USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > History of the Second church of Christ in Hartford > Part 9
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This has the ring of a real agitation. The allusions are unmistakable. For many years there had been Church of England people in Stratford. In 1723, an Episcopalian Church was founded there, the result of missionary labors. In 1713, the trustees of the Collegiate School had appointed Rev. Timothy Cutler as resident rector. He was a man of excellent learning and character. But, at the commence- ment in 1722, it was discovered that the rector and Mr. Brown, a tutor, had embraced Episcopacy, and that they,
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with two neighboring ministers, Samuel Johnson of West Haven and James Wetmore of North Haven, were contem- plating a voyage to England to obtain Episcopal ordination. The rector and tutor were soon excused from further ser- vices in the college, and the trustees passed a vote requiring all future rectors or tutors to publicly assent to the Saybrook Creed, and give satisfaction of their soundness of faith "in opposition to Arminian and prelatical corruptions," etc. The new converts to Episcopacy proceeded to England and re- ceived holy orders, and the Rev. Samuel Johnson, having returned to this country, was stationed for service in Strat- ford, about four years before Mr. Buckingham's Election Sermon. It is said that several other ministers of considera- ble character, were seriously meditating a declaration for Episcopacy, and were hopeful of carrying their congrega- tions with them. And the passage quoted from Mr. Buck- ingham's discourse seems to confirm this report.1
In 1727 an effort was made to reunite the two Hartford churches. The First Church was about to build a new house of worship, and the small and uncouth sanctuary of the Second Church needed to be replaced by some better building. At a meeting of the First Society in January, 1727, to consider of building a new meeting-house, it was voted:
" As it would be more for the honor, comfort, union, and ease of the town, and for the more easy and honorable support of the ministry amongst us, that one meeting-house may be built for the meeting of all the people that belong to the two societies, . that his Honor the Governor, Capt. Hezekiah Wyllis, Capt. John Sheldon, and Dea. Thomas Richards be a committee from this society to propose the premises to our friends of the new church, and endeavor that a meeting of said society may be gained to see if they are of our mind, and whether they will join with us to build a house for the public worship of God, and unite into one society." 2
The "new church " were not willing, and after a pro- tracted controversy between "those of the North side " and
1 Trumbull's Hist., 2: 33.
2 C. J. Hoadly in Hartford Courant, Jan. 18, 1868.
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"those of the "South side," within the First Society, as to where their new sanctuary should be located, it was finally decided to build "on the southeast corner of the burying lot," and there, in 1737, the "brick meeting-house " was erected, where the present house of worship stands.
The bell which hung in the turret of the old meeting- house,-the " Town Bell," as it is described,- and which was used, as has been stated, for both religious and secular pur- poses, was broken in 1725. The First Society appointed Mr. John Edwards, at the charge of the society, to purchase some suitable red bunting for a flag to be set up on the State House, to direct for meeting upon public worship. A joint commit- tee consisting of members of both the societies was ap- pointed to consider what should be done with the bell, whether to send it home to England, or to have it new cast in New England. It was sent to England, and a rate of £100 levied to pay expenses. When the new meeting-house of the First Society was erected in 1737, the Second Society was asked to share the expense of building the steeple in which to hang the common bell.
The Second Church must have been more or less agita- ted by the warm discussions concerning the improvement of church music, that prevailed throughout New England from about the year 1724, and in which the minister of the First Church is known to have taken a lively interest.
The Puritan settlers in this country brought their Psalm- books with them, for, next to the Bible, the Psalm-book was most precious. Ainsworth's version was used, and also Sternhold and Hopkins's, both of which had tunes, the former having forty-four tunes. The Bay Psalm-book, 1640, contained no tunes until the edition of 1698 was issued. The cultivation of music was almost totally neg- lected, and it gradually came to pass that in most of the churches the Psalm was "lined out " and sung to one of a few tunes that were traditionally preserved. These tunes, as has been noted in a previous chapter, became so varied
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by different local use, that no two churches sang them alike.
