USA > Connecticut > New London County > Norwich > History of Norwich, Connecticut: from its possession by the Indians, to the year 1866 > Part 33
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* Among the disbursements of the society is £3 paid Mr. Russell Hubbard for the expense of his journey up country to see Mr. Strong.
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impaired, and to use the language of one of his most intimate friends, " his meekness, humility, philanthropy and heavenly-mindedness were apparently increased, and he seemed to
' Stand with his starry pinions on,
Drest for the flight, and ready to be gone.'"*
He resumed his pastoral labors, at intervals, and being assisted up the pulpit stairs, graced the public worship, with his venerable presence, by the side of his young associate, almost without interruption until his death, which took place March 31, 1784, almost sixty-seven years after his ordi- nation. He was in the ninetieth year of his age. A contemporary notice of his death observes that his last appearance in the sacred desk "was on the Thanksgiving subsequent to the restoration of peace to America,- seemingly by a special Providence gratified in living to such a memorable period, which he had often expressed his wish to see."
Dr. Lord was a small man, and in his latter days stooped much, yet his appearance was pleasing and interesting. He had a vivid blue eye, keen. yet alluring, and a slow, impressive manner of speaking. His dress was. neat. He wore a white wig, and showed conspicuous silver buckles at his- knees and in his shoes.
Though he lived to old age, his constitution was far from robust, and in, his early years he was subject to pain and discase. Age, therefore, per -- sonified in him, looked still more aged, and no one could approach him. without being struck with the reverend antiquity of his appearance. His intercourse with his people was like that of an affectionate father in his family. "I have lived (said he) in their hearts, and they in mine."
In addition to a sickly frame, he had almost continual sickness in his family. His first wife, Ann, daughter of the Rev. Edward Taylor of Westfield, to whom he was married in 1720, was confined to the bed six- teen years, and eight years of that time was incapable of feeding herself ;. but these dispensations were all sanctified to this good man .; He found time to perform well all the regular duties of his office, and in the course of his life published eighteen pamphlets, mostly single sermons, delivered on special occasions.# One was an election sermon, 1751; two were anniversary, three funeral, and four ordination sermons. The others. were on various subjects.
* Funeral Sermon by Rev. James Cogswell of Windham.
t Not the daughter of Mr. Taylor's first wife, Elizabeth Fitchi, to whom the Dove love-letter was sent, but of Mr. Taylor's second wife, Ruth Wyllis of Hartford. It is inscribed on Mrs. Lord's grave-stone, that she died after an illness of sixteen years, . July 5, 1748, in the 52d year of her age. Dr. Lord's second wife was Elizabeth, relict of Henry Tisdale of Newport, R. I. The third, Abigail Hooker of Hartford. His children were all by the first wife.
# See Sprague's Am. Pulpit, Vol. 1, 299.
22
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Dr. Lord had some peculiarities, perhaps more distinctive of the minis- ters of that age than of him as an individual. His first prayer at morn- ing service on the Sabbath occupied the full run of the hour-glass at his side. He followed in his prayers the principal events that had transpired in his parish during the week,-deaths, accidents, storms,-and adverted to all public events of importance. In war time his supplications and thanksgivings were so particular and specific as to give the congregation the best information that had been received of the progress of affairs. Notes were sent up to the pulpit, not only in cases of sickness and death, but by persons departing on a journey or voyage, and also on returning from the same. Every thing in those days, either projected or accom- plished, seems to have been prayed over .*
On the 18th of March, 1778, Mr. Joseph Strong was ordained as col- league pastor with Dr. Lord. The audience, gathered from all parts of the county, was unexampled in point of numbers, and the services were unusually solemn. Dr. Lord was eighty-four years of age, venerated and beloved by all, but small and frail in appearance, while his colleague, in the full glow of youth and health, large and stoutly built, stood over him like a sheltering oak. The society committee were a stately group, hon- orable both for talents and piety. It consisted of Deacons Simon Tracy and Simon Huntington, Captain Christopher Leffingwell, Dudley Wood- bridge, Esq., and Samuel Huntington, President of the Provincial Con- gress. Others who had acted on the committee were Joshua Lathrop, Elijah Backus, and Dr. Elisha Tracy.
