USA > Connecticut > New London County > Norwich > History of Norwich, Connecticut: from its possession by the Indians, to the year 1866 > Part 43
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The church was organized and Rev. Benjamin Throop ordained the first pastor, Jan. 3, 1738-9. Mr. Throop was a native of Lebanon, and a graduate of Yale. He died Sept. 16, 1785, after an efficient pastorate of forty-six years, aged seventy-four. He left behind him the reputation of a scholar and a gentleman ; seasoning all his speech with a divine relish, yet genial, social, always diffusing good-humor, always thirsting for information, and ever ready to impart knowledge from his ample stores to others. Such gems seem to diffuse a brighter lustre when set in sober and secluded scenes.
When Mr. Throop died, New-Concord was a parish in Norwich, but before another year had revolved it was an incorporated town by the name of Bozrah.
It is not easy to determine why this quiet rural township should have been made the namesake of the haughty, woe-denounced and desolate city of Edom,-a name in singular contrast with its ancient peaceful and friendly cognomen of New-Concord. The Syrian Bozrah lay in the open plain, but this was eminently a woodland district amid the hills. The current story that the name originated in a jocose but irreverent applica- tion of Isaiah 63 : 1, to the agent of the society, who, when he appeared in the town meeting to plead for the separation, was conspicuous for his parti-colored garments, can not be seriously admitted. A pleasantry might have been thus perpetuated, but not a profanity.
It is possible that the name was suggested by Mr. Throop on account
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of the original meaning of the word, which, according to Hebrician stu- dents, signifies a sheep-fold. This, with some latitude of application, might be given to a farming town, or it might refer spiritually to an eccle- siastical parish.
In one point of view, the designation was happily chosen. While most of our names, in defiance of taste and utility, have been repeated from county to county, and from state to state, causing embarrassment and con- fusion, and leading to innumerable mistakes, our pleasant Bozrah as yet stands alone in the Gazetteers of the new world. There is scarcely an- other only one to be found in the country, unless it be of Indian origin.
The committee to manage the separation of the town in 1786 consisted of Benjamin Throop, Nehemiah Waterman, Esq., Asa Woodworth, and Jabez Hough. Its first representative was Capt. Isaac Huntington.
Bozrah is four and a half miles long, and about four in breadth. Like other parts of the nine-miles-square, it consists of a succession of hills and valleys, some of them rocky and barren, others fair and fertile. "The Woody Vales of Bozrah!" has been a familiar phrase in the vicinity, from its having been the chorus of a poem written by one of Bozrah's sentimental daughters.
The second minister of the church was Rev. Jonathan Murdock, a native of Westbrook, and previously settled at Rye, N. Y. He was installed at Bozrah, Oct. 12, 1786, and died Jan. 16, 1813, aged sixty- eight.
John Bates Murdock, a son of this excellent clergyman, graduated at Yale College in 1808, but afterward entered the army, and served during the war of 1812-15; at the close of which he had the rank of brevet major. He died soon after the conclusion of peace, unmarried.
Rev. Dr. James Murdock of New Haven, Professor of Ecclesiastical History, and the translator of the Syriac Testament into English, was a nephew of the Bozrah minister.
The third minister of Bozrah, Rev. David Austin, was installed May 9, 1815. The old meeting-house where Throop and Murdock preached was then standing, but that same year a new house of worship was com- pleted .* Mr. Austin's dedication sermon was published.
Rev. David Austin was a native of New Haven, born in 1760, and fitted by an accomplished education and foreign travel to become an orna- ment to society, as well as by ardent piety and a lively and florid elo- quence to be useful in the ministry. He married Lydia, daughter of Dr. Joshua Lathrop of Norwich, and settled as pastor of the church in Eliza-
* The old church stood where is now the house of Rev. N. S. Hunt. The second was built about eight rods distant. The present church, which is the third sacred edi- fice of the parish, owes its erection chiefly to the liberal aid afforded by the late Col Asa Fitch and his family.
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bethtown in 1788. The kindness of his heart and the suavity of his manner endeared him to all who knew him, while his zeal in the perform- al ce of his duties, and his popular pulpit talents, made him successful in his office, and extensively known as a preacher. It is to him that Gov. Livingston alludes in the following lines of his poem on Philosophic Sol- itude :
"Dear A ***** too should grace my rural seat, Forever welcome to the green retreat ; Heaven for the cause of righteousness designed His florid genius and capacious mind. Oft have I seen him 'mid the adoring throng, Celestial truths devolving from his tongue ; Oft o'er the listening audience seen him stand, Divinely speak, and graceful wave his hand." .
