History of Torrington, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1737, with biographies and genealogies, Part 53

Author: Orcutt, Samuel, 1824-1893
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Albany, J. Munsell, printer
Number of Pages: 920

USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Torrington > History of Torrington, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1737, with biographies and genealogies > Part 53

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Son of John and Jane (Lewis) Mills, was born in Kent, Ct., May 17, 1743, and was the fifth child and fourth son in the family. His father was a native of Windsor and his mother of Stratford. The family was somewhat celebrated for its proclivity to ministerial life. Two of his uncles and one cousin were ministers. Jane, a sister of Samuel J., married Rev. Joel Bordwell, long the pastor at Kent ; Sarah, another sister, married Rev. Jeremiah Day of New Preston ; Edmund Mills, a younger brother, was a well known min- ister in Massachusetts ; and the widowed mother married Rev. Phile- mon Robbins of Branford, when she was sixty-six years of age, and lived to be eighty-six, dying in 1798.

Samuel John Mills (for so he wrote his own name very frequently, although there is no John in the name on the original family record), was thoroughly schooled in the religious principles and practices of the age of his youth as is evident from the remark he made while walking with a friend by the house in which he was born, " Yonder :" said he, " did my father direct my little brother to go night and morn- ing, and call upon God ; and yonder, behind that other object did he charge me to go and perform the same service." After spending some of his years in work upon his father's farm, he was fitted for college under the instruction of the Rev. Joel Bordwell, the pastor of his native place, and was graduated at Yale college in 1764, at the age of twenty-one, and outlived all his classmates. He was licensed by the Litchfield South Association at Kent, Feb, 7, 1766, having pursued a course of theological studies during the two preceding years, with his pastor Rev. Joel Bordwell. In the spring of 1767, Mr. Mills was preaching as a candidate at Wilton, Fairfield county, and on the fifth of March that society " voted to call Mr. Mills ;

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fifteen in the negative." This invitation was not accepted and on the first of the next July they renewed the invitation, by "a great majority," says the record, only fourteen in the minority ; and in October they repeated the call, only fourteen in the minority. Still the invitation was not accepted, and in February the society made another effort, appointing a large committee to call upon him and if he could not be obtained, to seek another candidate."I But they did not prevail, Mr. Mills evidently being determined not to become the pastor of a divided people, and yet his excellence was so apparent that the people of that place persisted in giving him a call about once a quarter during a whole year.

From the records of the Litchfield Association, it appears that according to their rules Mr. Mills offered himself, Sept. 20, 1768, for examination in order to being approved of for ordination in the work of the gospel ministry over the church and people of Torring- ford and was examined and approved and recommended to them as a meet person, qualified to settle with them in that work, and probably began to preach in that place about that time. In February, 1769, the people of that parish gave him a probationary call, and in March a call to settle. They offered him a settlement of two hundred pounds, to be paid in three years in annual instalments, and a salary of fifty-five pounds to be increased five pounds yearly until it reached seventy pounds, to be paid one-half in money and the other half in wheat, rye and Indian corn at the market price, and his firewood. Mr. Mills accepted the call and the society appointed Shubael Gris- wold, Elijah Gaylord, Jabez Gillett and John Strong tavern keepers for the ordination, and the consociation of Litchfield county met at the house of Nehemiah Gaylord on Tuesday June 27, and examined the candidate, and on Wednesday June 28, 1769, he was ordained to the work of the pastorate among this people, there being eleven ministers present and thirteen delegates, the Rev. Jonathan Lee, moderator, Rev. Daniel Farrand, scribe, and Rev. Joel Bordwell of Kent preaching the sermon.

At this time Torringford had been settled about twenty-five years, the forests much of them had been cleared away, several mansion like framed houses had been erected, the meeting house was stand- ing, though in an unfinished state, and the general community was composed of such a number of families, of such substantial charac-

I Wilton Records.