Mr. Strong was the son of the Rev. Nathan Strong of Coventry. By his mother's side, he was descended from the Williams family, who were taken captives by the Indians at Deerfield, in the night of Feb. 28, 1704. The general circumstances of this tragedy are well known. The two little daughters of Mr. Williams who went into captivity with their father were named Eunice and Esther. The former was never redeemed, but being adopted into the family of a chief, she became attached to the Indian manners and customs, refused to return to her relatives, embraced the Roman Catholic religion, and married a chief named Roger Toroso, who resided at St. Johns, twenty miles from Montreal. Esther was ransomed and returned home with her father. She married the Rev. Mr. Meachum of Coventry, and one of her daughters became the wife of the Rev. Nathan Strong, who was ordained pastor of a Second Congregational Church in Coventry, in 1745, and was the father of the Rev. Nathan Strong, D. D., of Hartford, and the Rev. Joseph Strong, D. D., of Nor- wich. At the ordination of the latter, the sermon was preached by his
* It is said that a petition was once sent up to the pulpit for public prayer in behalf of a man gone, going, or about to go on a journey to Boston.
.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
brother, and the charge given by his father. The text was from Isaiah, 52, 7. "How beautiful," &c. The scene was deeply affecting and im- pressive, particularly when the speaker turned to the young candidate and said:
"My dear brother,-I may now address you by that endearing epithet in all its senses. We received our being, under God, from the same parents, were educated by the same nurturing kindness, have professed obedience to the same glorious Father in Heaven, and this day introduces you a brother laborer in the Lord's vineyard. Very pleasant hast thou been unto me, my brother, and never was my pleasure greater in beholding thee, than on this day's solemnities. Long may your feet be beautiful on these mountains of Zion ! The God of heaven bless and preserve thee."
Nor was the emotion of the audience less intense, when the father of the candidate, in solemn and affecting terms, where deep feeling contended with ministerial gravity, invested him with the priest's office, and address- ing him as a dearly beloved son, charged him to take heed to the ministry which he had received, and to serve with his venerable colleague "as a son with a father, as a Timothy with Paul the aged."
At the time of Mr. Strong's settlement, there were two seceding con- gregations in the society, considerably numerous, but they soon became extinct, and an uncommon degree of peace and unanimity existed in the society, during the whole of his prolonged ministry.
Dr. Strong in person was above the middle size and stature, and he had a calm dignity of address which impressed every one with respect. This dignity, however, was blended with great kindness and courtesy, and his manners, far from inspiring awe, were gentle and attractive. In his latter years especially, it was delightful to listen to his conversation, flowing as it did in an easy, graceful stream, enlivened with anecdotes and enriched with sketches of character, curious incidents, and all the varied stores col- lected by an observant mind through long years of experience.
In the pulpit he was remarkable for the fluency and impressive solem- nity of his prayers. The deep tones of his voice, combined with the devout humility of his address and the free flow of adoration and praise with which he approached the Father of spirits, would hush an audience into deep attention, and waft them, as it were, into the immediate presence of the Most High. His sermons were short, and copiously illustrated with quotations from Scripture, but wanting perhaps in vigorous argument. All his ministrations, in fact, were of a soothing and serene nature, not penetrating and awakening.
1
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
FOURTH MEETING-HOUSE.
This edifice was so long unfinished, meeting with so many obstructions in its ascent from the foundation to the belfry, that it is difficult to date its beginning. Its history in brief would be-voted for in 1748, begun in 1753, completed about 1770, consumed to ashes in 1801.
The site was at the corner of the Green, under the rocks where the present church stands. The following vote seems to indicate the date when this spot was selected to receive the new structure :
10 March, 1752. Voted that all incumbrances be removed from the west side of the Meeting House plain under the site of ye Great Rocks by ye Town street, that said land may be free for public use.
The clearing was effected, and the street left open from the green to the printing-office. This was public land, and the wall of granite rose up grand and imposing by the side of the road, with shrubs and creepers hanging over and jutting out of the crevices, and with no disfigurations of man around the base, except posts and sheds for the convenience of those who rode to meeting on the Sabbath.
This fourth meeting-house of the society is said to have been a square building, with a front porch or platform.
In Society meeting Nov. 2, 1770.
Voted that a lead weight be attached to the front door of the meeting-house, that it may be more conveniently kept closed.
The interior was furnished with pews, a space in front of the pulpit excepted, where were slips for aged people and strangers. Low benches were placed in the aisles for children. The front of the pulpit displayed in large letters the sacred motto :*
HOLINESS BECOMETII GOD'S HOUSE.
