USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Readings in New Canaan history > Part 17
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METHODIST CHURCH MOVED
For only a few more years, however, was this building to continue to serve as the seat of town government. Again the growing Methodist denomination enters the picture. In the score of years in which they had been worshipping in their meeting house south of the village they had so prospered and increased in numbers that they now set out to build a larger church on the same site and to that end they moved their first meeting house into the village and set it on the east side of Main Street opposite the New Canaan Hotel (later the Birdsall House). This moving operation, considered "quite an undertaking" was, however, accomplished with complete success and without damage by a noted building mover from Danbury by the name of Butts, so that the Methodists were able to continue using their old meeting house in its new location until their new church was com- pleted and dedicated on December 21, 1854.
In the ensuing years the old building was known as the Concert Hall and it is under this name that it appears in a map made in 1857, also in a deed executed in April of 1864 when the Town of New Canaan bought the property "for town purposes" from the Methodist Society. There for the rest of the century, town government was carried out in the structure now occupied by a First National Store, a Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company store, and, until recently, the Clapboard Hill Feed Store. It had a small stage at the rear, with
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a gallery opposite, and was "well lighted by windows by day and by kerosene lamps at night." Here were held local and national elections as well as town meetings. It was from this stage that Horace Greeley once addressed a gathering of Republicans.
TOWN LOCK-UP
In the basement was the town lock-up, a small cell in which prison- ers might be temporarily lodged. We know of one concrete instance in which this "cooler" was put to use. In 1868, during the building of the New Canaan Railroad, the gang would take the opportunity of payday to come and get drunk in the village. We wonder if it was over the bar of Dandy Dick Jones just next door to the rear, in the desecrated precincts of the old Academy building, that they exchanged their week's pay for the whiskey that sent them out to throw stones and "other missiles" in a free fight that landed them in the town lock-up so conveniently at hand.
It was not until 1910 that this second Town House was sold, but the offices were moved in the spring of 1901 when the Town of New Canaan leased from George D. Nicholas a part of the ground floor and the basement of the present Village Hall at that time known as the New Canaan Opera House. (The present Rosen store 1949.) There again in the basement a town lock-up was provided. This building continued to be the home of local government until it moved into the present adequate Town Hall upon its completion in 1910.
THE METHODIST CHURCH
In tracing the stages of the Town House we have followed per- force the growing fortunes of the Methodists until we have seen them housed in their own adequate church building. This is the present Methodist Church with a difference. For seven years this edi- fice, like the Congregational and Episcopal churches, was graced with a steeple, but on one wild February night in 1862 it was blown down in a great gale and "smashed into kindling wood."
Dr. Theodore Roberts, driving home in his carriage early in the morning from a call on a patient, was disconcerted to find his way barred by no less a barrier than the church steeple lying right across the road. As the physician lived in the present home of Dr. Thomas Tunney on Cherry Street, and as there was then no Church Street
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or cross road west from South Main Street in that part of town, he must have had to make a thorough detour, driving down what is now Lakeview Avenue and around by Millport Avenue to East Avenue.
The demolished steeple was succeeded by a turret and in this was installed a new bell which first rang on the morning of Sunday, July 11, 1869.
Great had been the change in the fortunes of the Methodists since the early years when joining that company of worshippers meant a courageous stand against ridicule and persecution. Ten years after the new bell pealed from the turret, it was summoning each Sunday 225 of the 556 families in town, the Congregational taking second place with 149.
OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS
It was in this third quarter-century that three other religious groups were organized - two of them, the Baptists and Universalists, to be absorbed eventually with the growing feeling of unity into other denominations; the Catholics to grow to a strong and honorable place in the community.
The First Baptist Society of New Canaan was incorporated in the fall of 1871, and a house of worship dedicated 16 months later. This church, built on land given to the Society by Watts Comstock, is the present Masonic Temple on Main Street. There was an immersion tank under the pulpit, but some converts preferred to be baptized in the river at Lake Wampanaw (the Mill Pond). It is said to have been quite a sight to see the crowd on the way to an immersion. The ceremony itself must have been something to see and to hear, particu- larly as the minister, Mr. Raymond, "weighed about 250 pounds and had a powerful voice."