Mr. Austin was naturally eccentric, and had always something erratic and extravagant in his manner of thinking, speaking, and acting. Unhap- pily his mind was led to investigate, too deeply for its strength, the prophe- cies ; his ardent imagination became inflamed, his benevolent heart dilated to overflowing, and his mental powers became partially deranged. He now appeared as a champion of the Second Advent doctrine, and held that the coming of Christ to commence his personal reign on earth would be on the fourth Sabbath of May, 1796. On the morning of that day he was in a state of great agitation, and one or two reports of distant thunder excited him almost to frenzy. But the day passed over as usual; yet the .
disappointment did not cure the delusion of Mr. Austin's mind. He took the vow of a Nazarite, and went round the country announcing the near approach of Christ's coming, and calling upon the Jews to assemble and make preparations to return to their own land.
In 1797, he was removed by the Presbytery from his pastoral relation to the church at Elizabethtown. He then went to New Haven, where he erected several large houses and a wharf, for the use of the Jews, whom he invited to assemble there, and embark for the Holy Land. Having at last, in this and other plans, expended an ample fortune, he was for a while imprisoned for debt, and after being released from confinement, gradually became calm and sane upon all points except the prophecies. He had no children, and his wife had long before taken refuge in her father's house in Norwich. He also returned to this home, after all his wanderings, like the dove to the ark, and the balance of his mind being in a great measure restored, he began again to preach with acceptance in various churches in Connecticut. After his installation in Bozrah, he performed all the duties of a pastor, faithfully proclaiming the gospel of salvation for a period of fifteen years. He died in Norwich, Feb. 5, 1831.
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For elegance of manners, for brilliancy of conversation, for fervor of worship, for a large heart and a liberal hand, few men could surpass Mr. Austin. The darkness that obscured his intellect on many points, and which was never wholly removed, appeared not to impair in the least those prominent traits, that lay deep and shone through, to illustrate lis character, and to win for him the love and admiration of all who came within his sphere.
Since the decease of Mr. Austin, the following persons have served, each for several years, as pastor of the church :
Rev. John W. Salter. Rev. William M. Birchard. Rev. N. S. Hunt.
Mr. Birchard is the only one of these that has been regularly settled. He was installed and continued in office from April, 1842, to October, 1848.
Since April 1, 1858, Mr. Hunt has been retained as the acting pastor of the society. He had previously been settled at Abington and at Pres- ton, officiating about ten years at each place.
Two other churches within the limits of Bozrah have been organized in part by members from this older church of New-Concord: viz., at Bozrahville, April 10, 1828; and at Fitchville, Dec. 1, 1854 .* The Baptists and Methodists have each also a house for worship and a relig- ious organization in Bozrah, making five worshiping assemblies in the town.
Population of Bozrah :
In 1840-1067. 1850- 867. 1860-1217.
We can not close this sketch of Bozrah without adverting to the im- provements that have been effected in a portion of the town since 1832, by wealth, energy and perseverance under the control of Asa Fitch, Esq. The taste and efficiency that have converted an ancient seat of iron-works and a rugged farming district into the village of Fitchville with its large agricultural area, its mansion house beautifully embowered and skirted with landscape beauty, its symmetrical well-built church, its cotton-mill, its lines of heavy stone wall, and its two miles of graded road, prepared for a railway, command our unqualified admiration.
* The society at Bozrahville, though destitute of a settled pastor, has kept steadily together and manifested a commendable zeal and perseverance in sustaining the Sab- bath service. For a few years past they have been chiefly dependent on the ministra- tions of Rev. George Cryer, of the Methodist denomination.
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Fitchville occupies the site of the old Huntington Iron-works, estab- lished by Nehemiah Huntington and Capt. Joshua Abel in 1750. In its native condition this was a wild and gloomy district, with deep valleys and precipitous ledges ; the pasture-land harsh and stony, and the woodlands rugged and forbidding.
