USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Stamford > History of Stamford, Connecticut : from its settlement in 1641, to the present time, including Darien, which was one of its parishes until 1820 > Part 31
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"To his private friends Col. Davenport extended his acts of kindness, as if they had been his children. I say this from experience, Of his couu- try, and of all its great interests, he was a pillar of granite. Nothing im- paired, nothing moved his resolution and firmness, while destined to sup- port in his own station this valuable edifice. He died, as he had long wished to die, in the immediate performance of his duty, November 20, 1789, in the seventy-fourth year of his age."
Rev. JAMES DAVENPORT, was the younger son of Rev. John Davenport and his second wife, Mrs. Elizabeth (Morris) Malthy. He was born in Stamford in 1716 and graduated at Yale in 1732. In 1738 he became pastor of the church in Southold, L. I. Here he labored with great acceptance, about two years. He was regarded as a man of ninch promise, warm hearted, zealous, sound in doctrine, and faithful to the sacred responsibilities of his office. Earnest and impressive, he was eminently fitted to move the masses in any community, and his
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opening ministry gave promise of great influence and usefulness.
Soon after his settlement the gifted and carnest Whitfield eame to this country, and by his impassioned cloquence stirred the hearts of all christian believers with new and strong im- pulses. Even cold hearted christians were warmed to the earn- est fervor of religious zeal. Mr. Davenport could not resist those moving appeals. He yielded to the spell of the great pul- , pit orator, and his enthusiasm know no bounds. He became restless under ecclesiastical restraint. He could no longer con- tent himself to work on the narrow field of his limited parish. He felt himself called to go forth and stir up unfaithful churches, and arouse from their slumbers the masses of the impenitent, who seemed to him to be on the very verge of ruin. Calling his people together, he gave them notice of the new call he had received, and after a lengthy and impassioned expostulation with them for their worldliness, he turned away, burning with a zeal which would brook no hindraece to achieve elsewhere readier triumphs in his master's cause. He soon joined the Tennents and Whitfield and even incited them to greater fervor in their holy work. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connectient and Rhode Island, wherever listeners could be gathered, and where could they not be found flocking around any banner sustained with such gifts and such zeal, this earnest apostle labored, in season and ont of season, rashly at times, no doubt, yet with constant witnesses to his power. Wherever he went he was thronged. Even ministers, who deprecated his irregularities, were moved often to admiration of his spirit and success. Warm-hearted and impulsive men called him "the angel of the Lord." Sober-minded and careful men acknowl- edged the power they were unable to resist. Abundant testi- monies are on record to the triumphs of his eloquent zeal. Whitfield, himself, felt rebuked by his heavenly spirit, and the ardent Tennent was stimulated by him to intenser earnestness in his self-consuming work. His brethren in the ministry every where yielded to him the palm for an ardor and efficiency in winning men to Christ, which was beyond their reach. Towns
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which had never before been visited with what could have been called a revival of religion, were swayed by his impassioned plea, as the forest by the winds. Strong men and children bowed themselves down together, trembling with terror, or melting in tenderness and love. But it was not long before Mr. Davenport found that not even his eloquence could plead his cause against the fears of his brethren, who were set to guard the orthodoxy and the ecclesiastical proprieties of these churches. It was rumored that he was becoming intemperate in his zeal ; that he was undermining the confidence of the church- es in their ordinary means of grace ; that he was sowing broad- cast, seed most fruitful of divisions in the churches, and apostacies from the faith, and of the wildest and most lawless fanaticism. Gradually his ministerial brethren began to distrust and de- nounce him. In his turn he became censorious. If he could not preach to the people, he could find occasion to pour his in- vective upon their ministers. He could cast contempt upon the profession of piety which did not approve and aid his plans. He could forge his hottest anathema for those who sought to moderate his zeal or to limit his influence.