On the Sabbath, the deacon, or some one of the church appointed in his place, lined the psalm, and the congregation sung in their seats, except a few leaders that stepped out in front of the pulpit and faced the audi- ence. When choirs were first introduced into the Norwich churches, which was not long before the Revolution, many of the older people were disturbed at the innovation, and even shocked at the new tunes adopted, which, being sung with less quaver and drawl than formerly, seemed to them destitute of unction and suited only to the dance or drum-beat.
A town clock was purchased in 1745, and placed in the belfry. Watts' version of the Psalms was introduced into the service in 1772, and at the
* In 1790 the house was repaired and painted anew, and this motto omitted, which caused some dissatisfaction.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
same time a large pulpit Bible was purchased. This was saved from the flames when the house was burnt in 1801. It is the London edition of 1769, containing the Apochrypha, Historical Index, and the Liturgy of the Church of England. Dwight's edition of the Psalms was adopted in 1803. In 1792 the society voted, with only one dissenting voice, to pur- chase an organ. This was soon after an organ had been obtained for the Episcopal Church at the Landing; but instrumental music in a Congre- gational service was then a rare if not an unknown accompaniment. Some difficulty occurred in procuring the instrument, and the project was dropped. An organ was not actually introduced into the service until 1818.
Rates. The minister's rate was an element of discord in the society. The Separatists sounded loud and long upon this string. When therefore Dr. Daniel Lathrop in 1782 bequeathed the sum of £500, the interest of which was to be expended in the support of the ministry, the society determined to take this opportunity to cast off the odious system of rais- ing the minister's salary by rates, and establish a fund for that purpose, using the Lathrop legacy as a nucleus. A vote to this effect was passed April 10, 1783. A subscription paper was drawn up and committed to Mr. Jacob Witter, who volunteered his services for the occasion, and by personal visits and solicitation he secured the sum of £2,088 from one hundred subscribers. Dr. Joshua Lathrop subscribed £150, Christopher Leffingwell £80, and eight others each £50 and £60. The remainder was in smaller sums, but it was stated that all gave freely and even joy- fully according to their ability, in the hope of never hearing again of dis- traint and seizure for ministerial rates.
Another step was to induce the pew-holders to relinquish their rights, so that the pews might be sold annually, and the avails applied to the same object. This was happily accomplished, except in the case of three individuals, who obstinately refused to give up their pews, averring that if they could not sit in the same place where they had hitherto sat, they would not go to meeting. This matter was, however, at length accommo- dated, the pews sold, and the fund advantageously employed; so that a sum was annually raised sufficient to discharge all ecclesiastical expenses, and the minister's rate tax happily abolished.
The first annual sale of pews was in 1791.
Dr. Strong's salary was never raised above the stipulated sum of $444. except for a very few years, when an annual gratuity was added to it, on account of the high price of provisions. The financial arrangements at his settlement throw some light on the currency of the day. The society agreed to give him £300 as a settlement, in three annual payments of £100 each; a salary of £100 per annum for the first three years, and
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
after that term, £133.6.8 per annum. This was to be proportioned to wheat at Gs. per bushel ; rye at 3s. 6d .; Indian corn at 3s .; pork at 3}d. per Ib .; and the best grass-fed beef at 40s. per cwt. To this salary was added twenty five cords of wood annually, to be delivered at liis door. The regulation of priees, in these times of fluctuating currency, was a matter of no small perplexity. For the first payment of Mr. Strong's settlement, he received £1200 in bills of eredit, as an equivalent for £100. In 1779, £2500 in bills was equal to £100; and in 1780 he received for his salary £7200-72 to 1-being then the proportion between continental paper and silver money.
Excise Money and Parsonage Land. A grant of money derived from the Excise duty was made by the Legislature to Chelsea Society in 1764, to assist in building their first meeting-house. This was regarded by the First Society as a species of favoritism. They claimed that a fair pro- portion of the excise tax gathered in the town belonged to them, and therefore in 1767, and again in 1769, they memorialized the Legislature for an appropriation of a sum similar to that which had been awarded to Chelsea for their use. This was not granted.
Chelsea Society, on the other hand, laid claim to a share of the Parson- age land which had been purchased by the town at an early period for the benefit of the ministry. This was long a subject of dispute and litigation. The parsonage land included the site of the old hill-top church, the jail, and the whole range of buildings on the north-west side of the Green. The lessees paid a small ground rent to the society.