The spirit of tolerance which we noticed growing up early in the century had not as yet progressed sufficiently to bear without strain the new Universalist preaching. When an intrepid "Rev. Miss Graves" was announcing in the Era of January 15, 1870, that she would preach at the usual hours of service morning and evening, some of the local ministers were thundering against "damnable heresy of Universalism." Mr. J. Bennett in a letter to the paper cordially invited them to come and hear for themselves. It is unlikely
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that this invitation was accepted, but the doctrine of salvation for all must have found some staunch supporters, for in a previous debate in the Lyceum on "Eternal Punishment" the honors were so even that the members had to adjourn for the season "leaving it undecided."
FIRST CATHOLIC CHURCHES
The Roman Catholics, like the Episcopalians, had at first depend- ed for their religious nurture upon the parent town of Norwalk. Priests from St. Mary's Church held services as early as "sometime in the fifties" in the house of Cornelius Burns on Locust Street, and later in the old Town House which from 1830 had been available for services to any religious society ready to pay for the privilege. The next church home of the Catholics was St. John's Hall on Main Street (where Scofield's furniture store now stands) .
In 1862 a piece of land on Forest Street was donated by Captain Ogden, who lived in the house now known as the Cottage on the present Town Hall property. On the Forest Street site the first church was erected by Father Smith, pastor of St. Mary's in Nor- walk, and this remained in use as a mission of the parent church until 1896. In May of that year, the Rev. John McMahon was appointed as first resident pastor of St. Aloysius' Parish. After building a rec- tory he retired the following September. His term of service was succeeded by several short pastorates. It was not until 1917 that the new church on South Avenue with its rectory was completed and dedicated. This work had been begun the year before by the much- loved Rev. John M. Stapleton, who unfortunately died without seeing the full result of his labors.
The old Episcopal church more than a mile out on Haynes Ridge had served for worship for 7 1 years, but had never been consecrated. In 1833 this building was taken down, and the following spring the new building, the present St. Mark's Church, was consecrated.
We have noted the beginning of the first Sunday School in New Canaan, the Congregational School, organized in the pastorate of the Rev. William Bonney, and meeting in the Academy with Julian Sturtevant as first superintendent. Now six years later (1833) a sec- ond Sunday School was established in the Episcopal Church, with Miss Esther Betts in charge. It was her father, Stephen Betts of Revo- lutionary fame, who bought the ground for the new church as part
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of his subscription to the building fund from Mr. Fayerweather, who lived just below and whose acquaintance we have made as one of the proprietors of the Academy and the father-in-law of Julian Sturtevant.
ST. MARK'S CHURCH
It was not until 1891 that St. Mark's Church celebrated, with fitting ceremonies, its 100th anniversary, because the date marked its completion of a century of existence as a fully organized parish. Now their second church has almost reached its 100th birthday.
It was found necessary to remodel and partially rebuild the church in 1859, but even then it could not have presented the appear- ance familiar to us today, for we find it spoken of as late as 1871 as "the little brown church on the hill."
It is good to know that there was one religious body in the com- munity to lead the way in demonstrating that a service might be pleasing to the eye and ear without necessarily being displeasing to God. St. Mark's was the first to decorate with Christmas greens, also the first to have a pipe organ when there was nothing elsewhere in the village more ritualistic than a melodeon.
