USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Landmarks of New Canaan > Part 59
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By the end of the first decade the Rev. A. H. Ferguson, J. D. Marshall and Jacob Shaw, the trustees, stewards, and the "Perseverance Society," with the aid of the "Gentlemen Col- lectors," had paid off a $1,200 mortgage on the parsonage. For its tenth birthday, they gave the parsonage a coat of paint at a cost of $29. There secms to have been a good deal of stiff competition between the Perseverance Society and the "Gentlemen Collectors" as they raised their penny collections, for in a single year the Perseverance Society raised $75.37 and the Gentlemen Collectors $115.71.
At the annual meeting, 1852, Mr. Shaw,
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preacher, we find this minute: "That a vote of confidence be given the Perseverance Society and that their efforts be increased with increas- ing zeal." The G.C.'s needed no such prodding, or perhaps they did the voting. The Persever- ance Society later became the Mutual Aid and this in turn by 1880 was known as the Ladies' Aid Society-and since 1940 at the union of the Methodist Episcopal North and the Methodist Episcopal South, the women's work has been carried on under the Women's Society of Christian Service. All during the 110 years the women with the aid of the trustees have cared for the parsonage.
The decade prior to the Civil War was one of great growth for the Methodist Society. Only two, of the many events in the pastorate of Mr. Shaw are here mentioned. The first is the pur- chase by Agent Harvey Bouton of a piece of land adjoining Mill Pond from the blind miller, Justice Hoyt, for a new cemetery, at a cost of $50. In 1868 the trustees sold it to the New Canaan Cemetery Association for the sum of $450.
The other event was a signal day for the parsonage family, the parish and the entire Methodist Episcopal Church. "Circuit Rider" Laban Clark, converted up in New Hampshire in 1800, at the home of John Wesley's former housekeeper, had been one of the founders of Wesleyan University, Middletown, in 1831. Now, twenty years later, Edward P. Shaw, son of the preacher, graduated in the class of 1851.
Colleges and seminaries had been established all across America by the church that had been keeping pace with the westward movements of population. This meant an educated ministry and laity alike.Young Edward Shaw settled down in the Methodist mecca of Redding, mar- ried into the Aaron Sanford family, practiced law, became a magistrate, and a life-long Local Preacher. ( His daughter, Emma Sanford Shaw, died in May of this year at the age of 99.) Mr. Shaw's nephew, S. B. Hoyt, graduated from Wesleyan, class of 1901, and his son, Justus Hoyt, class of 1931.
In fact, 17 of the 29 ministers who have oc- cupied the parsonage since 1860, have been Wesleyan men, and 17 of the parsonage sons,
including the writer's son, Robert W. Craig, class of 1937, and Jimmy Swain, 1953, son of Rev. and Mrs. J. R. Swain, constitute a goodly number. Also a number of laymen of the local church and community were graduates, their number including Clifford W. Hall, 1901, and his son, Dr. Charles S. Hall, 1935.
Lorenzo Dow Nickerson, a former comb manufacturer of Danbury, brought his English- bred bride here in 1853, and by 1854, one of the greatest revivals in the history of the church netted a total of one hundred and four members -out of one hundred and twenty-five converts. Only sixteen were dropped during the six months probation. The old Meeting House was bursting at its seams, and the Rev. Harvey Husted led in the building of the present edifice at a cost of $6,700, dedicated December 21, 1854, by Bishop E. S. Janes.
[September 6, 1951]
As the new edifice was about to get underway, the "Old Meeting House" inched its way slowly up Main Street, a rather narrow lane-doubt- less drawn by several yoke of oxen to its new location opposite the Birdsall House, where house-mover Butts of Danbury was to give it new under-pinnings. Church services were held as usual, but in the middle of Main Street, for two or three Sundays with much enthusiasm.
For many years it was to be Concert Hall and later Town Hall with the lock-up in the basement, and often used during the building of the New Canaan railroad in 1868. Horace Greeley came to New Canaan and spoke before a Lincoln Rally in Concert Hall in the fall of 1860. Mr. Husted's health failed soon after leav- ing New Canaan and he moved to Epworth, Iowa, where he died in 1871.
The work made rapid strides under Mark Staple and John Leonard Gilder in the next four years-as witnessed by the scores of adults baptized and received into the membership of the church. Mark Staple withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1861; and later -for a term of seven years-became minister
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of the Silver Mine Methodist Protestant Church, established in 1837.
