USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Wethersfield > History of Saint Mark's Church, New Britain, Conn., and of its predecessor Christ Church, Wethersfield and Berlin : from the first Church of England service in America to nineteen hundred and seven > Part 8
USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Berlin > History of Saint Mark's Church, New Britain, Conn., and of its predecessor Christ Church, Wethersfield and Berlin : from the first Church of England service in America to nineteen hundred and seven > Part 8
USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > New Britain > History of Saint Mark's Church, New Britain, Conn., and of its predecessor Christ Church, Wethersfield and Berlin : from the first Church of England service in America to nineteen hundred and seven > Part 8
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The Canons for the Church in Connecticut were adopted at the Convention held June 6, 1799, and are printed in the Journal.
When the Convention met at Newtown, June 3, 1801, a procession was formed by its members, the clergy, in their gowns, and marched from the house of the Rev. Mr. Burhans, to the Episcopal church, attended by a band of music. This custom of marching to the Convention in procession was followed for many years.
Dr. Beardsley says that about this time there were not more than half a dozen churches in the Diocese supplied with organs, and their number was not much increased for twenty-five years. Organs were used in Episcopal churches in this country for more than fifty years before the Congregationalists began to use them. The first church organ in New England was placed in King's Chapel, Boston, about 1714. The first organ in any house of public worship in Connecticut, (according to Dr. Beardsley,) was delivered to Christ Church, Stratford, the last of April, 1756. Christ Church, Middletown, was finished in 1755, and Richard Alsop imported an organ from England and presented it to the parish, but this was probably some time after April, 1756. Trinity Church, New Haven, voted June 30, 1794, to hire Mr. Salter as organist for six months. The first organ in any house of public worship in what is now Hartford
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County was placed in the Congregational church at Worth- ington, (now Berlin,) 1792, and the first in an Episcopal church of this county was in use at Christ Church, Hartford, at the consecration of that church, Nov. 11, 1801, and for several years these were the only organs in that part of the State.
At the annual Convention of 1804, the members were requested to procure various historical information as to early Churches, clergymen and prominent lay brethren, and to trans- mit the same to the editors of the " Churchman's Magazine." This magazine was first published at New Haven in 1804, and was the first diocesan paper in Connecticut, and also the first Episcopal periodical ever published in this country. With various interruptions, changes in management and place of publication, it was continued until 1827, when it was succeeded by the "Episcopal Watchman", of Hartford, until 1834. In 1837, the " Chronicle of the Church" was published at New Haven by order of the Convention. In 1841 the name was changed to the "Practical Christian and Church Chronicle " and it continued to the end of 1844. It was succeeded by the " Calendar " of Hartford in 1845 and the "Calendar " was succeeded in 1866 by the " Connecticut Churchman." In 1867 the name was changed to "The Churchman ", and in July, 1877, the office of publication was removed to New York City, where it is still published. A paper called " The Churchman " had been published in New York, 1831 to about 1859, but as it had ceased to exist, the proprietors of the paper published at Hartford felt free, in 1867, to adopt that name. The present New York paper is therefore a continuation of the diocesan paper which was started in the Diocese of Connecticut and pub- lished in that Diocese for seventy-four years.
The fashion set by the certificate law of 1784 and 1791, for avoiding ecclesiastical taxes to the Standing Order, was often followed in withdrawing from other societies. The following is from the papers of the Episcopal Society of Barkhamsted, and is dated June 20, 1805.
" This certyfies that i having seriously taken it into Consideration in what way is most Exceptable to worship god i think the presbyterian way of worship the Best & shall imBrace it in Future. "
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The Journal of the annual Convention for 1807 is the first in which the Bishop's address appears. It was more in the nature of a charge to the clergy and people than are the addresses of recent years. Wardens and vestrymen of to-day will find in this address such a clear and comprehensive state- ment of their duties as to repay them for reading it.
The Bishop refers to, and rebukes, the practice of employing lay preachers or preaching candidates. At this time there was upon an average " more than two congregations to one Clergy- man " in this Diocese and from lack of ministers or other cause, as soon as persons were registered as candidates for holy orders they began to preach as if they had a license. One person began to preach in 1788 and was not made deacon until nearly three years thereafter; another commenced to preach in 1802, more than a year and a half before he was ordained, and there were many more doing the same thing. No objection was made to the employment of candidates to say the prayers and to read a sermon, in the absence of a clergyman, but for one to preach on the ground of being a candidate was contrary to the principles of the Church and an error both on the part of the candidate and of the parishioners who employed him.
