USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > New Canaan > Readings in New Canaan history > Part 6
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77 Junior Warden at the time of his death.
78 Upon the centennial of Declaration of Independence and given at the written request of New Canaan citizens.
79 The year 1880 was the last time the parish was aided.
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An Historical Address
Of equal importance, in a missionary way, is the generosity of this parish in its contributions for special educational and missionary objectives. In one of the parish records there is an unusually careful listing of all communion alms and special offerings. From 1842 through 1871 your predecessors in this parish were giving generously for such objects as Kemper College now Nashotah Seminary, for the missionary work of Bishop Chase in Illinois, for the Christian Knowledge Society, for Aged and Infirm Clergy Fund, for the Freedman's Bureau, for Missions in Fairfield County, for Bishop Williams Mission in China, for the Missions in So. Carolina, for the endowment 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 dollars to gifts of $ 100 went to the upbuilding of the work of the church at home and abroad.
HOW THE SPECIAL FUNDS WERE RAISED
Of equal interest are the sources from which these special funds were derived. Communion alms, offerings, and many interesting social functions and parish entertainments provided the money. There were hard workers then as now. Apparently the Ladies Sew- ing Circle has always been a kind of a fairy godmother to the parish. In memory of these early workers I must list just a few of the items of interest. In 1864 these special gifts amounted to $827 and that year charity began at home for they gave $735 to pay off the debt on the church. In 1866, June 27, 28, 29, a festival in the old town hall netted $353.92 for painting the church. On July 7, 1867 a Strawberry festi- val brought in $60 for the Sunday School library. On Dec. 29, 1867 "E. Hoyt's magic lantern and Mrs. Keeler's supper" netted $85.00. Apparently these suppers in the old farm house on Smith Ridge were annual events in the month of December from 1859-1870. On Feb. 14, 1867 a supper and reading by the Rector secured $80.00.
WHAT IS RITUAL?
This parish is responsible for an interesting definition of ritual from the lips of that witty prelate, Bishop John Williams. From 1880-83
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Readings In New Canaan History
the Rev. George S. Pine was the Rector. He was a faithful pastor, a scholar and a very delightful character but for this parish there were those who thought him a "high churchman" and too ritualistic. Accordingly when the Bishop came, two ladies,80 prominent in the Sewing 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. Whereupon 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." 81
LATER IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CHURCH INTERIOR
After 1857 there were practically no structural 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 deep- ened, the choir removed 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 formerly were 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 curi- ous brown - the familiar color of the church in my boyhood.
LATER FAMILY NAMES IN THE PARISH
Earlier in this address I mentioned the family names of the foun- ders of this parish, forty-one in number, of which all but seven leave descendants direct or collateral in this town and parish today. Later generations of loyal adherents have added the names of Monroe, St. John, Tournier, Benedict, Olmstead, Street, Church, Ogden, Curtis, Travis, Bliss, Hoyt, Scoville, McKendry, Brinckerhoff, DeForest, Davidson, Purdy, Crofoot, Flandreau, Davenport, Lounsbury, Messinger, Wakeman, Chichester, Bossa, Simmell, Rockwell and others. To the list of founders and their immediate successors must be
80 Mrs. James Tournier and Mrs. Stephen E. Keeler.
81 Told me by my grandmother Mrs. Stephen E. Keeler.
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An Historical Address
added in grateful appreciation the names of many families who have adopted the hills and valleys of old Canaan Parish for their beautiful homes. In my lifetime the town in its outlying ridges and localities has been rebuilt. St. Mark's is fortunate that so large a number of these new arrivals are like the first generation, "professors of the Church of England." My mind travels backward and I see them coming into the fellowship of this old shrine of Apostolic faith and practice. Bright, Parker, Lindley, Bond, Child, Patterson, Gerrish, Sloane, Graham, Pegram, Coffin, Grannis, McLane, Burr, Frothingham, Litchfield, Brinley, Bleeker, Thayer, Rumbaugh, Clark, Adriance, Streit, Hart- shorne, Cox, Coit, Hatfield, King, Shapleigh, McMullen, Browne, Baldwin, Parker, Lane, Whittemore, Ashwell, Bridgman, Stokes, Valentine, Bensen, Schweppe, Greenleaf, Cammann, and many others whose names are new to me, but who entering into the labors of those who have gone before have fellowship in the mystical Body of Christ - the Communion of Saints.