J. L. Gilder might very well be called one of the boy prodigies of American Protestanism. Born in Bordentown, N. J., in 1816, made an Exhorter at twelve years of age (1828), a member of the Philadelphia Annual Conference at thirteen (1829), married in his seventeenth year; he and Mrs. Gilder had a family of four boys and eight daughters, and lived to celebrate their Golden Wedding in 1882. Mr. Gilder died in 1883 at the age of sixty-seven, having given fifty-four years to the ministry.
The Gilders spent two years in the parsonage and in 1860 purchased Church Hill Institute from David S. Rockwell, and remained there until 1868, when he sold it to Dr. Willard Parker for $12,000. He went from New Canaan to Riverdale School, New Brunswick, N.J., for the next three years.
His brother, the Rev. W. H. Gilder, was a member of the New York East Conference for thirty-three years, and his son, Richard Watson Gilder, was the American poet, and editor of the Century Magazine for a third of a century. Dr. Daniel Curry, editor of the Methodist Re- vicw said of John L. Gilder: "To have known him made me a wiser and a better man."
Calvin B. Ford, born in Milford, Conn., and trained at Wesleyan, came to the parsonage the year that Lincoln was elected to the presidency. Early in the spring of 1861 two Methodist boys answered Lincoln's call for volunteers after the firing on Fort Sumpter. One was Wilber F. Gilder, a parsonage lad for two years, now of Church Hill Institute, who became a first lieu- tenant in 98th Company, USCT, and the other was Charles Hunnewell, who within a few weeks, was a member of the Rifle Brigade in the Third Connecticut Infantry, fought in the battles of Warrenton and Bull Run, was mus- tered out after three months, August 12, and died of typhus, August 23, 1861. Thus becoming New Canaan's first casualty of the Civil War.
Two days later, the casket, draped in the American flag, and borne on the horse-drawn caisson, moved slowly behind the now-famed village band, playing funeral dirges, as they led the procession to the Methodist Church. But
the crowd was so large that the church could not hold them, and the pastor, Calvin B. Ford, had to conduct the service of loving tribute on the lawn in front of the church and parsonage.
After nine decades it is rather difficult to plumb the depth of feeling that possessed the people of the North, and particularly in the New England towns, as they faced the realities of the struggle between the states. Surely there was no unanimity of opinion in the several churches of New Canaan. This is borne out in particular by the attitude of the Congregational Church toward their resourceful minister, the Rev. Ralph Smith, who is said to have resem- bled Abraham Lincoln, and the Methodists with their talented William Toucy Hill. What solidarity there was had come about by twenty years of hard hitting by the Abolitionists.
Starting in Redding in 1838, they had moved into New Canaan by 1840 and the issue was sharply drawn and finds a striking example in the experience of the young Methodist layman and trustee, Selleck Y. St. John.
He hated slavery but did not wish to join the Abolitionists .. He had been induced to attend a lecture in the village on the moot question in the winter of 1840-41 and on the way stopped at the Methodist parsonage to advise with his pastor and friend, the Rev. J. A. Selleck, a staunch Abolitionist. After an hour of heart- searching young St. John left the parsonage in agony and with tears raining down his face.
As he walked and reasoned with himself the Tempter said "Is not the slave better off as he is than he would be as a free Negro?" But the Good Spirit said, "How about the Golden Rule?"
"And," he reasoned, "John Wesley says 'American Slavery is the sum of all villanies.' And I believe it. I will be an Abolitionist and accept the consequences. Thank God for the decision. I know that I am right."
He did pay the price as he supported the Liberty Party fanatics, the Free Soil Party and eventually the party of Lincoln. Later on, Sel- leck Y. St. John became postmaster, and cashier of the First National Bank of New Canaan, and a pillar of the Methodist Church.
Stirring days came to the village in 1862 when
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The original Methodist Church. It was moved in 1854 and now stands as number 125-9 Main Street. It served as Town Hall for years and Horace Greely addressed a political rally there in the first Lincoln campaign.
ninety-two of her lads joined Company H. 17th Regular Militia, State of Connecticut. ( All told 252 New Canaan boys wore the blue.) Late in the summer the entire company came to New Canaan and assembled between Birdsall House and Concert Hall to hear the parting words of the town pastors before entraining at Darien for Bridgeport.
The speakers were the Revs. W. H. Cook of St. Mark's Church, Ralph Smith of the Con- gressional Church and A. H. Mead of the Meth- odist Church. The huge crowd was deeply stirred as they sensed the reality of the bitter conflict and knew that the casualty lists would soon include many of the boys of Company H, now standing before them that very day.