And the opposition which his erratie career aroused against him, went still further. A petition to the governor and assem- bly, at Hartford, was sent from the parish of Ripton, in Strat- ford, by Joseph Blackleach and Samuel Adams, charging that Mr. Davenport had come into their parish between the twenty- first and twenty-fifth of May, 1742, and with " one Pomeroy," and several "Eletarate " men, had acted in a strange and un- accountable manner, with many expressions unwarranted from the word of God; did affright and terrify the people, and put them into the utmost confusion, contention, hate, and anger among themselves. This charge and plea the general assembly deemed worthy their notice. They issued a warrant to Samuel Talcott, sheriff of Hartford county, to arrest both Davenport and Pomeroy, afterwards Dr. Pomeroy, who for half a century was the minister of Hebron, where he had been ordained in 1735. A law had just been framed by the assembly, in view of
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the great excitement attending the great revival of 1740, against all fanatical excesses and gross irregularities. The as- sembly found that Mr. Davenport had been guilty of "great disorders." Yet in consequence of some indications of partial insanity, by reason of his "enthusiastic impressions " and im- pulses," he was dismissed with no further punishment. They also decided that Mr. Pomeroy had done nothing "worthy of stripes or death ;" and he, too, was dismissed. Mr. Davenport continued to labor " in season, out of season," through the rest of this and the following year. Ilis feelings, which had been his master, gradually yielded to the dictates of his taste and judgment, which were constitutionally right. In 1746 he was regularly dismissed from his charge in Southold, L. I., and soon settled in IIopewell, N. J. Here he labored with general satis- faction, until 1755, when death put an end to his somewhat checkered but by no means useless life. He had three chil- dren : John, who graduated at Princeton in 1769, and became a Presbyterian clergyman ; James, and Elizabeth, who married a Mr. Kelsey, of Princeton.
DAVENPORT, HON, JAMES, the fourth child of IIon. Abraham and Elizabeth (Huntington) Davenport, was born in Stamford, October 12, 1758, and graduated in Yale in 1779. Like his father and his elder brother John, he was an earnest patriot, and during the revolution was employed in the commissary de- partment. His tastes were especially literary ; and though much in publie life, having been a lawyer by profession, with the office of the judge of the court of common pleas, a member of the state legislature in both houses, and a member of the national congress, he still found time to make himself one of the most intelligent men of his times, upon all subjects that received the attention of scholars and thinkers. He was a fellow of Yale college from 1793 until his death. The following testimony of Dr. Dwight, himself one of the most learned men of the day, is worthy a place in this tribute to one of the most gifted men of the town.
" Few persons in this country have been more, or more deservedly,
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esteemed than the Hon. James Davenport. His mind was of a structure almost singular. An inferior constitution precluded him to a considera- ble extent, from laborious study, during his early years ; and, indeed, throughout most of his life. Yet an unweraied attention to useful objects, a critical observation of everything important which fell under his eye, and a strong attachment to intelligent conversation, enabled him by the aid of a discernment almost intuitive, to accumulate a rich fund ot valuable knowledge. With respect to conversation, he was peculiar. The company of intelligent persons he sought, with the same eagerness and constancy, as the student his books. Here he always started topics of investigation, fitted to improve the mind, as well as to please, and in this way gathered knowl- edge with the industry and success with which the bee makes every flower increase the treasure of its hive. I never knew the value of intelligent con- versation and the extent of the contributions, which it is capable of turn- ishing to the stock of public knowledge possessed by an individual, exhibit d more clearly and decisively. than in i is example. At the same time bis own conversation was so agreeable, and intelligent, and his manners so en- gnging, that his company was coveted by all his numerous acquaintance. His lite, also, was without a stain ; and on his integrity, cardor, and jus- tice, his countrymeu placed an absolute reliance. With these qualifica- tions, it will not be a matter of wonder, that at an early period of tis life, he was employed by the public in an almost contiunal successiion of publie business : or that he executed every commission of this nature. He died in the thirty-month year of his age of a paralytic stroke, bronght on by a long continue 1, an I very sev re chronic rhen natism. Fev persons have been more universally or deeply lainente l."
He had married May 7, 1780, Abigail Fitch, who died in November, 1782. He married his second wife, November 6, 1790, Mehitabel Coggshall. The only child of his first wife, Betsey Coggshall, became the wife of Charles W. Aphthorp, of Boston. By his second wife he had three children : Abigail Fitch, born November 18, 1791, who was the wife of that gifted pulpit orator, Rev. Philip Melancthon Whelpley, the pastor of the first Presbyterian church in New York city ; Mary Anne, born November 16, 1793, the wife of the accomplished scholar and Christian minister, Rev. Matthias Bruen, of the Bleecker street church, New York city; and Frances Louisa, born Nov- ember 10, 1795, the wife of that eminent preacher and theolo- gian, the Rev. Dr. Thomas H. Skinner, of New York.