The mill, the church, the village, the mansion house with its superb floral adornments and umbrageous walks, are now the central treasures of a domain extending two or three miles on all sides. The old farms of Fitch, Huntington, Abel, Gillson, Waterman, Chapman, Baldwin, and others, are consolidated under one proprietor, who devotes his time, his energetic business habits and abundant resources to the improvement of his possessions ; being himself the originator of his plans, the director, overseer and paymaster of the whole.
No part of the nine-miles-square has a stronger claim to notice in our history, than Fitchville. It is not only a striking example of what may be done by persevering enterprise in softening the sterile and homely fea- tures of nature into productiveness and beauty, but it furnishes a pleasing link to connect our reminiscences with the founders of the town.
The present proprietor, from whom the village derives its name, is a descendant through both parents from the Rev. Mr. Fitch, the first minis- ter of Norwich, of whose parish this was a part. The Abells and Hunt- ingtons, the first owners of the land, were members of the church and con- gregation of Norwich town-plot .*
The house of worship built by Mr. Fitch was dedicated Aug. 4, 1852. A church was organized Dec. 1, 1854, while the Rev. William Aitcheson was the officiating minister. It has had no settled pastor, but temporary ministers have been provided, by the liberality of Mr. Fitch, with an exception during the late war, when, the operations of the mill having ceased, the services were intermitted, and the church closed for three or four years.
Beneath the church edifice is the Fitch Cemetery, to which place the remains of Col. Asa Fitch and of various members of his family have been removed.
* Col. Asa Fitch, the proprietor of the old iron-works at this place, was a man of marked character, full of energy and decision. In the Revolutionary war, whenever an alarm was sounded that the enemy were threatening the Connecticut coast, he was almost invariably the first of his company to shoulder the musket and start for the scene of action.
He died August 19, 1844, aged 89 years and six months. He was a son of Stephen Fitch, of the Lebanon line of descent from the Rev. James. His wife Susanna was a daughter of Benajah Fitch, of East Norwich, or Long Society.
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Newent, or Third Society.
The ecclesiastical society in this place was organized in 1723, the town having previously appropriated sixty acres of land for the use of the first minister that should settle there. The affairs of the society were entirely under the control of the Perkins family, as appears from the following entry :
Jan. 17, 1720. In town meeting ordered, that if the Perkinses at their return from Boston, do not bring with them a minister to preach in the crotch of the river, or sat- isfy the selectmen they shall have one speedily, the rate-makers shall put them into the minister's rates.
The church was constituted and Rev. Daniel Kirtland ordained its min- ister, Dec. 10, 1723. The original members were Daniel Kirtland, the pastor, Samuel Lathrop and Joseph Perkins, who were chosen deacons, John Bishop, Jeremiah Tracy, (son of Thomas Tracy of Preston,) Isaac Lawrence, and Isaac Lawrence, Jr .- the church resting upon seven pil- lars, a favorite number in that day .*
The church agreed to profess discipline according to the Cambridge Platform. They professed to believe "that all organized church acts pro- ceeded after the manner of a mixed administration, and could not be con- summated without the consent of both elders and brotherhood." In this they agreed with the two older societies of Norwich.
Before the formation of this church, the inhabitants between the rivers had been accustomed to attend meeting at the town-plot, the distance for some of them being about eight miles. The older people went on horse- back, the women on pillions behind the men, but the young people often traveled the whole distance, going and returning, on foot.t
Church-going in former days was a serious and earnest duty. None stayed away from the house of worship, that could by extremest effort get there. On horseback or on foot, over wearisome roads, or through lonely by-paths that shortened the distance, they came with their house- holds to obtain a portion of the truth. "Many a time," says Rev. Levi Nelson, "while passing over the society, has my attention been arrested to notice the paths, now given up, where they used to make their rugged way to the house of God, almost as surely as the holy Sabbath returned."
* Though frequent instances occur in our New England annals, of churches formed with this precise number, showing that there was a kindly leaning towards it, yet it was not invariable, nor held to be of great moment. The smallest number embodied into church estate in this vicinity, was undoubtedly the church of North Groton, now Ledyard, which was organized Dec. 12, 1810, with one main pillar, viz., Capt. Robert Allyn, and four females, Capt. Allyn was then upward of 80 years of age.
See Half-Century Sermon of Rev. Timothy Tuttle.
# Half-Century Sermon of Rev. Levi Nelson,
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And when there, how intently and with what eagerness to profit they listened. "To this day," says the same reverend author, "I love to think of their appearance in the house of God, of the seats they occupied, and of their significant motions to express their approbation of the truth."