Few congregations could sing more than the five tunes, known by the names of York, Hackney, Windsor, St. Mary's, and Martyrs. Many clergymen strove, but vainly, for im- provement. In the latter part of the seventeenth century great difficulty was experienced in getting the Psalm sung at all, for total lack of skill. There was great "indecency " in that part of worship. Many congregations were compelled to omit singing altogether. This dull and doleful state of things continued, with little improvement here and there, well into the eighteenth century, notwithstanding the Bay Psalm-book of 1698, which introduced several of Playford's two-part psalm tunes. Rev. John Tufts of Newbury issued a collection of some thirty three-part tunes taken from Play- ford's " Book of Psalms," but substituted letters for notes, and Thomas Walter published in 1721 a new singing-book, the tunes of which were also copied from Playford, with an introduction in which the new way of singing by note was earnestly advocated. These innovations were stoutly re- sisted and reprobated by the churches, although, to their credit, the ministers generally advocated and urged them. The contentions which arose out of this endeavor to improve music in worship were painful and amusing.1 But the im- provement went on. Ministers labored for it, singing- schools were organized, new books were published, and gradually " singing by rule," in the use of selected tunes, gained ground and became established. Rev. Mr. Wood- bridge, of Hartford First Church, diligently endeavored to promote this reformation, but it was not until after his death that his church, about the year 1734, admitted the new way of singing. Mr. Buckingham was probably exercised in a similar manner in the Second Church, but with what suc- cess does not appear.
Rev. Mr. Buckingham rested from his labors in the year 1 See Ritter's " Music in America," for a sketch of the matter.
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1731, having been pastor of this church for thirty-seven years. He began his ministry here during the reign of William and Mary, continued it through the successive reigns of Queen Anne and George I, and ended it in the fifth year of the reign of George II. Quotations from the London Gazette, in his diary of 1710, concerning affairs in Eastern Europe, show that the dwellers on the Connecticut river were neither ignorant nor unmindful of events abroad. The policy of statesmen like St. John and Walpole, and the brilliant campaigns and victories of Marlborough were doubt- less discussed in Hartford. Were the wits of Queen Anne's reign also discussed ? Were Prior, Pope, Addison, Steele, Defoe, and Swift known here except by name? There is little to show that their writings were read by the colonists. That epoch was a sterile one, as respects literature in New England.
Mr. Buckingham had his "Milton on Comus," in 1711, and a few educated men like him may have had other books of that sort; but, in general, very little was thought of the advancement of literature and improvement in arts and sciences in the colonies. But there was progress during that period,-progress of colonization by the rapid increase of the descendants of the original settlers, progress of industry notwithstanding the repressive policy of the home govern- ment, progress of education and civilization. Everywhere new towns were springing up, and new schools and churches were planted. The newspaper made its appearance in Boston in 1704,- most notable appearance, too ! That small, insig- nificant Boston News Letter was as the stripling David to the Philistine Goliath of priestcraft. Another paper appeared in Boston in 1719, and soon others elsewhere. And, in 1721, a boy of fifteen was at work on his brother's paper, the New England Courant, after a free fashion that made Mr. Increase Mather indignant! The boy's name was Benjamin Franklin, playing with the theological lightning there in Boston ! Significant enough, that advent of Benjamin Franklin.
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There was progress here in Hartford County during those years, though the burden of wars had been heavy. The creation of a Superior Court in 1711, with one judge and four associate judges, and the appearance of prosecuting attorneys, and of such lawyers as Richard Edwards (grand- father of Jonathan), John Wadsworth, Thomas Wells, and Roger Wolcott, show a more enlightened and efficient ad- iministration of law.
Dr. Jonathan Bull, who began the practice of medicine in this town in 1722, had eminent standing in a profession which was then beginning to acquire distinction. In 1698, the forward step was taken by which the General Court was divided into two distinct houses, each having its own pre- siding officer. Henceforth it became known as the General Assembly, and confined its action more closely within the proper limits of legislation.
In 1719 a State House was erected. The General As- sembly had previously held its sessions in "the court chamber in the first meeting-house in Hartford." There was building of bridges and some road-making. There was marked improvement here and there in the style of private dwellings. The dress of the people was changed for the better in style and quality. Better furniture was to be found in houses, and more conveniences for the housekeeper. In 1715 the western post left Boston for Connecticut and New York once every fortnight in winter. Regular commu- cation between Hartford and New Haven was attempted in 1717, Capt. Munson having the exclusive privilege of trans- porting goods and passengers for a term of seven years. He was announced to start from New Haven on the first Mon- day of each month, except December, January, February, and March.1
But, at best, the town then was small and in rude con- dition. In 1756, the entire population of Hartford, including those living on the east side of the Great River, was only
1 Mem. Hist. Hartford County, vol. 1: 303.
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about 3,000, and five years later the population was estimated at about 4,000, of which number 1,588 lived in what is now East Hartford. There were probably not 1,500 people in the village at the time of Mr. Buckingham's death.