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HISTORY OF TORRINGTON.

ters and qualities of mind, to whom to preach should inspire the energy, intellect and heart of any man, at any time and any where, and Mr. Mills knew that he had a strong parish and a noble people, for he had sufficient discernment to judge intelligently on such a matter, and hence he began his ministry with great courage and re- solution as being assured of success in his high calling and of doing much good to his fellow men, for without such endowments of mind he would never have made the record he did, and this inbred victory and strength went with him through life. He was not at a loss to know what to do or whither to go to find some work to do, but was always pushing on, as if already too much work was laid before him and he must hasten or some part of the harvest field would suffer loss, and hence the perpetual inspiring, new life in his soul, grasping the world of nature as intellectual food, and throwing out light and life until every man, woman and child, and all classes and conditions, all circumstances and places felt the inspiration of his inward, yet outgoing, conquering victory over sin and death, through the might of the gospel which he preached. Such was the beginning of this man of God who went out on one mission, determined on having but one, and in that one to devote all of life, all of powers and faculties, all of sentiments and sensibilities, and aspirations and in- terests for two worlds or for thousands, if there might be as many, that the great end sought should not fail for lack of oneness and purpose on his part, and, as Alexander conquered, he conquered, as Napoleon triumphed he triumphed, and as Wellington rested, so he rested, at the end, before he was glorified.

This oneness of purpose with high courage and love for the work, was the secret of his great success, and that also of his son, the missionary prince.

Mr. Mills, after preaching two years in this parish, married Esther Robbins of Canaan, Nov. 19, 1771, a woman of most amiable quali- ties, and possessing very appropriate qualifications for the position which she so honorably filled many years. She was the great angel of comfort, strength, support, guide and help to her husband and family, and standing in such relations and rendering such aid, she did the highest work that woman can do in the life that now is, which work is equal to anything that man can do, only that the man takes the heaviest of the work and the hardest of the toil while the woman takes the lighter and easier part. Mrs. Mills was honored, loved and appreciated while living, and greatly missed and lamented when

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gone. She died Dec. 30, 1809. The following extract reveals still further the character and life of this truly noble woman :

" I remember very well Mr. and Mrs. Mills and their family, for I lived near neighbor when young and in after life lived in their family some years. Mrs. Mills was slight built, fine cut features, mild and lovely in appearance ; a perfect lady. I can hear her gentle ' how do you do Fanny,' even now, spoken when I was a little girl and used to go in there. She was a true Christian ; a thorough student of the Bible, and practiced daily what she studied, and to her was intrusted the principal management of the family, owing to her husband's many duties and his perfect confidence in her skill and ability for the responsi- bility. Her influence was everywhere that of a refined Christian woman. She was sometimes called stingy but that was not true. She gave as the Bible teaches. To the needy she was very generous, but was not always inclined to give to the rich. She was a close calculator, and necessarily so, for her hus- band was a careless giver, giving to any one who asked, yet he had the utmost confidence in her judgment on such occasions, and when she would gently re- monstrate saying, 'I don't believe it is best this time' he would reply ' I believe you are right ma'am, I think you are right ma'am !'"

Such was the impress of this woman in her home, inwrought there by her marvelous sweetness of spirit, wonderful skill and Chris- tian love that the inspiration still abides on the community, and will for many years to come. Everywhere she is spoken of in the same spirit of admiration and sweet remembrance, and every year, by strangers from afar as well as neighbors in the old parish, is her grave stone the witness, by the moistened eye and quivering lip, of the far reaching influence of her life, in her home and in her hus- band's parish. Nearly seventy years after she ceased to toil on earth, is the fragrance of her life a balm for the consolation and inspiration of great numbers who through seas of conflict are following her to the land of fame and eternal peace ; yes, even the far off islands of the sea, to the ends of the earth have heard of the fame of the mother of Samuel J. Mills, Junior.