PARISH ENDOWMENTS
The endowments of the parish while not large represent a lov- ing interest, here gratefully recorded. From the Ezra Seymour estate $1,200,82 Ellen McIlvaine Bond $1,000, Lucretia Ayres $100, Julia Warren $500, Sophia (Raymond) Brown-(Mrs. Seeley Brown) $5,000, Sarah Jane (Raymond) Lockwood - (Mrs. William Lock- wood) $2,000, Annie Weed $300, Mr. Sturgis Coffin $1,000. These gifts, in every instance by bequest, amount to $11,100.
A LIST OF RECTORS WITH THEIR DATES
St. Mark's has had a singularly fortunate experience in the leader- ship of its clergy. There have been the usual ups and downs in paro- chial administration but in no instance has open rupture between priest and people occurred. The short rectorships of the earlier years seem to have been occasioned, for the most part, by failure adequately to provide for the Rector's salary. The list of Rectors and their tenure
82 Mr. Seymour originally left the parish $5,000 but an unfortunate law suit reduced it to $1,200. (DesBrisay's "Notes.")
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of office is appended here for it has reference value and has not been made before.
1830-1834 Rev. Chas. J. Todd (Half time in Ridgefield)
1836-1837 Rev. Jacob L. Clark (Half time in Ridgefield)
1837-1842 Rev. David Ogden
1843-1844 Rev. David Ogden (Resigned in ill health. Died 1845)
1845-1846 Rev. William Everett
1846-1852 Rev. David H. Short
1852-1855 Rev. William Long
1855-1858
Rev. William H. Williams
1859-1864 Rev. William H. Cook
1864-1874
Rev. William H. DesBrisay
1875-1879 Rev. Isaac William Hallam
1879-1880 Rev. Thomas B. Fogg
1880-1883 Rev. George S. Pine Ret'd, 66 Benefit St., Providence, R. I.
1884-1887 Rev. H. L. Myrick
1888-1889 Rev. M. M. Fothergill
1890-1918 Rev. Robert Howland Neide, D. D. (Died in office)
1918-1933 Rev. Charles Lawrence Adams. (Died in office)
1933- Rev. Michael Roy Barton
THE PAST, A CHALLENGE TO THE PRESENT
What a challenge the record of past heroisms and loyalties gives us. It took great strength of conviction and purpose to lay the foun- dations which we enjoy today. As we rise up and call these founders "blessed" may we rededicate our lives to carry on their work with a new zeal and devotion. What better slogan for action can we have than the words of the Class 83 motto of my boyhood days in St. Mark's Sunday School, "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong." 84
83 Taught by Miss Nancy Hoyt Olmstead, my public school teacher for three years, and Sunday school teacher for seven years, all in all the most gifted teacher I have ever known.
84 I Corinthians, 16:13.
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An Historical Address
"Almighty and everlasting God, who dost enkindle the flame of thy love in the hearts of the Saints; grant to us, thy humble servants, the same faith and power of love that, as we rejoice in their triumphs, we may profit by their examples; through Jesus Christ our Lord." 85 Amen.
85 Book of Common Prayer, p. 258 - Collect for A Saint's Day.
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FAST
CANAAN PARISH IN THE PERIOD 1733-1801
By STEPHEN B. HOYT
This article first appeared in the tercentenary edition of The Stamford Advocate on June 7, 1941, and is here reproduced by permission of that newspaper.