MUSIC IN CHURCH
Of the pre-melodeon days and the early reaction to any musical instrument in the meeting house we have the testimony from J. B. Eels, a great-grandson of the first Congregational parson, also of Caleb Benedict who was one of the original founders of Canaan Parish. Mr. Eels said that he began going to meeting in the last year of the Rev. Mr. Bonney's pastorate (1831). Early in the ministry of his successor, Rev. Theophilus Smith, an effort was made to improve the choir and to this end William St. John, son of Samuel St. John, appeared with a bass viol, evidently the very instrument which now reposes in a case in the Historical Museum of Bridgeport. Young Eels regarded this as the "great grandfather of all fiddles" and "liked it vastly." His youthful enthusiasm was not shared by some of his elders, who "looked at it sidewise and seemed to act as if they thought there must be a good deal of wickedness in anything fiddle-shaped." They had to admit, however, that the music gained in impressive-
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ness - the more so when another instrument was added in the shape of a bassoon. The Eels parents may well have shaken their heads at such an innovation, for their son was so carried away by the con- templation of Uncle Tom Greenley, a "fine old English gentleman," playing on a bassoon about the length of a hearty fence-post as if the two were "born for each other," that he forgot his particular job of remembering the text. (The J. B. Eels mentioned above was the grandfather of the present generation of the Eels family still living in his old home near the foot of Brushy Ridge.)
We have further musical memories from the pen of William C. Carter, who, writing in 1887 about his boyhood half a century before, says, "Well do I remember going to meeting in that old church, even from my boyhood, and the best part of it to me was the singing. My Uncle Thomas Carter was for many years the leader, and in memory I can see him there playing the bass viol as if it were yesterday, though it was between the years 1827 and 1842" - that is, in the pastorates of Mr. Bonney and Mr. Smith.
The tything man stationed in the gallery to keep order must have wished that more of the service might be devoted to music with its charms to soothe the savage or at least effervescent boys, for we are told that he had his hands sufficiently full to ward off any tendency on his part to indulge in a quiet nap.
The Rev. Mr. Bonney's pastorate was the same length as that of his predecessor at the Congregational Church, Mr. Mitchell, 23 years. He succeeded also to the parsonage on Haynes Ridge, now part of the Holmewood Inn Annex. The next pastor, Theophilus Smith, whose portrait hangs in the lecture room, has already appeared in this chronicle as a master in the old Academy. His ministry, 1831-1853, was only one year shorter than those of the two that preceeded.
Theophilus Smith, as we have noted, was one of those young Yale graduates who acquired their first teaching experience from a year or two as master in the New Canaan Academy. As a young man of 25, laboring daily to prepare the sons of the "proprietors" for worthy entrance into his own Alma Mater, he little dreamed that this Meeting House Hill was destined to be the setting of his own life and work. Or did he ever catch a vision, we wonder, of the beautiful house of God which might one day supercede the turreted barnlike building
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of his day-"about as uncouth looking a structure as the eye ever looked upon."
From New Canaan he returned to Yale as a tutor for another two years; then after three years in theological study he was called back to New Canaan again as pastor. It would appear that his affections had never wandered far from the scene of his first teaching when we hear that about a month before his installation he married Hannah B. St. John, the sister of William and of Samuel, the professor, and probably a former pupil of Mr. Smith's in the academy. The young minister and his bride set up housekeeping on the St. John property in her father's birthplace across the street from the beautiful home which he had built in 1807. The old David St. John house (the Ashwell residence) continued for many years to be the Congrega- tional parsonage. The Smiths must have found it a spacious and central home in which to rear a family of seven children, and a convenient vantage-point from which to exercise a constant super- vision over the building of the new meeting house.
Theophilus Smith's honors in later years included membership in the Yale Corporation and the Prudential Committee, also his distinction as being "almost the father of our published church statistics." But his claims to an abiding place in the hearts of his people rested on other grounds. In the summer of 1853 he asked for dismis- sal on account of illness. His devoted congregation refused this request as a tribute to his long and faithful ministry, his strong attach- ment to his people, and his many sacrifices in "Erecting this House of Worship and Finishing and Completing it to its present state." Instead, he was sent on a journey for his health, but died within the month while on his way home on a Lake George steamer. His wife outlived him only a year. The beautiful church "thrice set upon the hill" is his fitting memorial.
