USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 17
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15 dols. per month and board himself." In 1830 Polly Lounsbury taught "at 8 dollars per month and board herself," while in 1835 the salary had soared to "18 dollars provided it shall average 25 scholars through the term-if less than 25, 17 dollars per month." To pay for the school costs it was decided "to raise the money by subscription and if not successful to lay a tax."
The first building we may still see and ad- mire in its integrity of proportion and material reflecting the honesty and purpose of those up- right settlers. In 1846 it was moved "by several yoke of oxen" to Parade Hill on what is now the Frederick Fisher farm and it stands in perfect condition very much as it must have looked the first half of the last century.
When the Fishers bought the place 25 years ago, the schoolhouse showed no signs of its former use. It has been used for shoemaking and forms and stitching machines and scraps of leather cluttered the floor. A spinning wheel indicated that as the shoemaking industry was waning in New Canaan, the women of the house took over the room.
Perhaps inside it used to look like a similar school built in 1805 in Northford, Connecticut, and undisturbed for a generation as it is on an isolated lane. Around the three walls run a wide shelf for a desk with inkbottle holes and pencil grooves. Below the desk was a bench graduated in height for the span of eight or so years of the children. On the fourth wall still stands the tall teacher's desk and stool, omi- nous in its severity.
The second building is preserved in a photo- graph taken about 1897. A slump in taste made it a dull affair. A central room was flanked by the woodshed on the left and the entrance on the right where the coats, hats, dinner pails and drinking water pail and dipper were kept. The location was across the road on the farmland of Samuel Pennoyer. In 1875 Miss Lucretia Bou- ton was the teacher and Old Canaan Parish names filled the list of children, Chichester, Tuttle, Pennoyer, Selleck, Slawson, Buckleys and Duryeas. Alas the Haits were no more in the district. A pupil and then a teacher there, Mrs. Alton Chichester remembered "three
rows of desks each seating two pupils, on the Southwest wall a blackboard and in the center a comfortable wood stove; the teacher faced the children on a raised platform and there were about 30 of us." S. B. Hoyt taught there in 1897 and though he doesn't quite remember the incident, one of his pupils well remembers "how you licked me."
What a gamut of experience this second building went through; the Civil War, the rail- road in 1868, great industrial growth and de- cline, the blizzard of '88, summer residents from New York, Brooklyn and the south, changing the use of the land. Newer ideas on education were coming, costs were rising-in 1889 the cost to the town was the unheard-of total of $321 or $8.23 a pupil! Even greater plans were under way and the building was moved by William Scott to Lambert Road where it was built into a home there. Only the banks of lilacs show where John Buxton's house had stood across the road, though the well still is there to remind us of the cool fresh water fetched over to the school to assuage the little scholars' thirst.
The third building reached a peak in taste and architectural style and in community spirit, generosity and cooperation. Franklin W. Anderson had his summer place where the Mayo home now is. When they came up from the city in May, his older daughter finished her schooling in the old schoolhouse. He began to plan a new school, and in 1903 it was complete. He gave the material, Luther Knapp, New Ca- naan dean of masonry, gave the labor, Mr. Bond and others gave their efforts and the town added some financing. It stands "high and handsome" to accommodate the newfangled basement heater and wide steps lead to the stately entrance. The windows are well-propor- tioned with fine shutters. Atop is a Captain's Walk, until recently bordered with a rich bal- ustrade. Inside there is a beautiful door, win- dow trim and chair-rail and an open fireplace. Slate blackboards are between the windows and there was a raised dais for the teacher. A well was dug and, all in all, where was there a finer building for a one room school?
The first teacher was Miss Carrie Chiches-
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ter, next Miss Nancy Olmstead. Miss Anita Raymond who still guides our young at Center School, was well remembered by a pupil, James Scott. And Miss Raymond will never forget her first year of teaching in the little brick building. She had gone there herself, and upon graduating from high school, returned at 17 to teach, not much older and certainly smaller than some of her charges.
Miss Grace Elwood, now Mrs. St. John, taught 11 years and "they were 11 very won- derful years. There was time to get acquainted with each child through his six years in the little room. They all felt that they belonged to each other. The high moment of each year was the Christmas party in the evening. Each mother outdid herself in wonderful cakes. A huge tree stood in the corner and, surprisingly and miraculously, each year Samuel Tuttle, dressed as Santy, climbed in through the win- dow and did His Honor's duties."