Stephen B. Hoyt, a graduate of Wesleyan University in the class of 1901, is descended from a long line of New Canaan forebears. He has been for many years a Governor of the New Canaan Historical Society and was its President from 1921 to 1923 and from 1940 to 1945. He was the editor of "Canaan Parish" and is the author of many articles on New Canaan history.
T WO histories of New Canaan have been published in the past and there would seem little excuse for going over the ground again unless some aspects of the subject have been overlooked. That such is the case, the writer believes to be true and therefore devotes the following effort to these hitherto unexplored fields.
During the centennial of 1876, a wave of interest in matters his- torical spread over the land and in response to President Grant's proclamation every little town looked into its past. Many local his- tories and family genealogies date from that period. In New Canaan, its first citizen, Prof. Samuel B. St. John, a scholar and educator of some prominence, wrote the first history of the town. It was published in book form at the time and reprinted in the volume "Canaan Parish" when the Congregational Church celebrated its two hundredth anniversary in 1933. It was written as an address and for a generation not far removed from the facts it recited. It stands today a good and sufficient record of the essential facts and, of course, discloses the attitude of that generation toward their past, their then present posi- tion, and their view of the future. It may be said of them that they were far more sure of themselves and more confident of the future
73
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Readings In New Canaan History
than are we of today. Professor St. John himself made this off record observation: "There will always be St. Johns living in this house" (a fine old residence standing next the church where now runs St. John Place straight through the middle of that same house site). That remark was made to a person alive until two years past and there has not been a St. John descendant of that branch living in New Canaan for nearly half a century. So, like many of us today, these also believed things that were not true.
OFFERED PRIZE
In 1932 John M. Clark had founded and was then conducting the New Canaan Gazette, a very creditable though shortlived weekly paper. He offered a prize for a serial history of the town. The award went to Charlotte Fairley (Mrs. Samuel) and her history appeared in the New Canaan Gazette over a period of about a year. It has never been printed in book form and is available only in private scrapbooks. Mrs. Fairley, a relatively recent resident of the town, had as her source of material a collection of scrap-books belonging to the His- torical Society. These were composed of clippings from the New Canaan Messenger, which was the local paper from about 1875 to 1908. The historical urge of 1876 persisted longer than do similar spells of enthusiasm today - people had fewer diversions and con- flicting interests and for this we have to thank the formation of the New Canaan Historical Society and the movement it fostered toward the collection and publication of a goodly number of personal recol- lections of the older inhabitants of the day. From this miscellany, Mrs. Fairley culled and selected and then wrote a very readable and valuable history. This work was prepared for a different kind of audience than listened to its predecessor. The families who listened to the St. John address in the Congregational Church in 1876 and who believed that their descendants would sit in the same church and listen to a similar address a hundred years hence, were now in the minority. Ancestor worship, so dear to the hearts of the late Nineteenth Century, was definitely out, and the demand was now for the dramatic and the quaint or picturesque. One looked with reverence upon a bed in which Lafayette slept for a moment, but
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Canaan Parish in the Period 1733-1801
one would listen indefinitely to the recital of queer acts and sayings of "characters."
ANSWERS QUESTIONS
To the seeker for full information both factual and colorful, these two histories contain about all there is to be set forth in a town where nothing of great importance ever happened. We shall endeavor to avoid that territory so ably covered by these two writers.
Let us begin by answering some questions which have been asked of us by many owners of local land, who, though comparatively recent comers to the town, are interested in its story, and who have in some instances picked up romantic information which is un- founded.
First, no man in this town ever had a deed from the King; second, no man ever had his land from an Indian; third, neither Washington nor Lafayette ever slept in any of our houses; fourth, it is doubtful if the British ever passed through here during the Revolution, although there are some who hold that they did so on their retreat from the burning of Danbury, and some who think that Major Tallmadge must have traversed our roads during his activities from White Plains to Long Island in 1776. For those who insist upon the dramatic it is necessary to borrow from certain outstanding events which trans- pired within sight of our eminences. While we are about this, we had as well recite them right now.