Mr. Mills's pastorate extended through many years of peculiar difficulties and trials as connected with the history of the community and the country. While the southern part of Torringford parish had been settled twenty-four or five years yet much of the northern portion had been but recently taken up, and the settlers were in their log houses, clearing away the forests, and were not under circumstances to render that support, materially to a minister and parish, as would have been advantageous, even in a community where such wants were few. Five years only had passed, in which but little had been accomplished except the preparations to live and commence his work, when the rumblings of the war chariots of the Revolution began to be heard, and the fearful con- flicts which were to continue seven long and dreary years, were introduced ; and when that exhausting conflict was past, there came another wave of disin- tegration of religious society, that was worse than the war to dishearten the

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minister, regarded by a large proportion of the people as the " prevailing infi- delity of the age," during which the constitutional law of the commonwealth in regard to the support of the gospel ministry was changed, and a number of the most able and influential members of the community withdrew their allegiance to the standing order of religious societies and gave heed to anything they chose. save only that it was outside of the old forms. A growing dissatisfaction with the established forms of church support and rule had been experienced from 1741, until it culminated in the change of the state constitution in 1784, and from that time it took new force, assumed new prerogatives, and marched on with greater rudeness toward the established order, until it reached its second triumph in full denominational equality in the new constitution of 1818. The parties both misunderstood each other, and neither understood themselves. The spirit and principles of freedom which drove the pilgrims from the old world to the new, was destined to overthrow the order of the churches which had reigned more than a hundred years, almost without an objection, as cer- tainly as effect followed cause, but the fathers of 1790 saw it not, nor knew the power that was moving in the midst of them although they had planted and cherished it from the first. The law of freedom that would uphold a puritan in withdrawing from the established church in England would uphold an Epis- copalian, or one of any denomination, in withdrawing from the established church in Connecticut or America ; but this was not generally perceived, and when it began to be felt the faithful church member was greatly grieved and dissatisfied.

On the other hand the dissenter to the established order scarcely knew the power that moved him or what he wanted save his own choice and judgment about something connected with religious life. He was called " infidel," or "free thinker " and accepted the name, and then joining himself to another denomination did double duty, supposing he had escaped some grievous op- pression, scarcely knowing what. In Newfield in this town this was peculiarly illustrated in 1803, when a man dissenting from supporting the old church, subscribing towards the building of a new church, signed himself " a free thinker," and explained the meaning by saying: "that is, if I think wrong at first I have a right to think again." It is very evident that this man did not know what he thought, only that he wanted to enjoy his inherited right to think for himself, and least of all does it appear that he was infidel.

Of those who withdrew from the support of the Torringford church Dr. Samuel Woodward was the most prominent, but several others were decidedly of the first class of mind. Dr. Woodward was called "infidel," but was as far from rejecting the Bible as anybody in Torringford. Yet he did object with a multiude of others, many of whom did not withdraw from the society, to the fatalism preached in those days as the highest honor to an omnipotent Jehovah, and as a matter settled in theology, which no man had a right to question. Instead of being infidel, it is stated that he was at one time at least, so exercised in religious things that he was almost incapacitated for the regular performance of his professional duties, and to the close of life manifested the greatest respect for and confidence in true Christian life. But in those days a man could not object to the formulated statements of doctrine, without being called " infidel, freethinker," or worse names, for there were worse used, that had no more foundation in truth than these, when applied as they frequently were, to the most trifling objections to theological statements. There were then two causes, which led directly to the withdrawing of quite a number of

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substantial men from the support of the Torringford church ; the interpreta- tions of freedom, as maintained in political economy, applied to the privileges of religious life ; and under this application there grew up a decided objection to some of the doctrines taught by the standing order. Through all these pecu- liar difficulties Mr. Mills moved with steadiness, fidelity, and a large degree of conservative social kindness, but never wavering a single moment from the doc- trinal line on which he started, but if anything, held closer thereto, as if very life depended upon the questions against which objections were made ; nor did the community here (as well as everywhere), become fully settled in its relations to ecclesiastical privileges until 1818, and soon after which Mr. Mills was supplied with a colleague. Notwithstanding the times and circumstances which surrounded Mr. Mills in his labors, the church prospered more than many that surrounded it in neighboring towns, and came to have a name more illustrious than most others in the county or in the state.