At the annual Convention of 1808, the several parishes in the Diocese were divided into thirty-four cures, covering by name seventy-two parishes, and "parts adjacent." At that time there were only twenty-six clergymen for these seventy-two parishes, eight of the thirty-four cures being reported as vacant. There were only four cures limited to one parish each. One cure was composed of one parish and parts adjacent, nine- teen cures were each composed of two parishes, one cure of two parishes and parts adjacent, and nine cures were each composed of three parishes. Even as late as the fall of 1819, there were only seven parishes in the Diocese capable of supporting full services independently.
The first parish reports appear in the Journal for 1809, but out of the seventy-two parishes named in the cures of 1808 only twenty parishes are included in these reports.
In this Journal we also find a committee was appointed to publish documents respecting Mr. Ammi Rogers " and distrib- ute them to all persons who may wish for information on that
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subject." There was no lack of material for this committee. Without going into details, we may say that Mr. Rogers was attempting to force himself upon the Diocese and to officiate within it, in violation of the ancient canons of the Church. The 4Ist Canon passed at the Council of Laodicea, A.D. 321, pro- vided " that no clergyman ought to travel without the consent of his Bishop." The 13th Canon passed at the Council of Chalcedon, being the fourth Council, A.D. 451, provided " that a foreign clergyman and not known shall not officiate in another city, without commendatory letters from his own Bishop." The present canons as to removals had not then been adopted here, but they are the same in substance as these ancient canons.
The Convocations of 1801 and 1803 requested of Rogers testimonials from his Bishop, and in 1804, Bishop Jarvis for- bade the clergy and Churches in this Diocese to allow Mr. Rogers to officiate. But he continued to officiate, and after the death of Bishop Jarvis, Bishop Hobart of New York, Rogers' own Bishop, turned his back on him at Hebron.
The Bishop's address to the annual Convention 1812 gives a history of the Bishop's fund and shows how insufficient it had been and "with what languor, the support of the Bishop has hitherto been regarded." All that his "worthy predeces- sor received from the Diocese " he believed " did not amount to the interest of the money he expended of his own property to accomplish for us, the object of our wishes." These words of Bishop Jarvis were not spoken for himself at his advanced age, " with no rational prospect of any great length of days to come." This was his last address to the Convention. He died May 13, 1813, nineteen days before the sitting of the annual Convention. This Convention passed a resolution requiring every clergyman to preach a sermon to his parish strongly enforcing the importance of raising " an adequate and reason- able support of the Episcopate." The Grand Levy of the Parishes ordered in 1803 was not required to be entered on the Journal until 1805 and first appears in the Journal for 1806. This course was continued for many years. In August, 1813, a committee was appointed to lay a special assessment on each parish in the Diocese " for raising the Bishop's Fund." At the November Convention in that year, the Treasurer of the
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Bishop's fund was requested to visit the various parishes to receive the money due on this assessment. Dr. Beardsley says that the parish assessments of 1813 amounted to $16,570.00 and not quite one half of that sum was afterwards received. In the Journal for 1817 there is a list of seventy-five parishes, fourteen of which had paid their assessments in full, including the parish of Christ Church, Middletown, which not only paid its assessment early, but paid "one hundred and ninety two dollars more." There were fifteen parishes that had paid their assessments only in part, and forty-six parishes that had not paid any of the assessment of 1813. In the Journal for the year 1853, pp. 92-106, the amounts assessed in August, 1813, against the seventy-five parishes is given, with a statement of those that had paid nothing. The committee reported that some of these parishes were not then recognized by the geog- raphy, and even the locality was not quite certain. At the annual Convention of 1854, no one of the parishes reported as delinquent for the assessments of 1813 and 1832 had paid any part thereof, and their assessments were remitted.
The first effort for a missionary society, made at the Con- vention of 1792, was reported in 1793 to have been too general in its object to obtain the sanction of the Legislature. The Journal of the 1797 Convention shows that money had been collected " for the purpose of supporting Missionaries," but in 1798 such money was applied to the benefit of the Episcopal Academy.