From our highest land where Mr. Sewall now has his new dwelling on Oenoke (then called Canaan Ridge) one could have easily seen the burning of Norwalk in 1777. Miss Phoebe Comstock, then a little girl, said: "I could hear the guns a poppin' and saw the church steeple fall" (that was from Silvermine Hill). Mrs. Ruth Thayer Weeks and her family over on Valley Road, had they lived in that very same house then instead of Thomas Comstock, would have offered hospitality as he did, to the fugitives who fled from the burning village driving their flocks before them.
From the same hill one may look off to the southeast where the steeple of Christ Church in Greenwich marks the top of Put's Hill, the scene of that daring escape of Connecticut's able and picturesque old patriot.
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Readings In New Canaan History
NEARLY DUE SOUTH
Nearly due south the brick church at Darien was the scene of a wicked Tory-led raid upon a defenceless gathering where relatives of many New Canaan families were taken prisoner with Rev. Moses Mather, their pastor. The complete story is doubtless contained in the history of Middlesex, as Darien was then called. This church also marks the line of the old King's Highway, which was at that time the route from Boston and all southern New England to New York as is the Boston Post Road now. Washington did traverse this road and long before him, Mme. Knight, who left her famous diary con- taining our best record of what travel hereabouts was like in those days.
The shore line from Middlesex to Stamford, quite visible from here, was the scene of those much-talked-of Tory cattle transactions and it is quite probable that these Loyalists, who made a business of gathering and transporting supplies, mostly cattle on the hoof, drove them from Salem country through here to some point on the shore between Middlesex and Stamford to be transported to Long Island to Howe's army. We have no record of any local families participating in this business although there were many who held loyal views and were haled before the Patriots' Committee to be examined. Some of these fled to Nova Scotia and their estates were confiscated.
Looking toward Norwalk again, the scene of Nathan Hale's em- barkation upon his fateful journey to Long Island is visible. Recalling this classic incident of patriotic heroism which has never ceased to thrill the youth of America and recalling also its counterpart in the capture and execution of Andre in expiation, we turn toward the Northwest and look upon the hills of Salem. There Andre traveled in custody of his captors and there he was lodged and guarded by Major Tallmadge, a relative of our own Talmadges, who lived at and gave the name to Talmadge Hill.
DIFFICULT POSITION
In speculating upon that familiar institution, "the vicissitudes of circumstance," let it be recalled that Andre was not a spy; he was a cultured gentleman as was Nathan Hale; and that Tallmadge, in
77
Canaan Parish in the Period 1733-1801
whose custody Andre was held, was also a cultured gentleman and a classmate of Hale's at Yale.
What must have been their thoughts, these two? Andre, who could not believe he would be executed, and Tallmadge, who was in Washington's confidence and knew his difficult position as com- mander-in-chief? What was going on in the mind of Tallmadge as he entertained Andre? Both were young men. Tallmadge knew what must happen. There is no evidence of revenge, no vindictiveness; yet he was Hale's friend. What a stupid thing is war. The scene of this incident and that of its tragic sequel, are both visible from our hills.
Toward the northeast the hills of Ridgefield mark the scene of a desperate battle in the main street of this little town when the British, whom we fought against then and are fighting with now, returning from the burning of our supplies in Danbury, left a cannon ball embedded in the house that still stands at the head of the street coming into their Main Street from New Canaan. In this battle General Wooster fell mortally wounded at a spot where a small stone marker now stands beside the North Salem Road.
In the same direction, Putnam Park marks the scene of the Winter encampment of General Putnam's forces.
And there are other matters which could be marshalled into our shadow picture of great things that happened within calling distance; but we would rather on to those things which were distinctly our own albeit not so dramatic nor widely known; for we hold that history is not so much a matter of great men and great events as it is a steady sober evaluation of the many who form the background against which the striking lives and events appear. Without such there would be neither perspective nor reality. So we leave the dramatic for those who fail to appreciate the sober and colorless, to make what they can of our poor lot. Doubtless we offer the same elements in our past that have supplied many a good novel but our present task is to set forth some particular matters that have not been told before.
