rogers have abrogated. At the present day they never molest the worship of others, and are themselves unmolested.
In respect to the most important articles of Christianity, Rogers was strenuously orthodox. He held to salvation by faith in Christ, the Trinity, the new birth, the resurrection of the just and unjust, and an eternal judgment. He maintained also obedience to the civil government, except in matters of conscience and religion. A town or
1 A more particular account of this affair may be found in Backus' Church History and in Benedict's History of the Baptists, vol. 2, p. 422.
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country rate the Rogerenes always considered themselves bound to pay, but the minister's rate they abhorred-denouncing as unscrip- tural all interference of the civil power in the worship of God. Of their peculiar characteristics a brief summary must here suffice.
In respect to baptism, and the rejection of the first day Sabbath, they agree with the Sabbatarians, but they diverge from them on other points. They consider all days alike in respect to sanctity, and though they meet for religious purposes on the first day of the week, when the exercise is over, they regard themselves as free to labor as on any other day. They have no houses set apart for public worship, and regard a steeple, a pulpit, a cushion, a church, and a salaried minister in a black suit of clothes, as utter abominations. They hold that a public oath is like any other swearing, a profana- tion of the Holy Name, and plainly forbidden in Scripture. They make no prayers in public worship or in the family : John Rogers conceived that all prayers should be mental and not vocal, except on special occasions when the Spirit of God moving within, prompted the use of the voice. They use no means for the recovery of health, except care, kindness and attention, considering all resort to drugs, medicines and physicians, as sinful.
The entire rejection of the Sabbath, and of a resident ministry, were opinions exceedingly repugnant to the community at large, and were rendered more so by the violent and obtrusive manner in which they were propagated. Their author went boldly forth, exhorting and testifying in streets, disturbing public worship, and courting per- secution with an eagerness that seemed akin to an aspiration after martyrdom. His creed was also exceedingly distasteful to the reg- ular Seventh-day people. It was probably in opposition to them, that having his choice of days, as regarding them equal in point of sanctity, he held his meetings for religious purposes on the first rather than on the seventh day.
In 1676, the fines and imprisonments of James Rogers and his sons, for profanation of the Sabbath, commenced. For this, and for neglect of worship, they and some of their followers were usually arraigned at every session of court, for a long course of years. The fine was at first five shillings, then ten shillings, then fifteen shillings. At the June court in 1677, the following persons were arraigned, and each fined £5.
James Rogers, senior, for high-handed, presumptuous profanation of the Sabbath, by attending to his work ; Elizabeth Rogers, his wife, and James and Jonathan Rogers, for the same,
18
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John Rogers, on examination, said he had been hard at work making shoes on the first day of the week, and he would have done the same had the shop stood under the window of Mr. Wetherell's house ; yea, under the window of the meeting-house.
Bathshua Smith, for fixing a scandalous paper on the meeting- house.
Mary, wife of James Rogers, junior, for absence from public wor- ship.
Again in September, 1677, the court ordered that John Rogers should be called to account once a month, and fined £5 each time ; others of the family were amerced to the same amount for blasphemy against the Sabbath, calling it an idol, and for stigmatizing the rev- erend ministers as hirelings. After this, sitting in the stocks and whipping were added.
In May, 1678, (says Backus,) Joseph Clarke wrote to his father Hubbard, from Westerly, that John and James Rogers, with their father, were in prison ; having previously excommunicated Jonathan, chiefly because he did not retain their judgment of the unlawfulness of using medicine, nor accuse himself before authority of working on the first day of the week.
Jonathan Rogers now stood alone among the brothers, adhering steadfastly to the Sabbatarian principles, from which he never swerved. His family became the nucleus of a small society of this denomina- tion on the Great Neck, which has ever since existed. From gener- ation to generation they connected themselves with churches of their own faith in Rhode Island, at first with that of Newport, and after- ward with that of Hopkinton and Westerly, until in the year 1784, 109 years after the baptism of their founder, Jonathan Rogers, they were organized into a distinct church and society. A further ac- count of the Seventh-day community on the Neck will be given in the sequel of our history.
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