When Mr. Smith had been pastor for nearly ten years, the question of a new church began to be agitated. Already in this decade the Methodists had achieved for themselves a new churchhome south of the village and the new and comely St. Marks had risen across the way from the old second Meeting House. There were of course some conservatives who thought the old building should be repaired. These must have been glad that those of the contrary opinion had prevailed and that the new church was nearly ready for use, when on the first
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Sabbath of July, 1842, the old Meeting House was partially wrecked by lightning. We have from William St. John an interesting account of this curious storm, which must have seemed to put the finishing touch of divine sanction upon the new undertaking.
It came at the close of the Communion Service and just after the opening of the Sabbath School. It is interesting to note that the time was now past when the church was considered too sacred for the religious instruction of the young, also that the session held such vital interest for grown-ups as well as children that most of the con- gregation had remained - some, however, detained rather by the dark and strangely portentous cloud rapidly arising in the northwest. Mr. St. John had left the church and walked to his home a few rods distant (the present St. John Place) when the cloud seemed to open like a water spout; the rain fell in torrents, and in a few moments rolled like waves down the hill. The lightning entered the church just over the pulpit, with the appearance to many of a large fiery ball passing through above the gallery and out through the upper south- east window, badly shattering that portion of the building. A number of people fell senseless, and many others received a severe shock, but all recovered. Soon after, the damaged building was taken down and the new one was now ready for use.
THE THIRD MEETING HOUSE
The present church was erected by James Jennings of Weston, on land bought from David S. Rockwell, the head of the Church Hill Institute just to the north (the present Congregational Parsonage). The land now used for this third meeting house was a part of the original grant to the Society from the proprietors of Norwalk in 1732, for the purpose of building the first. Also, as when the second meeting house replaced the first, this third church is so located that its sills overlap the site of its predecessor by about two feet.
Mr. Jennings, who had built about 12 other churches, was a faith- ful, honest man, and "did as he agreed," as did the Society, and the people, "with few exceptions." When the keys were given over the building had been paid for in full to the neat sum of six thousand, six hundred and sixty six dollars. This happy issue was of course not arrived at without earnest and persevering effort. In the fall of 1841, when the Rev. Theophilus Smith had already procured the plans and
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specifications, the Society had collected only $2,000. Mrs. Smith's brother, William St. John, standing shoulder to shoulder with the minister, in this project, now drew up a subscription paper stating that if one thousand was not raised by January 1, all subscriptions on it should be null and void. Instead of the time allowance of nearly two months, it took just one day to raise the $1,000. Moreover the whole frame was contributed, the spire pole being presented by Mrs. Rhoda Weed Carter, widow of Ebenezer Carter, from her own woods.
The home in which the Carters had reared their 11 children was the "Priest Eells' House" on Clapboard Hill, which this Ebenezer Carter, the second of the name to live there, had bought ten years after the death of the first minister. Rhoda Carter must have watched with satisfaction the comely spire rising about this stalwart, "top- most stick of white-oak," a wonderful piece of timber 58 feet long and ten inches square, perfect throughout.
The raising of the frame was an affair of several days, during which cake and refreshments were furnished "in profusion and excellence" by the ladies by whom the carpets and furniture were "got" also. We wonder how this was done, as we are told only how it was not done: "Fairs and Festivals" were not in fashion then.
A bell which had been made in 1795, and used in Norwalk, was installed in the completed steeple, and the Third Meeting House was complete. The service of consecration took place on May 6, 1843.
Upon William St. John rested much of the practical care of the new church. For many years clerk and treasurer of the Society, he also for a long time provided a sexton, having a young man living in his family whose duties were to ring the bell, keep the lawn and interior in order, clean and light the lamps, and, under the supervision of Mrs. St. John, make all necessary arrangements for the services. For this work one hundred dollars a year was supplied by the Society.
THEOPHILUS SMITH MINISTER
Theophilus Smith ministered for ten years in the beautiful new church so largely due to his labor and sacrifice. His death in 1853 was followed by the pastorate, not quite six years in duration, of Frederick Williams. The wartime ministers were Ralph Smith and Benjamin Swan, followed by the three-year term of H. B. Elliott.