The Rev. A. H. Mead, Wesleyan, class of 1842, gave himself to the law for four years,
and then to the active ministry for forty-one years. He brought four lovely daughters to the parsonage, one of whom married Alfred P. Sloan, prominent Brooklyn layman and busi- ness man. Their son, Alfred P. Sloan, jr., is the titan of General Motors and a great American and philanthropist.
The deep currents of the War Days came to an issue during the pastorate of William Toucy Hill, in 1863. He was a young Wesleyan Phi Beta Kappa, of Redding, and great-grandson of Aaron Sanford, first male convert of Jesse Lee in New England. From the Aaron Sanford family have descended twenty-five ministers of the Gospel-doubtless a record in Methodism when the size of the Redding community is con- sidered.
Mr Hill penned the following as he was leav-
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ing at the end of a one-year pastorate: "It may perhaps be interesting to leave on record as an index to the character of the times, that very early in the year seven members ceased to at- tend all services of this church because the pastor showed a disposition to speak, as occa- sion seemed to him fitting, in behalf of our bleeding country, and of the suffering slaves. One of these was expelled, four have with- drawn, and two remain members."
Mr. Hill, who greatly resembled Emerson, died in New Haven in 1917 at the age of eighty- seven-having been a member of the Confer- ence sixty-two years. The scholarly and deeply spiritual J. M. Carroll ( who had lost one arm in his boyhood) was educated at Amherst and Wesleyan. He brought his Bostonian wife, M. Louisa Prentiss to the parsonage in 1864 for three years, and again in 1874 for a like period.
The spirit of cooperation born among the churches during the stress of war, now finds a practical channel in the Band of Hope and Sons of Temperance during Mr. Carroll's first pas- torate. He was known also for his tact, and Mrs. Carroll's charm is said to have lent itself to "match-making" among the young people.
At any rate from 1864-67 we find the record of fifteen marriages, and among them Charles W. Hall and Mary E. Sherwood, father and mother of Miss Eda Hall and Clifford W. Hall. Of all the thirty-nine ministers serving the church, J. M. Carroll alone has left the record of "fees received." James M. and Louisa Pren- tiss Carroll rest in New Canaan's beautiful God's Acre. The biographer of W. F. Collins -- self educated Greek and Hebrew scholar, and pastor here for the year of 1867-says: "As Wolfe fell victorious at Quebec, so fell Collins victorious in Fair Haven." He died in the pulpit in 1870.
The trustees' records indicate that S. M. Hammond was a keen business man, and they gave him much responsibility in raising the money for the horse-sheds, which were erected and paid for, and the cupola turret which was made ready for the 1,022-pound bell, that has pealed from the turret since July, 1869.
Sunday, July 11, 1869, was reopening day and one of the highlights of the service was the
presentation of a $500 check "by a group of Christian young men who had raised the money for the purchase of the bell, among their Chris- tian friends of New Canaan and New York." "And the minister was greatly delighted," says the report in "The New Era" of that date. "Within ten years after the bell was dedicated, it was summoning each Sunday 225 of the 556 families in town."
S. M. Hammond, who was a direct descen- dant of Mayflower Aldens, an able preacher, and a reformer "kept no napkin convictions hid away from the world." His son, F. H. L. Ham- mond-two years of age when the Hammonds came to the parsonage, was truly one of the "St. Johns" of our Conference. Another son, Samuel Hammond, was a noted oculist in Hart- ford.
The dedication of the bell in the turret raises the oft repeated question: "Did the Methodist Church ever have a steeple?" The answer is "Yes." for the first seven years this edifice, like the Congregational and Episcopal churches, was graced with a steeple. But during the pas- torate of Calvin B. Ford, on a wild February night in 1862, a great wind hurtled the stecple to the ground and "smashed into kindling wood" this thing of grace and beauty. Dr Theodore Roberts, of homeopathic fame( also a dentist) living on Cherry Street (Dr. Tun- ney's house ) ran into an unusual "road block"- none other than the church steeple -- on his way driving home from an early call on a patient.
One of the young men of the parish, looking upon the fallen timbers said: "How low our names are fallen to the ground," for most of the young chaps had carved their names high up in the steeple. But I am quite certain that Preacher Ford, Dr. Roberts, and the entire vil- lage of New Canaan, in almost painful nostalgia, would have chanted in unison the words of Joseph Auslander:
"I never pass a steeple by,
But I must stop awhile and linger, And catch my breath to see the sky Take hold of Prayer's tremendous finger, And lift my heart on high.
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"Heaven is surely not too far To reach to: any quiet town Is in God's keeping where you are; You reach up: He reaches down As steeples touch a star."