One of the first pupils was Mr. Anderson's daughter Ida, now Mrs. Jimenis, and the roster includes many who now commute or work or shop on Elm Street. A new era of central schoolhouses made its use obsolete, and in 1934, its doors were closed and the children rolled on rubber tires over macadam streets to Center School and for the first time the earliest settlers' children began to receive their school- ing away from the Old Church, or Fourth, or Church District, as it was variously called.
In 1939 a group of garden-minded women borrowed the little brick building from the new owners, the Rush Taggarts, and organized a Garden Center. The building is lent for use to any group desiring it; the New Canaan Horti- cultural Society has held meetings there monthly with great regularity. There are lec- tures, educational displays, horticultural ex- hibits and fairs and meetings. In cooperation with the New Canaan Garden Club, there are
several named plant collections. Along the stone wall are the barberries and azaleas, her- baceous peonies line the gravel walk to the Center and on the west is a white lilac walk terminating in a huge circle of colored lilacs with tree and herbaceous peonies. Collections of dogwood, euonymous and evergreen ground covers are being started.
The Garden Center's activities are varied. Two hundred and fifty trees have been labelled on the school grounds and park; a series of ar- ticles run in the Advertiser on New Canaan Tomorrow; the green court planned by a mem- ber and planted in cooperation with nearby garden groups; educational displays are often placed in town store windows; monies have been given to the poison ivy campaign, the East Avenue Park, to Christmas school and doorway competitions.
During the war the food effort was helped, by maintaining a town plant, seed and produce exchange for three years, a winter storage cellar in Miss Child's property, horticultural lectures for school children and the backing of the Children's Gardens and individuals' vege- table gardens. A lovely Memorial Gold Star Flowering Tree Walk was planted along the lake in Mead Memorial Park for our veterans who will never come home again.
The first president was Mrs. Cyrus Merrill, then Mrs. Joseph Campbell, in 1941; Mrs. H. Wyckliffe Rose, '42, '43, '44; Mrs. John R. Milli- gan, '45; Mrs. Kenneth Faile, and now Mrs. Howard C. Judd. The Garden Center has re- ceived from the Fairfield County Planning As- sociation a silver cup for the Memorial Walk, and two awards of merit. The spirit of Church Hill carries on in the Garden Center's aims, "the object shall be to serve as a source of in- spiration and knowledge for the entire com- munity in all matters relating to horticulture."
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Geoffrey Baker's First Prize Winner in the Photographic Contest held by The New Canaan Historical Society in 1947. An Interior View in the Northam Warren, Jr. Home on Silvermine Road
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ST. MARK'S PARISH
This article includes selections from Bishop Stephen E. Keeler's address on May 13, 1934, as prepared by the Rev. Michael R. Barton and edited by Mrs. Eugenie Carver.
EDWIN EBERMAN, Artist
[December 23, 1947]
The history of St. Mark's parish begins with the founding of St. Paul's parish, Norwalk, organized in 1737 and of St. John's parish, Stamford, organized in 1742. Canaan parish, comprising the territory covered by the pres- ent township limits, was made up of land ceded by both Norwalk and Stamford and or- ganized as a parish in 1731. From 1731 until the building of the first church of the "Episco- pal Society" in 1764, the early settlers, who were "professors of the Church of England," if they attended service anywhere else than in the meeting house, went either to St. Paul's, Norwalk, or St. John's, Stamford.
The two men most prominently associated with "professors of the Church of England" as spiritual pastors during these early days were the Rev. Jeremiah Leaming, D.D., Rector of St. Paul's, Norwalk, and the Rev. Ebenezer Dibble of St. John's, Stamford.