The private journal of Madame Knight, on her journey from Boston to New York in 1704, gives one glimpses into the condition of things at that time. Her route was by Dedham, " Billings," and Providence Ferry to the Narragansett coun- try; thence to Kingston, Stonington, New London, Saybrook, Killingworth, and New Haven. From New Haven she went by way of Stratford Ferry, Fairfield, Norwalk, Rye, and New Rochelle, to New York. Returning, her route to New Haven included Stamford and Milford. There is no men- tion of any kind of wagon or cart. The journey was made on horseback. Guides were required from post to post. The ways were extremely rough, and often wound through dense thickets. Along these ways, at considerable intervals, were rude huts in which one might find wretched lodgings and worse fare, and now and then an ordinary, with poor accom- modations. The people in these places, and in the outlying settlements, were poverty-stricken and boorish. The numer- otts intervening rivers were forded, ferried, or crossed in canoes. At Stamford there was a rickety bridge, and Madame reached Norwalk by creeping over the timbers of a broken bridge.
Frequently she was in considerable peril of swollen streams and rivers. In places like Stonington, Killingworth, Fairfield, and New Rochelle, comfortable and clean enter- tainment was found. In New London, as the guest of Rev. Mr. Saltonstall, and in New Haven with friends there, she enjoyed a genuine hospitality. She tarried for several weeks in New Haven, and observed the manners and customs of the people there. Lecture days and training days were occasions of diversion. The victors at target- shooting were decorated with long red ribands in their hat- bands, and led away in triumph. "The chief Red Letter
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Day is St. Election "! The common people were too familiar with their slaves, sitting at meat with them. The Indians were more "salvage" than she had elsewhere seen. They had an easy way of divorce, by simply saying to their spouses " stand away," and the journal records, "these stand aways are too much in vogue among the English in this indulgent colony." A eurious wedding eustom is reported: "Just before joining hands, the Bridegroom quits the place and is pursued by the Bridesmen, who drag him back to duty, which is the reverse of a former practice among us, to steal the bride." A very intricate way of petty trade is described, which doubtless obtained elsewhere. Customers purchased goods for pay, or for pay as money, or for money, or for trust.
Pay was grain, pork, beef, etc., at prices fixed for the year by the General Court.
Pay as Money was produce as aforesaid, one-third cheaper than the legal rate.
Money was silver coin and also wampum.
An article worth sixpence in money, was worth eight- pence in pay as money, and twelvepence in pay. Trust, was as the parties may agree.
The people in New Haven, as elsewhere throughout the colony, were very plain in dress, and, though naturally witty enough, comparatively uncultivated in manners. This journal describes a country of wilderness aspect, without roads or bridges, dotted here and there with the cabins of poor, hardy, and industrious settlers, and marked, at long intervals, with small, isolated, and thrifty hamlets. In these villages, especially in the older ones, were a few people of quality and some wealth,- the aristocracy,- who possessed good houses and were characterized by no little culture. But the people generally were poor and frontier-like in their accommoda- tions and habits. The whole country lying inland and re- mote from either Boston and New York, was a sparsely set- tled wilderness, whose villages and villagers wore an aspect in general of nearly primeval rawness and rusticity. In
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many cases the descendants of the first settlers, in the second and third generations, were degenerate in respect of educa- tion, morals, manners, and modes of living. But this de- generacy was incidental and temporary. It was rather the superficial aspect of a people who, as they rapidly increased, were spreading themselves out on every hand, over new territory with scanty means for its subjugation and settle- ment. The sturdy Puritan stuff was in them yet, and the fruits of their hardihood were, in due time, to appear. Sad and simple toilers they were, who went forth into the wilderness, sowing precious seed with tears, whose children and children's children came again with songs, bringing their sheaves with them.