At the annual Convention of 1813, a committee was appointed on the subject of a missionary society for the Church in this State, to report to the next Convention. That Convention appointed a new committee and at the October Convention, 1814, they reported a "Constitution for the establishment of said Society." The report was read and accepted but does not appear to have been adopted. At the annual Convention of 1815 a committee was appointed to draft a constitution for a Bible and Prayer Book Society. This committee reported to the annual Convention of 1816 and their report was approved, but it was deemed inexpedient to connect said Society with the Convention and the matter was referred to the consideration of a meeting held later by friends of the cause. The Society
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was formed and its officers were reported in the first issue of Swords' " Almanac " for the year 1817. The matter of a missionary society was again before the Convention in the spring of 1817, and the annual Convention of 1818 organized a society under the name of " The Protestant Episcopal Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge." Provision was made in its constitution for the dissolution and absorption of the " Bible and Common Prayer Book Society." The Christian Knowledge Society is now known as the " Missionary Society of the Diocese of Connecticut."
Shortly before the sitting of the annual Convention of 1815, Bishop Griswold of the Eastern Diocese, at the invitation of the Standing Committee, performed Episcopal acts in this Diocese which he reports in his address to the Eastern Convention in 1816. It appears from this address that he supposed he had been invited to take charge in Connecticut. The Middlesex " Gazette " for June 15, 1815, reports the confirmation of twenty-two persons by Bishop Griswold at Christ Church, Middletown, on Sunday, June 4; five ordinations Tuesday, June 6, and one ordination on Friday, June 9. The Convention was held June 7, and Bishop Griswold was " requested to take a seat in the Convention." He was also thanked for his sermon at the ordination at Christ Church on June 5, not June 6, as reported in the " Gazette."
The October Convention of 1816 voted to invite the Rt. Rev. John Henry Hobart of New York to perform the Episcopal Offices in this Diocese. He accepted and delivered the sermon at that Convention. Also at the annual Conventions of 1817 and 1818. Dr. Beardsley says that Bishop Hobart confirmed in Connecticut 3,057 persons, only eleven less than the entire number by Bishop Jarvis in his whole fifteen years of his Epis- copate. Part of Bishop Hobart's Episcopal acts are reported in the Middlesex "Gazette " issues of Feb. 29, 1816, Nov. 14, 1816, and Aug. 26, 1819, and in the "Christian Journal " for October, 1817.
The Connecticut Bible Society issued a large edition of Bibles and distributed them in the west, particularly in Ohio. The word "ye " was substituted for we in Acts vi, 3. In conse- quence of this edition, the October Convention of 1816
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instructed their Deputies to the General Convention to endeavor to have some specific edition of the Old and New Testament recognized. This resulted in the adoption of the standard version now in use. The story of its adoption is told by the Bishop on pages 38 and 39 of the Convention Journal for 1881.
The first Episcopalian to be elected as a State Officer in Connecticut was Jonathan Ingersoll, one of the wardens of Trinity Church, New Haven, who was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1816.
In October, 1817, Governor Wolcott appointed as usual a minister of the Standing Order to preach the annual Election Sermon in May, 1818. At the same time he appointed the Rev. Harry Croswell, Rector of Trinity Parish, New Haven, as sub- stitute preacher, in case of failure on the part of the regular appointee. The latter early informed the Rev. Mr. Croswell of his intention to default. Bishop Hobart advised the per- formance of the full service of the Church, the same as usual, and the use of Bishop Seabury's State Prayers. The sermon was preached by Dr. Croswell in the Center Church at Hartford. Two of the oldest Divines of the Standing Order were seated in the pulpit. This was the first time an Episcopal minister ever preached the State sermon in Connecticut. According to the usual custom the sermon was printed. In 1822, Governor Wol- cott appointed Bishop Brownell to preach the State sermon in May of that year. "The Governor, State Officers, members of the Legislature, and a numerous body of the clergy, moved under a military escort to the Episcopal church at New Haven, where Divine Service was performed and an eloquent and patriotic sermon delivered by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Brownell." [Conn. Mirror of May 6, 1822.] This is the first time that the State of Connecticut ever worshiped in an Episcopal church. What a marked contrast this shows over the days when Rev. Abraham Jarvis, sometime after having been ordained in Eng- land, attended an Election sermon at Hartford and the preacher pointed at him in contempt, saying " What do they not deserve who cross the Atlantic to bring Episcopal tyranny and super- stition among us?" In 1828, the Rev. Nathaniel S. Wheaton preached the Election sermon. These three are the only Epis- copalians that ever delivered the Election sermon. Election sermons were discontinued in 1830.