The little hill town of Woodbury-Breakneck District-gave Dartmouth College its first presi- dent, Bennett Tyler. It was rooted in the New England Orthodox and Episcopal churches. Bennett Tyler's sister, Sarah Tyler Abbott, was "disfellowshipped" by the Congregational Church of Woodbury as a "disorderly person" for becoming a Methodist. But her arguments and "unction" converted the ablest member of the committee, sent to "reclaim" her, and gave him to Methodism, as a local preacher for the next forty years. Ninety of her descendants be- came Methodists and established three churches in and near Waterbury; she also gave two sons and five grandsons to the Methodist ministry.
Two of these grandsons, Bennett Tyler Ab- bott, and A. V. R. Abbott, served the New Canaan church with rare ability and devotion in the 1870's. W. C. Abbott, a little lad of the parsonage, graduated from Wesleyan, as did his four sons, and became a prominent layman in Babylon, L.I., helping to organize the Sup- port for the Underpaid Ministers.
The Rev. A. V. R. Abbott, led in great re- vivals here, and in Torrington, Conn., where James M. Buckley, a law student, and school teacher, was led into the ministry and became one of America's great churchmen and editors; also five laymen were converted and their lives have affected the community for good for more than nine decades. Mr. and Mrs. Abbott found a resting place in beautiful Lakeview Cemetery, beside their little son who had left the parson- age in 1878.
The first pastorate of the early '80s was that of George A. Graves, and was marked by signal improvements, Sunday School rooms, and a new organ supplanting the old melodion. But the parsonage again knew "the God of all Comfort," for on May 9, 1882, the pastor's wife (Edith E. Wooster) "went Home washed in the blood of the Lamb."
The older members of the parish still remem- ber the dynamic handshake and the vital mes- sage of the Alabama-born William P. Estes, who renounced his patrimony in abhorrence of slavery, and gave sixty-two years to the ministry. His library was one of the largest in the entire Conference. His beloved wife of the parsonage died early this year at the age of ninety-five.
What strange emotions must have possessed the Calvin B. Fords as they returned to New Canaan just twenty-five years after the stirring experiences that crowded their ministry here in the Civil War days. They were succeeded by the scholarly William E. Scofield, who after seven years in the teaching profession, chose the calling of his father, Henry Scofield of Darien, a founder of the Methodist Society in that village, and fifty-four years in the ministry.
Young Scofield brought his bride to adorn the parsonage, which had been beautifully ap- pointed for their coming. William E. and Phoebe E. Scofield gave thirty-nine years of effective ministry, before he found his resting place with his father in their beloved Darien in 1924.
Two men of the early '90s are well remem- bered by the Methodists, and others of that period, because of their relationship to the school system of the village. One is William E. Gardner, the revered nonagenarian of Meriden, and the other the Rev. A. W. Bower, the preacher who became president of the village school board. The teaching staff of that day long remembered his insistance on "examina- tions for teachers new and old." On leaving New Canaan in 1895, Mr. Bower withdrew from the ministry to enter upon the practice of law in Scranton, Pa.
Then came to the parsonage the mystic and gentle Henry F. Kastendieck, with his wife, Grace Ley Cotsell, graduate of the Royal Con- servatory, London, whom he had met and mar- ried in India in 1884. For health reasons they returned to America in 1888, and gave more than forty years to the ministry, including one year in New Canaan.
They were followed by George L. Thompson, Wesleyan '64, and member of the famous Old
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Glee Club. He, like two of his predecessors, did some extra curricular work in Hartford. A. V. R. Abbott was elected a member of the House from Woodbury; Calvin B. Ford and Mr. Thompson both held a dual chaplaincy in the House and Senate.
Rufus S. Putney, son of Rufus C. Putney, a widely known evangelist in the conference, was here in 1897-98, and gave his preaching a strong evangelical note. His son, Rufus D. Putney, was for many years an Episcopal minister in St. Louis and head of the Big Brother Move- ment. Two of Mr. Putney's grand-daughters make their home in New Canaan. B. C. Pils- bury, of the Middletown Pilsburys, son of Benjamin Pilsbury, Presiding Elder, brought a ripe scholarship and devotion to the church at the turn of the century, and shared widely in the centennial program of 1901. He had the appearance of General Grant.
Lewis M. Lounsbury (1902-1905) sent a message on the occasion of the 140th anniver- sary in 1948 saying in part: "Well remembered are the innumerable kindly deeds of loyal mem- bers and friends ..... Most memorable of all was the arrival of my bride, Miss Mary Tait, to live her beautiful life among us all. ... . New Canaan has been one of the best beloved of all my parishes." Miss Tait's father was the Bridgeport manufacturer of Locomobile.