He died August 3, 1799.
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EBENEZER DIBBLE, who became the principal pioneer in the Episcopal movement here, I have supposed to be the son of Zachariah and Sarah (Clements) Dibble. If so, he was born July 18, 1706. He graduated at Yale in 1734, and the same year was licensed to preach by the Fairfield East Association.
We hear nothing further of him,-except that the First Soci- ety, of Stamford, passed a special, and apparently an exception- al vote, in 1741, giving him a vote in Society meeting-until we find him seeking orders in the Episcopal church. This ap- pears in 1746, in a letter of Dr. Johnson, of Stratford, who writes, "I have heretofore desired leave for Messrs. Dibble and Leaming to go for orders." But the next year, in a letter to the Bishop of London, after stating that he is alone in the min- istry on the seacoast, for a distance of a hundred miles, and that his burden is insupportable, he complains that no leave has yet been granted to any to go home for orders, " though there are five or six valuable candidates."
Under date of December 27, 1747, the secretary of the Soci- ety grants liberty for Mr. Dibble to go home for holy orders, and to take charge of our (Stamford) church, with that of Nor- walk;" the conditions being " that Stamford should pay ten pounds sterling annually for his support ; and Norwalk should give security for twenty pounds more, with the actual posses- sion of their glebe."
In the letter which gives us these items of intelligence, dated April 26, 1748, the churchwardens of Stamford urge their plea for the entire services of Mr. Dibble, on the ground that they appreciate his labors more highly than the Norwalk people, be- cause he had already read service "among us steadily for two years and a half," and because " we have great esteem and re- gard " for him. They add, using their own italics, "we shall be very much gratified if we can obtain from the venerable so- ciety's great charity, his being appointed their missionary for our church." Again in this letter they say, " our people, from a hearty affection to Mr. Dibble, resolved cheerfully to under-
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take the expense of his voyage, and we have effectually secured the payment of twenty pounds sterling per annum to the soci- ety's missionary, according to our bond in Mr. Dibble's hand, and promise hereby to put him in possession of our glebe, which is better than that of Norwalk." If, however, the society should still think it better to keep the two parishes united under Mr. Dibble's care, they gracefully add, " we humbly sub- mit, and shall be heartily thankful for any share in Mr. Dibble's ministry."
Mr. Dibble reached Stamford ,October 25, 1748, after having taken orders in England. In his first report to the secretary of the society, November 14, 1748, he mentions the cordial recep- tion he met with on his return home. He speaks also of the offense which his course had given the Norwalk people, allu- ding probably to his unwillingness to accept the united charge of the two parishes.
Of Mr. Dibble's laborious service in his profession, we have abundant proof in his reports to the society. His zeal and labors must have been quite apostolic, extending to Norwalk, Ridge- field, and on the "oblong" between New York and Connecticut twenty or thirty miles," at the same time, faithfully ministering to the spiritual wants of his own parish.
In 1752 he received a eall to the parishes in Newtown and Reading, with a larger salary than he was getting here. This call he refused. A similar call came, also, in 1760, from Rye, but could not tempt him to leave the Stamford parish.
On the opening of the revolution Mr. Dibble, as a matter of course, opposed the revolutionary move. As early as October 18, 1768, we find him in one of his reports to the society using this language :
" With pleasure I can inform the venerable board, of the peaceable, flourishing, increasing state of my parish, and of their firm attachment to our happy constitution, both in church and state, nothwithstanding party rage never ran higher ; and under the specious pretence of civil and reli- gious liberty, every art is used to throw us into all imaginable confusion, and to prejudice his majesty's subjects against the conduct of the govern-
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ment in being, aud our religious constitution in particular. We hope in God for better times."
His position in 1775, on the opening of actual hostilities, is thus shown in another letter, of the 5th of April, of that year.
"We view with the deepest anxiety. affliction and concern, the great dan- gers we are in by reason of our unhappy divisions, and the amazing height to which the unfortunate dispute between Great Britain and these remote provinces bath arisen, the baueful influence it hath upon the interest of true religion, and the well-being of the church. Onr duty as mioisters is now attended with peculiar difficulty -- faithfully to discharge the duties of our office, aud yet carefully to avoid taking part in these political disputes, as I trust my brethren in this colony have done, as much as possible, not- withstanding any representation to our prejudice, to the contrary."