Dr. Ebenezer Dibble was as familiar a figure in the Stamford side of Canaan parish as was Dr. Leaming in that of Norwalk. He was born in Danbury, and a graduate of Yale in 1734. He, like Leaming, secured ordination in Eng- land in 1748. In 1748 he began his work in Stamford and for a time he labored, too, in Ridgefield and parts of Westchester County. Living in Stamford, a greatly beloved figure, until his death in 1799, he was able to survive the Revolution without harm either to his per- son or his property although he constantly re- ferred to it "as an unjustifiable rebellion." His personal popularity was probably his defense. These two men will evidence the fact that even in the early days, churchmen in Canaan parish enjoyed the inspiration of men thoroughly
trained in theology, strong in their political convictions and of real missionary and pastoral enthusiasm.
The first date of local interest to churchmen in Canaan parish is that of May 13, 1764, when the frame of the first Episcopal Church was raised on land, later deeded by James Hait, about three-quarters of a mile northwest from this present Church. This building was erected on the north central portion of what is now known as the "Old Church burying ground." Dr. St. John, the Rev. David Ogden and others in historical addresses insist that the property was originally given by a Mr. Husted and ap- parently later deeded by Mr. Hait. His deed refers to a site "whereon the frame of a church now stands." St. John, Ogden and others also state that the church was raised May 13, 1762.
At the time of the giving of this deed by Mr. Hait there was no corporation entitled to hold this real estate, but that seems to have bothered no one.
"This first church building though so far completed as to be fit for public worship, re- mained for many years in an unfinished state. It is the general belief that it was never con- secrated to the worship of God, though Bi- shops Seabury, Jarvis and Brownell often visited here and held confirmation."
On November 15, 1791, a most significant step was taken by churchmen living in Ca- naan parish. They met and framed a separate parochial organization.
The first code of laws enacted in Connecticut in 1650 provided for the support of the Church as well as the State, and the Church was after the independent Congregational pattern.
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Edwin Everman.
St. Mark's Church
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From 1650 until 1708 every settler, quite ir- respective of his religious convictions or credal professions, was taxed to support this Congre- gational Church and this, too, in a land gov- erned by those who fled from England that they might have opportunity for freedom to worship God as they chose.
In 1708 the General Assembly passed what is known as the Toleration Act whereby per- sons were no longer punished for nonconform- ity but they were not exempt from taxation for the support of the Congregational Church. Persons could declare their "sober dissent" and proceed to worship God in their own way and in their own assemblies but they must support the State Church. This was in reality a double burden, for the "professors," though permitted to support their own church, were also taxed for the State church.
On September 9, 1792 it was voted that the Constitution of the Convention of the Bishop, the Clergy and Laity meeting at New Haven, June 6, 1792, should be adopted. This signifi- cant action brought Canaan parish under the jurisdiction of the Rt. Rev. Sam'l Seabury, first Bishop of Connecticut and first Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.
Of the personalities associated with St. Mark's parish in the early days, Captain Ste- phen Betts was one of the most outstanding. Prominently associated with battles of the Re- volution, he was a soldier of the sword as well as the Cross. He was a knightly soul, a devoted patriot and Christian gentleman, first warden of St. Mark's Church; the man to whom, under God, the Episcopal Church of Canaan parish is indebted for more than it has remembered or will ever know.
Captain Betts is a vital link between the old parish of St. Paul's, Norwalk, the first church of "the professors in Canaan parish," and the present St. Mark's. This present property was secured from Richard Fayerweather who, while not a churchman, was a particular friend of Miss Harriet Betts, a daughter of our pa- triot founder, Captain Stephen Betts. The So- ciety's committee was finding it difficult to
secure a new site until Miss Harriet Betts pleaded with and finally prevailed upon Mr. Fayerweather to sell a portion of his property for the new church. This site cost $200 of which amount Captain Betts and Edward Nash gave $100 each. On April 25, 1832 Cap- tain Betts was chosen to serve on the building committee with Edward Nash, Samuel Ray- mond, Stephen Betts and D. S. Knight.
Captain Betts is therefore associated with the old Church, with the organization of the Episcopal Society of Canaan parish in 1791, with many years of wardenship in the old Church, with the purchase of the present site and with the building committee of the new church. He did not live to see it completed for this stalwart soldier of the State and Church passed away on November 28, 1832, aged 76 years. He is buried in the old Church yard and his simple head stone reads, "In memory of Stephen Betts who died Nov. 28, 1832, aged 76 years." His wife, Ruth Church, survived him several years and is buried beside him while a few graves away lies Jesse Betts whose stone records the fact that he was "coloured." It was then customary for slaves to take the family surname.