Dr. Lounsbury was followed by Charles E. Benedict of East Norwalk and Wesleyan, who was here from 1906-10, withdrew in 1922, and served the Congregational churches at Morris and Bethlehem for several years. It is rather difficult to characterize the many sided Henry D. Trinkaus (1911-15) except to say that the parsonage was both a youth and music center and that the church was greatly edified by his all-round ministry. He brought the Boy Scout program to New Canaan in 1912, with the founding of Troop 1.
James A. McMillan and his good wife were in the parsonage during the war years 1916-17, and set the Gleaners Bible Class on its way to an effective service of thirty-five years.
The pastorate of the Ernest C. Carpenters was brief but radiant, as they went to New Haven after sixteen months, to give a ministry
of friendship to the foreigner within our gates. One of Ernest C. Carpenter's Vermont pupils (before entering Wesleyan) was Calvin Coolidge of Plymouth and the White House.
The decade following World War I saw the parsonage occupied by B. F. Kidder (1920-23) with his unqualified certainty regarding the Christian faith; John Wesley Griffiths, with his tenor voice, and a Gospel of Friendship; the Daniel M. Lewises (1927-28) whose ministry is yet a fragrant memory to the entire com- munity. "Dan" Lewis retired in the spring of 1929 and was called to the Church Triumphant within a few short months. The only bachelor to occupy the parsonage in the 110 years of its history was the Rev. E. Foster Piper (1929-35). But the parsonage, sanctuary and Lecture Room were all the objects of his artistic touch.
At the age of seventy-one, the urbane Dr. Harry H. Beattys brought his long experience and rare talents to the New Canaan parish, which he had known so intimately as District Superintendent. Sunday, March 5, 1939, Dr. Beattys used for his topic: "Maintaining an Untroubled Heart." That same day he was taken to the Methodist Hospital, Brooklyn, by his lay-leader G. H. Jelliff, jr., and was called Home five days later, March 10, 1939. During his brief stay at the hospital, his friend Dr. A. E. Beebe, commented on his grand spirit despite his health, and Dr. Beattys said: "Well, what about this Gospel which I have preached all these years?" Doubtless Dr. Beattys' most permanent monument is the Methodist Home for the Aged in Danbury. (Mrs. Beattys slipped away early in 1940.)
The young Phi Beta Kappa, Joseph R. Swain, brought Elsie and Jimmy to the parsonage in the spring of 1939 and gave three and one half years of ministry, filled "with sweetness and light." The beauties of New Canaan and all New England have been captured and shared by "Joe's" rare skill and patience with his cam- era's all-seeing eye. In his last year many of the boys of the parish were already in the services, and by 1945 the number was more than three- score. Six of these lads made the supreme sacrifice.
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Hans Axel Wallsen
THE WEED-CHAPMAN HOUSE
DAVID EVANS, Author
HANS WALLEEN, Artist
[August 16, 1951]
THE stately house recently restored to its Fed- eral type of architecture, located on the west side of Weed Street between Elm and Frog- town Road, was referred to by Miss Amanda Weed in her will as the "Weed Homestead." For almost 250 years the Weed family were prominent in New Canaan. As the first settlers on this land, they cleared it, built its fences and farmed it, and successive generations lived in this Homestead until 1944.
This house has a unique and important place in the annals of the New Canaan Historical Society, because in the will of Amanda Weed,
the Society was permitted to occupy the house for its uses and purposes, and, as recounted in more detail later, this bequest was the subject of a four year litigation finally decided by the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut. This house is also important to the Society because in Volume 1, No. 1 of the Society's Annual pub- lished in 1943, the Weed family, its genealogy and the house were the subject of a detailed account written by Stephen B. Hoyt. The article included photographs of both the exterior and the interior of the house which is described as the "Seth Chauncey Weed Home." Since the
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1943 copy of the Annual is now rare, repetition of some of its contents with some elaboration will serve as a background.
The Weeds were descended from Jonas Weed, born 1605 in Stamford, England, who came to Watertown, Mass., in 1628, later set- tling in Stamford, Con., in 1642 where he died in 1690. His grandson Abraham acquired from the common lands vast acreage in Canaan Par- ish and was the immediate progenitor of the Weeds who gave the name to Weed Street.
His son Abraham (the second) owned all the land along Weed Street, excepting the Stevens holdings, from the old schoolhouse north nearly to West Road; he is said to have built all the early houses on this land. He set aside Burial Hill, the family cemetery, where he was laid to rest in 1757.
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