While thus opposing the revolution with conscientious carn- estness, 1 find no evidence that he was ever seriously endangered in his person and family, by what, he still spoke of as an unjus- tifiable rebellion. His personal popularity was probably his defense. Mr. Seabury, who afterwards became bishop, in speaking of the Episcopal elergy of Connectient says: " 1 be- lieve they are all, either carried away from their cures, or con- fined to their houses, except Mr. Dibble, who is gone to Sharon to be inoculated for the small pox,-possibly hoping thereby to enjoy a few weeks respite from perseention." However it may have been during the war, at its close he came forward and care- fully acknowledged his allegiance to the new government and re- mained until his death a faithful churchman, and a successful and popular minister.
Testimonials to the gentlemanly bearing and christian character of Mr. Dibble are abundant. He was held in very high esteem by Christian people of every denomination. One of the lay patrons of the Episcopal Church who spent large sums of money and devoted much time to the welfare of the church he loved, who had made a tour of the churches with him in 1762, bears witness to the unwearied and unceasing labors in which he endeavored "to serve the interest of true religion and our holy church :- whose services I find universally accept- able, and his life agreeable to his public character."
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The following record, on the monument in St. John's Church, is a just tribute to the worth of this successful minister of Christ :
" As a missionary of the 'Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,' he entered upon the duties of his sacred office October 16, 1748, and continued to discharge them in this capacity, with great fidelity and zeal until the close of the revolutionary war. Subsequently to this period he fulfilled his duties unconnected with the society in England until 1799 when he died full of years, in peace with God and charity with man- rector of St. John's parish 51 years.
He became endeared to all by his unwavering devotion to their best in- terests, his holy life, unremitted zeal in the name of Christ and his church."
Of the family of Dr. Dibble I have found on record only the following : A gift of land to Dr. Dibble in 1752, for his wife, Joanna from Jonathan Bates, calls her " my loving daughter," thus preserving for us her parentage. The only children re- corded to them, which I have been able to find, are : Ebenezer, born December 19, 1737; Joannah, born June 15, 1739; Fyler, born January 18, 1741; and Frederick, born in 1753.
FULLER, REV. HENRY, was born August 11, 1789, in Ver- shire, Vt. He graduated at Middlebury college in 1812, and studied theology with Dr. Asa Burton, a somewhat famous theological teacher of Thetford, Vt. He was ordained to the work of the ministry, as pastor of the united churches of Smith- town and Freshpond, L. I., October 23, 1816. Ile was next in- stalled pastor of the Congregational church in North Stamford, June 6, 1821, where he continued until January 23, 1844. Hc was a very acceptable preacher and pastor while here. After his dismission, he removed to Huntington, L. I., in 1845, where he resided until his death, September 2, 1867.
Of his children the oldest, Amanda, born in Smithtown, died in North Stamford, at the age of twenty-three years. The other children were born in North Stamford. They were: Wil- liam IIenry, Hannah Maria, Edward Thurston, who died in in- fancy, and Edward Thurston. The latter graduated at Yale college in 1857, and died while a member of the Princeton the-
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ological seminary, November 7, 1859, at twenty-four years of age.
GAY, ROYAL LEAVENS, was a native of Stafford, Conn., where he was born, November 4,1780. He came to Stamford in 1811, and settled on Shippan. His intelligence and practical tact and strong good sense soon won the confidence of the citi- zens, and almost from the first he was entrusted with their most important offices. Few men have ever served the town with more marked ability, or more to the credit and ap- proval of the town; and when, in the winter of 1856-7, he was obliged from increasing years and infirmities, to ask relief from the cares of office, he was not permitted to vacate the places of trust he had so well filled, without most gratifying witnesses to the esteem he had won. An elegant service of silver, consist- ing of four pieces, suitably inscribed, constituted the tribute of his fellow townsmen who had known him longest and best. Both the pitcher and salver testify to his "long and faithful service," and the "personal esteem and appreciation of his pub- lic service," by his fellow citizens. One of the goblets has the simple inscription, " Selectman twenty years "; and the other, " Treasurer fourteen years." One passage from the presenta- tion address, made by his excellency Governor Minor, so clearly expresses the sentiment of the community regarding Mr. Gay's official career, that its insertion is due to the memory of the man whom it honors.