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The Rev. Thomas C. Brownell, Assistant Minister of Trinity Church, New York, was elected Bishop of this Diocese at the annual Convention held in New Haven, June 2, 1819. At New Haven, on Oct. 27, 1819, a procession from the house of Gover- nor Ingersoll was formed and proceeded to Trinity Church, where the Rev. Thomas Church Brownell was consecrated to the holy office of Bishop, by the Right Rev. Bishop White, Right Rev. Bishop Hobart, and Right Rev. Bishop Griswold. Morning prayers were read by the Rev. Reuben Ives and a discourse delivered by the Right Rev. Bishop White. The degree of D.D. was conferred by Columbia College upon Bishop-elect Brownell, shortly before his consecration.
At the Convention which elected Bishop Brownell, the ven- erable Dr. Richard Mansfield, in the ninety-seventh year of his age, was present. He was made Doctor of Divinity by Yale in 1792, the first Episcopalian to receive that honor. He was the Rector of St. James's Church, Derby, for seventy-one years and eight months. He had seen the Church in New Haven grow from but two or three families to a society of about 2,000 souls. The only other minister in Connecticut whose service in one parish exceeded his was the Rev. Samuel Nott, pastor of the Congregational church at Franklin, who served that parish seventy-one years and ten months. Rev. John Beach of Newtown was the only Episcopal minister of fifty years service prior to the close of the Revolutionary war. Dibblee of Stamford and Tyler of Norwich both served before and after the war for more than fifty years in all; Hubbard of New Haven nearly fifty years, while Croswell of New Haven, Fogg of Brooklyn, and Shelton of Bridgeport, each served forty or more years in the same parish.
The Theological Seminary of New York was transferred to New Haven and opened Sept. 13, 1820, but was transferred back to New York in October, 1821. Bishop Brownell's address to the Convention in 1820 called attention to, and urged, Sunday schools, which were then generally established through- out the Diocese.
A "Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer " was prepared by Bishop Brownell and published in 1823. It was the first work of the kind ever prepared in this country and
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was so well received that an edition was afterwards published by Bishop Hobart of New York.
Several unsuccessful efforts had been made to change the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire into a college. At the annual Convention of 1816, a committee was appointed to apply to the General Assembly for an act of incorporation and charter for an Episcopal College and this committee was continued by the annual Convention of 1817.
In December, 1822, at the house of Bishop Brownell, steps were taken to renew the efforts to obtain a charter for an Epis- copal College, which charter was granted to Washington Col- lege, (now Trinity,) of Hartford, May 16, 1823. It was said to have been the first college in America " under the special patronage and guardianship of Episcopalians." It was built in 1824, and Bishop Brownell was its first President.
On Feb. 15, 1828, Jacob Oson, a man of color, was made deacon, and on the next day he was ordained priest with a view to missionary service in Africa. The Bishop's address to the Convention of 1829 refers to the death of this mission- ary, which occurred as he was about to embark. "By this dispensation of divine Providence one of the first efforts in our Church in the cause of foreign missions has been defeated." At that time there was an African Mission School in the Dio- cese, where three very promising young men of color were in course of preparation for the same field of labor.
At the sitting of the General Convention of the Church at Philadelphia, in August, 1829, Bishop Brownell preached a sermon before the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. He referred to the destitute condition of many places in the southwest. As Bishop Brownell was then the youngest Bishop, it was arranged that he should make an Episcopal visitation to that country. Accordingly he started early in November and visited parts of Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, and other of the Atlantic States, and returned home early in March, 1830, having traversed an extent of country of at least six thousand miles, three hundred of which he traveled on horseback. He performed "Episcopal functions where never a prelate of our Church had before been wel- comed." [Christian Journal for 1830.] In the Bishop's
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address to the annual Convention of this Diocese in 1830, Bishop Brownell gives a report of this visitation. In his address to the Convention in October, 1835, he states that the Diocese of Alabama was placed under his charge several years ago, and refers to attending the annual Convention of that Diocese at Tuscaloosa, in January, 1835, and performing Episcopal func- tions. In his Address to the annual Convention of this Diocese in 1845, he refers to the twenty-five years of his Episcopate with a summary of ordinations and confirmations, and adds- " in my Visitation in the Southwestern States, I have Conse- crated two Churches in Kentucky, four in Mississippi, two in Louisiana and two in Alabama, and have confirmed 245 persons in those States."
Bishop Brownell presided over the General Convention at New York in 1853, being then the senior Bishop, instead of the youngest Bishop, as he was in 1829.