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Then came the 15-year pastorate of the Rev. Joseph Greenleaf, 1871- 1886. It was in his time, in the spring of 1872, that the Ladies Associa- tion presented to the Society the new Parsonage, once the old town house and at present the residence of Dr. Ludlow.
Also in the ministry of Mr. Greenleaf fell two important anni- versaries. In the centennial year 1876, when our village joined the nationwide celebration, the historical sermon was preached by the Congregational pastor, and Professor Samuel St. John delivered his notable sketch of the history of New Canaan, although he was already ill and died shortly afterwards.
The other celebration, in 1883, was the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the church and the village. Two names on the program of speakers catch our attention - Anthony Comstock, who had returned to his old home town to tell something of his untir- ing efforts for moral uplift, and Homer Cummings, who now just fifty years later is still serving in state and nation.
AS A BOY SEES CHURCH
Farther back belongs a picture of church and Sunday School seen through a boy's eye. Mr. Henry Benedict, like some of the chroniclers of earlier memories, recalls the music. In his time there was an octette of female voices in the east gallery, facing the pulpit, while Miss Martha Raymond played the melodeon. Young Henry and his Sun- day School mates in the gallery, were plied with questions from the "Thumb-nail catechism" put by Deacon Samuel Bouton. To the questions, "Who was the first man? Who was the first woman?" they "gave the right answers according to the belief at that period," their efforts being rewarded by a grand treat, a picnic at what is now Roton Point. The boys and girls, meeting on the church green, crowded themselves into farm lumber-box wagons, a board lengthwise on each side serving as a settee. Then came a two-hour ride over bumpy roads and down the east side of Five Mile River harbor (Rowayton) where there was no road at all, hoping not to get caught at high tide in a little creek at the side. We like to think of the refreshment that awaited them on a "tablecloth spread on the grass," but we hate to contemplate the journey home and the tempers of the following day.
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Mr. Greenleaf's ministry was followed by the shorter one of Frederick Hopkins, who was succeeded in the fall of 1891 by the Rev. J. Howard Hoyt. This pastorate not only rounded out our nineteenth century but continued well into the present one - a noble, active service of nearly 31 years, with the present addition of seven and one half years as Pastor Emeritus.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
There seems to have been little progress in public school buildings for many years. Certainly John Reid's picture in 1901 of his school days - about 1840 or 1850 -- and his Scotch teacher John Lyall in the old red schoolhouse on the corner of Park and the present Semi- nary Street might belong equally well to a much earlier period, or to a Dickens novel. He writes: "Sitting near me in the old schoolhouse were James Warren and S. B. Hoyt. I wonder if James Warren remembers Mr. Lyall's black strap, two inches by twelve, and his favorite pet name: "You want to be a wooden-headed baggage." Boys went out from this little school "loaded with Daball's Arith- metic, Webster's Spelling Book and Murray's Grammar." Some old text books in the collection of the Historical Society give striking evidence of the resistence that had to be overcome even by a black strap - which could have been only slightly more repellent than unrelieved pages of grammatical rules in microscopic print. No wonder even the genial Jacob Abbott wrote that learning to read could "never be anything but a painful process." Painlessness in education was still far in the future.
Here, however, was educated another Samuel St. John, son of Enoch St. John, who must have turned his Daball's Arithmetic to good account. Unlike his scholarly townsman, the professor of the same name, this Samuel St. John became a great cotton merchant in Mobile, Ala., of which more later.
When the old red schoolhouse and lot was bought in September 1855 by William St. John, whose home stood just across the road to the north, the committee of School District Number I proceeded in the same month to purchase a lot on the east side of Park Street (designated in this transaction as Stamford Road) a short distance south of Railroad Avenue (then Elm Street) which at that time ran farther west than Park Street. The new school building erected there
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was destroyed by fire shortly after it was built, and District Number I, having sold the lot to Alexander Law, put up a frame building where now stands the present brick Center School, on the corner of South Avenue and Maple Street.
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