" Your friends have witnessed with high gratification your career in pub- lic office for the last quarter of a century, being assured that the honesty, integrity, and impartiality which have ever characterized your discharge of public duty, have proceeded from a good heart and an honest desire for the best interests of the public."
Besides these offices, Mr. Gay represented the town in the state legislature. IIe was, also, an efficient offleer in the ecele- siastical society (congregational) of which he was a faithful member. Indeed, there was nothing which could promote the civil or social welfare of the community in which he was not in- terested and which he did not most cordially support.
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But the death of this useful and honored citizen soon eame ; and deep and hearty was the mourning of the afflicted town. At a meeting of the Warden and Burgesses of the borough, June 23, 1857, two days after his decease, resolutions were passed, expressive of the universal sorrow felt at his death. They testify to the great loss which the borough and the town ; the poor and the afflicted had experienced. They honor his public career as one of unswevering fidelity ; and his private life as "courteous, full of brotherly kindness and charity which never failed."
Mr. Gay married in Tolland in 1811, Sally Shepherd. They bad five children ;- Ann Elizabeth, who married Edmund Lockwood; William S., who died in infancy; William who has been successful in business as one of the Stamford Manufae- tury Company at the Cove; Edward, who died young, and Theodore, who died at nineteen years of age. . The first Mrs. Gay, who was a most excellent woman and a devoted christian, died January 16, 1822. Mr. Gay married for his second wife her sister, Ann Shepherd, by whom he had one son, Ed- ward, who is still living in Stamford, where he is held in honor. The second Mrs. Gay, an estimable lady, died in Stamford, December 18, 1851, aged 66 years.
HOLLY, WILLIAM HENRY, son of Isaac and Levinia (Bishop) Holly, was born here, May 5, 1798. His life was mainly spent in his native town, and the most of it in such services as gave him prominence in public affairs, and made him more familiar with the history of the town than any other man of his time. Descended in the seventh generation from John Holly, the pio- neer of this name, he seems to have inherited his ancestor's business character, and to have reproduced the same style of public life. Ile was for several years judge of probate for his district, which offlee he held to the last year of his life. He was also assistant assessor under the national revenue law. Hc died very suddenly, June 29, 1867. He married here, Caroline, daughter of Dr. Samuel Webb. He left at his death three daughters: Gertrude, Caroline, and Angie.
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HouGH, REV. JonN, D. D., was the son of Dr. Walter and Martha (Lockwood) Hough, and was born in Stamford, in the house occupied by Malthy Smith, Esq., 1783. He graduated at Yale in 1802, and commenced the study of theology with Dr. Moses C. Welch, of Mansfield, Conn., and subsequently studied with Rev. Joel Benedict, of Plainfield, and Dr. Hart, of Pres- ton. Ile was also in the first class of theological students under the teaching of Dr. Dwight. IIe was licensed to preach by the Windham Association-in 1805, and was appointed missionary to Vermont the next year. He was ordained in Vergennes, Vt., March 12, 1807, where he preached until 1812. In November of this year he was appointed professor of Greek and Latin in Middlebury college, and for twenty-seven years he here made proof of his fitness for teaching the classics and theology. llis biographer in the Congregational Quarterly, of October, 1861, says of him : " He was eminently successful as an instruc- tor." In 1839 he resigned his professorship, and went West, where he spent the next ten years in preaching. Losing his sight in 1850, he spent the remainder of his life with his sons. He died at Fort Wayne, Ind., July 17, 1861.
He married November 19, 1812, Lucy, daughter of David Leavitt, of Bethlehem, Conn., by whom he had two sons : John, who graduated at Middlebury college in 1838; and David Lea- vitt, who graduated in 1839. Mrs. Hough died at Fort Wayne, February 11, 1859.
HOYT, ABRAHAM, son of Benjamin, who was the son of Ben- jamin, who was the son of Simon the pioneer, was born in Stamford, in 1704. He was a man of solid and substantial worth, and was much in public life. He was also an active member of the Congregational church for a good many years. He married here, November 27, 1729, Hannah Bates, by whom he had the following children: Abraham, born October 13, 1732, and died young ; Isaac, born September 15, 1734; Ezra, born April 23, 1737; Silas, born March 2, 1738-9; Sarah, born February 3, 1740; Thaddeus, born January 26, 1742; Rachel, born August 7, 1745, and died same year. He married for his
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