For other historical matter we refer to the "Records of Convocation ", printed by order of the Convention 1904, with many valuable historical notices by the Rev. Joseph Hooper, M.A., of Durham, and to the Journals of the Convention from 1792 to date. A list of parishes in this Diocese with dates of organization may be found in the Journal for 1878, also in 1891, to which is added, in each case, the date when the present church building was used. That of Christ Church, West Haven, was first used in 1740, and in 1906 was the oldest in Connecticut. In the Journal of 1896, p. 179, is an account of extinct parishes; of the Ancient records, in the Journal for 1897, p. 175; of the changes in parish names, in the Journal for 1900, p. 112; of the growth of the' Diocese, in the Journal for 1901, p. 2; and a list of all the Deputies from Connecticut to the General Convention is in the Journal for 1904.
And it may be of interest to turn to the Journal of 1905 and compare its list of two hundred and eleven clergy, besides the Bishop, and a total of just exactly that number of places of worship in this Diocese, with the fourteen clergy of 1783 with no Bishop and about forty-five parishes; or with the following list of twenty-five Connecticut clergy from the Journal of the Triennial Convention of 1799, when there were about sixty parishes.
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The list is as follows :
· The Right Rev. Abraham Jarvis, D.D., Bishop.
Rev. Jeremiah Leaming, residing at New Haven.
Rev. John Bowden, D.D., Principal of the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire.
Rev. Richard Mansfield, D.D., Rector of Christ Church, at Derby, and of the Churches of Oxford and Great Hill.
Rev. Bela Hubbard, Trinity Church, New Haven, and Christ Church, West Haven.
Rev. John Tyler, Christ Church, Norwich.
Rev. Daniel Fogg, Rector of Trinity Church, Pomphret.
Rev. William Smith, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's Church, Norwalk.
Rev. Philo Shelton, Rector of Trinity Church, Stratfield, St. John's, Fairfield, and a Church in Weston.
Rev. Ashbel Baldwin, Rector of Christ Church, Stratford, and Trinity Church, Trumbull.
Rev. Chauncey Prindle, Rector of Christ Church, Water- town, and St. Peter's, Plymouth.
Rev. Reuben Ives, Rector of St. Peter's Church, Cheshire, and the Churches at Hamden and Southington.
Rev. Tilotson Brownson, Rector of St. Peter's Church, Waterbury, and the Churches at Salem.
Rev. Truman Marsh, Rector of St. John's Church, New Milford, and the Churches of Roxbury and New Preston.
Rev. Ambrose Todd, Rector of St. Andrew's Church, Syms- bury, and St. Peter's Church, Granby.
Rev. Solomon Blakesley, Rector of St. Stephen's Church in East Haddam.
Rev. Seth Hart, Rector of St. Paul's Church, Wallingford, and a Church in Berlin. (Christ Church, Worthington.)
Rev. Charles Seabury, Rector of St. James's Church, New London.
Rev. Smith Miles, Rector of the Churches at Chatham and Middle Haddam.
Rev. David Butler, Rector of Christ Church, Reading, and the Church at Ridgefield.
Rev. Alexander V. Griswold, Rector of St. Matthew's Church, Bristol, (East Plymouth,) St. Mark's, Harwinton, and a Church in Northfield.
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Rev. William Green, Rector of St. John's, Seabrook.
Rev. Calvin White, Deacon, St. John's Church, Stamford, and a Church at Horseneck.
Rev. Evan Rogers, Deacon, the Churches of Hebron and Pomphret.
Rev. Bethel Judd, Deacon.
The names of the Rev. Daniel Burhans, D.D., Rector of Trinity Church, Newtown, and John Callahan, Deacon, should be added, to make the list complete.
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THE BISHOPS OF CONNECTICUT
BRIEF MENTION
The Right Reverend SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D.
The first American Bishop and first Bishop of Connecticut, for eleven years, three months and eleven days. Consecrated Nov. 14, 1784; died Feb. 25, 1796.
The Right Reverend ABRAHAM JARVIS, D.D.
The eighth American Bishop and second Bishop of Con- necticut, for fifteen years, six months and twelve days. Conse- crated Oct. 18, 1797; died May 13, 1813.
The Right Reverend JOHN HENRY HOBART, D.D.
The eleventh American Bishop and third Bishop of New York. Consecrated May 29, 1811; died Sept. 12, 1830. Act- ing Bishop of Connecticut for three years and ten days, from Oct. 17, 1816, to Oct. 27, 1819.
The Right Reverend THOMAS CHURCH BROWNELL, D.D.
The nineteenth American Bishop and third Bishop of Con- necticut, for forty-five years, two months and ten days. Con- secrated Oct. 27, 1819; died Jan. 13, 1865.
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