It is said that there was some considerable revival in 1773, 1782, and 1793; and that of 1799, was very remarkable and brought with it permanent and lasting blessings to the people, and prosperity and increased strength to the church, for after it the withdrawing from the support of the society almost entirely ceased for many years.1 There were also revivals to some considerable extent in the years 1816, 1821, 1827, and 1831.

1 The following account of that revival was given by Rev. Father Mills, in the Evan- gelical Magazine in July, 1800.

"In the latter end of August, 1798, unusual religious appearances commenced in this place, especially among the young people. They met weekly by themselves. Their num- ber constantly increased, until it was found that a private room would not contain them. They then repaired to the meeting.house, where they prayed, sang, and conversed on re- ligious subjects. An event so extraordinary excited a spirit of general inquiry throughout the society, and several weeks, and even months passed away, while as yet one was scarce able to decide whether any deep or powerful impressions were on their minds or not, unless in a very few instances. In the meantime an unusual solemnity appeared on the counte- nances of the people in general. And those who, antecedently to all this, had been much in prayer to God for a day of his divine power, " thanked God and took courage." Of course, conference meetings of a more general nature were appointed, and crowds were wont to assemble at such seasons. Thus things passed on, with but few instances of hopeful con- versions, until about the middle of the following winter. While our hopes and our fears had thus long been very sensibly excited by turns, as appearances varied, at this memorable period, it pleased the Great Head of the church, in a very peculiar manner, to show forth his presence and power in the midst of the people. So extraordinary a season for weeks, and we may say for months, we never witnessed. An answer to the inquiry whether the Lord was indeed among us or not, was now attended with no difficulty. The minds of many were greatly agitated, and unusual attention was paid to means of instruction. In the time of this extraordinary visitation, a goodly number of the people obtained hope of their recon- ciliation to God.

Having made this general statement, I shall now descend to some particular observations.

I. It is worthy of particular notice, that the work has been carried on with remark- able regularity. Little or nothing has been discovered of wild enthusiasm or disorder.

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MR. MILLS AS A MAN.I

On this topic the Rev. Abel McEwin, D.D., who in his child- hood and youth saw much of Mr. Mills, because living in an adjoin- ing parish writes :

" In person he was tall, large with well proportioned limbs; in attitude and action graceful. His face, large and round, in which was set a pair of bold, yet benignant eyes, was at once attractive and impressive. His gait, though stately was natural and easy. His finest appearance out of the pulpit was on horseback. He was a good judge and a better manager of a horse. Dressed

The subjects of the work have been as able and ready in any stage of it, to inform of the ground of their distress, as a patient to tell what part of his body was in pain. This, perhaps, may account for it, in a measure, that there has been so little open opposi- tion to the work. Such as wished to censure and reproach it, were confounded.

It may be observed -

II. As to the nature of the work, that it has been such, in the course and issue of it, as wonderfully to display divine power and grace, and to bring out to view the human heart. The subject of it, in the first stages of their concern, have generally been filled with surprise and astonishment at themselves and their past lives ; and seeing themselves in danger, have formed resolutions, and entered on measures to amend their situation. When led to a more full discovery of their own hearts, and to an increasing conviction of the impossibility of ever obtaining relief in their own way, they have felt very sensibly disturbed. They have been ready to plead in their own defence, while they dared to do it, that they could do no more than they could - that they never made their own hearts - and that it was out of their power to change them. They have contended also against God for showing mercy to others, while they were left - and even for giving them existence. But as their con- victions increased, they became sensible of the dreadful obstinacy of their own hearts, and found themselves growing worse and worse, till finally all hope disappeared, except what arose from the sovereign grace of God - from the consideration that he could, and that he would, have mercy on whom he would have mercy. They found their hearts so much opposed to God, to his law, and to the gospel, as to see that nothing short of divine power could ever subdue them. In the midst of all this, their proud and obstinate spirits would rise against that very sovereign grace which secured them from despair, and contained their only remaining hope of escaping divine wrath. But no sooner were they led to a discovery of the justice of God in their condemnation - to see and to feel that the law was right and holy, and hell their proper place- than they found their mouths shut, and their complaints at an end. They have readily acknowledged that God would be glorious in executing sentence against them. Thus have they been brought to resign themselves cheerfully, without any reserve, into the hands of God, to be disposed of as may be most for his glory - rejoicing that they were, and might be, in the hands of such a holy, just, and wise God, let their future situation be what it might. There have been among them such like expressions as these -' The character of God has appeared inexpressibly beautiful, even in the view of his pronouncing sentence against me ;' ' I wish that others might praise God, though I should perish.'