In 1799, these lands were adjudicated to the First Society, and the occupants relinquished their claims, accepting in lieu thereof, leases for 999 years, at a penny per acre, if demanded.
CHAPTER XXVI.
BRIDGES AND FRESHETS.
NORWICH being surrounded and intersected with rivers and brooks, and peculiarly exposed to accidents and injury from heavy rains and spring floods, the subject of bridges becomes unusually prominent in her history. Bridges of considerable magnitude over the Yantic, at the west end of the settlement, and near the plain, must have been coeval with the laying out of the town, and roads could not have been opened and ren- dered safe for traveling in any direction without spanning a multitude of small streams with some kind of stone-work, or with timber and plank, and these perhaps the next spring flood would sweep away. Consequently the work of building and repairing bridges was always beginning, ever going on, and never completed.
The earlier bridges were built and kept in order by the inhabitants as highway work. In April, 1717, a petition was presented to the General Assembly "for assistance in building a cart bridge over Showtucket at the falls." It does not appear that any assistance was granted by lottery or otherwise, and it is probable that this first bridge over the Shetucket was built in the usual way, by a general turn-out of the inhabitants.
The site of this bridge was just above the place where the Quinebaug and Shetucket unite. It connected Norwich proper with Newent society, in the crotch of the rivers, and the road leading from it over Ox hill was the path by which the early inhabitants of Newent came on the Sabbath to attend religious services in the town-plot, crossing the river, before the bridge was built, on a scow or ferry-boat.
A bridge has been maintained at this place or near it, from that time to the present, and known by the name of Lathrop's bridge, taking its desig- nation from the nearest prominent resident and landholder.
In the freshet of February, 1727, four of the town bridges were swept away, and among them was this which crossed the Shetucket.
The rebuilding of this bridge in 1728 was marked by a mournful casu- alty. It was the 28th of June. A large party of the inhabitants had assembled to assist in raising the bridge, which was 20 feet high and about 250 feet in length. Just as they were putting together the upper
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
work, a principal piece of timber which lay in the foundation of this upper work, being spliced, gave way at the joint, and falling, tripped up the dependent frame, which with its own weight careened and overset, break- ing down the pillars on which it rested. One hundred feet of the bridge fell, with forty men on it. The water was very low, and the people were precipitated upon the rocks in all directions. No one escaped without bruises and contusions ; twenty were severely wounded, and two killed. These two were Jonathan Gale of Canterbury, nineteen years of age, the only son of a widowed mother, who was killed instantly,-" a very hope- ful youth, the darling of the family,"-and Mr. Daniel Tracy, son of Lieut. Thomas Tracy, and one of the last survivors of the old stock that came from Saybrook, who died the next day of his mortal wounds.
An account of this calamity was published in a small pamphlet,* in which the writer compared the appearance of the dead and wounded, after their extrication from the ruins, to the aspect of a battle-field after a hot action. Messengers were sent abroad for aid, who spread through the town imperfect accounts of the sad event.
Hundreds hastened to the spot with biers and teams, and all necessary appliances for relieving or removing the sufferers, and "men of skill for wounds and broken bones" were not slow in offering aid.
" The men most considerably wounded [says the pamphlet account] are,
Lient. Samuel Butts,
Samuel Lawrence,
Josias Reed,
Joseph Safford,
Ambrose Blunt,
Joseph Knight,
John Bishop,
Benjamin Knight,
Jolın Elderkin,
Samuel Parrish,
David Lamb,
Ebenezer Harris,
Nathaniel Walton,
Josiah Bates,
Solomon Lothrop,
James Longbottom,
Jacob Perkins,
John Longbottom,
Thomas Gates,
Josias Molton.
Some of these had their ribs, some their arms, and others their legs broken, besides other bones shivered and dislocated ; others had wounds, cuts and bruises in their heads, faces, bodies, arms, legs and feet, and some exceedingly bruised within. Some of them were at first taken out and laid by for dead, and the recovery of some for several days much doubted, but since they are all like to recover."
* Entitled,-AN ACCOUNT of the Surprizing Events of Providence, which hapned at the Raising of a Bridge in Norwich, June 28th, 1728.
With some Affecting Remarks wove into the HISTORY. As also some practical Improvement thereof. Published at the Desire of some concerned therein, to the End it may be Preserved as a Profitable Remembrancer of the Danger and Deliverance of This Day.