Our narrative now comes to a description of this present church, consecrated May 6, 1834. The description comes from the pen of the Rev. Charles R. Abbot, one of the three men to have entered the ministry from this parish.
"The Church as first built had a hall across the front. At the west end of the hall a stairway led to a gallery over the hall. In the east end of the hall was the S.S. library. There were short seats against the east and west walls and two rows of pews in the square body or middle part of the room. There was at that time no recess for the chancel and altar as now. There was an enclosed reading desk within the chan- cel where the whole services were said, and back of this and above it was the enclosed high pulpit to be entered by a door at the back of it which led to a very small vestry or robing room, a lean-to against the rear of the building. On the top of the front end of the building was a square cupola with the points extending up
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from each of the four corners. The windows were square cornered with comparatively small plain glass panes.
This was the building which Bishop Brow- nell consecrated May 6, 1834. His letter of con- secration is of genuine interest since this church is now the oldest consecrated building in the town. Moreover it is in this letter of con- secration that the name of "St. Mark's" first appears.
The letter of consecration reads as follows:
"Whereas, sundry good people of the town of New Canaan have erected a building for the wor- ship of Almighty God according to the Liturgy and offices of the Protestant Episcopal Church and have requested that the same may be consecrated agree- ably to the usages of the said church.
Now therefore, be it known that I, Thomas Church Brownell, by divine permission Bishop of the Diocese of Connecticut did this day duly con- secrate the said building to the service of Almighty God for the reading of His holy word, for celebrat- ing His holy sacraments, for offering to His gracious Majesty the sacrifices of prayer and thanksgiving, for blessing the people in His name, and for the performance of all other holy offices agreeable to the doctrines, liturgy and worship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and that the same did dedicate as aforesaid by the name of St. Mark's Church for the sole use of a congregation in communion with the Protestant Episcopal Church in the diocese of Connecticut.
In witness whereof, I have unto set my hand and affixed the Episcopal seal of the Diocese this sixth day of May, in the year of our Lord 1834 and of my consecration the fifteenth."
The first minister who really lived within the parish was the Rev. Charles J. Todd who was also in charge of the Ridgefield parish. He was to live one-half the time in New Canaan parish and one-half the time in Ridgefield. He made his New Canaan home in the homestead of Jo- nathan and Polly Abbott which once stood at the upper end of Smith Ridge on the present property of Harold B. Clark.
The Rev. David Ogden was another early Rector and serving twice. His two dates were 1837-1842 and 1843-1844. He may be said to
have been the first full time Rector and he was the first to have been instituted. His salary was $500 a year. He was a man of deep spiritual character, real learning and a sense of humor. His daughters kept a school in the village. He made a deep impression on his people which is evidenced in the chancel window, placed in his memory. He it was who ordered the re- moval from the top of the church of the rooster which served as a weather vane. His reasons were specific for he is said to have remarked "that so promiscuous a bird was no fit inspira- tion or guide for his congregation."
At a meeting held August 8, 1857, it was de- cided to remodel the church according to cer- tain plans submitted. "The principal changes were taking out the gallery, throwing the hall across the front into the main room, making a porch tower, steeple, changing all the win- dows from square to circular tops and with small panes, making a basement room under the rear of the church, taking away chancel rail, desk and pulpit and making a place for chancel and altar by extending the robing room in the rear of the church." During these repairs the congregation worshipped in the old Town House west of the church afterward the Congregational Parsonage and now the home of Dr. George Ludlow. These changes in the building cost nearly $3,500 and a deficit of $1,200 was reported by the committee. The society ordered the vestry to surrender the "ecclesiastical stock" belonging to the society to the bank and apply the proceeds on the de- ficit. In January, 1859, the money was bor- rowed of the Norwalk Savings Bank and the treasurer was authorized to give a mort- gage on the church. The remodeled church was reopened by Bishop Williams on May 12, 1858, during the rectorship of the Rev. William H. Williams.
The Betts family must be given credit for the origin of St. Mark's Sunday School. Miss Esther Betts founded the school in 1833. She em- bodied the offices of superintendent, organist, librarian and teacher in her energetic person, for in her day there was no elaborate Sunday School organization.