PUSHED ON
In the first place, no shipload of Pilgrims or Puritans ever landed on Connecticut shores. The first to come arrived by ship at Boston, Salem or Charlestown and, among these, groups of church people
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Readings In New Canaan History
(inspired somewhat by economic motives as well as by civil and religious inclinations) pushed on into the Connecticut valley. Hart- ford, Windsor and Wethersfield were quickly settled from 1630 to 1640 and these were all more or less of the same persuasion in views civil, religious and economic. New Haven, however, represented a somewhat different philosophy and we shall see how these two met here in Canaan Parish a century later.
The first people who came to Connecticut were mostly English and mostly, though not entirely, from the sturdy yeomanry of rural England rather than from the cities.
Their leaders, however, and certain very church-conscious ones were from the cities. Still, none had owned land in fee simple as we own it today but always under some form of tenantry. Land was wealth and since the Conqueror divided it among his gentlemen, tradition had kept it largely in the hands of a landed nobility.
It is easy to imagine how they were moved, these people who had never owned land, when they learned that land in vast acreage was to be had over here for so little. So they came to our country with a burning desire for land and, as successive groups acquired the nearby regions, eager ones among them thirsting for still more land organ- ized themselves into other groups and pushed on to become proprie- tors of a new colony.
THE METHOD
Now the method of starting a settlement in Connecticut was like this. The King had granted a liberal charter and a vast domain. We were a proprietary colony and governed ourselves from the first, instead of being a royal colony like our neighboring states. A General Court at Hartford governed and granted permission to small groups of people who, either from dissention in their church or desire to push on, bought lands from the Indians and moved in.
Of such were the people who settled Stamford and Norwalk. These few men - some 50 odd - found themselves absolute proprietors of several hundred thousand acres. And it is essential that we dis- tinguish between the towns as they came to be and the proprietors; for the towns did not own the land and newcomers, unless they had
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Canaan Parish in the Period 1733-1801
bought or been granted rights in commonage, had no authority over the disposition of the land that remained unsold or undivided. So there existed a most astonishing situation that lasted some hundred and fifty years and can never happen again.
The names of these proprietors and their early acts and land transactions have been so completely covered by Selleck's History of Norwalk, published in 1895, and Huntington's History of Stam- ford, published in 1868, that we omit them for lack of space.
The point to be emphasized in our own case is this: Those who settled Canaan Parish were not original proprietors as were those of Stamford, Norwalk, Ridgefield and Danbury. These were proprie- tary towns where the blessing of the General Court had been obtained by a group of entrepreneurs and their settlement was a deliberate enterprise. They laid out their village street with houses closely located about a green with their meeting house in the center. They owned the land and divided it among themselves from time to time until it was all privately owned. We, here in Canaan Parish, Middlesex (Darien), and Wilton, were parishes of the Norwalk and Stamford colonies and our settlement was not an incident but a movement.
SECOND, THIRD GENERATIONS
Our first settlers did not come from England in flight from griev- ances nor were they Hugenots from France fleeing persecution; they were second and third generations from the original settlers in Nor- walk and Stamford and had their land from their fathers as they grew up and married, and there was no intention of setting apart a separate town. Those who lived west of the perambulation line between Stamford and Norwalk discharged their civil duties in Stamford, while those on the east side did so in Norwalk.
They filtered into the valleys of the Rippowam, Noroton, Five Mile and Norwalk Rivers, developing their waterfalls into mill sites and clearing their better meadow, grazing and woodlands for homes.
By 1733 there were enough of them to warrant relief from the long journey by horseback to the distant parent colonies for meet- ings (fines were levied for absences), and they applied to the General Court (by this time, the General Assembly) for permission to be set apart as a separate parish. This action was opposed by the Stamford
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Readings In New Canaan History
town fathers but was finally granted at Hartford and a meeting house was built and a minister "settled." Still, these first settlers were subject to the parent towns and were in no sense independent.
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