It has been no uncommon thing for the subjects of the work, whose chief distress and

I The paintings of Mr. and Mrs. Mills were burned with their house in 1822, and there- fore no portraits could be obtained for this work.

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in clothes of good material, well cut and adjusted ; his legs and feet decked with white topped boots and spurs ; a white wig upon his head in ringlets not lacking powder, over his broad shoulders, and crowned with a large smooth beaver ; in one hand a polished cane, in the other the bridle, he sat in the saddle, the boys thought, the generalissimo of Connecticut clergymen. On one occasion I rode at his left hand, his aid-de-camp. Familiarly he accosted adults and children of all classes by the way. At length, with all the presence of horse and man he reigned up to a house and called. A young lady presented her- self : " Daughter," said he, "give us a good noggen of cold water."

Dr. Charles Woodward M.D., who lived many years next door to him, says : " he had a stalwart form and I think the most remarkable physique I ever be- held."

anxiety antecedently arose from a sense of their being in the hands of God, unexpectedly to find themselves rejoicing in that very consideration - contemplating the glory and happi- ness of God as an object of higher consequence, and more precious, than their own personal salvation ; and all this, while as yet they have had no idea of having experienced any saving change of heart. They have in various instances apparently rejoiced in God's supremacy, and in being at his disposal, calmly leaving their case to his wise and holy decision, and have conversed in a language to which they never before was accustomed, and have gained the favorable opinion of others, while they have had no such thought respecting themselves. Instead of this, jealousies have often been excited in their minds, on finding themselves so calm and peaceful, that God had left them - that their concern was over, and have wished it to return again. And when at length, reflecting on their views and feelings, or by con- versing with others, they have ventured to entertain some feeble hope about themselves, it has been in various instances of short continuance. Within the course of a few days, or perhaps a shorter period, they have had such an overwhelming sense of the extreme sinful- ness and corruption of their own hearts, as to be ready to conclude it to be utterly impossi- ble that they should have any grace. This may account for a remark frequently made by themselves, and circulated by others, that they had given up their hope.

In consequence of becoming reconciled to the divine character, law, and sovereignty, to which before they were so much opposed, the character and work of Christ have been wont to appear unspeakably glorious and beautiful, as magnifying the divine law, and opening a way for the acceptance of sinners in such a manner as glorifies God, and exalts the grace and work of Christ, and lays them prostrate at his feet.

The great and essential difference between their former and present views and feelings, has very sensibly affected their own minds as well as the minds of others, especially in those instances in which they had antecedently distinguished themselves by their opposition to the doctrines of decrees, divine sovereignty, the absolute dependence of the creature on God, and his universal providence, and the duties of unconditional submission and disinterested affec- tion. To find themselves now attached to those very doctrines and duties, and lamenting their former blindness, has served to excite peculiar admiration and gratitude.

III. It may, perhaps, be proper to notice that the Great Head of the church has by no means confined himself in the display of his grace to persons of any particular rank or age. Children and young people of both sexes, and heads of families of different ages, and, in one or two instances, such as were far advanced in life, are among the number who hope, though they once were blind, that now they see. The impressions were such on the minds of the children, in different schools, as led them to lay aside their customary diversions, and some- times to pass their intermissions in prayer, reading, or religious conversation among themselves. Such as were capable, requested it as a privilege that they might be allowed at school to

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History of Torrington, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1737, with biographies and genealogies, Part 53

Author: Orcutt, Samuel, 1824-1893 Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Albany, J. Munsell, printer Number of Pages: 920

Author: Orcutt, Samuel, 1824-1893
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Albany, J. Munsell, printer
Number of Pages: 920