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True to her inheritance of Betts thorough- ness and devotion to duty-Miss Esther went to Trinity Church, New York, in the early 1830's and spent several Sundays studying the Sun- day School administration inaugurated and carried on in that venerable parish.
The school had its quarters in the church building from its organization in 1833 until the improvements of 1857 provided a base- ment in the rear of the church under the chan- cel. This became the Sunday School room with the S.S. library in the little gallery under the steeple. Here the school was housed until 1893 when the present parish house was built.
It is a fact of missionary importance and interest in parish history that there are fre- quent references to sums of money granted to St. Mark's by the Archdeaconry of Fairfield County. From 1837 until 1880 there occur re- ferences of such missionary grants. St. Mark's was what you call an aided parish-a recipient of domestic missionary grants.
Of equal importance, in a missionary way, is the generosity of this parish in its contribu- tions for special educational and missionary ob- jectives. In one of the parish records there is an unusually careful listing of all communion alms and special offerings. From 1842 through 1871 our predecessors in this parish were giv- ing generously for such objects as Kemper Col- lege now Nashotah Seminary, for the mission- ary work of Bishop Chase in Illinois, for the Christian Knowledge Society, for the Aged and Infirm Clergy Fund, for the Freedman's Bureau, for the missions in Fairfield County, for Bishop Williams' Mission in China, for the Missions in South Carolina, for the endow- ment of Berkeley Divinity School, for Bishop Whipple in Minnesota, for Bishop Tuttle in the Northwest, for The Keble Memorial Fund, for the Society for the Increase of the Ministry. For these and other causes hundreds of dollars in specific amounts ranging from a few dol- lars to gifts of $100 went to the upbuilding of the work of the church at home and abroad.
This parish is responsible for an interesting definition of ritual from the lips of that witty
prelate, Bishop John Williams. From 1880-1883 the Rev. George S. Pine was the Rector. He was a faithful pastor, a scholar and a very de- lightful character but for this parish there were those who thought him a "high churchman" and too ritualistic. Accordingly when the Bishop came, two ladies, prominent in the Sew- ing Circle and church affairs generally, spoke of the Rector's "high churchmanship." The Bishop thought their strictures too trivial for serious consideration and told them so. Where- upon one of them asked, "Well, then, Bishop, what is ritual anyway?" "My dear ladies," came the reply, "ritual is anything you are not used to."
After 1857 there were practically no struc- tural changes in the church, with the exception of the installation of a furnace in the 1880's, until 1921. In that year the chancel of the church was deepened, the choir moved from the body of the church to the chancel and this great improvement was a memorial to Carrie Ransom Thayer. At this time, too, the pews were given their present color (they were for- merly a lead gray) while the golden oak of the old choir and chancel furniture was mercifully removed. The repainting of the church exterior in white was a vast improvement over the cu- rious brown-the color of the church before this time. It may also be of interest to know that the present large stepping stone just out- side the door of this church was the old horse block upon which, in front of the old church, the ladies alighted from their horses, oxcarts and springless box wagons.
The history of 1791-1797 showed a total of 41 family names belonging to the Episcopal Society. In 150 years that list has grown to nearly 600 familics. For the last 113 years the successors of the old "professors of the Church of England" have worshipped in the present Church building. Perhaps the atmosphere of devotion which so many seem to find in this Church may be traced to the steadfast loyalty which has marked its membership through suc- ceeding decades from Colonial times to the present day.
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BUTTERY MILL Saw Mill on the Silver Mine
GORDON BRINLEY, Author
LEONARD J. ROBBINS, Artist [December 30, 1947]
The Silver Mine River has made a countryside famous. The beauty of its curving, tree-shaded banks, the lovely reaches of its valley have drawn to Silver Mine workers in agriculture, workers in the arts, and in the crafts from many a distant land; and held them through the years with bonds of friendship and admiration for the fine and generous qualities of her native sons and daughters.
Our coming to Silver Mine was the result of a conversation with the wife of Charles Caffin, art critic. When we were leaving Paris where he was working, he said: "Do go to see my wife when you get to New York." So there we were, in her living room, one day of early spring in
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