New London, Printed and Sold by T. Green, August 7th, 1728.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Many hair-breadth escapes occurred. Solomon Lathrop fell forty feet from the top of a needle post, and was pitched head foremost between two rocks, into a hole of deeper water than ordinary, and yet not killed. This Mr. Lathrop was father to the Rev. Joseph Lathrop of West Springfield, who was born about three years after this narrow escape of his parent.
" Mr. Tracy [says the cotemporary narrative] was not a person concerned in the affair, only as he was a benefactor to it, and went out that day to carry the people some provision, and happened to be on the bridge, at that juncture of danger : a man that had been always noted for an uncommon care to keep himself and others out of probable danger, and yet now himself insensibly falls into a fatal one. And very remarkable is it, that to keep his son at home this day, and so out of danger by that occasion, he chooseth to go himself on the forenamed errand, and is taken in the snare which he thought more probable to his son."
THE GRAVE-STONE RECORD.
[Head.]
[Foot.]
HERE LIES ye BODY OF MR. DANIEL TRACY ... WHO DIED JVNE Ye 29 . . 1728 . . AGED 76 YEARS.
MR. DANIEL TRACY. THIS WORTHY IN A GOOD OLD AGE DIED BY A FALL FROM A BRIDGE.
It would be difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain how many times Lathrop's bridge has been rebuilt, or rather how many bridges have been erected at this point since 1717, when the first timbers were laid over the river. From intimations in the records we learn that a new and substan- tial bridge was built "over the Shetucket near Capt. Lathrop's," in 1764 .* Again in 1791 the town action shows that "a bridge was to be built at Mr. Zephaniah Lathrop's between Lisbon and Norwich : the river being there 212 feet wide at high water mark," and a rate was granted to cover the expense.
Since the present century came in, this bridge was partially destroyed by the ice, Feb. 15, 1805 ; the shock coming so suddenly that a man crossing at that time was carried down the stream, and with difficulty res- cued from the current. Two years later, in the freshet of March 2, 1807, the bridge was entirely swept away.
* 1768. It was ordered, that when a town meeting was to be warned, a written noti- fication should be set up on the Little Elm before Capt. Ebenezer Lathrop's door.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
A bridge built at this place in 1817, at an expense of $10,000, was destroyed March 6, 1823. At this time the flood lifted it from the abut- ment and piers, and bore it along in position, unbroken, till it came to the rapids near the mouth of the river. It then separated into three parts, and glided with graceful ease into the Thames.
In 1836, the Norwich and Worcester Railroad Company in crossing the Shetucket located their bridge upon the site of the old Lathrop bridge, which was then about to be once more rebuilt. An arrangement was made with the town, by which the latter consented to take up a new posi- tion for their bridge, a short distance higher up the river, the company paying all expenses over and above what would have been incurred by retaining the former site.
The bridge erected at that time lasted well, wore out in the service, and was finally swept away, Feb. 9, 1857. A new one has since taken its place.
In 1750, or near that period, the following bridges were maintained by the town :
1. Over Bradford's or Susquetomscot brook, on the road' to Lebanon.
2. Great Pond brook, on the road to Colchester.
3. Pease's brook. These were the three branches of the Yantic.
4. At Bean Hill. 5. Quarter bridge. G. The Court-House bridge.
7. No-man's Acre bridge. These four crossed the Yantic.
8. Beaver's brook, in West Farms Society.
9. Trading Cove brook, on the road to New London. .
10. Elderkin's bridge, on the road to Windham.
11. "Wood's bridge over Showtuckett, north of Pettipaug." This was afterward Lord's bridge, uniting Franklin with Lisbon.
12. Lovett's bridge. 13. Lathrop's bridge.
The last four were over the Shetucket.
14. Johnson's bridge over the Quinebaug, on the road to Plainfield.
15. Pachaug bridge, east of the Quinebang.
These were all constructed and kept in order by rates and highway labor. Whiting's bridge, at the mouth of the Shetucket, was extant at this time, but was supported by toll.
Lovett's bridge, mentioned above, was about three miles above Lathrop's, on the road from Norwich to Woodstock. In this vicinity, on the west side of the river, were the Leffingwell and Kirtland farms, and on the east the Lovetts were proprietors. These ancient bridges often took the name of the nearest resident landholder, and the large Lovett farm-house near the bridge, serving also as a house of entertainment for wayfarers, with its lofty shade-trees, its swinging sign, its inviting horse-sheds and other
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