The new society took the name of Newent, undoubtedly at the sugges- tion of the brothers Perkins, and according to tradition, in remembrance of a place of that name in Gloucestershire, England, from whence the family came.
The meeting-house was probably built immediately after the church was gathered.
1723. Sixty acres of land granted by the town to the Society in the eroteh of the rivers for the first minister that shall settle there.
The same to be given to the Society over the Shetucket for their first minister.
Jan. 4, 1725-6. The proprietors grant that spot of land the Newent meeting house now stands upon and ye common land adjoining to it to that Society for their use so long as they shall have occasion for it.
JOSEPH TRACY, Moderator.
Lieut. Jabez Hyde.
Thomas Adgate.
Deacon Christopher Huntington.
Capt. Benajah Bushnell.
Joseph Backus. Richard Hyde.
The site of this building was about half a mile south of the present sacred edifice, and continued to be used until about 1770 .*
The church has still in good preservation a large folio volume of the works of Baxter, sent as a present in former years from England. It was placed on Sundays upon the desk below the pulpit, and those who stayed between the services gathered around upon the nearest seats, and one of them read aloud for the edification of the others.t
The inhabitants of Newent, in a petition to the General Court, October session, 1727, state that they had been afflicted with a distressing sickness for two successive years, especially in summer. In 1726, every family but one was smitten, and about twenty persons died in three months. In the summer of 1727, every family with no exception felt the scourge, and one-sixth of the male heads of families died. The farmers could not secure their crops, and though kindly assisted by people from other par- ishes, they lost some of their grain and much of their hay.
Rev. Daniel Kirkland (or Kirtland) was a native of Saybrook, born in 1701, and graduated at Yale College in 1720. IIis ministry in Newent was of nearly thirty years duration. He was a man of scholastic habits and high aspirations, but of sensitive organization. His failing health led
* " It stood where Mr. Daniel Hatch's house now is." Nelson's Half-Century Ser- mon, 1854.
Ibid.
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.
to his dismission from the pastorate in 1752. Recovering partially, he was installed at Groton in 1755, but after two years of service he again broke down, and returning to his old home in Norwich, there remained till his death, which occurred in May, 1773.
Mr. Kirkland had ten or twelve children. His second son, John, born Nov. 15, 1735, was one of the first settlers of Norwich, Mass. Another son, Samuel, born Dec. 1, 1741, is well known as the Oneida Missionary, one of the most energetic, faithful, and self-denying men born within the limits of the old town of Norwich.
Mr. Peter Powers was ordained the second minister of Newent, Dec. 2, 1756. He remained in charge seven or eight years, and then was dis- missed at his own request, on account of the insufficiency of his salary. Mr. Powers was a man of marked character, earnest and energetic in action. From Newent he went immediately into the settlements then making in the Coos or Cohos country on Connecticut river, and organized a church in Haverhill, consisting of members from both sides of the river, that is, from Haverhill, N. H., and Newbury, Vt., over which he was installed Feb. 27, 1765, preaching his own installation sermon. Here he was accustomed to meet his appointments and make his parochial visits in a canoe, rowing himself up and down the stream,-an easier mode of traveling, probably, than that of mounting a horse and stumbling over half-cleared pathways, as in his former parish at Newent.
Mr. Powers died at Deer Island, Maine, in 1799 .*
The church at Newent, being left without a pastor, gradually declined, and for several years gave but feeble signs of life. Something like a reorganization took place in 1770; several of the Separatists returned to their old places, and Mr. Joel Benedict, a man of fine classical attain- ments, was ordained pastor of the church Feb. 21, 1771. He continued with them eleven years, when an infirm state of health, and the old diffi- culty, want of adequate support, dissolved the connection, and he was dis- missed April 30, 1782.
Dr. Benedict afterwards settled in Plainfield, and acquired a distin- guished reputation as a Hebrew scholar. Hebrew, he said, was the lan- guage of angels. He died at Plainfield in 1816.
In June, 1790, Mr. David Hale of Coventry was ordained. He was the brother of the accomplished and chivalrous Capt. Nathan Hale, who was executed as a spy on Long Island, by order of Sir William Howe. Mr. Hale was a man of very gentle and winning manners, of exalted piety, and a fine scholar. He carried his idea of disinterested benevo- lence to such an extent, that if acted upon, it would overturn all social institutions. He thought it to be a man's duty to love his neighbor, not
* For many interesting particulars respecting Mr. Peter Powers, see History of Coos County, by Rev. Grant Powers.