Elnathan Whitman
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CHAPTER V
THE MINISTRY OF REV. ELNATHAN WHITMAN, 1733-1737
REV. ELNATHAN WHITMAN, the third pastor of the Second Church in Hartford, was the grandson of Rev. Zechariah Whitman of Hull, Mass., and the eldest child of Rev. Samuel Whitman of Farmington, Conn., and Sarah, daugh- ter of Rev. Solomon Stoddard of Northampton. He was first cousin of Rev. Jonathan Edwards, whose mother was also a daughter of Mr. Stoddard. Samuel Whitman was one of the most eminent and influential ministers in Connecticut. He graduated from Harvard in 1696, and was settled in Farmington in 1706, where he lived and labored for nearly forty years. He was a trustee of Yale College from 1724 to 1746. His son, Elnathan, was born in Farmington, Jan. 12, 1708-9, and graduated at Yale College in 1726, where he served as tutor for four years, from September, 1728.
As the two late pastors of the Hartford churches died at about the same time, so their successors were almost simul- taneously settled. Rev. Daniel Wadsworth was installed in the First Church, Sept. 28, 1732, at the age of twenty-eight, and Rev. Elnathan Whitman in the Second Church, Novem- ber 29th of the same year, at the age of twenty-three. Both were born and bred in Farmington, and they were class- mates in Yale College.
Mr. Whitman's ordination sermon was preached by Rev. Jonathan Marsh of Windsor. His father had, a month pre- vious, preached at the ordination of Mr. Wadsworth. Mr. Whitman was a Trustee of Yale College from 1748 until his resignation in 1774, when the corporation entered upon its records the following minute :
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" The Rev. Mr. Whitman having repeated his earnest request to resign his place at this Board, on account of his advanced age and difficulty of hearing, we do with reluctance accept his resignation, and return him our hearty thanks for his many good services done to this college for a number of years."
Mr. Whitman married, somewhat late in life, Abigail, daughter of Colonel Nathaniel Stanley, Jr., a woman of remarkable strength of mind and character. She was directly descended from Thomas Stanley, an original pro- prietor of Hartford. Her grandfather, Nathaniel Stan- ley, a man of wealth and distinction, was constable, ensign, deputy, judge of the County and Probate Courts, and one of the Committee of War for Hartford County. Her father was Treasurer of the Colony from 1749 to 1755, and a man of wealth and influence. Of her brother, William, who left a large property to this church of his fathers, there will be occasion to speak hereafter. Her grandmother, Anna Whiting, was the daughter of Rev. John Whiting, first pastor of this church. Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Whitman, one of whom, William, was a physician. The eldest was Elizabeth, a brilliant, beautiful, and unfortunate woman, the romance and tragedy of whose career, subse- quent to her father's death, excited deep interest, and formed the subject of a book which was once widely read.1
.
A copy of this rare volume is in the Hartford Institute.
Mr. Whitman began his ministry here under happy auspices, but in a troublous time. For a few years the col- ony was undisturbed by external foes, but between the year 1740 and the Peace of Aix-la-chapelle, in 1748, it was involved in successive struggles, and the Committee of War, at Hartford, were busily engaged. Soldiers were recruited for the disastrous expedition of 1740 against Carthagena and Havana, from which not more than a hundred out of the one thousand New England soldiers returned home again.
1 " The Coquette, or the Life and Letters of Elizabeth Wharton, a novel founded on fact, by a Lady of Massachusetts, with a Historical Preface, etc., etc." Philadel- phia. T. B. Peterson & Bros.
MRS. ABIGAIL WHITMAN
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There were five hundred Connecticut men in the expedition of 1745, which captured the stronghold of Louisburg, and three hundred more were afterward despatched thither to aid in its occupation. A year later one thousand men were furnished by the Colony for a campaign against Canada.
Meanwhile the churches of the Colony were alike greatly blessed and sadly disturbed by unwonted religious awakenings and commotions which must be briefly de- scribed.
The state of religion was lamentably low throughout the Colony. The practice of the half-way covenant had proved detrimental to churches and ministers alike. In some quarters the Lord's Supper was treated as a converting ordinance, and people were urged to become church-mem- bers on merely formal professions not implying Christian experience or "any of the things in which godliness con- sists." The preaching and administrations of many min- isters partook largely of the prevalent formality and monotony. The Saybrook system, though supported by civil authority, had not secured universal order. The num- ber of those who disliked and disregarded its restrictions of ancient Congregational liberties had increased. There had been serious and protracted contentions at Guilford, Milford, and in other towns.
But shortly after Mr. Whitman's ordination, the "Great Awakening" of 1735 occurred. Jonathan Edwards pro- claimed the message of salvation in trumpet tones whose echoes were heard far and wide, and all the dry bones of this valley commenced to stir with mysterious energy. This great religious revival spread rapidly over Connecticut, and beyond, refreshing many communities with spiritual blessings, but giving rise, also, to sad excesses, disorders, and divisions, whose baneful consequences were felt for half a century. An account of this remarkable outpouring of God's Spirit was written by that man of grace and genius,
S
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Jonathan Edwards, in 1736, while as yet the rejoicing songs of a redeemed multitude were sounding in his ears, and his great mind and heart were full of a music like theirs. Little was then heard of "owning the covenant." Preach- ing took on unwonted power. Ministers labored with unflagging zeal, going from place to place, and everywhere found serious and glad welcome from the people. The work of grace was "wonderful" in many towns of this Colony. Mr. Whitman was one of those who then favored it. But many of the ministers in Connecticut stoutly opposed it. The style of preaching, the methods and mani- festations were condemned by them, as innovations. The catholic tendency of the movement was regarded with suspicion and aversion. In 1740 George Whitefield came hither and preached in his remarkable way in all the chief towns along the inland route from Boston to New York, awakening everywhere the utmost enthusiasm.
Mrs. Edwards's estimation of Whitefield's preaching appears in the following extract from a letter to her brother, under date of October 24, 1740 :
" He makes less of the doctrines than our American preachers gen- erally do, and aims more at affecting the heart. He is a born orator. You have already heard of his deep-toned, yet clear and melodious voice. It is perfect music. It is wonderful to see what a spell he casts over an audience by proclaiming the simplest truths of the Bible. I have seen upwards of a thousand people hang on his words with breathless silence, broken only by an occasional half-suppressed sob. He impresses the ignorant, and not less the half-educated and the refined."
And still the opposition to this work, which the General Association of Connecticut of 1741 described as " an extraor- dinary revival of religion in this land," grew stouter than ever. Just when there should have been unity and concord, there was deplorable division and strife. The reasons for this state of things are traceable partly to the blind conser- vatism of the "Old Light " men who could see nothing good in measures and manifestations before unseen, and partly to certain extravagances and fanaticisms which were the
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unfortunate but quite natural incidents of a religious awakening so wide-spread and exciting. Whitefield was a man of God, and his work and memory merit great praise, but his zeal outran his discretion. He was a creature of impulse and emotion, and one of that class of personally irresistible orators, the power of whose eloquence consists in the manner rather than in the matter of discourse, in the command of direct language, in the possession of remarkable elocutionary and dramatic skill, and in a homely pathos and passionate fervor. But he lacked self-control, could not patiently endure opposition or provocation, and was easily betrayed into the expression of sharp, censorious, and unjust criticisms of others. That he had great provocation here in Connecticut is unfortunately true, but much mischief was wrought by his apparent inability to resist such provoca- tions. At the same time, some of the revivalists, particu- larly the Rev. James Davenport, fell into frightful fanati- cisms, which tended powerfully to strengthen the opposition to the work, and to bring it into discredit.
But Jonathan Edwards, although clearly perceiving and deeply deploring the disorders and extravagances by which the work was attended, wrote a calm and masterly vindi- cation of the "Revival of Religion in New England," and pointed out " the error of those who have had ill thoughts " of it, "so far as.the ground of such an error has been in the understanding, and not in the disposition," namely,- "in not justly separating and distinguishing the good from the bad." Up to the time when Whitefield's first tour in New England was completed, Mr. Whitman seems to have been one of the many ministers who cordially approved and assisted the work of revival. But afterwards, owing to the excesses and disturbances that ensued, he seems to have joined with those who regarded Whitefield with disfavor, and labored to counteract the disturbing operations of the new enthusiasts. But opposition only served to make the itinerant fanatics more violent and disorderly in their
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