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only as himself, with the same kind of love, but also to the same degree, so that he should not prefer, even in thought, that a contingent calamity, such as the burning of a house, or the loss of a child, should fall on his neighbor rather than on himself. Mr. Hale supplied the deficiencies of his salary by keeping a boarding-school. As an instructor, he was popu- lar; his house was filled with pupils from all parts of the county, but ill- health and a constitutional depression of spirits obliged him to resign this employment, and eventually his pastoral office. His mind and nerves were of that delicate and sensitive temperament, which can not long endure the rude shock of earthly scenes. He was dismissed in April, 1803, returned to Coventry, and there died in 1822. David Hale, so well known as proprietor and editor of the Journal of Commerce, was his son.
These four ministers of Newent were all men of more than common attainments, and each was distinguished by peculiar and prominent traits of character. Neither of them died as minister of the parish. The four pastorates covered respectively twenty-nine, eight, eleven and thirteen years, with intervals between of four, seven and eight years.
Rev. Levi Nelson, a native of Milford, Mass., the fifth pastor, ordained Dec. 5, 1804, was a man of great simplicity of character and purity of life. It was often said of him that he never had an enemy.
He preached his half-century sermon in 1854. Only one* of the thirty- eight members who received him as their pastor in 1804, was then living; but of the ordination choir, four were present and united in singing again the same hymns that formed a part of the original service. The old Kirt- land church was then extant, seated in decaying dignity upon gently rising ground, with its barrack-like row of sheds spread out at the side like wings. The outside of the edifice had been covered and re-covered, as the wear and tear of years demanded, but no tool or painter's brush, under pretence of improvement or repair, had invaded the interior since it was first completed. The impression produced on the mind upon entering, was that of homely, stern solemnity. The pulpit was high and contracted, with a sounding-board frowning over it, and a seat for the deacons in front of it, below. The pews were square, with high partitions; the galleries spacious, with certain seats more elevated than others for the tything-men or supervisors of behavior. This venerable structure is believed to be the last specimen of the old New England sanctuary that lingered in the nine- miles-square. It was demolished when about eighty-eight years of age, and its place supplied by a new church, dedicated Sept. 15, 1858.
In 1843, the Newent church comprised 150 members, spread over a wide range in the southern part of Lisbon, but two Methodist churches
* Mrs. L. Hommedieu, of Norwich.
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have since been formed in that vicinity, and Congregational influence has declined.
Rev. David Breed, Mr. Nelson's successor, was dismissed in 1862, and they have since had no settled pastor.
Note on the Perkins Family.
Jacob Perkins, born in England in 1624, came to this country at seven years of age, with his father John. He died at Ipswich, Jan. 29, 1700. Josepli and Jabez Perkins, so closely connected with the early history of Norwich, were his sons. They came to the place young and unmarried, and seated themselves for life in a part of the town where the woods were yet unthinned and the soil unmellowed by cultivation.
Joseph Perkins married May 22, 1700, Martha, daughter of Joseph Morgan of Pres- ton. He died Sept. 6, 1726. Eleven out of the thirteen children recorded to him were then living. The inventory of his estate was £2,787, and included three farms, viz., the homestead of 310 acres, and two others comprising nearly 1000 acres. This is but a specimen of the large landed estates of early proprietors. Dr. Perkins left a special legacy to his son Josepli, of "money to carry him through college." This Joseph Perkins, 2d, acquired and maintained through life the respect and confidence of the community, as a skillful surgeon and physician, and an active, judicious citizen. He was also a faithful deacon of the church, as his father had been before him.
Dr. Joseph Perkins was the first of three generations of M. D.'s of the same name, in direct descent, each an oldest son, and all practicing in their native township. He was the father also of Dr. Elisha Perkins of Plainfield, and of Andrew Perkins, Esq., of Norwich Landing.
The third Dr. Joseph Perkins, whose wife was Joanna Burnham, was the father of Major Joseph Perkins of Norwich, of Benjamin Perkins of Camden, S. C., and of the twin brothers, Elias and Elijah, the former of New London, and the latter a physician in Philadelphia.
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